Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE (1822–1915) is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008), but based on the character “Flashman” in Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896).
In Hughes’ book, Flashman is the notorious bully of Rugby School who persecutes Tom Brown, and who is finally expelled for drunkenness. Twentieth century author George MacDonald Fraser had the idea of writing Flashman’s memoirs, in which the school bully would be identified with an “illustrious Victorian soldier”: experiencing many 19th century wars and adventures and rising to high rank in the British Army, acclaimed as a great soldier, while remaining by his unapologetic self-description “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady.” Fraser’s Flashman is an antihero who runs from danger or hides cowering in fear, betrays or abandons acquaintances at the slightest incentive, bullies and beats servants with gusto, beds every available woman, carries off any loot he can grab, gambles and boozes enthusiastically, and yet, through a combination of luck and cunning, usually ends each volume acclaimed as a hero. Interestingly, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is a big fan.
Bare Wires is a psychedelic-blues studio album by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, featuring Mick Taylor on guitar, released in 1968 on Decca Records.The album was the last John Mayall studio album to feature the name “Bluesbreakers” and was also Mayall’s first successful U.S. album reaching #59 on the Billboard 200.
The last Bluesbreakers album “Crusade” saw guitarist Peter Green, who left to form Fleetwood Mac, being replaced by Mike Taylor.This album, “Bare Wires”, saw bassist John McVie, who joined Fleetwood Mac, being replaced by Tony Reeves and also drummer Hughie Flint being replaced by Jon Hiseman. The songs “No Reply” and “She’s Too Young” were released as a single by Decca. The album’s a-side was a medley called “Bare Wire/Suite” which featured the individual songs “Bare Wire”, “Where Did I Belong”, “I Started Walking”, “Open a New Door”, “Fire”, “I Know Now”, and “Look in the Mirror” although the individual times are not known.
Long before he was the patron saint of traditional New Orleans jazz standards, Dr. John (the Night Tripper) was a pretty scary fellow. His LP Gris Gris (1972) was full of spooky R&B that rivals anything Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson could throw at you; an 11 on the spook-o-meter.
Produced by Harold Battiste, it was released on Atco Records in 1968. The musical style of Gris-Gris is a hybrid of New Orleans rhythm and blues and psychedelic rock. Despite the New Orleans style, it was recorded in California with several native New Orleans musicians.
Gris-Gris failed to chart in the United Kingdom and the United States. It was re-issued on compact disc decades later and received much greater praise from modern critics, including being listed at #143 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John, named after an infamous voodoo priest) was an experienced New Orleans R&B and rock musician playing as a session musician, songwriter, and producer in New Orleans. Due to drug problems and the law, Rebennack moved to Los Angeles in 1965, joining a group of New Orleans session musicians. Rebennack survived by playing with various pop and rock recording sessions, receiving much of this work with the help of New Orleanian arranger Harold Battiste.
Rebennack desired to make an album that combined the various strains of New Orleans music behind a front man called Dr. John, after a black man named Dr. John Montaine, who claimed to be an African potentate.Rebennack chose this name because his sister had information about Montaine, and Rebennack felt a “spiritual kinship” with him.Rebennack originally wanted New Orleans singer Ronnie Barron to front the band as the Dr. John character, but Don Costa, who managed Barron at the time, advised him against it, claiming it to be a bad career move. Rebennack took on the Dr. John stage name himself.
Gris-Gris was recorded in Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, California. With an album due and no singer prepared, Dr. John managed to book studio time originally reserved for Sonny & Cher.
The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Great Britain from June 1812 to the spring of 1815, although the peace treaty ending the war was signed in Europe in December 1814. The main land fighting of the war occurred along the Canadian border, in the Chesapeake Bay region, and along the Gulf of Mexico; extensive action also took place at sea.
From the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the United States had been irritated by the failure of the British to withdraw from American territory along the Great Lakes; their backing of the Indians on America’s frontiers; and their unwillingness to sign commercial agreements favorable to the United States. American resentment grew during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), in which Britain and France were the main combatants. In time, France came to dominate much of the continent of Europe, while Britain remained supreme on the seas. The United States believed its rights on the seas as a neutral were being violated by both nations, but British maritime policies were resented more because Britain dominated the seas. Also, the British claimed the right to take from American merchant ships any British sailors who were serving on them. Frequently, they also took Americans. This practice of imprisonment became a major grievance.
