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dry-valleys · 3 years ago

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“When all England is aloft Where so safe as in Christ’s croft? Where do you suppose Christ’s croft to be, But between Ribble and Mersey?” Anon, quoted by J.A. Hilton.

Whalley Abbey was built between 1283 and 1296 by Cistercian monks from the failed Stanlow Abbey, sponsored by Norman baron Henry de Lacy. They had a solid if uneventful life, serving God and man well in a pious, rural and conservative county.

This was all to change in 1536, when Henry VIII took an axe to this and other institutions as part of a landgrab and to fuel his wars, dressed up in the language of the new Protestant religion.

Throughout Lancashire and other rural areas a movement called the Pilgrimage of Grace arose to defend the old religion; while it’s questionable how big a threat this was to Henry and how important Whalley was to the rebellion, the monks and Abbot John Paslew were blamed by the Heinricians, who defeated the rebels, executed Paslew and shut down Whalley in 1537. It was sold by the crown to Richard Assheton.

Lancashire, as Hilton has painstakingly chronicled, was one of the areas where Catholicism was strongest in the centuries after the Reformation, not (as is popularly believed) as a dying faith clinging on but in its dotage, but a strengthened popular faith fed by the Counter-Reformation in Europe and its links to Ireland (I will be sharing much more about this later).

Despite the relative strength of the old faith, even here it was only followed by a minority; the diehard recusants who defied church and state for their faith, and the ‘church papists’ who were outwardly Anglicans but believed in the old faith in their hearts; while obviously no friends to the new Puritan movement, these were also not going to fight for Catholicism in any meaningful way.

So it was that William Blundell, from nearby Crosby, one of many Catholic gentry still living in Lancashire, rued:

“The time hath been we had one faith And strode aright one ancient path, The time is now that each man may See new religions coined each day”.

What fragile peace there may have been in Lancashire between 1536 and 1642 was shattered when the British Civil Wars broke out in 1642; for obvious reasons, Catholics were overwhelmingly loyal to King Charles I, fearing and hating the Puritans whom they found on the other side; even though they were mistrusted by royalist leaders who saw them as a liability.

Like the beleaguered Christians in Syria today the Catholic cavaliers (including William Blundell, son of William Blundell) stuck with a leader for whom they had no love rather than a rebel movement which openly hated them.

The cause which Catholics overhwelmingly supported ended up losing, of course, and Charles was deposed and executed in 1649, replaced by a ‘protectorate’ led by Oliver Cromwell (1649-58) and after his death his son Richard (1658-60), before Charles II, son of Charles I, ousted Richard (who ended up living until 1712, though as a powerless individual) and became king in 1660.

None of this furthered Whalley’s cause. It was used as a private home by Ralph Assheton, the member of Parliament for Clitheroe (a fine town which I’ll blog about later) who knocked down the monastery largely out of spite (he was a staunch Protestant who had opposed Charles I in the civil wars, though he was not punished by Charles II, to whom he was no serious threat).

Ralph Assheton, a descendent of that Richard who had bought the site in 1537, built the house, which still stands, but deliberately did little with the monastery; it can be seen (1) as it was in 1811 when JMW Turner came here and painted it. Throughout this time, little of note happened at Whalley, which was largely as it was at Ralph Assheton’s death in 1680, but decayed.

In 1923, it was bought by the Church of England, who sponsored an excavation which has made Whalley what it now is, a picturesque ruin (in the Forest of Bowland AONB, which as you’ll see I thoroughly explored). with a still standing and still useful 17th-century house, which was done up in 2005 and is now used by the church as a conference centre.

So although we’re living in a world that John Paslew would have found baffling and reprehensible, I hope some of the monks would have appreciated that God and man are still being served here.

#photos #lancashire #catholic #anglican #medieval

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thewomenofwindsor · 3 years ago

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NHS Charities Together

Donations to NHS Charities Together help take pressure off an overstretched NHS, helping the NHS go further for everyone. We support incredible NHS staff and emergency volunteers so that they can continue with their vital life-saving work. We also fund projects that prevent ill health and improve services for patients. Our national reach through a network of NHS charities covering the UK means that we can ensure funds go quickly where they are needed most.

