Nick Ward solo art show at The Cambridge Art Salon from June 21 – 26.
http://www.cambridgeartsalon.org.uk
antitheatre 1 2013 (detail).
Cambridge Art Salon
29 Cromwell Road, Romsey, Cambridge. (CB1 3EB) This is just off the Mill Road, down Sedgewick Street or Catherine Street.
telephone 01223 244 391.
Times
Friday June 21 – Summer Solstice Opening – 5.30pm
Saturday 22 – Tuesday 26 - 10am-7pm
Wednesday 27 – 2pm – 5pm
antitheatre 2 (detail)
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painting in St Neots with my artist-friend Emma – in the evening we listened to the extraordinary David Bowie feature on BBC Radio 6.
Tilda Swinton with David Bowie
What struck me most with the interview material (from 1999) is how straightforward Bowie sounds when talking about his character creations and his visions – even of the ‘psychic damage’ he did to himself during his occult phase.
My first impact was Jean Genie when I was 10. The honesty of this man’s work and process simply stuns me.
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woman with flowers 2013 (acrylic, pastel, sequins, charcoal, on canvas board)
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Lovers in a tree, Kensington Gardens (I took this pic in the Spring)
I first heard of Kate’s hospitalisation on the 5pm BBC Radio 4 news 3/12/2012. The BBC Radio 4 – PM – Eddie Mair show. Before I go on it’s worth noting that if I were an MP (a job from which I would no longer be barred on account of my NHS mental heath treatment thanks to last week’s legislation) I would not be allowed to say what I am about to say in the House of Commons – words of criticism directed at the Royal Family.
Read no further, Ma’am (Card 23) This is one for Charles.
Hard on the heels of the news of Kate’s extreme condition (hyperemesis gravidarum: all day and night throwing up food and water – dead within three days without a drip?) was the announcement from the Palace of the Queen’s delight. This was followed by expressions of delight from Cameron and Milliband – ‘a perfect piece of news’ Cameron went so far – and then there came Clegg’s cut and thrust on the reform of the Act of Succession (a Republican preamble?). None of them, from the Queen down expressed any empathy, sympathy, or concern, for the suffering Kate – only their unifying joy at the fact of the royal pregnancy. I am wondering why – is the Queen such a tough and uncaring woman? Hard to believe – a tough and uncaring monarch weilding immense and inhumane influence on the instruments of state?
It was only a silk scarf decorated with race-horses Ma’am « Nick …
When I made the cross-fenland rail journey with my gift of a silk scarf decorated with riding horses for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee official birthday (which fluttered to the ice and slush in a most unthreatening way) she gave me a look to kill – well, it was, at least, a withering one – as Her Royal Highness dispatched one her sinister yes men to inform me that I would be ‘banned’ from future walkabouts. Meanwhile I was filmed by her cameraman – without my permission – for the records?
So pierced was I by her suspicious misreading of my good intent that I wrote to you and apologised for my ‘faux pas’, without acknowledgment. Should I now apologise for the apology – did it seem disingenuous?
Is Kate being exploited by the Firm in the show-pony role? Do we have evidence that the sunbathing photos were not an inside job, Wills?
Watch out! There are always dark political forces at work – and let’s face it the Queen seems most at ease with military types. Why do dramatists, from the top down, love conspiracy theorists?
Was it the war that did it? Yet the Queen Mother seemed to ooze compassion.
I remain a royalist, Julian (Huppert, Lib Dem, Cambridge since 2010),– the republican alternatives are just too frightening.
If I was Chancellor I would have stepped right in with a Property tax (as Caroline Lucas recommends); I would have cut billions from the benefits bill by providing the Green Emergency self-build housing scheme – just for starters…and I would take the State of Washington’s lead in legalising (and taxing) cannabis.
search-term: obama smoking weed
Gordon Brown versus scientific truth « Nick Ward Scenarios
I am full of praise, this Saint Nicholas Day, for the scorn green Labour MP (for Stoke-on-Trent since 1987) Joan Walley heaped on our extremely anti-green Chancellor Osborne on BBC Radio 4 at 5.40 am. Praise matched by my contempt for the environmentally illiterate Blairite Balls. His loutish outbursts make the Labour Party unelectable, in my view. Can he not be persuaded to make way for the Labour Party’s green campaigners and give Ed Milliband a fighting chance?
