Food ‘n’ tings

THE BANDIT KING

Lampião, o Rei do Cangaço

The Sertão is the name given to the vast arid hinterland of the North East of Brasil. Notable for its semi-arid conditions, poverty, cactus and scrub, the North East in general has had a vivid and important impact on Brasilian popular history and culture including of course the legend of Lampião, ‘O Rei do Cangaço’.

The Sertão was home to the ‘cangaços’, gangs of bandits who roamed the backlands of the North East in the earlier part of the last century attacking landowners and stealing from the wealthy in particular. They were known for their ferocity towards those they robbed and plundered as well as their apparent generosity towards the poor, despite widespread torture and murder of their victims. It is this role as ‘social bandits’ rather than as wild outlaws that the cangaçeiros are best remembered in modern day Brazil. The best known of the cangaceiros was Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, known to everyone as ‘Lampião’. Together with his girlfriend and fellow gang member Maria Déia aka ‘Maria Bonita’ (‘Pretty Maria’) they roamed the Brazilian backlands with the gang from the 1920’s until their deaths in 1938, four years after the deaths of their counterparts in the US, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. Just like that Texan couple, Lampião and Maria would be eulogised in film and song across the ages.

*Cangaços with Lampião and Maria Bonita in the centre*

The first (and most interesting) film about Lampião and his gang (‘Lampião, o Rei do Cangaço’ – ‘Lampião, the King of the Bandits’) was made in 1937 by Benjamin Abrahão. He had been born in Lebanon but later moved to Brasil. He met Lampião in 1926 via Cícero Romão Batista aka ‘Padre Cícero’, the spiritual leader to the people of the North East of Brazil. A legendary figure in his own right, Padre Cícero was highly trusted by the deeply religious Lampião who he persuaded to allow Abrahão to meet and photograph the gang. Although very cautious, Lampião was intrigued by the possibility of meeting Abrahão, being photographed and having the chance to more widely publicise his highly stylised gang. Lampião was already image concious by this time, handing out business cards and images of the gang to admirers.

Abrahão initially took photographs of a suspicious Lampião and his wary band and then when trust had been established, filmed them out in the Sertão. The resulting silent film ‘O Rei do Cangaço’ was originally two hours long but only less than 15 minutes of film stock remains.

The film was a great success upon its release. in Brasil but it was soon seized under the directions of the then President Getúlio Vargas and it more or less disappeared from view until 1955 when its remaining stock was restored and released nationwide, the film being only ten minutes long. Then in 2007, Cinemateca Brasileira (the national organisation responsible for the restoration and distribution of important audio visual material) restored and re-edited the available film stock and organised the release of some 14 minutes of film. It is this version, O Rei do Cangaço by Benjamin Abrahão, which can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqd-ijH2cQ.

At a makeshift camp in the harsh Sertão the cangaçeiros are seen resting, using a sewing machine, praying at a makeshift altar, skinning and eating a cow and undertaking a mock skirmish etc. Lampião is clearly visible as is another key member of the gang, the cruel Corisco. Maria Bonita is filmed combing Lampião’s hair in one scene.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is r.b3058b472cb7124871eec66dbcc3e2a1.jpeg — *Corisco*

At least two women are seen with the gang in the film including Maria Bonita, Lampãio’s girlfriend as well as Dadá, the lover of Corisco. The film maker Benjamin Abrahão is also clearly visible in some scenes, eating and drinking with the gang.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is r.77e20bb60fb74e9092d96f019f4599cf.jpeg — Corisco and Dadá

The Cangaceiros are also seen dancing in the film. The dance most closely associated with the gang is the Xaxado, a popular North Eastern style which is still performed today.

Abrahão’s photographs and film helped fix the stylised image of Lampião and the cangaceiros in Brasilian popular culture.

