Of the many, many brilliant speeches I’ve seen/listened to on TED, this is the one that has touched me the most. JK Rowling, I bow to your wisdom! This speech is perfect in an oratorical sense, I’m sure Cicero is nodding approvingly from the podium in the sky. It is wise, it is funny, it is profound, it is sweet and it is poignant. Although a big fan of the Harry Potter books, not only as entertainment for children but as literature in their own right, I had no idea that their author was such a warm and compassionate person.
Please take time out to listen to this speech. And please, when you’ve heard the first 5-10 minutes, don’t think you’ve heard it all, because you HAVEN’T! If she has touched the hearts of just 5-10 of the privileged young Harvard graduates she was speaking to, then a lot of good will come of it!
The first many times I heard this, I quietly wondered to myself, What do they mean? Earl Grey or Darjeeling? Slowly it dawned on me that tea (look it up, it’s a hot drink FFS) in this country often (but not always!) means the evening meal. But no, no, not as in dinner. Dinner is something grown-ups have. No, tea is for children. Something they have in the late afternoon instead of dinner. And dad is not there and mum doesn’t eat tea, erh. (Apologies to the lovely househusbands I know, but you know you’re in the minority).
There, now it’s clear isn’t it? Tea is an afternoon meal for children. This is where some of the world’s least interesting and innovative cooking takes place, molding young peoples taste buds for the future. I cannot tell you how that upsets me! I’ve been in many British homes and seen tea being cooked. What I’ve seen is pasta, mash, peas, carrots (yes, boiled), sausages, fish fingers, chips, lasagne, beans on toast and eh, what else? Rice perhaps?
I’m not saying that my darling young son eats everything I set in front of him, far from it. And he’s had plain pasta with Parmesan and butter and some cucumber slices on the side more times than I care to remember. But, he sits with us at the table, he sees and smells what I cook and he’s made to taste everything we eat, if not every time then at least once in a while.
I realise that the evening meal causes problems for some families. Dad comes home late, children need to go to bed early. But this is not the case in all families and not in weekends? And in families with bigger children, surely they can have an afternoon snack, have homework done etc., so have evening meal when dad comes home? I fear that it’s not always the time that’s the issue, but parents who give in to tradition or give up the fight to make children eat a varied and interesting diet. I mean, nobody forces mums to put a packet of crisps in a child’s lunch pack, or what?
My oldest son was as picky as the next child when he was younger, but I pushed on and pressured him to try stuff and if he didn’t eat all the stuff I cooked, he certainly saw it and smelled it. Today I can only think of a handful of foodstuffs that he doesn’t eat and he eagerly tries new stuff all the time. I know a few young persons of his age (21) in this country. Suffice to say that they are not exactly courageous when it comes to trying out different food stuffs.
Also, how does this strange habit encourage “real” family life? When do these families sit down and talk about things? Obviously, most days it’s just the usual, “What did you do in school?” “Nothing much” conversation that goes on, but without dinner time I don’t know when the three of us could discuss important political issues and moral dilemmas? It’s fine that children talk with dad in the car on the way to football and with mum in the car to school, but it’s important for children to experience the dialogue between mum and dad. Also when it’s not rosy. This way they can also experience that one day there’s disagreement, but the next day mum and dad are in unison on something very important!
OK people, rant over. Voice your disagreement, but please argue your case. I’ll sit down with a cup of tea now, you know, the fluid hot stuff off of tea leaves?
My blogging has been almost non-existent lately. And I can’t really tell you why! I so want to blog more and last week the lovely Angela (@angpang on Twitter) pinged me with an unusual meme. Do click her post, her picture is one of the most poignant pictures of the twentieth century. Yes. It is.
I must choose a photograph that means something special to me - could be by me, of me or by somebody else of something else. I have lots of my own photographs that I’m very happy with, proud of and that hold cherished memories. But I’ve chosen a third party photograph because I really, really thought the world would change for the better when I saw it on the front page of my newspaper. I cut the picture out and hung it on my notice board. My colleagues thought I was bonkers (guess they thought that even before the “picture incident”, but it confirmed their suspicions).
Picture borrowed from San Diego Uni.
