Simon Munnery

Dear Simon Munnery,

Every day I appreciate you more. I can say that with a reasonable degree of certainty, secure in my knowledge of how much I appreciated you yesterday. It is sensible to note that it is 7.40am. But being able to draw authoritative statements from the available evidence – even when the sample size is small - can be an effective method of filling space.

If that’s what you are into. Which, generally, I’m not. Except occasionally, when I write these reviews. I’ve been subtly reprimanded in the past for the length of a review I submitted here, but never for any aspect of the content. It’s an arrangement that I’m perfectly happy with, and drawing from that happiness enabled me to accept that reprimand with elegance.

I won’t need to do that this time round, as I have plenty to say about you, if only tangentially. I think that’s appropriate as you seem to work in a bumbling, tangential manner, and much of what you say seems to imply possible connections which may or may not exist.   

I have attended several meetings this week, including: Weds at 9am; Weds at 2pm, Thurs at 12.20pm and Thurs at 8pm. The meeting that you chaired at the Arts Centre at 8pm on Thursday is – for obvious reasons – the main focus of this message, but I may also make references to the other three meetings, as points of comparison.

You were the only chair to utilise a flipboard, play a harmonica or hold a canvas shopping trolley aloft during your meeting.

Yours was the only one of the meetings to include a Bob Dylan parody making use of the tune and intonation of the song ‘She’s Your Lover Now’, and the only meeting to include a lengthy imagined discussion between Gestas and Dismas, the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus. The hand-drawn flipchart diagram which you used to indicate whether it was Gestas or Dismas speaking was simple but effective.

Yours was the only meeting to include a withering close reading of the internal illogic of John Lennon’s second most stupid song. Yours was also the only meeting to include a reference to TS Eliot. Searching online to find the wording of the Eliot quote I discover that you also used this in a letter published in the Observer on the 15th August 2004:

“Dear Observer readers,

I am writing this from the very crucible of the Edinburgh Festival. My guts have been playing up dreadfully, which I put down to poor diet and the stress of performing two shows a day: Simon Munnery's Annual General Meeting at the Stand at 4pm, and Buckethead Phenomenon Anon and on at the Assembly Rooms at 6.30pm.

TS Eliot wrote that it wasn't important for a poet to gain mass appeal in his lifetime; it was enough to have a small but appreciative audience. I'm halfway there…”

It’s a great rhetorical device, disarming in its combination of self-depreciation and grandiose assurance. Also containing a partially concealed sense of both mild-chastisement and encouragement towards the other attendees. Something, perhaps, we can all learn from.

My appreciation of the manner in which you chaired your meeting has increased significantly during the course of writing this review. During your performance I was frequently amused, and remained engaged throughout, but I don’t think that I was able to indicate my appreciation in a particularly audible way. Hopefully this message will go some way to redressing this, as I am confident that I will remember last night for far longer than the other meetings I attended this week.   

Reminding me of the existence of ‘She’s Your Lover Now’ was an unexpected bonus. It’s many years since I have listened to this song - or at least listened to it properly - and I’ve been spending the morning enjoying various versions of it I hadn’t previously heard. The solo piano version is intriguing, but it’s the version released on the Bootleg Series – where they give up before the end - that remains the most compelling. What a peculiar song.

And what a peculiarly apt song to subtly embed into your meeting. Both musically and lyrically it has a shifting, ramshackle nature that seems to make it a perfect fit. And then there is the sense of a submerged narrative attempting to break free of the opaque imagery and the ostensibly offhand construction.

In the strongest parts of both song and meeting (for me, the crucifixion and skiing sections) there is a scrambled dialogue taking place, as confused characters strive desperately towards some form of understanding. At times they seem on the verge of this, but then all of a sudden one of them is standing on a bar soon with a fish head and a harpoon and a fake beard plastered on her brow… and we’re further away than ever from whatever it was we were looking for.

Thank you again for an excellent meeting – I very much look forward to more in the future. And sorry for not laughing at the time. I can be a bit slow sometimes.