Adrian Baldwin
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Mormons and Hell's Angels

6/30/2014

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Writing about religion is fraught with problems; let’s face it more conflicts are caused by it than anything else. Generally I avoid the subject, I have no interest in causing offence (though there is a risk however unintentional) and spiritual matters are not exactly my forte.

This post is about religion albeit one particular faith, as portrayed in a recently aired documentary, and about how the viewing experience made me feel. I compare the viewing feelings to those acquired through reading something on a very different, but kind of related, topic.       

I watched a documentary on Channel 4 last Thursday night (26th June) that disturbed me; the programme called “Meet the Mormons” was about the Mormon faith – a branch of Christianity that I’ll freely admit that I know very little about.  If you missed it, pop to 4OD and catch up.

The film followed a 20 year old British lad called Josh Field as he got more deeply indoctrinated into the faith and became a missionary in order to spread the word of his church more widely. The process of becoming a missionary involved him sacrificing two years of his life, attending a residential course to prepare him for his mission, moving away from (and severing almost all ties with) his family and friends, being allocated to a faith buddy/chaperone with whom he would spend all his time (Elder Bauman, a downright creepy individual if you ask me) and surrendering the use of his first name for the duration of his mission.

Personal-sacrifice for faith advancement is not exactly an unusual concept but for all the sacrifice, his mission was in effect door to door or street based personal selling – he had conversion targets too – a minimum of four faith transfers over two years. My opinion; faith selling has to be the most miserable kind of job one could do – worse than hard-selling double glazing, payment protection claims or working for a recruitment agency.

In following Josh (or Elder Field as re-designated), the film crew was chaperoned at all times by a member of the church’s PR management team. The Mormons were clearly quite concerned about being misrepresented or depicted as decidedly weird – maybe the PR guys had seen Louis Theroux’s “Scientology and Me”. So in interviewing Josh, the journalist had to deal with the presence of forces actively censoring her material. The conspicuous censorship, instead of protecting the Mormons had the opposite effect of making the organisation look manipulative, controlling and more than a little bit odd (in many ways a lot like Louis Theroux’s piece but set in Leeds).

Channel 4 is well known for making programmes likely to induce viewers to shout at their tellies. Let’s not be naïve, a documentary painting a picture of anything as normal, nice, fun, inclusive etc. is less likely to attract viewers than something more sensational or dramatic. In the case of this documentary, the portrayal of the Mormons was not comforting – what was presented was effectively a case study in brainwashing because one watched the young, enthusiastic, cheerful Josh being slowly crushed and converted into a clone of handler Bauman.

Added to the brainwashing were other ‘facts’ (a pinch of salt may be necessary) that compounded the impression that the Mormons' faith is bizarre and commercialised – Mormons believe Jesus went to America after his resurrection; the faith was invented in America in the 1820s; members are expected to pay significant sums of money to the church; dead people can be baptised; non-members are not allowed into Mormon places of worship.

The subject of impressions brings me on to the Hell’s Angels.

Whilst obviously not a religious institution, the infamous motorcycle club has also been on my mind because I have been reading a book about the life and times of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, a leading light in the American movement from its earliest days.

Sonny’s memoirs entitled “Hell’s Angel” don’t make for comfortable reading, he was (maybe still is) a hard man with a legendary disregard for authority; his book shares scenes of drug abuse, violence, death, Harley riding, prison and protest in a straightforward and dispassionate way. But despite the non-conformist, unapologetically aggressive material, Sonny Barger achieves this anti-hero type of status that will make a reader warm towards him and his club.

The HAMC, which began in the States and is now a worldwide organisation, has its disciples, all carefully selected and inducted into the club; come what may, members are loyal to their brethren; Angels live and die their way; if you are not in the club, you can’t visit a clubhouse without an invitation; the motorcycle and back patches are the outward expressions of faith, the road is the place of worship; chapters make up the organisation a bit like they make up books of faith.  The parallels between the Angels and the Mormons are there if you think about it.

Now I know that thanks to the art of journalism, my emotions have been manipulated by the film makers and Sonny Barger’s biographers; I have been fed the content they have chosen to give me (from their perspectives only). But in making the connections between the two groups, I found I was more perturbed by the Mormons than by the Hell’s Angels.  And that was unexpected.  

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Derring-do, danger, design and descent at derby

6/24/2014

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Saturday 21st June saw the Welton village fete take place; Welton is a village a couple of miles away from Daventry and it happens to be where my children go to school. The fete takes place annually but for the first time in a number of years, the event centred on a soap box derby.

