As I type this, we are potentially just over 24 hours away from Parliament agreeing that we should commit to "an expansion" of our role in the war on IS/ISIL/Daesh. Writing that sentence makes me depressed, scared, angry - anything other than confident and safer. The hawks in Westminster, egged on by tub-thumping journalists and the defence industry, will soon have their way and we will commit to a war that will have no forseeable end and no clearly-defined outcomes. Of course, we could all be surprised and find that Labour MPs actually vote in line with the resolution passed at Conference barely two months ago. There could be many more Tory MPs who have a last minute wobble and decide to reject the need for us to - yet again - strut our stuff on the battlefield, only to find that when the war is 'over' and we have buried our dead, nothing has changed. It could happen, but I doubt it will.
We, the public, have been whipped into a frenzy of "we must do SOMETHING!". The constant assault on our consciousness by the endless front pages of the gutter press shouting out their stories of 'terrorist refugees' coupled with the night of co-ordinated attacks launched in Paris last month - "Paris - that's on our doorstep!" - has convinced the British people that we are next on the terrorists' list of targets. We have been made scared and set on edge and we have been told who the enemy is. Having wound us up, the press and Government can be guaranteed that the majority are now thoroughly on-side when it comes to rolling out the bloody red carpet once more.
I was disappointed that Jeremy Corbyn did not place a three-line whip on the Party when it comes to any vote relating to 'expanding' our role. To my mind, a free vote allows the bad apples in hs own cabinet, the ones that are constantly briefing against him in the press (probably for a nice little kickback too), to do what they want to do without having to positively buck the party line. I thought that this missed an opportunity to damage Cameron's leadership because, without the support of dissident Labour MPs, he would probably have had to have shut up about his war ambitions, a humuiliating climbdown given his known wish to increase our involvement. However, having heard Corbyn speak today and explain why he went with the free vote, I now believe it to be a good move: those Labour MPs who vote for war will have nowhere to hide when it all goes to hell and we are having Chilcot Part 2 - they will not have the option of saying "The Party made me do it!". It will all be of their own making, their own free will.
As a little aside, I just thought of something the other day. Although Corbyn is portayed in many sections of the media as "extreme" or "hard-left", take away his meetings with Palestinian and Irish Republican activists and his views on social justice, plain speaking, "good' politics and equality make me think of John Smith, the best PM we never had. Was John Smith vilified in this way as "extreme"? Were his views on social justice pilloried? No, the press had yet to descend into whatever circle of hell in which it currently resides. Back then, having a conscience was still acceptable. But I digress…
So, why are we going to war? Although there are associated reasons such as the French wanting us to do more (well, we could do 'more' but more of other useful and effective stuff rather than bombing) or "the UN has sanctioned it" (not sure if the UN has sanctioned war or, indeed, if Russia, for example, is going to carry on playing nice for ever). It seems to come down to this: to increase our security. Yep, you read right - to increase our security. Now, given that we are already (sort of) operating in Iraq against IS, we are going to be a likely target of some kind of revenge attack. IS are pretty old skool when it comes to their religion, very much an-eye-for-an-eye type guys. Given our current involvement in Iraq (plus previous form in Iraq, Afghanistan etc), I'd say we are on their attack list. The terrorists involved in the attacks in Paris specifically linked thier actions to France's role in the Middle East. Now, while some of the terrorists may have come into France posing as refugees, some were already there in France and/or Belgium and had been for some time. France getting involved against IS provided the trigger for their 'revenge'. We are now trying to go down the same route, painting a bigger target on our backs. Public safety will be decreased by our involvement and the only way to ensure "our" safety will be greater surveillance, more restrictions, more hassle. Win for the terrorists.
Never mind our safety, what about the safety of the average Syrian? In our war in Iraq (Gulf War 2 and the occupation), we managed to kill lots of Saddam's troops as well as henchmen fiercely loyal to him. But how many Iraqi civillians did we also manage to kill in the process? 100,000? More? We don't know for certain but, whatever figure it is, it is an awful lot of 'collateral damage' (as they try to sanitise it). The fact is that, even with the smartest of smart bombs, many, many Syrian civilians are going to be killed, especially if IS start basing themselves in densely-populatd areas. To compound the problem, we have no spotters on the ground so how accurate are these targets ever going to be? As more civilians die - people who might have been bombed by the Assad regime previously, remember- so anti-West resentment rises and IS can play into that. Win for the terrorists.
What is the end-game here? Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had a good outcome following our departure, despite our hanging around for a very prolonged period after the 'victory'. The Taliban are back in many places in Afghanistan and the vacuum in Iraq left by removing the one thing holding factions at bay - Saddam - created the right environment in which IS could flourish. Oficially, Iraq has an army of 650,000 and around 300,000 police - nearly a million people who should be operating against IS and yet still they exist in Iraq. Syria, we are told, has a 'free Syrian army' of around 70,000. This figure, quoted by Cameron among others, is likely to be baloney: 70,000 armend people maybe, but not an army as we would understand it or need it to be - different groups and factions without a single command structure are not going to be effective allies on the ground. Internicene warring is more likely than concentrating on defeating IS.
Before we even get into a never-ending war (a showdown that IS wants, of course - win for the terrorists), why are we not looking to strike at IS in other ways? They get their weapons from somewhere - why are we not working on cutting that supply off? (I know it's probably the Saudis that are supplying which means Cameron will find it hard to be tough with them but, hey, it's all about this country's security, isn't it Dave? Isn't it?). Where are they selling their oil to gain revenue? Use diplomacy/pressure with the buyers. Do almost anything and exhaust those routes before we get into a war, for God's sake!
Churchill once advocated that there should be "more jaw-jaw and less war-war". A motion to lay before Parliament was agreed today, a few hours debate in the house tomorrow will determine if our bombers will be in action by the end of the week: barely time for any talking, any exploration of other options. I'd like to think that some of those set on war could still be turned through debate tomorrow, but I doubt it. Most politicians wear poppies and stand at the Cenotaph, yet they all seem to want to rush to war at the drop of a hat or the sniff of a dodgy dossier. Jeremy Corbyn wants us to stay out of a war and to try other means to defeat IS first. It's not about him being weak, it's about him being strong and holding on to his principles in the face of incredible provocation.
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
Robbing BAstards!
The World's Favourite Airline (do they still claim that?), British Airways, like to act as if they are the Rolls Royce service of the skies, somehow above all that tawdry money grubbing that the budget airlines indulge in. I'm sure it will come as no great shock to find out that they are just as devious in their pursuit of your cash as Ryan Air and EasyJet.
Having booked some reasonably-priced flights to Boston, I was surprised to find that the carrier was BA. I went online to see if it is possible to upgrade our seats to exit row seats. As a tall person, I appreciate all the extra leg room I can get, especially on long-haul flights and, from memory, BA provided the worst amount of leg room of all the carriers I have flown with on trans-Atlantic flights. On finally getting into the 'Manage Your Booking' section of their website, I found that no exit seats were available at all. Fine, others had obviously got there before me. It was then that I noticed that 'reserving' a seat would cost between £31 and £36 per person. To further up the ante, only half the plane appeared to have seats that are reservable. One could, of course, wait until check-in (24 hours before the flight) to choose one's seats, but, by then, any chance of sitting with your partner might have disappeared if only scattered, random unreserved seats remain. It feels like I am being forced to cough up the extra money if I want to sit next to my wife on the flight.
I rang BA to check what seats we had been allocated when we booked the flight and I was told that handing over a large wad of cash only got us onto the flight: no seats were allocated at that stage and we could either reserve them now at a huge cost (it is four fights in total) or gamble on twin seats still being available when we check in. In effect, BA would like us all to pay an exorbitant (and not previously-disclosed) fee simply to be able to sit next to each other.
While Ryan Air and EasyJet may sting you for every extra under the sun, at least they are upfront about it and you know what to expect: we know that we need to remember to take our credit card with us when we get out of our seat to head down the aisle to the loo; we expect a charge for raising the blind on the window in order to admire the view (charge doubled if it is an exceptionally clear day); we know that the lifejacket holder will contain a note telling us how we can go online a purchase one should it be needed . BA, on the other hand - the would-be Jeeves of the airways, the nobility among a sea of plebeian carriers - offer you a smug smile and a warm pat on the back whilst simultaneously filching your wallet and dipping your handbag.
