Bath Film Festival's Soulfull kick off

I had the pleasure of going to the launch of the Bath Film Festival on Thursday night - and what a 'soulful' and inspiriing night it was too.

The Festival chose Komedia to be the host for its launch which I thought this was a very good, non-traditional venue for a film fest.

And in a venue where laughs and good times are the order of the day it seemed apt that the film that kicked it all off was Soul Power, a movie about a three day music concert held to coincide with the classic 1974 heavyweight title fight in Zaire between Ali and Foreman.

The film footage, which has only just resurfaced and has now been beautifully packaged, followed the somewhat shambolic opening preparations for this gig to its triumphant conclusion where the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, dominated the show. The footage of this remarkable man was enough to make the film itself but you had plenty of other great performances to admire from African and African-American artists - I loved Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, BB King and Bill Withers in particular . All performed so well you almost forgot how bad their flares were.

The real star however was the main man himself - Muhammad Ali. If there is a more watchable man on screen I have yet to see it, because you literally can't take your eyes off him or turn off your ears to what he says. The trip to Africa clearly had a profound impact on him and he used every opportunity to talk about the relationship between black and white people in a way that still strikes a powerful chord today, 35 years later. And it clearly inspired him in the ring as well - enough to help him win the big fight that followed....

But this is not a boxing film, it is a musical one and the music just burns brightly. The feet never stop tapping throughout and it was a genuine (and unexpected) pleasure to see a film end with enthusiastic applause from a live and lively audience.

So a great kick off for the Bath festival and look out for many fine films in the next few weeks from blockbuster names and much-anticipated premieres such as The Informant and A Prophet to weird little movies including a 'cricket slasher movie' (I kid you not) and old classics like The Belles of St Trinians.

More details on this great feast of film from http://www.bathfilmfestival.org/.

Get up, get on up!

Why I respect, admire and support our servicemen

The context for this piece is that in the Chronicle letters two weeks ago a writer, Tony Culver, said we should be ashamed of our British military history and he said our armed forces did not deserve our respect. He has since repeated that claim in a new letter this week - and this was the response I made in my column, printed on November 12.

Whenever I talk to local community groups it is usually only a matter of time before the Bath Chronicle’s famous (or should I say infamous)? letters pages are discussed.

I know that our pages are avidly read by people and the contents are widely discussed and debated.

This is because, by and large, we have an exceptional letters section which allows our readers to pontificate on all manner of hot topics which really gets their debating juices flowing.

I am just like everyone else in that a number of the letters that appear are ones I fully agree with and others are totally against my own personal view. And that is fine, because they are your letters pages – not mine.

However, occasionally, just occasionally, one letter gnaws away at me so I cannot ignore it. And that is what has happened this week with the second letter we print by Tony Culver who has attacked our armed forces and their long history.

It is his view, one he passionately believes, and he has every right to be heard (and printed). But so do we who fundamentally disagree.

I could talk at some length about many of the issues Mr Culver raises about war, peace and our armed forces generally but I just want to focus on one core subject, one which I think challenges everyone who believes in ‘peace at all cost’.

And that is the Second World War.

You could make a fairly powerful argument against nearly every war that has been fought but the Second World War was different – very, very different. When you are growing you play games with goodies and ‘baddies’, and this was a war when those terms genuinely (and uniquely?) apply.

Yes, there are many innocent German people who lost their lives in that conflict, but there is no denying that the Nazi regime that led them to war was pure evil. And pure evil can not – and must not – be ignored.

Mr Culver’s plea of peace is absolutely commendable – but it only works if both sides sign up. As we know Britain did everything it could to appease Hitler – and all he did was to sneer at our weakness.

Had we ignored his growing militarism to keep our own ‘purity of peace’ we would have seen Europe enslaved, Britain completely overrun (the Nazis would hardly have respected our ‘neutrality’) and we would probably have seen the total and utter destruction of the Jewish race on our continent.

I visited Auschwitz last year and saw for myself the appalling effect of Hitler’s insane beliefs and anyone that can possibly think he would have been stopped in his evil plans to create an Aryan master race by ‘peaceful methods’ is almost dangerously naive. Hitler had to be stopped – and the only way, sadly, he was going to be stopped was at the end of a gun.

In his latest letter, Mr Culver also said that the freedom we have now isn’t worth the price of the millions who died for it. He is wrong. Freedom, like democracy, is something that we in the west take for granted – ask the millions in the world who don’t have it how much they were prepared to sacrifice to gain it and you may not see such a flip attitude to freedom. And that has been earned mainly by our brilliant, committed and dedicated armed forces for whom we all owe our pride, respect and loyalty.

