Man Ray (LaMontagne)

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Ray LaMontagne, of whom I'd only read in Word magazine. (Thanks, by the way, for your comments). Why do all American musicians have beards at the moment, except Kelly Deal? Talking of Kelly Deal, she really is the perfect woman: she's designed her own font and it's free! Her band The Breeders have a site called Breeder's Digest, which is rather brilliant.

I went because Christine and James had managed to book an extra ticket in a different area of the venue - so I ended up on my own, in the balcony, directly in front of the singer - brilliant. Less brilliant was sitting next to a yummy mummy and her daughters Portia and India (I'm guessing). Clearly Mr. LaMontagne and his support act, Radio 2-friendly Josh Ritter, are approved objects of middle-class desire. After they sneered at the scruffy fat singleton in a Green Lantern t-shirt, I sipped beer and read my Shakespeare commentary during the intervals. That showed them.

So anyway, the music. It was odd. I'd heard of LaMontagne and Ritter, and assumed that they were middlingly well-known sensitive folk-country artistes, and so they are. I didn't realise that Mr. Lamontagne is the object of freakish devotion - a mostly full hall (probably 2500) at £25 a go in Wolverhampton is truly astonishing. They whistled, stamped and cheered like Mormons at Joseph Smith's resurrection (don't write in - I've no idea if Mr Smith is expected to rise again, though I imagine the Church would like to know the whereabouts of the golden tablets detailing the Semitic origins of America's ancient peoples he 'received from the prophet/angel/time-traveller Moroni' and then 'misplaced' or 'returned to the angel' before anyone else got a look. Actually, Some Chilean Woman could enlighten us). But I digress. LaMontagne's music was good. It was country-folk-blues and the later the set got, the more impassioned he became. The band was beautifully lit in pools of liquid, varying light, and they stood on rugs, which added to the 1970s atmosphere.

Actually, they reminded me of the post-Slowdive band Mojave 3 but more country, which is high praise from me (listen to some here)!

Then home for the glorious, ambiguous and complex ending to The Wire… Here's LaMontagne on somebody's crappy mobile phone from a couple of years ago, in Wolverhampton. There's nothing up yet from last night's gig.

Yet more historical news

Despite the constant round of parties, tourism and fetes available to the Victorian middle and upper classes, life in the city was nasty, brutish and short, even for these delicate flowers, as Michel Faber's and Sarah Waters's books depict.

Yet the new science of detection was all the rage, and ex-coppers were available to hire, just like Hauk in the The Wire:

PRIVATE INQUIRY OFFICE, established 1852, Eldon-chambers, Devereux-court, Temple, under the direction of CHARLES FREDERICK FIELD, late chief inspector of the detective force of the metropolis. This office has had the conduct of some of the most remarkable cases of the day–namely the Smyth and Worcester forgeries, the Rugeley murders, horse poisonings, incendiary fires, &c. Agent for New York, Mr. G. Hays, Bank detective police.

Still, if you survive into comfortable middle age, you can indulge yourself:

SMALL YACHT, for £20, with sails complete, or with anchor, chain cable, dingy, sweeps, and all stores, £25. Apply to W. C., 51, King William-street, E. C.

MR. GLADSTONE.–A beautifully-executed PORTRAIT of the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, on toned paper, with a biography and a review of his recently published edition Homer, will be given with the CRITIC, weekly literary Journal of August 7. Price 4d., or 5d. stamped. A copy in return for 5 stamps. Office, 29, Essex-street, Strand.

PICTURES.–To collectors and Connoisseurs.–An original, by Berrittini ; one by Van Heemskerke–both on panel ; six others on canvas. The largest an Italian landscape, by Stuart, 3 ft. 10 in. The whole for immediate cash, £50 ; cost £400, On view, after 12 o'clock a.m., at 20 Queen-street, Camden-town.

That's enough for today. I'm off to celebrate Emma's birthday - say happy birthday everybody - then home to see the Aged Parents and all my happily married siblings for a couple of days, then it's the UK School Games for a week. I'll check in once a day probably, but will be spending most of my time making children happy and safe. And not in an Austrian fashion. I'm the Welfare Officer.

I ain't no suit-wearin' businessman like you... you know I'm just a gangsta I suppose...

Quote of the day, from the passionate, leftwing author of The Wire, to which I'm quite attached:

"It is possible," he has observed, "that a few thinking viewers, after experiencing a season or two of The Wire, might be inclined, the next time they hear some politician declaring that with more prison cells, more cops, more lawyers, and more mandatory sentences that the war on drugs is winnable, to say, aloud: 'You are hopelessly full of shit'."

