Quiet now Elizabeth, do not stir
Ben, stop the clock
and mourn, in the same way
you should have fallen silent
when the people woke
to see the smouldering remains
of Grenfell Tower,
like you should have urged Liberty
to bow her head in shame
when an American school comes
under fire, like you should have requested
to Christ the King that in the face
of overwhelming destruction
of its rainforest, he should atone
and bring down suffering on those
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is surely impossible to dislike anything that come from Canada, almost an unwritten law that states across the rest of the world that the people north of the longest undefended border in the world are just to be adored, coveted, admired and looked up to; for how often do you come across anybody with Canada in their hearts and on their sleeves that isn’t just amongst the most artistically free and bewitching of entertainers and thinkers.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It may be lost on many people, the population it seems too eager to embrace the now and immediate, but the point of getting older is not forgetting that to tell a story you must have first have lived, that you must experience the jumbled paragraph long before you find the control to write down the novel.
I am guilty
of many crimes,
so they say,
but here in my confessional box,
I find the priest in no mood
to absolve me, a listener
of final words and regret,
ask for leniency in this casket,
one size fits all,
I am told my heart is too heavy,
paying a price, guilt paid in advance,
no returns, my remorse and shame
mutually vying to eat my soul.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Rory Kinnear, Lydia Leonard, Mathew Baynton, Tom Basdon, Rupert Everett, Marcia Warren, Lisa Jackson, Kayvan Novak, Georgie Glen, Milly Thomas, Andrew Scott, Miles Jupp, Fellena Woolgar, David Bamber, Ben Willbond, Geoff McGivern.
Every profession has the pop stars of their day, the showmen and women, the extroverts and the gregarious who live for the acclaim, the prestige and the privilege it brings. The artist, the poet, the actor, the musician and the surgeon, all have their theatres, all have one person who plays to the crowd and relishes the sense of power it brings.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
If you have experienced life pretty much looking down on people, judging people by the way they speak, dress, dream, then it has been a waste, there is no hope for your humanity, there is no desire left in you except that of wanting more of the same. To expect deference from those to whom you might have deigned inferior, to look them in the eye and say “And who are you again?” despite having known them for years, to expect faith when you have removed all hope, it does not make you someone’s better, it just means you are nothing but someone’s Fool.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is nothing bass metal about The Emily Askew Band, yet everything they have put down for their debut album, Alchemy, has the feeling of having a magic spell weaved around it, of succumbing to the incantations of the ancients and the charms of a dream summoned; the guild of sorcerers would have a gruelling time trying to match what is placed down in these scrolls and notes.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It is never The End, there is always something that pulls you back, a memory that keeps the person in your mind, a certain word, a phrase, a recall during the night that makes you smile, go red with embarrassment or perhaps have you reaching out for a hand that is not there anymore.
If I smile today, it is not for you,
it is a memory, perhaps recovered
and drawn from dust,
from an afternoon
spent on Petit Bot or
learning from history
about Cornwall or Guernsey,
about the beach rock pools holding
life, a child sized cricket bat in hand,
a small plastic ball, with holes in,
sending in your mind
the Australians back to the pavilion;
I will smile because it is expected
but should I smile your way,
don’t be offended, it is not for you.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Whichever city you go to, whichever small town you might find yourself in overnight or which village you could be transported to, there will always be a group of people ready to defend the Punk lifestyle, the ethic and the music, it is a right that anybody with good sense will do; even forty years after the emergence and apparent overnight death knell, the sound of the genre, crossed over, played around with and seeping into other varieties, never truly dies.