It was September 13th 1993 and I was so joyous at seeing this picture that I almost cried. I truly believed that world peace was within reach and that this was the first step. It’s a miracle that I’m not an ice-cold cynic today, all things considered!
If all these events are a bit blurry to you, here’s a blog dedicated to President Clinton’s efforts for peace in the Middle East.
Actually, the meme is called My Favourite Photograph and of course, this is not my favourite photograph. I have twisted the concept a bit, I know. If the poor bloggers, who I’ll now tag with this meme, want to take it back to it’s original meaning, they are absolutely free. Also, as Angela rightly writes, they shouldn’t feel obligated to respond. Only if it inspires them like it did me. Thank you Angela - also for your support in more mundane matters…
Mr. London Street is a relatively new acquaintance of mine, a rather more successful blogger than yours truly. I dare him with this meme because he never/rarely uses pictures on his blog. Will he make an exception?
And while I have my daring hat on, I’ll tag another very successful blogger, Motherhood The Final Frontier. A British pop singer in California, who can write about very trivial things so you writhe with laughter.
Tagging Eyglo isn’t very nice of me, as she’s the newest mother I know. So Eyglo, if you’re not up to this you’re absolutely forgiven. The reason I tag her is that she’s a brilliant photographer - just check her photos if in doubt.
I tag Lulu’s Lala Life because Lulu needs encouragement. Poor thing is bored to death in her new job. So L, please share a favourite photo with us!
Lisa is Danish/Greenlandish and only very recently I met her in the flesh. That was after having known her for about five years, where we’ve been following each others’ online presences… it was a REAL pleasure to meet her and I’m confident that it wasn’t the last time. Lisa is a keen photographer, see her masterly pictures here.
I know it’s always “tag ten bloggers” og “tag five”, but I’ve chosen to just tag the ones I felt like tagging today. If you feel left out, I’m sorry. Really.
From http://www.artknowledgenews.com
And on an entirely unrelated note, can I please plug two items I’ve come across on Twitter today. They are COMPLETELY unrelated, but both touched me profoundly.
This is a little video showing my favourite living artist David Hockney’s drawings on his Iphone. Fantastic! And this is a little article in Huffington Post by a dad who also happens to be one of those admirable lawyers who work for death row inmates in the US. Such a moving piece. Write him a comment to show your support.
With this image all is said about what was talked about in Great Britain in the first week of 2010. The Weather. Dane’s school closed, David working from home several days as South West train service severely disrupted and parking lot at work more than treacherous.
Constantly, you have to listen to people rant about useless councils and government because all roads aren’t cleared within the first couple of hours of snow, not for a moment considering their own reaction if billions of pounds were spent on snowploughs and grit which would then be sitting idle in council parking lots 99% of the time. In the UK it isn’t really an argument that things work like a clockwork in snowy conditions in places where they have snow 6 months of the year. They have the tools in place and it makes financial sense to have them there. For any household, big or small, pros and cons must be weighed before investments are made. Living in Denmark it made sense for us to own a snow shovel (wide, light, made of birch wood), skis, several toboggans and sleighs and - not least - winter tires for the car. Over here it doesn’t really, at least not on our budget.
Personally, I don’t mind the snow so much, but I do mind the cold. I’m freezing ALL the time, draught swooshing in through windows and under doors in our listed building. It drives me nuts, lowers my productivity and dampens my mood. I long long long for spring and summer!
* Sainsbury’s have finally gotten back to me on this issue. Scroll down to bottom to read end of story.*
No, actually, what it was was a can of Sainsbury’s organic chopped tomatoes. But there was a worm in it. Or so I thought at first. It turned out to be less, eh, organic, namely a shoelace. I was making plain tomato sauce for vegetarian lasagne and so had only a bit of olive oil and minced garlic in the pan before pouring in the tomatoes. Which is why I know with absolute certainty that that’s where it came from. Besides, we’re not much of a shoelace family. Husband prefers loafers & son prefers velcro. As for me, eh, flip flops & slippers?