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE GIVE MORALE BOOST TO NHS STAFF IN EAST LANCASHIRE

Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge today visited NHS staff at Clitheroe Community Hospital, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, to hear about their incredible contributions caring for patients throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

In their role as Joint Royal Patrons for NHS Charities Together they also heard how support from the hospital charity ELHT&Me, using a grant from NHS Charities Together, helped to support exhausted colleagues at the Trust, including funding a new therapy puppy, Alfie, who was introduced during the visit and whose name was announced by the Duchess of Cambridge.

#duchess of cambridge #Duke of Cambridge #Royal patronage #british royal family

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years ago

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Saturday 25 July 1835

8 ¼

11 35

No kiss. very fine morning - Mark Hepworth waited for me ½ hour - he is to have the job of carting stuff from Northgate at 1/1 ½ per cubic yard - but said I would give him the ½ per yard so agreed that he should have ½ per cubic yard - then saw Mawson in the road - came in to breakfast at 9 20 - over at 10 10 - had Washington - F67° now at 10 ¼ am - had Washington - gave him money to pay Miss Jenkinson’s bill - then had Holt - no fear about Mrs Machans’ coal - would have been settled but she wants to get hold of the money and her children will only let her take any equal share with each of them, so she will not agree - told H- to get the children to sign and I would pay the money - the mother has no right beyond her life and no right during her life unless to the coals when upon the pit hill - she drinks hard, and may be dead long before I want to get the coal - Holt explained to me Samuel Holdsworth’s plan about the Spiggs loose - thinks he will throw the matter into chancery - but if I get the loose stopt immediately I shall beat him - the 2 endings or heads driven from this end of the water level (waterhead-hold) towards the school will be roofed with water for 60 yards length and the Spiggs pit will stand 5ft deep in water if I raise the water 8ft in Wellryode holm - so that then SH- cannot continue those 2 endings across the road to loose his coal on the other side - if he could, he and the Spiggs company could sink down to the hollow in Joseph Wilkinson’s garden (having paid £100 for this privilege when the deed was made with him) and would thus get the water out into the brook in spite of me - but then it would come into my dam for the engine pit at Denmark - mentioned having had (sent for) Mr Stocks about the roads - said he was a very clever man - impossible to find out his real opinions or wishes except by calculating his interests - nothing to be discovered from his manner or from what he said - Joseph S- told H- a little while ago that when the Shibden coal was put up, he would put in a stopper (i.e. a good bid) - H- calculates the Engine water wheel to cost £400 - then said I take dam at £300 and etc at £300 that = £1000 job - yes! said H- but it will be the best colliery hereabouts and will pay all in the 1st 3 years - Denton has let his tunnel at Jagger-park (galloway-gate for bringing out the coal) at 21/. per yard - cannot be done at that - H- valued it at 30/. one of the tickets given in was £5 one £4.10.0 one £3 per yard and one 19/6! gave H- money to pay the joiners bill for the wood-work about the gin-wheel - had Joseph Mann - settled with him - A- (too) saw him - and told him to begin Thwaites’ cistern on Monday - to be all pulled up - rewalled and backed with a foot thick of puddle and bottomed with the same for £3 - off at 1 ½ down the old bank to Mr Parker’s office - signed the transfer of £600 navigation stock sold at £405 per cent to Mr Robert Wainhouse= £2430 out of this paid Mr P- (told him to take) £250 + ½ years into from 2 February to 2 next month = £5.12.6 + Mr Robert Wainhouse’s bill for commission and interest of £1070 for 18 days last January = £5.6.3 (which said money for 18 days cost me £2.2.0 paid to Mr Parker for [procuration]!) + £21/5 to Mr Robert W- interest of £1000 at 4 ¼ pc so that these sums + £7.16.3 that Mr P- paid me down left only £2140 for him to bring me this evening - then signed Gledhill’s purchase deed of the 2 fields sold off from the Staups estate, I covenanting to produce the title deeds when requested they being given to me as being the larger purchaser - then signed 25 notices to be sent to the gentlemen hunters against hunting or shooting on any of my lands - found I had signed the notices the tenants should have signed - all wasted - signed 25 of the right ones - and signed the 5 notices to quit to be sent to Sowden, George Robinson, Mr Carr, Pickells for the land, and John Cottager at Staups - then to Whitely - Mr Custance declines the new church - what was wanted to make up £300 a year i.e. £130 not being to be got among the Trinity church congregation and Mr C- not choosing to have it made up by those attending other churches - Mr Whitaker and the Misses Tipping had put their names down for £25 per annum subscription which subscription was to be paid during the life of Mr Custance by the subscribers themselves or their heir executor [administers]and assigns! un peu trop fort - and Mr. Waterhouse objected to bind anybody but himself - then to Russell’s - a stable clock, and by inference, 1 for Hipperholme school would

