• Robert Tressell
• Penguin Modern Classics (2004)

Exploding unemployment. Reckless state mismanagement. The obscene profits banks derive from debt. The yawning gap between rich and poor.

These are some of the facts of our time. They were also prevalent in Robert Tressell’s time, at the turn of the twentieth century. Since then, with two world wars and the fall of empires, a whole, tumultuous century has passed by, the majority of which Tressell never witnessed, dying while still fairly young from tuberculosis.

Tressell was the nom de plume of an Irish painter and decorator named Robert Noonan (viz. the trestle table of his profession) who signed his work thus to protect himself from the inevitable controversy of his radical political novel about class struggle and the troubles of a few ordinary men.

Sadly, he needn’t have worried. The novel was rejected by a succession of publishers and did not appear until some years after his death.

Radical

Robert Noonan left home when he was sixteen years old. Growing up in Ireland in 1870s, he became politically radicalised and left for South Africa. While there he married and carved out a career in the construction industry.

However the Boer wars interrupted his steady course to maturity and eventually he found himself in England and in somewhat reduced circumstances.

His frustration at the deep-rooted inequalities in British society led to his writing of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists but the finished manuscript was unanimously rejected.

Though he will have noted the widespread protests and marches that signified a tide turning towards his viewpoint, Tressell never lived to see the advent of the Russian Revolution, which brought about the total restructuring the sort of which he dared to dream.

Legacy

The resultant Soviet society echoed in many ways the central thesis of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in the form of Barrington’s lunchtime lecture, yet that same Soviet society was both corrupt and flawed in a way that Tressell’s Socialist workmen could not have expected.

Even if Communism is now a failed experiment, Tressell’s contemporaries have left behind an enduring legacy in less absolute societies. The end of the Second World War saw the implementation across Europe of systems intended to provide basic healthcare, education and social welfare. These were the foundations that rebuilt modern Europe and their decline and gradual dissolution in recent decades is a cause of great concern.

Perhaps this is a good moment to take another look at The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and think again about our priorities for the future.

By Brasserie Dupont. 8% ABV, serve at 12°

Brasserie Dupont, from the little village of Tourpes near Tournai, is pretty well-known here in Belgium thanks to the broad distribution of their popular copper kettle brews Moinette and Saison Dupont.

Dupont has been producing Bière de Miel (“honey beer”) as an organic product since 1997, having rediscovered the recipe after about 75 years in abeyance.

The brew, served in irritatingly small bottles or the 75cl Standard, is full of springtime flavours, in amongst which the honey is only one.

Indeed the strongest note in there for me is orange blossom. Refreshing, light and pleasantly floral.

By Brouwerij De Struise. 13% ABV, serve at 9°

This stout, named after the artist Delphine Boël, is very similar to De Struise’s super strong Black Albert: indeed it’s the product of similar origins.

What’s unique here is the barrelling process.

Cuvée Delphine has done some time in Kentucky bourbon casks, just as the Pannepot reserva editions did with their Calvados equivalents.

With a darker, thicker head, Delphine is also significantly drier in taste than Albert.

In addition to those same smoky, autumnal flavours, the all-important bourbon note comes through loud and clear.

By Brouwerij De Struise. 13% ABV, serve at 9°

De Struise created this stout for the renowned Ebenezer’s Pub in Lovell, ME and it comes with very high ratings.

I enjoy most Belgian stouts (the best of which include Ellezelloise’s Hercule and De Dolle Special Extra Export) but they tend to be fairly thin.

Not so Black Albert: the complexity of this brew is marvellous.

It’s bursting with flavours of roasted coffee beans, malt, cigars, black treacle, salty licorice and charcoal.

The alcohol is well-hidden but you’d be well advised to go steady nonetheless!

By Brouwerij De Struise. 7% ABV, serve at 9°

While the beer was never up to much in my home country, I did have a soft spot for Youngers IPA. So the appreciation of that fine brew, which I believe is no longer available, ought to qualify me to judge this unusual edition from De Struise.

It pours ruddy amber and looks pretty thick to boot. The aroma is sharp, fruity with a touch of something like shoe polish. Very curious indeed.

In the mouth, this one turns out to have a softer underbelly – it’s got plenty of malt and only just a hint of bitterness.

Given the interesting nose, I was a little disappointed by the comparatively nondescript taste.

By Brouwerij De Dool. 7% ABV, serve at 9°

Amburon is a relatively new beer from Tongeren, making its first appearance in 2009.

The name is presumably a portmanteau of the Ambiorix – a statue of whom stands in the town square at Tongeren – and the Eburones, the tribe of which Ambiorix was king during the Romans’ Gallic campaign.

Back in the twenty-first century, the beer is a blonde with pleasant grassy flavours and a light hoppy bitterness.

Very mild overall with a nice, dryish finish.

Art history is among my greatest interests and ever since I began cultivating that interest, the Louvre remained the great art museum I had yet to visit.

Throughout the years, I became increasingly aware of the content of the Louvre’s rich collections until my geographical proximity and stylistic interests made my continuing failure to visit frankly ridiculous.

Now that I have finally made that pilgrimage I must confess that, of all the art gallery experiences I have had to date, this was certainly the least enjoyable.

The Louvre is France’s biggest attraction and counts more visitors per year than any other art museum in the world. This popularity is, I am forced to reflect, precisely the problem.

For when I think of the world’s most visited art museum in the world’s most visited city, the Louvre experience is less an exercise in art appreciation and more a rite of passage. Pilgrimage indeed.