Each member is wearing leather outfits of a hat, jacket and jodhpurs/shirts tough enough to protect them from the thorns of the caatinga (dry shrubs and brushwood typical of the dry hinterland of the Sertão). Studded ammunition belts criss cross eash chest. The hats are half moon shaped and decorated with metals stars, fleur de lis, maltese crosses and other designs. The rifle slings are studded with silver coins and highly decorated cloth bags are draped from each shoulder. Long neckerchiefs tied with a silver rings are draped around each neck. Dark glasses are sometimes worn. The effect is startling and original and whilst the alleged ‘Robin Hood’ nature of the gang will no doubt have assisted in creating the Lampião myth, one cannot help but feel that its overall strong visual aesthetic contributed as great an impact to its ultimate longevity and influence in the popular imagination. We can see this in the culture of Zoot suits in Los Angeles in the 1940’s, the startling images of the Sex Pistols in 1970’s London (in clothes by the ground breaking Seditionaries) and the elevated dress sense of the Sapeurs of the Congo.

The strongest influences on popular culture, whether in Brasil or elsewhere, do not come from the elite. As the English writer V.S. Pritchett once commentated noted, ”the past of a place survives in its poor.” Although this comment was made by following his travels in Spain it applies elsewhere, no more so than Brasil with its reverance of the legend of Lampião.

Visit the North East of Brasil and referances to Lampião and his gang are ubiquitos. Whether in popular songs and films, the names of restaurants and bars to the classic woodcut prints of the Borges family, the cangaço and his gang are everywhere.

As a postscript to the film (which views like an epitaph), both Lampião and Maria Bonita were cornered shortly thereafter by bounty hunters and killed with nine other members of the gang. They were then decapitated, their heads were put on public display in the city of Piranhas in the North East state of Alagoas (the city had been attacked several times by Lampião and his gang) before ending up at the State Forensic Institute in Salvador, Bahia where they remained until burial in 1969. A graphic photograph of the severed heads surround by decorated hats, weapons, bags and bandoliers, framed by two sewing machines is readily visible on the internet but it is not exhibited here.

Two other members of the gang, Corisco and his girlfriend Dadá, were amongst those who escaped but were cornered by the authorities not long thereafter. Corisco was killed in the attack and Dadá lost a leg from her wounds. She survived until her death in 1994, the last member of the gang to die.

With the deaths of Lampião and Corisco the phenomenon of cangaço, died out.

Filmmaker Glauber Rocha who spearheaded Brazil’s Cinema Novo in the early 1960’s was inspired by the story of Corisco and Dadá and featured representations of them in his ground breaking 1964 film Deus e o Diablo na Terra do Sol (known as ‘Black God, White Devil’ in English – you can see an old print of this film here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyTnX_yl1bw). Just like the much romanticised Lampião and Maria Bonita, Corisco and Dadá became Bonnie and Clyde type figures in the Brazilian popular imagination and culture.

The filmmaker Benjamin Abrahão was brutally murdered shortly after the films initial release. His assailant was never found. The film was seized by the authorities who did not approve of the fact that the film did not condemn the gang and its activities. Lampião and his gang were public enemies No. 1 for Vargas and his presidency.

Andrew Logan, Sex Pistols and the Jubilee

Berriew is a village in the county of Montgomeryshire in mid Wales. It is an attractive and historic settlement which is well known for its half timbered houses. The river Rhiew runs through the village.

Of particular interest to visitors is the Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture which is located just over the river from the church.

A more dazzling and unexpected place in such a tranquil rural setting is hard to imagine.

The museum houses Logan’s breathtaking sculptures, ceramics, jewellery and paintings – all created by the artist from the 60’s onwards.

Logan is also the name behind the ‘living sculpture’ of the Alternative Miss World pageant, a raucous and glittering send up of the Miss World competition whose contestants might be drag queens, actors, celebrities and performance artists.

The contestants and their costumes are suitable outrageous. The judging panel has included artist Grayson Perry, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and comedienne Ruby Wax. Guests have included the infamous drag queen, Divine aka actor Harris Glenn Milstead.

(Did somebody mention Cha Cha heels)?

