He'd recently taken of you.
The poor man could hardly stop shivering,
His lips and his fingers were blue.
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes
And I guess he just never got warm.
But you stand there so nice in your blizzard of ice;
Oh, please let me come in to the storm."
Picking out one of Leonard Cohen's many songs whose lyrics are any more beautifully desolate than those of the others is like nominating one individual jumps jockey for particular bravery. 
But, as the last chapter showed, that is something which I've attempted to do, so I might as well highlight the fact that I always think that the various verses of 'One of us cannot be wrong' are truly haunting, even by the master's usual standards. At various times over the past winter I've mused on the blizzard of ice, but I still couldn't have said that I'd ever seen one - until today. After writing yesterday about the storm at Flemington on Saturday, I was particularly pleased to receive by email this morning some photographs which David Dumas had taken there, from the comfort of the committee room and with a roof and a window sheltering him from the elements. One of these I now reproduce here to show just what I was talking about in yesterday's chapter: truly a blizzard of ice indeed. Based on this photograph, I'd say that reports of hailstones the size of 50-cent coins were no exaggeration.
But, as the last chapter showed, that is something which I've attempted to do, so I might as well highlight the fact that I always think that the various verses of 'One of us cannot be wrong' are truly haunting, even by the master's usual standards. At various times over the past winter I've mused on the blizzard of ice, but I still couldn't have said that I'd ever seen one - until today. After writing yesterday about the storm at Flemington on Saturday, I was particularly pleased to receive by email this morning some photographs which David Dumas had taken there, from the comfort of the committee room and with a roof and a window sheltering him from the elements. One of these I now reproduce here to show just what I was talking about in yesterday's chapter: truly a blizzard of ice indeed. Based on this photograph, I'd say that reports of hailstones the size of 50-cent coins were no exaggeration.If one man alive uses the language with beauty similar to that with which Cohen uses it, that man is surely David's (expatriate) compatriot Clive James. I finished his fifth volume of memoirs ('The blaze of obscurity') yesterday and I can thoroughly recommend it. Having enjoyed so many of his television programmes, I started reading Clive James' books about 20 years ago and I've now read most of them; certainly all his autobiographies and novels, and a large amount of his essays and poems. They are just so good, and his novels are on a par with those of Evelyn Waugh for being simultaneously very funny, very moving and beautifully written. If you used to enjoy his television programmes, you'll love the book; but even if you never saw any of the shows, you'll still love the book. My time-waster for the next few months will now be his website, http://www.clivejames.com/, of which I treated myself to a brief taste this afternoon. There looks to be a vast amount of material on it, and I'm sure that it will all be gold.
Having recommended one website, I'll now recommend another, for no better reason than that its proprietor, whom I've never met, has asked me to give his services a push. I was contacted today out of the blue by an artist called Colin Chandler, who rather boldly asked me to recommend him to people who would like to have their horses painted. I've had a look at his website http://www.equineart.moonfruit.com/ and his pictures do indeed look rather nice. He has apparently painted several commissions for Lady Tavistock and,
which is rather nice from our point of view, a painting which adorns the home page of his website is of the head of Exeter Road's former resident Bay Of Islands, winner of the 2000 Northumberland Plate in that never-to-be-forgotten week when Dave Morris, who was training across the road in Hackness Villa at that time, sent three horses up to the Northumberland Plate festival and all three won, one on each day of the meeting. Dave, of course, now trains in part of this property and is still thriving, even if his very small string nowadays lacks a star of Bay Of Islands' calibre. He is pictured here this morning on a cold Warren Hill on Cragganmore Creek going up the canter slightly ahead of Christy Ring.
which is rather nice from our point of view, a painting which adorns the home page of his website is of the head of Exeter Road's former resident Bay Of Islands, winner of the 2000 Northumberland Plate in that never-to-be-forgotten week when Dave Morris, who was training across the road in Hackness Villa at that time, sent three horses up to the Northumberland Plate festival and all three won, one on each day of the meeting. Dave, of course, now trains in part of this property and is still thriving, even if his very small string nowadays lacks a star of Bay Of Islands' calibre. He is pictured here this morning on a cold Warren Hill on Cragganmore Creek going up the canter slightly ahead of Christy Ring. By the way, while I'm recommending things, I should point out that there is a live version of 'One of us cannot be wrong' on Youtube, sung at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, which, complete with introductory explanation of the song's background, is absolutely superb. Unbelievably it has so far only been viewed 2,323 times. If there was a positive correlation between merit and popularity, one would add several noughts to that figure.
1 comment:
Great post and blog. Thanks
Jon
Grand National 2010
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