Clancy and Trigg

Willie Clancy and The Trigg Morris Side's Visit to Miltown Malbay, May 1972.

I told this story to my piping friend Jeff Byrne in the summer of 2006, and a version of it may have been published by him elsewhere. Indeed I have told the story many times, and doubtless have forgotten and distorted details. But Jeff's interest led me to check the memories of friends in Cornwall who were with me on the Irish trip of May 1972. This is a good time to fix these memories.

I was the first musician of the Trigg Morris Men, a revival side formed in 1971 in central Cornwall, dancing traditional Cotswold Morris. (Their web site ⁽¹⁾ gives more details about the side, and the Morris tradition generally). If Cotswold Morris seems slightly odd for Central Cornwall, it was certainly so in remote County Clare at that time in the early seventies.

As an enthusiastic young Morris Side we were eager to show off our own music; but we were enormously enthusiastic worshippers at the alter of all traditional music. Visualize seven Morris dancers, a Morris musician plus two wives and a girlfriend in a Ford Transit minibus, travelling by ferry from Swansea to Cork. We were directed by Danny Linnehan (an Irish lad at the Bodmin Folk Club) to go to his native Knocknagree in the heart of 'Sliabh Luachra' ⁽²⁾ as an excellent starting point for our pilgrimage in search of living traditional Irish music. Our 'Squire' at the time was Vic Legg (a fine traditional singer), and our 'Bagman' was Roger Hancock; both are still dancing with Trigg and have confirmed details of this trip. Vic recalls travelled up to County Clare from Knocknagree, crossing the Shannon by ferry to Kilrush, where we encountered the Horse Fair. ("Anything from a £50,000 race-horse to a £5 donkey" Vic remembers someone saying.) From there Vic recalls we made our way to “… Doolin where we met two of the three Russell brothers, Packie and Micko. (Gussie wasn't there.) Packie. played the concertina, and Micko. the whistle, or flute, or both. Sadly, none of them are alive today”. (Vic was deeply into the Irish traditional music scene, and knew where to go and who to meet.)

The encounter with Willie Clancy came the next day. I wrote some notes at the time which I transcribe verbatim for, though unpolished, they carry an immediacy. This was written on Wednesday the 31 May 1972 [with later ‘clarification’ in square brackets].

"Last night [Tuesday 30th May 1972] we hoped to join a ceilidh at Spanish Point, but found nothing happening at the Armada; nor at Quilty could we find anything. So we drove back into Miltown Malbay. We stopped on the way in and Vic [our 'squire'] asked some girls playing in the street if they could tell us the pub habituated by the great player of the Uilleann pipes -- Willie Clancy. They could not, but as we were by chance parked immediately outside his house they offered to call him out. Vic said "No, you cannot do that to a great man!"; then "--but, dammit, I would like to shake his hand." After 10 minutes Vic came out of the house and said that Willie Clancy would like to meet us all; so we [8 Morris men in full kit with bells and baldricks, plus 3 women] trooped into his small house. After we had chatted to his wife for a few minutes Willie came through; a tall, smiling, man with sandy hair, boyish face and a one-day beard. He wore carpenter's overalls complete with boxwood rule. We shook hands and engaged in conversation. Then he took up the long box containing his pipes, and said it was time for a glass of porter, and directed us [to go ahead of him up] to Lynch's Bar. Vic entered the dark bar and O'Fleary [can that be the right name?] came to greet him out of his kitchen beyond the bar, where he had been sitting by the stove. When we explained that Willie Clancy was coming round to play he took us all into his kitchen. [Willie and his wife arrived.] We bought a round of Guinness, chatted a while and Willie played a tune on a whistle. We went out onto the street and danced a few [Morris] dances, but it was very cold outside. So back into the kitchen. Some other friends of Willie's were gathering. A fellow (could it be Martin Talty?) produced a dark wooden flute with an ivory mouthpiece and practically no keys; and Willie and he played. Very, very, fine music. One could go on listening all night. But we got to singing songs and with our lasses we danced a Dorset four-hand reel across the kitchen. And Willie danced a solo jig, and Willie's foil -- old "Farmer" -- was persuaded to tell us a story. "At half past midnight, O'Fleary, who had been flitting about noiselessly smiling all evening, let us out one by one into the street from the dark bar. A very fine evening.”

