Emergency Egg Blip

I don’t have any chocolate Easter eggs this year but here’s a chicken’s egg with which to wish you well this weekend (and every day), and to celebrate hope for new beginnings, and new attitudes.

So many deaths this week. Health and care workers and other vital key workers amongst them. So many reasons to remember that none of us should ever be complacent about who does the most essential work in society. So many reasons to reverse the chronic (and acute) underfunding of the health and care sectors. So many reasons for our leaders to finally acknowledge the links between poverty, class, race, and poor health outcomes. So many reasons to value the immense contribution that immigrant communities have made to all aspects of our collective lives.

Some of those who have left us over the last few days include the great songwriters John Prine, Bill Withers and Adam Schlesinger and the producer Hal Willner, who (amongst many other things) produced the Leonard Cohen celebration concert, ‘Came So Far For Beauty’, which I saw in Brighton in 2004, and which remains one of the high points in my gig-going history.

Performers that night included Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Laurie Anderson, Beth Orton, Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, The Handsome Family, and Cohen’s superb backing singers Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen.

These last two sang a beautiful version of one of Cohen’s many, many timeless songs that night - ‘Anthem’. So, that’s my song for today and for this Passover/Easter season https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vKONRcAJnk

Love, peace, safety and good health to you all. Xx