The next morning, Nov. 17th., I wrote this to Sainsbury’s:
Subject: foreign object in Sainsbury’s So Organic chopped tomatoes User’s Comments: Last night when making sauce for lasagne I used two cans of your otherwise nice So Organic chopped tomatoes. When stirring contents “black snake” appeared. Since there was only garlic in the pan prior to adding the cans of tomatoes, there really was no other source of this. A LENGTH OF SHOELACE.
Thank you for your email regarding the shoelace that you found in the JS SO chopped tomatoes. I’m sorry that you had the displeasure of finding such an item in your product.
Can I ask you to send this by recorded delivery to our Product Quality department where they will investigate the cause of the shoelace appearing in the tomatoes. The address is as follows:
Product Quality department
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd
33 Holborn
London
EC1N 2HT
Kind regards
Andrew Baillie
Customer Manager
On Monday 23rd I did as requested. Have receipt right here next to me. Enclosed my business card with all details - including Twitter ID - and the query number I’d been issued with. Recorded delivery ensures delivery on the next day before 1 pm. So can assume Sainsbury has received it? But of course, have not heard one word from them since then.
Or, I have. Because I have of course tweeted about it. Both when I just found it with the above picture as Twitpic and later when I still didn’t hear anything. Other tweeters suggested I tweeted directly to @sainsburys, who clearly doesn’t follow their own brand name on Twitter. How amateurish is that???
So I tweeted directly to @sainsburys who then asked for my phone number in DM. They then had this hapless, clueless girl from customer services call me. Without checking my Twitter stream first and certainly without checking whether they had received my complaint and the can & content. As my husband would probably say: W*nkers! I felt so sorry for that girl who called to tell me to do what I’d already done, namely send in the can & lace via registered mail. She wasn’t authorised to do anything else.
Here’s one week worth of Tweeting about shoelace in Sainsburys’ tomatoes. I do realise that you can’t actually read this, so try here (this link is to live search of Twitter for labeet + sainsburys). Sainsburys have access to this same tool, don’t they?
I know that Sainsburys is a huge, huge business and that I’m only one tiny little person (relatively speaking). But I also know that customer services are becoming more and more important as “the little man’s” access to a wider audience becomes easier. Scanning 5-6 hours worth of tweets including the word Sainsburys takes about 5 minutes (I know, I just did it). Most tweets that aren’t just mentioning Sainsburys because they’re either going shopping or orienting themselves via the local Sainsburys are positive or musing over the fact that they are now being followed by @sainsburys. Maybe they should explain to people why they start following them? One tweeter amusingly writes: The whole of Sainsburys is fllowing me? That’s a bit scary if you stop too quickly!
Quite a few of the tweets are recommendations of current in-store offers to others. @sainsburys could really profit from this if they tweeted back with related offers. What they seem to be doing is tweeting recipes and saying thank you to people for following them back. When queried directly, they assured me and @angpang and @EmmaJaneR that they were “listening”, but the above is all that happened? And since that tweet yesterday afternoon, @Sainsburys has sent out 5 tweets altogether, the last one 16 hours ago.
I am clueless as to why a company that large with that amount of resources chooses to do anything as half-hearted as that. I understand that for many smaller businesses it’s impossible to have one single person responsible for these things, but as I’ve just shown, scanning half a day of tweets takes 5 minutes!
I now have to go out, so won’t be here to take delivery of the huge hamper of guaranteed shoelace free cans of tomatoes and other goodies that MUST be on its way from Sainsburys. I hope the neighbours will.
Ah well, just kidding. I’ll keep you posted and will tweet link to this post with annoyingly regular intervals in the meantime. And, Sainsburys, I promise you that I’ll just as eagerly tweet and post when you turn around and “do the right thing”. Until then: @Sainsburys #fail.
Added 5/12:
On December 1st I wrote to Sainsbury’s again, asking if they had actually received the can and if they were going to do anything about it, ever?
