What a strange thing to find near Shakespeare’s home.

A bronzed, atrophied image of Bob Dylan playing guitar for his hero and sometime-mentor Woody Guthrie.

The pair are frozen in time in a pasture of plenty in a mysterious outcrop called the Garden of Heroes & Villains. They are surrounded by paupers and peasants and princes and kings.

It’s a beautiful peaceful enigmatic place in someone’s back garden deep in rural Warwickshire in the UK and somehow it captures the reverence of Bob’s short-lived friendship with Woody.

He had become obsessed with the man after borrowing a copy of Woody’s autobiography Bound for Glory from a classmate in the very early 60s.

Almost immediately he was mimicking Woody’s speech and is said to have told Cafe Wha? when he arrived in New York for a concert: “I been travellin’ around the country, followin’ in Woody Guthrie’s footsteps.”

Woody was by incarcerated at the Greystone Park Psychiatric hospital in New Jersey, suffering from Huntingdon’s disease.

It finally killed him in 1967.

But Bob played part of Song to Woody for him as he lay in bed.
Muhammad Ali and Lawrence of Arabia are also among the many heroes welcoming people to south Warwickshire.

The Dorsington garden belonged to the late millionaire publisher and poet Felix Dennis, and has more than 50 life-size bronze sculptures.

Felix, who wanted to create a 30,000 acre forest in the heart of England, died in 2014, but his project goes on and 1.6 million trees have been planted since 1996.

Felix began commissioning bronze sculpture in the mid 1990s and set about creating a private showcase garden at his home with trees, ponds, streams, a yew maze and dry stone walls.

The idea was to show ‘freeze-frame’ moments in the lives of the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Bruce Lee, Billie Holiday, William Shakespeare and even King Kong.

Song to Woody

I’m out here, thousand miles from my home
Walkin’ a road other men have gone down
I’m seein’ your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along
Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn
It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born

Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things that I’m a-sayin’ an’ a-many times more
I’m a-singin’ you this song, but I can’t sing enough
‘Cause there’s not many men that done the things that you’ve done

Here’s to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too
An’ to all the good people that traveled with you
Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind

I’m a-leavin’ tomorrow, but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I’d want to do

#woodyguthrie #bobdylan #mysticgarden #felixdennis #warwickshire #heroesandvillians
Is to say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too

The pandemic, it is claimed, gave the Slovak government the opportunity to postpone legislation to protect journalists and their sources against the background of the scandalous murder of reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancée.

Plans to improve editorial and financial independence for radio and TV broadcaster RTVS were also shelved.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a rise in violence, censorship and reprisals for journalists daring to question government policies.

Last year two people were convicted of the 2018 murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his architect fiancée, Martina Kusnirova. A third person was convicted of acting as intermediary but another accused of instigating the murder, was acquitted.

The horrific assassination of the 27-year-old journalist over his investigative work, has shaken Slovakia’s media.

The killings of Kuciak and Martina brought back fears about the existence of organised crime, oligarchs and ‘political mafia’.

“All the mud is coming to the surface,” Michal Vasecka, sociologist at the Bratislava Policy Institute is quoted as saying. “I would compare it to a state when addicts go through a withdrawal phase: it’s very uncomfortable, but we have to face it head on.”

Kuciak and Martina were shot with a 9mm gun in their home on February 21, 2018. Their bodies were found five days later.

The killings sparked the biggest protests in Slovakia since 1989’s Velvet Revolution.

Parliamentary elections, which were held as the case bubbled away, put populist Igor Matovič in as prime minister in March 2020.

And he was vitriolic about Slovakia’s Press, accusing journalists of “spite” – amongst other things – for criticising his coronavirus policies. The opposition also attacked the media.

Now it is World Press Freedom Day and the EU says that press freedom continues to be under threat at a time ‘when independent and free media reporting is more essential than ever’.