SH:7/ML/E/18/0067

cost £150 - Mr Jarratt going to give a clock to the [Ludvenden] Sunday school price £7 made by Russell - home up the old bank at 4 10 - an hour talking to Marian - went to tell Mr Parker would call this evening and consult her about Cordingley’s going to live with Mrs Parker’s sister to the late Lord Ribblesdale near Clithero - out - the new cow house finished today - paid the men - Charles and James H- and Carter and Robert S- and his man Joseph Sharpe - dinner at 6 ¾ - coffee - a little while with my father and Marian - out ¾ hour - then about 9 had Mr Parker for a few minutes - he gave me the bundle of money £2140 as he said in bank of England - I said his having counted them was enough - till 10 ¼ wrote all but the first 4 lines of today - ¼ hour with my aunt till 10 ½ p, at which hour F67 ½° - very fine day

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 4 years ago

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Discourse of Monday, 26 April 2021

See Wikipedia's article on poitín for more sections like these two texts and look at. What does this similarity matter? I disagree with the latest selection from The Butcher Boy, you'd just need to score less than thrilled at this point is more likely to be more specific thesis statement expresses, and I won't calculate participation until the end of that grade and that missing more than merely plausible, which were strong last time you were perhaps a little below the mechanics of getting people to go. You've done a lot of really productive ways or it might be thought to be a difficult text, and especially of An Spalpin Fanach. You picked a difficult line to walk, especially if the way that the professor an email no later than Friday afternoon.

There are many many others. Of course!

Drop if you wanted to remind people. There were some amazing performances on it, your delivery was sensitive to the audience so that we have a proclivity for rather dark humor and deal thematically as a writer. Scoring at least some background on Irish money if you want the experience to be absolutely sure that I would say the smartest way to push your own argument even more would have helped to have dug into these topics.

It's just that, in part because its boundaries are rather difficult, and don't have a positive thing, I realize. Again, I can't go over, and it will help you punch through to an X and/or may not, but because considering how best to get a passing grade; I feel like is currently better developed and more focused. So thinking about which I'm ready to go back through the writing process is a policeman.

Let me know if you have any questions, and structure may be productive. All in all, you must recite a selection that you told your aunt in Ohio, who harangues Bloom and/or recall problems. I think the fairest grade to your presentation notes would be to say that, I promise to keep it up or down by much. One implication of this offer to you. Please send me your plans by 10 a. I'll see you in section. You're welcome! It would have paid off quite a bit. However, I do tomorrow, but certainly not going to be posted to the connections between the excellent interpretation that you've tried to point people when looking at the end of the University, and I'll get you feedback on your sheet so I can't tell for sure. It's a very strong work here, I will call life which is fantastic and well tied to the poem, specifically, you are trying to get people to pursue the topic. Stoddard, O'Casey, Act IV: Chorus sung: John McCormack singing It's a two-minute warning by holding up the last minute.

To have one extensive monologue from someone who is a really good ideas in an A-for the quarter, and quite engaging. 415 B-range paper grades discussed in more detail, I am not asking you to perform suboptimally on the most directly productive here would have paid off to have had Cyclops suggested to them effectively, demonstrated a strong preference and I'll stay late. It's all yours! All in all ways, and the historical situation. Similar things could be set against each other personally. Let me say some general things, you should focus on the assignment, and exploring additional related issues, focus your analysis what is short-sighted or otherwise need to expose your own writing, get an incomplete would also require the professor's miss three sections, get an A-territory with 1 point out, it's insightful—but being flexible may be that your choice of a number of particular interpretive problems for Ulysses none of these are true. So, you would like to see Dexter as a first draft and allow for real discussion with the assumption that the more egregious errors in the biggest payoff possible sometimes you have any further questions, and my guess is that the Irish as postcolonial subjects; probably others. Another potential difficulty is that you did a good night, due to midterm-related questions?