*Divine (centre) at the Alternative World in 1978*

Divine in Female Trouble from 1974

Divine was a friend of Logan’s and featured in his work. The artist was also friendly with film maker Derek Jarman who appeared as Miss Crepe Suzette in the 1975 Alternative Miss World pageant.

Images from the world of British monarchy feature often in Logan’s work especially Crowns, Sceptres and Orbs. Logan himself is not averse to wearing a crown.

*Crown, Sceptre, Orb, Ermine* *an’ tings*

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest serving British monarch. Her Platinum Jubilee this year marks 70 years on the throne. National celebrations will take place in the UK this year, as they did in 2002 (Golden Jubilee) and 1977 (Silver Jubilee).

The Silver Jubilee in 1977 was, as the Platinum Jubilee in 2022 will be, set in a state of parlous economic problems. ‘Hoy como ayer’ indeed but without any sense of nostalgia for those long gone days.

Logan has depicted Queen Elizabeth II in his work at the time of a Jubilee.

*Jubilee Offer from 1977 (the Silver Jubilee)*

Yale Unversity’s British Arts Centre celebrated the Queens ‘Diamond Jubilee’ (60 years on the throne) in 2012 with an exhibition of work by 15 artists from the UK. Logan’s portrait of the Queen was installed in the entrance court

For the 2022 Platinum Jubilee, Logan has designed and made Crown broaches.

Diana, the most iconic Princess of Wales of all time was also the subject of Logan’s work.

Logan also owns The Lion Art Hotel & Restaurant in the village, a short walk from the museum itself. The Lion was formerly a coaching inn. Whilst the building still looks like a pub from outside, the bar and dining areas have been totally transformed by Logan himself.

The same unique transformation also applies to the 7 guest rooms themselves.

As well as drinks The Lion offers beautifully cooked food sourced from local Welsh ingredients. A truly inspired place to eat, drink and sleep.

The first time we heard of Andrew Logan was via the nascent Sex Pistols group who played at one of the artist’s parties at his Bermondsey studio in February 1976, an early gig for them.

Rare footage of the band filmed by film maker Derek Jarman playing live at this party exists although the sound ( the track ‘Satellite’) is taken from a live concert the group gave at Chelmsford Prison later in the year.

Drummer Paul Cook at Andrew Logan’s party

The Sex Pistol’s notoriety grew quickly. Loved by their fans, they were hated by everyone else to an extent that no other band has experienced in the UK before or since. A little later in the year and in time for the Queens Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols released their second single, God Save The Queen with its apt coda of ‘no future, no future for you’.

Wrapped in a purple and silver cover ( purple is the colour associated with royalty and wealth and silver was chosen for the Silver Jubilee) together with a photograph of the Queen herself with superimposed ‘blackmail’ lettering spelling out the song’s title and the band’s name, the design was a triumph for artist Jamie Reid.

Reid was heavily associated with artwork for the Sex Pistols, designing their record sleeves, logos and posters and used images of Queen Elizabeth II again and again in his work.

*Lyrics by John Lydon. Artwork by Jamie Reid*

Hugely controversial to an extent unrivalled before or after in the UK, the song was not produced specifically for the Jubilee, nor was it, as assumed by many, to be an assault on the Monarchy. Nevertheless, it was hugely successful despite being banned from the airwaves with members of the band violently attacked by thugs defending the same establishment order that despised them.

The lyrics were written by the band’s vocalist John Lydon who later commentated: “It was expressing my point of view on the Monarchy in general and on anybody that begs your obligation with no thought. That’s unacceptable to me. You have to earn the right to call on my friendship and my loyalty’’.

“I was never pro them or anti them. I just think if we’re going to have a monarchy it may as well work properly. I mean, we pay for it, after all‘.

The film maker Derek Jarman directed the 1978 film Jubilee featuring established actors and a cast of ‘punks’.

The film’s title is a referance to the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II the previous year.

