Welcome to Worthy Heights

Worthing, the World and Maybe Something Cosmic
This is all about the arts, literature, politics in Worthing and beyond

(Scroll down for a letter to the Worthing Herald regarding the media coverage of the Open Houses Event 2009 in relation to the ludicrous coverage given to Jim Davidson's recent gig)

21^st November 2006 –9^th August 2009 Flying time!!

Arriving in Worthing about 3 years ago and observing a much changed scene from the inner suburbs of London I decided a blog would at least record, for me, the day to day issues of my life by the sea before heading for the beach one last time in anticipation of a huge playful wave which may suck me back the several million evolutionary years whence I came. Thereby upholding my strongly held Darwinian and humanist beliefs. God, not my favourite person of fantasy or fact, had a major humour bypass on the day that he invented the extremely lethal tectonic plate but it would be a suitable way of dealing with his less worshipful subjects

This past week(1^st-9^th August 2009) has been a Big Dipper of a week rolling over Joyce and Byron, Sally Vickers and Talking Heads, the death of a dog and a little “walking in the mind”. It therefore seemed like the perfect time to resuscitate the latent early words some of which were a little uncomplimentary to my new community and I have spared myself the embarrassment and possible reprisals by deleting the most offensive stuff. Although I must say that many more women wear Puffa jackets in Worthing than South Molton Street!

The blog only reached template form and progressed no further than a few idle paragraphs which never made it to cyber vellum. I was diverted by various campaigns which seemed to be worth fighting, the best of which was to help secure the Desert Quartet for the town of Worthing. On the masthead is a close up of one of these wonderful sculptures which remind me, not always effectively, “….to be silent unless what I have to say is better than silence”.True to myself and the blogosphere I must have the courage of my convictions and let loose the paragraphs written in draft on 21^st January 2007. Although as I have already stated this really starts in earnest as of now, 9^th August 2009

In Italics is where I was going with my blog on 21^st January 2007

It is precisely 2 calendar months since I arrived in Worthing. 21^st November 2006 I washed up down here having sailed my simple craft safely from the suburban, stultifying vortex of Teddington TW11. More of Teddington later

So I enter the blogosphere later than I intended but I can barely tell you how joyful it is to be here. The initial buzz of blogdom is the knowledge one can write knowing full well ones “work” will be published. And what is more I am saved the indignity of being edited by some juvenile with a 2/2 media degree from the University of Nowhere.

Early last week I learned from an Andrew Marr Radio 4 prog ( I can be deceptively high brow) of an interesting book by Brian Appleyard entitled “How to live forever or die trying”. It just seemed such an interesting contemplation particularly now that I live in Worthing which has one of the oldest populations in Britain. Harvests to be grimly reaped

The activities of joggers along the sea front suggests that they are either on the personal trainer’s “live forever” exercise programme or they can’t afford the personal trainer and are now just hurrying the whole death process along a little

ENDS!!!

The week which finally ran the project down the launch ramp 1^st-8^th August…..

…Walking in My Mind

James Joyce, Byron, Sally Vickers, David Byrne and Talking Heads plus various interactions both positive and negative, The Hayward Gallery’s summer show, Bergson’s impact on Futurist founder Marinetti and the death of a much loved dog have finally got me going on my blog. This stuff of life broadly tends to present ideas in abstract form and they joined forces in my head and have helped to deliver this slightly meandering stroll through my mind. As the Hayward’s summer show is called “walking in my mind” it all seems neatly encapsulated under that heading

Big Books

Quite recently I decided that, each year, I should read one large tome of literature which is widely recognised as a classic. So far I have amazed myself with Marcel Proust’s finding time again , Russel’s History of Western Philosophy and currently Don Quixote. Cervantes’ knight errant being a little bit close to my own character for comfort!

2010 has to be Ulysses year and I was delighted to meet an old contact, last Saturday, who provided me with the inspiration to get it on. Having read the Joyce novel three times and heard it recited on tape quite often he has dispelled the near mythical impenetrability of the Joyce work which runs to 260,000 words. Thanks Brendan. 2010 will be busy – right into 2010 probably. An odyssey. The Joycean Epiphany!!