And finally, yesterday evening, a woman with a peculiar accent (def. North, but where exactly, she had the funniest expressions and prolonged nouns?) called. She talked non-stop about what they were doing with their suppliers, quality control, etc., etc., and in the end finished her speech by offering me £50 compensation. I accepted. Maybe I should’ve taken the matter further, but £50 seems to be OK, all things considered. And I’m really, really bad at squabbling. Heated discussions make me nervous and get ridiculously high levels of adrenalin flowing - think it’s a leftover from childhood…
My instinct would be to brush off women who spend a lot of time and money on their looks as shallow. But through my life I’ve met some fantastic, inspiring, intelligent women who spend a great deal of time and money on appearances. So, once again, I’ve had to re-evaluate my own viewpoint.
Shoes from Shoesatlast.com
First, I have to be honest to myself about my own choices. I covet the shoes in this picture, but I know I’ll never buy them. They’re too expensive, the heels are too high for comfort (not least for my husband, who doesn’t like me to tower over him) and I don’t go out much, so how can I justify the purchase of such luxury?
Also, I think the older I get the more I become a slave to comfort… I really don’t like walking around with blisters on my feet, so much make-up that I can’t scratch my nose or a dress that makes me permanently self-conscious.
I own a few luxury items, purchased at a time when we were more affluent than we are now. And I admit that they are a source of constant and long-lasting joy. Whereas some of the stuff I’ve bought in desperation at M&S or H&M never give me that satisfaction.
I buy and use very little make-up but what I buy is good quality. Clinique and Dr. Hauschka are my favourite products. I refuse to put on make-up to sit at my desk and work at home and for the school run or a trip to the supermarket. However, I’ll always put on make-up for coffee with a friend or when attending events at son’s school, etc. And I do enjoy adding a few extra layers for special events like tomorrows party. I also love perfumes and wear one every day, solely for my own enjoyment. My current favourite is Paul Smith Woman.
When it comes to jewellery I’m a through and through bespoke girl. I own practically no custom jewellery and it has very little attraction to me. I used to own a ring by this jeweller - so, so fabulous (and left to me by my mother), but I left it by the sink in a restaurant toilet and it was gone when I realised! Now I own a pair of earrings by her - I wear them almost all the time and treasure that they are quite “discreet” but still very special.
My husband has always bought me bespoke and special jewellery. This ring was the first one he bought me - before we were even married. I rather adore him for that! I can recommend checking the museum shops at modern art museums - have found very special and unique jewellery there at tolerable prices because they often choose to promote young up-and-coming jewellers. The ring is from such a shop (in Denmark).
Funny thing is, however, that although I’m so NOT a fashion animal or sharp dresser myself, I have a great interest in others who are. I love to sit in a cafe, at Waterloo station or on the tube and watch people, how they’ve chosen their outfits, if things match or don’t match, whether this is a matter of negligence, carelessness or colour blindness. Or the interesting ones who’ve chosen not to match. I remember a black woman on the tube. She was about my own age, maybe even older. She was clearly not particularly well off, but I’m still picturing her hair and her outfit and so, so regretting that I couldn’t take her picture. So much effortless style!
When I see pictures of celebrities (women, mostly) I almost always think that they are trying too hard and that all too few of them have an eye for style. Which is very regrettable once you have the money to buy it! Vanity Fair recently had a picture series with Jackie Kennedy. Although I deeply admire the current first lady in the US,
picture from blog.engelhardtandersen.com
and think she has considerable style, I can’t think of anyone with a style and grace quite like Jackie! But close contenders were Grace Kelly and Princess Diana in her later years. Also, the very much alive ex-wife of Danish Prince Joakim, Countess Alexandra.
I follow so many blogs and always lag behind in reading them all, so in spite of my interest in style (rather than fashion) I’m not following any style blogs other than this one, which I’ve plugged before. In this post she gives advice on what to wear when you’re in your 40s. If I could, I’d follow her advice. But that would require a rather substantial weight loss and that I get my career (ha!) going again, so I can make some money and have somewhere to go to show it all off. But oh, how I want that purple Mulberry bag!
I now realise that almost everything on this page is purple. One would think it’s my favourite colour. It isn’t. My favourite colour is bright green, but 90% of my clothes are brown, grey, black or beige. Go figure.
