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SMMT jamboree

November 24th, 2010 | No Comments

It was the SMMT’s annual dinner last night. It was held at the Hilton, Park Lane, and was the usual agreeable occasion – a few new people to meet, a few to catch up with, and the wheels of social interaction well lubricated with some quality alcohol.

There was nothing too unexpected on the business side. Outgoing SMMT president Joe Greenwell delivered a speech that highlighted the things that you would expect him to highlight: the industry in the UK hasn’t been performing too badly in the circumstances; there are some interesting technology initiatives; the SMMT has been effectively lobbying on behalf of the industry and so on. He was polished.  And it will be interesting to see how GKN’s Nigel Stein shapes up in the president’s role; GKN is a very successful British engineering company and one that has built up a solid business over many decades (not just the Constant Velocity Joints – CVJs – it is well known in this industry for; it was pretty brave to take on Airbus wings business a few years ago).

The guest speaker from outside the industry was John Humphrys – a well known journalist and broadcaster with the BBC. I have a lot of respect for the guy, who is perhaps best known for his tenacious and dogged interviewing style, which has upset more than a few slightly precious and/or slippery politicians over the years. I thought we might get something good given the circles he mixes in, the people he has interviewed and we’d hopefully get an interesting perspective on the industry from someone like him. It should be thoughtful, provocative even…

I have to say it was slightly disappointing. I’m not sure how much after dinner speaking he does, but I got the feeling it might be quite a bit; there was a formulaic feel to the anecdotes and some of them weren’t really all that funny – oddly distasteful even – and fell a bit flat. And then he dredged up some of the UK auto industry’s unhappy history, which I don’t think we really wanted to hear about for the umpteen millionth time on an occasion such as this. I also don’t quite believe that today’s ten-year-olds are more interested in average CO2 than top speed, supercars, 0-60 and so on. Have ‘Top Trumps’ cards changed much lately? I doubt it. Lighten up John! And ‘know your audience’ – easy to say I know, but he was not quite coming across as the sure-footed cerebral operator many of us would have expected. Maybe I set my expectations too high. 

Anyway, well done to SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt for wrapping up the proceedings very succinctly afterwards (no over-the-top presentation about how great the SMMT is) and giving everyone plenty of time to mingle. And I should say thanks again to my table hosts at xchanging – a business process services company that is into outsourcing. They are also big into sponsoring the annual ‘boat race’ we have here (a quaint and slightly eccentric sporting affair, two rowing teams from Cambridge and Oxford universities head-to-head in rowing gigs, racing down the Thames – it gets huge national media coverage considering what it is; long may this wonderful example of British daftness continue).

UK: Next SMMT president is GKN’s Nigel Stein

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Geri Halliwell eying £5m home in UK village

August 2nd, 2010 | No Comments

English singer Geri Halliwell has plans of buying a house worth 5 million pounds in a UK village. The 37-year-old singer is ready to spend 5 million pounds for the country house in a village that has a population of 107. The ‘Raining Men’ hitmaker and boyfriend Henry Beckwith have been seen looking at ten-bedroom [...]

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18 Disastrous Invasive Species (That Happen To Be Delicious)

April 6th, 2010 | No Comments

Invasive species are a major problem the world over. They kill local plants and animals, clog streams, destroy habitats, and devastate anything natural in their path. Sometimes they were introduced for a purpose, sometimes they escaped into the wild — but they always cause trouble. However, there is sometimes one redeeming feature of the proliferation [...]

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‘The Hurt Locker’ production designer will design for John Abraham

March 16th, 2010 | No Comments

David Bryan, the art director of the year’s greatest winner at the Oscars ‘The Hurt Locker’ was immensely happy when the filmmaker Abbas Tyrewala appreciated his work by asking him to design John Abraham’s looks in his film.
David convinced the rigid Abbas for joining him in the project by showing him the video of [...]

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Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: Please Remember Me

September 9th, 2009 | No Comments

By: Dennis Cook

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott has been at the center of folk music since the genre’s 1960s mega-explosion, and was already a well regarded figure even before that. It was Elliott that helped teach Woody Guthrie’s songs to a young Bob Dylan, and it was Brooklyn born Jack who brought some trail dust into Greenwich Village, a boy inspired by the rodeos that used to come through Madison Square Garden. Fast approaching 80-years-old, he’s a traditional bard, a carrier of songs from town to town, building on and honoring a long line of tunesmiths.

He’s the sort of fella that can readily tell Shinola from that other stuff, and he’ll let you know with a wink that he’s onto you. For the past 15 years he’s lived near Point Reyes in Northern California, a spot removed enough from the bright lights of San Francisco to feel some distance from modern hustle ‘n’ bustle, but Elliott laments, “You gotta drive about 30 miles to find a lemon.” From his first job loading and unloading trucks at a lumber yard to his many adventures on sea and land, at home and abroad, Ramblin’ Jack has gathered up myriad tales and melodies, and has been instrumental in passing the best ones onto future generations. There is such joy for the simple pleasures of day-to-day life in Ramblin’ Jack’s music, a hearty embrace of the many small things that nourish us and bring color into our hours. Even the darker moments are tied to what it means to be human and ramble around the time we’re given.

His latest album, A Stranger Here (released April 7 on Anti-), is a collection of 1930s songs written during the Great Depression. Produced with great strength and delicacy by Joe Henry, it is one of Elliott’s finest hours, where the years apparent in his voice wrangle with the ghosts of a vibrant saloon where everyone has scraped together their last dime for one more good time. It’s an oddly modern album and a brave one from someone who could merely coast on his rep and earn his living recreating the ’60s faves his audience adores. Tackling great material from Leroy Carr, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson and Lonnie Johnson, Ramblin’ Jack shows himself worthy company to these blues masters, and the crack band behind him, including guest turns from Van Dyke Parks and Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, moves with sinewy perfection throughout.