I will, as editor, continue to print Mr Culver’s words and those of people who support him but as an individual I feel nothing but incredible pride for the people who lost their lives in British uniforms so that I, and Mr Culver, can have the right to debate these issues.So, yes I will remember them all.

And with genuine pride.

Ex-Strangler Hugh Cornwell previews his Bath show

This is a piece I have done for the Bath Chronicle about Hugh Cornwell, the former lead singer of The Stranglers, and his appearance on November 18 at the city venue Moles. If you see this and can get to Bath next week there is a contest at the bottom of this to win tickets!!

Former Stranglers front man makes Moles debut

Hugh Cornwell, the locally-based former lead singer of The Stranglers, returns to Bath on Wednesday for a surprise second major show in the city this year.

The Box singer/songwriter, who played an extremely well-received concert at Komedia in March, will be making his first ever appearance at Moles as part of a warm-up for an important national tour, on Wednesday.

But, although it will be Hugh’s debut live show at Bath’s most famous venue, he is certainly no stranger to its underground delights.

“I’ve never played Moles before”, said Hugh. “I used to go there a lot in the past and thinking about it, I must have spent an awful lot of drinking money there.

“It was always a good place for seeing bands and I can remember seeing The Manic Street Preachers there before they broke. I also have some vague memory of The Stranglers doing some filming in Moles but I can’t remember what it was so perhaps that’s just one of those memories that doesn’t actually exist.”

The reason for Hugh’s quick return to Bath is for him to prepare for several high-profile national concerts which will sees him playing a set devoted to the classic 1977 Stranglers album Rattus Norvegicus and the other half to his solo album, Hoover Dam.

It’s the first time that Hugh will ever have done this ‘whole album concept’ and he says it just seemed a logical thing to do at this stage of his long and varied career.

“We have been touring extensively with Hoover Dam and it is an album the band and I really enjoy playing. The idea to do the whole of that record as well as the whole of Rattus came together when I realised how many of the songs from that first Stranglers album I already played and so it seemed like an interesting thing to run them all altogether and then do the same with the latest record. It will all make for a nice little show I think”

This means that fans of both Hugh’s past and current music should have a real treat. He will kick off with the whole of his latest album – which has been a huge success critically and has earned him an enormous amount of attention after being given away free to download – and after a break he will return to the stage and blast out all the songs of his first ever album with The Stranglers including such hits as Peaches and Grip as well as acknowledged Stranglers classics like Hanging Around and Down In The Sewer.

“There are only a couple of songs on Rattus that I haven’t done on my own before so I thought doing them would be fun. I don’t normally sing songs that other people in the band used to sing but it’s been good to revisit them and give them a new twist,” he said.

Before this mini-tour Hugh had been very active in America.

In Europe The Stranglers always had a big following and success, but in the United States it was something of a different story which is why Hugh is so determined to make his mark there this time around.

“Being a success in America is a real building process and you have to put the work in and leave a calling card everywhere you go. It’s something that we just never really did with The Stranglers. It takes time to make your mark over there and with The Stranglers we were never that bothered about doing that. We also left it far too long between each visit and I’m determined not to do that again. I’ve learned from my mistakes,” he said.

The fact that Hugh’s album can de downloaded free all around the world (visit http://www.hooverdamdownload.com/) will greatly help that process.

“A lot of people we played to seemed to know the Hoover Dam songs pretty well because of the whole free download situation. It meant that we could play just about anywhere and be sure of an audience because people could check out our album for free in the days running up to a show and then come along if they liked it.

“In the past it was only the bigger towns where we used to get an audience because our material wasn’t universally available – now you can play to as many people in a smaller town as in a bigger one. The internet knows no boundaries ands we have benefited from that.”

Before returning back to the States, Hugh is keenly-anticipating his concerts in the UK and it seems his work ethic and desire to play live has never been stronger. His reasons for that are quite clear: “I’m healthier now than I’ve ever been which certainly helps,” he said. “I also think as you get older you realise there’s only a short time left to be able to do what you do and you just want to be more active. If you sit around that time just goes. I don’t want to waste any time at all – and I think that’s part of the drive.”

As for Wednesday’s Bath show, Hugh says he’s really looking forward to returning to Moles.

“This concert has all fitted in perfectly and I’m really looking forward to it. Bath is just such a nice place and it has always been good to me,” he said.

Wednesday’s show starts at 7.30pm and any remaining tickets, costing £20, are available now from Moles and their usual outlets.