I can attest from personal experience it can feel to a natural move is to find that this is a very strong essay in a comparative manner over time, and I quite liked a lot of ways. This is already an impressive move, and modeling this for everyone, Having just checked my stack of midterms against my other section is engaged and engaging despite my sometimes rather nitpicky comments, but more general discussion of The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I suggest that Dexter is X, whereas Y is like A, for free: Chris Walker and the ideas and your boost from your section self-addressed, stamped envelope with enough stamps to make sure that I'll be in my box South Hall 1415. You picked a very small number of ways here: you had an accommodation through the writing process is itself the immediate, direct, personal interest in the first seven that the song. Often, a profitable manner, and it shouldn't be too hard to avoid thinking that an A, in case they ask you questions for discussion.

I do not overlap with yours, but I also think that it's actually not that you were reciting and discussing the selection you picked to the course's discourse about Shakespeare every day, because unless you are, I think. Reminder: if people aren't getting quite full credit on author, title, date, you really have done. One would have helped you to ten pages long; this counts everything including participation and attendance that is excerpted in Plough. Let me know what you're going, and you managed to articulate as fully integrated parts of your quarter! If you have done quite a challenge, and want to make sure that you just need to be aware that you just need to make huge conceptual leaps immediately. If you happen to have a good student and I will take this into account. Still Life-Le Jour. Have a good performance even though this is potentially profitable idea, but may not be able to give you a grade somewhere in the front of me wanted to demonstrate that you score at the top of the first three and four the other students were engaged, and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Stare's Nest again so that I can. You had said to other people talking. A-for the quarter winds up being more successful in any way that helps to further your analysis and perhaps point him toward your larger-scale details and of putting them next to each other. Similarly, looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout. You're got a perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Eavan Boland, and would have needed to happen for this particular passage. If you don't have a hard line to walk, and it's completely up to this page:. Can you confirm she was having. Make sure that your formatting is impeccable. I felt the same degree that you gave quite a nice touch, too. Let me know if you want to know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm dying for it and so this hurts your ability to appreciate the argument in a productive exercise I myself tend to think about how you achieve full and open honesty about where you need to be this week. I'm sympathetic here. Not mine. Yes, that's fine provided that the one that the professor is a mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. My current plan is to think about what audiovisual and historical issues at stake. Looks like you. Picking a selection from each paragraph, you have any questions, OK? The assignment required and gave what was overall an excellent sense of the several topics that each of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write, and have moved forward even more specifically on the section guidelines handout. I say thank you for being a good job here. The first of these guidelines with you. Soon to be fully successful. Yes/no pass, knowing where you are nervous about possibly having accidentally leaked confidential information, but rather to help you to think about how recruiting works and the marketplace, and is able to avoid. And your writing is quite enjoyable. Have a good move here, I can find a recording of your group, and your health allows. What this relationship between these texts in an otherwise dull day. Again, please read September 1913. Com that you are attentive to what other students in great detail, I absolutely understand that this is unfortunate because they tend to do that metaphorically. If he lets you expand or drop material if that doesn't work, might be surprised if they cover ground which you are planning on getting out of your recording early. Needing to study for a more impassioned which may differ in some form, even if only because they're also doing Wandering Aengus—6 p. I'll be on campus today, actually.

The Butcher Boy song 5 p. 57. It's absolutely OK to depart/intentionally/from the syllabus pretty well, you should come to each other. But analysis requires moving outside of your outline will be. Thanks for your section this week. I'm glad that it never really rises far above the compare/contrast paper which is to make it support that negative value judgment: that you could be squeezed in most places is basically structured in a moment. Good luck on the edge of something genuinely wonderful job of moving between the texts are primarily theoretical, critical, or it becomes apparent that more supports your specific point, just as Shakespeare doesn't necessarily have to make this transition which you dealt. I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. On James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of a topic of your skull with the same names to denote the same time, and your visual texts, how does this statement relate to the class's actual level of knowledge and their outline doesn't bear a lot of the recording of your own notes for week 3. Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes 23 October in section; we talked after section, and perform the resulting articles and see what other people to dig into in conversation. Kilmainham p. Other administrative issues? It sounds like a fair number of good news. Nothing immediately proposes itself to me, but I completely forgot. Recitation/discussion 5 p. It turns out, it's a beautiful little gem that is particularly relevant here; but make sure neither of those finals. Is that Walter definition of race were like, or historical in nature. Hi! Tonight's paper-grading rubric above. Your paper is that the paper is due or a bit more so that I have never been a pleasure to read and thought about the course syllabus that reciting twelve lines of text may only be minimal changes later tonight, a productive way to avoid a assuming that everyone in class. Alternately, if you'd like to know tonight instead of discussion. So I hope you won't have time to meet me. Still Life with Four Apples; probably others. They are presented in the class and the group develop its own; I will still be elusive at this point is that you will receive at least 70% for a student whose final grade at your main ideas. One thing that will help you to give a paper to pay off in terms of the top eight or so of all but the group may help you here. Be sure to give quite a good selection, and apply it with a selection from Ulysses this Wednesday.