The United States at first attempted to change the policies of the European powers by economic means. In 1807, after the British ship Leopard fired on the American frigate CHESAPEAKE, President Thomas Jefferson urged and Congress passed an EMBARGO ACT banning all American ships from foreign trade. The embargo failed to change British and French policies but devastated New England shipping. Later and weaker economic measures were also unsuccessful. Failing in peaceful efforts and facing an economic depression, some Americans began to argue for a declaration of war to redeem the national honor. The Congress argued that American honor could be saved and British policies changed by an invasion of Canada. On June 18, 1812, President James Madison signed a declaration of war that Congress–with substantial opposition–had passed at his request. Unknown to Americans, Britain had finally, two days earlier, announced that it would revoke its orders.
U.S. forces were not ready for war, and American hopes of conquering Canada collapsed in the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. American frigates won a series of single-ship engagements with British frigates, and American privateers continually harried British shipping. Meanwhile, the British gradually tightened a blockade around America’s coasts, ruining American trade, threatening American finances, and exposing the entire coastline to British attack. American attempts to invade Canada in 1813 were again mostly unsuccessful. There was a standoff at Niagara, and an elaborate attempt to attack Montreal by a combined operation involving one force advancing along Lake Champlain and another sailing down the Saint Lawrence River from Lake Ontario failed at the end of the year. The only success was in the West.
In 1814 the United States faced complete defeat, because the British, having defeated Napoleon, began to transfer large numbers of ships and experienced troops to America. The British planned to attack the United States in three main areas: in New York along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River in order to sever New England from the union; at New Orleans to block the Mississippi; and in Chesapeake Bay as a diversionary maneuver. The British then hoped to obtain major territorial concessions in a peace treaty. The situation was particularly serious for the United States because the country was insolvent by the fall of 1814, and in New England opponents of the war were discussing separation from the Union. The British appeared near success in the late summer of 1814. American resistance to the diversionary attack in Chesapeake Bay was so weak that the British, after winning the Battle of Bladensburg (August 24), marched into Washington, D.C., and burned most of the public buildings. President Madison had to flee into the countryside. The British then turned to attack Baltimore but met stiffer resistance and were forced to retire after the American defense of Fort McHenry, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
In late 1814 New Orleans was home to a population of French, Spanish, African, Anglo and Creole peoples dedicated to pursuing economic opportunism and the joys of life. It also occupied a strategic place on the map. Located just 100 miles upstream from the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Crescent City offered a tempting prize to a British military still buoyant over the burning of Washington, D.C. To capture the city, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane fitted out a naval flotilla of more than 50 ships to transport 10,000 veteran troops from Jamaica. They were led by Sir Edward Pakenham, the 37-year-old brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington and a much-decorated general officer. For protection, the citizens of southern Louisiana looked to Major General Andrew Jackson, known to his men as “Old Hickory.” Jackson arrived in new Orleans in the late fall of 1814 and quickly prepared defenses along the city’s many avenues of approach.
Meanwhile, the British armada scattered a makeshift American fleet in Lake Borgne, a shallow arm of the Gulf of Mexico east of New Orleans, and evaluated their options. Two British officers, disguised as Spanish fishermen, discovered an unguarded waterway, Bayou Bienvenue, that provided access to the east bank of the Mississippi River barely nine miles downstream from New Orleans. On December 23 the British vanguard poled its way through a maze of sluggish streams and traversed marshy land to emerge unchallenged an easy day’s march from their goal.
Two American officers, whose plantations had been commandeered by the British, informed Jackson that the enemy was at the gates. “Gentlemen, the British are below, we must fight them tonight,” the general declared. He quickly launched a nighttime surprise attack that, although tactically a draw, gained valuable time for the outnumbered Americans. Startled by their opponents’ boldness, the British decided to defer their advance toward New Orleans until all their troops could be brought in from the fleet. Old Hickory used this time well. He retreated three miles to the Chalmette Plantation on the banks of the Rodriguez Canal, a wide, dry ditch that marked the narrowest strip of solid land between the British camps and New Orleans. Here Jackson built a fortified mud rampart, 3/5 mile long and anchored on its right by the Mississippi River and on the left by an impassable cypress swamp.
