The Beatles At The Cavern Club In Liverpool, England | 25 March 1963 (I)

I don't know how Ray thought this story makes him look like a good journalist. "It was the most important story of my career" what, because one of the subjects was so flattered by it that they flattered you in turn and got you to be (one of) their court stenographers for a time? He's better than most Beatles writers but this story makes him sound easily bought and bad at his job, idk why he'd tell it.

Cultivating journalists was one of John’s best PR skills. He was very good at building relationships, encouraging loyalties, creating a dynamic where his interests became the journalist’s interests.

Ray Connolly is a good example. He met Paul first, reporting on the filming of Magical Mystery Tour. He was new to the job, and remembers “sitting meekly outside the crowd in the bar in the hotel, wondering how I was ever going to get to know anyone, when suddenly someone sat in the empty chair next to mine. It was Paul McCartney.” From this start, Connolly builds a working relationship with Paul and the other Beatles. But over time, he becomes closer to John and Yoko - because they put the work in. Paul is friendly to a shy journalist, and vaguely supportive afterwards. But John rings him up, pays attention to his writing, rewards him when he (and Yoko) like what Connolly’s doing.

Here’s the big turning point. On 27 November 1969, Connolly published an article headlined “1969: The day the Beatles died”. “In writing this article, I was, in journalistic parlance, flying a kite,” Connolly explains - writing up his own guess about what was happening. “In terms of my career, it turned out to be probably the most important piece I ever wrote – and at least one of the Beatles was delighted when he read it.” And here’s how he expressed that delight:

The day after this piece was published a white rose in a see-through plastic box was delivered to my desk at the Evening Standard. An attached card read ‘To Ray with love from John and Yoko’. The unwritten message couldn’t have been clearer. From that moment I was to have my own ‘Deep Throat’ in the Beatles organisation, leaking me a steady flow of information - John Lennon.

I laughed out loud when I first read that, because it’s just so perfect. The white rose turns 1960s flower power into the new, stripped-back, all-white JohnandYoko aesthetic. It keeps the imagery of peace and flowers, but moves them into the art gallery. The rose comes encased in plastic, another trademark (think of Plastic Ono Band, or John’s enthusiasm for the idea of performing in a giant plastic bubble in Get Back.) And the written message doesn’t say anything concrete: no specific praise, no comment on the piece. Instead of committing themselves, they leave Ray to join the dots.

Which he did. More than that, just look at how he reads the situation: he sees John as his source, rather seeing himself as John’s journalist. Within a month, John and Yoko are paying Ray’s first-class fare so he can fly to Canada to report on their peace campaign. Ray Connolly strikes me as one of the brighter Beatle-adjacent journalists - he kept his independence, and managed to stay on good terms with Paul as well as John - but he fell for that one hook, line and sinker.

Too good to be true?

The Riace Bronzes

A recent episode of the Bettany Hughes series, The Ancient World, entitled ‘Athens: The Truth About Democracy’, covered the history and development of that unprecedented experiment in direct, representational democracy in 5th-century Athens. As expected, the show covered the astonishing achievements the Greeks made in art, drama and philosophy. Interestingly, Hughes pointed out that these achievements actually coincided with the period in which pure democracy was beginning to decline, eroded by the dominance of Pericles and the dragged-out nightmare of the Peloponnesian War.

Among the most notable achievements was the abrupt evolution of Greek sculpture from the stiff, Egyptian-like figures of the kouroi to the astonishing dynamism and realism of the Discobolus and the Riace Bronzes. The suddenness of this evolution and the perfection of the resulting art seems to be in keeping with the rest of the ‘Greek Achievement’, but an English sculptor has a different theory. Nigel Konstam, interviewed by Hughes in the programme, thinks that the lifelikeness of these sculptures is just that – namely that they were made using plaster casts of live models. He demonstrated how this could be done in his workshop, where a number of sculptors smeared plaster over a carefully positioned, suitably muscled male model.

Konstam didn’t stop there, though. His ultimate piece of evidence was the soles of some of the Riace sculpture’s feet. The underside of the sculpted toes and soles are flattened at exactly the same point a live standing model’s would be – a detail unnecessary for verisimilitude, since the soles are invisible. It’s a persuasive argument, though it could just as easily be argued that Greek sculptors paid the same attention to detail on the invisible as the visible in their work. A more convincing proof for the argument came to me as I looked at the images of various statues, something that has often occurred to me while looking at Greek sculpture – namely, that the heads and bodies often seem notably different to each other., Even when the proportions are perfect, as they usually are, the bodies are so life-like as to seem to be breathing, while the faces are oddly generic – both male and female faces have the same long noses, pursed lips and round cheeks (incidentally the young Elvis had a perfectly ‘Greek’ face). It’s less conclusive than the soles-of-the-feet evidence, but this disparity strongly indicates, from an aesthetic point of view at least, that models with perfect bodies were used as moulds for both male and female Greek sculptures, while the faces were created from imagination. It’s not implausible that such ripped torsos would be plentiful among Athenian citizens – soldiers in the triremes spent up to 8 hours a day solidly rowing.

