ALAGRAM NEWS : January/February 2008


The big Alagram news this month, the month known by the Sioux as The Moon when Hangovers Remind You Again and Again of your Own Limitless Stupidity, is to be found among the INBOX pages. For a very long time we've been plotting this particular initiative, Sven Arigato and I, and now it is actually coming into focus like some sort of Online Omar Sharif. We post e-mails from various pals around the world, and various they certainly are...black humour from the West of Ireland,wild imaginings from Cambodia, sixties insiders gossip from Brazil, cultural communiqués from the former Yugoslavia, and , most recently, updates on the race for the White House from Virginia U.S.A...all decorated in occasionally appropriate fashion by our teeming graphics department. We will be monitoring this corner of Alagram with more than usually obsessive attention.

 

Meanwhile out there in the real world, the nearly new year is rustling with potential. We find ourselves, if not a grandmother, then certainly commissioned to develop the hugely successful Worst Witch books by Jill Murphy...over 4,000,000 copies sold.into an animation series.

 

 

 

Then there is ( or are ) "The Glugs ", a pre-school animation project with a healthy eating theme, written by Paul Mendelson, the creator of TV series such as "My Hero", " May to December " , and " So Haunt Me ", and designed by We the Grandmother. This project is " in development " ( the industry jargon for the agonising period that is a kind of Ice age,.. but longer.., when things, when they do move, do so with the urgency of pre-war glaciers and people talk of money with a kind of dazed agnosticism) .

 

 

There are two or three other such Possibles out there in a sort of outer darkness which is where the really exciting Possibles gather, and from which only a very, very few ever emerge .It's scary to think of the tiny proportion of ideas that ever see the light of day in this business, and even more scary to see how few of these are actually worth a ****..or indeed two ****s...

To both our readers, I raise a brimming glass, and an armful of warmth and affection. I'm glad you're here...............

Cork Jazz Festival

The Cork trip was a great success, it really was….socially, economically, commercially,gastronomically, and even ( ! ) alcoholically. The hanging conditions I was so worried about were absolutely fine, well lit and well placed for the passing enthusiasts, and only slightly uneven here and there, nothing that a judicious little knob of Blutack couldn’t pacify.  The response to the drawings, from musicians and civilians alike, was better than I could have hoped for. I was hoping to engineer a visit from Phil Woods but he was on a killer schedule, just in from Ankara and Athens, and flying back to the US at 4.00 a.m the next morning….!!! I did manage to pester both bassist Buster Williams and altoist Bobby Watson in the foyer, and drummers Adam Nussbaum and John Betsch actually made a point of seeking me out, not, dear reader,  to strangle me, but to enthuse !
 
    Everything in the Garden of Guinness was lovely……and for you conspiracy theorists who think I’m making all this up,here is a radio interview recorded mid-show in the Everyman theatre by Walter Love for BBC Radio Ulster.

(Download the link by right clicking and selecting "Save As", or simply click on the link and be patient))

Radio Interview