Having booked some reasonably-priced flights to Boston, I was surprised to find that the carrier was BA. I went online to see if it is possible to upgrade our seats to exit row seats. As a tall person, I appreciate all the extra leg room I can get, especially on long-haul flights and, from memory, BA provided the worst amount of leg room of all the carriers I have flown with on trans-Atlantic flights. On finally getting into the 'Manage Your Booking' section of their website, I found that no exit seats were available at all. Fine, others had obviously got there before me. It was then that I noticed that 'reserving' a seat would cost between £31 and £36 per person. To further up the ante, only half the plane appeared to have seats that are reservable. One could, of course, wait until check-in (24 hours before the flight) to choose one's seats, but, by then, any chance of sitting with your partner might have disappeared if only scattered, random unreserved seats remain. It feels like I am being forced to cough up the extra money if I want to sit next to my wife on the flight.
I rang BA to check what seats we had been allocated when we booked the flight and I was told that handing over a large wad of cash only got us onto the flight: no seats were allocated at that stage and we could either reserve them now at a huge cost (it is four fights in total) or gamble on twin seats still being available when we check in. In effect, BA would like us all to pay an exorbitant (and not previously-disclosed) fee simply to be able to sit next to each other.
While Ryan Air and EasyJet may sting you for every extra under the sun, at least they are upfront about it and you know what to expect: we know that we need to remember to take our credit card with us when we get out of our seat to head down the aisle to the loo; we expect a charge for raising the blind on the window in order to admire the view (charge doubled if it is an exceptionally clear day); we know that the lifejacket holder will contain a note telling us how we can go online a purchase one should it be needed . BA, on the other hand - the would-be Jeeves of the airways, the nobility among a sea of plebeian carriers - offer you a smug smile and a warm pat on the back whilst simultaneously filching your wallet and dipping your handbag.
Monday, 9 November 2015
If it quacks...
A couple of weeks ago, the Observer Food Monthly (OFM) published the list of its Food Awards for 2015. Awards are given to the best restaurant, food retailer, food producer and so on. In the 'special' edition of OFM detailing the award winners, each award recipient was given some space to talk about how they got into the food business, what their personal philosophies and attitudes to food and consumption are and what they want to do going forward. One of the awards given out was for the Best Food Blog of the year and it was awarded to Ella Woodward for her blog, Deliciously Ella.
I was reading the piece on her in the OFM when I arrived at this paragraph:
"In the current wave of interest in healthy eating, the most prominent figures are not doctors or dieticians but “wellness gurus”, and there has been a backlash against people giving out dietary advice without proper medical qualifications. (Woodward is currently training part-time for a diploma in naturopathic nutrition at the College of Naturopathic Medicine, a London-based organisation founded by homeopath Hermann Keppler.)"
Now, the mention of 'naturopathic' rang a lot of little alarm bells. In my years of 'O' and 'A' Level biology, a physiology degree course and a health and social care degree course, I had never come across the medical field of 'naturopathy'. When I looked into the 'college', I realised why this was. 'Naturopathy' is concerned with nurturing the body's 'vital force' through homeopathy, herbalism and naturopathic nutrition. Now, studying for a diploma in nutrition designed to nurture this 'vital force', a rather fuzzy, unscientific concept, says to me that Woodward is aiming to be just such a "wellness guru" albeit with some rather dodgy letter after her name. She too will be handing out "dietary advice without proper medical qualifications" but will seek to legitimise that "advice" by parading a New Age qualification as 'proof' of her knowledge.
Now, I am not going to dismiss, out of hand, the worth of herbalism and accupuncture (homeopathy, however….): many modern drugs have their basis in plant extracts and plants are increasingly being looked at to provide new treatments going forward. However, linking food to this 'vital force' adds a level of mysticism to the existing (scientific) field of nutrition. Why not study for a diploma in nutrition? In the article, it was noted that Woodward's blog was followed in large part by teenage women, many of whom will already be pulled in negative directions by the perceived need to be the same as the celebrity 'role models' that are constantly shoved down our throats. To dress up an influential food blog with the trappings of pseudo-science is, to my mind, a potentially dangerous path and gives spurious substance to fad eating and snake oil ingredients that promise to 'cleanse', 'vitalise' or 'energise'. If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. But if it promises you wellness through eating an obscure South American berry, it's a quack.
I was reading the piece on her in the OFM when I arrived at this paragraph:
"In the current wave of interest in healthy eating, the most prominent figures are not doctors or dieticians but “wellness gurus”, and there has been a backlash against people giving out dietary advice without proper medical qualifications. (Woodward is currently training part-time for a diploma in naturopathic nutrition at the College of Naturopathic Medicine, a London-based organisation founded by homeopath Hermann Keppler.)"
Now, the mention of 'naturopathic' rang a lot of little alarm bells. In my years of 'O' and 'A' Level biology, a physiology degree course and a health and social care degree course, I had never come across the medical field of 'naturopathy'. When I looked into the 'college', I realised why this was. 'Naturopathy' is concerned with nurturing the body's 'vital force' through homeopathy, herbalism and naturopathic nutrition. Now, studying for a diploma in nutrition designed to nurture this 'vital force', a rather fuzzy, unscientific concept, says to me that Woodward is aiming to be just such a "wellness guru" albeit with some rather dodgy letter after her name. She too will be handing out "dietary advice without proper medical qualifications" but will seek to legitimise that "advice" by parading a New Age qualification as 'proof' of her knowledge.
Now, I am not going to dismiss, out of hand, the worth of herbalism and accupuncture (homeopathy, however….): many modern drugs have their basis in plant extracts and plants are increasingly being looked at to provide new treatments going forward. However, linking food to this 'vital force' adds a level of mysticism to the existing (scientific) field of nutrition. Why not study for a diploma in nutrition? In the article, it was noted that Woodward's blog was followed in large part by teenage women, many of whom will already be pulled in negative directions by the perceived need to be the same as the celebrity 'role models' that are constantly shoved down our throats. To dress up an influential food blog with the trappings of pseudo-science is, to my mind, a potentially dangerous path and gives spurious substance to fad eating and snake oil ingredients that promise to 'cleanse', 'vitalise' or 'energise'. If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. But if it promises you wellness through eating an obscure South American berry, it's a quack.
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Pick your targets
There seems to have been some serious schadenfreude going on over the last 48 hours in respect of the attack on 'Cereal Killers' eaterie in Brick Lane. For those who don't know, 'Cereal Killers' specialised in selling bowls of cereal (at £3.95 a pop) to the hipster residents of Shoreditch and Whitechapel. No, I don't understand it either: a bowl of cereal is something one normally enjoys at home, slobbing in PJ's, either first thing in the morning or last thing at night as a snack (not sure about cereals for lunch, but not against giving it a go!). The cost of this treat at home? Ooh, probably about 15p. A bowl of cereal worth £3.95 on the other hand would normally form part of a ££££ breakfast in a hotel (I have paid anywhere between £11 and £22 for a full breakfast where it is not included in the room price). But the concept of walking into a food outlet in London's East End to willingly part with the thick end of £5 for a bowl of cereal defeats me.
'Cereal Killers' is one of those things that happens from time to time: a ludicrous idea that, for some unfathomable reason, takes off with a a particular group and suddenly snowballs into a phenomenon. The complete idiocy of such a venture attracted much media attention (and, therefore, free publicity) and virtually guaranteed great footfall for the establishment. Like many culinary trends (and I wince as I include the serving of breakfast cereals the list of 'culinary' activities), this will have its moment and then vanish. Another current food trend is to serve food on anything other than plates: wellington boots full of chips; steak with a sauce on a slate; steak served under a nest of barbed wire. This is the nouvelle cuisine du nos jours. It is hateful, pointless and nothing to do with enhancing the enjoyment of food but it will soon fade into deserved oblivion.
