Author Archives: Tim Lenton

I was rather disappointed with The Daily Telegraph, which normally does a good line in obituaries.

Leonard Cohen, who has died aged 82, is a man who deserves a bit of depth, but there in the first paragraph was the tired old cliché about “music to slit your wrists to”, which is as superficial as it is wildly inaccurate.

Cohen’s songs, to those who have ears to hear and admit to possessing at least a modicum of spirituality within, are inspiring, uplifting and life-changing. “I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life,” Cohen said, “whether they want to cop to it or not. It’s there, you can feel it in people – there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity.”

Bob Dylan, a big admirer of Cohen’s songs, described his work as “great, deep and truthful, multidimensional and surprisingly melodic”. He added: “I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all.”

Suzanne Vega described his work as “a combination of very real details and a sense of mystery, like prayers or spells”. Rabbai Mordecai Finley called him “a great liturgical writer”.

It has always been surprising to Cohen admirers like me that his quality is not immediately obvious to everyone. Everything he writes is deep and at the same time playful, mixing such apparent opposites as sex and spirituality with gentle panache.

The Daily Telegraph seems not to be totally convinced. It mentions accurately that his record company CBS decided not to release the album Various Positions in the USA, but fails to point out that this album, far from being a dud, was one of his best, including the stunning “Hallelujah”, plus brilliant songs like “Coming back to you” and the moving “If it be your will”.

Maybe some Americans are not much into self-deprecation, ambiguity and indefinable  spirituality.

It cannot be denied that Cohen – a Canadian Jew from an upper middle-class Montreal background – had a huge impact on many people’s lives through his songs, poetry and his two novels. But in person he was charming, generous and self-deprecating. The two concerts of his that I went to (one at the Albert Hall in the 1980s and one in 2013 at O2) were outstanding.

After O2 I wrote that his “magnetic presence shrinks the arena into an intimate setting, with the audience as friends who have dropped by, and who the singer is surprised and delighted to see. His injection of spiritual awareness into everything he writes gives a depth that is lacking in so many modern lyrics, and the musical arrangements come with matching profundity, but with lightness too.”

Perhaps Cohen was a little too concerned about God for some tastes. The lead song from his last album, released only last month, contains the refrain “Hineni” – a biblical Hebrew word meaning “Here I am” and carrying the implication “I am at your disposal” or “Send me”. It is another example of his endearing lack of pride – among other things.

It is tempting to quote at length from his songs and poems, but they are easy to find online, and pointless repetition is not his style. I will end with a quote from one of his songs, however, not because it’s his best, but because it’s true and makes us realise how lucky we are sometimes to live in an age of quality recordings:

“You’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone
I’ll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song.”

Don’t forget to listen.

Should Bob Dylan have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature? He certainly doesn’t need the money. But does he merit the applause?

Looking back at recent Nobel prizewinners in literature, I recognise only three of the names in the last ten years. This may say more about me than about the prizewinners, and we certainly wouldn’t want to turn it into a kind of oleaginous celebrity event like the Oscars. But three out of ten ain’t good, as Meat Loaf might have said – or to be more precise, Jim Steinman, since he wrote Meat Loaf’s songs.

There is little chance of Jim Steinman getting the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he did write some amazing lyrics, as did Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Dory Previn and John Fogerty, not to mention Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Dougie Mclean, Billy Bragg, Paul Simon – and Rory and Calum Macdonald.

There is no reason why song lyrics shouldn’t be considered Nobel prize material. Are they literature? Well, they aren’t physics. Perhaps the very name of the prize – donated by the explosive Mr Nobel – has a subliminal effect and we think, pop songs aren’t very noble, are they?

Books are substantial things. Songs float around in the air, and they have tunes, which is cheating.

But I prefer to think of literature in terms of the effect it has on me and others. A few books have had profound effects on me: Catch-22 and The Lord of the Rings, to name but two, but also Lavondyss and Pale Fire. I don’t think it would be stretching the truth, however, to say that Bob Dylan has had a deeper effect on me than any book written in the last thousand years.

I was captivated by his lyrics from the outset, although – unlike all those journalists who based their approval on the early songs that everyone knows – I think his material from the late 60s and 70s was even more poetic and imaginative. And I don’t think I’m totally alone in admiring his singing: he threw out the boringly technical and introduced a whole new dynamic timing to the voice which was taken up by Mark Knopfler and many others.

Of course prizes are by their very nature subjective. Most of you will have nodded wisely when you read a few of the names above, and taken a mystified step back when you came to a couple of others.

Bob Dylan got his prize for “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. I can’t begin to argue with that. Objections come mainly from those who have only heard his songs from a distance and not paid them the compliment of close listening.

My only caveat would be that there is someone else who deserves the prize, and deserves it now. He too is a songwriter, a singer, a poet – and a novelist. He too gets to the heart of things and creates magic with words. He is not American; he is a Canadian. His name is Leonard Cohen. Perhaps they could share it.

When I was a young lad, many moons ago, we used to have three weeks of holidays a year. I know this is hard to believe – many of my contemporaries, I am assured, had to make do with a one-day coach trip to Blackpool. I knew nothing of that. We had a car.

I read recently that there were only one million cars on the road in this country in 1950. A trivial number – one with which even the inept Transport for Norwich might be able to cope.

We had a Vauxhall: strangely, I remember its number: DPW 155. Later, we had a Rover, and then we had a Lea-Francis. Quite exotic. Then my father died, and we had nothing.