In an attempt to keep the rangin’ around reasonable, we’ve included some but not all of Jack’s frequent digressions. Befitting the nickname he earned, according to legend, from Odetta’s mom, a conversation with the man is a ramblin’ affair. However, we did our level best to get him talking about his latest effort, his days in Greenwich Village, his influences and more. But what chat with Ramblin’ Jack would be complete without a few tangents?

JamBase: I think the new album is pretty darn cool. Even though these are Depression era songs, they seem to be coming around at just the right time.

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

Ramblin’ Jack: I didn’t plan it that way. In fact, the whole idea of a collection of those songs was due to the producer [Joe Henry] and a record label guy named Andy. They put their heads together and found 15 songs and put ‘em on a CD for me to listen to and pick out about 10 of the 15. Some of ‘em seemed like they were going to be tough to do, others seemed plum impossible, and I didn’t want to say anything. I just listened to ‘em for three months, and I never memorized any of them. So, it made me quite nervous when we drove down to L.A. to record them. I didn’t know anything by heart but hopefully I’d developed a little feel for them.

JamBase: In some ways that’s advantageous, going in without a clear idea because a number of these tunes are so well established and so oft-covered. There’s a zillion versions of “Soul Of A Man,” though I think yours stands up just fine.

Ramblin’ Jack: Oh yeah. Originally they wanted to use ["Soul Of A Man"] for the title of the album. I thought, “Yeah, and I’ll start my own church!” It was a little bit too heavy for me.

It’s daunting to get behind a pulpit. I’m not sure most of us should do it willingly.

Including myself [laughs].

This album is part and parcel of what you do. You’re an interpreter and carrier of songs. You’ve had your ear to ground since you started, listening for songs that need to be passed along to the next generation.

I never thought about it in so many words, but it feels like that’s part of it alright. I hear a lot of music that’s exciting and fun and entertaining but I rarely get latched onto a song. There’s so much good music out there and I enjoy hearing it, but I rarely ever want to bother to try and pick up on it.

What is it that attracts you to a song?

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

In the case of these songs [on A Stranger Here], I really didn’t like a lot of them because I thought I wasn’t capable of doing them – I didn’t have enough of a voice or felt I could live up to their tough background. A singer like Blind Willie Johnson, well, I’ve always admired his voice and his singing but I never thought I could dare to try and interpret one of his songs. He sounds like a big, tough, hard as nails man who’s seen everything AND he’s blind! A lot of my favorite musicians are blind, like Rev. Gary Davis. I’ve toured with Reverend Davis and admire him, but I never thought I’d be able to do any of his stuff. This is the first time I’ve ever dared to do it. I really didn’t dare to do it, I just lit into it!

When I got to the studio, there were only two musicians that I really met before and four or five that I’d never met. And they were just ready to go, and they just followed me along so well. I think they did their homework.

There’s a lively sense of engagement from everyone on A Stranger Here, everybody just throwing in.

Yeah, they are! [Pauses] Excuse me for a minute. My sweetie was just trying to bring me some breakfast she just made and I told her not right now. I’ll eat later or eat it cold, whatever. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. I was gonna take my sweetie rowing in a boat I have here but it was full of rainwater and it took me an hour to bail out. We had to go somewheres else and we didn’t get to row.

So, do you feel lucky, if that’s even the right word, to have picked Depression era songs given the current shambles the U.S. economy is in?

It was their suggestion and I thought I’d go along with it. These guys know what they’re doing, and I respect their wisdom about what might be a good subject to address. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I said, “Send me these songs and I’ll learn ‘em,” which is not my usual way. But, I thought it’d be very professional and to my credit if I didn’t bitch and complain and just tried to go along with their suggestion and see if I could make the best of it. And it worked!

It’s arriving at just the moment that people are going to need songs about living through hard times.

That should work good for the popularity of it [laughs].

The best songs speak to truths larger than just today.

Ramblin’ Jack & Woody Guthrie by John Cohen

There’s a lot to be said for that! My sweetie pie here is a musician, and she played me a record someone had sent her that was very popular back in the ’50s. And it’s in the ’50s style and it’s about a gal named Vickie, which is my sweetie’s name. It’s a cute song in a style of music you don’t hear anymore. I like it because it’s about my honey baby, but they sent it to her as a joke. And I thought, “That music was once popular. God, how could anybody listen to that crap?” Now, it’s real cheap and tinsel-y. It was sort of like kindergarten music.

In a lot of ways, popular music in America since the 1950s has played to that kind of kindergarten mentality.

That’s when I left America for about six years, traveling around on a motor scooter and singing on street corners with my first wife. That was 1955-1961. I was gone for six years except for a period of 10 months in 1958 where I was back in the States.

You got to miss The Four Freshman and a lot of the other bubblegum crap that came out in the late ’50s.