When Class War decided to attack 'Cereal Killers' with paint and, I believe, fire (I have a vision of the mob in the old 'Frankenstein' movie: all burning torches advancing on the castle), they did so to protest the gentrification of the area. This is duff logic, surely? If an area has reached a state where it can sustain, for longer than 10 minutes, a cafe that sells breakfast cereals, then I would respectfully submit that the gentrification is well underway because the lunatics have arleady taken over the asylum. How many local estate agents selling 'bijoux' terraced homes, once affordable family homes but now the preserve of the latte-drinking chatterati, were attacked in this protest? How many 'buy-to-let' landlords looking for the big bucks that the poorest can't provide were targeted? Was the local council questioned over their seeming inability to enforce a 35% affordable housing requirement in new housing developments? Was the Mayor of London taken to task for allowing property to be bought hand-over-fist by absentee owners? Gentrification is about pricing the working/lower middle classes out of the market in that area, something that would seem to have already happened or be well-established in Shoreditch. Attacking businesses where people with more money than sense go to spend their income will not bring about social change: burning down Fortnum & Mason will not feed the poor or collapse the monarchy. There again, Class War have always been bigger on gesture than they have on effecting outcomes…
'Cereal Killers' are not, as a friend of mine said, 'Alan Sugar's shock troops, the advance guard of Richard Branson's Virgin invasion fleet' (sorry, Geoff). They are a cople of guys who have realised that there are people in their local area who are willing to spend silly money on stupid things. They are not promoting gentrification, they are exploiting it. Pick your targets, Class War.
'Cereal Killers' is one of those things that happens from time to time: a ludicrous idea that, for some unfathomable reason, takes off with a a particular group and suddenly snowballs into a phenomenon. The complete idiocy of such a venture attracted much media attention (and, therefore, free publicity) and virtually guaranteed great footfall for the establishment. Like many culinary trends (and I wince as I include the serving of breakfast cereals the list of 'culinary' activities), this will have its moment and then vanish. Another current food trend is to serve food on anything other than plates: wellington boots full of chips; steak with a sauce on a slate; steak served under a nest of barbed wire. This is the nouvelle cuisine du nos jours. It is hateful, pointless and nothing to do with enhancing the enjoyment of food but it will soon fade into deserved oblivion.
When Class War decided to attack 'Cereal Killers' with paint and, I believe, fire (I have a vision of the mob in the old 'Frankenstein' movie: all burning torches advancing on the castle), they did so to protest the gentrification of the area. This is duff logic, surely? If an area has reached a state where it can sustain, for longer than 10 minutes, a cafe that sells breakfast cereals, then I would respectfully submit that the gentrification is well underway because the lunatics have arleady taken over the asylum. How many local estate agents selling 'bijoux' terraced homes, once affordable family homes but now the preserve of the latte-drinking chatterati, were attacked in this protest? How many 'buy-to-let' landlords looking for the big bucks that the poorest can't provide were targeted? Was the local council questioned over their seeming inability to enforce a 35% affordable housing requirement in new housing developments? Was the Mayor of London taken to task for allowing property to be bought hand-over-fist by absentee owners? Gentrification is about pricing the working/lower middle classes out of the market in that area, something that would seem to have already happened or be well-established in Shoreditch. Attacking businesses where people with more money than sense go to spend their income will not bring about social change: burning down Fortnum & Mason will not feed the poor or collapse the monarchy. There again, Class War have always been bigger on gesture than they have on effecting outcomes…
'Cereal Killers' are not, as a friend of mine said, 'Alan Sugar's shock troops, the advance guard of Richard Branson's Virgin invasion fleet' (sorry, Geoff). They are a cople of guys who have realised that there are people in their local area who are willing to spend silly money on stupid things. They are not promoting gentrification, they are exploiting it. Pick your targets, Class War.
Monday, 24 August 2015
Thank you Mr Sorkin
Another boxset has bitten the dust. Yesterday we binge-watched episodes 10-22 of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin's brilliant show set backstage of a late night comedy sketch show (just like Saturday Night Live, in fact). Again, there was that sense of loss as the credits rolled on the last episode but, this time, that loss is all the greater as we have now watched all of Mr Sorkin's TV output as a writer: Sportsnight, The Newsroom, The West Wing and now, Studio 60. Aaron Sorkin's thing is dialogue: whip-crack sharp, brilliant dialogue. Sure, it's often slightly preachy liberal dialogue, but I love it. The verbal rhythms, the actors he uses to deliver the lines, the contaxts in which he explores wider issues are all sheer genius to my mind. And, for now at least, that genius is missing from our screens.
Sorkin writes for television as if the medium has worth and the viewers of that medium are not dumbed-down, infantalised and passive consumers. His writing is saying that we can do so much better than endless talent shows and celebrity gee-gaws: we can be entertained and think a bit at the same time. Revolutionary stuff, huh? As one of his characters in Studio 60 puts it, 'the people who watch TV are no dumber than the people who make it'. No lesser person than Quentin Tarrantino recognises the brilliance of Sorkin's writing as he states in this quote:
However, brilliant dialogue delivered by great actors as part of interesting story lines are still not enough to win the day. Studio 60 was lauded by critics who saw the pilot episode and 13 million viewers watched when it aired. By episode 3, that was down to 9 million, still a massive number to you or I but a loss of one third of viewers overnight became the blood in the water that attracted the critical sharks. Advertisers, the life blood of the majority of US TV, began to drift away while the network who screened it in the States, NBC, put two hiatuses into the run, further breaking up viewer 'loyalty'. The 22 episodes that were made became the first and only series of Studio 60, the only one of Sorkin's TV shows not to get a second (or more) season. Interestingly, an article in the Guardian that appeared when Studio 60 was about to air in the UK in 2007 noted that in the States, many viewers were watching episodes that they had recorded to view later. At that time, viewings made in this way did not get included in the ratings. Had they been taken into account, the 'low' viewer numbers might have looked a whole lot healthier and Season 2 might have made it to screen. Perhaps it was just ahead of its time?
At this time, Sorkin has said he is "unlikely" to write for television again. Having scripted several successful films, he has no need to write for the small screen. Unfortunately, that makes the small screen even smaller to my mind. One fewer passionate, liberal and intelligent writer in TV land leaves us at the mercy of the celeb and talent schlock that is the new bear-bating for the 21st century. I'm sorry that he has made that choice but, boy, did he leave us with some gems!
Sorkin writes for television as if the medium has worth and the viewers of that medium are not dumbed-down, infantalised and passive consumers. His writing is saying that we can do so much better than endless talent shows and celebrity gee-gaws: we can be entertained and think a bit at the same time. Revolutionary stuff, huh? As one of his characters in Studio 60 puts it, 'the people who watch TV are no dumber than the people who make it'. No lesser person than Quentin Tarrantino recognises the brilliance of Sorkin's writing as he states in this quote:
However, brilliant dialogue delivered by great actors as part of interesting story lines are still not enough to win the day. Studio 60 was lauded by critics who saw the pilot episode and 13 million viewers watched when it aired. By episode 3, that was down to 9 million, still a massive number to you or I but a loss of one third of viewers overnight became the blood in the water that attracted the critical sharks. Advertisers, the life blood of the majority of US TV, began to drift away while the network who screened it in the States, NBC, put two hiatuses into the run, further breaking up viewer 'loyalty'. The 22 episodes that were made became the first and only series of Studio 60, the only one of Sorkin's TV shows not to get a second (or more) season. Interestingly, an article in the Guardian that appeared when Studio 60 was about to air in the UK in 2007 noted that in the States, many viewers were watching episodes that they had recorded to view later. At that time, viewings made in this way did not get included in the ratings. Had they been taken into account, the 'low' viewer numbers might have looked a whole lot healthier and Season 2 might have made it to screen. Perhaps it was just ahead of its time?
At this time, Sorkin has said he is "unlikely" to write for television again. Having scripted several successful films, he has no need to write for the small screen. Unfortunately, that makes the small screen even smaller to my mind. One fewer passionate, liberal and intelligent writer in TV land leaves us at the mercy of the celeb and talent schlock that is the new bear-bating for the 21st century. I'm sorry that he has made that choice but, boy, did he leave us with some gems!
Thursday, 16 July 2015
The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 3
It was quite hard to leave the villa: it was such a perfect spot that saying goodbye to it was quite a wrench. Couldn't we stay just another couple of days? After squeezing our cases into the back of the car, we set off for Arrone, a point about half way between the villa and Rome. On the way, we stopped off in Assisi. As we approached, we could see that the massive Basillica di Francesco d'Assisi dominates one 'end' of the town. Parking well below the level of the streets we would be visiting, we start our ascent by stairs then escalators until we are delivered onto the street. Assisi is a busy town, its population swelled by tourists and pilgrims, St Francis being both an important saint within the Catholic Church and, therefore, the main reason this town is a major tourist attraction in this part of Italy. Consequently, the visitors to the tomb of St Francis below the basillica are a mixture of tourist gawkers (me) and the deeply pious, the latter stopping to pray in the basillica before praying at the site of the tomb. With the numbers of people in the small crypt, it is quite claustrophobic and I am glad when we emerge into the bright light and sit for while on a cool stone bench. As we leave the basillica, we see that a couple are having their wedding photos taken against its magnificent facade. How lucky are they to have such a setting as this? After the obligatory ice creams (gelati - yay!), we head back to the car park. Unfortunately, we choose the wrong route and end up having to tramp up a murderous incline in the midday heat. I return to the car sweaty and a bit grumpy.
