Alan Bennett - playwright, screenwriter, actor and author

Completely out of the blue on Friday afternoon, I got a call from an old friend who was involved with an event in Leeds that needed a photographer as the arranged chap had dropped out. I jumped at the chance, then jumped at a shower, then jumped at a smart black shirt and headed for Leeds.

Amid the Après-work city center who’s attention had been diverted to Children in Need, I found La Grillade,  a vaulted cellar French restaurant celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary. The format for the night was that of a charity night in aid of Yorkshire Cancer Care, in the company of, regular patron, Alan Bennett. The MC – Editor of The Business Desk - David Parkin, set the pace and invited everyone to think of questions to ask Alan, after he’d finished his tea. This teased out a few fascinating insights into Bennett’s creative process – basing his characters on specifics and how he’s actually not (by his own admission) very good at ‘making things up’, and how he really liked the Talking Head format where he got to focus on the detail of a single character at greatly zoomed in level.

Having been lucky enough to see a Talking Heads show at Harrogate Theatre in 2006, and having probably read watched and absorbed more of his material than I’d realised,  It dawned on me that I was in the company of a living Yorkshire legend.  I then went on to muse an idea that he is to Leeds / Yorkshire what L.S. Lowry is to Manchester. Like Lowry, he’s an acute observer of people and society. Like Lowry, he comes across as quite humble and down to earth with no airs and graces. Like Lowry, he is known by the masses but hasn’t sold out. Unlike Lowry, he’s illustrated 20th Century middle class where as Lowry was all about the 20th Century working class. Different mediums, but both portray a real character of people – brilliantly.

Back to the Yorkshire Legend notion – I’d say Bennett is up there with Hockney, Moore, Saville (of the Jimmy) , Boycott (of the Geoffrey). If  the measure of a legend is his legacy, Bennett has already got a fine body of work behind him. And from the twinkle in his eye on Friday night, I’d say there could be a bit more lead in his pencil yet.

As well as taking a bunch of photos of the evening (click here to view them)»

I shot a short video of him reading a piece called “Stopped, the key lost”:

vin book, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

I’ve just had this photo of mine used by in this article by  The Guardian.
Thanks to Simon TW for the heads up.

I think I should open a bottle of wine to celebrate or something.

Things have settled a bit now. Things have got a bit of a roadmap of how they may pan out. Jaygo has been on the up yesterday and today. They have removed his monitor machine (the machine that goes beep and constantly monitors and records his heart rate, respiration rate and blood saturation). They have taken him off hourly observation cycles to 4 hourly – so he won’t be woken up every hour and have blood pressure taken and lights shone in his eyes.

Still worried about his thrombosis – two clots on his main brain drain vein. At least they have a plan of how to hopefully get rid of these safely.  Still worried about his eyes – they are converging / he is cross eyed a bit most of the time and has double vision. That’s something to do with the increased pressure on the nerves behind his eyes so the looky in muscles are over compensating. Still worried about the lack of food he’s been keeping down. He has been keeping count of the ammount of times he’s been sick since this all started – 42 in total. Still – today we did manage to get to the canteen and have some (surprisingly lovely) Sunday carvery fayre. He even managed to walk some of the way back to the ward.

He has been more concious over the past couple of days – looking back, I think his body was coping with things by sleeping as much as possible (and who can blame it) but over the last couple of days he has been sleeping a fair bit – but it seems to be through exhaustion (due to not having more than 1 hours sleep at a time for the past few days) rather than a coping mechanism if that makes sense.

I’ve been with him since Friday. Life in the hospital has a strange pace to it. We’ve been having some lovely times together around everything. Read a fantastic book to him called You’re a bad man, Mr Gum . This has been an absolute tonic for the both of us. Someone described it as a cross between Roald Dahl and Montey Python. Very funny indeed. Finished that yesterday with a heavy heart then discovered there is a series of 8 or so of them so got hold of the next one on my kindle straight away.

Yesterday was the cricket world cup final. Great match. I was listening to it in the room with Jaygo, Eirene and Sophie (Felix has been on a school trip in Northumberland)  and we got to snuggle up and doze in a sumbeam whilst listening to it. When I closed my eyes, it felt almost like normality.

For someone who’s not had more than 3 hours straight sleep since last Wednesday night, I am feeling far too awake, So I’m going to toddle off and read for an hour or so and hopefully get some blissfully unbroken deep sleep. n’night.