While the Americans dug in, General Pakenham readied his attack plans. On December 28 the British launched a strong advance that Jackson repulsed with the help of the Louisiana, an American ship that blasted the British left flank with broadsides from the river. Four days later Pakenham tried to bombard the Americans into submission with an artillery barrage, but Jackson’s gunners stood their ground.
The arrival of fresh troops during the first week of January 1815 gave the British new hope. Pakenham decided to cross the Mississippi downstream with a strong force and overwhelm Jackson’s thin line of defenders on the river bank opposite the Rodriguez Canal. Once these redcoats were in position to pour flank fire across the river, heavy columns would assault each flank of the American line, then pursue the insolent defenders six miles into the heart of New Orleans. Units carrying fascines — bundled sticks used to construct fortifications — and ladders to bridge the ditch and scale the ramparts would precede the attack, which would begin at dawn January 8 to take advantage of the early morning fog.
It was a solid plan in conception, but flawed in execution. The force on the west bank was delayed crossing the river and did not reach its goal until well after dawn. Deprived of their misty cover, the main British columns had no choice but to advance across the open fields toward the Americans, who waited expectantly behind their mud and cotton-bale barricades. To make matters worse, the British forgot their ladders and fascines, so they had no easy means to close with the protected Americans.
Never has a more polyglot army fought under the Stars and Stripes than did Jackson’s force at the Battle of New Orleans. In addition to his regular U.S. Army units, Jackson counted on dandy New Orleans militia, a sizable contingent of black former Haitian slaves fighting as free men of color, Kentucky and Tennessee frontiersmen armed with deadly long rifles and a colorful band of Jean Lafitte’s outlaws, whose men Jackson had once disdained as “hellish banditti.” This hodgepodge of 4,000 soldiers, crammed behind narrow fortifications, faced more than twice their number.
Pakenham’s assault was doomed from the beginning. His men made perfect targets as they marched precisely across a quarter mile of open ground. Hardened veterans of the Peninsular Campaign in Spain fell by the score, including nearly 80 percent of a splendid Scottish Highlander unit that tried to march obliquely across the American front. Both of Pakenham’s senior generals were shot early in the battle, and the commander himself suffered two wounds before a shell severed an artery in his leg, killing him in minutes. His successor wisely disobeyed Pakenham’s dying instructions to continue the attack and pulled the British survivors off the field. More than 2,000 British had been killed or wounded and several hundred more were captured. The American loss was eight killed and 13 wounded.
Jackson’s victory had saved New Orleans, but it came after the war was over. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 but resolved none of the issues that started it, had been signed in Europe weeks before the action on the Chalmette Plantation. The War of 1812 or, The Second War For American Independence, is mostly forgotten today but was the real event, more so than the American Revolutionary War, that sealed America’s status as an independent nation.
The Loved One is a 1965 black comedy film about the funeral business in Los Angeles, which is based on The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy (1948), a short satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh. It was directed by British filmmaker Tony Richardson and the screenplay – which also drew on Jessica Mitford’s book The American Way of Death (1963) – was written by noted American satirical novelist Terry Southern and British author Christopher Isherwood. It stars Robert Morse, Rod Steiger, Sir John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Jonathan Winters and Anjanette Comer with Milton Berle and (a very young) Paul Williams. It promises “something to offend everyone” – and it delivers.
The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 crime film. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and stars Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Christopher Walken (his first major role) and comedian Alan King. The screenplay was written by Frank Pierson, based upon a best-selling 1970 novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders. The film is scored by Quincy Jones.
Revolving around a bold robbery, the film was prescient in focusing on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, from security cameras in public places to more discreet and underhanded methods, the first film to do so.This theme would become a movie staple following the Watergate scandal a few years later. It also addressed the lack of coordination between government agencies.
The Strawbs began life in the mid 1960s when Dave Cousins and Tony Hooper formed the bluegrass duo, Strawberry Hill Boys in London. The double bass player, Ron Chesterman, joined them and they then recorded an album with Sandy Denny which remained unreleased for several years. Sandy then left to join Fairport Convention and keyboard player Rick Wakeman, bassist John Ford and drummer Richard Hudson joined in 1970. This line-up lasted for two albums until Wakeman left in 1971 to be replaced by Blue Weaver, formerly of Amen Corner. The album Grave New World followed in 1972, after which Tony Hooper left the band and Dave Lambert joined.