We set off for one more stop, the small town of Spello to see the frescoes in the church that featured in an episode of 'Unpacking Italy'. We park outside the centre of the town and proceed on foot and, yes, it is uphill all the way. When we reach the church, we are confronted with a small sign that explains that the church closed (for lunch, presumably) and will reopen at 3.30pm, giving us almost an hour to wait. We decide that we will pass on the frescoes and make our way to the accommodation in Arrone. We arrive in the centre of the town and puzzle as to where the guest house is: the sat nav is not giving any clear signals as to where we should go. Two of our number head off up a very narrow street which seemed promising and, a while later come back reporting that the guest house is up there, but there is no parking space: we will have to lug cases up the (steep) hill. But of course - all uphill today! After throwing the cases into the room, E and I head out to look for restaurants. My first choice turns out to be a little way outside town and would involve driving, so that is a 'no'. The second choice, we can't find: we seem to being sent onto a small housing estate, an unlikely place to put a restaurant, so that is also out. That leaves really only one restaurant in the town, indicated by a little hand painted sign that says 'Dream King'. It's an unlikely name for a restaurant but, hey, beggars can't be choosers. It turns out to be very, very good food. We are the only customers and the place is in serious need of a makeover, but the bit that counts - what turns up on our plates - is done really well. And to top it all, the bill at the end is tiny! We head back to the guest house but, before going to bed, E and I go further up the road, past the guest house and emerge into the old walled town that sits on top of the hill. The narrow cobbled streets, the side arches that hide lines of ancient houses decorated with baskets and tubs of flowers are all slightly surreal, like something from a film set. A nice find.
The next morning, we head for the Cascata delle Marmore, a spectacular set of waterfalls created by the Romans and now the tallest man-made falls in Europe. They really are a pretty sight. They do not have the vast size and power of Niagara but they have their own magic. We go near to the top of the falls and get very wet. I had scoffed at the plastic ponchos being sold down below and only now do I get it: they are not for rain showers, they are for the constant fine spray that creates beautiful mini rainbows while soaking everything around it. The camera, therefore, spends most of the visit packed in its case. When we are headed back to the car park, E notices that she has lost the lens cap for her camera. I suggest she retraces her steps for a while and see if it turns up. She does so and returns, relieved, about ten minutes later with the cap. Camera loss - Strike 1.
Returning to Rome, we drop the car back at the airport and take a cab into Rome to our hotel that is conveniently situated just round the corner from The Vatican City, the site we will be visiting on Tuesday. On the Monday, Paul and Dawn go to visit the Forum while E and I take a trip around the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza de Navone. The Pantheon is a spectacular space, the huge dome with the window at its apex that allows a shaft of sunlight to pierce the space below - very dramatic! The Piazza is also an amazing space, packed with sculpted gods and monsters that decorate a series of small fountains. As for the Steps and the Trevi… scaffolding! The Trevi Fountain is dry and almost completely boarded up - nothing to see there - and the Spanish Steps head upwards and climax in a massive advert hanging from the scaffolding that conceals the crowning monument and buildings behind it. Slightly disappointing. Less disappointing were the clerical socks that I got from a religious outfitters near to the Pantheon! Fit for a cardinal - one pair red and the other a lovely purple. In the afternoon, we decided to have a beer. There was a bar next to the hotel with three tables outside and that seemed a good place to refresh after the days tramping round. We had a couple of beers then decided to drop the cameras off in the hotel before heading out to explore a bit more. The next morning, E realised that her camera is nowhere to be found in the hotel room. Mine is still there so theft is unlikely. The only place where it could be is the little bar a few doors up and what is the liklihood of it having been handed in? After breakfast I checked that the bar was open and, on finding it was, Paul and E headed out to see if anything had been handed in. A short while later, a very, very, very relieved E returned with the camera: someone had noticed it sitting there by one of the outside tables and had handed it to the barman! Camera loss - Strike 2.
On the Tuesday, we had our guided tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Capel and St Peter's Basillica. All three contain sights that are jaw-dropping. The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine dazzle first in terms of sheer scale, then in their beauty and finally, thanks to a very informative explanation by our guide, in their meaning and significance. The paintings on the walls are not exactly poor either! The sheer opulance of the decoration of the corridors of the Vatican Museum stunned me (albeit there was a fair sprinkling of scaffolding present - especially for us!), while the size and scale of St Peter's leaves the mind reeling. The contrast between what is contained in these three buildings and the interior of the catherdral on Mont St Michel in France is startling: the finery, the splendour, the wealth displayed in the former versus the stark white walls of the latter. Which is the greater monument to faith? Outside St Peter's we found a Swiss Guardsman or two and, of course, had to photograph them. I think the Swiss, back in the day, had rather a reputation for producing fearsome mercenary fighters, hence the choice of them to guard the pontiff. Times change, don't they! As we walked to the far side of St Pete's Square, E noticed that the detachable viewfinder for her camera was missing. Again, retracing our steps, we found it by the barrier where we had photographed the guardsmen. Relief etc. Camera loss - Strike 3: you're outta here!!
So that was it. Amazing sights, some great food and wine (apart from the 'medium' Orvieto bought in error - ugh!), a lovely villa stay and some great memories. Oh, and by some miracle, E still has a complete camera!
We set off for one more stop, the small town of Spello to see the frescoes in the church that featured in an episode of 'Unpacking Italy'. We park outside the centre of the town and proceed on foot and, yes, it is uphill all the way. When we reach the church, we are confronted with a small sign that explains that the church closed (for lunch, presumably) and will reopen at 3.30pm, giving us almost an hour to wait. We decide that we will pass on the frescoes and make our way to the accommodation in Arrone. We arrive in the centre of the town and puzzle as to where the guest house is: the sat nav is not giving any clear signals as to where we should go. Two of our number head off up a very narrow street which seemed promising and, a while later come back reporting that the guest house is up there, but there is no parking space: we will have to lug cases up the (steep) hill. But of course - all uphill today! After throwing the cases into the room, E and I head out to look for restaurants. My first choice turns out to be a little way outside town and would involve driving, so that is a 'no'. The second choice, we can't find: we seem to being sent onto a small housing estate, an unlikely place to put a restaurant, so that is also out. That leaves really only one restaurant in the town, indicated by a little hand painted sign that says 'Dream King'. It's an unlikely name for a restaurant but, hey, beggars can't be choosers. It turns out to be very, very good food. We are the only customers and the place is in serious need of a makeover, but the bit that counts - what turns up on our plates - is done really well. And to top it all, the bill at the end is tiny! We head back to the guest house but, before going to bed, E and I go further up the road, past the guest house and emerge into the old walled town that sits on top of the hill. The narrow cobbled streets, the side arches that hide lines of ancient houses decorated with baskets and tubs of flowers are all slightly surreal, like something from a film set. A nice find.
The next morning, we head for the Cascata delle Marmore, a spectacular set of waterfalls created by the Romans and now the tallest man-made falls in Europe. They really are a pretty sight. They do not have the vast size and power of Niagara but they have their own magic. We go near to the top of the falls and get very wet. I had scoffed at the plastic ponchos being sold down below and only now do I get it: they are not for rain showers, they are for the constant fine spray that creates beautiful mini rainbows while soaking everything around it. The camera, therefore, spends most of the visit packed in its case. When we are headed back to the car park, E notices that she has lost the lens cap for her camera. I suggest she retraces her steps for a while and see if it turns up. She does so and returns, relieved, about ten minutes later with the cap. Camera loss - Strike 1.