• The Bath Chronicle has two tickets to give away for the gig. If you would like to win the pair then send an email to kath@moles.co.uk with the answer to the question: in what year did Hugh and his fellow Stranglers release Rattus Norvegicus? The concert promoters will contact the winners direct.

An 18-year-old daughter? Me? I am far too young/....

If you were to ask people around me to list my most irritating faults, I am pretty certain that one thing that would crop up frequently is that I am forever banging on about the fact that I don't think I look my age. No matter what my passport or driving licence tells me in my own warped mind, I am convionced the mirror tells a different story.

However, sometimes something creeps up and bites you on the big bottom of life that cruelly destroys your self-delusion about your age.

And that happened to me last weekend when my eldest 'child', my 'little' girl, Charlotte, was 18. Yes, I am now the the father of an 18-year-old and no pretence that I look young enough to host Blue Peter can escape that fact.

It really is a sobering moment to realise your child is no longer your 'child'. She can see the same films as I do (not that we have the same tastes), vote in the same elections (not that she has the interest that I do) and do practically anything she wants really without ever uttering the immortal words 'Dad, can I.....?'

Actually that isn't strictly true. As every parent of a teenager will know, you become a taxi driver – and so, last Saturday night, my role was to help ferry her and her friends off to Poo Nah's Nah's in Bath. Nightclubs hey...and all this from that sweet little well-mannered girl who only a few years ago (in my memory) was taking her first dancing lessons at the age of just three.


Crazy.

Nowadays, in the world of social networking sites it is so easy to track the length of people's lives and learn all about them easily but for me, and the rest of the family, our pondering over Charlotte's 'big 1-8' has still been centred around digging out old photographs of baby competitions, first days at school, first holidays and so forth. It has been, as our American cousins say, emotional.

Perhaps the best way of tracking that time, however, is to see how different the world was when Charlotte was born (in 1991) to today.

For a start, the aforementioned social networking sites obviously didn't exist. It is amazing, considering their influence, to learn that Facebook is only six years old (and in reality was nothing like we know it today until two or three years ago), Twitter is just three years old and even the supposed 'grand daddy' of them all, Youtube, is astonishingly just four years old. How many other four-year-olds can genuinely be considered a world phenomenon?

Oh and as for Wikipedia (nine years old), if I had wanted to give Charlotte that much info as a birth gift I would have had to pay £200 for a book of dusty old encyclopedias – which would have been outdated the moment after purchase.

Those 18 years have, of course, seen many epic, often frightening worldwide events but it is probably this dramatic age of communication change that has characterised this past generation.

Many of you, may, for example be reading this online on my blog (hi there!) rather than in print and with so many developments of this kind happening so quickly one can only imagine how different the communications scene will look when one day Charlotte talks about her 'eldest's' 18th.

By then the world may not, for instance, be 'run' by the US and Europe as we pretend it is now but by the 'BRIC' countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China, the next global powers apparently). And I defy anyone to predict what life will be like then because no one, but no one, could have predicted life now the day 'Lotte' took her first breath.

So, a belated very happy birthday 'young' Charlotte. No dad in the world could be prouder of this but please don't be offended if you overhear me say: 'An 18-year-old daughter? When I look this young? Impossible....'

Bath is an amazingly Creative city

On Thursday night unless the BBC has a dramatic change of heart, the prestigious Question Time show will have a record audience as well-known Holocaust denier Nick Griffin joins the illustrious panel. It may not be November 5 just yet – but boy, oh boy, expect fireworks.

On Tuesday night I too had the pleasure of sitting on a Question Time style panel – but thankfully there wasn’t a BNP activist in sight.

For this proudly non-political panel was one that was there to highlight one of Bath’s greatest hidden assets – it’s lively and highly imaginative creative sector.

he event had been organised by the burgeoning Creative Bath group which is aiming to bring together the many different creative industries in our city. The term “creative industry” is obviously quite a wide-ranging one and among the members of the group are people involved in all forms of the written media, TV and film, writing, web designing, music, photography and other less ‘obvious’ creative fields such as architecture.

What unites them all is that they use their imagination and their brains to produce their wares. And what an enjoyably eclectic bunch they are too.

At this latest meeting a number of us were asked to be part of a panel discussion on how the recession and general downturn has affected the media/creative sector. Chaired enthusiastically by the ever-energetic Greg Ingham of MediaClash, I shared that panel with Bob Mytton, Malcolm Brinkworth, Mike Ellis, Richard Daws and John Weir and between us we represented a wide range of different organisations all of whom have had different challenges during the past 12 months.

