Monday Long Song

Edinburgh Waverley Station, 8.45am June 17th 

The journey back from Blog-Con '22 in Edinburgh the Friday before last began comfortably enough, with temperatures hovering around the 16/17° mark as I made my way to Waverley station for the 9am southbound train. It was difficult in those moments to believe the forecast I was reading on my phone predicting highs of over 30° nearer home. Fortunately though, I did heed the warnings and packed everything possible into my case, wearing only the lightest clothes available for the trip. The first leg was relatively uneventful, save for a rowdy group necking early morning tinnies en route to York races, the views from the train across Berwick and Durham were spectacular and the air conditioning kept things manageable. By the time we rolled into Peterborough though, the aircon was starting to struggle and as I stepped from the train I discovered why - it was beginning to get very warm indeed. My expected 45 minute wait for the connection eventually extended to nearly an hour and when the Norwich bound train finally rolled in I was concerned to see that it consisted of just two carriages, which were already virtually full. The platform was pretty chock-a-block too, so you can probably imagine the chaos that ensued as we tried to board. Long story short by the time I got on it was standing room only - and when I say standing room I mean bodies squashed together standing room, for two hours, in increasingly stifling temperatures. My phone flicked between telling me that it was 32/33° outside, but who knows what it must've been on board. Oh and did I mention that the train was not blessed with aircon, nor windows that opened? 

By the time I disembarked, fell to my knees and kissed the platform at Norwich, I and everyone else in that hellhole of a train were completely soaked through with sweat and gasping for breath. I had a 15 minute uphill walk followed by a 45 minute wait for a bus, both of which were uncomfortable in the conditions, but by then I didn't care. I was just pleased to be outside, free from the combined body odours of a couple of hundred clammy sardines in a can. Our mutual chum C started her own journey south a couple of hours after me and had to travel across London on her way home. I can't begin to imagine what that must've been like. In retrospect we were incredibly lucky with our timing for the glorious bloggers meet-up though, as had it been a week later our plans may well have been scuppered altogether in light of  the RMT industrial action.

Anyway, all that whinging was just an excuse for me to dig out this beauty from the great Junior Murvin, produced by the legendary Lee' Scratch' Perry and featuring a toast from another prominent reggae name, Dillinger, who turned 68 years of age just a couple of days ago.

Junior Murvin - Roots Train

Saturday Scratch #34 - The Upsetters...and a bit of Dillinger

Swans are a common sight on the marshes around these parts, alone, or more commonly in pairs. While out walking one day early last summer, I stood silently for a full quarter of an hour watching one such pair in the early stages of constructing a nest, a little inland, by a riverside path. They displayed such co-operation and attention to detail - it was quite something to behold. Here's the thing though. Every now and again, if I'm lucky, I'll see swans in flight and they are invariably in a group. Why not as a pair, or solo, the way they live on the ground? Is it a social thing? Communal exercise perhaps? Just the other afternoon, while chopping wood, (does that make me sound like a great outdoorsman?) I heard the familiar sound, which always reminds me of the slow motion helicopters in the opening scenes of 'Apocalypse Now'. That unique whooping thwack of wings keeping ungainly bodies aloft. Then I saw them, seven majestic swans flying in formation across the garden and down towards the river. Breathtaking.

To my knowledge there are no black swans locally, I've certainly not seen any, but here's a shot of one I saw foraging around near Manningtree a few years ago. I wish I had photoshop on my laptop - I would've taken out the brick! The reason I mention black swans is that the record label Black Swan, popular for it's Ska output in the early 1960's, was briefly revived by parent company Island Records in 1976/77, and was an outlet for a small selection of Lee Perry productions. Around a dozen singles and a couple of LP's were issued before Black Swan shut up shop once again. The rekindled label's catalogue may have been slim, but the quality was high. Here, from the flip of George Faith's sublime cover of William Bell's 'To Be a Lover', are The Upsetters with 'Rastaman Shuffle'. Oh, and if you're wondering how exactly Dillinger's disembodied and out-of-sync toasting fits in with opening two minutes of the tune, well...it doesn't. Apparently Scratch would re-use blank tracks on previously recorded tape for financial reasons and in this case an unrelated section of 'Roots Train' somehow made it through to the final pressing.