World Book Night, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

I’ve been selected to be ‘a giver’ on World Book Night, which is today. If you’d like a copy – I’ve got 48 to give away. As I’m solo-dad this weekend, I’m beached at DragonDrop Centraal (near the back of ASDA, Harrogate) – gotta pop out a couple of times, but only to drop off / pick my Sophie Pi up from a party. Contact me with a way I can contact you if you’re in town today / this evening / fancy grabbing a freebee..  I may even throw in a cup of tea/coffee/glass of wine into the mix!

The book I’m giving is a gem of a read : “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistery. A Booker Prize shortlistee in 1996, this book shows true mastery of wordsmithery. It transported me to a different time and place and left me thinking about it for weeks after – it’s still fairly fresh in my mind after nearly 2 years since I read it.  See the bottom paragraph of my original review blog here, written just after I’d read it.

Each book has a unique number. Readers can become members of the World Book Night website and track the journey of their book and take part in a conversation with subsequent readers.

“World Book Night is a celebration of great writing and the power of books and the pleaure of reading…. be part of the reading revolution” (taken from the back jacket)

Since Christmas, nearly all of my downtime has been in the company of one of these – an Amazon Kindle.

A few people I’ve spoken too have seen the kindle as a threat to ‘the book’. Perhaps it is.  Would that be the end of the world if the organic, tree ware book were to become as one with the C90 cassette?

The major benefit for me would be the ergonomics of the thing. Just a mere suggestion of movement to turn a page. Getting comfortable in bed with a big hardback is not something I’ve ever masters.  Lugging several heavy books around was one of the downsides to travelling.  The kindle is light. The kindle can store around 3500 books. The kindle is just as easy on the eye as a real book – if not easier if you consider you can change the font sizes to suit. You can read it in the bath (with a suitable ziplock bag).  You can make notes and highlights, that are backed up for you, you can bookmark and look things up – the inline dictionary is superb. You just highlight a word and there’s the definition.

The cons are – you can’t lend books to people as readily (although Amazon claim you can, but I’ve not seen any lend-able  books yet). There’s no colour and you don’t get to drink in the jacket artwork (I’m a believer that you can judge a book by its cover)   and to me, that’s about it. Yes, there’s the extreme view of “well if the internet died, then you wouldn’t be able to get any new books” but I figure I’d have bigger problem to worry about if that was the case.

Since Christmas, I’ve read 7 book and browsed, 50+ book samples (you can download the first 5% or so of any book on the kindle market, of which there are umteen thousand of releases available), newspapers, documents & GetAbstracts.

I did loads of reasearch on the two (what I considered to be) essential accessories (not including the ziplock bath kit!). One – a cover / case so I could chuck it in my back without fear of it getting damaged or scratched. I wanted something that was ‘quick release’ and that was a bit outdoor proof. I went for this neoprene sleeve called a RainSuit. So far, it’s been perfect. It’s light, simple, not fiddly and offers the element protection I’ll need for those getting stuck outside in the rain moments.

The second – a light. Just like real books and not like iPad / lcd / screen based counter parts, the Kindle is not light transmitting. I plumped for an OCTOVO Solis light. A brilliant design – aesthetically as well as functionally.

Some of the other great kindle things are the discovery of Instapaper / read later – where you can make a book for your kindle out of any web based content. I have a short attention span of reading things on a computer screen without wanting to interact with it, but sending things to my kindle strips out all the interaction, all the picture, all the filler and just gives me the original, pure written word. I like. I’m not going to go and read my Sophie (aged 4 3/4) The House At Pooh Corner, Chapter Seven for her bedtime story – on the kindle.

We went to a wine tasting event yesterday at The Crown hotel hosted by Harrogate Fine Wine and their suppliers. 70 wines to have a go on, all of a very high standard. I experimented with whites (normally a red man) before going onto the reds.

Quite a fascinating culture the wine crowd. I don’t confess to much about wine but found some of the conversations a fascination. One of the wines I had zoomed in on and went back twice to make sure it was still to my liking was this 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon called “A”. I have always been a of the “you CAN judge a book by its cover” mindset – you can tell by the fonts, the layout, the corners cut, the processes and general attention to detail and due care that has been employed when looking at a book cover or wine label. Some of this has a correlation to the product inside (albeit story, or wine).
So this “A” had a simple black design with an A made with 3 colours. I was told that the colours were the colour of the taste of this wine. Someone with Synesthesia – the condition whereby people can ‘see’ taste, sound and smell – had been used to select the colours on the label and although I had no frame of reference, the colours (a purple, a blue and a dark magenta with white lines if wine addled memory serves me correctly) did indeed look like the taste. I’m on the lookout now for other products where Synesthesia has been used to create a design.

