Latest news with #GerryRafferty
Irish Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
'When did politics become the new rock 'n' roll?'
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right - here I am, stuck in the middle with you. The 1970s Gerry Rafferty classic got a new lease of life when it was later used in the soundtrack for Reservoir Dogs. Now I find myself humming his Stealers Wheel hit, amid the culture war of world politics today. Whether it's the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Ukraine war, Trump's America or global immigration, my ears are burned off listening to the extremes of both. Headers in keffiyeh scarves are in one ear, going on about Zionists; and in the other ear, the gung-ho pro-Israels who see criticism of the horrors in Gaza as anti-Semitism. Then there's the people blaming everything on the "forr-roight" (member population: 2) and others pointing the finger at refugees. I never thought geopolitics would be the new rock 'n' roll, but you must now pick a side on international affairs. You're either with us, or agin us. When did we get so opinionated? So certain in the rightness of our opinion? We're increasingly divided into hostile groups, each one convinced of its own righteousness. How do you know you're right? It may seem an ironic question, from a columnist. But any view I present is only the researched conclusion I've arrived at. I may be wrong. It's just one opinion to consider, and agree or disagree, as applicable. Those in the music industry were always political and so now they've fully embraced this choosing of sides, which also serves as a form of identity. I'd prefer if they took the LCD Soundsystem approach: shut up and play the hits, but it's more a case of the Rolling Stones - you can't always get what you want. But there is obviously an audience in it. There's a renewed appreciation for the outspoken Morrissey in the post-woke world, judging by the packed house in the 3Arena last Saturday. I was just relieved he didn't make me watch two hours of graphic animal vivisection videos, like he did the last time I saw him there, when all I wanted was to hear Suedehead. Meanwhile, for now, Kneecap are bigger than ever since the Brits charged band member Liam hAnnaidh for terrorism offences after waving a Hezbollah flag on stage. They're on the Glastonbury line-up and will play the festival at the end of the month. It could well be their Wolfe Tones at Electric Picnic moment, with a clamour to see the band that now have the official cachet of rebellion. Lately, the likes of U2 and Radiohead are in the news more for talking about genocide - or not talking about genocide - than they are about their new album. I felt both Bono and Thom Yorke struck the right chord in their views on Israel in recent interviews. But their efforts to find the middle ground left them open to scorn from either side, who refuse anything outside their rigid ideology. Yorke summed up my own view, saying: "I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped. Their excuse of self-defence has long since worn thin". He also condemned Hamas asking: "Why did Hamas choose the truly horrific acts of October 7? I believe Hamas chooses to hide behind the suffering of its people, in an equally cynical fashion, for its own purposes." I must be getting on. Because I relate to Bono on all this. He told Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio One: "It's strange, this competitive empathy that's going around. 'I feel this wound more than you,' and 'my emergency is more important than your emergency'. Outrage. "When I was younger, I had a lot of rage. But as I got older, I demanded more of myself. "I looked towards outcomes. And so, I became that most boring of all things… fighting with, working with, both sides."