If true, this theory rather takes away from the idea that the Greeks were innovators in sculpture, but the thought doesn’t bother me. Their myriad achievements in just about every other field more than make up for it.

Suze Rotolo

The death of Suze Rotolo is sad news; it almost seems symbolic of the passing of a certain kind of 60s innocence and idealism. But more than a symbol of an era, or a poet's muse, Rotolo seems to have been a talented artist and an interesting and thoughtful person. Her interviews in 'No Direction Home' Martin Scorsese's celebrated documentary on Dylan were illuminating and good-humoured, and she came across as very likeable. Her 2008 memoir of life in Greenwich Village, 'The Freewheelin' Years' bears this out. When reading the book, I found the sections where she described her upbringing, political awakening and youthful exploration of art and poetry more interesting than those describing her relationship with Dylan, which after all only took up four years of a full and varied life. I was struck by her descriptions of time spent studying in Perugia - her solitary excursions into the countryside to draw and write indicated a broad creative curiosity and need for solitude quite at odds with the intense, incestuous atmosphere of New York's folk scene. No wonder she felt compelled to leave, despite being subjected to a barrage of disapproval on her return for 'abandoning' Bob. I'm sure he, even in the midst of his bellyaching, recognised that her absence during that period was crucial to his artistic development, providing the creative fuel for some of his finest early songs. Judging by the book and the testimony of those who knew her, Suze was very much her own person, loyal to her principles and friends and stands out among the baby-boomer generation for remaining married to same person for 40 years! (film-maker Enzo Bartoliucci.)

In some of the interviews from the time her book came out she mentioned the lot of so-called 'red-diaper' children of Communist parents, who were obliged for years to keep quiet about their parents' political activities due to the insidious atmosphere of the McCarthy era, a necessary secrecy that she reckons contributed to the atmosphere of lively storytelling and self-mythologising of the early folk scene. Her account of growing up in what she described as a materially poor but 'culturally wealthy' family and her own love of poetry, art and literature growing up is very moving, as well as her commitment to civil rights and similar causes early on. In the memoir, she captured the essence of being young, idealistic and thrilled by art in the same way that Dylan captured the essence of being young and in love in his early songs inspired by her. It would have been good to know more of her art and writing during her lifetime, but ultimately it seems she preferred a private life above all, and would never sacrifice that for fame or wide renown. She speaks of reading Francoise Gilot's memoir of life with Picasso at the time of her trip to Perugia and feeling a strong sense of recognition at the plight of the talented woman forced to play second fiddle to her genius lover. There was no way she could fit herself into the reductive 60s role of a male singer’s ‘chick’, even if she had wanted to. Her wit is evident in this podcast, where she nicely skewered the essence of Dylan (and perhaps the essence of all geniuses who seek fame) when she described a song of his ('What Was It You Wanted' from the 80s album Oh Mercy) as 'very clever, very funny, with a big nasty streak!'. True, witty, and delivered with a wry smile and not a shred of bitterness. Both her natural sense of privacy and her strong sense of self could not continue in a relationship with Dylan as his fame began to spiral into the stratosphere, though by all accounts making the break was a long, painful process. One gets the feeling from her interviews of great love shared in those early days, but no regret now for how things panned out. Seeing how insane things got for Dylan in later years, I think the modern term for Suze’s experience is ‘bullet dodged’.

Though it's sad she's gone before her time (she had been suffering cancer for some years), it's still in keeping to raise a glass to a good person who lived her life well. RIP Suze.

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A review of Thomas Keneally’s latest novel, The People’s Train. This review has also been published on Politico.ie.

Since the days of Margaret ‘There Is No Alternative’ Thatcher, many (if not most) people have accepted as natural that economic prosperity can only be achieved through a free-market economy that flourishes as speculators make it big on the international markets. Few governments in the West, despite their political allegiances, have made any serious effort to embrace a different system over the last two decades. Even in the midst of the current collapse, official response has been to attempt to return things to the previous status quo, and public response, while angry, remains largely inchoate.

In the current atmosphere, the sheer audacity of what the Russians attempted to achieve from 1917 onwards can look naïve at best, and malevolent at worst, especially with the knowledge of the later atrocities and failures of the Soviet regime. Drummed as we are today with the message of ‘there is no alternative’, it’s hard not to look at the Soviet experiment cynically, yet its core message – that not only is there an alternative, but that it can be achieved – was taken utterly seriously by many men and women whose standards of integrity still stand up today.

