so horsemouth is back from catastro*Filles after having recorded an (as if) speech by george lansbury (poplar rate rebel) and having had some photos taken in costume. they were somewhat stuck by the absence of direct quotable quotes in their meagre research and decided to circumvent this with performance.
before he went horsemouth did some reading to get himself in character.
despite being a firm anglican george lansbury welcomed the russian revolution and took poplar council headlong into confrontation with the government over inadequate funding for the poorer boroughs (the ones with the greatest social problems). eventually, after 30 poplar councillors had been jailed, other boroughs joined them and faced by the rebellion spreading the government caved in.
the funding of local authorities was placed on a firmer footing and the term poplarism entered the political vocabulary for attempts at municipal socialism.
as horsemouth mentioned when first asked to do the project the junior school he went to in caerphilly in the valleys of south wales as a child was called lansbury park (as was the nearby lansbury park estate), lansbury and the rate rebels were well known as socialist heroes.
lansbury habitually had mutton chops in most of the photos that horsemouth has looked at (the chin was shaved out as was the jawline to a height of about half an inch, the rest of the side whiskers were left intact) - horsemouth does not have enough growth to achieve this. he regrets not scissoring the moustache level straight across (as lansbury did). (similarly lansbury was a white shirt man). he seems quite jovial in the pictures with kind eyes.
as minister for works lanbury visited skara brey in orkney and got the serpentine lido built. an avowed pacifist he opposed world war 1 and rearmament towards world war 2, he called for the end of the british empire.
in pursuit of (more) modern analogies this makes him a michael foot character (lansbury founded the daily herald - a left wing newspaper, so there are more analogies there with foot's journalism).
horsemouth (at some point in the late 80ies, early 90ies) saw tony benn and arthur scargill address a rally at the turkish halkevi centre - he tried to get something of their 'we will build jerusalem' into his speech. horsemouth tried to get some of tony benn's implacable fraternal reasonableness into the speech also and something of horsemouth's own grandfather and grandmother's way of reasoning (on his father's side).
it was not perfect and polished performance but hopefully there aren't so many mistakes as to detract for the meaning of it in the piece.
once they had broken the back of it there was food (pasta in an aubergine and chili sauce) and beer (thanks catastro*Fille).
after lunch they tried to do some work on the march sequence - shouting various slogans that a possibly more modern crowd would shout. horsemouth assumes they shouted slogans in 1921, maybe they marched purposefully in disciplined silence or sing hymns (who knows). they chanted the can't pay, won't pay of the poll tax years . clearly those years of going on demonstrations were not wasted horsemouth remarked.
after having pronounced themselves satisfied they finished off the beer and exchanged music - catastroFille introduced horsemouth to zam rock, psychedelic rock of the black sabbath type made in zambia in the 70ies (who knew).
having walked down there horsemouth walked back up. he crossed victoria park (site of the poplar rates rebels victory rally).
and it was there amidst the sunshine and the youth and the children (a kind of utopia) that the sadness hit him (he's not sure why). it took a while to shake off. but soon he had cup of tea, a glass of ricard, a phonecall from his mother and then an extended chat online with an old friend.
today it kind of looks rubbish and grey out. this week a day of work. perhaps drop off some musicians of bremen CDs with some friends.
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