Were The Beatles a 'rock' band? This was the question that briefly diverted Christmas for some of my family. Oh, Babe, what would you say?
The game to be played was the Five Second Rule game in which players have to name three things in a given category in five seconds. Some discussion took place when the category was 'rock band' and one answer offered was The Beatles. Some readers might be surprised to hear that I was not involved in the controversy, neither suggesting them nor objecting to the answer. The rules of the game state that any disputes should be settled by debate among the players. Now, there would be a recipe for an acrimonious Christmas if it were allowed to get out of hand. But luckily Laura was playing, it's her game and she's good at deciding things so it didn't take long to sort out. Don't read any further if esoteric discussion on arcane issues is not something you enjoy.
The subject was passed to me after The Beatles were disallowed and I said Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. There wouldn't be much dispute about them being rock bands.
The Beatles began as something like a rock'n'roll band before the idea of a 'rock band' had been thought up, I might suggest. But before The Beatles split, there were such acts as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Yardbirds and suchlike that were probably where the term originated. It is big, loud music, usually played on electric guitars, often by long-haired white blokes but none of those elements are part of a defintion because, as ever, these categories are too vague to be quite so specifically defined.
By 1970, The Beatles had recorded such things as Revolution, I am the Walrus and Helter Skelter which were surely identifiable as rock music. It's a bit like asking if J.S.Bach was a 'classical' composer. Well, not really but classical music, like that of Mozart and Haydn, wouldn't have happened without the music that he and his contemporaries wrote.
It's not a very good question if the game can't provide a complete list of acceptable answers and that list would go on to almost forever, not stopping after Deep Purple, Queen, U2, etc..
The game couldn't become an Olympic sport. I have some sympathy with the contestant who didn't realize how strict the refereeing was going to be and I'd probably have allowed it although I was outvoted anyway. But were The Beatles a rock band. Possibly not because they were more than that.
But the decision going against the answer handed the initiative in the game to me and I went on to win, as can sometimes happen in such games, but the question raised was much bigger than the simple result of a Christmas parlour game.
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Christmas also included my first experience of Netflix, which was something I never thought I'd have call for. But the BBC's 2002 production of Daniel Deronda was found on there just in time for me to spend three and a half hours watching it. It was useful revision as I try to keep all of George Eliot's novels in mind before assembling some thoughts about them as a whole but, more importantly, it was a wonderful thing. Hugh Bonneville was imperious and sinister in his controlling role as Grandcourt, a parallel with Eliot's similarly manipulative Tito in Romola. One is glad to remember that not all of Mary Ann Evans' male characters are quite so dark or her credentials would be vulnerable to accusations of a skewed feminism but these represent the bad world that Gwendolen and Romola are put into conflict with and not necessarily the full story of the Eliot view of the male.
It is a glorious piece of television, the 700 pages of the novel distilled to three and a half hours as sensitively and economically as possible by Andrew Davies and raised the status of the novel for me just when it was fading rapidly.
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Don Poli duly delivered the Christmas Nap. After a scrap. It wasn't my intention to tip an odds on shot but we were lucky to get an SP of 4/6 in the end. Having looked forward to the tremendous programme of Christmas racing, it broke up somewhat from a gambling point of view as so many races were left with odds on favourites. Maybe there are too many good races or not enough good horses to contest them all and at present, perhaps to the detriment of the sport, too many of the top horses are trained in Ireland, mostly by Willie Mullins, but that's not his fault.
But there can be no complaints about the King George, Faugheen, Sprinter Sacre, Ar Mad and the fact that, once The Libertines are confirmed as Best Band in the NME poll, I'll be able to wrap up the account for 2015 by moving enough cash from the bookies into the bank to make it officially my best year ever and carry over some stake money to begin 2016 with.
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Coming soon, some words on The Importance of Elsewhere, Philip Larkin's Photographs and my words of introduction to the Portsmouth Poetry Society's forthcoming meeting on the poetry of Rosemary Tonks. Do come to that if you can, on Jan 20th.
And, in the meantime, Best Wishes, HNY and we will make our way with some trepidation into yet another year.