I was surprised and disappointed that Evan Davis failed to mention the green agenda in his undistinguished interview with Osborne in 8.10am interview slot on the Today programme. Is this how far we have sunk?
My question for you, Julian is this: How many seats do you predict the Lib Dems will win at the General Election?
A least one is my hope. Your loyalty to the coalition continues to sadden me…as you know.
FLACK founders badge 1/50, photo Kirsten Lavers
Oh and congratulations on being one of fifty to be awarded a FLACK ‘founders’ badge – an honour I am proud to share with you after last night’s Newham College event (where I took the opportunity to pick up my campaign to set up a Cambridge-based touring theatre company – subsidy-light.)
Congratulations also on the decisive part you played in the increased funding of science announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement – will there be any ethical guidelines as to how this money will be spent? Or will this country continue to be not above suspicion ref. the supply to dictatorships of chemical weapons designed – and proven – to kill in great numbers? When do we hear the results of the tests on the chemical weapons used by Saddam against the Kurds – if they are proved to be of British origin will both the manufacturers and suppliers be prosecuted? Or, if this is case, was this most brutal trade government-subsidised, like the rest of the GB war-making/arms-trade in the Middle East and elsewhere?
Nick
from Yahoo News (11.51 am on 6/12/2012) – with all good wishes to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge…
‘Pregnant Kate Middleton is going to Kensington Palace for a period of rest, after leaving hospital’.
birthday acorn (a gift from Sarah 10/2/2011)
London’s springs were ancient sites for ritual and story-telling
…
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Born: April 16, 1951 (age 61)
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(For MKT) Philosophical Professor Stephen Hawking, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
22 minutes ago – In today’s physics news: Stephen Hawking, Lord Rees and other scientists say Alan Turing should be pardoned http://t.co/mefv2e4J
What about Oscar Wilde and the many thousands of good citizens who were criminalised for their homosexuality?
I find Hawking and Rees’s position slightly bizarre philosophically speaking. (17/12/2012 pics and comments added).
Zac (Goldsmith)
what is there to argue with in Caroline’s view of Autumn Statement?
Autumn Statement
‘The autumn statement dominated much of last week in Parliament and I led wide spread condemnation of the Chancellor’s plans for a new “dash for gas” that include giving the green light to shale gas extraction, also known as fracking, and to building a new fleet of gas fired power stations.
I said:
“If the Chancellor was really serious about keeping people’s energy bills down and improving energy security, he’d put his money on renewables – where the costs are entirely predictable and falling all the time – efficiency, and reducing energy demand, rather than deepening our dependence on polluting gas, where prices are set to keep rising .
“A new report by Cambridge Econometrics shows that the UK would be £20bn better off by choosing more offshore wind over a gas-intensive path, creating 70,000 more equivalent jobs and saving £8bn a year on gas imports by 2030 – around £91 per household.
“Rather than throwing money at new gas infrastructure to be built after the 2020s – at exactly the time we need to be decarbonising – the Chancellor could be creating jobs now, tackling fuel poverty and bringing down energy bills by funding a nationwide retrofit of our homes and buildings.”
For my detailed response see: http://www.carolinelucas.com/media.html/2012/12/05/“osborne’s-gas-strategy-is-a-fracking-disaster/’
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Zac Goldsmith attacks ‘deceitful’ David CameronTelegraph.co.uk-15 Dec 2012
Once trumpeted as David Cameron’s environmental adviser, Zac Goldsmith is biting the hand that fed him…
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no reply necessary
Joan Walley MP
Joan,
Hodge’s claim that 1997 deal on tax breaks for cinema/theatre was betrayed by crooked accountants is as false as the laughter she feighned… Blair knew the power of NT group of playwrights, as Judy Daish will attest… I like Ed Miliband. Previously on nickwardscenarios ‘every labour MP who voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq should resign’… softened to ‘or retire to the back benches’. I don’t know how you voted on that. Otherwise v pleased to have such a seasoned green campaigner on this list. I can remove you if you prefer.