Vic, Roger, and I have all added further recollections, albeit recalled some 34 years after the event. Vic remembers that, when the minibus stopped beside them in Miltown Malbay, the two girls were playing a game with two balls bouncing against the house wall. They might still remember the occasion, as the Morris men were in full costume (for the anticipated ceilidh); and the occasion was only months before Willie Clancy’s untimely death. Roger recollects that the man referred to as “Farmer” was named Michael, and that Willie jokingly called him his ‘manager’. Old “Farmer” preceded his story by protesting that these English youngsters wouldn’t understand him. I found it hard going but I think I got the gist; one of those stories where you wake and find it was all a dream. I thought the landlord had seemed reluctant to open up the pub until told what had prompted us to knock him up, whereupon he sprang to. We soon had quite a throng in the back kitchen, though the pub had appeared shut for the evening. I concluded that someone had spread the word that Willie Clancy was going to play, which someone told me was a rare event by then. It seemed that the enthusiasm of our visiting Morris Side had proved sufficient to stimulate Willie into playing. Vic visualizes Lynch’s bar as having two counters to walk between; on one side a bar, and on the other groceries. He also recalls that upon entering the empty bar off the dark street it was lit by a single light, which was a brand new electric sign on the Guinness pump, connected to the ceiling rose by a long piece of flex. Roger recollects that, as the Trigg Men drove through Miltown Malbay the next day, they saw Willie Clancy and his wife in a throng of others dressed for church, (or possibly a funeral).

This story is but a small thing in terms of all that is recorded elsewhere of Willie Clancy’s life and music; one evening of music and dancing in the last nine months of his life. However, it is an unforgettably vivid memory for most of us who were there, and testifies to how Willie Clancy was appreciated, both locally and internationally.

(1) www.triggmorris.freeserve.co.uk

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliabh_Luachra

Injunctions and contempt

Dear Sir,

As far as I am concerned Radio 4 PM programme has committed contempt of court. A 'maverick' MP disclosed the name of a footballer in the house of commons, but that is a priviledged arena; there can be no gagging of parliament. However, to report that outside parliament is contempt.

--
Yours sincerely,
L. Cawstein,
12 Longhirst, MORPETH

False pleas should carry a penalty

Dear Sir,

Ken Clarke is getting into trouble for suggesting lighter sentences for an early "Guilty" plea. However, it seems to me a good idea to take some note of the plea. So what about doubling the sentence for a Mendacious "Innocent" Plea. Or a subsequent charge of "Perjury and Wasting Court Time"?
--
Yours sincerely,
L. Cawstein,
12 Longhirst, MORPETH

Priory Reunion, 2011

Dear fellow Priorians, 

    I have been stimulated by this wonderful occasion to offer a few words to add to the general store of recovered memories. However, simple mathematics shows me that these had better be written than spoken, for there is clearly no time for all of us to speak.

    First, a brief, but heartfelt, "thank you" to Peter Hampson, and Howard Elcock as leading instigators of the re-union; and indeed to you all, for coming.  

    Second, a few words on "The Offside Rule" before I metaphorically 'sit down'.

    I learnt the offside rule as a 9 year old in New Zealand, and in the context of hockey. (Some of you may remember that I was living in New Zealand before I entered the Priory in December 1954; New Zealand, all sunshine, swimming, and sailing; then 6 weeks on an ocean liner with captain and officers in whites, then Shropshire and the Priory.)

     My talk of hockey may surprise you. For we played rugby at the Boys' Priory; and I doubt any of you will remember me as a sportsman, though I crouched with you all behind the hedge on Longden Road, in the misty drizzle of many a wintry afternoon, grappling with the problem, solved so acrobatically by Mr Bean, of putting on shorts before taking trousers off; with the extra spice of girly giggles from across the road and behind the hedge at the out-of-bounds end of the Girls' Priory playing field. However, I ran up and down the rugby pitch with the rest of you. And I ran the 5-mile-run, though some monitors may have wondered, when they compared my almost spotless shorts with the mud-spattered clothing of others. Indeed I was briefly in the County Senior Cross-country team.

