The Culture Blog For Connoisseurs Of Everything

In our occasional feature we invite guests to select the six cultural links that might sustain them if, by some mischance, they were forced to spend eternity in a succession of airport departure lounges with only an iPad or similar device for company. Today’s voyager is Kevin Musgrove.

Kevin was born, twice, in 1933 and then once again in 1937. He first gained world-wide fame as a noted Latin American dancer aboard HMS Ark Royal; later as Dame Thora Hird’s body double in the little-known Russ Meyer movie Make Me A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Jam Lardy Pussycat! He partnered the late Wallace Beery in the successful International Pro-Celebrity Ker-Plunk team that was narrowly defeated by the all-conquering Sandi Shaw-Clement Attlee combo. Kevin Musgrove was last seen singing excerpts from Rosemarie in a haslet foundry in Nuneaton. He blogs at Commonplaces.

Let it be known that the daily commute across A Provincial English City is not wholly dissimilar to being in an interminable succession of airport waiting lounges. Albeit lounges with quite a lot lacking in the way of windows or ceilings or lounging space.

1: Watching the detectives

My mind is an eternal loop of creaky old black and white movie thrillers. “The Kennel Murder Case” isn’t a particular favourite but it illustrates much of the appeal to me. A strong cast of actors (not necessarily “stars”). Plots and dialogue that tell the story, however implausibly. That feeling of being tucked up in bed in the eighties and nineties watching some half-forgotten but hugely enjoyable pot-boiler in that scheduling hole that’s filled with roulette and Psychic Interactive Channel these days. And you can’t tell me that the world wasn’t a better place for being in black and white…

2: Moral uplift

I have a problem-solving mind. Not always a successful problem-solving mind, but it tries its best. So you might think that the appeal of the detective story to me is in the deduction of the solution. And you would be so wrong. I’m not necessarily that bothered by whodunnit. I am, however, bothered that whodunnit gets done. I see detective stories as modern morality plays, good triumphs over evil and all that. I’m greatly fond of the writing and storytelling of Edgar Wallace; the ladies Allingham, Christie and Sayers each provide me with characters to cherish; and only a churl could ignore the brisk subversive flair of Arthur Morrison. But in the end I shall settle on R. Austin Freeman who took great pains to make sure that the reader knew more about the crime than the protagonists and then invited them to watch the machinery of justice take its course.

3: Reflection

Adolphe Valette’s Oxford Road is my absolute favourite painting. I am just old enough to remember the last of the old pea-soupers in Manchester and this evokes those so well. I know the precise spot to get this viewpoint (on the corner of the street opposite the BBC’s studios). The bridge is still there, connecting the post-war Oxford Road Station with Manchester Piccadilly. (Both the old Oxford Road Stations were bombed out in the war.) The scaffolding in the background shows the work on what now calls itself The Palace Hotel and Mancunians insist on still calling The Refuge Assurance Building. I’m sentimentally attached to the city, despite all the tartings-up.

4: With a song in my heart

Much though I adore a good melody or a stirring bit of orchestration I am always, always going to be a sucker for a good lyric. When that lyric is put together by a master craftsman it is a thing of great beauty. When the craftsman is a parodist of the quality of Allan Sherman…

5: Love and friendship and that

“We would have opened yesterday but my partner had a nervous breakdown…” from Tit For Tat.

In this… in this world of endless turmoil, of sharp-elbowed hooligans selfishly looking out for number one it’s nice to know… no, it’s good to know, that somewhere in a universe of infinite time and space there is a place where politeness is the norm, the policeman on the beat chats with the newcomers and chance is a friendly stranger.

I had an argument with myself about this one. “Big Business” is the better escalation piece but the incidental business crammed into this movie makes it the more special.

6: Subversive ends

I cannot conceive of a world without Round The Horne. Not just because of the high camp single entendre of Julian and Sandy, dolly though it may be. The whole programme pushed so many boundaries and challenged so many Victorian Values that we should thank the shades of all concerned for their bravery and their sense of the absurd.

Whenever I see or hear some overblown bit of authoritarian nonsense or some particularly ripe bit of cant I can hear the voice of the late, great Kenneth Horne saying: “what a thrill-packed load of old twaddle.”