Arts Diary: Friday

It has been very very hot and dry. This is a good thing. I bought a cup of flat white from the nice coffee van with the fibre glass statue of Elvis holding a donut in front of it. A big gust of wind blew some dry dirt onto the counter. It's like a dust storm, said that man. Well, that would be okay at a festival I said, there are lots of songs about dust storms. Really, said the man, sing me one. So I did. A few lines, anyway. On the fourteenth day of April, 1935, there came the worst of dust storms, that ever filled the skies, you can see that dust storm coming, like a circle of dark turned black, and through our mighty nation it left a terrible crack. The radio reported, we listened with alarm, the great and terrible action of that wide mysterious storm. There was a small round of applause. I can't sing, I said. Oh I don't know, said the man.

Either the festival or me personally am winding down by Friday. I went to my most favouritist singer, Chris Wood, in the big tent. The Shackleton Trio opened for him. They are quite good. They sing mostly there own tunes to broadsides and poetry. They have a song about Eels. You would have thought it impossible for there to be two folk acts with songs about Eels. It's an eel good song, says one of them.

I think someone should write a book of the collected quips of Chris Wood. For someone who has a reputation of being a bit of a misery, he is very funny. "They're so in tune, these young kids. Always in tune. Bastards. They don't understand folk music." He tells an old-guy story about a prostate examination and then asks the man on the monitors for a bit more in the bottom. Andy Cutting, who he used to be in a duo with, comes on at the end. They haven't rehearsed. "It's not a show" says Chris "When I was younger I used to care." He tells the story of the man who used to used to work the allotment next to his. They get on fine. It is one of the rules of allotment society that there is to be no tension. "But" he adds "like a great many people who voted for Brexit....he's dead." (Not everyone clapped.) This leads into a newish song about taking back control. "The old people are tearing up the tennis court; the young people can't get a game." Like Billy Bragg (Full English Brexit) he seems to "get" the despair and alienation that led to the vote. You see people with Oysterband or Dylan lyrics on their shirts. (Try hard, get barred, get back, ride rail. Get jailed, jump bail.) I think I might get a Chris Wood one made up:

We laugh at Christ as he walks out on the water
And we undermine the faithful with our teasing
But in the bank of England they are sacrificing chickens
To a God they call Quantitative easing.

He doesn't do the Big Chris Wood Numbers like Hollow Point and One In A Million as much: he's more thoughtful and meditative. He does the one about dropping his grow up daughter off at college, and one addressed to his son. "You are so much smarter than me. My best advise is stop listening to me. I started writing this song when you were three. I hope I haven't left it too late." His song about getting rid of an old sofa could stand as the definition of "bittersweet".

The last show at the Ham was an act called (check this) Upbeat Instrumental Band For Ending Festivals so I decided to skip it. Having done the "traditional night out" yesterday I decided to go to the Manor Pavilion for the Exmouth Shanty Band. They sang shanties in front of a tall ship backdrop in the first half, and tavern songs in a tavern setting in the second half.

If you're under the weather or green around the gills
She will get your colour back and cure you of your ills
For rikets, plague and scurvy and the flu you get from hogd
She'll set you right if you spend the night
With a Doctor Betty stogs.

Betty Stogs is a brand of beer. I think this makes the song a wescuntry John Barleycorn.

There is a parade at the end of the day. All the Morris dancers and various dance groups and choirs walk along the sea front. I am fairly sure a giant luminous fox chased a giant luminous badger. It ends with them throwing their torches in the sea.

Most of the pubs closed at their normal times so getting a drink at the Bedford was a major performance. Otter Ale does almost as well as Betty Stoggs, I shouldn't wonder. Other beers are available.