Returning to Rome, we drop the car back at the airport and take a cab into Rome to our hotel that is conveniently situated just round the corner from The Vatican City, the site we will be visiting on Tuesday. On the Monday, Paul and Dawn go to visit the Forum while E and I take a trip around the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza de Navone. The Pantheon is a spectacular space, the huge dome with the window at its apex that allows a shaft of sunlight to pierce the space below - very dramatic! The Piazza is also an amazing space, packed with sculpted gods and monsters that decorate a series of small fountains. As for the Steps and the Trevi… scaffolding! The Trevi Fountain is dry and almost completely boarded up - nothing to see there - and the Spanish Steps head upwards and climax in a massive advert hanging from the scaffolding that conceals the crowning monument and buildings behind it. Slightly disappointing. Less disappointing were the clerical socks that I got from a religious outfitters near to the Pantheon! Fit for a cardinal - one pair red and the other a lovely purple. In the afternoon, we decided to have a beer. There was a bar next to the hotel with three tables outside and that seemed a good place to refresh after the days tramping round. We had a couple of beers then decided to drop the cameras off in the hotel before heading out to explore a bit more. The next morning, E realised that her camera is nowhere to be found in the hotel room. Mine is still there so theft is unlikely. The only place where it could be is the little bar a few doors up and what is the liklihood of it having been handed in? After breakfast I checked that the bar was open and, on finding it was, Paul and E headed out to see if anything had been handed in. A short while later, a very, very, very relieved E returned with the camera: someone had noticed it sitting there by one of the outside tables and had handed it to the barman! Camera loss - Strike 2.
On the Tuesday, we had our guided tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Capel and St Peter's Basillica. All three contain sights that are jaw-dropping. The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine dazzle first in terms of sheer scale, then in their beauty and finally, thanks to a very informative explanation by our guide, in their meaning and significance. The paintings on the walls are not exactly poor either! The sheer opulance of the decoration of the corridors of the Vatican Museum stunned me (albeit there was a fair sprinkling of scaffolding present - especially for us!), while the size and scale of St Peter's leaves the mind reeling. The contrast between what is contained in these three buildings and the interior of the catherdral on Mont St Michel in France is startling: the finery, the splendour, the wealth displayed in the former versus the stark white walls of the latter. Which is the greater monument to faith? Outside St Peter's we found a Swiss Guardsman or two and, of course, had to photograph them. I think the Swiss, back in the day, had rather a reputation for producing fearsome mercenary fighters, hence the choice of them to guard the pontiff. Times change, don't they! As we walked to the far side of St Pete's Square, E noticed that the detachable viewfinder for her camera was missing. Again, retracing our steps, we found it by the barrier where we had photographed the guardsmen. Relief etc. Camera loss - Strike 3: you're outta here!!
So that was it. Amazing sights, some great food and wine (apart from the 'medium' Orvieto bought in error - ugh!), a lovely villa stay and some great memories. Oh, and by some miracle, E still has a complete camera!
Tuesday, 7 July 2015
The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 2
The morning following our arrival at the villa, we were able to have a proper look round. The property we were staying in was formerly the grains and crop storage area for a monastery (the main building) and between us and the latter was a small, high-sided chapel. There were apartments available to hire in the main building although no-one would be staying there during our visit. To the side of our building was a decent-sized pool with plenty of space to bake in the sun by its side.
Our home for a week
View to the back (a field of tobacco?)
View to one side. Can just about see the nearest neighbours!
All around the property, there were rosemary plants: not just polite little potted shrubs that we grow in our gardens for some fresh herbs but thick, gnarly, ancient plants that had grown into fragrant hedges. To release the most wonderful smells, one had only to run a hand over their foliage. Needless to say, rosemary featured in one of the meals that we cooked - it would have been rude not to!
Inside, the villa was spacious and pretty well-appointed with a choice of three dining areas: very informal (kitchen), quite informal (a covered area adjoining the kitchen that could be opened onto to the garden) and completely alfresco, the preferred option for meals when it was dry. It has to be admitted here that, alongside the very, very good weather, there were a couple of wet periods. And when I say wet, I mean ‘wet’ as in Noah and the Ark, virtually. In fact, the first day it rained, we suddenly found that quaint properties sometimes have little faults. In this case, some of the seals where a sloping roof butted against a wall were obviously less than sealed and we found water running down the wall, a shower on the main staircase and a lake forming behind one of the sofas in the living room! However, we decided not to panic as a) the floors were all stone tiled, so no wood to warp or rot and b) this was pretty definitely a problem that happened whenever the rains came. Rain is probably inevitable in Umbria as the region is so lushly green. If you are looking for sun 7 days a week, head further south but the colour pallette will not contain such a variety of greens.
All in, it was a relaxing week although we did not stick solely to turning ourselves lobster-red by the pool. We took a day trip out to Gubbio, a lovely medieval town just north of Perugia and, on another day, drove a circuit taking in Lake Trasimeno, Citta della Pieve and Orvieto. Pieve is an old walled town with lots of character and many, many churches. It also claims ’the narrowest alley in Italy’ in Vicolo Baciadonne (Kisswomen Passage) which is less than half a metre wide at its narrowest. Orvieto too is a beautiful town with a striking duomo at its heart, the external colours of which (striped in light and dark stone) reminded me of the duomo in Siena. In fact, the colour palatte of the area is gorgeous: the greenery (numerous woodlands, young crops in the fields, hedges) against the light, sandy-coloured earth, the light rose of building walls, the darker tones of the sun-bleached curved terracotta roof tiles and, standing out aganst all, the bone white of civic and religious infrastructure. However, along with a feast for the eyes comes a test for the muscles, mainly those powering the legs. I thought Ramsbottom was hilly but it has nothing on these towns: everything one might wish to see involves steep ascents on cobbled paths. As you stagger ever upwards, sweating and daring not to look at how far you still need to climb, you need to remain vigilant for cars, vans and, of course, scooters. There are virtually no areas in these old towns that are 'pedestrian only’ as the streets are too narrow to cater for such niceties. You can only pray that God is protecting you, the poor pilgrim, as you progress slowly to the architectural gem that (invariably) sits at the highest point in the region.
One final note: aside from the man-made beauty that we got to see during our week in the villa, there are two memorable moments that were provided by nature. Firstly, sitting outside following a meal, we carried on talking and opened another bottle of wine as the sun went down. Although there were meant to be external lights, we never did find out how to turn them on so, after a time, we found ourselves sitting out with just enough light to enable us to find our wine glasses. Suddenly we saw first one, then two or three and finally, many, many firelies were flitting between plants around us, a magical display of natural fairy lights! Secondly, preceding a storm, we were treated to an hour or more of lightning flashing among the dark clouds of the afternoon sky before we had to move inside as the rain began. That show was good but the sounds that accompanied it were even better: throughout that period, there was virtually no break in the sound of thunder. While the flashes were numerous, they remained discrete, but there was no way of knowing when one thunderclap began and another ended, an endless gigantic ‘grumbling’ in the hills around us. Truly, that was rolling thunder.
Our home for a week
View to the back (a field of tobacco?)
View to one side. Can just about see the nearest neighbours!
All around the property, there were rosemary plants: not just polite little potted shrubs that we grow in our gardens for some fresh herbs but thick, gnarly, ancient plants that had grown into fragrant hedges. To release the most wonderful smells, one had only to run a hand over their foliage. Needless to say, rosemary featured in one of the meals that we cooked - it would have been rude not to!
Inside, the villa was spacious and pretty well-appointed with a choice of three dining areas: very informal (kitchen), quite informal (a covered area adjoining the kitchen that could be opened onto to the garden) and completely alfresco, the preferred option for meals when it was dry. It has to be admitted here that, alongside the very, very good weather, there were a couple of wet periods. And when I say wet, I mean ‘wet’ as in Noah and the Ark, virtually. In fact, the first day it rained, we suddenly found that quaint properties sometimes have little faults. In this case, some of the seals where a sloping roof butted against a wall were obviously less than sealed and we found water running down the wall, a shower on the main staircase and a lake forming behind one of the sofas in the living room! However, we decided not to panic as a) the floors were all stone tiled, so no wood to warp or rot and b) this was pretty definitely a problem that happened whenever the rains came. Rain is probably inevitable in Umbria as the region is so lushly green. If you are looking for sun 7 days a week, head further south but the colour pallette will not contain such a variety of greens.