In the car today, my youngest son (8) demanded an explanation of the word “depression”. Not sure where he’d picked it up - maybe he was flicking through a magazine at the hairdressers earlier? I tried to explain it to him as best I could and while I was at it, explained to him that his grandmother’s forgetfulness and repetitiveness through Alzheimer’s also has its root in the brain where so many things happen that we don’t yet fully understand. Of course, the connection between something tangible, our brains, and something intangible, our emotions, is very difficult for a child to grasp. But I think it’s important that we try!
Luckily, Alzheimer is now much better recognised in society than it was even a few years ago and people are beginning to grapple with the idea that, beside obesity and all the other consequences of a poor diet, Alzheimer is one of the biggest problems facing our health services today. My lovely Twitter friend Andrea Gillies is doing a great job at spreading this knowledge. She has two articles in the broadsheets today, one about caring for an Alzheimer patient at home (the Times) and one about the (lack of) care of Alzheimer patients when they are admitted into hospital wards (The Guardian). She knows what she’s talking about, having herself cared for her mother-in-law for three years. She’s written a fantastic but heart-wrenching book about that experience. I cried many times while reading it and I’m in complete awe of Andrea who stomached this without completely losing her mind.
I can only recommend it if you’re close to someone with Alzheimer or to someone who is caring for one. Also if you aren’t actually, because this is something we should all know more about!
At the opposite end of the spectre, so to speak, is happiness. As some readers will know, it’s a pet subject of mine. At the moment I’m reading a book called Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches positive psychology at Harvard.
The theory is that we - on average - are in control of 40% of our happiness, if you can put it that way. An average person, living above the poverty limit and in a non-oppressive society, has 40% power over his or her own happiness. Of course, if we’ve just lost a child or been diagnosed with cancer, the 40% shrink rapidly, but I’m sure you get my drift. So when we’re trotting along in our normal, relatively uneventful lives, we have considerable power to heighten our general feeling of happiness. Tal Ben-Shahar tries to give us the tools to do this. For instance, he has a lot of documentation for the fact that once we’ve reached the basic levels of Maslow hierarchy of needs, we all have the same chance of finding happiness. Money has very little to do with it.
I take great comfort in this (not just the money bit…) and try to internalise some of the principles that studies have shown work. For instance, he suggests that we do the “infinitely regressive why” exercise whenever we want something more than a bacon sarnie or a cup of tea. It’s done like this: Why do I want a bigger house? Because so-and-so. Why so-and-so? Because so-and-so. Until the answer is: Because it’ll make me happier. The more “becauses” there are between the original question and the happiness answer, the less meaningful it is for your overall happiness to acquire said object.
If you question that happiness is our ultimate goal in life, then read this quote from Hume:
“The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled.”
The fabulous @goonerjamie, aka the HouseHusband, has given me this award. I guess I should be honoured? All right then, I’m honoured.
The worst bit about these awards is that you have to pass them on. It’s not that I don’t know lots of fantastic blogs, it’s just that I fear they’ve all been awarded this before? I always tend to be a bit late for all the fun parties. And as if that wasn’t the only rule, here’s the rest:
a. ‘The Honest Scrap Blogger Award’ must be shared.
b. The recipient has to tell 10 (true) things about themselves that no one else knows.
3. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.
d. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them.
OK, so to keep the suspension going about my guilty secrets, here are my nominees for the award:
1. Gabs - my good old friend. Blogs about politics, music & books.
2. Lisa - one of my oldest virtual friends. This one is in Danish. She observes the everyday through poetic photography.
3. Capac - another old Danish virtual friend. His knowledge about music is quite impressive!
4. Sinda - Teetering between Tired and Really Really Tired. Sinda is not from around here.
5. Lucy Fishwife - A very bookish blogger. How can she read that much?
6. Ideary - Icelandic Eyglo who lives as expat in Sweden blogs beautifully. Note the marvellous pictures.
7. The Spice Spoon - young Pakistani in the US writes about food. Ooohhh, it’s so yummy!
8. Forhistorier - this one is also in Danish, I’m sorry, but it’s a lovely blog and deserves recognition. Written by Danish historian & journalist. For the non-Danish readers, there are very good photographs.