I do worry a little about watching the show - it's pretty voyeuristic to watch the travails of a mostly-black city. From top to bottom, it depicts a capitalist dystopia in which life is cheap, getting paid is all that matters, and from which all oversight is absent. The newspaper jettisons standards and journalists at an appalling rate. The politicians are obsessed with their careers and kickbacks, whether they started idealistically or not. The legal system is politically compromised, and the police - some of whom are broken, others corrupt - care little for their citizens, with a few exceptions. The unions are mob-controlled, the schools act as mini-prisons for kids who really want to be earning on the corners, and the black men are determined to kill or be killed for money and prestige. Add the racial tensions and you have a recipe for disaster.

Yes, it's fiction, but it's based on long experience. The Tories are currently claiming that the UK is like The Wire, which is astonishingly irresponsible, and proof that they haven't actually watched it: the show's implied solutions are leftwing, calling for altruism, a strong and caring state and a sense of community. The Wire's problems, meanwhile, are those of Thatcherite capitalism, in which unbridled capitalism, the free market, privatisation, contempt for public services and 'there is no such thing as society' (Thatcher) feature prominently. Think about it: drugs are a selfish bit of indulgence. There's demand, and businessmen have spotted a gap in the market and behaved like good little capitalists by filling it. Legality, guns and the like don't matter - we've all been taught that profit is more important than morality or community. The dealers shouldn't be alienated: they're just further along the continuum that is us.

Torchwould or Torchwouldn't?

This probably won't mean much to you if you're outside the UK or not a nerd, but did any of you follow the special Torchwood shows last week? Apart from the actual content, I loved the media blitz of having them on every night for a whole week, as well as the rather good special episodes on Radio 4.

I confess to hating the previous series' of Torchwood - badly acted, poorly scripted, designed to shock what few remaining old gits are out there. Most viewers are no doubt fine with Welsh people, gay people and gay Welsh people and the actual plots came a distinct second best. It all felt very insubstantial.

None of this was the case with these specials. Though at times it felt like a Doctor Who series without the Doctor (it's a spin-off from that show), and the themes of homosexuality and family were central to the plot, what we got was an unsettling, highly-politicised drama (one government minister proposes sourcing the children demanded from aliens from poor schools: 'what are the league tables for?' - unsettlingly, she ends up in charge at the end, and not all the endings are happy or neat). I know that 'governing classes divorced from normal life' isn't exactly news, but it was done very well. Peter Capaldi ran the gamut from evil (to everybody else) to victim (of the PM) very convincingly, and it was an especial pleasure to see him play a civil servant different to his previous version, the foul-mouthed Malcolm in The Thick of It and In The Loop. He certainly blew whoever plays Captain Jack off the screen by not devoting every facial muscle to whatever emotion was required at any particular moment.

Apart from the plots, which did have the occasional hole, the whole thing was a model of the kind of event TV which still has the power to hook us (I'm also staying up four nights a week to watch The Wire on BBC2). This is, of course, partly the product of constant cross-media promotion and the freedom the BBC has. ITV's advertisers wouldn't have been happy with a lot of the content, and that channel's revenues wouldn't stretch to the expense anyway.

Finally, it's always good to see that the BBC isn't completely metropolitan. It is trying to move departments to Manchester, though this is more for public consumption than creativity: lots of presenters will no doubt be commuting from London. Meanwhile, BBC Wales/Cymru saved Doctor Who in spectacular fashion despite the lack of an obvious Welsh link. Unless 'Doctor Who?' was the standard response to his original name. 'Hi. I'm Dr. Meredydd ap Gwalchgwyn and I'll get rid of those Daleks for you'. And let's not forget the other, rather brilliant, Who spinoff, The Sarah Jane Mysteries.

The licence fee is £142.50, covering all BBC TV, radio and internet, plus the broadcasting network. Even if you hate half the output, that's astonishingly good value - and no advertising. By comparison, I spend a lot more than that on my mobile phone contract.

Today's cultural icon

Last night's BBC2 was particularly good value: double Heroes, Newsnight and The Wire. However, greater than all these was Lauren Laverne reading John Keats' 'On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour' as a promo for the upcoming Poetry Season! I could have swooned… Unfortunately, Youtube has failed me and the BBC hasn't posted it yet (but watch this space).What's not to love about Lauren? Kenickie were a great band, she genuinely loves poetry, and she called the Spice Girls 'Tory Scum'.

Licence fee - whinge, whinge, whinge.

People sometimes whinge to me about the licence fee being a rip-off, or an unfair, compulsory tax. Never mind that it pays for 100+ radio stations, several TV channels - at least one of which will appeal to you - the World Service and the whole transmission system AND doesn't carry adverts.

Last night's BBC2 vindicated the licence fee for me (despite the Orwellian ads about paying up or being hunted down). Heroes, followed by some variable quality Mitchell and Webb, then Stuart Lee (he won't be appearing on commercial TV anytime soon), then a stunning Cancer Special Newsnight which didn't mention God or 'alternative' (i.e. evil, made-up preying on the vulnerable) medicine, followed by The Wire. Two of these are American shows - fine. They're good quality and cost millions of pounds per episode, and we get them for £140 per year.