You know the guy from Lubbock, Texas with the black horn-rim glasses [Buddy Holly]? Well, I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t know Bob Dylan. Actually hardly anybody knew him at that time, but he was hanging out in New York with a bunch of friends of mine and we were communicating by letter and postcard. But somehow the friends in the city never mentioned Bob, perhaps afraid I’d be upset or something that somebody was diggin’ my potatoes. Bob was visiting Woody [Guthrie] in the hospital at that time and I knew nothing about it. When I got back to the States in November 1961, came back on a big ocean liner called The Liberte, I stayed overnight in New York City and then took a bus out to New Jersey to visit Woody in the hospital the next morning, and there was this kid Bob there. That’s how I met Bob but I’d never heard about him at all. It got very hard to understand Woody as he spoke as that horrible, horrible disease [Huntington's disease] took him away. He lasted 13 years in hospitals.

I think a lot of people see you as one of the inheritors and torchbearers for Woody’s legacy. Do you feel that way about it, that kind of responsibility?

I do! When I went to Europe I was mostly bringing Woody’s music there. There were people, in England mostly, who’d heard of Woody and collected one or two of his records, and they were quite enthusiastic about the fact that I’d been living with and traveling with Woody. I entertained them with lots of stories about Woody and played some songs as they pulled up a chair.

Continue reading for more on Ramblin’ Jack Elliott…

 


As we get older more and more people are dying. The people we knew or know and loved are leaving us. It becomes more and more apparent that we ourselves may have to leave.

-Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
 

Woody’s songs still feel so fresh to me. When you hear a new voice try out one of his songs it sorta makes you skip a little.

Ramblin’ Jack with Bob Dylan :: Greenwich Village, early ’60s

Boy, I haven’t heard a lot of people doing Woody’s songs lately, but I need to get out there more. I was invited out to a tribute in New York to Odetta, who passed recently. Odetta’s mom is the one who supposedly named me Ramblin’ Jack, and I had some very good moments with Odetta in the past few years and I knew I might not see her again because she was very sick. But I can’t travel right now. I’m about to go into the hospital. I’m not sick or anything, just having a new hip put in. I had another hip put in about seven years ago and it made me feel about 20 years younger.

You’re getting to be one of the last of the old guard that was there in Greenwich Village at the dawn of what we now call modern folk music.

My girlfriend was just showing me a book I have around here called Washington Square Memories – The Great Urban Folk Boom, which was published in 1970, and I’m right there on the cover, sitting there playing the ol’ Gretsch guitar. That was a long time ago, and I really enjoyed looking at the pictures of all these people I’d almost forgotten about. Half of ‘em I don’t know if they’re still alive or not. I don’t know whatever happened to Bonnie Dobson. Joan Baez is around and everyone knows that. And there’s Loudon Wainwright III, who looks so young. He wrote “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road),” and I think of him often. I had a wonderful time with him one evening. He showed up at a gig I played on Eel Pie Island in the Thames. We went to his hotel with a big bottle of scotch and the evening progressed. I don’t remember how I found the way back to my hotel. Must have had a good driver with me.

Do you like to personalize a song, particularly traditional material, when you take it on to give it something of your own stamp?

I guess I do, but I haven’t worked at it the active way others do. It just sort of happens gradually.

Who were some of your earliest inspirations that made you want to pick up a guitar and sing?

Ramblin’ Jack with Miss John Hurt in 1964 by Jim Marshall

The very first guitar person I ever noticed – I’d been listening to New Orleans jazz, which I liked quite a bit – was a black man by the name of Lonnie Johnson. One of the songs that Lonnie sang, “New Stranger Blues,” I do on the new album, that goes, “I wander into town and I wonder why everybody wants to dog me down.” I met Lonnie three times. He came and played at Gerde’s Folk City in New York [where Dylan played his first professional gig], and then I saw him in Philadelphia one time. Someone told me to go down to this subterranean bar where there was a bartender by the name of Bill Cosby who told jokes. Sure enough, there was this bartender behind the bar telling jokes. And he invited me to take my guitar and sing a few songs, which I was glad to do. I went behind the bar and he held the microphone up and I played into the microphone. But I didn’t have any picks with me. I heard this music coming through the walls from a neighboring bar next door, and they had a door that went through. I immediately recognized Lonnie Johnson’s guitar. I stopped playing whatever song I was singing and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, that is Lonnie Johnson! I do declare, what do you know about that! I have to go see him.” I brought my little concert to an immediate halt and Lonnie loaned me a guitar pick, and I was proud to keep it. Then, I went back in and played some more.

I love when musicians are stalled by another musician they REALLY love. It’s like, “I’m doing my thing but please make sure you pay attention to this guy!”

The last time I saw Lonnie Johnson he had an old nightclub in Toronto and we were doing a TV show in the nightclub. And my wife at the time was pregnant, and she was in the back of the room watching the soundcheck. We were up there playing a few notes, and Lonnie Johnson noticed my wife in the back of the room as she reached her arms up to the ceiling to stretch. And he immediately got very excited and said, “Don’t do that! Put your hands down!” It seems a lot of old Southern black folks had a belief that if a pregnant woman raised her arms up over her head that the baby would strangle because the umbilical cord would get wrapped up inside.

Do you collect tidbits like that about local culture and language and customs from earlier time periods?

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

I sometimes think my house is getting to be like the storeroom of a museum, and I’m going to have to sell all this stuff just to get rid of it. I can’t bear to throw it away. It’s all junk but probably of value to somebody. I don’t think of myself as a collector but I try to remember things mentally. I got a million stories about various adventures I’ve had and meeting odd people.

You have this hobo mythology that runs through your career.