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Her voice, normally Little Bo Peep, was basso profundoDaily Mail-20 Dec 2012
A rifle-crack cough came from Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent N). Speaker John Bercow had eyes like two lychees poached in syrup.
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‘Judy’ (acrylic on paper 2xA4 – I painted this as the Murdoch bid for BSkyB was brought down. When was that?)
Professor Nutt. Only this email with a sprinkle of skunk. Too strong for me: I prefer bush weed or hashish. Addiction to tobacco is killing me – so I’ll be thinking v carefully about means of ingestion. Today is first smoke for over a week.
N
Re Nick Ward versus The Crown, briefly: there was no slush – it was well below zero.
Stuart Laing recieved an email with subject line ‘security is not good enough, Ma’am’ from my spammed hotmail.com account – which, of course, is still in existence – but I can’t access it. Why?
I’ll copy this on to Lawrence Harbottle and Judy Daish
— On Tue, 11/12/12, Nick Ward> wrote:
Subject: Fw: well done Julian!
To: julianhuppert
Cc: zgoffice.co.uk, caroline.lucas ,joan.walley
Date: Tuesday, 11 December, 2012, 14:23
and please persuade Clegg not to come to Cambridge – that will really scupper your chances. The Tory groundswell is disturbingly strong – and yes, please no more experimental paying of alienated teenagers not to wreck phone boxes… Hopefully Caroline will agree with me that that the Greens should get behind you – Labour a non-starter here.
From: Nick Ward <banjo.nick>
Subject: well done Julian!
To: julianhuppert
Cc: caroline.lucas.mp, joan.walley,zgoffice.co.uk, master, corpus christi college cambridge
Date: Tuesday, 11 December, 2012, 12:54
The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Cambridge, environmentalists, conservationists, (greenies?)
extract from
The Prince of Wales has every right to speak out on this subject, he has been a pioneering environmentalist for as many years as I can remember. That’s why I like him. He taught me to talk to plants. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5785442/Prince-Charles-Henry-VIII-was-an-environmentalist.html
If Henry VIII had been around to see the Chicago skyline would he have seen the beauty of it as I do?
Revised 13th July: Charles has been right about sustainablity and horribly and offensively wrong about the best of modern architecture. His ’urinal’ attack on the National Theatre showed no consideration for the artists working there and set off a predictable chain reaction. I was working at the NT Studio at the time (late 1985, I was 23) and I wondered if he had any interest in what was going on inside the flawed but lovable structures. His greatest shorcoming has been to judge the few good architects by the many bad ones. For him not to have praised a single ‘modern’ building as far as I know shows an outlook which is not open-minded, to say the least. But on sustainablity he is above reproach. Mixed up Green Prince.
We had an exchange of letters in 2005/2006 when he expressed support for my proposed ‘Olympic’ Thames Marathon for single scullers in 2012 on behalf of the environmental protection of the Thames and a heartfelt interest in the time I spent with my aboriginal master (the Green King of the Gooniyan People), a staunch monarchist, obviously, who for many years was a secret admirer of Charles’ late Grandmother.
It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the Royal Family shows so little apparent interest in the progressive arts. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were fantastic innovators regarding the arts. The ‘magical’ arts of collaboration, in particular.
For the curators of the Queen’s collection of Leonardo sketches to have stamped over Leonardo’s pencil lines is an act of propriatorial desecration which only I seem to have noticed…
I worry about the safe custody of art works and manuscripts in Royal care sometimes.
The Prince of Wales has apologised to the world of startlingly beautiful architecture and that shows him to be a man who understands that ‘heritage’ has one eye on the future.
I salute him
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Professor Oliver Rackham
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Rackham
Oliver Rackham OBE (born 1939) is a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, … In 2006 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Historical Ecology.
added 14/12/2012
Toxic Chemicals Used In Fracking
Apr 17, 2011 … A new report detailing chemicals used in the toxic gas exploration process known
as Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking). Info on how it effects you …
8020vision.com/2011/04/17/congress-releases-report-on-toxic- – 117k
photo Kirsten (off my face!)
