Two rides and The Levellers too!

Despite saying (in the previous post) that I never get around to anything I say that I want to do, I did manage two rides this weekend, one a non-stop to Botley Hill and back via Beech Farm Road (around 14 miles) and then a ride to Tatsfield Village to meet Andy at Sheree's Tearooms. Saturday's ride saw spitting rain, but Sunday was great weather. On both days it was warm, which was great, and now I hear that some really good weather is coming our way - well, according to the Daily Star, which this morning is promising temperatures of 20 dec C! Bring it on is what I say.

Non-stop ride Saturday. Turning on to Ledgers Lane.

Not a bad weekend as it happens. Saw Bon and mum on Saturday and then on Sunday (after the ride and a prawn and mayo snack for lunch) a trip to Guildford, which was very pleasant.

Got back, made a fantastic Sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes and stuffing and then slobbed around watching television.

Looking out from Sheree's on Sunday morning.

My current obsession is a band called The Levellers, they're not new and were huge in the 90s, playing Glastonbury twice in 1992 and 1994. They have a documentary film titled A Curious Life which provides a profile of the band and their music and it's so positive in its outlook that I keep watching it over and over, it's also very funny. I like people who are always laughing and The Levellers and, it seems, everybody associated with them, are constantly smiling or laughing at the end of each sentence. The music is good too with One Way, their anthem, offering up something really positive and, above all, happy, which I love.

On a previous ride to Oxted.

There's also the excellent Jeremy Cunningham, the band's bassist, who is the key figure throughout the documentary. The Brighton-based band broke with the tradition of Brighton-based bands by not playing just in Brighton. Very soon they gained a major following around the UK and had the support of what used to be called the New Age Traveller movement. The Levellers are very political and their heroes were/are The Clash, particularly the late, great Joe Strummer.The Clash, of course, had plenty of political messages and The Levellers found them inspiring (and rightly so).

I'm one of those people who thrives on positivity and niceness (of which there's very little at this present time) - especially as the threat of another Trump presidency looms large. During the pandemic I found myself watching all three series of Detectorists over and over because it had a certain quality to it, not only in that it was well-written and well-acted but also because it had an air of hope and pleasantness about it. Likewise A Curious Life.

Curiously, the band never really hit it off with the music press of the time, which I find really odd as bands like The Levellers, in my humble opinion, are just the sort of band that I would have been championing had I been a journalist on the NME or Melody Maker, but then, as Jeremy Cunningham makes clear in the documentary, "we didn't need them and they didn't need us" which, while a shame in some respects, was about the size of it, but then The Levellers clearly didn't need them, they did perfectly well without them and are still going strong today; and where, pray, are the NME and Melody Maker?

I'm planning on buying a Levellers fire pit for the garden, styled around their famous 'rolling A' and also probably some merchandise too, like a beany hat and/or a tee-shirt, who knows? I might even go to one of their festivals if they're still going. The documentary, A Curious Life, was filmed in 2012, so 12 years ago, but I'm assuming all is well in Leveller Land and that they're all still going strong.

Jeremy Cunningham says he has low self-esteem and I have to say that I can't see why that should be, the guy's a genius, not only a good bass player but an artist and the man responsible for all the band's artwork. He's also an established artist in his own right and has exhibited at various galleries and that, to me, is the mark of a brilliant man. There's also an inherent kindness that makes him one of those people I'd have at my "dream dinner party". In short, he's great, and he's one of those people I'd love to meet just to chat about stuff.

The other great thing about the documentary is Cunningham's parents, clearly very proud of their son's achievements. They sing his praises from their house in Crawley, presumably Jeremy's childhood home, but I might be wrong, they might well have moved there after the kids moved out, I don't know. But the key thing to take away from A Curious Life is the laughter. All of The Levellers have laughter and happiness coursing through them, the laugh at the end of every sentence and I love that. Yes, the band had its problems with drugs and there's a particularly poignant moment when the spotlight turns on Jeremy's use of heroin, but fortunately the drink and drugs issues for each member of the band didn't happen simultaneously and Jeremy makes a point of saying he never missed a gig or anything because of a hangover or what have you; the man has class, dignity, creativity, niceness and everything good about humanity rolled into him. I would have liked to know more about how he took up the bass guitar, what inspired him to play the instrument and so on, but that's not a criticism of the documentary or the band, they're all fantastic.

A Curious Life can be found on Prime and I'm guessing that The Levellers' music is everywhere, in record stores and, of course, on Spotify.

The Levellers' Jeremy Cunningham.