10 minute read
In The Words Of
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. As I write this, I hear from a music radio station that Comrade Drakeford has lifted the mask restrictions for this coming Monday, 28th March. Hurrah for those that still listen to what he says! This will probably be the last time anyone cares what this man announces, but at least it is some welcome news.
Last night I watched Wales beat Austria on the TV, and I have to say well done to Gareth Bale for giving the team hope of making their first World Cup in 60 odd years - if they win the game against the winners of the Ukraine v Scotland match. He might not be that fit or playing for Real Madrid, but he only needs two chances (all game) to win it for his nation. Talking about Gareth Bale, I was invited to his new venture in Cardiff last week…
Par 59 - Review
Situated on the street with the most drinking dens in Cardiff [St Mary Street], this joint venture with Mr Bale’s ‘Elevens Group’ and The DEPOT hopes to tempt people into its basement location with a round of mini-golf and drinks/food. Money has been spent well on the design and mini-golf, yet one can only show concern at how clean those artificial greens will look after a load of stag or hen parties (mass) drinking on their rounds of golf! Yet, I wish them well as the bar industry needs as much support in these testing times.
by Carl Marsh
I did not sample the golf as I was told ahead of the event that the press night would be food and drink provided. So, I went on an empty stomach. The door staff and cloakroom attendants were very welcoming; so were the bar staff. The latter politely told me about the selection of five or six drinks. And that was it! I don’t drink beer, so that left wine and prosecco. With the food, the bar staff told me that it would be brought out as nibbles for all to enjoy so I waited… Thirty minutes later, I then asked the food waiter. He told me they would be bringing food out shortly. I gave up after 15 minutes and just asked the barman if I could buy some food; he said no need, as it would be brought out. 40 minutes later… I asked one of the cooks, who then told me I had to pay! And worse still, to use some digital app after logging onto the venue’s wifi! And could I get the damn thing to work? Hell no, so I gave up. I think the owners need to reassess any future press nights offerings.
I left the venue moments afterwards to get some tacky street food on the way to my next event…
The Skinner Brothers - Live Music Review
I interviewed Zac Skinner last month for this column, and I had not been out for a while, and as I now love this band’s music, I thought, “Why not!”
I don’t have much space to say that I loved the craziness of the band’s performance: stage diving is very much alive with The Skinner Brothers. It was so lovely to see as it reminded me of the 80’s era. The band played all the tracks off the new album - bar a few and a few earlier tracks. This band is immense. The tour is now over, so check them out at festivals and the like this year, or just buy or stream the new album.
Carl Marsh Twitter - @InTheWordsOf_CM Facebook - @InTheWordsOf YouTube - InTheWordsOf
Steve Backshall is on tour with his new show ‘Ocean’ at the New Theatre in Cardiff on the 24th of April. There will be two shows, one at 2 pm and one at 6 pm. I believe a few tickets might be still available.
Carl Marsh
You’re doing two events on the same day in Cardiff, so, what’s made the cut for your tour, ‘Ocean’ - as you could talk for months/years on such a subject?
Steve Backshall
What I’ve really concentrated on is how do I bring the ocean to life on the stage. That’s a really tricky one. And what I’ve focussed on getting to the stage is the scale replicas of some of the largest animals that have ever lived and try to illustrate some of their physiology; some of their techniques for encountering their prey or interacting with others around them using live science experiments, many of which I’m sure will go horribly wrong and make me look utterly ridiculous on the stage. [Laughs] Which could end up being people’s favourite bit!
I think I’ll be focusing a lot on some of the most iconic and exciting marine creatures, many of which we have here in our own seas. But also - hopefully - some animals that people will simply never have heard of before. And you know, I think our oceans are such a poorly appreciated environment. There’s still so much that we have left to learn about them. But I’m confi dent there will be at least one thing that no one in my audience would have heard of.
Carl Marsh
Many of the young swimmers that I teach are big fans of your shows, especially ‘Shark’, which they never stop talking to me about! So, they wanted me to ask you if many sharks will be appearing on your tour?
Steve Backshall
There’s going to be a lot of stuff on sharks. Sharks are one of my great passions and have been as it happens for 30 years now. I’ve been lucky enough to dive with all the signifi cant and iconic species of sharks: bulls, tigers, great hammerheads, and (even) great white sharks outside the cage. So, I think it is inevitable that they will have a really heavy part to play in this. And as much as anything else, there’s so much about sharks that are surprising, such as they are super-sensitive, how they are feeding the world around them, and their way of targeting prey, yet at the same time, being one of the most threatened of vertebrate groups.