But that’s another story. Before that we enjoyed what I had become accustomed to expect: a fortnight in some such desirable location as Croyde, Hope Cove, Perranporth or Llangennith. The first two are in Devon, the third in Cornwall and the last in South Wales. Remote enough, but not foreign. We weren’t that well off. As I recall, we generally stayed in a caravan, which was static only in the sense that it wasn’t moving.

In addition to The Summer Fortnight, we also had a week at Hemsby, which was on the brink of becoming the arcade capital of the East. I remember putting pennies into strange machines where the only incentive, as far as I can remember, was getting them out again. These were old pennies, of course: trivial money, 12 of them worth 5p today.

But that wasn’t Hemsby’s main attraction. There was The Marrams, where we stayed in a rather exciting bungalow, and there was the Valley. Both are still there, though the sea is nibbling away at the protecting dunes.

I could go on in nostalgic vein, but the point I really want to make is that holidays in those days were relaxing. Holidays nowadays are anything but. On a recent Swiss train holiday (which I enjoyed tremendously) our journey home took 17 hours and required six trains, a coach and a tube journey. While we were away we also reached 11,000 feet above sea level, travelling by local railway, cog railway, funicular, cable car and through mountain tunnels, emerging into ice and snow.

On a previous trip this summer to the Outer Hebrides we experienced four ferry journeys and eight hotels, and travelled a total of more than 2000 miles.

Not exactly relaxing, and that’s without the dreadful hassle of air travel, which can induce a nervous breakdown all on its own.

So what are holidays all about? As my friends Linda and Anne might say, they are about relaxing on a beach, but I’m not all that keen on sand. I like a bit of wilderness. Most holidays I go on nowadays require several weeks at home to recover. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Well, I am getting old: no question about it. And with that comes the urge of the bucket list. How long have we got to go where we want to?

I am resisting desperation: my bucket is considerably smaller than some, and my horizons are not expanding. I even fancy a week in Hemsby. How sad is that?

I have to admit that I can be impatient. Fortunately most of my friends are patient with my impatience, but sometimes it spills over and reveals itself.

To an extent it’s always been there, but it’s been getting worse since I became aware that the years ahead of me are fewer than the years behind. Much fewer. The fact that my grandson has reached his 14th birthday is a factor. How long have I got? Can you speak a bit faster?

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing things that are a waste of time. I do those things, of course, but I don’t want to.

I resent filling in forms, or attending meetings that go through everything “line by line”. I know some people enjoy it, but I don’t. I shall have to fill my tax form in soon, and I’m not looking forward to it.

Why does software take longer and longer to load? Is it me?

Getting from place to place becomes more and more stressful. My train from Coventry to Euston was held up by 28 minutes last week. That’s very nearly 50%.  And have you noticed how the police grab every opportunity to close roads for as long as possible? Even after relatively minor accidents?

Don’t even get me started on Transport for Norwich, who not only delight in imposing as many roadworks as possible on the city at the same time, but manage to find contractors who work infinitely slowly. Why?

I have worked out that if speed kills, the speed of death is about 45mph. Twice in the last couple of days I’ve been in a queue behind drivers travelling along perfectly serviceable A roads at that speed, and I can tell you that it’s murder.

It’s not totally their fault. If only the second in the queue was able to summon up the nerve to overtake, the problem would disappear – slowly, perhaps, but it would disappear. Unfortunately, no-one seems willing to overtake nowadays. Have they forgotten how? Or do they really think that a slow-moving queue is safer?

Last time this happened, I dropped back to avoid the mind-numbing boredom of travelling at that speed on a road designed for 60mph. Why didn’t I overtake? Four cars at once was pushing it a bit, even for me. I’m not so impatient that I want to die straight away.

There is no such thing as a level playing field. In view of that, I would like to make suggestions for the next Olympics. You may find them controversial.

First, I suggest we ditch the whole anti-drugging industry and let people take whatever drugs they like. This may seem radical; so there is an alternative.

We could carefully measure every competitor’s body chemistry and bring it up (or down) to a uniform level. Clearly some people are born with an advantage, be it extra testosterone or a particularly athletic metabolism. Some are exceptionally tall (basketball). How can this be fair?

Also, some people are temperamentally suited to getting up early and running uncountable miles in the cold of winter, doing press-ups and generally getting out of breath. Others are not, and so are prevented from reaching Olympic levels.

Some people are also more inclined to self-centredness and so can put their demands as athletes before the needs of their families. This must be put right, perhaps by insisting that all athletes spend a certain number of hours with their families each day.

Some athletes, it has been noted, are able to answer interminable inane questions from sports commentators without ever punching them in the mouth. Most of us are innately unable to do this. Maybe some courses would be in order.

Once these reforms have been put in place, we can tackle the events themselves. The most urgent need is to ditch any event that involves a judge of performance.

It was obvious at Rio that quite a number of such judges made bizarre decisions, particularly (but not solely) in boxing. This could be avoided quite easily by sticking to sports that rely on clear measurement of achievement, such as running, jumping, swimming, shooting and so on. We could add chess. Obviously that would be a good thing.

I realise this would mean dumping gymnastics, diving, trampolining, synchronised swimming and a number of other questionable activities, but if necessary they can have their own Other Olympics. We could call it a Circus. (I am not belittling circuses: on the contrary, I went to one in Yarmouth a few weeks ago, and it was brilliant.)

To make things totally fair, I think we should all have gold medals, regardless.