Alex James

Recovered rock’n’roller Alex James has left his Blur days behind and now lives on a farm with his wife, their three children, some sheep and a lot of cheese. His autobiography of rock excess, Bit of a Blur, was published in 2007.

Alex James: Winning urban hearts with trees and fields

The Great Escape

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Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

We were hosts to the British Cheese Awards on Friday. And so it was that 910 different varieties of cheese arrived at the farm on Thursday. It doesn't sound that bewildering, but a good delicatessen probably only carries a couple of dozen varieties. Mayhem, it was. A cavalcade of cars and couriers; crates of the stuff pouring up the drive. From every corner of the kingdom they came, from Cornish Yarg to Orkney Cheddar, Lincolnshire Poacher to a highly prized Swiss-style cheese called Desmond from West Cork.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 9 July 2008

'Round here, a farm is way down the housing scale'

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 2 July 2008

I was driving back from Scotland on Saturday night when the headline act at Glastonbury came out shouting and swearing. I caught it on the radio. It was hard to avoid on the radio, actually. Glastonbury was everywhere. The BBC was handing it out like cake at Christmas; like you were weird if you didn't want a piece. I had been listening to the gallop from William Tell all the way from Gairloch to Inverness, trying to learn exactly how it goes, but it was making me drive too fast. It sounded like the Glastonbury audience was having a good time, but Jay-Z couldn't follow Rossini for chops, and I suddenly realised I was six shades happier heading for home on my own in the people carrier than I would have been standing on stage in Shepton Wotsit.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

I hadn't really planned a holiday this summer. I'm a barnacle. All farmers are, I think. I'm as riveted now by what is happening on the farm as I used to be by what goes on in Manhattan when all the reasonable people have gone to bed and only the fabulous are still standing. Nature unfolding at my fingertips is as gripping, unmissable and every bit as fleeting and ruthless as a perpetual A-list knees-up.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

The outdoor shower exploded today. It suddenly became a fountain. We watched it for a while, then I switched it all off at the isolator, to the dismay of the children. "Why's there a fountain? What's a gasket? Where's the fountain gone?" And it occurred to me again, as a tank full of hot water cascaded down the playroom windows, that at least when nothing worked, things were simple. When nothing worked, there was nothing to go wrong.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

I keep getting arrested – by details. Maybe it's because I'm listening to so much Beethoven that everything seems irresistibly interesting. Last Thursday, after repeated cramming of his First Symphony, the entire English countryside transformed into a monster budget video set to his music. Since then, I've been inside this perfect film, hearing imaginary violins and oboes, beguiled, sometimes to a standstill, by the excellence of the colour green or the exactness of sunshine on alliums. I'd rather like to be left alone for long enough to go peacefully insane like everybody else, but then Fred'll wander up and tell me, 'Another one of them tups "'as 'ad it". And the beautiful Beethoven bubble bursts.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

It's the British cheese awards next month, which would be exciting enough, but I've managed to persuade Juliet, who organises them, to hold the judging here. I'm more excited about that than I would have been if Blur were headlining Glastonbury. In a few weeks' time, every British cheese of any significance, from Cornish yarg to Orkney Cheddar, will be winging its way here to be appraised by those who know about these things. It's stupefying.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 28 May 2008

'There were life forms in the towels, but I'd go back'

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

First we stopped at the carnivorous plants, utterly fantastic, even before I knew what they were, beyond bizarre, but held perfectly to order in neat platoons. Prim constellations of flowers stretching in all directions under the grand pavilion at Chelsea Flower Show before breakfast, before it all kicked off, every bloom immaculate on an immaculate morning; the spheres of alliums and little stars of daffodils, recognisable among a mass of novel colours, scent and silence. Perhaps it's hard to say where agriculture ends and horticulture begins, where pure display becomes the goal. This all flaunted and flattered with the thrill of pure confectionery, a sweet shop for the world-weary. These were the creations of the pastry chefs of the cultivation world, impossible trifles. It was something like being in an empty shop at midnight, a shop that sold nothing but wonderful suggestions.

Alex James: The Great Escape

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

'What are they singing about?" I asked the interpreter. They'd been singing for ages, all the women, shuffling their feet rhythmically, walking around in a big circle. They are a handsome race: tall and slender, with the perfect poise that I assume develops from carrying heavy things on their heads. The women walk as if they are wearing heels, but most of them had bare feet. I'd been helping them carry rocks, for making dry-stone walls. Some of them had children tied on their backs, as well as boulders on their heads, but now the work was done.

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