…
…further thoughts added Saturday 15 December:
1. Israel – last Tuesday at around 6.11am John Humphreys of the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme informed us that Israel has been found guilty of fabricating evidence regarding Iran’s ‘nuclear-enrichment’ and that, as a consequence, the United Nations is considering what sanctions might be imposed on Israel for the crime of manipulating intelligence (war-mongering).
The item did not re-appear on ‘Julian Huppert’ day – why? More detail please, John!
On Friday (16/12/2012: or was it Thursday?) I heard on the BBC 5pm news that Israel’s belicose Foreign Secretary has ‘resigned’ on corruption charges. Again, more detail, please.
2. Fracking. Caroline Lucas was right to ask the question in the too-rushed Parliamentary debate last week, ‘How much water does fracking require?’ Personally I am astonished at how little coverage is being given to the exact nature of the chemicals used in the process and what the long-term effects on ground water will be.
Is there a fracking-tax for support of renewables? This way, at least, it will become a ‘transitional’ source of energy? This is an idea I previously put forward on this site (partly when I could see the awful inevitability of the lack of reasonable Parliamentary debate). I came down against fracking altogther during the water restrictions last May when my local authority, Cambridge, was buying water in from other counties… then the rains came down and everyone seems to have forgotten that time, and the implications.
How toxic is fracking?
nickwardscenarios on river turbines: The Boris Island Folly
corrected 16/12/2012
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Banjo Nick in Hyde Park drizzle on Saturday, photo by Lady E
Lady E with Munchkins (my pic, obviously)
On the way to The Other Art Fair 2012 which according to the organising team attracted over 7,000 lovers of emerging artists to Marylebone’s, Ambika P3.
Banjo Nick featured in Lady E’s London Underground ‘transition zone’ as Banjo Nick
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Bloomsbury Paperbacks; First Paperback Edition edition (4 Jan 2011)
Nick Ward Scenarios previously on Patti Smith (as theatre-maker):
search-term: patti smith sam shepard
in this anti-censorship blog (Israel’s ban on Wagner and The Royal Court’s banning of Perdition) I write about the ground-breaking Shepard-Smith collaborations in Greenwich Village, or at least I speculate on why work like the collaborative Cowboy Mouth comes from the all-important ‘event-yarn’ overlap zone.
Here’s a taster from an e-mail exchange with great dramaturg, philosopher and opera critic (for the Spectator), Dr Michael Tanner, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:31:57 +0000
‘I am currently staggered by the depth of expression in American roots music and what Dylan, in particular, has done with those tangled traditions as a troubadour. Sam Shepard’s theatre work in the early Greenwich Village stage was about having the music on-stage and the characters (often shattered in conception) moving ‘through’ the musical vibe…’
Posted by: nickwardscenarios on September 26, 2010
another old nick blog on music-theatre: http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/the-cenci-1997/
For John Humphrys and Barrie Humphreys (and hats off to Colin Firth!)
Miriam Asharki (pictured above by Michael Woods in my production/adaptation of Boccaccio’s Decameron at The Gate Theatre, Notting Hill, 1996 – me, on the right).
Hank Williams
Banjo Nick heading to the Kentucky to Kent bluegrass festival
photo-dictionary.com
be careful not to ‘negotiate yourself into extinction’ was the advice of the Greenham Common pioneer to the St Paul’s Cathedral protestors (interviewed on the BBC R4 5pm news yesterday)… quite right! Anglican Church progressives should be backing indefinite occupation – how mean-spirited of the Dean and Chapter to press, press, press, for the removal of these fine people with a cause
advice to St Paul’s protestors; advice to the Anglican Church
as of 27/11/2012 14.25 GMT: 225,057 views all-time (ie since Spring 2009 – seems like only yesterday).
Posted by: nickwardscenarios | November 19, 2012
‘magic’ by Luisa
Click here for magic a play by Nick Ward
Banjo Nick this afternoon busking on Portobello Road, photo by Federico Collovà
On Mon, 19/11/12, banjo.nick> wrote:
Subject: Re: Fwd: Time for Palestine
Date: Monday, 19 November, 2012, 10:52
avaaz@avaaz.orgAn indication (if any were needed) of the divisive ambiguity surrounding the subject was the way The London Evening Standard (last Friday) front-page reported the ‘ambushing’ of the Chief Rabbi by Evan Davis on the Today Programme… the BBC have been forced into ‘another’ humiliating apology, according to the London Evening Standard’s chief political editor, Peter Dominiczak, over this successful attempt to find out what Lord Sacks really believes ‘I think it’s got to do with Iran, actually’… What exactly does this tell us?Nick
‘famille boheme’ by Luisa and Nick
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Consciousness cannot comprehend both the seer and the self at the same time. It cannot comprehend subject-object, observer-observed, or actor-witness, whereas the seer can.