All in, it was a relaxing week although we did not stick solely to turning ourselves lobster-red by the pool. We took a day trip out to Gubbio, a lovely medieval town just north of Perugia and, on another day, drove a circuit taking in Lake Trasimeno, Citta della Pieve and Orvieto. Pieve is an old walled town with lots of character and many, many churches. It also claims ’the narrowest alley in Italy’ in Vicolo Baciadonne (Kisswomen Passage) which is less than half a metre wide at its narrowest. Orvieto too is a beautiful town with a striking duomo at its heart, the external colours of which (striped in light and dark stone) reminded me of the duomo in Siena. In fact, the colour palatte of the area is gorgeous: the greenery (numerous woodlands, young crops in the fields, hedges) against the light, sandy-coloured earth, the light rose of building walls, the darker tones of the sun-bleached curved terracotta roof tiles and, standing out aganst all, the bone white of civic and religious infrastructure. However, along with a feast for the eyes comes a test for the muscles, mainly those powering the legs. I thought Ramsbottom was hilly but it has nothing on these towns: everything one might wish to see involves steep ascents on cobbled paths. As you stagger ever upwards, sweating and daring not to look at how far you still need to climb, you need to remain vigilant for cars, vans and, of course, scooters. There are virtually no areas in these old towns that are 'pedestrian only’ as the streets are too narrow to cater for such niceties. You can only pray that God is protecting you, the poor pilgrim, as you progress slowly to the architectural gem that (invariably) sits at the highest point in the region.
One final note: aside from the man-made beauty that we got to see during our week in the villa, there are two memorable moments that were provided by nature. Firstly, sitting outside following a meal, we carried on talking and opened another bottle of wine as the sun went down. Although there were meant to be external lights, we never did find out how to turn them on so, after a time, we found ourselves sitting out with just enough light to enable us to find our wine glasses. Suddenly we saw first one, then two or three and finally, many, many firelies were flitting between plants around us, a magical display of natural fairy lights! Secondly, preceding a storm, we were treated to an hour or more of lightning flashing among the dark clouds of the afternoon sky before we had to move inside as the rain began. That show was good but the sounds that accompanied it were even better: throughout that period, there was virtually no break in the sound of thunder. While the flashes were numerous, they remained discrete, but there was no way of knowing when one thunderclap began and another ended, an endless gigantic ‘grumbling’ in the hills around us. Truly, that was rolling thunder.
Friday, 3 July 2015
The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 1
We flew into Rome Fumicino Airport on the Thursday afternoon. Never again will I make negative comments about the time it takes to collect baggage at Manchester Airport: after travelling when all you want to do is get out of the airport and into a shower and a cold beer, a three quarters of an hour wait for cases to appear is the last thing you need. In addition, we had decided that we should get the express train from the airport into Rome and travel two stops on the Metro to get to our hotel: cheap and convenient. Well, it might have been without the suitcases, the heat and the fact that, by the time we rached the platform of the Metro, the rush hour was in full swing. It was like Tokyo in terms of crushing onto the train! In fact, we passed on the first ‘available’ train that stopped as it was full when it arrived and, despite quite a few passengers getting off, remained full before even more people crammed onto it. As that train departed, we moved to the edge of the platform to give ourselves a chance of finding some space on the next one, a minute or so behind. When it arrived we somehow managed to squeeze our cases and ourselves (further encumbered by carry-on luggage and camera cases) into a carriage. And just when the train was definitely full, a few more people dived through the doors as they started to close, the sheer momentum of their arrival allowing them to somehow slip into non-existant spaces between bodies already overly-intimate in thier forced proximity. The beer that night was certainly well-earned.
Friday in Rome
As the hotel was only a short walk from the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum, we decided to use the Friday to explore these monuments. Rome is a place like nowhere else that I have been. London is pretty well-endowed when it comes to having an abundance of history: almost everywhere there are statues, imposing buildings, coats of arms, guardsmen and so forth. However, in the main, London’s tourist hot-spots actually date from the 18th and 19th centuries - Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and so forth. Of course there is the Tower of London with its roots in the Norman conquest, almost 1,000 years ago and, next to it, part of the roman wall that once encircled the city but, for the most part, London reflects the years of Empire and industrial might, a nation ruling a third of the world. Now, just think that some of Rome’s sights are similarly reflective of a glorious past where Rome ruled most of the known world and then consider that their heyday was more than a thousand years before the Norman invasion of Britain and it just makes some of the sights even more jaw-dropping in terms of how they have survived and how they are able to so vividly link us to that distant past (or is it so ‘distant'? - more later).
We arrive at the Colosseum and note that there is some scaffolding up on one side but we are now immune to this (wherever we plan to go, the local response seems to be to shroud that sight in scaffolding and hoardings. I think we should visit Ayers Rock next and see what they do about that!). The exterior is imposing in its height and one can imagine the sense of anticipation that would have been engendered in the approach to such a massive venue whan it was in its pomp. We survey the lines of people waiting to enter. Even the line with pre-booked tickets is enormous and the morning heat is already stifling. As I am about to go off to see if there is a way of booking online via the phone, we are approached by someone offering a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Palantine Hill. Coupled with the fact that it will mean that we get straight into the former, we consider the cost - double the official entrance only rate - to be worth it. It turns out to be very much worth it: the guides are knowledgable and entertaining and getting straight into the Colosseum (following a bit of bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing - hey, it’s Italy!) is definitely worthwhile. In fact the guide in the Colosseum offers some interesting parallels with the current day: gladiators did not fight gladiators (why kill highly-trained, well paid sporting superstars?) but, instead, fought criminals. The whole thing was about propoganda and control: a mix of state-sponsored ‘opium for the people’ as well as making a political point about stepping outside the rules and norms of Rome. Think of it as Big Brother crossed with the Old Bailey...possibly. He also noted that in the Roman Empire, for every Roman citizen, there were an average of five slaves. Consider that today, five-sixths of the world lives in poverty while the final sixth is rich and that the seemingly labour-free life of the Roman citizen - 180 days of leisure each year - is atcually no different to many of our own lives in terms of days that we don’t work. Suddenly ‘ancient’ Rome doea not feel that different to modern Western civilisation. Eventually, when we could face the curse of the selfie-sticks no longer (if you are not being pestered by the street sellers to buy one, you are being stabbed by one or having you way blocked by a group of people guring at an iPhone suspended six feet in the air) we exited the Colosseum and, after lunch (a bottle of beer and a bottle of water each), we headed for Palatine Hill.
Although there were some interesting things to view and stories to be told about the palaces built on the hill, the real moment of drama for me was when we reached a balcony and looked down onto the Forum below. There, in a relatively small space (a half mile from end-to-end?), was crammed so much surviving infrastucure from the glory of the Roman Empire that I found the experience of reaching that lip and looking down upon it to be similar to my first view of the Grand Canyon: no photo could ever do it justice, could capture the magnificance of what is laid out before you. Though what remains is incomplete, there is enough to convey the importance and grandeur of this spot that sat at the heart of the Empire. I have attached a couple of photos which merely give an idea of the sight.
Saturday
In the morning, we take a taxi from the hotel back to the airport to collect the hire car for our trip into Umbria and to pick up Elaine’s brother, Paul, and his partner Dawn who are staying with us in the villa we have arranged, three hours outside Rome. Bad news starts to filter through as we set off for the airport. Their flight has been delayed a little but things will soon be back on track. In fact, their flight which was due to land in Rome at 10:30-ish, actually lands nearer to 2:30 pm and then takes one-and-a-half hours to unload the baggage meaning that we don’t set off from Rome until four in the afternoon! Consequently, our arrival at the villa (originally communicated to the owners as being around three o’clock to allow for a spot of lunch and a supermarket shop on the way) actually happens at nearly 8 in the evening. We are all stressed, tired, hungry and thirsty. As beer is consumed and the decompression following Rome’s noise and action begins to kick in, we put together a simple meal and relax into our new surroundings.
Friday in Rome
As the hotel was only a short walk from the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum, we decided to use the Friday to explore these monuments. Rome is a place like nowhere else that I have been. London is pretty well-endowed when it comes to having an abundance of history: almost everywhere there are statues, imposing buildings, coats of arms, guardsmen and so forth. However, in the main, London’s tourist hot-spots actually date from the 18th and 19th centuries - Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and so forth. Of course there is the Tower of London with its roots in the Norman conquest, almost 1,000 years ago and, next to it, part of the roman wall that once encircled the city but, for the most part, London reflects the years of Empire and industrial might, a nation ruling a third of the world. Now, just think that some of Rome’s sights are similarly reflective of a glorious past where Rome ruled most of the known world and then consider that their heyday was more than a thousand years before the Norman invasion of Britain and it just makes some of the sights even more jaw-dropping in terms of how they have survived and how they are able to so vividly link us to that distant past (or is it so ‘distant'? - more later).