    The Offside Rule, as I learnt it, meant that you could not address the ball if you were closer to the enemy goal than his last three players. This was changed in 1972 to 2 players, restricted to the 25 yard zone in 1987, and abolished completely in 1998! The offside rule seemed to make very good sense to me, and to fit in with the other Rules of the Game as I learnt them back in 1954, like "no turning on the ball", "no hitting or even touching the opposing players", and "no hitting the ball too hard, as by raising the stick above the shoulder". One should do nothing, I concluded, that might result in hurting or humiliating the opposition; and that almost extended to winning.

    So you would be right — I was no sportsman. Indeed, I was not very competitive. I have always been reluctant to stretch myself out to be measured, in case the result did not fit my dreams. I was, however, reasonably fit. I cycled 7 miles to school most summer months, and over to Ray Holliday's house on one occasion, where I learnt how to trap sparrow hawks. Did you (Ray) ever get to visit my home at Dorrington in return hospitality? (Funny how shy I was, for I was intensely appreciative of friendship.) A few sixth formers once came out to Dorrington Grove for a Lunar Society meeting where a man told us about "Radioactivity". But I suspect that Mary Peckett is the only one who can remember visiting Dorrington Grove; and she came not as my friend but as friend of a friend of my older brother Robert, who, now a retired professor of epidemiology at Cardiff, sends Peter Hampson his apologies, and his thanks for extending the invitation to him; but Robert West is off somewhere; skiing, or sailing, or chairing a meeting.) Oddly, I do not remember Mary's and Dave Roberts' visit, and may not have been there; perhaps I was up a tree somewhere with a couple of books.

     Yes, I had lots of brothers; some of you may remember Peter, my immediately younger brother. I know Paul Carson does. I think Howard Elcock took Peter dingy sailing on more than one occasion, though once again I don't know where I was at the time. Peter West, you may have heard, drowned in a sailing accident in 1965 when he was 20. Robert also had a sailing accident, many years later (1988). Sailing down the Irish Channel in a 28-footer with four people on board, at 8 o'clock one fine August morning, the keel snapped off. They were many hours in the water and very glad to be spotted by the Stranraer ferry on its way back from Ireland. It was more than 10 years before he bought another offshore boat.

     If I drive through Dorrington now, my mind invariable returns to the summer I courted Elizabeth Nicholls, who lived at Dorrington Old Hall, and whose mother bred pedigree poodles. Memories, sweet and painful! One summer evening Elizabeth just "happened" to be strolling in the orchard with the 20 dogs; I just "happened" to stroll the mile that separated Dorrington Grove from the village. As I approached up the field the dogs started yapping. After a few minutes of helpless miming I gave up the futile task and beat a humiliating retreat (a case of 'reculer, pour mieux sauter'). If anyone here is in touch with Elizabeth or knows where she is, I would be very grateful to be able to greet her and say a belated "thank you".

     The last time I played soccer I broke more than the offside rule. Visualize me in my late twenties and on my third post-doctoral research assignment, still single; working in a uniquely wonderful private laboratory in a Georgian mansion in deepest rural Cornwall, owned by a wealthy and brilliant scientist, on a project that eventually won him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1978 (Peter Mitchell). I was 12th man for an out-of-season friendly between our tennis club and Ranco Engineering. Five minutes before kick-off, our captain counted his men and said I would be needed, so I trotted off to my car to put on my kit, such as it was — some scarcely used rowing shorts, a Fred Perry sweat shirt and white tennis pumps. They had started already when I trotted onto the pitch and asked our captain my position. He waved vaguely to the right-side mid-field. I enjoyed myself, running up and down, passing the ball to colleagues when it came my way, and by half time when our supporters came trotting on with wedges of orange we were well ahead of Ranco. But they told us in theatrical whispers that, as they cut up the oranges, it became undeniably clear that we were fielding 12 men. I was embarrassed, but thought it would be too conspicuous if I walked off the field, so, in the second half I played in a more neutral manner, failing to get possession if possible, and, when unavoidable, passing ambiguously to no-one in particular. Gratifyingly, the scores levelled up somewhat, and I felt I had done the right thing — at least by my rules.

     Those were good times. I came out of my shell, played fiddle for the Morris dancers, chaired the folk club, brewed dustbins-full of beer, met and married my wife. The next few years were good too; a teaching post at Cambridge, a college fellowship and then family. Heather turned up in 1976, and is  now an architect with two baby girls. Her two brothers are both engineers of sorts, one in Gothenburg working for VolvoTec, one in MIT on the brink of getting married. From '76 till 2002 I was a lecturer at Newcastle University. So, I spent my life in the twilight world of academia, for which I have mixed respect and contempt; the academic (I conclude) carries what he thinks of as "reality" in his head, which is nothing more "real" than a wispy dream; but what a dream!  The universe forms but a small part of that immense picture!