Carl Marsh
They get such a bad reputation, don’t they - even though only around a handful are deadly to humans?
Steve Backshall
Well… to be fair, when you look at the statistics, no sharks - not even Great Whites, are of any signifi cant cause of human mortality. Sharks around the world kill perhaps ten people a year. On the other hand, you are signifi cantly more likely to be killed by falling vending machines! Or by taking a ‘selfi e’. You are hundreds of times more likely to be killed by being struck by lightning than you are by a shark. So, while these species need to be treated with great respect, they are not “dangerous to us” in inverted commas.
Carl Marsh
I understand that, and I get you. However, I believe the mainstream media like to romanticise any shark deaths as if they are happening all the time.
Steve Backshall
It happens so impossibly infrequently that it’s very diffi cult just to put the fi nger on why there are very, very few shark attacks that have happened. But, you know, their frequency is so-so small, even in cases where there is; I guess there is more of a media anticipation near places like the West Coast of Australia and South Africa. But, still, even there, not a signifi cant cause of human fatality.
Steve Backshalls ‘Ocean’ is coming to the Cardiff New Theatre on April 24. For tickets please visit: STEVEBACKSHALL.COM
Cardiff University Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, one of the world’s most respected and knowledgeable peers on Ancient Persian history, I talked to him about his new book, ‘Persians - The Age of the Great Kings’.
Carl Marsh
Would I be correct in saying that the Persians didn’t like to force any changes to religion, languages, or the like whenever they conquered any new place, unlike the Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, and English throughout the centuries?
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
That’s absolutely right. If you think of how different the Romans were, for instance, when the Romans conquered, of course, they imposed Latin on everything. So, to be anybody in the Roman Empire, you had to speak Latin. They imposed their architecture everywhere. So, you can go from the north of England, right through to Syria, and you can see a Roman town or a Roman city, you know it straight away. The Persians did none of that. The Persians didn’t force any religious concepts on people. They didn’t force any ethnic hierarchy on people, dress codes, or anything like that. And, of course, what’s happened in Western history is that the Romans became the touchstone for how empires should operate. So, of course, the British just took that. And the Americans have done it as well with the Founding Fathers; it’s all about Rome.
What I’ve tried to say in the book is that given that empire is an awful thing - I don’t like it, it’s a horrible thing - if the Persian past had been studied in our schools, and at Eton, and in Sandhurst, and places like that, then at least the experience of empire for millions of people around the world might have been more dignified than it has been in the model that we accepted from the West. So, I think there’s a big learning thing to be had from studying the Persians. They are not perfect. They’re not perfect at all. They just did things differently.
Carl Marsh
I think the Persians’ way of life and the Persian Empire doesn’t fit the narrative as history is not repeating itself from their point of view compared to the Romans or the Greeks.
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Absolutely. Yeah, you’re right. Persian history does not fit that narrative, you know, because we always need an ‘us and them’.
Look at the way - at the moment - where we are villainising the Russian people, for instance, rather than the Russian state: the Russian government. You probably know about this, but some Welsh orchestra pulled Tchaikovsky from its programme the other night because it doesn’t suit the narrative. That gets us nowhere. It brings us absolutely nowhere to do that. And the Persians have been tarnished because of this and continue to be the bad boys of history, and constantly with this unchanging perception of them. You see it when it comes out in films like ‘300’ and ‘300: Rise of an Empire’. It’s all there. All of those cliches, lazy cliches, are all there.
I’ve done a few articles on ‘300’, criticising it. And Frank Miller, who was the author of the original graphic novel, made a speech after 9-11, which had nothing to do with the Iranians whatsoever. They were one of the first to condemn what happened. He said, “These planes were flown by extremists who would never have the technology to build them themselves, and I’m speaking to you now in a microphone, which they wouldn’t understand how to work.” And I mean, it’s just incredible. So that’s the kind of vision that we have of the Middle East, generally. It’s what Edward Said calls’ Orientalism’, in that the Orient is a place of Western imagination, where it can either be ‘Turkish delight’, sexy and Persian kittens and all of that kind of stuff. Or it is fundamentalists and gun-toting and women with veils over their faces, and terrifying.
But it’s never taken seriously on its own terms. And the history of Persia is just part of that huge jigsaw puzzle of Orientalism that we can’t afford to continue with any longer. So, it’s dangerous if we keep on doing that.