B.K.S. Iyengar: Light on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. P.268 (HarperCollinsPublishers – Thorson’s 2002)
footnote added 6th September 2012
The black swan featured in this blog is now at Swan Rescue, Chertsey, Walton-on-Thames.
‘Blackie’ on the Cam 1 (6/2/2011)
2
Thanks to Queen’s College Boatman, Paul, who found ‘Squeaky’ (as he likes to call him/her) in a dehydrated and poisoned state by the side of Jesus College Boat Club having been mauled, he speculates, by a dog. He can’t be sure of the exact date but it must have been soon after the nickwardscenarios posting in January 2011.
He took the dying bird to the vets in Cherry Hinton and was told Squeaky could not be treated under RSPA charitable guidelines because black swans are not an indiginous species to the British Isles – so Paul stumped up the £500 necessary to save the bird out of his own pocket.
Paul is a regular at The Green Dragon – one of my favourite Cambridge pubs – with an expansive beer garden stretching down to the river. After playing him a few tunes with Duds from Cambridge 105 Radio yesterday evening – including Duelling Banjos, he offered to supervise my first outing in a sculling boat since autumn 2010 (in his capacity as Captain of Hornets Boat Club).
The boat he allocated me is stored in Queen’s College Boat Club and is privately owned; the black blades with two yellow stripes belong to Paul. The boat is a wide-bellied ‘tracer’ (which comes in kit form – ‘Stitch In Time’ – and was built by Paul’s mate Andy Nicol).
Very comfortable to row – and I had no complaints about the way Paul has it rigged. I did a few exercises, like spinning the boat fast, with Paul watching and he gave me a proficiency nod, took a few snaps, and headed back into his workshop saying, ‘row as far as you want.’
Paul, in his competitive sculling days was a member of Poplar Rowing Club on the Isle of Dogs (and still is) and Walton Rowing Club. This weekend he is helping to organise the annual Cambridge University-hosted training camp for Thames Apprentice Waterman (Doggett’s Coat and Badge contenders), who this year, in a break with recent Corpus Christi College traditition, will be hosted by Fitzwilliam College. He is happy to support the idea that I might, with the Queen’s College BC Captain’s approval, offer a session of sculling coaching once a week in return for use of a College fine boat to coach from – and explains that this will require Queens College BC membership for insurance reasons. The best set-up I can imagine should I find myself enjoying being back in a boat again in the next few weeks… judging by the lovely high after this morning’s short paddle I think I will.
Next outing tomorrow, mid-morning.
Isle of Dogs, Paul’s patch – Tuesday afternoon with Aunt Margaret and Angus
Thank you, Paul. This arrangement suits me - happy to be a guest sculler with Hornets Boat Club, Cambridge – with the goal of sculling on the Thames again before long.
Angus, the springer spaniel.
Mo Razak, reconnective healer, Paul’s Kiosk, Isle of Dogs
another of my favourite Cambridge riverside pubs is The Boathouse, pictured here in the early spring:
Posted by: nickwardscenarios | March 14, 2012
painting ’5′-10 in the beer-garden of The Boathouse by the Cam
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Regent’s Canal campsite on the way to Kent by way of the Isle of Dogs…
highlights of the Kentucky to Kent bluegrass festival
…the saw-player
…thanks for the tips, Max
Puppet Master by Max Middleton, 2000
oil on canvas 125 cm x 125 cm
http://www.maxmiddleton.co.uk/
added Friday 31/08/2012:
I’ve been spending a couple of happy hours adding more pictures to, and annotating, this fascinating interview with Lama Ole Nydahl which already has a much appreciated ‘like this’ tick from Diamond Way Buddhists in Greece: Lama Ole on ‘Wild Wisdom’ (The tantric path)
Beginning 30th August, time 20.00 o clock.