     I have no contempt for the Priory, however. I feel very privileged, and seldom miss the opportunity to declare that I had the best possible education (for me); I found no door closed. Gifted teaching that stays with me throughout life, whether it be Peckett's "Pseudolus Noster", Priestly's "Orpheus and Eurydice", Doc Loehry's "Construe, construe!", or Tam Heginbottom's "Law of Mass Action–seesaw", and advice on explosions. I met a few Priorians when I was an undergratudate student; fewer in subsequent years. I occasionally met Howard Elcock in Newcastle, occasionally bumped into Peter Roach or Peter Hampson in unexpected places. I missed the big reunion in 2004 as I was working abroad, but I caught up to some extent once I got back to the UK.

     I look back on the fifties with unexpected twinges of nostalgia, and conclude I am truly a child of the fifties. Back then, we did not only compete, we also co-operated. There was space for all, and we needed each other. Did the Offside Rule really require 3 opposing players between you and the goal? How brilliantly fair! How un-sneaky!

Ian West, March 2011

Programme Notes - Faschingschwank

Faschingschwank aus Wien, Opus 26  ——  Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)

Though the music of both Schumann and Chopin similarly represent highly romantic, tuneful and expressionful pianism on a firm structure, Chopin vehemently rejected all attempts to hear stories in his music while Schumann positively courted such. This work, titled "Carnival Jest from Vienna" (and described as fantasy pictures in the Breitkopf edition), was largely composed in Vienna in 1839, towards the end of the long and frustrating battle with Clara Wieck's father who did everything he could to prevent her marriage to Schumann. In name and subtitle it harks back to "Carnaval", his earlier set of fantasy pictures and musical riddles composed in 1834/5 which we hear next, but its moods and its battles are different. Nor are these fantasy pictures named in the same way; they are more like the movements of a "grand romantic sonata", as he subsequently described it. (You will see the significance of the title when we come to Carnaval: (F(asch)ing(sch)w(a)nk).) It is in five movements. 1. Allegro (Very lively; B♭ major) by far the longest movement, a rondo in 3/4 time, notable for its innovative rhythms and a brief reference to "La Marseillaise". 2. Romanze (Rather slow; G minor) a short, simple, sad piece largely in G minor but resolving into G major for the final bar. 3. Scherzino, (B♭ major) a playful respite between the two sombre movements. 4. Intermezzo (With the greatest energy; E♭ minor) a slow melody against a rush of background notes.  5. Finale (To the highest degree lively; B♭ major) the sonata-form finale is reminiscent of Beethoven with the melody moving in both hands. This is the second longest movement.

Carnaval, Opus 9     –———  Robert Alexander Schumann (1810 – 1856)

Carnaval, Op. 9 (1834/5) is one of Schumann's most characteristic and frequently played works. The 24 year old Schumann was studying piano with Friedrich Wieck, a difficult man whose first wife divorced him. Schumann was secretly betrothed to a fellow pupil (17 year old Ernestine von Fricken). Carnaval is subtitled "Cute (or dainty) scenes on 4 notes". The 22 tiny sections mostly begin with musical cryptograms, possible because of the German names of notes (As=A♭, Es(=eS)=E♭,C=C, H=B♮; Fricken's family lived in Asch (Bohemia); Robert A SCHumann). Many of the "scenes" are named after a real or imaginary characters (Chopin, Paganini, Harlequin, Pierrot, Pantalon & Columbine, Ernestine herself and Clara Wieck (at 15 still only girl, though already famous throughout Europe). Eusebius (adagio) and Florestan (passionato) were two sides to Schumann's own personality. Other scenes were named preamble, valse noble, coquette etc. (Trying to identify them distracts the listener from the music.) The work ends with the triumphant "March of the band of King David's men against the Philistines" which represents an important element in the philosophy of Schumann's band of young music critics who recognized the genius of Chopin, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Bennett but resented the popularity of Cramer, Thalberg, Henri Herz, Czerny, Meyerbeer and others they classed as artistic Philistines.

