I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.
My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.
My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.
It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.
In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.
I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.
I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.
Another post this week about apartheid, a very big issue during my youth. It is a serious issue but I shall reward you with some beautiful music at the end.
When I was a student in Cardiff, I went with a friend to a showing of the film Cry Freedom in the St David’s Hall. St David’s Hall was and is one of the premier arts venues in Cardiff. It’s more of a concert hall than a cinema but it showed films there as special events. My post this week is about that film.
The film had not long been released, and was based on a couple of books by the South African journalist Donald Woods. The film so touched me that I read both of these books afterwards. The first was a biography of a guy called Steve Biko. If you know his name, good. He was a guy who is worth knowing about. He was killed in police custody in Pretoria in 1977.
Woods’ second book was called Asking for Trouble.This was a more contemporary account of Woods’ introduction to Biko, of Biko’s banning (the word had a legal meaning in South Africa) and subsequent death. Of Woods’ own banning, and of his subsequent escape from South Africa. Woods lived to see the end of the era, dying in 2001 as an exile in London.
I wanted to include some music from the film, and one piece was obvious. But when I looked on YouTube I wanted something plainer, less “produced” than Richard Attenborough’s movie. I hope you like my version.
My piece of music? Well it is not uncommon, as it has become the post-Apartheid national anthem of South Africa. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (the title is Xhosa), God Bless Africa (English). The English version of the words can be found here.
Mister Bump 
Pete you were right, as the music at the end is very beautiful/ The English lyrics of coming together, standing united, and letting everyone live and strive for freedom are perfect.
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It is beyond my comprehension that that system existed in the same world, in the same lifetime.
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