Drukpa Kunley: magician of many ages
‘For Geshe Thubten Tenzin, International Buddhist Centre, Darwin Australia’ (2011 – 12xA4 card -acrylic, water-colour). The banjo emerged in the process of painting. The spirit of Drukpa Kunley working some old Bon-Tibetan magic perhaps! A speculation which pleases me – and that’s more than enough for a dramatist.
extract 1:
What is the ‘crazy’ wisdom and what is its place in Buddhism?
Fukishima pattern recognition « Nick Ward Scenarios
…and ‘Tectonic Plates’ – on 4xpurple A4 paper with water-colour and acrylic
In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:
John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!
thought for the day:
Lama Ole: They indeed have many taboos, and sometimes by forcing their students to strip, behave foolishly in public or get into wild situations, teachers of so-called crazy wisdom could actually give some people a test of their essential freedom.
http://www.holymtn.com/tea/teaetiquette.htm)
Lama Ole: The shock of being in a new situation where they couldn’t rely on their traditions was intense, and having to trust human values like friendship and confidence in the group or ultimately space itself was character-forming. But there were also cases where it went completely wrong because concepts outran compassion and insight.
This hole to look at the sky through is near the Thames Barrier and brought Yoko Ono to mind as I rode the Thames Path last week.
http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/yoko-ono-a-hole-to-see-the-sky-through-1964/
extract 2:
Lama Ole: My idea, which somebody may hopefully find the time to examine one day, is that Drukpa Kunley is a pre-Buddhist fertility god who survived – like pre-Christian Robin Hood.
green man, my place (22/10/2011)
search term: bhutan
Lama Ole: People in cold countries like Bhutan tell many and long stories as they sit cosily together in the hay against the cold, and having a recognized trade-mark name to hang them on to gives weight. So there are a lot of stories, and as inspiring situations happen in close situations, some of them are very good.
‘Dark Goddess’ (2011) – water-colour, crayon, chalk, felt-tip pen, glitter on A4 card
Lama Ole: Contemporary western Buddhists may here learn to see bodily exchange as a bridge. That nobody can own anybody else but that we may share exciting bits of the way with them: that physical love can become an important gift that gives people self-confidence and joy and also makes them realize that they should give happiness to others. The whole subject of attraction provides an essential bond between people.
search term: lama ole as mahakala
http://www.aguilar42.com/prose/drukpa.htm Cached
Gampopo (1079-1153)
Dagpo Rinpoche – disciple of Milarepa and revered master in many of the Kagyu lineages
http://www.tharlam-dronme.org/sites/default/files/JPRngondro.pdf Cached
Tibetan Text Translations | pktc.orgExpert and beautiful translations from a leading translator
www.pktc.org/pktc/transpaper.htm
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‘egg-yantra’ (2010) – water-colour and acrylic on 4x A4 card.
Appalachian Music in the Garden of England
a day festival on August Bank Holiday each year at St Julians Club, Sevenoaks,
www.ricktownend.co.uk/KtoK.htm
A dedication (to a Tibetan ‘lamrim’ practice designed to subdue your enemies)
Here goes. Imagine your ‘enemy’. Imagine you are in the same room facing each other. I am imagining her sitting in a comfortable position with her legs crossed. She is sitting on a cushion which has been embroidered with white lilies with which she identifies.
She is looking straight into my eyes and she is concentrating all her energy in a vindictive way. The hatred begins to manifest physically. She feels a congealing around her heart – emanating from her heart – it becomes liquid-air – a ball of sticky black smoke.
The BBC is far gone indeed. 
New York Times topper and ex Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, on the right.
Shame on you for your treatment of the most significant and serious gift to serious journalism since William Caxton. That’s WilkiLeaks.
Every BBC Today Programme news story of note in recent weeks has been underpinned by the work of WikiLeaks – whether credited or not. Any wonder the Murdoch machine is not best pleased?
And, yes, John, ancient yoga techniques enable the mind to instruct the body not to feel cold lying naked on a Himalyan mountain-side in sub-zero temperatures. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your…
What is John Humphrys position on the suspension of Habeas Corpus?