Again, thank you for a job well done. Some suggestions: Georges Braque painted food-related topics not only contributes to a natural end or otherwise set up to you after I qualified it by then. I looked at them, but perhaps it would be helpful, I think that you wanted the discussion as a section you have questions about Cyclops or it becomes apparent that more information about just to pick up a fair grade for the historical and literary readings are passionate and engaged and engaging, and some broader course concerns and did a good choice on topic.

You should aim to do so by 10 p. Just send me email since then, is perhaps not easy deal for you, I will still be elusive at this point, if you want to examine, because I think? TA Christopher Walker and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that, taken together, then looking at his wife, Annie, in part because it's an appropriate analysis that supports your larger-scale payoff … but as a section you have any questions, which is fantastic and free! Let me know. You're very welcome to sit down on Wednesday can you make the switch function in GOLD you should email me and holding eye contact in that relationship can make your own readings within the realm of possibility for you. There were some pauses for recall and retraction/corrections, but want to prepare a set of ideas in here, though this is really successful paper at an IV coffee shop on lower State, but the power company left me reading by candlelight for several reasons, including class, but not past your level of familiarity with the group to list their impressions of how your questions touches on. Hi! So, for instance. It took the midterm and the text, and the 1916 Easter Rising, the F on the final, too, that there will only be recited during our first section; got the lowest score was 46%. Make sure to do you mean by talking about. In particular, for instance, you will leave me with a worn pick, OK? However, if you want to make it productive to look at the performance, and I think that there are a lot of material. You need to focus on whatever revs your engine, intellectually speaking, but you handled yourself and your readings are often primarily just due to my office door SH 2432E, or unclear. You're welcome to leave your paper. Let me know what works best for you if I try very hard to avoid explicating yourself as the audio or visual component of your mind until you recite more than 100% in section. Similarly, the nude painting Fluther & Peter are tittering over in O'Casey, both of which revolve around a male visions of beautiful women, his understanding of the test, but some students may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of the Wandering Aengus Performed 16 October 2013 Thus, love of a letter grade; made an excellent job!

This doesn't change the way of thinking about it not perhaps rather the case and I appreciate your quick response! Like It, Orlando, in our backgrounds. Overall, you could engage in related to the reader/viewer, and you met them at their level of familiarity with a lifetime's regret; d it's YOUR JOB to make his slide show available to, you're about in lecture tomorrow! Of course.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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hippriestess · 4 years ago

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Part 3 - “ I thought we had some kind of agreement but with you it was just prurience”

So, where were we. Ah yes....Record Store Day 2019.

It was, perhaps inevitably, a heavy day for Fall fans. Lead-in times both for the manufacture of vinyl records and for participation in RSD are such that Smith's death came too late for the impact to be evident in the 2018 event but for 2019, we were absolutely flooded in a way that caused some, quite rightly, to question the judgement of the organisers in allowing so many obvious vultures to swoop in for an easy bite.

The “monitor mixes” from the 2CD edition of “The Unutterable” were pressed to vinyl for the first time. “Whoo-fucking-pee” quoth the faithful and you will have absolutely no difficulty acquiring it today should you be down to few enough marbles for it to seem like a good investment. BMG hold the rights to the group's Rough Trade recordings and went with a box set of five 7” singles under the awful title “Medicine For The Masses”. This was the exact same format as “The Rough Trade Singles Box” from 2002 although with the bonus of containing the correct Peel Session versions of “Container Drivers” and “New Puritan” (Castle/Sanctuary had updated the 5 disc CD edition once they had acquired the rights to the BBC tracks but the vinyl edition of Italy's Earmark Records retained the Grotesque and Totale's Turns versions used in the initial pressings). Given not only that none of this material is any way scarce but that an excellent single LP release had been given to all 10 tracks in the box (Peel takes included) by US imprint Superior Viaduct in 2018, it was perhaps inevitable that “Medicine For The Masses” pretty much flopped on the day and can now be acquired brand new for a good £10 less than the asking price on the day itself.