I need a bigger house! I need to get a barn somewhere. I thought about renting a hanger at a little airport here in Marin. But I don’t really recommend collecting stuff. I’ve got 50-feet of rusty anchor chain in my truck that somebody gave me for my boat. The next day I met an old pirate friend of mine who’s moving away and he’s got a boat. And he said he had some brand new anchor chain, which was much stronger. We have gale force winds in the Bay that have reached up to a 130 mph. So, I immediately bought 63-feet of new chain from my pirate friend since the other was a smaller gauge and a bit rusty. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. You put a lot of strain on a chain and it’ll break [laughs].

What was it like to work with Joe Henry?

I did one song with Joe a few years ago for the Bob Dylan movie I’m Not There. We recorded a song called “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” I’d heard it a million times but never learned it, so when he said, “This is the song we’d like you to do,” once again it was the case that he’s such an erudite person with such respect and good feeling that I didn’t want to offend him by disagreeing or suggesting anything else. I thought, “Let’s go. Let’s do it.” I didn’t get to know that song well until I was in the studio. Loudon was there and played guitar and banjo behind me on that recording, along with two or three other musicians as well. We just blended really fine, and it was just a good selection.

You sound pretty comfortable with the setting he’s created on the new recordings. There’s a very full sound to this album, and even though they’re Depression era tunes it feels quite modern.

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

Yeah, I liked all those guys we played with, even if I didn’t know but two of them, the piano player [Keith Ciancia] and the guitar player [Greg Leisz]. I think the drums especially made it strange and beautiful. The drummer’s name is Jay Bellerose and he flew out from Nashville just for this session, and he tours with Alison Krauss.

Just based on the tales you’ve told me today, it’s clear you have a good memory, Jack. How many songs do you think you know?

It’s very, very difficult to memorize songs now. In fact, I have not memorized ANY of the songs on the new album yet. I recorded them eight months ago and I think they’re going to want me to play some of ‘em when we get on the road to help sell records. I’m losing four brain cells a day.

When I heard “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” and a few songs on the last record [2006's I Stand Alone], I was struck by the way you sing about mortality now. There’s a real depth to these performances, and I wondered how you come at them, especially as a 78-year-old, when those issues tend to loom large for one?

I’ve always been very scared of death. It never bothered me when I was doing all these death defying sports and things, like bronc riding and driving semi-trailers and flying airplanes. And I never was close to anyone when they died. When my mother passed away I was on tour with Bob Dylan. When my dad died I was touring up in New England. And then finally to be with somebody when they died, my last wife Jan, it was a remarkable, wonderful but, of course, terribly sad adventure in my life. They say death is part of life, and most people know that, but I didn’t really quite now that. I don’t like to drive on I-5 because I’ve seen a lot of recently dead bodies on I-5 that fell asleep at the wheel because it’s a boring road. I’d rather drive on 101 and take a few hours more through beautiful country.

As we get older more and more people are dying. The people we knew or know and loved are leaving us. It becomes more and more apparent that we ourselves may have to leave. I’ve just avoided thinking about it for a long time. But as each successive mortality happens you can’t avoid or sweep it under the carpet for long. You gotta think about it. I’m still too horrified by the thought of it to get into the subject much [from my own songwriting perspective]. I love life. I love life so much.

JamBase | Enduring
Go See Live Music!


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Sept. 8, 1854: Pump Shutdown Stops London Cholera Outbreak

September 8th, 2009 | No Comments

1854: Physician John Snow convinces a London local council to remove the handle from a pump in Soho. A deadly cholera epidemic in the neighborhood comes to an end immediately, though perhaps serendipitously. Snow maps the outbreak to prove his point … and launches modern epidemiology.
The Soho neighborhood was not then filled with galleries, clubs, [...]

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George Harrison’’s widow in razor fence row

September 5th, 2009 | No Comments

Late Beatle George Harrison‘’s widow Olivia has been caught up in a planning row after a former television sitcom star alleged that a razor wire fence around her house almost killed his cat.
Rodney Bewes, who starred as Bob Ferris in Seventies television show ‘The Likely Lads’, said the fence posed pets with a dangerous threat [...]

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Inventor urges patent law change

September 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

By Nick Higham
BBC News

Trevor Baylis

A major British inventor is calling for a change in the law to strengthen protection against those who try to steal ideas.

Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio, has written to the business secretary urging him to criminalise the theft of intellectual property.

The move would involve a fundamental change to the law on patents.

Currently, inventors have to sue those they believe have stolen their idea through the civil courts.

Patent process

Inventors who want to stop others copying their ideas can go to the UK Intellectual Property Office (formerly the Patent Office) and take out a patent.

But that’s expensive for lone inventors without corporate backing: among other costs, the services of a specialised patent attorney will set an applicant back at least £2,500.

"I believe that UK plc should stand behind those courageous individuals whose ideas can change all our lives both commercially and socially"

Trevor Baylis

And patents enjoy protection only under civil law: a patent-holder who believes their idea has been ripped off must themselves sue for compensation through the civil courts.

"If I was to nick your car, which is worth £10,000, say, I could go to jail," Trevor Baylis told the BBC.

"But if I were to knick your patent, which is worth a million pounds, you’d have to sue me.

"And if I was a colossal company, or indeed another country, that had stolen your invention, how could you find a million pounds a day to take me to court"

The answer, he says, is to make stealing a patent a criminal offence – just as it’s already a criminal offence to steal copyright from creative people like authors and musicians.

That way the state, not the individual inventor, would bear the costs of going to court.

"I believe that theft of intellectual property rights should be treated as a white collar crime," he says in his letter to Lord Mandelson.

"I believe that UK plc should stand behind those courageous individuals whose ideas can change all our lives both commercially and socially."

