Lonesome Jim (2005)

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

If I was in London right now . . .

. . . I'd be attending this meeting:

Talk on Politics & Song

Wednesday, November 10

Time: 7:00pm - 9:30pm

Location: Housmans Bookshop

5 Caledonian Road - Kings Cross

"Starting out writing satirical comedy songs for BBC’s ‘That Was the Week That Was’, Leon Rosselson has branched into different music genres and experimented with multiple influences.

His songs are loved by many, his innumerable fans include Billy Bragg and Dick Gaughan, who have both recorded his most famous song, ‘The World Turned Upside Down’. Described by Record Collector magazine as defining the ‘power, musical eloquence and history of politicised song’, his songs seek to challenge received opinion.

Both as a singer and demonstrator, Leon Rosselson has inspired many to the political cause. An internationalist, he believes in the fight for justice, equality, and civil liberties, seen in his biting ‘Ballad of a Spycatcher’, ridiculing the Thatcher government’s censorship of the book. One of his most recent albums, ‘The Last Chance’ donates all proceeds to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Leon Rosselson discusses his politics and music at Housmans, and will make a brief performance of some of his songs."

Rosselson's voice is an acquired taste but he's got to be one of the political songwriters of the past forty years. If you've not heard his material, YouTube Dick Gaughan singing Rosselson's songs for a real treat.

Here's one to be going on with:

Libertarias (1996)

New Cinema in Britain by Roger Manvell (Studio Vista 1969)

Mr Alfred M.A. by George Friel (Calder & Boyars 1972)

He saw a new rash break out on the scarred face of the city. Wherever the name of a gang was scribbled the words YA BASS was added. The application of the phrase caused some dispute at first. Nobody doubted YA BASS meant YOU BASTARDS. But the grammarians who discussed it were undecided about its vocative or apostrophic use. Some said COGS YA BASS meant O COGS! YOU ARE BASTARDS! Others said it meant WE ARE THE COGS, O YOU BASTARDS! A fifteen-year-old boy charged with assault and breach of the peace, and also with daubing TONGS YA BASS on a bus-shelter, said in court that YA BASS was an Italian phrase meaning FOR EVER. But the sheriff didn't believe him.

Some of the intelligentsia seemed to believe him.

Following a fashion, as the intelligentsia often do, they wrote the names of miscellaneous culture-heroes in public places and added YA BASS. Thus soon after the original examples of COGS YA BASS, TOI YA BASS, TONGS YA BASS, FLEET YA BASS, and so on, which were plastered all over the districts where those gangs lived, a secondary epidemic occurred on certain sites only. SHELLEY YA BASS suddenly appeared in the basement of the University Union. In a public convenience near the Mitchell Library MARX YA BASS was scrawled in one hand, LENIN YA BASS in another, and TROTSKY YA BASS in a third. When The Caretaker was put on at the King's Theatre PINTER YA BASS was pencilled on a poster in the foyer. BECKETT YA BASS, later and more familiarly SAM YA BASS, was scribbled on the wall of a public-house urinal near the Citizens' Theatre the week Happy Days was on. When the same theatre presented Ghosts somebody managed to write IBSEN YA BASS in large capitals on the staircase to the dress-circle.

The Man Who Killed Himself by Julian Symons (Penguin Crime 1967)

In the end Arthur Brownjohn killed himself, but in the beginning he made up his mind to murder his wife. He did so on the day that Major Easonby Mellon met Patricia Parker. Others might have come to such a decision earlier, but Arthur Brownjohn was a patient and, as all those who knew him agreed, a timid and long-suffering man. When people say that a man is long-suffering they mean that they see no reason why he should not suffer for ever.