Telegraph
17-02-2025
- Automotive
- Telegraph
I've lived in the Cotswolds for more than 50 years – this is how it has changed
Tennis, played on the narrow road alongside my childhood home in a certain Cotswolds village, was a favoured activity of mine as a 12-year-old in the early 1980s. Occasionally my opponent and I would have to step aside from the 'court' for a passing Talbot Sunbeam, usually once every set or so. Last autumn, I was gardening at that childhood home. Gloss-white Range Rovers, bulbous Audi Q8s and more drove by, on average, every 30 seconds. They had to squeeze past the long line of cars that park on that same road most days from around 6am to late evening. How has this happened? The village was broadcast as a lovely place to visit post-millennium. Then came Soho Farmhouse, 10 miles away, and high-end estate agents deemed it a pretty place to live. Now the tiny settlement makes the Britain's 48 poshest villages list. Welcome to Whichford in Warwickshire, within the Cotswolds National Landscape. In the days before my rosé-tinted wine glass, the local garage sold field-going Shoguns to farmers, and stone barns were filled with straw bales, plus delightfully feral country kids. Now billboards around the demolished garage quote 'Coming soon… the destination for the world's greatest classic and performance cars' with pictures of a tangerine-orange Lamborghini and other supercars. There are no more stone barns, except as 'luxury' (wording of the particulars, not mine) property conversions, and there's an ever-reducing amount of farmland, hundreds of acres re-landscaped behind gentrified electric gates, where the humble farmstead has been demolished, replaced by the latest country pile. The highlight of every off-market discreet property agent's polished sales pitch is the proximity to Soho Farmhouse and Daylesford, which take precedence over local schools. Tourism's mass-exclusivity has created massive change to the residential makeup of the north Cotswolds. The number of famous faces sojourning or calling the north Cotswolds 'home' has exploded in the years since Soho Farmhouse opened. That's not to say that the Cotswolds were celebrity-free before 2015. The historic Chipping Norton Recording Studios, nearby, holds an extraordinary back catalogue of A-list musicians, who recorded in the residential soundbox from the 1970s to the 1990s. A blue plaque marks the spot, on New Street. Few knew that, in 1981, Duran Duran were in town to record their debut album. Famous songs such as Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street, and the Bay City Rollers' Bye Bye Baby were also laid to vinyl in these hallowed walls, alongside music by Status Quo, Jim Diamond, Radiohead, Fairground Attraction and the Proclaimers. But the musicians laid low and there was no TikTok to broadcast that they were there. While Cotswold residents in some tourist hotspots struggle to reach their houses for jostling visitors, it's not all negative. Jeremy Clarkson's pub, the Farmer's Dog, near Burford has created steady employment. The Red Lion at Long Compton (Cotswold Life pub of the year and Slow Travel Cotswolds Awards best pub 2024), which was only pulling pints in the 1980s without accommodation, celebrated 20 years under the same management last year; no mean feat for any pub, boosted as manager Lisa Phipps explains, 'by the shift in the way tourists are exploring the region'. Other leisure providers can vouch for the importance of tourism to the area's economy. When, as a child, I visited Cotswold Farm Park (one of the first such visitor attractions in Britain), it was tiny. Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park, as it is known today, is now one of the region's largest and most popular family attractions, with a restaurant, glamping and big seasonal events. I would never have believed, when I trekked to nearby Stourton and Cherington for the weekly Brownies meeting as a young girl in the 1970s, that a gin distillery – Cotswolds Distillery – could contemplate opening to become a busy visitor attraction. There wouldn't have been enough visitors. The village school, and the Brownie group, closed in the 1980s. In Broadway, the Taee family has owned Abbots Grange since the 1990s. Located 25 yards from the desirable High Street, the hidden five-star monastic manor house welcomes guests from across the world. 'Post Covid, the bounceback of the hospitality industry has been tremendous in the region,' says owner Richard Taee. 'So many people and businesses have taken the opportunity to relocate to the Cotswolds; the diversity is creating new consumer groups, enabling the growing business profile of the area to prosper.' That's the case with the Taees's other Cotswold hospitality business, Huffkins, run by sons Joshua and Jacob. The business operates nine high street tearooms and, in 2021, was able to expand with a new craft bakery in Witney. 'The post-Covid resurgence has seen huge commercial growth, and the area has been able to buck the trend of dilapidated high streets. The affluent local population, boosted by tourism, makes for a winning recipe,' says Josh. What of the future? Well, on the Great Tew Estate, the home of Soho Farmhouse, permission was granted last year for the Mullin Motor Museum alongside 28 multi-million-pound holiday lodges. Cotswold hospitality businesses and high streets are, mostly, doing well. Yet, mass exclusivity is endangering the distinctive character that tourists and would-be residents seem to crave. Achieving balance will be key to its future. But as Topsy Taee, owner of Abbots Grange, says: 'Take to the fields and footpaths for a walk and you'll find the landscape enchanting and timeless.'