“Journalists continue to experience harsh working conditions with increasing financial and political pressure, surveillance, arbitrary prison sentences or violence for doing their work. According to the UNESCO Observatory, 76 journalists were killed since 2020, while many more were arrested, harassed or threatened worldwide. Of particular concern is gender-based violence targeting women journalists”, their statement reads.

In another statement issued Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić urged European governments to show stronger political will to protect journalists.

“Media freedom is an essential pillar of our democracies which is too often taken for granted. Respect for freedom of the media is in decline in many countries. In the last years we have witnessed an increase in the number of cases of violence and intimidation against journalists.

The annual report of the Platform for the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists, released today by 14 international media freedom organisations, lists 201 serious cases of threats to media freedom in the 47 Council of Europe member states in 2020, a 40pc increase compared to 2019. A record number of alerts concerned physical attacks (52 cases) and harassment or intimidation (70 cases).

The UK is shockingly 33^rd in the Press Freedom Ranking issued with Slovakia at 35^th.

#corruption # Martina Kusnirova #Ján Kuciak #slovakia #pressfreedom

Wayne Coyne seems to have forgotten his vitriolic words of almost a decade ago – and has joined the ranks of stars set to wish his Royal Bob-ness a happy Eightieth.

Back in 2013, in Wayne’s world, Bob was a ‘protected’ curmudgeon who had forgotten how to party.

He and his band, the Flaming Lips, had played the Kilkenny festival in Ireland where Bob was headlining. And that was, at the time, Wayne’s only personal connection with the folk, rock, country and all-round musical genius.

Dylan was following them on stage and Wayne had this to say – “We got done playing and suddenly it was like a lockdown. They rushed you offstage. You gotta get your equipment off, you gotta clear the area.”

He also poked fun at Bob’s backstage fleet of black Hummers.

But things have changed and the Lips have done a flaming good version of Dylan’s haunting country love song Lay Lady Lay. It’s a killer and will appear on the new compilation for the British magazine Uncut.

The Flaming Lips’ cover of Lay Lady Lay is brilliant with Wayne wrapping his thin reedy voice in reverb, adding a psychedelic edge.

The Dylan Revisited compilation include Richard Thompson, This Wheel’s On Fire, the Weather Station, Precious Angel, Thurston Moore, Buckets of Rain, Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood and Jay Gonzalez, Blind Willie McTell, and Weyes Blood, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

Despite being a 1980s throw-back band, the Lips are an ab-fab joining of timeless talent whether doing the death-laden Do You Realise? Or the thunderous tub-drum thumping Watching the Planets.

And they are definitely in my Top Ten bands.

But back then Wayne said: “I don’t think being with Bob Dylan nowadays is a party. I think he probably doesn’t talk to anybody and I think it’s kind of just the opposite. It doesn’t mean his music isn’t very powerful, but I think Bob Dylan’s been kind of a curmudgeon and I think there’s a contingency of people out there who don’t want to say that.

“And I say, why not?”

“We did a festival quite a few years ago now in Kilkenny, Ireland, where Bob Dylan was playing after us.”

After finishing their set Wayne said: ” We looked out and saw this line of big, black Hummer limousines. Probably six or seven of them in a row. They pull right up to the stage and it’s just Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is in one. Two guys are in another one. They walk up to the stage. They play. They walk right back down to the limousines as soon as they’re done.”

#waynecoyne #bobdylan #80th #birthday #flamminglips #layladylay

Let’s all remember Anita Lane, the Australian singer-songwriter who joined an amazing line-up for Nick Cave’s version of Dylan’s Death is not the End.

Sadly, she has died in her early Sixties.

Anita was best known for her collaborations with Nick Cave on his work since the 1980s.

A representative for her label confirmed Anita’s death but no cause was given.

She was born in Melbourne where she went to art school in the 1970s and met Nick.

The pair later moved to Europe and worked together on Nick’s band the Birthday Party – Anita co-wrote A Dead Song for their debut album, Prayers on Fire.