Welton is built around a twisting and quite steep main street that is perfect for soap box racers to get up to a decent gravitational velocity (especially after a good shove off from their pit crew mates). Drivers need to have their wits about them and a gung-ho kind of attitude (either construed as bravery or stupidity) - accidents and injuries are not unknown and hospital trips have been necessary.

In glorious sunshine more than a dozen contraptions of varying style, colour, complexity, comedic value and engineering nous gathered along with their pilots/lunatics. Some of the vehicles were professionally engineered and built and the difference in speed between those and the more traditional string, planks and pram wheel designs were significant.  

Some racers were adults and taking it all rather seriously, which was a little bit of a shame bearing in mind that others were kids
and brave enough to have a go. I don't know if there were categories of entrant or separate prizes for adults and juniors but if there weren't, there should have been.

All the vehicles were scrutinised by a Halfords crew before being deemed race worthy, inadequate brakes meant no running.  One soap box racer though was so badly made as to be dangerous and God knows why it was allowed to compete – the decidedly wonky Simon Dodd creation only made a handful of metres before careering off into the crowd, throwing out the driver and knocking over an elderly spectator. In competing the drivers accept the risk of injury; the same can’t be said of the spectators.

The speed of descent was measured by official time keepers and the results compiled into a league table. For a few hours the racers could run again and again to try and improve their times.

Soap box designs included a twin seat Shark, a red Furrari, a men behaving badly sofa scene (my absolute favourite), Postman Pat’s delivery van and a Tango speedster (photos shared for your enjoyment).  

For an afternoon the village, normally quiet, had come to life and was full of people;  the local pub was doing a roaring trade, the village hall was open and various stalls were set up selling food, drink, experiences, books and bric-a-brac.  

All in all an entertaining few hours spent, well done to the organisers and all those that gave their support to make it happen. Hopefully it will become a regular feature once more.   

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P.S. I have all these images in higher resolution. If you want one emailed to you, just get in touch.


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2014 Daventry Motorcycle Festival - a review

6/17/2014

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PictureThe boys are back in town
Saturday 14th June saw the fourth annual Daventry Motorcycle Festival take place. I have been to all of them and look forward to the spectacle. Year on year the festival gets bigger, there were more bikes on display this year than last and more people taking an interest. Motorcycles were displayed all down the High Street, the length of Sheaf Street, one side of Tavern Street and in the market square too.

For me though this year was slightly different because I ended up working at the event instead of just wandering around like a child in a toy shop.

I was a voluntary marshal and my patch was at the junction of Tavern Street, High Street and Sheaf Street. Bedecked in my orange high-vis vest and armed with a walkie-talkie, it was my role to keep an eye on things, open and close barriers as necessary and make sure that everyone was safe, (particularly when bikes were in motion).

Having a patrol area meant that this year I didn’t get to fully experience the event or enjoy it in quite the same way. Fortunately I did get to wander around a little and take some photos, a handful of which are attached for your enjoyment.

Instead of a review in the style of previous efforts (article 1; article 2), this post is going to be about what I learnt as a result of getting involved. In previous years I made some assumptions about how the festival was organised, who did the work and how it was funded. To be frank, my assumptions were wrong.

Bearing in mind that Saturday 14th June saw Daventry town centre turned into a colourful, bustling, dramatic, noisy, exciting environment with more people about than I have seen at any single point since last year’s event; I thought that Daventry District Council (DDC) or even Northamptonshire County Council had a significant role to play in proceedings. In previous write ups I have even praised the local council for being brave enough to organise it.

The fact is that the vast majority of the effort was made and the associated expense incurred by the small team of event organisers. Additional voluntary support came from enthusiasts associated with certain motorcycle clubs and the local air cadets. 

As I understand it, DDC only provided a small sum of money through a local councillor’s empowerment fund.

And yet, on Saturday Daventry was on the map, cool things were happening and the footfall in town increased dramatically. I bet that the local businesses saw some significant uplifts in takings. People that I chatted to were having a good time and all said they’d be back again next year. Hopefully there will be a fifth event but that is no certainty.  My view is that the festival simply cannot be sustained without the local authority providing some coordinated support. The current organisers just can’t be reasonably expected to fund another outing from their own pockets.  

On the bright side the local MP Chris Heaton-Harris attended and so did the Deputy Mayor – fingers crossed they could see the value added to Daventry’s profile and the local business community.

