Felix Dennis

The youngest of the three infamous Oz Editors, Felix Dennis was a rare creature, being born with the kind of wisdom most of us have to get through hindsight, and enjoyed, inevitably, a successful life of creativity and good living. His poem, Never go back, kindly passed on some of his wisdom. And his predilection for cigars which gave him such a fine reading voice may also have had something to do with the cancer that has killed him in his own memorable sixties.

100 years in Variety

Stage Door, The Bristol Hippodrome, 100 Years
Gerry Parker and John Hudson
Published by Redcliffe Press

Bristol Hippodrome - from the stage C G Hanley

This well-illustrated soft-cover book is a pleasure to handle. Good to give as a present to anyone with an interest in the theatre or show-biz; even to yourself. The history of the Hippodrome takes in its early years as a twice-nightly variety theatre to being the venue of choice for ballet, major theatrical tours and visiting stars including Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney and regular visitors The Hollies. It was famously Eddie Cochran’s last gig. The tale also covers the early career of Oswald Stoll, who teamed up with Mr Moss to build an Empire.
And of the nuts and bolts: “Frank Matcham was one of the great British Architects, and I have, over the years, performed in many of his theatres, The Bristol Hippodrome being my favourite. Modern architects don’t go to the theatre, which explains why the theatres they design resemble television sets. Matcham’s work was created with love. The Hippodrome was in construction at the same time as the Titanic was in Belfast. But the old Hippo, magnificently and lovingly restored by the people of Bristol, is still afloat.” Barry Humphries, February 2014

GSA on fire

GSA_fire Sauchiehall St Scott Grierson

Glasgow School of Art has been seriously damaged by fire. According to a BBC report on the afternoon of 23rd May, although the fire began in the basement, the historic library has seen most of the damage, with its windows destroyed - but flames have been seen coming from the top floor. The picture here shows the blaze up in the "chicken run". The School is just across Scott Street from the site of the Maryland Club, destroyed by fire in 1971.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-27541883
Update: If you wish to make any offers of help, financial or otherwise, please visit  http://www.gsa.ac.uk/

GSA has a sister

copyright: GSA

Glasgow School of Art, which has always been rebuilding itself before, during and after the growth of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's world-famous main building, has at last got something which is both functional and complementary to the old alma mater. While the School has been colonising other parts of its hill (including the old army building in Hill Street, St Aloysius' School and of course the Cottage, half-way along to Charing Cross), this was something needed, and the new building appears to give that stretch of Renfrew Street more of a 'campus' feel than it ever had with the piece-meal collection left over from the 'sixties and before that, the mix of old, almost  vernacular -shaped stone buildings with a couple of modern add-ons. In reproduction and video, the new block looks a little too clean and as if "faced" rather than solidly built - although if the facing is something like stone, a little ageing could only improve this. For the moment, the space created between the two parts is definitely pleasing.
http://www.gsa.ac.uk/about-gsa/history-and-future/our-future/campus-redevelopment/

Margo MacDonald

flkr 5221114034

Margo MacDonald, having struggled with Parkinson's Disease, died today. She became the Face of Scottish Nationalism when she won the Govan by-election for the SNP in 1973, but always being very much a woman of her own priciples, fell out with the party leadership and left politics for journalism, returning to play a role in the SNP - short-lived, as she was not with the party's drift towards a more 'liberal' stance. Despite this she remains, in the public eye, that Face.

To quote BBC News:

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, said: "Margo's passing sees a bright light, and one of the biggest personalities and characters of Scottish modern political life, go out.
"Her sense of humour, passion, integrity and unflinching desire to speak truth to power, meant she came as close to a political treasure in Scotland as I think it is possible to be."
'Force of nature'
Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, added: "Margo was a force of nature in Scottish life."

Tony Benn

This blogger was becoming aware of the political world at the very time                           Anthony Wedgewood-Benn

photo from news@respectparty.org

 was struggling to change it enough to allow him to remain 'at the coal-face', by relinquishing his hereditary peerage. As he himself said, although he had hoped to change the system, he had to settle for making the system work better. And ultimately when he stood down as MP and put the quotidian affairs of parliament, local and national behind him,  he was able to devote more of his time to the issues of concern. He certainly had more reserves of energy than lesser men, and his kind of timetable remains an inspiration.

London. Just one of those things...

Being without any one corner of the Globe I can truly call home, I've felt as much like an ex-pat Londoner as anything for a good while; but I agree with other ex-pats that there can be no going back. And almost every day there is more news confirming this in reality;  now the shops and pubs of Soho are following the dusty bookshops, for generations the major attraction of Charing Cross Road, into oblivion.

Mulligans (oxyman)

And nearby, the internationally acknowledged wellspring of new art, Cork Street, has also fallen to the demands of commerce in a city that is a victim of its own success. It was a good party. Even if you couldn't get in. (There may well be other parties; I remember grumbles that Portobello Road wasn't what it used to be - the grumbles in 1968 -) Those tiny but densely packed streets north of Shaftsbury Avenue and Piccadilly that bred Trad Jazz/ the Blues Boom, TW3, Private Eye, a particular fame for Francis Bacon, the Two Roberts and other artists (and writers), are unfortunately bang in the middle of some of the most highly-rated estate in the world. So despite petitions and letters, and submissions from experts and interested parties, planning permission has been given to replace several key gallery-style spaces in Cork Street with shops which will be ideal for displaying designer handbags and whose inhabitants might be able to afford the new rents; but being purveyors of expensive tat, the new faces are hardly likely to  keep that indefinable sum-of-the-parts alive. The picture here is not of any of the galleries, which with the bookshops were the tourist money-spinner and a regular joy for natives, but Mulligans, the Cork Street pub - which is no longer in business - in case you were wondering.