Sally and Cosmic Journeys

Why this is relevant to my week and to my blog is that the arts and literature can bind together people of similar views and ideas which is a coalesced planetary group orbiting various individual works. Occasionally us planets are pulled together for a quick natter about our stars and I notice that the like-minded are guided to these happy gravitational collisions which are luckily not fatal or indeed dangerous comings together

Sally Vickers is one of those stars around which I evidently, occasionally orbit, and this week I found a copy of Mr Golightly’s Holiday which has led onto much conversation about her very special story telling style. I first encountered Sally Vickers at Kendal and to the very good friend who led me to her I tip my hat! To the two other people I know who enjoy this amazing writer’s skill with a story I say, “Glad to be in your galaxy”. To my Kendal Baptist I offer these words from “Golightly” – “But it is a sad fact that a zest for human psychology is not always shared by the objects of its concerns”. Please see the humour in that.

Just a rant

Now my interest in all these illustrious people who compose write paint and present themselves through often quite abstract ideas might suggest that I am a bit of an intelligent beast with some seriously pretentious overtones. Well I am not. I am just the living evidence that everything in the arts is available to everybody. Those who would turn the arts into an arcane world specifically for the educated middle and upper classes are dismantling social cohesion with their own ends in mind.

One Great Talking Head

Monday 4^th August was the long awaited arrival of ex Talking Heads front man David Byrne. Last time I saw him was around September 1979 when they had just released their early album, Fear of Music. Working as a part time coach driver for Len Wright Travel I toured with them for 2 whole days of roadie fame!!! But I became a huge fan of a band that proved themselves to be not only extremely talented but very likeable and unpretentious people off stage.

The white haired Byrne still rocked it up for a largely middle aged audience in a theatrical style which is unique, intelligent and downright bloody good entertainment. Even my son Luke recognised some numbers and enthusiastically put his hands together - bravo

The gig at the Barbican was unforgettable for me and he kindly sung “Heaven” which is the song which I want at my funeral please. You need to see the Byrne humour in this so here is a lyrical sample.

“Everyone is trying to get to the bar, the name of the bar is Heaven. The band in Heaven play my favourite song. Play it all night long .

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens

There is a party. Everyone is there. Everyone will leave at exactly the same time. When this party’s over it will start again. Will not be any different It will be exactly the same………..

Heaven

When this kiss is over it will start gain. It will not be any different……

It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting could be this much fun

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”

Art that Eats Itself

Bertrand Russell has become one of my heroes for his witty and intelligent presentation of some very often obscure philosophical ideas in his History of Western Philosophy. Anybody who reads this wonderful book cannot remain certain of any “truth”. I kissed the cover when I finished it. And his prescient essay “In Praise of Idleness” and the other essays under that title written during the big financial wind down pre WW2 should be read by all bankers spending their exorbitant pensions while sunning themselves on exotic beaches

Russell, therefore being my philosophical torch bearer, was who I turned to unravel the Tate’s Futurism show. Russell was less than complimentary about the rather prescriptive Bergson who was the philosophical inspiration behind Marinetti and the Futurist movement

Some of the paintings were exciting and energetic and I particularly liked Boccioni and Severini but it does occur to me that Futurism is a handy label but the movement officially established by Marinetti was thankfully dead almost before it had achieved puberty. Artistic movements luckily consume themselves, serpent like, before they can do serious political damage

Walking in the Hayward Mind

The Hayward’s summer show was nowhere near as enticing as, say Gormley in 2007 but Walking in My Mind had some intriguing work which I liked. Thomas Hirschorn’s literal walk in his mind, if mechanised, would have made an exceptional attraction at an adult theme park. But Piplotti Rist’s work, outdoors, was right on the money when it came to the exhibition theme and I reckon it justified the admission fee.

And of course these artists have an awful lot of sex on their minds and good for them!!

R.I.P Lawrence

Last weekend was so sad for several reasons but probably the loss of Lawrence the dog that I lived with for about 5 years walked for a further 3 approximately and visited too infrequently when he started to become less active. I wasn’t sure how to express my respect for an animal so I wrote him a poem……

Lawrence

Dog, lived, played, wagged

Dogs don’t brag

Dog that smiled even when he was sad

Chin and jowls on the floor

Eyes set for the door

Dog free to leap, and swim

Fuck the gym

Dog that knew the way, every day

Silent friend that may just stray.