We arrive at the Colosseum and note that there is some scaffolding up on one side but we are now immune to this (wherever we plan to go, the local response seems to be to shroud that sight in scaffolding and hoardings. I think we should visit Ayers Rock next and see what they do about that!). The exterior is imposing in its height and one can imagine the sense of anticipation that would have been engendered in the approach to such a massive venue whan it was in its pomp. We survey the lines of people waiting to enter. Even the line with pre-booked tickets is enormous and the morning heat is already stifling. As I am about to go off to see if there is a way of booking online via the phone, we are approached by someone offering a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Palantine Hill. Coupled with the fact that it will mean that we get straight into the former, we consider the cost - double the official entrance only rate - to be worth it. It turns out to be very much worth it: the guides are knowledgable and entertaining and getting straight into the Colosseum (following a bit of bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing - hey, it’s Italy!) is definitely worthwhile. In fact the guide in the Colosseum offers some interesting parallels with the current day: gladiators did not fight gladiators (why kill highly-trained, well paid sporting superstars?) but, instead, fought criminals. The whole thing was about propoganda and control: a mix of state-sponsored ‘opium for the people’ as well as making a political point about stepping outside the rules and norms of Rome. Think of it as Big Brother crossed with the Old Bailey...possibly. He also noted that in the Roman Empire, for every Roman citizen, there were an average of five slaves. Consider that today, five-sixths of the world lives in poverty while the final sixth is rich and that the seemingly labour-free life of the Roman citizen - 180 days of leisure each year - is atcually no different to many of our own lives in terms of days that we don’t work. Suddenly ‘ancient’ Rome doea not feel that different to modern Western civilisation. Eventually, when we could face the curse of the selfie-sticks no longer (if you are not being pestered by the street sellers to buy one, you are being stabbed by one or having you way blocked by a group of people guring at an iPhone suspended six feet in the air) we exited the Colosseum and, after lunch (a bottle of beer and a bottle of water each), we headed for Palatine Hill.
Although there were some interesting things to view and stories to be told about the palaces built on the hill, the real moment of drama for me was when we reached a balcony and looked down onto the Forum below. There, in a relatively small space (a half mile from end-to-end?), was crammed so much surviving infrastucure from the glory of the Roman Empire that I found the experience of reaching that lip and looking down upon it to be similar to my first view of the Grand Canyon: no photo could ever do it justice, could capture the magnificance of what is laid out before you. Though what remains is incomplete, there is enough to convey the importance and grandeur of this spot that sat at the heart of the Empire. I have attached a couple of photos which merely give an idea of the sight.
Saturday
In the morning, we take a taxi from the hotel back to the airport to collect the hire car for our trip into Umbria and to pick up Elaine’s brother, Paul, and his partner Dawn who are staying with us in the villa we have arranged, three hours outside Rome. Bad news starts to filter through as we set off for the airport. Their flight has been delayed a little but things will soon be back on track. In fact, their flight which was due to land in Rome at 10:30-ish, actually lands nearer to 2:30 pm and then takes one-and-a-half hours to unload the baggage meaning that we don’t set off from Rome until four in the afternoon! Consequently, our arrival at the villa (originally communicated to the owners as being around three o’clock to allow for a spot of lunch and a supermarket shop on the way) actually happens at nearly 8 in the evening. We are all stressed, tired, hungry and thirsty. As beer is consumed and the decompression following Rome’s noise and action begins to kick in, we put together a simple meal and relax into our new surroundings.
Thursday, 4 June 2015
A pill for tea
Every so often, the ‘science fiction’ idea of being able to eat a nutritionally-balanced meal just by taking a pill will raise its puritanical head. It was a staple of sci-fi writers back in the day when technological advance would free us from the drudgery of having to cook and then eat real food: after all, why bother if you can just take a pill? The idea still appears from time to time and is usually to be found on the front page of a less reputable tabloid (e.g. the Daily Express, the purveyor of so much charlatanism and bullshit pseudo-science). Why peel, chop, slice, dice, boil, steam, grill and fry when you can simply pop a pill out of its pre-sealed blister pack and have a three course meal with a simple swallow of a mouthful of water?
The idea of food having so little cultural significance, so little pleasure associated with the rutuals of shopping, preparing, cooking and eating is truly bizarre to my mind. A home-made meal, even if it turns out slightly less pretty that the photo accompanying the recipe you followed religiously is still a thing to take pride in, to enjoy. And it is even better if you are sharing you culinary triumph with someone else: food has an important social aspect too. It brings us together around a table to eat - yes, of course - but also to talk, to share, to laugh. In some situations, food may have to take on a lesser meaning, to be stripped back to it’s basic raison d’être - to provide fuel for the body. I have a friend who was instructed in the ways of ‘food is fuel’ on his first overnight manoeuvres in the army. They were served meat and potatoes followed by sponge pudding as a dessert. However, custard accompanied the meat course and gravy was ladled onto the sponge pud! In order to survive the rigours of the following day, the food had to be eaten, regardless of how it tasted. I can understand that, in the midst of battle or yomping across miles of territory, stopping to prepare a banquet where the men can engage in a bit of social interaction is not really practical. Meals, under such circumstances, are about supplying the body with fuel for the next day. However, the side effect of this utilitarian approach to food has stayed with him: food for him should be as simple and nutritious as possible without any fanfare, bells or whistles.
I enjoy cooking and matters culinary. Cooking programmes such as Masterchef are about the only ‘reality’ shows that interest me and I can almost stand James Martin on Saturday Morning Kitchen...almost. I am not about to over-sell my cooking skills, however. I can cook but there is no way that I would want to do it even vaguely as a way of earning money. The work is hard, the hours long and when you’ve finished, you get to start on the clearing up and clean-down. Definitely not for me! Neither am I going to indulge in the clchés that are trotted out each season in Masterchef: “Cooking is my passion!”; “I’ve put my heart onto that plate”; “I’ve always wanted to cook professionally” (so why didn’t you?) etc. I just like to cook. It is therapeutic (chopping, tenderising meat), relaxing (Radio 4 on in the background, glass of wine) and ultimately satisfying as is the case with any process that involves making something from scratch. We also have an extensive library of cooking porn: those glossy cookbooks full of fabulous recipes that you haven’t cooked yet (and probably never will) but just look so good in the photos!
Just as control of our weight cannot be gained through popping a pill in the cakehole, despite what headlines in the Express or adverts in many magazines or all over the internet may say, so eating cannot currently be reduced to a pharmaceutical transaction, thankfully! Only those who are ridiculously time-poor or are hardcore ‘food-is-fuel’ puritans could ever embrace the meal-in-a-pill concept: it is joyless, inhuman and boring. It would be the equivalent of living life entirely through books or TV: yes, we may learn much about life that way, but we could never claim to have truly lived that life in all its imperfect glory. Get cooking people!
The idea of food having so little cultural significance, so little pleasure associated with the rutuals of shopping, preparing, cooking and eating is truly bizarre to my mind. A home-made meal, even if it turns out slightly less pretty that the photo accompanying the recipe you followed religiously is still a thing to take pride in, to enjoy. And it is even better if you are sharing you culinary triumph with someone else: food has an important social aspect too. It brings us together around a table to eat - yes, of course - but also to talk, to share, to laugh. In some situations, food may have to take on a lesser meaning, to be stripped back to it’s basic raison d’être - to provide fuel for the body. I have a friend who was instructed in the ways of ‘food is fuel’ on his first overnight manoeuvres in the army. They were served meat and potatoes followed by sponge pudding as a dessert. However, custard accompanied the meat course and gravy was ladled onto the sponge pud! In order to survive the rigours of the following day, the food had to be eaten, regardless of how it tasted. I can understand that, in the midst of battle or yomping across miles of territory, stopping to prepare a banquet where the men can engage in a bit of social interaction is not really practical. Meals, under such circumstances, are about supplying the body with fuel for the next day. However, the side effect of this utilitarian approach to food has stayed with him: food for him should be as simple and nutritious as possible without any fanfare, bells or whistles.