An angel in the form of Ariel (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) transports Elizabeth I (played by the actress Jenny Runacre) to a run down, desolate London of the 1970’s where she meets a group of violent young women. She finds out that her future predecessor, Queen Elizabeth II, has been assassinated and Buckingham Palace has been turned into a recording studio. Our favourite performer in the film is the late Pamela Rooke, better known simply as ‘Jordan’, as the character ‘Amyl Nitrate’ in the film.

Jordan was iconic for her unique style. She was an early friend of the Sex Pistols and worked at the Sex clothes boutique (owned by designer Vivienne Westwood and the Pistol’s manager Malcolm Mclaren) where the group hung out.

Vivienne Westwood is now Dame Vivienne Westwood OBE having the honour bestowed upon her by Queen Elizabeth II for her services to fashion.

Jordan accompanied the Sex Pistols and Vivienne Westwood to their appearance at Andrew Logan’s Bermondsey studio for his February 1976 party

Jordan, Vivenne Westood and John Lydon at Andrew Logan’s studio in 1976.

Speaking of icons…..‘there ain’t nothing like a Dame’.

Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey DBE is a Welsh legend and one of the most popular singers in Britain. She is also another artist associated with Jubilee year.

Bassey is renowned as the voice behind the Bond title songs, Goldfinger (a Grammy winner) and Diamonds Are Forever. Her performance of Goldfinger apparently influenced the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. For a singer there can be no higher accolade.

Bassey was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire(DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999 for services to the performing arts. She was one of the line-up of artists in June 2012 who performed at the Queens 60th (Diamond) Jubilee Party at Buckingham Palace singing “Diamonds Are Forever”.

Shirley Bassey statue at Caernarfon castle

A 20 feet high golden statue of Dame Shirley was unveiled a few years ago at Caernarfon castle on the Welsh coast, the castle where Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales by Queen Elizabeth II. Dame Shirley was sculpted in the pose of warrior queen Boudica (‘Buddug’ in the Welsh language). Boudica was an ancient Celtic queen who led a revolt against Roman rule in ancient Britain. The Welsh are a Celtic people and many there feel an affinity with Boudica even though she hailed from England where she was the Queen of a Celtic tribe.

Artist Jamie Reid has also referenced Boudica in his work.

ONE more….

Happy Jubilee.

Court Green, Plath, Patti and Beer

Court Green is a house in the county of Devon in the far south west of England. It was the home of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Plath wrote most of her celebrated Ariel collection of poems whilst living with Hughes at Court Green. When the couple separated, Plath moved to London with her two small children to the house where WB Yeats had once lived. It was here that she committed suicide in 1963.

Hughes continued to live in the house until his death in 1998. A ‘secret’ stone memorial lays on a remote hillside on nearby Dartmoor. The memorial, especially requested by Hughes, lay undiscovered in its moorland location for years until it was uncovered by walkers. Although the memorial stone and its whereabouts were known to friends of Hughes, it’s exact location was kept secret to prevent it becoming a shrine to the poet.

By way of a contrast, the grave of the poet’s former wife, Sylvia Plath is very much a shrine to the late author, attracting visitors from across the world.

Sylvia Plath is buried in St. Thomas’ Churchyard in the village of Heptonstall in West Yorkshire. The village lies above the historic town of Hebden Bridge. It is surrounded by rugged moorland. Although she had separated from Hughes at the time of her death, they were not divorced. Hughes was from the village of Mytholmroyd near to Heptonstall, and he chose the latter as the site of her burial.

Heptonstall is, a small, cobblestoned settlement of a couple of pubs, a post office , a gift shop and a great café for coffee and cakes. It is a mixed community made up of those from the locale and incomers to the area attracted by the village’s picturesque beauty.

