Black Jack and Black Tom

I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had downloaded 'All Eyes on the Rio Grande', a novel about the US Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916, and was expecting it to be an entertaining read. In fact it was terrible: no plot, no sense of place or time, no humour, no nothing really. I sincerely hope that no one else was tempted by me mentioning it.

Black Andy

On a higher literary level is the work of Andrew Marvell.  David in Suffolk (and you should check out his newish blog if you haven't already found it for yourselves) asked following this recent post here if Marvell wrote a poem comparing an army to a garden. I don't know much about Marvell's poetry and it's not the sort of thing that I would read for pleasure. To understand it properly you would need to know more about the political and religious schisms of the seventeenth century than I do, not to mention have a grounding in the works of the classical Roman poets of the type not often featuring in the modern education system. There is a good reason that his work is mainly known through quotations like the one that I used. However, I do have a suggestion as to which might be the poem he's thinking of, namely 'Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax'. The only reason I know the piece at all is because I used to work somewhere mentioned in it, although as I've had several dozen jobs that could apply to lots of poems. Anyway, verse 10 (or verse x as they called it in Marvell's day) starts with the lines:

Him Bishops-Hill, or Denton may,

Or Bilbrough, better hold than they:

Denton - which is a few kilometres up the valley from where I am currently locked down; across on the other side of the river - was the Fairfax family's estate and was the birthplace of the Lord Fairfax to whom the poem is dedicated, and who was of course the commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces during the Civil War. The current building on the site is from the late eighteenth century and is now the headquarters of a large engineering company of which I was once Group CFO. Indeed it was while working there that I first became aware that Ilkley was such a hotbed of wargaming and thus made contact with the Ilkley Lads; the rest is history.

The road to Marston Moor

The whole country would have been as affected by the English Civil War as by the Great War; fighting was widespread and the death toll was proportionately higher than in either world war. Otley's part was somewhat minor. Parliamentarian troops marched through en route to Marston Moor and it is reliably documented that Cromwell held a conference with his commanders in an orchard in the nearby village of Menston. More apocryphally, these passing troops are supposed to have drunk the Black Bull - oldest of Otley's many pubs - dry. This may not be true, but it's firmly rooted in the local popular consciousness, mostly because there's a large plaque on the side of the pub facing the market square which makes the claim to everyone who walks by.

To mark the anniversary of the  battle - July 2nd - the English Civil War Society visited the town to commemorate all aspects of the events of 1644. I only witnessed their attempt at the drinking task through the window as I walked up to the Yew Tree to see the Max Band (excellent, with the highlight being a cracking run through 'Born To Be Wild'), but there they were, in period costume and giving it their best shot.

I did, however, go to see their drill demonstration and display of the sort of skirmish that may have taken place in the run up to the battle. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but for lovers of loud bangs and the smell of gunpowder it was a cracking afternoon out.

 We already know that this blog's readership contains those with a taste for women dressed in male military attire - shame on you - and there was much that would have held your interest; a significant proportion of the combat troops involved were women. Look closely at the photos and you'll see what I mean.

Le Cirque Arrive et Puis S'en Va

Otley has been preparing for the Tour de France for weeks now, with yellow bicycles popping up everywhere and even the pubs being renamed in French. Nonetheless I was somewhat taken aback when I stepped out of my front door at 7am on the day of le Grand Depart to go to buy the papers and found a group of people on the pavement outside sitting on camping chairs and drinking coffee from Thermos flasks a good five hours before the peloton was due to pass. It steadily grew from there and I doubt if Otley has seen so many people since Cromwell's troops drank dry Le Taureau Noir on their way to fight at Marston Moor.

My house or, as we now say in Yorkshire, chez moi lies directly on the route and so I had a good view of the whole thing, or at least I would have done if it hadn't been for all the other people selfishly blocking my bit of pavement. The main event of the day may be the race, but it rushes past so quickly that there's not much to say about it, and anyway I for one am somewhat cynical about, how can I put this, whether the professional athletes involved have fully embraced the Corinthian spirit. The publicity caravan on the other hand is a spectacle and doesn't pretend to be anything other than grubby and money-making. For some reason watching cars full of grinning and waving young men speeding past followed by police cars with sirens blaring called to mind an amusing episode from many years ago involving an altercation with the special branch bodyguard of then Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees, only this time with a lot more free promotional merchandise being thrown into the crowd.

The publicity caravan attacks the accessible viewing area with Otley Chevin in the background

In any event, and until I get round to writing up that story, back to le Tour. The spectators weren't entirely sure what to make of the mobile adverts rolling past and some of them didn't get much of a cheer; 'boucherie de veau' anyone? Having said that, a series of floats promoting McCains frozen chips was met with complete indifference as well and they're a Yorkshire company. My own personal favourite was the enormous Robinson's Fruitshoot which resembled nothing so much as the giant tit that escaped in Woody Allen's 'Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask'.

fin de course

So, that was it then. Someone remind me what happens after the Lord Mayor's Show? How about some Johnny Cash.