"Honest, decent people running reputable businesses infringe patents. They might not know the patent exists, or their patent attorney might have told them it was valid or infringed"

Member of Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys

Mr Baylis, who lives in an eccentric house-cum-workshop which he built himself on Eel Pie Island, in the middle of the River Thames off Twickenham, says he has the support of the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of his local MP, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable.

In 2002 Mr Cable introduced a private member’s bill which increased the penalties for copyright theft from a maximum of two years to 10 years imprisonment.

Patent theft, he says now, "is just part of life" and tougher action needs to be taken to stamp it out.

But the defenders of the present system say changing the law may not be the right answer.

Patents can be extremely complex things and the criminal law is simply too blunt an instrument to use when disputes arise.

Peter Jackson is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.

"First of all you’ve got to decide whether the patent covers the thing properly." he says.

"And having done that you’ve got to decide whether what the alleged infringer is up to falls within that strict wording.

"That can take days and weeks and months of deliberation by highly skilled lawyers, and I’m not sure the criminal system is well-suited to that kind of action."

Other members of the institute are more forthright.

One calls the idea of criminalising patent infringement "barking mad".

Another says the parallel with copyright protection is not as close as it might appear: "Patent infringement is not remotely like flogging knock-off CDs.

"Honest, decent people running reputable businesses infringe patents. They might not know the patent exists, or their patent attorney might have told them it was valid or infringed."

And patent attorneys say criminalisation might have a "chilling" effect on innovation, by forcing a patent-holder’s rivals to "play safe" for fear of committing a criminal offence.

Instead they point to the mediation service run by the Intellectual Property Office as an alternative to costly legal action.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Kate Moss ‘ruins pal’s hen night by throwing police strippers out’

July 28th, 2009 | No Comments

Brit supermodel Kate Moss is said to have put an end to a friend’s hen party when she objected to two male strippers, dressed as coppers, being at the do and throwing them out.
Moss, 35, had organised the party for her best mate, Jess Hallett, a former booker with Storm model agency, but when the [...]

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Wealthy elderly turn backs on seaside havens

July 25th, 2009 | No Comments

Newly retired move to cultural cities or the shires

God’s waiting rooms are undergoing a transformation. For decades, many of Britain’s coastal towns have been synonymous with blue rinses, bingo and tea dances. Places such as Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Worthing have been seen as retirement havens for generations of pensioners, keen to take the sea air just as their Victorian predecessors used to.

But according to an analysis of demographic data, many of today’s wealthier pensioners are turning their backs on traditional retirement destinations with a “grey influx” into upmarket towns and cities in some of the UK’s most sought-after inland locations – such as in the Cotswolds, and parts of Hampshire and Kent.

The shift is driven by an increase in the number of people reaching retirement age, coupled with rising levels of wealth. In 1945, life expectancy at birth for men and women was 63 and 68 respectively. In 2009 it is 78 and 82.

The dramatic increase in the number of over-65s means that by 2019 there will be 2.4 million more than today. But the traditional coastal retirement resorts, which grew to meet burgeoning demand from the postwar middle classes, have not been able to accommodate the demographic shift.

Research from Experian, the consumer research and credit rating agency, charts the trend. Changes to its giant Mosaic database – which divides the UK population into socioeconomic and lifestyle groups – show a much larger proportion of older people moving to the most desirable parts of the country, often funding this by selling their mortgage-free homes. And where coastal destinations were once the vogue, many are now looking to inland market towns, historic cities and major cultural destinations.

“People want to spend more of their retirement in the country, in areas of attractive scenery,” said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at University College London, who helped develop Mosaic. “And they are choosing to live a long way from London and other major population centres.”

Webber said around half of those reaching retirement age choose to carry on living in their own home, or at least in the same area. But of those with above-average wealth, around 60 per cent choose to live somewhere else. Half of these now select less traditional retirement destinations.

“A lot more older people want to retire to places of historic importance, places that have orchestras and festivals,” said Webber. “They’re looking at historic market towns and cities, places like Bath and Cheltenham, cathedral cities and university towns where there are beautiful buildings.”

The new pensioners

As a result of its extensive social mapping of the UK, Experian has identified five new types of retiree.

Beachcombers

This group reflects the growing trend for the middle-class retired to select smaller communities, many on the coast or a river, rather than larger resorts. Popular destinations: Barnstaple, Newport (Isle of Wight), Carmarthen, Inverness, Kendal, Newton Abbot.

Balcony downsizers

Higher-status retired people in their 70s and 80s, who live in privately owned or leasehold apartments in purpose-built blocks of flats suitable for those too fragile to cope with the upkeep of houses and gardens. Popular destinations: Worthing, Boscombe, Edinburgh, Southend-on-Sea, Barnet, Kingston upon Thames.

Golden retirement

People with accumulated assets, who pick prestigious retirement communities. They lead busy social lives, drive and garden. Popular destinations: Exeter, Southampton, Poole, Chichester, Norwich, Canterbury and Ipswich.

Bungalow quietude

Retirees with modest pensions, living in older-style bungalows, often in less well-off areas unattractive to younger families. Popular destinations: Blackpool, Rhyl, Scarborough, Plymouth, Nottingham, Peterborough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Lincoln, Leicester.