++++++++     Interval of 20 minutes     ++++++++

Sonata No 2 in B♭ minor Op 35  ––  Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)

i. Grave-Doppio movimento, ii. Scherzo, iii. Marche funbre (Lento), iv. Finale (Presto)

This sonata, though finished at Nohant, was mainly composed during the miserable winter of 1839 in Majorca where Chopin had gone for his health with George Sand and her two children, though the third movement, famous for its 'funeral march', was composed two years earlier. The unmarried pair were not welcomed by the islanders and their eventual accommodation was stark; a deserted monastery. There is a bleak quality about the whole work lightened occasionally by contrasting lyrical sections, but a vigour and inventiveness also. (Chopin was working concurrently on his set of 24 preludes.) The extraordinary technical demands in this sonata never seem to be virtuosity for its own sake but seem absolutely necessary to carry the emotional content of the work. The first movement contains a highly agitated motif, a lyrical 2nd theme and a 3rd element in 6/4 time; then a fusion of all three elements. The agitation, the minor keys and the hammering octaves give the movement a somewhat brooding aura. The second movement (scherzo) opens as a devilish waltz with both hands hammering away in octaves, but contains contrastingly lyrical 'trio' sections (in G♭ major). The third movement begins and ends with the celebrated funeral march (in B♭ minor), but it also has a calm interlude (in D♭ major) reminiscent of the "raindrops" prelude of the same period. The finale is a bewildering and unremitting moto perpetuo of triplets in parallel octaves, without rhythm or harmony; or dynamic until the final two chords.

 Sonata No 3 in B minor  Op. 58  ––  Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)

i. Allegro maestoso, ii. Scherzo: Molto vivace, iii. Largo,iv.  Finale: Presto non tanto; Agitato

Chopin's 3^rd (and last) piano sonata was written in 1844 towards the end of his happy years with George Sand at her country estate of Nohant. It is a vastly different work from the previous sonata; altogether sunnier; much bravura passage work but exuberant rather than shocking; and the lyrical passages so many and lovingly indulged as quite to dominate the whole work. It is far more often played than the opus 35 sonata.

 (Programme notes compiled by Ian West, from numerous sources.  )

 

Programme Notes

Variations Concertante (Op. 17)  –––––––––  Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)

It is well known that Felix Mendelssohn had a musical older sister (Fanny), but he also had a younger sister and an even younger brother, Paul, who followed their father into banking but who played the cello to a good standard as a hobby. Felix dedicating two cello works to him, today's op. 17 and op. 45, a sonata for cello and piano written in1838. (He also named his own son 'Paul', who became a distinguished organic chemist.) Today's opus 17 was composed early in 1829 when Paul was 17 and Felix, aged 20, was on the brink of his first visit to England, and at the same time that he was famously re-introducing the German public to Bach's choral music after its being forgotten for a century. The (French) word concertante signals a virtuosic piece showcasing solo instruments. There is an original theme followed by 8 variations, played without repeats (c.f. Mozart) and flowing seamlessly into one another. The first 7 variations are short; cello has the tune, piano has the tune, piu vivace, con fuoco, then the cello plays pizzicato and the piano seem to go off after two unrelated tunes. This is followed by a tranquil 6^th and a minor 7^th variation, ending with a little cadenza for the cello. The 8^th is much longer, starting with a recapitulation of the tune but that is followed by an accelerando and some florid pianistics; and a quiet ending.

 

Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821   ––  Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

i. Allegro moderato,   ii. Adagio,    iii. Allegretto.

The Viennese guitar maker J.G. Staufer in 1823 invented an instrument he called the 'arpeggione' or 'bowed guitar'. Schubert's friend Schuster bought one and within a year had acquired a facility on the instrument. He urged (there is no evidence of a fee) Schubert to write a sonata for arpeggione and fortepiano that would exploit the instrument's special features; the tone was not as strong as that of a cello, but the six strings (tuned in 4ths and 3rds like a guitar) gave the instrument a wide range, and a facility with arpeggios. The frets minimized vibrato and gave the instrument a viol-like purity of pitch and tone. The sonata (in A minor) was finished in November 1824 (around the time of the "Death and the Maiden" quartet) but not published till 1871. No other work for the instrument survives and within 10 years the arpeggione was forgotten (though there is currently a revival, and contemporary instruments are being made.) However, the popularity of this sonata owes little or nothing to the instrument. It is 'suffering Schubert' at his most lyrical, with his piquant swings from sweet despair to forlorn gaiety. 

