X is for...

Needless to say, a paucity of Xs, but enough for a Top 5:

• XTC
• X-Ray Spex
• Xmal Deutschland
• Bernard Xolotl
• X-Beliebig

And needless to say, XTC get pride of place, consistently fabulous, from their urgent new wave days and 80s pop finesse, to the retro Dukes of Stratosphear and sublime swansongs, Apple Venus and Wasp Star. X-Ray Spex qualify for their great 1978 album Germ Free Adolescents (and RIP to singer Poly Styrene who died a few weeks ago...). Xmal Deutschland were a classic 4AD 80s band, while X-Beliebig were Austria's version of Joy Division (I have one very good abum). And Bernard Xolotl is a French electronic musician who has occasionally produced some good stuff inbetween a lot of new age schmaltz.  

One could add composer and sometime architect, Iannis Xenakis, and Krautrock obscuros Xhol Caravan 'though I couldn't honestly say I was a big fan of either. And finally there was Xenon, aka Dave Hunt, a recording engineer who has floated around with several other Daves: Beresford, Toop, Cunningham etc, and once offered me a cassette of his own music under the name of Xenon, which would have been YHR032 had I kept York House Recordings going. Any others?

Dragon Boat Festival

Today is Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Jie), a public holiday. Apparently it dates back to 278BC when Emperor Qin (he of Terracotta Warriors fame) conquered the Chu kingdom, forcing the Chu statesman and poet, Qu Yuan, to commit suicide by jumping into the Miluo River. He was a widely respected man so the local people went out in boats to throw rice dumplings into the water to stop the fish from eating his body. The boats and the dumplings have become part and parcel of the festivities., although we partook of neither. Interestingly, the festival only became a holiday again in 2008 after a gap of 60 years.

Land of Promise

Finally finished watching Land of Promise: the British Documentary Movement 1930-1950. It's taken a month: 4 DVDs, over 40 films, ranging from 5-40 mins each, plus a book, all beautifully put together by the BFI.

The movement was led by John Grierson, an advocate of social reform and national renewal, but he was joined by many others: his sister Ruby, Paul Rotha, Humphrey Jennings, Basil Wright, Paul Dickson etc. Together they believed in putting the working man (and woman) on the screen and giving them a voice. There were no film schools then so they all learned on the job. 

The films they made were almost entirely State-funded, produced through departments and agencies like the Empire Marketing Board (eg Industrial Britain [1931], actually directed by the American Robert Flaherty - see Nanouk post), Shell, GPO (the famous Night Mail [1936], curiously ommitted from this collection), Crown Film Unit, various Ministries, the COI, etc. 

Many of the films made in the '30s were about social reform (eg Housing Problems [1935]), which turned to morale-building and civil defence instruction during the war (Britain at Bay [1940]), and building a new Britain out of the ruins in the immediate postwar years. This was pre-TV of course, so they were shown in cinemas, schools, village halls, factory canteens and the like. 

Some are boring (one about an Employment Exchange springs to mind), others are somewhat patronising ("Behind the smoke, beautiful things are being made", spoken in crisp RP), some are really quite depressing (eg A Diary for Timothy [1946] and The Dim Little Island [1948] in which you can sense the weariness of the past and pessimism for the future), some are great, well-plotted little films with good acting (Cotton Comes Back [1946]), one is in colour, and two are just plain weird (Chasing the Blues [1947] which attempts to combine film and graphics, and What a LIfe! [1948] about two men attempting suicide amidst the relentless gloom of post-war rationing.

So, a 20 year snapshot (if one can call 14 hours a snapshot) of Britain before, during and after the war... Fascinating stuff, and hard to think it's the same country as now. Most men wore suits and ties, even on the factory floor, and looked a lot older than their age. Women looked (I have to say) plain, wore aprons in the house and floral dresses outside. Everyone smoked. There is constant reference to coal, shipyards and railways, and to "England" when speaking of the United Kingdom. In one film about Britain's railways, there is heavy use of a map covered with railway lines to everywhere - except Northern Ireland which is blank.

And there's plenty more where this came from. Next up is Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain 1951-1977...

Dare

One of those grey, stay-indoors days, trying to be purposeful. Girls' belated thank you cards for birthday presents, Liz and I sorting out files, statements and tax returns... All to the soundtrack of some 80s cassettes I compiled in the... well, 80s. Unexciting stuff but vaguely satisfying.  

Sad though to hear that Martin Rushent died today, producer of Humam League's Dare and Love & Dancing - big favourites in the Elliott household and two of the most advanced examples of pop production ever - and that was 30 years ago. But he also engineered T.Rex, Gentle Giant and Curved Air before embracing punk and producing The Stranglers, The Buzzcocks, Generation X and Altered Images. Will be missed.  

Soiree

3-page letter from mum arrived in the post this morning. Proper letter in an envelope with a stamp on it. Very positive, funny, looking forward to seeing us next month / coming to Beijing in the autumn and ending with the unusually casual but very amusing "Love Mum, Jean, whatever". End of a busy week. It's taken us 9 months but finally we got it together and invited my team over for a soiree of food and drinks. Nice, relaxed evening, not talking work amazingly.

The secret's not out

At a creative industries reception this evening I met some guys from Crystal CG, a big Chinese computer graphics agency who've recently set up an office in London. They did the opening ceremony visuals for the Beijing Olympics - remember the scroll? They're also doing the London ceremony. Needless to say, it's shrouded in secrecy. All they could say was: "It will be different". Fair enough. 

Children's Day

School's out. It's International Children's Day today, as celebrated by former Communist Bloc countries. I remember in Japan it was 5 May (tango-no sekku) and Thailand was always the second Saturday in January. I don't think it exists in the UK, which says a lot about the British mindset. So, school's out, but not for our two!