I found all my fellow guests to be fascinating and full of insight and between us and the equally engaged audience I think we enjoyed a pretty lively debate.

What virtually all of us in the packed Ustinov Theatre shared was the realisation that yes, the creative sector has had a tough time, but that hadn’t dented the optimism, positivism or the imagination of those of us in this fascinating sector.W

hat this night also illustrated was just how vibrant the creative scene is in Bath. Organisations such as the Chronicle, Future and MediaClash are all quite high-profile but there are many pockets in and around the city where smaller groups of people are producing top-class work that collectively is providing millions of pounds for our city’s economy.

The figures of how much the creative industries bring to our area are staggering and it was revealed on Tuesday night that Bath is doing as well as anywhere in the South West in terms of its creative enterprise.

I am fairly certain that in many towns or cities which are much bigger than Bath you would not get the same number of people attending such events as this and Bath does seem to be like a magnet for many people who work in the creative field. It seems somewhat ironic that in a city which is so rightfully proud of its past that if you scratch at the surface you will find many people who are working hard in the industries of the future.

I also sense that, although the Creative Bath organisation already has hundreds of active and enthusiastic members, there may be many other people out there who are still not aware of the benefits this group brings. If that sounds like you then can I push you to the group’s website (www.creativebath.org) where you can find out how you can join an organisation which may not only be good for you as an individual, but could also boost your business and help our city’s economy grow.

PS I bet tonight’ s Question Time won’t be nearly as inspiring . . .

Let's find Melanie's killer

Usually on my blog I post my weekly column from the Bath Chronicle which is often relatively light-hearted. This, however, is somewhat different.

As many people will now know, two weeks ago the remains of Bath girl Melanie Hall - who had gone missing 13 years ago - were discovered off the M5.

It meant that here in Bath we faced a murder hunt.

I therefore combined my usual weekly column in the Chronicle with the paper's official Editorial Comment (which I also write) to make a plea for local people to do everything they can to help catch the killer.

This is the comment/editorial I wrote, printed on Thursday, October 15.


'The phrase ‘every parent’s nightmare’ is one that is heard so often in everyday usage that it is probably quite meaningless now.

But if the phrase ever had any true meaning, it was in the distressing situation facing Steve and Pat Hall about the disappearance of their daughter, Melanie.

Thirteen years ago this bright, vivacious girl who had everything to live for, made a rare visit to a nightclub in Bath. She was never to return.

In the days, weeks and months that followed there were many theories about what might have happened to Melanie but time and time again the hopes of finding her were dashed and her parents were left in the most appalling state of limbo.

As those months turned to years the hopes that Melanie may one day turn up unexpectedly on the doorstep started to fade away totally but the mystery of what actually happened to her on that evening and where she was now never went away.

Until now that is.

The discovery of Melanie’s body on the side of the M5 last week and the subsequent, sadly inevitable, conclusion that she was the victim of a murder has reopened for her parents the whole awful nightmare again.

For Pat and Steve Hall the news of their daughter’s final resting place brought a welcome closure to the unanswered question that dominated their lives but also reopened the floodgates of pain once again. By throwing themselves into their work and hobbies – Pat was a senior player at the Royal United Hospital and Steve made a massive impression on Bath City Football Club – the couple had been able to create a life for themselves where they were not only the parents of a missing girl.

Now their world has been shaken again and their private anguish has become very public once more.

When the news broke for the family they had very mixed emotions. Although they were obviously distressed to realise the circumstances that led to their daughter’s death, they were at least comforted by the fact that now she can be laid to rest and they can give her the funeral and celebration of her life that she had been hitherto denied.

For the family, the police and indeed the whole city, the closure of this one door has opened another one – and it is one which is hard for us to all face. And that is that somebody – and possibly even somebody who is reading these words – killed Melanie and has escaped justice.

So far.

The best way we as a community can now help to respect the memory of Melanie and help her family to get through this new phase of their grieving is to try to do everything we can to help the police track down her murderer. Although this crime took place 13 years ago and there have been many investigations and false dawns since, the discovery of Melanie’s last resting place may well provide some of the vital clues that have eluded the police over the past decade.

The remarkable advances in forensic science and DNA mean that police have far more tools at their disposal to deal with crimes of this nature than ever before, and the clues that should be available by this discovery may well help to solve this long-standing crime. The most important tool of all, however, is still in the hands of the people of this city. Since the discovery, more than 100 calls (now 200) have been made to the incident room from people offering information and help about the case and we once again can only reiterate that if you were a witness or you were around Walcot Street on the night of June 8/9, 1996 and the renewed publicity has triggered something in your mind, no matter how small, then please contact the police.

