The ‘Breaking Wave’ – on-going…….The Odin Stone….
by Bernie Bell - 09:26 on 01 April 2025
The ‘Breaking Wave’ – on-going…
“Chas Ambler, Tony's Green and Allen, and Your Dad on Mothers' Day
I got a txt on Friday from my old friend, Tony Green, perhaps better known as Sir Gideon Vein, the unparalleled actor and a close friend of dear old Lionel Alaric MacFaddean Spume.
It read ‘Ian, my dear, it looks like I shall be joining Chas and Tony pretty soon. It would be nice to chat’
Chas, of course, was Chas Ambler, pictured, my musical comedy partner of 20 years, who died in 2015. Tony was Tony Allen, co-founder of Alternative Cabaret with Keith Allen (no relation) and Alexei Sayle. Tony was a fascinating man, but as a comedian he was handicapped by the fact that he wasn’t really funny. Not funny, but a great man, and a noted teacher of performance. What he taught (what he taught me) was that no great performers could cut it without ‘attitude’. I got to spend some time with him when he ran away from London in 1999 to spend a year in Cumbria, in order to brace himself for the millenium bug. We walked around Buttermere, where he was staying with some pals until the apocalypse had gone over, and he told me the true history of the Comedy Store. Tony got gonged for good in 2023; I was too unwell to get to his funeral, which I regret very much.
Still, old Tony Green was there, and he called me to chat about it the next day. Alexei Sayle and Stewart Lee were there, because Tony Allen (though, as I’ve said, not exactly funny as such) was the Godfather of current attitudinal stand up.
Tony Green, meanwhile, is in hospital in Edinburgh with oesophegal cancer. After I got his txt, I called him to tell him that I too am up against my final deadline… though, like all other deadlines in my career, I’m hoping the Great Editor will give me a few months latitude to finish the Breaking Wave.
Then, yesterday, an enterprising soon-to-be-son-in-law, helping us sort our attic found Chas’s musical archive - a couple of hundred mini disks, and a bunch of DATS. I messaged Chas’s son, Ben Gladwin to tell him that, ten years on, I’m happy to hand over his dad’s vast collection of recordings of himself, singing and performing his own songs, of which there are hundreds. I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds; he was, for several years, a song a day man.
I got a reply from Ben pretty much straight away. By coincidence, he was staying with his Mum in an extended family get together at an AirBnb in Llanbadarn Fawr, about 15 miles away.
And so this morning he turned up here, driven by his Mum. I got to chat to them about Chas, and his wild days, his mad existence, and to finally hand over the last bit of Ben’s inheritance. Shortly before he left, because he is a very cheerful and accomplished man, Ben sat at Hilary’s piano, and said to me, ‘Fancy a go at BoRhap? I could call up the chords on my phone, and we could just run it, and see how far we get.’
Well, which wasn’t far. He laughingly admitted it WAS really hard to play, whilst I gloomily admitted that my Hobson’s is nowhere close anymore…
Course, we often performed BoRhap together, Ben and I, including at Glastonbury. Here we are at Sheep Music, a lifetime ago. Where’s Ben, you ask? I ask you… how come the second air guitarist knows exactly what to do? What sort of a Father would force a child to do this?
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IAN MARCHANT
MAR 30
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The Odin Stone…..
From Sigurd Towrie – Archaeologist….
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/locating-the-site-of-the-odin-stone/
And a mention of the Odin Stone from Bernie Bell – Rambling Bear….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/01/08/orkney-walks-with-stories-the-procession/
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