She then joined the Bad Seeds. But when she and Nick split up she left the band. That was in the mid 80s. But she continued to write lyrics, including for Stranger Than Kindness and From Her to Eternity.

She also performed with Nick on Death is not the End, the Bob Dylan cover version on the 1996 album Murder Ballads.

Anita continued to work with members of the Bad Seeds outside the group.

The line-up she joined for the haunting Death is not the End included Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Shane McGowan, Simon Heyworth, Kylie Minogue and PJ Harvey.

#anitalane #nickcave #thebadseeds #deathisnottheend #bobdylan

It’s a year since Coronavirus killed off Parental Alienation Day for many of us … and this year’s event a few days ago was low-key.

But things still happened across the world, sadly with very little coverage. So lets try and put that right. If you have any pictures or thoughts on PA DAY, send them to us at the preservation society and we will publish them.

In the meantime, in this story, our hearts still march on…

The Heart of Hope Family Tree has grown stronger in the year after Parental Alienation Day was brought to its knees by coronavirus.

There were still moves to mark the event all over the world. But it couldn’t be what it was hoped to be, sadly.

One organiser of PA Day said: “Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic this year, we are encouraging all who want to still raise awareness to blow bubbles at home and take photos or video’s and post them online.”

And Andrew John Teague, from D.A.D.s and NAAP, pushed on with the heart of hope campaign. He said: “The virus was hitting a lot of events and many people were left disappointed – however, the heart of hope event will survive one way or the other.

“The idea is one heart for each child – there’s no cost and we can give you the heart colour you choose.

“I only put children’s first name and the tree and there are seven different colour hearts and five different colour ribbons. I don’t put any siblings names together to avoid any controversy. No two children from the same family are together – but they are all on the tree and they all share the same problem, absent or controlling parents.

“And the questions any parent wants to ask I will write on a huge banner and when this virus crisis is over, I’ll go to London with the questions and take the hearts with me.”

April 25 was to be Parental Alienation Awareness Day in the UK, USA, Canada and Bermuda and many other parts of the world.

And the event happened again on that date a few days ago. This awareness day is part of the global campaign over parental alienation.

The campaign said – and the Preservation Society wholeheartedly agrees – parental alienation needs to be a recognised form of child abuse and psychiatric harm punishable within the criminal justice system.

‘Both children and parents have a right to private and family life, so why should one party be enabled to interfere with those rights?’

But due to the absence of a real definition PA has been characterised by CAFCASS as: ‘Constantly badmouthing or belittling the other parent; limiting contact; forbidding discussion about children; creating the impression that the other parent dislikes or does not love the child’.

Andrew put it this way: “One of the most important things that needs to be addressed is the children’s emotional and psychological health and well-being.
“Of course, everyone looks at safeguarding children from different forms of harm.
“Forms of harm like physical, sexual and neglect.
“More often than not the emotional and psychological impact on the children is due to controlling parents and family courts.
“Children don’t simply throw away a parent, grandparent or whole half of a family. This is systematically and strategically done by bad parents (grandparents new partners) and family courts.

“Children who went through it a decade ago are now knocking on the mental health door (suicidal self harming alcohol and drug abuse failing in the simplest tasks criminal and sex exploited and more).

“And so the patterns continue – and just like today’s children, tomorrow others will be knocking on the mental health door. That means more young people run the risk of suicide.
“Children every year being dragged through the family courts and getting their future mental health shot to pieces. They are poisoned, not simply just by a bad parents, but in a big way by the whole family court process.
“Cafcass will do in 15/20 minutes what a well-trained child psychologist would take weeks to do.
“What makes Cafcass so amazingly special? I will tell you – being left to their own devices, to do what they want and answer to no one. Accountability zero!