I’ve recently finished reading the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S.Forester. 11 books indispersed around all the other books I’ve read over the last 6 months. After a while I realised I was addicted to a finite resource so I spread them amongst other reading. The series following the life of a Royal Naval officer from the late 1700′s to the erly 1800′s – around the time Nepoleon was making a nuisance of himself. Never before has a series of literature captured me like this.

The story as a whole tracked Hornblower from his first appointment as a Midshipman through the ranks of Lieutenant, Commander, Captain, Commodore, Admiral and and Sea Lord. An inspirational character who’s battles with the French, the elements and himself wrapped up toether in an amazing tale of adventure, anthropology, geography and science. Hornblower and The Atropos was my favourite book but each book had its own special parts, each had its own character.

The questions cropped up recently, in a psychological profile course I was on “Which person do you admire, and why” I chose Michael Palin as it happens but Hornblower was a very close second mainly due to his granite constitution and his problem solving logic.

I was really pleased to hear, during an interview on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show that Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope who is The First Sealord and Equerry to The Queen was a big Hornblower fan. I’ll sleep well in my bed knowing that he’s in charge of the Royal Navy. In the same interview Mark went on to describe how he went on to read all the Jack Aubrey novels (by Patrick O’Brian – known most famously for the ‘Master and Commander’ title) which I’ve just started. So far, so good. Quite odd getting my head round this different character in the same ‘shoes’ as Hornblower. Aubrey likes music for a start – Hornblower’s Achilles heel was his utter tone deafness.

I’ll miss Hornblower. He was a great chap to have around over the last 6 months. A candidate for a DragonDrop Adventure T-Shirt if ever the chance should arise.

Just uploaded a bunch of portraits / shots of people folk I took at the Newby Hall Easter fun day 2009 – Click here to visit the set. We love helping out with (Anima Mundi) at the event. Been doing it for 4 years now.

This event was particularly fun, as I didn’t have that much in the way of responsibilities or things to do (A free range trouble shooter / runner / gopher was the angle of usefulness I dangled myself at)

Eirene launched her book “The Kitten That Had No Whiskers” and did a few readings – which all went really well and seemed to be appreciated greatly by her target audience. She’s selling them and all profits are going to charity – get in touch if you would like one!

So looking back over the 4 years – I’ve compiled a back catalogue of my photo sets into this collection.

I seem to have developed a liking for books set (wholly, or in part) in India. Perhaps it’s the incredible diversity of the place where it’s culture, it’s people and religions saturate and permeate each other like no other place on Earth.

Some of the notable titles on my ‘India List’ would be

• The Life of Pi (a book I was lucky enough to read whilst in India). A must read title.
• Penguins Stopped Play (a true story which looks at the world through the eyes of cricket – Probably India’s third greatest love (after food and music)
• The Death of Vishnu (A symbolic construct of Hinduisms and cosmopolitan living)
• The White Tiger
  (2008′s Booker prize winner, and rightly so, this title unfolds as a letter written by a Bangalore entrepreneur.)
• Shantaram (a stunning true story of a Westerner who goes from rags to riches and back again in Bombay)

And now to add to my list “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistery. A fast paced novel that spans generations of Indian caste history coming up to the 1970′s during India’s “State of Emergency”. The book creates such believable characters, of which the four main characters cover so much ground the book seems to have a job fitting it all in. A delve into the good and evil of India (and humanity, which India is such an incredible representation of) . From the crisp clean hill stations in the north to the squalid rat infested jhopadi slums of the cities where at times you can almost smell the spices as the author describes a street scene. An educational novel from one of humanities cornerstones. A true masterpiece.

You Got Nothing Coming, Notes from a prison fish

Shantaram by, by Gregory David Roberts

Finished reading this fantastic book last night. It’s a truly epic saga, a doorstop of a book that I’ve been draggin round with me for the last month or so – nearly a thousand pages of small type single spaced lines. I’ve often thought and said “You can judge a book by it’s cover”. I was so wrong with this one. I’d dismissed it initially as I didn’t like the cover (it was designed by the Editor, apparently… me think she should stick to editing) It looks, to me, at best chic lit or hippy drivel – perhaps some wooly celestine prophecy about finding oneself or a spiritual discovery.