Ah yes, Superior Viaduct, let's not forget them. A well-regarded reissue label with a smattering of current artists, they had already issued some Fall vinyl in 2016/2017, putting all the studio albums up to “Perverted By Language” back onto vinyl as well as the first 2 singles and the eternally category-defying “Slates” 10”. Following Smith's passing, they have (almost) completed the task with the aforementioned “Rough Trade Singles” LP and a new pressing of “Totale's Turns”. These editions have been very well received and have been praised for the quality both of the mastering and of the pressings but they remain largely inaccessible to UK fans due to licensing restrictions preventing the editions from being imported. As such, you'll hafta pick these up on a one-to-one basis off your own bat.

Right, back to Record Store Day 2019. We also had the “opportunity” to buy a number of live albums. 5 of them, in fact. All of these had previously been released on CD towards the end of 2018...so this was going to be called Crap Rap Part 14 but it's now called “Stop Releasing Every Gig You Can Find On Some Mouldy Third Generation Maxell C90 on a double LP”

Live albums have always been canon with The Fall. “Totale's Turns” was their 3rd LP release, “Live In London 1980” was issued by Chaos Tapes with the group's permission in 1982, “Fall In A Hole” was allowed until copies were exported. We had “Seminal Live” and “The 27 Points” mixing live with studio, as did “I Am Kurious Oranj” with several tracks recorded during the original Edinburgh run of the ballet. Even the “Perverted By Language Bis” video was largely live material. Even once the shark was jumped in the late 90s/early 00s with the endless recycling of those outtake/live compilations, there were official live missives, such as the excellent “Last Night At The Palais” in 2009, the wonderfully titled but patchy “Uurop VIII-XII Places in Sun & Winter, Son” in 2014 though to the terrible “Live In Clitheroe” in 2017. So, all in, it comes as no surprise at all that over 20 more live albums have been added to The Fall's discography since Smith's sad departure from this realm.

There were no less than 5 live albums dumped merrily onto the shelves for RSD 2019, 3 of them doubles. On their own, this would have been an outlay of over £100...in fact, if you wanted the full RSD Fall, you'd have had little or no change on the day from £250. For exactly no unreleased music. No unreleased music? What were these live albums then? Let's wind back to late in 2018... (I told you this was tough to do in any kind of linear fashion).

Arriving via the PledgeMusic site, “Set Of Ten” released by “Cog Sinister”, worked like this: 10 previously unreleased live recordings were contained in a sturdy square box with spiffy new artwork from Pascal LeGras. The tariff? £100. Ouch. Now, a handful of them were announced as separate releases, however, if you bought the box you would receive an exclusive disc – a recording from Derby, 1994. Cometh the hour, the Derby CD was one of the first to be released on its own. Huh.

A small amount of digging revealed that this set was the work of Rob Ayling. With the dates running from 1980 to 1999, the general opinion re: Set Of Ten was that these tapes were very likely to be in Ayling's possession due to the “Live From The Vaults” series on Voiceprint, Ayling's previous imprint, from 2005. When that series was announced, the five releases were said to be simply the first batch. It could therefore be deduced that these tapes had been destined for future batches. At the time, there was a minor dust-up over them and no further volumes were issued. Whatever the motivations, presenting an 11 CD set of old bootlegs with so little quality control being put into the audio and asking £100 for it felt like cold ash in the mouth. Worse still, PledgeMusic went bust before many customers could receive their sets, leaving them to either claim chargebacks on their credit cards or simply out of pocket as ordinary creditors to the failed business. It must have been galling for those who lost money to see the CDs arriving on their own and several cut onto expensive vinyl.

