charles barrow's writing

I've always enjoyed visiting cemeteries, or wandering around them I should say. No one near and dear to me has ever been buried in a cemetery, we're all about cremation in my gang, so I have never had a destination grave that I could deliver flowers to, a headstone that I could reflect silently beside; one that records the barest details of a loved one's life. My forebears' ashes float out at sea or, rather, feed the fish at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe that's why I enjoy a stroll through a graveyard, I'm not emotionally invested. I am always intrigued though; by the choice of marker (stone, granite, cross, statue, urn), how well it's tended (fresh/wilted flowers, plastic ornaments, polished marble), the occupant's names that always seem to conjure Victorian maiden aunts, and Edwardian railway porters, and of course those all important bookend dates (enviably distant cousins, or woefully close siblings) that both start and finish all of our stories. My...

I recently watched singer Adele being interviewed by Graham Norton. She sang some old hits and some tracks from her new album 25. I was struck, watching her sing, how very old fashioned she seemed as a performer. I mean old fashioned in a good way. She's like a chanteuse from another era, like an Edith Piaf. Bette Midler is a more contemporary equivalent. Like them, Adele's song is the story of her life and she lives it in the telling. Some of her freshly minted new songs sound like classics already.