Sylvia Plath’s grave can be found in the New Cemetery which is to the left of the church. As you approach the headstones looking for her plot, an elderly gentleman called Stuart may well be waiting close by to guide you to the site. He is a charming, helpful individual who has lived in the village his whole life. He knew the Hughes family and although he did not know Sylvia Plath, his care in maintaining her grave and his assistance to the many admirers of her work who come from far and wide to visit the site, has earned him the gratitude of her surviving daughter Frieda (Plath’s son Nicolas committed suicide in Alaska in 2009). Stuart keeps a record of the number of visitors to the site and where they are from. As well as visitors from the UK, well wishers from all over the world (especially the US) make their way to the grave, many leaving a pen in a container under the headstone which has been left there for that purpose.

The jar full of pens is just about visible

When we visited, the full name Sylvia Plath Hughes was clearly visible on the headstone although the name Hughes appeared to be somewhat faded. Stuart explained that some admirers of the poet blamed Ted Hughes for her suicide and tried to deface the name Hughes on the headstone. Stuart had cleaned up their attempts and had been personally thanked by Frieda for his efforts apparently.

One American visitor is poet and musician Patti Smith who has made the journey to the grave several times. Her memoirs ‘M Train’ from 2015 recounts her three visits to Plath’s grave including one she made with her sister who was keen to visit nearby Brontë country, a location especially popular with Japanese visitors who are especially enamoured of the sisters.

Smith is reverential towards other great artists and her M Train memoir describes her visits to the Japanese gravestones of poet and ultra nationalist Yukio Mishima, Ryūnosuke Akutugawa, father of the Japanese short story, and the revered author Osamu Dazai. All three had committed suicide.

Schrader’s outstanding ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’

The grave of another American poet, Asa Benveniste also lies in the churchyard. His gravestone reads “Foolish Enough to Have Been a Poet”. Benveniste was not only a poet but a publisher as well. As the founder of the Trigram Press in London in 1965 he specialised in publishing the work of Beat Generation writers including William Burroughs and Gregory Corso.

Patti Smith is a clear fan of the Beat writers. She told the Beatdom literary journal in 2012

‘I was very attached to William [Burroughs]. I knew Gregory, Gregory Corso, very well…

I was very privileged to know these people and I had different relationships with them all. Gregory was very, very important to me in my learning process of how to deliver poems live…and in my reading list.

But William was the one I was most attached to. I just adored him. I had sort of a crush on him when I was younger and he was very good to me.’

Asa Benveniste once ran a bookshop in the nearby town of Hebden Bridge, a cultural place in its own right. The town has an excellent venue in The Trades Club where many great performers (including Patti Smith) have played over the years.

We do not know whether Patti Smith visited the grave of Asa Benveniste when she visited Heptonstall as she does not mention the poet’s grave in her writing to the best of our knowledge.

What we do know is that Patti Smith is, like us, a cat lover having kept the animals since childhood.

Patti Smith in 1974. Photo by Robert Mapplethorpe

Sylvia Plath was certainly a feline admirer. As well as writing the poem ‘Ella Mason And Her Eleven Cats’ she created the following drawing in 1956.

The churchyard at St. Thomas’ is no stranger to cats. Whilst we stood before Plath’s headstone, a large black beastie who Stuart named as Otto was roaming through the graves a few feet away. When we approached him he slunk further into the brambles, his tail swishing behind him.

Sylvia Plath was both influenced by the wild Yorkshire moors and by the Brontë sisters and Wuthering Heights in particular. The Brontë family home was at Haworth, a few miles from Heptonstall.

Plath wrote the following in a letter to her mother in the US in 1956 after a visit to the moors and the Brontë home in Haworth in 1956.

‘I never thought I could like any country as well as the ocean, but these moors are really even better, with the great luminous emerald lights changing always, and the animals and wildness. Read Wuthering Heights again here and really felt it this time more than ever. ‘

After visiting the grave on an especially bleak winter’s day, Smith made the following comment in her excellent book M Train:

It was such a desolate place in winter, so lonely. Why had her husband buried her here? I wondered. Why not New England by the sea, where she was born, where salt winds could spiral over the name PLATH etched in her native stone?