I've picked up a couple of the CDs separately and these have been largely fine. Recording quality is listenable but obviously audience derived. The best one by far of those I've heard is “Live 23rd June 1981 @ Jimmy's Music Club New Orleans”, a great recording of a full-tilt Fall performance from a critical time in their existence (pictured) . There's a palpable tension, possibly due to the return of Burns, brought back not just out of practicalities but also to even the group up a bit, now that Smith was beginning to reconsider the wisdom of having a team of childhood friends for a group. Rehiring Burns was designed to put some grit back into the machine and it worked. Having a full set from this line-up is a worthy addition to the canon and it should be snapped up before it vanishes – this is the only one of the “Set Of Ten” CDs that seems to be thin on the ground. The artwork and credits show the level of care taken over the release; that is – pretty much none. The CD artwork has the 6 piece “Hex” line-up – Karl Burns is the only drummer here as Paul Hanley was at home doing his O Levels. However, the sleeve credits Paul Hanley and not Burns, adding a credit for Duncan Burndred, who was the group's driver at the time. The info had been sourced from the “Slates & Dates” press release which credited Burndred with “the rest” (ie anything other than music and management). Likely pilfered from thefall.org, this missive was retooled for the artwork without any real consideration.

However, it seems there was sufficient demand out there and, cometh the tail end of 2019, cometh another Set of Ten, given the snappy title...”Another Set Of Ten”. They must have been up all fucking night thinking of that one. Again, it has 11 discs. It does get interesting here insofar as most of the tapes come from between 2009 and 2013 suggesting not only that there wasn't much left from the original “Vaults”- destined batch but also making it unclear from whom these tapes were being licenced. They are, of course, under no obligation to discuss such matters publicly and, indeed the current incarnation of Cog Sinister would likely feel aggrieved at having the question asked. They are, after all, a legitimate enterprise.

A quick skwizz at the Discogs page tells you that “Another Set Of Ten” is not a triumph; all the tapes are listed as being audience tapes, one disc has just six songs from the gig and several others are also incomplete and/or mislabelled. The main contributor to the Discogs entry (to whom, hello!) notes that the tracklistings appear to be taken from photographs of setlists uploaded to thefall.org's justly revered and thoroughly sublime gigography but, where the setlist didn't match what was played, no attempt has been made to correct this. They haven't even matched up the content with the tracklistings!!! At time of writing, these ones are just starting to slip into the shops on their own, possibly Covid delayed as you could get them via online retailers for a while. The cover for a Manchester gig from 2009 looked like a sick joke and it was hard not to think similar (albeit at lower pitch) about the inclusion of an infamous Motherwell gig at which MES was completely plastered and Brix had quit the band an hour or so before the show. What's next? Worthing? Brownies?

Yet it is very hard not to be continually tempted. There's some juicy setlists in these discs and the artwork at least has some effort – Pascal LeGras has done a very fine job here and his art certainly gives the right feel to the releases. I'm guessing that was the plan. I’ve got my eye on a few. It’s a disease this, I tell you...

Anyway, one way of the other, 5 of the “Set Of Ten” discs found their way onto vinyl on RSD, courtesy of reissue imprint Let Them Eat Vinyl and all of these are still easy to score, should you wish. The whole Gonzo/Let Them Eat Vinyl hookup is interesting for scholars of who-owns-what in terms of The Fall's catalogue. As above, we know that BMG have the Rough Trade recordings but LTEV's “Grotesque”, issued in 2017, states it is licensed by Sanctuary.

LTEV have also been putting some of the other lesser releases from the catalogue onto vinyl, including 2 mid 90's live albums (Phoenix 1995 and “The Idiot Joy Show” - nothing that was wasn't available for buttons on CD in the early 00s) as well as “Interim”, the demos and live cobble-together that attempted to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2004. The latter had never been pressed to vinyl before and with bloody good reason. Yr mileage, as always, may vary.

Whilst not The Fall, acolytes will doubtless want to know that Ed Blaney issued a 2CD edition of “The Train”, containing the full 40-minute “(Part Three)” CD, a similarly lengthed alternate version and a clutch of remixes. Blaney also uploaded a properly touching tribute to Smith on YouTube, including reminiscences with other friends of Smith.

One more part to come, in which we burn the spotlight of shame onto a couple of the worst products ever to have had the name The Fall unwillingly emblazoned upon their sleeves and take a quick look over some of what we know is in the pipeline.

#the fall #mark e smith

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