monk, bunk and vice versa

For yesterday’s supper I cooked a chicken marinade of garlic, whole-grain mustard and soy sauce, dished up with potatoes and runner beans. As an aperitif, I quaffed lightly of Art Pepper and to accompany the meal I served a classic fine 1947 Monk. I avoid writing the latter’s forename because I don’t know how to spell it. Some experts cite Thelonious and others Thelonius and they’re pretty well evenly split. But then I’m grateful for the fact that the pianist is one of the small band of famous who manage with purely a surname, like Beiderbecke, Roach and Ellington.

Digestion was not aided by a later night cap – a TV programme about the Norwich North by-election taking place this week. What a depressingly young and inexperienced bunch of candidates, most of whom look to my ageing eyes as if they should still be practising their seven times table. They talk in clichés, as if they’re reciting from an issued reader. They were all “clear and transparent” which in reality means they are obfuscating the truth. Each and every one followed the party line while claming to be an independent spirit. We watched them with a creeping feeling of doom, Mrs Dodman and I. One says “you know” all the time as if the short phrase automatically implies axiom. They are all ardent and sincere; each and everyone will put aside ambition to work tirelessly on behalf of the local community. Yet we all know the elected candidate will eventually be just another expendable grinning yapping avaricious head on the Hydra of politics.

Not one mentioned jazz, at least before I dozed off. For twenty-five years I’ve voted independent, putting my cross against any candidate professing to enjoy a good foot-tapping clarinet solo. I figure that anyone appreciating jazz should be given a chance. The rest are too worn out from the exhausting requirement of keeping up party appearances. I know that’s a non-sequitur, but I had a late night.