“What special training do Cafcass undertake? I shall tell you none! Here we have untrained used-up social workers, the failures of the rat race, playing god with children’s lives.
“Many many parents are thrown to the side directly because of Cafcass and social workers, because it’s easier to target the targeted parent and protect the abuser.

“A good start would be to disband Cafcass and completely remove them from the family courts certainly keep them well away from children.
“Kids – everyone talks kids but really how many actually give a toss about the kids?
“Kids are for life to enjoy being kids not pushed to the bitterest of ends sadly very sadly too many times this happens
“Children need us everyday to save them from the tomorrows.”

Family Tree

Kings Of Leon

I tell you now that I don’t understand
Why everybody gives a big hi-damn
Oh where I’m going to
Don’t mean a thing to you

I see you sitting in your masquerade
I’d love to pour you some of my lemonade
And get it off alright
We’re caught in an early night

I know you hate me so, but I ain’t gonna go
I’m staying here all right

I am your family tree
I know your A to Z
This is a secret proposition lay your hands on me
Not gonna talk about darlin’, its so neighborly

I see your hands are shaking but
My heart is breaking me down

Its a pretty day and I’m gonna get alright
I lost my head and you ain’t nowhere in sight
I see you got it all wrong
I got no calls on my phone

I just keep holding out, until I find a doubt
That you ain’t coming home

I am your family tree
I know…

#parentalalienation #mums #dads #grandparents #awarenessday #crosstobear #childrenareforlife

Restaurant terraces and gyms are about to open again as Slovakia eases coronavirus restrictions.

Measures are said to have slowed the spread of COVID-19 in recent weeks.

The latest easing follows the re-opening of shops, hotels, hair salons, churches, libraries, pools and zoos.

But customer numbers will be restricted and they will have to show a negative COVID-19 test before being allowed in.

Slovakia is also hoping to ‘up’ its vaccination programme. Daily COVID-19 cases in the country have dropped to a seven-day median of 642, after reaching around 3,000 in December and January. Hospitalisations, too, have fallen.

https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/as-a-sick-man-closes-an-oz-city-are-we-seeing-the-dystopian-shape-of-things-to-come/

Another worrying rumour is that the new vaccine appointments computer system has missed out up to 70,000 elderly and vulnerable people. Thousands are having to re-apply two or three times for the ‘jab’ without receiving an appointment.

One man had his first ‘jab’ three weeks ago but his wife is still waiting for an appointment to come through.

The problem appears to be that the computer system can’t be over-ridden by an operator.

https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/well-uk-is-getting-better-but-were-covid-figures-just-a-load-of-hot-air-or-a-stinking-lie/

Ján Jančár, a PhD Student at the Faculty of Informatics, has built his own appointments system and has been critical of the official systems in Slovakia. “I do know that it has flaws. Creating an ideal system is complicated, but no one should try to excuse mistakes by claiming that the job of developing such a system came out of the blue.

“Since we first began fighting this disease, wide-scale vaccination has been touted as a solution, and therefore, vaccine-reservation systems should have been planned well in advance.

“A working reservation system must be much more than just a registration form. That’s something many people don’t realize. Ideally, the system should contact people, not the other way around.”

A system developed by Ján searches for information about free vaccine slots in Slovakia and sends it to users.

He said: “Right now, I am working closely with the people at the official government website, and my goal is for them to put my system on their site.”

Slovakia, like others in central Europe, has shown one of the highest per-capita death tolls during the pandemic, according to Our World in Data.

#slovakia #poprad #vaccine #appoinments #jabs

Writing is a really difficult business and to get to the top is like climbing a rope ladder … you hang on for dear literary life as it twists and turns and tries to throw you ‘into the valley below’.

I’ve been lucky – all my working life I have made my living as a writer, a journalist, an editor and, latterly, a broadcaster and TV pundit.

But, throughout, I’ve hung on for dear life to that reeling-spinning rope ladder.

The problem is you never know which way the trade winds of your chosen craft or sullen art are going to blow!