Country-loving elders

People on comfortable incomes living in former farms or older-style properties in quiet villages and market towns. Popular destinations: Truro, King’s Lynn, Hereford, Carlisle, Shrewsbury.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


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Forget the ferry

July 25th, 2009 | No Comments

There’s something special about escaping to an island – even if you don’t need a boat to get there. Annabelle Thorpe picks a dozen British gems that you can reach by car or on foot – perfect for a day trip or a summer weekend away

1 Burgh Island, Devon

Despite its isolation, this island is all about glamour – 1930s glamour, to be precise, evoked by the art-deco hotel of the same name. Cars can’t reach the island at all but you can walk there at low tide or hitch a lift by sea tractor at other times. The island lies 250m off the south coast of Devon, close to the seaside town of Bigbury. There is an extensive network of footpaths across the island and a pub, the Pilchard Inn, as well as the hotel, which is most famous for its links to Agatha Christie, who used the setting for two of her books, Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None. It’s dressy and fun but very pricey, with doubles from £280.

• 01548 810514; burghisland.com

2 Isle of Sheppey, Kent

Twitchers and those in search of old-fashioned bucket-and-spade pleasures should head to the Isle of Sheppey, which combines long stretches of shingle beach with tranquil marshland. Avocets, owls and flocks of curlews and plovers are all easily spotted at the RSPB-managed Elmley Marshes, while families will enjoy Leysdown, which boasts safe shallow beaches. It’s ideal day-trip territory, but to make a weekend of it, the best bet is the Abbey Hotel (01795 872873; abbey-hotel.net), just outside Sheerness.

• tourism.swale.gov.uk

3 Hilbre Island, Cheshire

Take a picnic and a flask of coffee and settle in for a day of serious birdwatching on Hilbre Island, a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the middle of the Dee estuary. It’s worth the mile-long trek at low tide to see the grey seals, curlews and oystercatchers that call the island home. Hilbre is renowned as one of the best places in the country to see storm petrels, and in late summer the rocky landscape teems with terns, who come to the island to breed. There are no facilities on the island, although the Hilbre Telegraph Lookout Station has been renovated, and is open on selected dates.

deeestuary.co.uk/hilbre

4 Walney Island, Cumbria

Most islands have something of an old-fashioned atmosphere, and Walney feels as if it hasn’t changed in decades. Linked to Cumbria by a road bridge, it lies just half a mile from the town of Barrow-in-Furness and is home to two nature reserves, with more than 250 types of bird and 400 species of moth and butterfly. There are good coastal walking routes, and some of the best spots in the UK for kite-surfing. The best place to stay on the island is the Browhead Hotel (01229 473600; browheadhotel.co.uk), which offers comfortable, family-run accommodation.

walney-island.com

5 Anglesey

It’s worth the drive to get to Anglesey; latticed with cycling paths and walking routes, edged with gorgeous sandy beaches and home to several renowned gastropubs and boutique hotels, it’s ideal for a romantic weekend away. The picturesque town of Beaumaris makes a great base, and is home to a dramatic medieval castle and Victorian pier, as well as one of the island’s most famous pubs, Ye Old Bulls Head Inn (01248 810329; bullsheadinn.co.uk). Alternatively, hole up at the rurally located Neuadd Lwyd (01248 715005; neuaddlwyd.co.uk), a luxurious country house B&B that also offers fantastic suppers, and has breathtaking views across to the mountains of Snowdonia.

visitanglesey.co.uk

6 Nags Head Island, Abingdon, Oxforshire

Ideal for a waterside pint, this island in the Thames consists of a pub (named after the island and dating back to the 19th century), plus a few ship’s chandlers and boat hire firms. It is linked to the mainland by two bridges and accessible by car – there is a large car park at the pub and plenty of picnic space on the island. Daily boat trips run to and from Oxford.

• Nags Head pub: 01235 536645

7 Isle of Skye

Towering peaks, lush valleys, long white beaches; Skye is all about natural drama – although the hearty outdoorsy vibe is mixed with a clutch of reassuringly indulgent restaurants and luxury hotels. There are challenging walking and cycling routes that traverse the peaks, while the bustling town of Portree makes a relaxing base, with galleries and boutiques to explore. Stop for a legendary haggis toastie at The Stein Inn at Waternish (01470 592 362; stein-inn.co.uk), and book into the Ullinish Country Lodge (01470 572214; theisleofskye.co.uk) in Struan, which serves spectacular seafood and has opulent bedrooms to match.

skye.co.uk

8 Canvey Island, Essex

Lying in the Thames Estuary and reached by road bridge from Benflett, Canvey Island has faded a little since its glory days in the early 20th century, when it became the fastest-growing seaside resort in the UK, but it still has a kitschly fun feel. Head to the Labworth Cafe (01268 683209) on the seafront, a 1930s design classic by Ove Arup revamped as a bistro, or head to West Canvey for birdwatching and a stroll across what is set to become a new RSPB nature reserve, after the charity purchased the land in 2006.

canveyisland.org

9 Holy Island, Northumberland

Steeped in myth and legend, Lindisfarne attracts an odd mix of new-agers and twitchers drawn, respectively, by the eighth-century monastery and ruined priory, and the tranquil nature reserve that is home to spectacular colonies of wintering birds. The island is famous for the Lindisfarne gospels – an illuminated manuscript dating back to the eighth century, now in the British Library – but the beaches are an equally big draw; long stretches of wild, unspoilt shoreline backed by dunes that are often surprisingly quiet. You can drive to the island, but only at low tide. Try the Crown and Anchor (01289 389215; holyislandcrown.co.uk), a welcoming pub with rooms.