The next album contained two hit singles, “Lay Down” and “Part of the Union” which was written by Hudson and Ford. Hudson and Ford left the band and formed a moderately successful duo as Hudson Ford and had a handful of hit singles. Blue Weaver also left to join the Bee Gees, so three new members were drafted in; Chas Cronk on Bass, Rod Coombes on Drums and John Hawken on keyboards. Two albums, Hero and Heroine and Ghosts were recorded with this line-up before Hawken left the band. The quartet of Cousins, Lambert, Cronk and Coombes produced a further three albums, Nomadness, Deep Cuts and Burning for You followed by Deadlines on which Tony Fernandez replaced Coombes on drums.
Dave Cousins then accepted a job as program controller at Radio Tees, effectively spelling the end of the band, despite the addition of Brian Willoughby on guitar. Occasional line-ups performed during the ’80s and ’90s including the Dave Cousins and Brian Willoughby duo which gave us two albums, Old School Songs and The Bridge.
The 30th anniversary concert at Chiswick in 1998 brought together nearly all the past members of the band for a musical feast and since then the Strawbs have been touring, either as a six-piece electric or a three-piece acoustic band and 2001 saw them release a new acoustic album, Baroque and Roll which made Rolling Stone’s Richie Unterberger’s top ten album list of 2002.
Morgan! (original UK title: Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment) is a 1966 comedy film made by the British Lion Films Corporation. It was directed by Karel Reisz and produced by Leon Clore from a screenplay by David Mercer, based on his 1962 television play for BBC Television, the leading role at that time being played by Keith Barron.
The film stars David Warner, Vanessa Redgrave and Robert Stephens with Irene Handl and Bernard Bresslaw. The eponymous hero is working-class artist Morgan Delt (David Warner), obsessed with Karl Marx and gorillas, who tries to stop his ex-wife (Vanessa Redgrave) from remarrying
The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival and Redgrave was awarded Best Actress. The plot revolves around Morgan Delt is an artist from a working class background, married to Leonie, a woman far above him in social standing. Given to a rich fantasy life to begin with, Morgan goes off the mental deep end when Leonie informs him that she is asking for a divorce and taking up with art dealer Charles Napier (Stephens), a man more befitting her class. Thoroughly gone around the bend, Morgan enacts a series of bizarre gags and stunts in a campaign to win Leonie back, including putting a skeleton in her bed and crashing her wedding dressed as a gorilla (the film segues into brief extracts from the original King Kong film). His antics get Morgan arrested and committed to an insane asylum, where he learns that Leonie is pregnant with his child, but happily continues to tend his hammer and sickle-shaped flowerbed.
Oldman and Winstone going at it in Nil By Mouth...
Nil by Mouth is a 1997 British drama film surrounding the life of a family of characters living in South East London. It was Gary Oldman’s debut as writer, director (although it’s widely accepted that it was actually directed by cinematographer Ron Fortunato); Oldman also produced the film in partnership with Douglas Urbanski and Luc Besson. It stars Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast, 300) as Raymond, the abusive husband of Valerie (Kathy Burke). The film was a critical success, winning eight awards and being nominated for a further eight. It beat 1995’s Casino as the movie with the most f words, and two years later was beaten out itself by Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam.
The film takes place in, and was inspired by, the environment Oldman witnessed growing up on a council estate in South East London. Oldman cast his sister Laila Morse (most famous for playing Mo Harris in EastEnders) as Janet and had his mother sing the parting song in the film (although it was dubbed over a shot of another actress singing).
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is a 1980 British film based on the eponymous character created by Vivian Stanshall. It starred Trevor Howard as Sir Henry and Stanshall himself as Henry’s brother Hubert. Unusually, the film was released in sepia toned monochrome.
As complex as the mind of its creator, Vivian Stanshal (of Bonzo Dog Band fame), the plot of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End revolves around attempts to exorcise the ghost of Humbert, the brother of Sir Henry (Trevor Howard). Humbert was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident whilst escaping from an illicit tryst. Amongst the eccentric family members, mad friends and grudgingly loyal servants involved are the eternally knitting Aunt Florrie, the tapeworm obsessed Mrs. E, Lady Phillipa of Staines (Liz Smith), who enjoys the odd ‘small’ sherry and the ever-present Old Scrotum, Sir Henry’s wrinkled retainer.
After a long wait, while the film obtained cult status, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End was finally released on DVD in 2006.
Poetic Champions 