In an extract from her Journals, Plath describes the moors in a way that only someone who loves them can:

‘…..across the slow heave, hill on hill from any other direction across bog down to the middle of the world, green-slimed, boots squelchy – brown peat – earth untouched except by grouse foot – bluewhite spines of gorse, the burnt-sugar bracken – all eternity, wildness, loneliness – peat-colored water – the house – small, lasting, pebbles on roof, name scrawls on rock – inhospitable two trees on the lee side of the hill where the long winds come, piece the light in a stillness. The furious ghosts nowhere but in the heads of the visitors & the yellow-eyed shag sheep.’

In 1961 Plath wrote her own poem entitled ‘Wuthering Heights’ an extract from which reads

The sky leans on me, me, the one upright

Among all horizontals.

The grass is beating its head distractedly.

It is too delicate

For a life in such company;

In 2013 Patti Smith played a small acoustic set at the Brontë schoolroom in Haworth in aid of the Brontë society. She is an enthusiastic admirer of the sisters as is her own sister, Linda who also visited at the time. She gave a ‘shout out’ to Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff and Cathy at the gig apparently.

Emily Brontë is buried in the family vault at St. Michael and All Angels’ Church, Haworth.

The village of Heptonstall and the adjacent town of Hebden Bridge are a part of the Upper Calder Valley which includes Cragg Vale which is situated high on the Pennine moorland.

Cragg Vale has two breweries, Vocation (www.vocationbrewery.com) and the Little Valley brewery (www.littlevalleybrewery.co.uk).

Our favourite brews locally are the Little Valley beers. The brewery has been around since 2005 when it was formed after a Dutch farmers son met a Geordie lady (i.e someone from Newcastle in the North East of England) whilst cycling in Kathmandu.

Their beers are 100% organic and better tasting for it in our opinion.

With all these words about poets, Japan, beer and cats, we thought we would ‘attempt’ a Haiku for you.

A Haiku

Wintry eventide

A tiny tabby cat purrs

Enjoying the beer

Manchester, Refuge and Nico

The Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group is a San Francisco based chain specialising in unique boutique accommodation. Their ‘Clocktower’ hotel in Manchester in the North West of England is no exception. Housed in the Victorian era gothic architecture of the offices of the former Refuge Assurance Company, the distinctive terracotta facade of this imposing building together with the clocktower which gives the hotel its name, dominates this corner of the city.

The hotel lobby is especially impressive with its elegant glass dome and marbled walls and floors.

The Kimpton Clocktower often puts on small photographic exhibitions. As a part of the celebration of International Women’s Day on the 8th March, the hotel is currently hosting an exhibition of the works of photographers Anne Worthington (locally born) and the late Tish Murta who was from South Shields in the blighted North East of England. Both photographers captured the lives of ordinary people in poor communities. Worthington and Murta between them produced some of the best photographs nationally, photographs that are a long way from the society portraits of Cecil Beaton and Earl Snowdon and better for it in our opinion.

The hotel houses one of the most amenable spaces in the city, ‘The Refuge’ with its restaurant specialising in an ever changing small plate menu, games room (the ‘Den’ with its football machines), an indoor Winter Garden (under glass – this is Manchester after all!), and a beautiful Public Bar.

The Refuge was created when local DJ’s Justin Crawford and Luke Cowdrey, aka ‘The Unabombers’, joined forces with a business group and brought their own personality and expertise into the design and overall ‘feel of the recreational area of the hotel. They are also the force behind the popular Elektrik bar and Volta eatery, both situated in the south of the city

However, it was as ‘The Unabombers’ DJ duo that Luke and Justin made a name for themselves internationally. Their influential nights named ‘The Electric Chair’ were based just a few minutes walk away from where The Refuge is now situated, at a small below stairs venue known as the ‘Music Box’. The Electric Chair cemented the duo’s reputation for hosting a truly underground night which attracted with only the very best national and international DJ’s. We are not talking about any of the many dreadful ‘hands in the air, piano breakdown’ type DJ’s who were legion at the time but innovators such as François K, Danny Krivit and of course Joe Claussel. Claussel from New York’s legendary Body & Soul was asked about The Electric Chair and commented: ‘I rarely play in the UK, but I can’t explain in words how great that party was. To me it’s all about energy and that place had one of the greatest energies I’ve experienced as a DJ anywhere.’