Evoking the sincerity of this belief and its potential to change the world is tricky business for any writer looking back through the miasma of 20th-century opinion, but Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark, is more than qualified to take on the challenge. In his latest novel, The People’s Train (recently out in paperback), a Russian emigrant to Australia in the early years of the 20th century tells his story of organising strikes and fighting for workers’ rights in Brisbane, before the action moves to Russia and the heady countdown to the October Revolution. The Australian part of the book is presented as a memoir by Keneally’s hero, Artem (Tom) Samsurov, who gradually reveals the details of his journey down under; the perilous escape from a tsarist prison camp, treks across Siberia and journeys by boat through Japan and China. Artem is a committed revolutionary who believes nothing less than a complete overthrow of the capitalist system will be sufficient to bring equality to the world.

Keneally does a wonderful job of bringing this character to life; too often revolutionaries in fiction come across as either hysterical or dully obsessed with political theory, but Artem is portrayed as a thoughtful, self-aware man who nevertheless cannot and will not compromise on his ideals. He is utterly believable as a man of his time and milieu, and the conflicts he faces with his fellow emigrant Russians and with the radical female lawyer he finds himself in a complicated attachment with are entirely believable.

Australia’s labour history is not a well-known topic, but the Brisbane of The People’s Train is full of agitation, strikes, union meetings and corrupt police, and the feel of a country still trying to establish a conclusive identity is powerfully evoked. Indeed, the titular train is an idea for a worker-owned monorail serving Brisbane, conceived by one of Samsurov’s friends. It remains unbuilt, serving as a symbol for the ever-retreating dreams of the young radicals. Australia is represented in the Russia-set section of the book by Paddy Dykes, a young journalist with the Australian Worker, who asks many of the book’s crucial questions about the nature of revolution and what happens when theory meets reality.

The Australian story is more engaging than the Russian; the familiarity of the story of the Russian Revolution leads to a slightly rushed narrative in the second part of the book that isn’t helped by various brief, cameo-like appearances by historical figures. However the pace recovers at the end; the momentous events of history are mirrored by equally turbulent upheavals in the minds of the central characters, with a last line that will take its place among the great endings of fiction.

Keneally leaves the question open as to whether the failure of the Soviet project was due to corruption of the original ideal, or whether the seeds of tyranny lay within it from the beginning. His characters are telling their story as they see it, nothing more. In an age where this period tends to be either glamourised or subject to revisionism, Keneally has succeeded in conveying what it was actually like to live during this unforgettable time.

One of the best historical novels of the year.

The People’s Train by Thomas Keneally

Sceptre, August 2010 (paperback)

£7.99

White Feathers

My Amazon review for White Feathers, a super new WWI-set novel dealing with (among other things) the practice of shaming non-combatant men into joining up by encouraging the women in their lives to present them with a white feather, symbolising their supposed cowardice. I really enjoyed this novel - as I say in the review, it's that rare beast, a 'literary page-turner'.

It can be hard for historical novels to strike the balance between inhabiting the period in which they're written and fully engaging a broad range of modern readers. White Feathers pulls this off with a vibrancy and a lightness of touch that are all the more striking when you realise that this is a debut novel.

In December 1964, Dusty Springfield toured to South Africa. She was horrified by apartheid, so her contract specified that she would only play to non-segregated audiences (the same tactic the Beatles had used in the American South earlier that year). It didn’t go well: South African officials came to her hotel pressuring her to sign a declaration that she would only play to segregated audiences, making veiled threats that it would be dangerous for her to go outside.

After several performances, she was deported. The South African government announced: “Miss Springfield was on two occasions warned, through her manager, to observe our South African way of life in regard to entertainment, and was informed that if she failed to do so she would have to leave the country. She chose to defy the Government and was accordingly allowed to remain in the country for a limited time only.”

The Beatles’ Ringo Starr was one of many to rush to her defence, saying “Good for Dusty. I would have done the same thing. It’s stupid to have segregated audiences, especially as the music came from the Negroes in the first place.”

“Negro” sounds dated now, but in 1964 it would be the most respectful term to use (it was Martin Luther King’s preferred wording). Beatle biographers tend to leave Ringo out of political discussion, so it’s interesting to see him weighing in - particularly the way he takes the opportunity to emphasise who created rock’n’roll.

Sharon Davis, Dusty: An intimate portrait of Dusty Springfield, 2008

From Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook

this is always a bodyslam whenever you hear it 🤯

but aside from that I just love long haired lady, most days at random times I find myself doing linda NYC voice DO YOU LOVE ME LIKE YOU KNOW YOU OUGHTA DOOOO .... OR IS THIS THE ONLY THING YOU WANT ME FORRRRR

When you’re WRONG love is long???!?!!?

I’ve only ever heard “gone” before (which Linda does sing at least once). I’m going to have to stew on this.