9. La Vie en Gris - Irish lady in Belgium. She should write more, which is why she gets this award!
10. Titianred - Really should know better. This woman has a razor sharp sense of humour and a keen eye.
To all of you - if you’ve already received this award and I just haven’t noticed: I’m sorry. Consider it an honour. If you have the time and inclination, please copy the rules and pass it on. And don’t forget to let me know when you do, so I can enjoy reading your secrets.
Guilty secrets no-one else knows? I’m always spilling the beans, so it’ll have to be secrets that only a few people (=all of Twitter…) know. Or knew, until now!
I love everything with ginger. I’ll eat ginger in syrup directly out of the jar. And I searched high and low for years for the “perfect” recipe for ginger biscuits. And I found it!
I well up all the time. For no apparent reason (sometimes). A book, a film, a news paper story, a friend who cries. And I think I’m allergic to my own tears. Even after just a few tears over a news story I have swollen, itchy eyes all day.
I love to listen to podcasts and sometimes wish I had a long commute as an excuse so could hear Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Digital Planet, Harddisken (Danish), Melvin Bragg’s In Our Time, TED Talks, Woman’s Hour, etc. etc.
Shoes are my Achilles heel, so to speak. My feet always bl**dy hurt, no matter how sensible my shoes. You can’t imagine how annoying that is for a person who likes to walk!
I have this stupid as yet undiagnosed auto immune illness, which I’ve had since I was 27. The first flares were horrible and sent me to hospital. The latest flares have been milder, but more frequent. What I really hate is when I, after another flare and another round of blood tests, am told by a chirpy nurse that “All your blood counts are normal, so you’re fine!“. Oh, thank you. So glad to know that. So why do I have a penetrating pain behind my eyes/or/inflammation of the eye/or/a painful & swollen foot and what am I supposed to do with it? And then get the slightly less chirpy reply: “Well, if it still hasn’t passed next week, you’d better call back and speak to the doctor“. All right then. Here’s for the real no. 5: This is why I’m always so reluctant to call the doctor about my ailments…
I am so, so, SO proud of my sons. That’s no secret, you’re saying? Well, so be it. I wanted it to be written down somewhere. I think they’re both marvellous in their different ways and my heart swells when I think of them.
I’m like every other would-be creative/writer/whatever. I have a Moleskine notebook, I love it and if you give me another one I’ll love you for it.
My secret wish in the category of “if my life had been different” is this: I always wish I’d been born into a family of intellectuals where Proust was discussed at dinner and Emily Dickinson quoted at festive occasions. I’ve been trying to catch up on these things most of my life, but realise that I never will!
I’m working on a Wikipedia article (no, it’s not about myself) but am finding it difficult. I find that it’s not quite as easy as it’s made up to be.
I’m a very bad liar, so I don’t lie much. So don’t ask me a question if you don’t really want to know the answer.
There. I’ve done it. I’m sure you now know things about me you didn’t really wanted to or needed to know. But it’s your own fault - nobody made you read all the way down to here.
used to be my life. I guess it’s more words now. But I’m still a “music person” at heart. Some people find that I have “posh” musical taste, but when music is your job, your life, I think you hear it differently. Actually, I find my taste to be very eclectic - I like music in almost all genres, maybe with the exceptions of musicals, some types of jazz and R&B. I also truly dislike the kind of pop music featured on shows like X-Factor. They all look and sound exactly the same.
Here’s a run-down of my musical background for those of my readers who haven’t known me that long (that would be 30 years+, ha): I started with the recorder and piano like all other nice little middle class girls and then went on to the more sociable instrument, the violin. As soon as I was good enough I started playing in a local youth orchestra and relatively shortly progressed to the Danish Radio’s Youth Orchestra. I loved playing in an orchestra and we toured and played concerts and generally had a fantastic time. It is still so that, when I hear specific orchestral works, like e.g. Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides, I swoon and am again 15… I switched to the viola at some point, because I so enjoyed being a team player. Was of course contemplating a professional career, but was not quite talented enough and, what’s probably more important, too lazy. Also, already then, standing up was hard on my back and when practising the violin/viola, you stand up!
