Day 5.252: The whale and the aeroplanes

When I was a student in Oxford I became aware of a band from Bristol called The Blue Aeroplanes. Some of my friends saw them play live at a music venue I was later to play with my band a couple of times, but it was before I started going to such gigs with them. Later we would frequent another venue to see an unknown local band called Radiohead, but that is another story.

The Blue Aeroplanes, at the time were a large collective - sometimes as many as four guitarists, a keyboard player, drummer and a dancer (credited even on the recordings) collected around a beat-poet called Gerard Langley. When asked why he formed a band rather than recite his poetry he is reported to have said, "Have you ever been to a poetry recital?"

Anyway, it was around the time that I narrowly missed seeing them in Oxford that, at the height of their popularity, they released an album, "Swagger" and on it, one of my favourite tracks was "The Applicant":



It was some time later that I discovered, that these words were not Gerard's own work, but a poem by Sylvia Plath (here she is reciting it herself if you're interested). A few years on, while sharing this music, I found out more about Ms Plath thanks to an English Literature student I was dating (that's Exile #2 to you).  I heard about her marriage to Ted Hughes, suicide and the fall-out where many blamed him for her death.

I had heard of him, but I had no idea that I had any real experience of Ted Hughes' work.

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I remembered some stories I had liked as a child - I thought of them at the dinner table and wondered if it might be something our kids would like.  Much to my surprise, it turns out that this book "How the Whale Became and Other Stories" is by no other than Ted Hughes.

Exile #2 found it at the library in this, relatively recently illustrated edition and tonight, while Exile #2 is out, I read the first few stories to the three who listened with rapt attention, always asking for another...