Oh, Babe, What Would You Say

Sometimes it can take a long time for something that might have been obvious to be made clear. In the piece on Lindsay Kemp in yesterday's Observer, we learn that Bowie's Jean Genie was 'inspired by' Jean Genet. Oh, I see. Forty-odd years later.
--
One day, later this year, we will give Shakespeare a rest but I'm afraid that will not be just yet.
Among the various offerings I saw or heard over the weekend, the outstanding piece was Radio 3's Sunday Feature- First Folio Road Trip which tracked down a few copies of the first folio and enquired into their histories.
BBC4's Arena, looking at Shakespeare on Film was a worthwhile collection of period pieces but in a way more to do with film than Shakespeare. In such films as Kurosawa's, that take the story of a Shakespeare play and do something radically different with it, Shakespeare is by-passed because it wasn't his story and it changes what he had done with it so, in a way, it might as well be a version of the story that he took as his source. But otherwise it showed how each period will make the plays in their own image, and how else would it be.
That is what Shakespeare Live! From the RSC did on Saturday night, turned it into a spin-off from the Strictly Come Dancing school of television, and so it was a surprise to find the sedate Countryfile do something more impressive which, since it is a programme about farming, had a bloke in a field holding up a copy of the drawing of the Shakespeare monument in Holy Trinity Church, done in 1653 by William Dugdale, which shows a man with a sack of wool, not a poet with a pen and paper. That one moment was more interesting than any amount of formulaic tributes by rappers, dancers, bite-sized scenes from the plays and standard-issue biography. And Judi Dench acted her socks off by pretending she didn't know much about acting companies on tour and being kind to John Craven.
--
Meanwhile, the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death is not the only such occasion of note. It is the 125th anniversary of Gloucester City Cycling Club and they are making something of it.
They have an exhibition forthcoming in what we used to know as the Folk Museum, in Westgate Street. And yesterday lunchtime, three stalwarts from the club appeared on Pete Wilson's Radio Gloucestershire lunchtime show to talk about the club and tell some good stories from the early days of bike riding, through the glory days when I was 13 in the early 1970's and rode a few time trials - I was surprised that Phil Griffiths' Commonwealth Games silver medal was considered more worthy of mention than those- to more recent highlights like the legendary Ann Wooldridge doing the Race Across America and the thriving club it continues to be, involved in all kinds of bike riding.
Perhaps Ted Tedaldi deserved a mention for his long service to the club, the tremendous triallist who was a childhood hero to me. I remember going round to his house with my mother to buy a club badge. The headmaster at school had said that badges could be worn if they were (something like) 'for a worthwhile cause', which we explained to Ted. He said, 'Well, if the headmaster says Gloucester City Cycling Club is not a worthwhile cause, send him to me'. Which would have made for an interesting debate, Jasper Stocks v. Ted Tedaldi.
But they were great days. Gerry McGarr, Alistair Goldie and Roy Hook did a fine job representing the club but one story told out of school deserves another.
Was it Roy that said that when Phil Griffiths first turned up he was overweight and was called 'Billy Bunter'? But forgot to say that, in turn, he was called Parsley because he looked like the lion from The Herbs.
Luckily, I was too young and insignificant to be given a nickname then. I've been called a few things since, though.