What is his position on China’s activities in Tibet?
What use does he have for work of WikiLeaks?
For John Humphrys and Barrie Humphreys (and hats off to Colin Firth!)
As the Clown picks a tune, his style, troubadour
And when he has finished we beg him for more
As I write this on a borrowed Cambridge Housing Society laptop (Tuesday) Melvyn Bragg is being interviewed by BBC Radio 2 about his 25 South Bank Show ‘revisits’.
It’s hard not to love Bragg except his response to the suggestion that he should devote one of his many Radio Four post-Today Programme conversation slots to the ‘State of Israel’ (‘Not my subject’) lessens the enormous respect I have for this great advocate and historian of art and shamanism.
Why, Melvyn, are you unprepared to discuss Israel? It is a subject on the mind of every peace-loving freethinker on the planet. Are you really able to detach yourself from the great issue of the times?
What has BBC Radio Four become and where is it heading?
Break-through in Willesdon Green (For Ken)
To Stuart Laing, Master, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
City has its freedom, City has its vice
Men in suits at the peepshow, like a mob of horny mice
A place to play and Hank Williams tribute…
Louis became my friend over many months in 2007 when I’d earn my money coaching from a sculling boat in the early mornings and head up to The Inn on the Green to jam and write songs and improve.
Memory is a strange business.
My favourite Bob Dylan portrait is by Feliks Topolski… that man could draw!
I recommend this yoga site for convincing explanations of why mantra-mediation generates power and endurance: http://www.wildmind.org/mantras/figures/padmasambhava and, above all, become the peace of mind of an emmanating Buddha… or just win that Gold medal first and become an emmanating Buddha later to put it in language even the young fellow-dyslexic Steve Redgrave might have responded to!
search term: guru dragpo
Nick Ward Scenarios Top Posts (the past week)
pull the other one, anna chapman (Kushchenko) 4,338 views (not bad, Anna x)
pull the other one, anna chapman (Kushchenko) part 2
‘Kali’ (2010, water-colour, ink, acrylic on 4xA4 card), by Nick Ward
The Goddess Kali is something else! In Indian transcendental-ritual practice she represents some pretty shattering metaphysical concepts like 1. Creation 2. Preservation 3. Dissolution. My personal tantric practice is heavily into ‘ritual’ activity – this painting is a good example. I finished it this morning to the ironic and laid-back sounds of Alex Lester’s 2am – 5am BBC Radio 2 slot having woken from a full-on dream of my mother (who died in 2005) – suffice to say, in the dream she was very much alive and in the course of the dream died in a rowing boat in a rough sea. Alone. The black parts of the painting are my own hand-prints. I’ll come back to Kali.
The infastructure is in place, Mr Shepard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Shepard
We’ll also be making great movies in the tried and trusted way with huge stars who see the back-end sense in what I’m proposing.
They’ll be getting the best scripts for one thing.
John Dee, originator of ‘Director’s Theatre’?
becoming the fool and ‘Thames future’
search term: yogananda
Terror met by Art is your natural instinct, I believe: judging by the quality of your autobiographical writing and your spirit which inspires the artists and spiritual peace-loving men and women of the world regardless of race or creed.
Tony Blair in John Humphrys well-judged interview for the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 refuses to distance himself from sure knowledge of the systematic use of M16-complicit torture; Humphrys kept the door open to the Tony Blair war-crimes trial of which this interview felt like an open rehearsal.
He articulated with brilliance the view that Blair’s responsibility for acts of war of mindblowing massive-shock brutality will not go away – and the consequences of that in the violent terms of islamist retribution is an outcome, at all times, to consider.
That is why those of us who campaigned against the illegal invasion of Iraq are keeping unelected US Middle-East ‘Peace Envoy’ Tony Blair firmly within our sights. What are the details concerning the 70 missions he boasts of since being thrown from office on the Iraq backlash? Have minutes been kept? If no minutes have been kept why have no minutes been kept? What has war-maker (and war-profiteer) Blair achieved in this dubious role? Hats off to John Humprhys and BBC R4 Today Programme colleagues – the beeb very nearly fell for it, Melvyn.
http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/what-are-the-911-conspiracy-theories/
and two days ago as I followed the Thames, a message for Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert:
pleased to finally find the time to sit down with the admirable anti-war protesters opposite Houses of Parliament. ‘There is money in war’ the old Lebanese lady informed me as she berated the vested interests of the occupants of the buildings opposite. She is also full of laughter as she tells why she believes 9/11 was an ‘inside job’. Israel is a rogue state in her opinion.