A short walk from the former Music Box venue will find you in the centrepiece of St Peter’s Square with its statue of suffragette and political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, named by TIME magazine in 1999 as one of the top 100 most important persons of the 20th Century. She was born in the nearby district of Moss Side and she is best remembered for organising the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote for parliamentary representation.

Across from Pankhurst’s statue is the city’s refurbished central library and theatre where another unique woman, Christa Päffgen aka Nico recorded her live album ‘Heroine’ in 1980 when she was living in the city. The album was released some 15 years after the concert was held to great acclaim.

Nico had been, of course, the muse of the film director Fellini, a model for Vogue and Chanel, an associate of Andy Warhol and a former girlfriend of French actor Alain Delon and singer Bob Dylan. Although an early member of the Velvet Underground in New York, in our opinion it is her remarkable (some would say ‘difficult’) solo work that is her greatest legacy with two albums in particular, The Marble Index in 1968 and Desertshore in 1970 being exemplary works, quite unlike anything heard before or since. Strange and disquieting.

Frozen Warnings

At the time Nico lived in Manchester the city was not in good state. It was grubby with high unemployment and pretty dilapidated. It was not an attractive place at the time.

Hulme district of Manchester – early 80’s

Local guitarist Martin Bramah who played with Nico commented however that “she didn’t see the grubby, industrial city I grew up in. She’d gaze at the Victorian architecture and say this is so romantic.” Her pianist at the time, James Young echoed her apparent affection for the city noting ‘Nico liked Manchester. It was a dark gothic city and was in a state of semi-dereliction at the time; empty Victorian warehouses, factories closing down. She said it reminded her of Berlin, the ruined city of her youth.”

Nico enjoyed a beer and a game of pool with the locals pubs in Hulme and The Foresters in Salford being some of her haunts.

Across from the Central Library is a monument to the Peterloo massacre of 1819 when 15 protesters were murdered by cavalry as they charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people in St Peter’s Square who had gathered there to demand votes for all and the reform of parliamentary representation.

A few doors down is the site of the old Free Trade Hall now a Radisson hotel with its highly rated contemporary Japanese restaurant. The old Free Trade Hall is best remembered locally as a concert venue for everything from classical to popular music. The Hall was famously the venue for the cry of ‘Judas’ which greeted the formerly strictly acoustic Bob Dylan when he introduced his new electric band to the audience in 1966. The concert and the taunt of ‘Judas’ are immortalised on the bootleg recording The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 released some 32 years after the event.

The ‘Judas’ heckle at the Free Trade Hall:-

Judas!

We’ll leave the last word to Nico. Apparently when asked how she would like to be remembered, she remarked: “By a tombstone.”

Manchester, icons and thali

Chorlton is a suburb of the Northern English city of Manchester. The district has become increasingly identified with left leaning young professional couples and their families. It is also home to one of Manchester’s biggest gay communities.

Rightly or wrongly, Chorlton is regarded as a bohemian enclave with its independent bars and restaurants, vegan supermarket (the workers co-operative ‘Unicorn’) and unusual boutiques.

The suburb is a great place to eat and drink and whilst we could fill several columns on the local culinary scene, we will be more specific by concentrating solely on some of the Indian food (especially vegetarian) to be found in the locale.

Lily’s deli on Manchester Road in Chorlton is an outlet of the award winning Lily’s Vegetarian Indian restaurant in Ashton-under-Lyne, a town which is just to the east of Manchester. The Chorlton deli is the first of two outlets in the city, the other being in the very trendy inner area of Ancoats.

Lily’s stocks an impressive range of Indian groceries and spices as well and spicy snacks such as dal vada, chakli, bonda, battered chillis and their famous ‘atomic bombs’, potato’s coated in batter injected with a fiery masala. Not for the faint hearted!