Always there at the end

Dog of restraint, buttoned strength

Eyes of infinite depth

Dog has no words or human thought

Rarely a response to a whistle

Thanks Lawrence – hence this epistle

Letter The Worthing Herald

31^st July 2009

The Editor

Worthing Herald

The Arts or Jim Davidson

Over the weekends of 18-19 and 25-26 July the arts community of Worthing staged its annual “Open Houses” project with 22 venues showcasing a variety of arts which was an amazing and inspiring insight into the talent that exists in this town. Talent both professional and amateur which is dependant, virtually entirely on its own resources, imagination and determination. The second weekend happily collided with the Lions Festival. One major feature of that festival being the transformation of Montague Place into an acceptably lively environment delivering us from the execrable, demoralising, architecturally outrageous intrusion which is the wall of death, once of Woolworths soon to be the wall of H&M. I wish to be the first person to ask that new and very welcome arrival in town, H&M, to give artists of Worthing the opportunity to change that dismal flank wall

The arts in Worthing are hopelessly under-funded and under-represented. The business community and the media in Worthing have overlooked the value of a vibrant arts community to the economy, the living environment and the prestige of the town.

My heart sank when seeing the front page of the Herald entirely devoted to a has-been entertainer and career bigot, Jim Davidson. And then the inside pages being littered with pitiful responses to his juvenile invective. Not one journalist managed to review what was, without doubt a true highlight of the Worthing arts year. The Open Houses event had evidently tripled in size in participation and visitors and to my mind had a vibrancy and energy which positioned the efforts of Arundel’s equivalent programme into a kind of “twin set and pearls” mind set. Worthing’s Open Houses provided everything from a beautifully restored 1960s caravan to a Madonna and Child by the alter ego of an ex-patriot Polish female fighter pilot. From the erotic to the truly esoteric, there was no creative stone unturned

MORE/

The Arts or Jim Davidson ………….

From Gateshead to St Ives to the South Bank in London and across the South Coast in Hastings, Bexhill, Eastbourne, the arts have started to re-generate a variety of areas, many of them previously depressed. Worthing has not even officially recognised the Desert Quartet, “one of Europe’s finest monumental public sculptures of the 20^th Century”. There exists no information about the Desert Quartet in any tourist office. I personally know of a group of 45 people coming to this town in September to view 20^th Century art and architecture and obviously the Elisabeth Frink sculptures. Worthing provides no cultural visitor information whatsoever and evidently has no cultural strategy

This town has to identify certain events and areas where it can promote itself not only to the public from inside and outside Worthing but also to major sponsors who can see an opportunity to be associated with quality events.

Splash FM bemoaned the loss of major sponsors Norwich Union for its Garden Party. Hits from the 1970s and 80s probably work for the Lions Festival and who can resist clapping their hands for the “Dancing Queen” but Splash FM could be doing better for the local music scene and this town has a decent contemporary music heritage. If I was holding the purse strings at Norwich Union in this financial climate I would be looking to something more challenging than tribute bands and one only has to look around at the big ticket projects to see what attracts the sponsors. Local bands need local support and this town occasionally deserves something other than regurgitated tunes from another era.

The choice is stark. Stick with the image of this town lost somewhere in past times or give people the inspiration and a helping financial hand to deliver us from the banal criticism levelled at us by Mr Davidson and ably supported by the front page coverage in the Herald. This town has creative talent in narrative, performing and visual arts and it was all on view during Worthing’s “Open House” weekends as it is each year at Northbrook’s end of year arts show.

There exists an opportunity for Worthing to alter its image but there is an urgent need for an arts policy that is well administered, that interacts with the community and that is allowed to pervade all areas of influence in Worthing.

Central government’s Sea Change project has provided £1/2 million for the regeneration of Splash Point. If the town gets this wrong then we can start engraving the headstone for the arts in Worthing and we could have a plot set aside for the decrepit Jim Davidson because he should surely theatrically “die” in Worthing.