++++++++     Interval of 20 minutes     ++++++++

Sonata in F major, Opus 99  ––   Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)

i. Allegro vivace, ii. Adagio affettuoso, iii. Allegro passionato, iv. Allegro molto.

This is Brahms' second sonata for cello and piano, written in 1886 after the completion of all 4 symphonies, and with the 53 year-old Brahms in mid career; successful, popular, single, gruff. Like the 3^rd symphony completed in 1883, this sonata is in F. Its inspiration was probably the cello playing of Robert Hausmann (cellist in the Joachim quartet). The first movement, in F major and 3/4 time, opens with tremendous energy. The bustling, almost orchestral, piano writing supports wonderfully sustained tunes in the cello. There soon appear Brahms' signature cross-rhythms, and contrasting quieter passages. The second movement, in the (technically) remote key of F sharp (i.e. raised a semitone), opens with the cello providing a pizzicato accompaniment, but eventually it is the sustained lyricism of the cello that sets the tone of the movement; it is less outwardly compelling that the 1^st movement, and requires more concentration from the listener. The third movement is essentially a 'Scherzo', opening and closing in F minor but with a central 'Trio' section in F major. The last movement opens sweetly on the cello. The piano imitates, but after a few bars gets distracted by a tempestuous piano subplot. These two elements play off each other energetically; emotion perfectly structured; the height of European romanticism.

(Programme notes compiled by Ian West, from numerous sources.  )

Liu Xiao-Bo

The West, I mean the non-Chinese world, is in danger of hustling Liu Xiao-Bo into a martyrdom that is more dramatic than the merely heroic stance he intended. To spend 11 years in prison, from age 54 to 65 is a heavy sentence; but perhaps even that is not heavy enough for the ghouls who rub their hands and gloat at the awfulness of the Chinese regime. 'We few, we happy few' who live under representative democracy with a free press, and central heating, are well cushioned against the realities of life in the monolithic communist or ex-communist states of China and Russia, and remain happily ignorant of those realities. We flaunted capitalism and encouraged the dismantling of the Russian communist machine with whoops of triumphant glee, and look at the devastation that has resulted! Are we now setting-to to repeat that devastation in China?

How many of our experts in democracy and penmanship remember the Taiping rebellion, and the awful success of the messianic Hong Xiu-Quan, self-styled brother of Jesus, who stormed through southern China in the mid-nineteenth century in an attempt to establish the 'Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace' ? Millions slain, 20 million dead. Or even the more recent 20-year long struggle between Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Ze-Dong when "more than a million died"?  China is a different place, with a different history, and above all a different psychology. It is foolish, presumptuous, and dangerous, to interfere; to inject little bits of 'foreign' thinking into a country that has for millennia governed itself by its own laws for its own perceived benefits.  

It is not since 'time immemorial' (which, incidentally, is defined as 1189 A.D.) that we in Britain have enjoyed free speech; that is a relatively recent innovation. Today we can call for the abolition of the monarchy, if we want to, or make jokes about the prime minister, because no-one will pay any attention. Some person could doubtless call himself the younger brother of Jesus without raising a revolution, or much more than a frown. During the 17^th century that would have been a step too far. In 1697 the 20 year old Edinburgh student Thomas Aikenhead was hung for 'blasphemy'; it was a cold night and the lad, walking home from a drinking session, said he wished he were in the place Ezra called 'hell' so he could warm himself. Even riding into Bristol in front of a crowd of enthusiasts crying "Holy, holy, holy" got James Nayler  thrown into prison in 1656. However, both these punishments can be judged as harsh, even for their times, because, though people were offended, neither episode led to armed rebellion, public disorder, or loss of life.

I doubt that "freedom of speech" was ever won by violent protest; it is surely won by exactly the opposite; by quiet listening and mature reflection. So, instead of clamouring about Liu Xiao-Bo, crying "holy, holy, holy",  and placing medals on empty chairs, why don't we indulge in a little mature reflection. Charter 08 draws attention to the fact that the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions in 1998; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase "respect and protect human rights"; in 2008 it promised to promote a "national human rights action plan." So, what is that action plan? We are listening.

Occidentis, MORPETH

(Please comment direct to Cawstein@gmail.com)