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Other relevant posts:

The inaugural Rugby Bikefest 21/05/14
Headache, Harleys and Hope 28/04/14

P.S. I have all these images in higher resolution. If you want one emailed to you, just get in touch.


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A super Honda
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Please can I have this one?
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Triumph Tiger Cub
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Line em up!
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Post-apocalyptic Yamaha
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A blast from the past!
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Brighten up your day, read about Bernard Jordan

6/17/2014

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Every story I read about Bernard Jordan just makes me smile and I have decided to use my blog to promote his exploits just in case you haven’t heard of him. Admittedly, my UK readers will probably have some knowledge but my US and Australian visitors may not be familiar with this delightful chap.

Watching/reading the news can be pretty gloomy and depressing; genuine feel good stories are few and far between - the Bernard Jordan items though tick all the boxes for brightening up your day.

By way of a synopsis, Bernard, who has just turned ninety and lives with his wife in a residential home in Hove, was a Royal Navy officer on D-Day. He was determined to be part of the 70th D-Day commemorations and when booking an official ticket proved to be challenging, he refused to accept defeat and made his own way to Normandy instead.

No big deal perhaps – but the thing is that he didn’t tell his care home officials and his disappearance prompted a man hunt by Sussex Police.  Once it was known that he was safe and well in France, his story of derring-do became a great showcase of the kind of determination that helped the allies turn the tide of World War Two.

Bernard is now something of a celebrity and justifiably so in my opinion; he is likely to be awarded the freedom of Brighton, he received 2,500 cards for his 90th birthday and his photos and story have been all over the media.  Despite all the attention, Bernard uses his air time to promote the cause of all the other surviving veterans and those that died for their country. He doesn’t think that he is special and that sentiment just proves that he is.      

What a character! What an inspiration! He's that cool that if he wasn't married, I'd be trying to introduce him to my Nan.

Here are links to a number of published pieces on the BBC news website. Please read these articles and make up your own mind. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27874035

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27735086

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27778035

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27746379

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Zafira's 13th Symphony in tortured plastic

6/13/2014

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It’s Friday the 13th and for the superstitious amongst us, it’s a day that has the potential to be unlucky. Whilst I am not influenced by fantasy, I’ll admit that I drove to work this morning slightly more slowly and carefully than I would do normally. I’ll be honest, having a crash would be unlucky on any day but on such a Friday, one could even expect one’s insurance company to have a laugh at one’s expense.

To encourage calm, my journey to the office was accompanied by some lively music; that is not an unusual occurrence in itself but what is (and make sure, if you are so engaged, that you put down your drink or finish chewing before you read on), is that the genre of music was classical. You now understand that if I hadn’t warned you first, you could have made a right mess of your clothing and I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.

The thing is this, my usual head banging stuff was just not appropriate for today’s commute. 

My regular readers, certainly those who embrace the heavy metal and punk music movements, will be astonished at this revelation; and even those readers not completely au-fait with my musical preferences might raise an eyebrow.

On the subject of brows, I haven’t gone all highbrow, in fact the CD in the player was Classical Experience IV. This is a compilation album for those uninitiated into the world of classical music. The album gives a listener a taste of the works of a number of the genre’s best known composers.

I have to state that Holst’s Neptune (The Planets), Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, the March from the Karelia Suite by Sibelius and Verdi’s Anvil Chorus were inspiring. One or two of the tracks on the album are operatic; during those numbers, I felt like Morse (just wish I was driving the Jag).

As I listened in awe, I realised that Zafira (she’s my car and you can read more about her here) was joining in.

Her dashboard creaked and groaned arthritically and the sound of her tortured plastic, perhaps bizarrely, seemed to complement the music. And it was this reflection that prompted this post.

Pardon me whilst I digress for a moment; Mike a close buddy of mine, who shall not remain nameless, has a real problem with creaking plastic in cars. In fact his efforts to eradicate creaks and groans from his dashboards over the years have seen cardboard wedged into gaps, bits taken off altogether and much cursing and thumping. His drive to eradicate erroneous noise borders on OCD – seriously he has actually resorted to selling motors with dashboards that he has failed to silence.

Zafira would reduce Mike to tears; from time to time her dashboard creaks so much that you would think she was trying to communicate with you. Some time ago I stopped getting frustrated by the noise and started to find it funny and even endearing.

During today’s drive to Milton Keynes I am sure she was just composing her own symphony.  

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