#Brian Reade

[semper-legens]

50. Diamonds in the Mud, by Brian Reade

Owned?: No, library Page count: 343 My summary: A celebration of working-class heroes - from the Hillsborough mothers to the legends of football, here are a selection of working-class people who have made a real difference in the world, and whose legacies should be celebrated alongside people from posher backgrounds. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Now, here's a book with a definite audience, and that audience is named me. While my background is a lot more middle class than working class, I still rail against the overexposure of moneyed, posh people in our pop culture, and particularly when it comes to the 'heroes' that we 'must' celebrate. No, I don't think I particularly care about Winston Churchill, actually - the man was a horrible racist and that fact hardly ever comes up in discussions of him, the focus instead being on his efforts as Prime Minister during the Second World War, to the point where it's practically taught that he alone was responsible for the Allies winning the War, never mind all the other countries and people who were, you know, actually doing the fighting. But I digress. Reade is clearly a champion for the working class, in a very familiar, Liverpudlian way. His focus is very much on Liverpool and the North West, though not all of the people he spotlights are from here. Some might criticise him for provincialism. I wouldn't be one of them, though. I was born in Liverpool, and it's still my closest city. The North West often goes underrepresented in English media. Hell yeah, is what I'm saying here.

Anyway, the meat of this book is spotlighting a selection of working-class people who could rightfully be dubbed heroes. And all of them are interesting in themselves. One highlight is the Hillsborough mothers, the parents of those killed in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and spent the years after searching for justice for their children and campaigning for the truth to be officially recognised. They endured so much scorn and abuse for going against the establishment in the way that they did, and their long years fighting for justice for the 96 (now 97) victims of the disaster are worthy of acknowledgement. Another highlight is Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racist attack that was swept under the rug for years. Like the Hillsborough victims, Stephen was blamed for his own murder; like the Hillsborough mothers, Doreen rose to the occasion despite her grief and spent many long years fighting for her son's death to be recognised as a murder. She was just an ordinary person, who should not have been thrust into the public eye as she was. She's a hero, though her story isn't taught at schools. By and large, Reade's emotive reporting gives a lot to the stories presented here, though sometimes he does centre himself in the narrative. I get it, but it does come across as somewhat egotistical from time to time. Nevertheless, this is a really interesting book, subverting the common British narrative that only upper-class moneyed people did anything of note, ever. A good read!

Next, a short story collection, and a touch of magic in the air.

[v0idwraith]

quite frankly idgaf what Luigi Mangione’s politics are, he actually did something to make a change and that’s more than most people can say

[larissa-the-scribe]

guys I had this realization the other day that Redwall works really well for reading aloud, and kinda half-remembered something about the author reading to kids? So I looked it up to see if I had made a connection.

And it turns out, yes, actually, because he read aloud to kids at a school for the blind. But all the books they gave him to read were depressing. So he wrote Redwall, a story about heroism and courage and making it through struggles, and filled it with so many sensory, visual details so he could give them something better and I just-- that's so wholesome-- help

[mishapen-moth]

i’m still thinking So hard about lil olethra searching everywhere for the perfect pilby mantis to send to monty and not only did he send her a letter back but he remembers exactly who she is and what she’s talking about when they meet

[creep-girl]

i dont think ive ever hyperfixated on mosnter prom this badly before

[pharawee]

God, you're warm. Can I stay like this for a little longer?

[mickey-bees]

decided to make a piece out of one of the sketches from my previous post.

[inkyboyo]

i love this copy pasta so much

[teamloyalty]

—Bill Pronger, The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality, and the Meaning of Sex (1991)

[torchlitinthedesert]

There’s something very strange about Paul’s usual “how John and I started writing” narrative. Here’s how he likes to describe it:

Me and John knowing each other, the fact that both of us independently had already started to write little songs... I said to him, “What’s your hobby?” I said, “I like songwriting,” and he said, “Oh, so do I.” You know, no one I’d ever met had ever said that as a reply. And we said, “Well, why don’t you play me yours and I’ll play you mine.” GQ, 2020

It’s my impression that this is now in the rotation of Paul Stories - I think he says it in McCartney 3,2,1, and in other interviews. Is it true? The earliest accounts contradict it:

“Paul’s first public performance, as a member of the Quarrymen, was at a dance… later on, after the dance, he played a couple of tunes to John he had written himself. Since he’d started playing the guitar, he had tried to make up a few of his own little tunes. The first tune he played to John that evening was called ‘I Lost My Little Girl’. Not to be outdone, John immediately started making up his own tunes.”

Hunter Davies, The Beatles, 1968

“‘I learned a lot from Paul. He taught me quite a lot of guitar really. He knew more about how to play than I did and he showed me a lot of chords. I’d been playing the guitar like a banjo so I had to learn it again. I didn’t write much material early on, less than Paul, because he was quite competent on guitar. I started to write after Paul did a song he’d written.’”

John Lennon to Ray Connolly, unpublished interview, 1970*

"He used to write songs before I even started writing songs."

John Lennon, St Regis interview, 1971

*[The Connolly quote is weaker as a source, because was published after John’s death (and he quotes it slightly differently: “I started to write after Paul did a song he’d written” is in Connolly’s John biography, but not in the version in his collected Beatle journalism). But it fits with the other accounts.]

Still, Paul’s version might have some truth in it. Mark Lewisohn cites a couple of 1971 interviews where John remembers trying to write a calypso song, tapping into a brief craze of spring 1957. I don’t know if he finished it, or told anyone about it. None of the Quarrymen mention it, while Pete Shotton told Bob Spitz that John was “floored” when Paul first played him one of his own songs. But the calypso story does make “so do I” seem more possible.