Art should remain for everyone: it is the expression of humanity communicating with itself. Yet I wonder how many of those bored kids and Chinese tour groups are really here to absorb the art, how many of them are actually tuning in.

This is a morning like any other: there’s a big scrum surrounding La Joconde (the famous Mona Lisa). Signage has guided the paying customers here, all the way from the entrance. The flow of traffic suggests that for many of them, the enigmatic smile was their first stop.

And in the jostle of elbows and knees, perhaps less than half are looking at Leonardo’s painting behind its thick protective screen. Many of them are taking photos of it, or more precisely, taking of photos of themselves in front of it.

Posing for the camera, they have turned their backs on the masterpiece.

Manuscript illustrations

The hordes were mercifully less interested in the extraordinary collection of medieval paintings and an agreeably low-lit temporary exhibition of manuscript illustrations featuring works by Jean Fouquet and other masters.

I count myself fortunate to have enjoyed this small but very complete experience and indeed we had planned the timing of our visit to include it.

It’s difficult to describe the deep and enduring appeal of Pink Martini, a group of highly literate musicians performing a decidedly popular repertoire with absolute sincerity.

The band hails from Portland, Oregon – a city with more than its fair share of oddballs – but it could claim to be from everywhere, with songs in languages as diverse as Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

The Pink Martini sound is rich, mature and accomplished, yet somehow kitsch and even fetishistic.

It’s a curiosity shop of old brasileiro records mixed in amongst recordings of forgotten music hall revues and Japanese softcore soundtracks. It’s Chopin dancing the tango with Doris Day.

There really is something for everyone. And it’s all heart-on-your-sleeve stuff. This is probably what first attracted me to Pink Martini. I’d be listening to a brassy, rather loungecore take on a tempestuous Italian love affair and all of a sudden my eyes would fill up at the sheer candour of it. Pink Martini defies you to be cynical, while reminding you that it’s probably far more worldly and grown-up than you.

With singer China Forbes out on long-term sick leave, the band has recruited a reality-TV rock singer. And of course such an unpredictable move is classic Pink Martini: the brash, imposing Storm Large applies her own considerable vocal capabilities to the material while maintaining just a soupçon of vulnerability.

It’s Thursday evening at the Botanique. The early summer sun is starting to set over Brussels. Nights are longer now and come eight o’clock there’s still plenty of light. People are standing or sitting around, most of them smoking cigarettes or drinking beer out of plastic glasses.

Inside the Orangerie, British musician Matt Elliott has just thrown his audience in at the deep end. No windows in this room and almost no stage lights to compensate for it.

Only Elliott’s head is illuminated, thrown back and singing the same line over and over. There’s something oddly foetal about the shape of his head. His voice is quiet and modest but the expression on his face says he’s putting everything into delivering it.

He shuffled on a few moments ago, mumbled about not having much time and picked up his guitar. The crowd took a moment just to notice he had started. Soon the chatter faded away and the hypnotic, barely-plucked strings took over.

We listen and Elliott sings. In his mind perhaps he’s wandered off and we’re no longer there. His sound, it sounds folky. Jewish, Russian, ladino, Spanish, Tom Waits, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who knows … but impossibly dark. Everything in a minor key.

I look around. I want to know if it’s only me. Some of those that I can make out, they look like they’re feeling uneasy too. But there’s no question of walking away from this.

Then something happens. Elliott stops playing the rhythm part. But the music goes on. Elliott now plays lead while what must be a ghost takes over on rhythm.

Then as Elliott sings on, he’s now joined by a high, disembodied voice – or it could just be a theremin – and a storm of sound starts to build with the musician himself now far, far away.

Later, as the crowd files out for a breather before the next artist on the billing, many seem grateful to find it still light outside.

In my early teens, during the obligatory antisocial period, I used to listen intently to DJ tapes and collect flyers folk handed out at the doors of nightclubs all over the north of England. The flyers promoted fantastic nights to which I was much too young to go. The tapes were usually very poor quality recordings made at a rave here or a club there, featuring a DJ spinning electronic music.

Back then I wondered how these DJs could cut and scratch records as well as they did. Now I wonder how many of them ever paid tax.

At the end of their sets they unplugged their headphones and their flunky picked up their record boxes. They left the club having shaken a lot of hands and they got into the back of a car and sped off home or to other gigs. Out into the yellowy orange night. Until they faded out of the scene.

Laurent Garnier was at the Haçienda before they knocked it down. He played Ibiza before all the Creams and the Manumissions turned Mecca into Disneyland. Unlike many of those DJs however, Laurent Garnier is still around today. And he’s almost certainly paying tax.

Having been at his live gig with Stéphane Driaux (Scan X) and Benjamin Rippert, I’m unable decide whether or not the Garnier sound has mellowed. Or maybe it’s me. I was too young for that scene and now I feel too old for today’s scene.

Certainly the crowd reflected that split. For every fortysomething ex-raver dropping in for a bit of nostalgia, there was some Abercrombie & Fitch kid with his pants round his knees. Lots of people nodding politely but otherwise pretty uninvolved. Not so many giving total commitment to the sound. Nobody at all with E face on.

Even so, I did enjoy the ‘live machines’ experience. Indeed the flattest moments of the night seemed to be when Rippert or Driaux skulked off for a piss, leaving Garnier to his decks and headphones for a bit too long.

When I used to listen to all those tapes, I longed for the day when I could get down the front and have it large, so to speak. I certainly don’t anymore.