lindisfarne.org.uk

10 Foulness Island, Essex

You’ve got to really want to get to Foulness, located along the Essex coast a few miles east of Southend-on-Sea. Home to just 200 residents, it is owned by the Ministry of Defence, and there are only two ways for the public to gain access to the island. The Heritage Centre opens from noon-4pm every Sunday between April and October, when the public have free access. At other times it’s necessary to call and make a reservation to eat at the George & Dragon pub on the island (01702 219460), which will take down your details, to be checked later by an MoD official at the checkpoint. It’s a desolate kind of place, with long stretches of empty beach and marshland, though rich in wildlife.

visitessex.com

Mersea Island, Essex

There’s an increasing “scene” on Mersea, reached by road bridge; the clean, sandy beaches have long been a draw for windsurfers and kite-boarders, but the growing number of good restaurants on the island, plus a clutch of diverse accommodation options mean it’s become a great place for an eccentric weekend away. There are ancient Roman sites to explore, a beautiful country park and as much seafood as you can eat: try the Mersea Oyster Bar (01206 381600) or the Company Shed (01206 382700), both of which offer fresh fish and oysters brought in by the local fleet each day. Follow it with a tasting at the Mersea Island Vineyard (01206 385900; merseawine.com), which offers beers from its microbrewery as well as wines to sample, and also has simple but comfortable B&B rooms.

mersea-island.com

12 Hayling Island, Hampshire

There are those on Hayling who claim that windsurfing was invented on the island, and it’s a great choice for a weekend break with teenagers; sailing, windsurfing and kite surfing are all on offer at the well-equipped watersports centre, and there’s an impressive skate park right on the seafront. Younger children are well catered for too, with an all-year funfair and a narrow gauge railway, and adults will appreciate the well-marked network of footpaths and cycleways as well as the long stretches of shingle beach. You can drive onto the island via a bridge, which can become congested in summer; stay at the Cockle Warren Cottage Hotel (02392 464961; cocklewarren.co.uk) for cosy rooms and lots of local knowledge.

hayling.co.uk

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Divina Infusino: The UK National Theatre’s Phèdre could Change the Reach of Theater–or Not

July 23rd, 2009 | No Comments

In an era when entertainment and arts can be a few clicks away via a computer or hand-held device, theater remains a local event. You…

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Queen Watches For First Time As Boatman Count Her Swans

July 20th, 2009 | No Comments

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II took to the River Thames in a steam launch Monday to watch red-suited boatmen carefully count all her swans

A Buckingham Palace official said it was the first time the 83-year-old queen, who has reigned for 5…

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James Purnell on life after cabinet

July 17th, 2009 | No Comments

In his first interview since resignation, ex-minister on New Labour’s failings – and the challenge ahead

On Thursday morning in a cafe by the Thames near Tower Bridge, James Purnell can see wild flowers with big purple heads, fronds of water reeds and roller-skating children on school holiday – a Kodak moment that encapsulates why he’ll probably never stand to be leader of the Labour party.

This is his “walk in the park” test. Can the leader of a political party go for a walk in the park, or a bike ride on Sunday, and not be trailed by special branch? Purnell’s observations of his political mentor, Tony Blair, led him to conclude no.

“I don’t miss TV interviews,” Purnell says of his previous life, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t miss doing the Today programme, with great respect. Not having a weekend, I don’t miss. I love having a weekend. I love not having a red box hanging over me.”

Five weeks out of frontline politics appear to have done him good. His sideburns seem in rude health. He has a tan and is lightly freckled, and he has traded his ministerial suit for a pair of fashionable indigo jeans.

Speaking for the first time about his reasons for quitting Gordon Brown’s government, Purnell says the person who gave him the best guidance when he decided to resign was an unnamed friend who told him to honest about what he thought. So he was, brutally, telling the prime minister to stand down in his letter to Downing Street.

“They said to me, ‘You can’t go very far wrong with the truth.’”

The former work and pensions secretary had been struggling with the truth since as long ago as December 2008. “Over the last six months I had been thinking: has the elastic stretched beyond where I feel I was being true to myself? I remember doing an interview with Andrew Rawnsley and having to find things to say that were just about true enough and that the letter of what I was saying was true enough. I thought: ‘This is too much – too much of a stress.’ That’s less about politics and more about what I said in my letter [about Brown]. There were policy things. But I’m not going to go there.”

The discomfort turned to decision as late as 11.30am on the Thursday voters were going to the polls. Only the day before, those running Labour’s reshuffle had rung Purnell to ask whether he would like the health or education brief. He opted for education.

But the next day, he says, the 10pm deadline – ministers were under orders to keep quiet until the polls in the European and local elections had closed – concentrated his mind.

Uncomfortable

At 11.30am on a park bench on a former council estate in his constituency he decided to go; at 2.30pm he ducked into his constituency office and wrote the letter in five minutes; at 5pm he told three national newspapers; and at 9.50pm he spoke to Peter Mandelson (“we had a disagreement”).

The other man he spoke to was the foreign secretary, David Miliband, which provoked another disagreement, though one based on a previous shared understanding.

“I think I put him in quite a difficult position by what I did,” Purnell says, leaning away from the Dictaphone and uncomfortable. Why? “Why? Because I raised a question for him which he answered in a different way. People asked why, given I resigned, he didn’t resign.”

Purnell says he and Miliband are extremely close, and that the foreign secretary has been “extraordinarily thoughtful towards me since my resignation. I’ve been amazingly impressed by his thoughtfulness and dedication to maintaining that relationship and he’s done it in a way that is clearly not scarred by the fact of what I did.”

In his time on the backbenches Purnell has set about arranging his thoughts, both literally and metaphorically – it took one weekend to arrange the books in his flat from A to Z (A Class Act, by his former cabinet colleague Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, to Emile Zola).