There are some things you need as you are cruelly buffeted day-in-day-out and they include determination, tenacity, talent, ability, imagination, knowledge, faith – but above all you need integrity.

Let’s face it, there aren’t many Henri Charriere’s around – the writer who stung the world like a butterfly. But then he was imbued with some basic elements of genius and was a brilliant story teller.

One major place where integrity is lacking is Amazon and its review ‘boxes’.

Would-be writers, many of whom can’t actually write, are going on social media to tout for false reviews and offering to review somebody else’s work in exchange.

Most people must really agree that ‘touting’ for reviews is unethical…

How can it be anything else? ‘You review my book and I’ll review yours…’

It really invalidates a review in every way possible. Who’s going to point out the failures of your work of art if they want you to be nice about theirs?

How can you trust a ‘commissioned’ review to be truthful and honest?

Now, that’s not to say it’s never happened in traditional publishing. Of course it has. But it was and is still frowned upon. Quite rightly.

And do you know, it actually misleads your potential readers before they buy your book. Why would you want to mislead your readers of the future?

Sadly, because Amazon is allowing this to happen, the ‘con’ brings in to question every review on arguably every book advertised on the world’s biggest bookshop …

I reviewed books for a number of years. I got paid independently by the publication which commissioned the review from me.

I was never in cahoots with the author.

And that gave me the autonomy to say what I believed.

If you do a ‘deal’ on a review-for-review basis, both reviews are suspect.

Please don’t go down another road to the destruction of the written word … learn your art and believe in what you do. Make your work the best you can, employ a real editor with a real background, study the world of words, how to create, how to move, how to excite. How to tell stories.

And choose the integrity of the fact somebody wants to talk about your work. Don’t offer favours for reviews.

It is just an empty wind blowing nobody any good, and not a rope ladder to the stars!

#integrity #writing #reviews #swaps #amazon #kindle #fake

During the opening months of 2021 I have faced the social media insult and threat machine from conspiracy theorists and amateur propagandists alike over the fact that I question that Covid-19 is a world plot to take control of our minds, money and liberty.

And the one question I can never get a straightforward, non-insulting, non threatening non-expletive laden answer to – is this (long question admittedly) but how did Bill Gates (in his little submarine) get together with every world leader and come up with a plot to rule the world, that in fact that they already conglomerately rule, and control the population they already control through every means known to cyber robots and AI?

Or to put it another way, why did every country in the world decide to poison its people and destroy its economy?

Or if it really is a China Crisis as propagated by that great Trumpian lying oaf Donald, why hasn’t the rest of the planet gone to war on them?

So, I was particularly concerned by this bit of news coming out of Perth, Australia, which on the face of it gets the news coverage it deserved, more or less none.

But did news desks around the world miss the impact of this small story, pretty much in the way they ALL apparently missed the greatest world conspiracy ever going on behind locked doors in every town and city in every country across the globe?

Here is the news:

Perth and the Peel region have gone into a three-day lock-down after several people contracted COVID-19 while in hotel quarantine.

The news service that first reported it focussed on this – Anzac Day services in the lock down areas have been cancelled.

Very sad indeed.

The lock down follows the testing positive of a man after completing 14 days of quarantine in a  hotel.

The 54 year old man stayed for five days with a woman and her two children in Kardinya in Perth’s south after completing quarantine.

What worries me about this is how quickly and with ease Perth decided to lock everybody up again, if not in their homes, behind their dehumanising masks. How the powers-that-be could decide and enforce putting peoples lives on hold again, out of the blue and with little warning over a middle-aged man who seems to have done almost everything right but became ill.

All, it appears, he did was have a relationship with another human being.

This is not something that happened in the world we knew.

Is there a rat starting to stink somewhere?

#Perth #covid #conspiracytheory #lockdown #westernaustralia

Oh, and they chat about why Leigh hasn’t had his hair cut for 30 years

Click bottom RHS for sound