Coming to think about it though.. I’m not sure how I would have designed the cover for such a book. It’s based on a true story, which always piques my interest. It’s set (mainly) in Bombay in the 80’s. A city which although our visit was brief, tugs a chord of recognition of it’s Marathi culture.

A good chunk of it is set in the slums – quite coincidentally the film Slumdog Millionaire (as yet unseen) came out whilst I was reading it. Shantaram gives a fascinating and often a bit too intimate insight into the slums – one of the most highly dependable and organised cultures I’ve ever heard of. The book portrays some first hand insights into the hell that is Arthur Road Prison in Mumbai, some Afgan terrorism as well as love, hard drugs, human torment and stamina as well as one of my favourite plot devices – travel. Because of it’s sheer volume, it spends quite a long time exploring each of it’s many themes but never to the point of boredom or suspected padding.

Gregory D Roberts apparently drafted this book three times whilst in prison – two of which were destroyed. A testament to the passion that he puts into this book. I’ve seen so many books that have been called a “Masterpiece” this book, to me is just that.

Every now and then you find yourself reading a book which you just don’t want to end. This was one of those books. I’d never heard of it or it’s author before when I picked it up from a charity shop on a ‘ooh, that looks interesting’ whim.

Set in Bombay the story is based around a block of flats and it’s residents. From the cigarettewalla to the man who sleeps on the bottom step to the Hindu families and the Muslims. References to class and caste, secularity and spiritualism without as a construct, rather than a plot. Steeped in the fascinating world of Hinduism, the subtle intricacies of Indian cosmopolitan life as well as a star crossed love plot. With sub plots of marriage, myth, legend and superstitions this book has so much going on.

At times the book had me laughing out loud with its heart warming characterisation, this story took the age old stable of ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ to a new level.

A pure beauty and deepness unfolds surrounding the main character – Vishnu like no other character I’ve ever come across. A magical plot and a book that definitely goes down as one of my all time favourites.

The highlight of yesterday on our away mission to Northumberland was Barter Books in Alnwick. A great rainy afternoon was spent browsing the myriad of books – the place is HUGE! cashed in a bunch of read books for tokens to buy more books. Got some great reads.

Today we’ve been to the Holy Island. After an argument with a spitty swearing local on parking. Even though the road was not yellow lined etc, he insisted that we were not welcome to park there. Without resorting to the “I pay my road tax” argument I let him have his was and moved to the overpriced car park. Not to be put off by this we explored the island. The Priory was quite cool, after that we went for a walk to the castle, then a round walk back to the car. Heading back to the mainland, over the causeway before the tide came in was a good idea. Stopped off to find a geocache before heading to Etal castle for a picnic. We hit the nice weather belt today with much luck and found ourselves in sunshine for nearly all the time we out.

Were now back at the covet (as it’s called – a former cart shed in Akeld Manor Country Club). It’s nice here. Nestled in the crook of a Cheviot hills elbow we’ve got the best of self catering freedom with the convenience of a resort – swimming pool, stuff for the kids, restaurant and stuff. Eirene Sophie and Jay have gone to the trampoline to build up an appetite – I’m about to cook a chili con carne.

Blind Faith by Ben Elton

I picked up this book from the exotic shores of the ASDA book isle. I was in a book doldrum after finishing a run of cracking titles, everything I picked up seemed to fall short.

I decided to donate some of my downtime (of which there is less than I’d like to be these days) to reading Ben Elton’s latest title. I’ve read two of his other books – one, set in history (The First Casualty , WWI), one set in modern day (High Society) and so it seemed a natural progression for me to read on set in the future – Blind Faith.

A very Orwellian 23rd century London that due to a flood, thanks to global warming has changed shape dramatically. New shorelines and water ways surrounding the “London Lake” are in absolute scrutiny with CCTV and documentation of every aspect of day-to-day life. An attitude shift that on the surface looks like organised Utopia, whereby everyone is devoted to the same God (and Dianna) yet underneath has some dark, dark secrets.

A very quick, easy and engaging read (as all his stuff tends to trend for me) – the only downside is that the geek in me would of liked to of seen more details about how some of the spectacular technological advancement has come about, how it looks and works. All in all, a good read.