Took a college degree in music and got to know people who were into pop music. You’ll have to picture me at 18 not knowing the difference between Sweet and Slade… At this point in time I owned a nice, if small, collection of classical LPs and two 7″ singles, Me & Bobby McGee and Hey Joe. My new friends liked King Crimson, Brian Eno, Genesis, etc. and I was slowly introduced to this new world. At this point in time I also met a girl who had the biggest record collection in living memory and she gradually introduced me to all the music I’d missed and to practically every new album that was released, because she spent every penny on music.
The first real turning point in my musical life came when my friend from college came and said, “Hey, you gotta come see this guy at work, he’s out of this world”. His work was in a music shop and “this guy” was a shy youngster with the most awful Sweet-hairdo and a guitar glued to his hands. My friend and I were equally stunned - I think it was the first time any of us experienced such raw, unpolished talent. The youngster was Hilmer Hassig, who, I’m so sorry to say, is no longer with us. I wrote him a eulogy.
The two of them formed a band and quickly I was drawn in by the whole thing and joined the independent record company Irmgardz…, that eventually published their debut album. Band’s name was Scatterbrain. They sang in English and their music was a kind of synth-pop and it was A FIRST in Denmark.
Irmgardz… and later Garden Records became my life up until we went belly-up in 1992. They were fantastic years and we produced some pretty good albums, if I may say so myself. We also arranged concerts, so have heard and met quite a few of the Indie icons of the era. Some were a lot of fun and great musical experiences, but a lot are best forgotten.
I have a weakness for lists and some years ago I made a Top Three of the best concerts in my life. I thought a lot about it and the result is a bit surprising - it was surprising to myself at the time. But looking back now, I’m quite sure they were really the best! I even paid good Danish money for one of them - something I otherwise never did back then.
1. Violent Femmes (this would have been in the mid-eighties) at Montmartre - a legendary Danish jazz club, which doesn’t exist any more. It was a band I really liked (from Milwaukee of all places), I had their albums and listened to them often. Seeing them live was absolutely fabulous. Sometimes during the concert you could hear a penny drop on a carpeted floor. I’ve just finished The Timetravelers Wife where one of the key moments in the book is a concert with Violent Femmes in Chicago. I knew exactly what it was like, could hum every tune…
2. Tom Waits in the Falkoner Centre on his Rain Dogs tour (1985). It was a sit-down concert, something very unusual at the time. Waits traipsed around between his little settings and played a very low-key, but super intense set. Fantastic!!! I still like Tom Waits a lot and throw money at every new album on Itunes.
3. U2 at Roskilde Festival (1982) following the release of their second album October. I was in complete awe of Bono, who did things with the audience that were very unusual at the time and who had a really remarkable voice, but similarly of The Edge, who really did something different with that guitar and had such a distinct tone!
I’ve had a look through my Itunes and here’s a completely random and nowhere near exhaustive list of albums that have made a lasting impression on me. I don’t always know why, but just know that something about that album changed me a little bit.
Anouar Brahem: Le Pas du Chat Noir (latest addition, thanks to Gabs)
Bob Dylan: Nashville Skyline
The Costello Show: King of America
Del Amitri: Twisted
Echo and the Bunnymen: Ocean Rain
Emmylou Harris: Wrecking Ball
Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
The Jesus & Mary Chain: Psychocandy
New Order: Power, Corruption and Lies
Paul Simon: Graceland
Portishead: Dummy
Prince: Parade
R.E.M.: Automatic for the People
Ry Cooder: Paris, Texas Soundtrack
Tricky: Maxinquaye
U2: War
John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy
George Michael: Older
Depeche Mode: Violator
The The: Soul Mining
Blondie: Parallel Lines
Keith Jarret: The Carnegie Hall Concert
The Go-Betweens: Before Hollywood
Most of you will have Spotify, but if you don’t, go here and listen to some of the albums you don’t already know. There could be a song to change you too?
Only a few Danish albums (that we didn’t produce ourselves…) spring to mind, the most memorable ones being Kliché’s Supertanker and Sort Sol’s Dagger & Guitar.
modern art museums - have found very special and unique jewellery there at tolerable prices because they often choose to promote young up-and-coming jewellers. The ring is from such a shop (in Denmark).
Recent Comments