…the mother of all parliaments? Life is made very easy for MPs what with expenses and subsidised drinks and meals – not to mention the hoards of Parliamentary ‘special advisers’ paid to the hilt by corporate interests. No wonder MPs advocating Parliamentary reform are so hard to come by. My Lebanese friend would like to see the Houses of Parliament put to better use as emergency housing for the sharply increasing numbers of London homeless. Not sure I’d go that far, Julian (Huppert, Cambridge) – but something needs to be done.
corrected Tuesday 28/08/2012
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added here 30/8/2012
2 days ago – Archbishop Desmond Tutu refuses to share a platform with Tony Blair, saying his support for the Iraq war was “morally indefensible”.
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the house of John Dee, Mortlake
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A few days ago I slept on the Middlesex bank of the tidal Thames opposite the space once occupied by the supreme Elizabethan Magus, John Dee. I slept deeply and dreamlessly, as far as I remember, interestingly as I was expecting to do otherwise.
Looking ahead to Rio 2016 – I continue to campaign for a new 50km Olympic marathon single sculling race, non processional.
In the morning a friendly black labrador appeared as I took photos of the weeping willow tree in the gap in the Mortlake wall with a view from the river of Mortlake Church. There is no blue plaque memorialising John Dee – although the council block on the other side of Morlake High Street is John Dee House.
Now in Hammersmith wondering at the ways in which a great yogi takes the illnessess of others into their bodies the way Sri Yuteswar did in Kashmir, losing half his body weight in the process. I’m re-reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi in a copy lovingly saved from a dunking in the Regent’s Canal following an illegal busking session in Hackney’s London Fields and a jam with Weston Gavin and Boxcar Joe on harmonica. The jam took place on the wonderful bookshop barge with solar-powered PA. My kind of place and my kind of people – and how miraculous that it should have been Autobiography of a Yogi knocked in by an apologetic browser – one of my desert island books for sure.
Weston hails from Greenwich Village and reminds me of that sublime Zen poet-actor of the American screen Harry Dean Stanton in Paris Texas. American roots music – from the country blues to Gospel is wrung from his very soul – and he’s a marvelously engaging technician too – and full of wisecracking wisdom and history. Generous music. Weston Gavin and Boxcar Joe have a residency coming up at the Alley Cat, Denmark Street, Soho on 29th August.
leaving my mark in Woolwich near the ferry
Welcoming Michael from street Eats in Hammersmith: www.street-eats.co.uk
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and to close this rambling blog entry, here’s a little farewell antipoem I’ve just written:
I will always love you
was the message to the dream lover
I am now a full-time busking troubadour (i wish)
following the river
Just your type?
Deep down with gentle grace and charm, no hype
dynamically yours uniquely precious one
let the money come
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photo below is the cafe on the once notorious Bog Island – where the River Lea meets the Thames
added 23 August, the following message was delivered by hand this morning to Poplar Rowing Club on the Isle of Dogs. I wrote it at Paul’s Kiosk next to the Greenwich foot-tunnel. Spur of the moment – on the back of a postcard of my painting ‘Election Day’.
For the management of Poplar Rowing Club. 23 August 2012.
Dear Sirs,
Following my recent visit to the club I have decided that I would like to be considered for memebership. I look forward to Prentice/Spencer-supervised paddle on these dangerous Thames reaches – and continuing to campaign for non-processional river races.
Nick Ward AKA Banjo Nick
gooogle search ‘nick ward marathon sculling’
‘Events Manager’ ?
From http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/election-day/: In the autumn of 2008 I started doing ‘coffee’ paintings: I’d pour the dregs of the Arabian gound coffee and paint into and around the result, often in semi-darkness. That was how ‘Election Day’ came about. Intention sublimated by process, if you like.
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