The police would rather take a 1,000 calls that led nowhere than miss the one crucial one that could make the difference so please don’t hesitate to contact them with any information you have. (You can call them on 0117 945 5811 or via Crimestoppers Confidential on 0800 555111.)

And there is a whole new set of people who can help this case – people who may have been nowhere near Walcot Street in the summer of ’96. And they are the people who may have had suspicions that somebody close to them may have been involved in this terrible crime. None of us would like to face up to these suspicions, but we owe it to the memory of this young girl – and maybe others like her who were in similar circumstances – to act upon those doubts.

Perhaps if this is you, you had the thought at the back of your mind that maybe this case wasn’t as bad as it might have been. But now you know that we are talking about a brutal murder, it is time to act.

It is time to pick up that phone.

The disappearance of Melanie Hall has been a painful part of our city’s life for 13 years. Melanie’s parents cannot speak highly enough of the support they’ve had from people in Bath and the Bradford on Avon area. They know that everyone locally would like to see a resolution to this crime once and for all – let us give them that support to do so.

Finally, let us pay a tribute to Melanie Hall herself. She was a much-loved daughter and sister with an appetite for life and a wonderful spirit and in the weeks and months to come let us remember and celebrate that fact. She had a terrible death but a wonderful life before and let us all try to remember the girl and not just the victim.

Rest in peace, Melanie.

Sam Holliday, Editor

Yep, another art critic who knows nothing about art!

Last week I had the pleasure of adding the word ‘art’ to the growing CV of things I have had the chance to judge over the years.

As I said in this column a few weeks ago, my position as editor has led me to judge everything from rock competitions to beauty competitions (and practically everything in between) but until last Thursday, I had not had the pleasure of having a say in who should win prizes (totalling £5,000 no less) for the quality of their art.

I was invited – and I like to think as a representative of you all – to be one of the judges for The Bath Prize, a splendid new competition which encourages artists from this country and beyond to “celebrate the glory of our World Heritage city” with a painting depicting an inspiring view.

The competition attracted more than 150 high-quality entries from 100 different artists and the results of their endeavours are now on view for all to see at a superb free exhibition in the stunning venue of The Octagon in Milsom Place.
I think it is fair to say straight away, however, that if it takes an artist to know an artist then I should have been in big trouble.

To quote possibly the world’s oldest cliche, “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like” and I like to think I have a good eye for a striking image. But my own ‘talents’ with a pencil or paintbrush are so limited as to be laughable.

Indeed, one of my abiding memories of my school days was when we had to draw a self-portrait in our art class. The bushily-bearded and often incoherent art teacher who, frankly, was never my biggest ‘fan’, sat at the front of the class with all the completed images, lifted them up one by one and, without looking at the name on the front, was able to identify all of the names of the people who had drawn them because they were so accurate. And then he came to my picture in the last book he had. I was obviously the only person who had not received my book back and yet he still uttered the crushing words:

“Looking at this, I have absolutely no idea who this person is.”

My days as an artist were over. Before they had actually begun.

So, I took great delight thinking about “Mr Bushy Beard” as I became an art critic for the day along with several other judges who thankfully knew far more about how to use a paintbrush than I ever could. Indeed I was almost as impressed by the way my fellow judges (David Lee, Laura Gascoigne and two of Bath’s indisputedly nicest men –- the mayor Colin Barrett and Richard Hall from Future Bath Plus) explained the qualities of the work we were reviewing, as I was by the actual pictures themselves.

Between us our judging mixture of punters and experts (and guess which one I was)? produced a winning selection of which I hope the city can be proud.
It was not an easy choice because we ended up with dozens of images in the supposed ‘short’ list, such was the quality, variety and diversity of some of wonderful work.

I know art and paintings aren’t everybody’s first choice of cultural entertainment but I really believe that The Bath Prize is something which the whole city can enjoy and so I hope thousands of people will go into the Octagon (pictured right to view the images of some of the best-known parts of our city and some which will leave you scratching your head thinking “now where the heck is that place...”

The best thing of all for me was seeing the different way in which different people viewed our city and its attractions. Some images were straightforward representations of famous scenes, others were romanticised, some were surreal but nearly all were utterly compelling. So, yes, I don’t know much about art – but I do know what I like. And in this case, what I like (and very much) is this fantastic exhibition which I would urge as many people as possible to try to view over the next week or so. Our winning pic is here......