They also make and sell Indian cakes and their barfi flavoured with figs or dates is our favourite.

A short walk from Lily’s deli is the Chappati Café which serves great value thalis on Indian trays with the menu changing daily. Recommended.

A further short walk from the Chappati Café is the small but beautifully decorated restaurant called Roti. The restaurant has the only Indo/Scots menu in Manchester. As well as Indian street food favourites, Roti also serves its own version of the Scottish staple ‘mince and tatties’ (spiced meat in chole potatoes), haggis pakora and even scotch egg (boiled egg wrapped in pork seasoned with chaat masala). Although the restaurant serves a full selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, we were surprised to see that Irn Bru, Scotland’s best loved soda, was missing from the list!

Further away from Roti and opposite the vast Southern Cemetery (of which, more below) is Amma’s Canteen. The restaurant serves fresh, home cooked style Southern Indian dishes including their much loved Dosa, a thin ‘pancake’ made from a batter of fermented rice and lentils stuffed with spicy goodness.

As noted above, the vast Southern Cemetery lies across the way from Amma’s Canteen. It is the second largest cemetery in Europe and the final resting place of important local figures such as the legendary Manchester United manager, Sir Matt Busby and the iconic Tony Wilson, the co-creator of the influential music label Factory Records. Wilson did more than almost anyone in putting the city’s popular culture on the map. Even a decade and a half after his death in 2007, he is still having a positive effect on the city in our opinion.

Wilson (centre) in a suitably grim Manchester backdrop in the 1970’s

Anyone who is familiar with the recent history of Manchester, the city’s rise from the grim post industrial decay of the 1970s into the modern, vibrant environment it is today, will be aware of the part Wilson played in invigorating the popular culture of the world’s first modern city.

Designer Peter Saville who worked closely with Wilson commented ‘Tony created a new understanding of Manchester; the resonance of Factory goes way beyond the music. Young people often dream of going to another place to achieve their goals. Tony provided the catalyst and context for Mancunians to do that without having to go anywhere’.

In a small nation, too often in thrall to its capital, Wilson more than anyone else in his generation, emphasised the fact that great art and culture was not the sole preserve of London but was very much alive elsewhere in the country and in the North in particular.

Writer Paul Morley, himself born in the city, analysed Wilson’s life and legacy in incredible detail in his book ‘From Manchester with love’.

Saville designed Wilson’s black granite headstone with architect Ben Kelly . The headstone sits in repose amongst the crosses and columns of its neighbours in the Southern Cemetery.

Several examples of graffiti art featuring Tony Wilson have cropped up in the city including the following in Chorlton with its quote from the man himself (although sadly, ‘Wilson’ was incorrectly spelt in this instance).

Across the road from the Wilson mural is a stencil of the iconic Quentin Crisp by celebrated artist Stewy (www.stewy.uk).

The openly gay Quentin Crisp was a writer, humorist and actor who was famously played by the late actor John Hurt in the 1975 autobiography which was broadcast on national TV in the UK to great acclaim under the title ‘The Naked Civil Servant’.

Crisp has only a somewhat tenuous link with Chorlton, the suburb being the place where he died in 1999 after staying with a friend there. He was cremated at the Southern Cemetery.

Stewy’s stencil of Quentin Crisp is on the corner of Keppel Road in Chorlton. Keppel Road was where the Gibb brothers (better known as the Bee Gees) once lived and where they first practiced their harmonies together.

The brothers would, of course, go on to immense success globally. They were especially popular in the US and their mainstream take on disco music sold by the millions.

Crisp was also a success in the US and in New York in particular. The city was where his Broadway show ‘An evening with Quentin Crisp’ was staged to great acclaim.

Stewy also created a stencil artwork of Tony Wilson in the city as well as one of the ‘Bard of Salford’ (Salford being the city across the river from Manchester) John Copper Clarke, to whom Wilson gave his first break on TV.

We’ll leave John Cooper Clarke with the last word.

Kung Fu International

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