If Nick Drake came to my house

Last Saturday night, I went to the Cambridge Union to see an event that had been arranged as part of the Cambridge Literary Festival. The weather was wet and windy due to Storm Bert, and there were also train issues due to engineering works, but the city was busy with Christmas shoppers. 

The Union was packed and also very hot.

Mackenzie has written and illustrated a short book - not a children's book - an interesting format really - imagining Nick Drake coming to his house, and modelled on a book he remembered from his childhood.


Drake signed to Island Records at twenty while still a student at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University. Marking the 50th anniversary of his death, the book is both a celebration of his memory and a heart-warming reminder of the impact a person can have on others, though they might not realise it.

There was lots of interest in the detectorists of course, as not everyone was familiar with the music of Nick Drake.

He was in conversation with Tom Gatti, the executive editor of the New Statesman magazine.

He mentioned a Q and A that Mackenzie had done for the New Statesman magazine in the latest issue.

During the talk, when asked about the detectorists, he mentioned a book that had been written by 'some university professors' - called 'Landscapes of Detectorists' which had a series of essays. The book is one I've got of course. It grew out of a session at a previous RGS-IBG Annual conference and I reviewed it here.

The book has also recently gone into its third reprint.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the trail of the 'Detectorists'

Image
As I was in Suffolk last week, I headed for Framlingham as I knew that there were various locations from the series 'Detectorists' and also a wonderful pub just a few miles away where we could go for lunch. Parked up in the Market Square, and from there it was a short walk to several locations. Here are plenty more on a map. Managed to track down four locations: the outside of the 'Two Brewers' pub (the interior was filmed elsewhere), Lance's upstairs flat, the shop where Lance's former partner sells Spiritual goods and scented candles, and the village hall where the DMDC met. Here's me outside said hut. Don't forget the uniformbooks book of course. Still available and an excellent read.
Read more

Jonathan Meades on Sustainability

Image
Have blogged about Jonathan Meades before, and his particular presentation style which I like... Lunchtime today was spent in the company of the first in the series "Off-Kilter", made for BBC Scotland and was about Aberdeen . I liked the look of the area known as Fitty. Towards the end, he moved on to Donald Trump and his controversial plans for a golf course in the sand dunes close to Aberdeen. He called the planned development "New Trumpton on Sea" and talked about gated communities and their absentee residents. He riffed on the idea of ' sustainability ' and how every architect and development trumpeted its sustainable credentials. New words like : "Sustain-abulous" and "Sustain-astic" ! Called it "architectural correctness"... "It's a slogan of conformist unoriginality..." "The very act of making a building is energy hungry and vastly wasteful even if the building is an eco-igloo of Fairtrade otter dropp...
Read more