Reactions to reintroducing restriction. A bit of education stuff. Interesting stuff about a film.

A friend who lives somewhere or other in Greece, posted this on Facebook:-

“It's getting deathly serious again: "...all activities, including religious services, for the August 15 Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a major festival time in Greece, will be cancelled this year...". Wow. This is the rough equivalent of cancelling Christmas celebrations in the UK.”

Asked if the place where she lives is much affected, she replied:-

“Not yet, which I count as a small miracle. There are some cases in the Cyclades, but I don't know for sure which islands are affected. More worrying, in the opposite direction, is Attica. Even more worrying is the attitude of young people, who seem quite unable to get by without huge parties. The rest of us are baffled and not a little horrified.”

I thought of this exchange as we were out on an walk yesterday evening, around 8 o’clock, doing a longish circuit of the village, past a couple of old millponds, now converted into duckponds, through the village centre and back home. As we went past the first duckpond we could hear and then see a moderately large group of young people out and about. They seemed to settle down at the bottom of the hillside in a spot out of the wind. Was this the start of a British botellón? we wondered.

Clearly, however, the spot they had chosen was not sufficiently sheltered for their purposes and they upped sticks and set of along the bridle path leading back to the village, with a fair amount of goodnatured pushing and shoving and laughter. We were rapidly catching up with them and, faced with the prospect of either pushing our way past them or settling for a slow walk in their wake, we took a turning off the path, back into a housing estate and eventually onto the main road back towards the village. Not quite the walk we had planned but it was quite acceptable.

In fact, the young people were a good deal quieter than the people who had gathered in the pub garden next door to our house. And those people continued their revelries until at least midnight. Goodness knows where the young people ended up.

So the pubs and restaurants are getting going again. Debate about schools opening continues.

There is really no official suggestion that they should remain closed but teachers’ unions are voicing their concerns. Consequently teachers, and particularly the unions, are being described in some of the media as deliberately obstructing the reopening of schools. Once more teachers are portrayed as lazy and selfish! 

Thinking about education, there has been something of an outcry from poets about the government’s decision to make the study of poetry optional for GCSE English students next year. This is all to do with the students having missed a chunk of this year’s teaching. It always seems to me that other countries in Europe give their students a broader overview of their countries’ literature than we do here. It would be a shame to remove poetry from the curriculum. If 16 year olds can cope with Shakespeare, surely they can manage a bit of poetry as well. Poet laureate Simon Armitage and former children’s laureate Michael Rosen are among the top UK poets decrying the government’s decision, describing it as “a dangerous first step”.

We’ll be restricting our curriculum to the purely utilitarian at this rate!

The other day I came across an interview with Dan Aykroyd and Jon Landis about the making of the film “The Blues Brothers”, one of my favourite films. Dan Aykroyd said this:-

“Southern cinemas didn’t want to screen the film because of the African American artists but when it became a hit they opened up and people got to see it. It acts as cultural preservation. We made sure the writers of the material kept their publishing rights. John and I took performers’ rights only. Every one of those songs we recorded remunerated the original artists 100% due to album sales. It was an ethical decision and the songwriters today and their estates have benefited from it.”

Wow! Bear in mind that the film was made in 1980 and still southern states did not want to show it, until they realised it was becoming a popular money-spinner!

And really, it was all about the music, among other things. Jon Landis said this:-

“I put the whole “mission from God” thing in as a homage to Dan because he was downright evangelical about the music. It’s hard to believe, but in 1979 rhythm, blues and Motown was in decline and the popular music was disco. People ask: “How did you get all those amazing acts?” We called them up! The whole point of the movie was to showcase these extraordinary artists.

The Blues Brothers is a testament to John and Dan’s passion for the blues. They took advantage of their celebrity to focus attention on soul music. I’m proud of it, I also think it’s a totally insane film. There’s many reasons to make a movie and you’re successful or not on many different levels.

On the level of Dan wanting to proselytise about this music, it was an enormous success. It brought everybody involved with it back with a vengeance.”

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!