It’s still surprising that Paul wants to frame it this way. He’d be justified in pointing out that songwriting was his innovation, something he brought to the band. By any measure, he’s the one who started it: when he met John, he’d already written the melody of When I'm 64, plus Suicide and I Lost My Little Girl. And he was always prolific. As John told David Sheff, talking about I’ll Follow The Sun, “he had a lot of stuff”, “written almost before the Beatles, I think.” He was the one pushing to do their own material, whether that’s talking it up to music promoters or suggesting In Spite of All The Danger at their first amateur recording session. (To me, that suggests that Lennon-McCartney was established later than they tended to admit. In Spite of All The Danger, recorded in 1958, has George as cowriter; if Paul had written anything with John, I bet that's what he'd have suggested they record. And if John on his own had written something that was ready to record, they’d definitely have picked that. )

In the 1950s, writing your own material was groundbreaking: it’s part of the huge cultural shift into the 1960s. There were hundreds of skiffle/rock’n’roll bands in Liverpool, but it’s genuinely possible that Paul was the only songwriter among them. Why isn’t that the story he wants to tell?

When Paul started defending his legacy in the late 1980s, he was fighting against specific distortions. First, that he was the middle-of-the-road conservative one - which is why he lays out his avant garde credentials. So you’d think he’d want to remind everybody that he wrote songs first. But second, he’s up against the idea that he and John didn’t love each other, that they didn’t write together, that Lennon-McCartney was a myth. Paul is a rock star, with an ego to match; he’s not given to downplaying himself. But he wants the partnership more than he wants precedence, even more than he wants credit for innovation.

And he always did. Remember the story about John sharing half his chocolate bar? Paul joined the band, and shared half his songs.

He didn’t need to: he was already writing alone. If he wanted help, George was more musically accomplished, and would have been a more logical choice for a songwriting partner. But it's John whose attention and praise Paul needed, John who had the authority to say they’d play Paul’s songs, John who needed to feel like the most important person in the band. Becoming Lennon-McCartney formalises all of that. And Paul is still true to it.

Across decades, Paul has been consistent about promoting their partnership as a partnership, regardless of who did what. (This isn’t true of John, who by the late 1960s was eager to break down who wrote which song, which lyric, which middle eight.) After working with George Martin on the string arrangement for Yesterday, Paul signed the score: “"Yesterday" by Paul McCartney John Lennon George Martin Esq and Mozart.” Even as a joke, you don’t separate Lennon and McCartney. Ken Mansfield asked Paul why songs were “Lennon-McCartney” when John hadn’t been there for the writing process:

And Paul said: “John and I are so close to each other, we’ve been through so much together, we understand each other so much, our relationship is so deep, that when we’re songwriting,” he said, “even if I’m 6,000 miles away, I can be working on something and I can hear John over my shoulder going, ‘No, no, no, that’s not gonna work; why don’t we do this?’ Or ‘Hey, I like this.’” He said, “So, in essence, to me, we’re songwriting together even if we’re not together.”

Ken was asking about Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, not realising that John was there for that one: they worked on it in India. But rather than giving a practical answer, Paul chooses to frame the partnership as a profound connection. (Of course there are other times Paul insists on or overstates his contribution, or gets petty about who did what. He’s human, and he’s an egomaniac. But always, always within the framework that this was a partnership.)

Fundamentally, he’s loyal to Lennon-McCartney. “So do I” matters more to him than going first. It might not be literally true, but it's the emotional truth that he needs.

[eternalslover]

Bullet train incorrect quotes:

Lemon: It’s times like this that I wish I listened to Tangerine

Y/N: Why? What’d he say?

Lemon: I don’t know, I wasn’t listening

[greelin]

sometimes you love a band so much and you want them to release another album. and then they do. And it’s really bad

[saucerfulofsins]

I love the juice bar scene as much as the next person. I especially love the juice bar scene in conjunction with the confession.

And yeah, the "I'm straight" is chekov's gun, and the chemistry between Eddie and father Brian too. I love the meta/spec/headcanons!

That's not what I want to talk about. Instead, I want to talk about how sensitive Father Brian has been to Eddie's needs. He offered Bobby help in the church, face to face, and that worked for Bobby because he's a religious man. Eddie went to confession, and got his grievances aired, but -

we know Eddie's relationship with the church and religion is more complex than Bobby's. It doesn't work.

And then Father Brian runs into Eddie, recognizes him although he probably only saw Eddie through the confessional's grate. He remembers Eddie's name, too. He cares! And I don't think that's a sexual/romantic thing at all - and I don't think it is religious either. Yes, religion is the context within which he works, but it's not the only context.

He's not technically on the job when he sits down at that table; he's away from the protection by the grandiose rituals embedded in going to church, confession, wearing robes. He does it out of personal care, affection for humanity; he fills the role of a social worker, a guidance counselor - and religion is one of his tools but it's clearly not his only tool. It's also his ability to observe, and to listen, and to reflect on things - putting his finger on the sore spot in ways no one else in Eddie's life has done. That takes guts, especially because he knows Eddie's in a vulnerable place.

And he does it not because he's interested in Eddie romantically/sexually - that is not the reciprocity he seeks, nor the reciprocity that fulfills him. He does it because he cares.

The setting certainly helps too. Eddie doesn't feel as intimidated, not like a fish out of water. Only his title marks Father Brian as a religious figure; he uses it to break the ice and mark himself as safe ("I am celibate"), and then finally invokes his position to speak to Eddie's Catholic guilt and get him to do something for himself.

I don't know. It just felt deeply human and caring and I enjoy that a lot, and I love how it all connects back to Eddie first realizing his Catholic guilt in 7x05.

[vampirehayfever]

riz's name being in kipperlilly's file is fucking insane

[ed-nygma]

It is impossible to satirize the petite bourgeoisie, everything they say could already be mistaken for parody.

[2016jeeprenegade]