British government, he says, can be a bit of a “conspiracy against ideas” and he describes his opposite number in New Zealand telling him that her government is run as a kind of “beehive”, with ministers working in the same place and a Thursday evening drink when cabinet members compare notes.

So, as Tony Benn gave up politics to spend more time on politics, Purnell is giving up government to spend more time on policy. In September he’ll begin a three-year project at the Demos thinktank to “reinvent New Labour” for the next generation.

Purnell will not be shying away from the years when the sheen came off the New Labour project (the novel he’s just started happens to be Ian McEwan’s Saturday – 24 hours on the day of the anti-war march that crystallised Blair’s fall from popularity). He says the project that started off as a “broad tent” has now become a “gazebo”.

He says New Labour became “too small-c conservative” on schools policy and didn’t make the case for immigration. It was terrified of swing voters, but should put electoral reform to a referendum at the next election.

“We took the electoral furniture to be too fixed. We didn’t think about creating a new coalition and I think that’s what we need to do now. To be honest I think we were too conservative about our means, so it was easier to take on arguments on the left, not the right. So what I want to try and do now is be as radical on the left as on the right.

“I think we need to go back and clarify values which underlie new Labour and be very candid about what worked and didn’t work.

“If Tony was coming into politics now he would be saying we need to develop a new set of policies for what is relevant for today, not for 1994.”

He admits to nostalgia for that period but it’s a nostalgia like that for Britpop.

The Open Left team at Demos will solicit help from across the left. “We’re going to go through Labour values, match them to what we’ve done and then identify challenges and then organise a team around those challenges.”

Purnell’s critics call him a Tory, some a Blairite, others a Liberal and he agrees he is pretty liberal on social policy (he has been heard to joke that had Brown tried to make him home secretary he’d have told the prime minister he planned to let immigrants in and prisoners out).

But his resignation letter talked about the need for “stronger regulation and an active state”. He agrees the real prize for the next generation of Labour politicians is to weld together liberalism and social democracy.

The white rubber wristband he wears he says he will keep wearing until the UK hits its target to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid.

“Individuals,” Purnell thinks, “collapse under the weight of their autonomy. It is important, but people don’t want to feel alone – they want to feel protected and they also have a concept of a good society based on compassion for others.”

He suggests that the writings of others at Demos, including his friends Richard Reeves and Phil Collins – which draw heavily on Amartya Sen’s recent writing on capabilities – go some way towards explaining that. But he adds: “I think they leave out the compassion we have towards strangers which is at the root of being an egalitarian.”

Of those alphabetised books, Purnell’s favourite is one called Market Socialism. “It’s not a phrase that is ever going to inspire a political movement but it does capture a lot of what I believe – that markets are a good means to spread power and create innovation but they can be yoked to leftwing goals and not to capitalism. There is a difference between capitalism and markets.

“People on the right are very sceptical about the state but people on the left believe the state is a good thing.”

Advice for Brown in advance of an election? To pledge universal childcare and a guaranteed job for every person out of work after one year.

But his ideas probably won’t be deployed by himself as a leader of the party. “The way I feel at the moment is it’s pretty unlikely I’ll want to go back into frontline politics,” he says.

“I never want to leave politics. I love politics, I love ideas and I was pretty excited by the Department for Work and Pensions but actually I get exactly the same kick, in some ways in a freer way, from the stuff I am doing at Demos.”

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Kate Moss to hit Britain’’s waterways for “mother of all booze cruises”

July 17th, 2009 | No Comments

Kate Moss is reportedly set to embark on a booze cruise in Britian’s waterways.
The model is supposed to attend her friend Jess Hallett’’s wedding in Italy next month on a cruise.
And the beauty, who is also the maid of honour, has made her mind to captain the barge on the Thames for her best pal’’s [...]

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Racking up the just-auto mileage

June 26th, 2009 | No Comments

We have just passed something of a milestone here. I hope it doesn’t sound too introspective, but our online database of news and feature articles, all sequentially numbered, has just ticked over the 100,000 mark.


That’s a pretty big archive of material and hitting a milestone like that has caused us to stand back and pause for a moment’s reflection.


Phew, 100,000 articles on just-auto. That’s a big number. If you printed all those articles out and laid them end to end, they would stretch all the way to the moon.


Okay, I obviously made that up, but let’s get the old calculator out…


Let’s make the assumption that each one, on average, when printed out, takes up a single sheet of A4 paper. A single sheet of A4 is 297mm in length. That means, according to my calculator, those 100,000 sheets would stretch to 29,700 metres which is 29.7 kilometres (18.4 miles). Travelling east, that would get you from London to Southend for a paddle in what passes for the sea in the Thames estuary. Not quite as impressive as a paper chain that gets to the moon, I know, but that’s some distance.


Anyway, it’s a lot of articles since we began operations way back in 1999.


Myself and deputy editor Graeme Roberts have been here at our desks and out on assignment since 2000. Many of the journalist/analyst/research editorial contributors on just-auto have been with us since then also. The time has flown by and it’s been a blast from the outset. Even in these tough times – our duty is to report and analyse, but when the industry feels pain, we quietly empathise with those affected – there’s so much to keep us fascinated, so much to write about and to consider. The automotive industry is constantly buzzing and there’s never a dull moment, as they say.


We will raise a mug of tea to just-auto and all those who sail – or have sailed – in her, colleagues past and present. And of course, we don’t forget the people like you who read our publication and keep us in business.


Below is a link to just-auto article number 100,000 (you can see that milestone number in the URL).


Cheers!

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