I enjoy cooking and matters culinary. Cooking programmes such as Masterchef are about the only ‘reality’ shows that interest me and I can almost stand James Martin on Saturday Morning Kitchen...almost. I am not about to over-sell my cooking skills, however. I can cook but there is no way that I would want to do it even vaguely as a way of earning money. The work is hard, the hours long and when you’ve finished, you get to start on the clearing up and clean-down. Definitely not for me! Neither am I going to indulge in the clchés that are trotted out each season in Masterchef: “Cooking is my passion!”; “I’ve put my heart onto that plate”; “I’ve always wanted to cook professionally” (so why didn’t you?) etc. I just like to cook. It is therapeutic (chopping, tenderising meat), relaxing (Radio 4 on in the background, glass of wine) and ultimately satisfying as is the case with any process that involves making something from scratch. We also have an extensive library of cooking porn: those glossy cookbooks full of fabulous recipes that you haven’t cooked yet (and probably never will) but just look so good in the photos!
Just as control of our weight cannot be gained through popping a pill in the cakehole, despite what headlines in the Express or adverts in many magazines or all over the internet may say, so eating cannot currently be reduced to a pharmaceutical transaction, thankfully! Only those who are ridiculously time-poor or are hardcore ‘food-is-fuel’ puritans could ever embrace the meal-in-a-pill concept: it is joyless, inhuman and boring. It would be the equivalent of living life entirely through books or TV: yes, we may learn much about life that way, but we could never claim to have truly lived that life in all its imperfect glory. Get cooking people!
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
A Good Read
I have just finished reading Under the Dome, a novel by Stephen King. Now, I am by no means a Stephen King aficionado: I have read only one other book by him (Christine) although I have seen a few films based on his stories (Christine, Carrie, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery). This is probably because, although many might argue, King is often categorised as a ‘horror’ writer or, at a stretch, a fantasy writer, two genres of which I am not a massive fan. However, ever since UtD was published in 2009, I had been intrigued by the premise (a typical small US town suddenly finds itself cut off from the rest of the country by, in effect, being placed under a vast unbreakable bell-jar: nothing can get in and nothing can get out) and wondered where he would take the story from that starting point. Having now finished the book, I am sorry that it took me quite so long to get around to reading it.
The story seems to work on several levels. Imagine Kafka’s novels Metamorphosis and The Trial but, instead of poor Gregor alone waking up in an alien state or K’s bewilderment in trying to deal with a faceless tyranny, a whole community is turned upside down in a second with the small municipal powerbases, fairly meaningless in normal day-to-day life, suddenly taking on sinister and very significant meaning for some unfortunate members of that community. It creates a microcosm, a petri-dish, if you will, in which we can study: the potential global environmental disaster that we fossil fuel addicts face playing out to its terrifying conclusion; an America where resources are becoming scarce and and what the citizens in control of those dwindling stocks will do to retain that control; a neat riff on the Lord of the Flies story, ripped from its Pacific island setting and plonked down in Maine (where, unsurprisingly, the outcomes are broadly similar); a little fun with fundamentalist Christians and those who have lost their faith; and the idea of ‘worlds-within-worlds’ (if we tread on an ant, what if there is something 'out there' that sees us as mere ants....). It is a long book and it has a massive cast of characters (sometimes a little difficult to keep track of) but it never really sags. King says in the ‘Author’s Note’ that he wanted to write a “pedal-to-the-metal” novel and he has certainly achieved this aim. Becuase the timescale in which events happen is relatively short, it feels pressurised, claustrophobic, sweaty - all the feelings that his characters feel as the tensions and hardships ratchet up across the course of a week. It definitely keeps the pages turning without resorting to every chapter being two pages long (Dan Brown - I’m looking at you!) and I like the fact that a song (James McMurty’s ‘Small Town’) and a key line from it (“It’s a small town and we all support the team”) is referenced several times. This despite the fact that C&W music is not the main force in town: the Christian radio station WCIK (or "Jesus Radio”) and its 24-hour diet of hymns and gospels dominates the town’s airwaves. The fact that the entire operation is automated and on an endless loop is a comment in itself...
I wouldn’t call it a criticism but, for some, the descriptions of some of the deaths and injuries inflicted by various weapons are gleefully gory. That said, King is writing in the horror genre so - hey! - you know what to expect and what you do or do not like. Similarly, with such a big book having been written in a comparatively short time (480 days, apparently), it does mean that there are going to be a few clunky or pulpy lines in there but, overall, I’d still say that, in literary worth, it is head and shoulders above anything else that you might choose to pick up at an airport for holiday reading (although, given its length and that it starts with a plane crash, maybe it wouldn’t be an ideal airport purchase). In a plot that was intriguing, well-paced and thought through, there were plenty of good lines, some that made me laugh and some that brought a tear. That’s all I ask from a good story.
By way of an experiment, about half-way through the book, I watched the first episode of the TV series ‘based on’ UtD. Apart from the fact that the book and the show share a name, a few characters have the same names as characters in the book (although, bizarrely, are not the characters they share their names with) and there is a dome, it is a completely different kettle of fish. Apparently, it is just about to start its third season, so the ‘pressurised’ feel of the book is definitely not something the TV producers have aimed to reproduce.
The story seems to work on several levels. Imagine Kafka’s novels Metamorphosis and The Trial but, instead of poor Gregor alone waking up in an alien state or K’s bewilderment in trying to deal with a faceless tyranny, a whole community is turned upside down in a second with the small municipal powerbases, fairly meaningless in normal day-to-day life, suddenly taking on sinister and very significant meaning for some unfortunate members of that community. It creates a microcosm, a petri-dish, if you will, in which we can study: the potential global environmental disaster that we fossil fuel addicts face playing out to its terrifying conclusion; an America where resources are becoming scarce and and what the citizens in control of those dwindling stocks will do to retain that control; a neat riff on the Lord of the Flies story, ripped from its Pacific island setting and plonked down in Maine (where, unsurprisingly, the outcomes are broadly similar); a little fun with fundamentalist Christians and those who have lost their faith; and the idea of ‘worlds-within-worlds’ (if we tread on an ant, what if there is something 'out there' that sees us as mere ants....). It is a long book and it has a massive cast of characters (sometimes a little difficult to keep track of) but it never really sags. King says in the ‘Author’s Note’ that he wanted to write a “pedal-to-the-metal” novel and he has certainly achieved this aim. Becuase the timescale in which events happen is relatively short, it feels pressurised, claustrophobic, sweaty - all the feelings that his characters feel as the tensions and hardships ratchet up across the course of a week. It definitely keeps the pages turning without resorting to every chapter being two pages long (Dan Brown - I’m looking at you!) and I like the fact that a song (James McMurty’s ‘Small Town’) and a key line from it (“It’s a small town and we all support the team”) is referenced several times. This despite the fact that C&W music is not the main force in town: the Christian radio station WCIK (or "Jesus Radio”) and its 24-hour diet of hymns and gospels dominates the town’s airwaves. The fact that the entire operation is automated and on an endless loop is a comment in itself...
I wouldn’t call it a criticism but, for some, the descriptions of some of the deaths and injuries inflicted by various weapons are gleefully gory. That said, King is writing in the horror genre so - hey! - you know what to expect and what you do or do not like. Similarly, with such a big book having been written in a comparatively short time (480 days, apparently), it does mean that there are going to be a few clunky or pulpy lines in there but, overall, I’d still say that, in literary worth, it is head and shoulders above anything else that you might choose to pick up at an airport for holiday reading (although, given its length and that it starts with a plane crash, maybe it wouldn’t be an ideal airport purchase). In a plot that was intriguing, well-paced and thought through, there were plenty of good lines, some that made me laugh and some that brought a tear. That’s all I ask from a good story.
By way of an experiment, about half-way through the book, I watched the first episode of the TV series ‘based on’ UtD. Apart from the fact that the book and the show share a name, a few characters have the same names as characters in the book (although, bizarrely, are not the characters they share their names with) and there is a dome, it is a completely different kettle of fish. Apparently, it is just about to start its third season, so the ‘pressurised’ feel of the book is definitely not something the TV producers have aimed to reproduce.
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
The Streets of London
Elaine recently got an invite to a reunion lunch with Boots staff that she used to work with in Croydon twenty-odd years ago. The meal was to happen on a Sunday in central London and originally she had thought about commuting there and back on the same day, something she had done for the first of these reunions around a year ago. However, after a bit of research into hotel and train costs (need to be a little more parsimonious as a pensioner!), we decided to make a weekend of it and both travel down on Saturday morning, stay overnight and return on Sunday evening. We booked a hotel and a table at a restaurant for Saturday night with the intention that we could get around and see a few things on Saturday and Sunday morning, after which Elaine could go to her reunion meal and I could...well, do whatever for a few hours.
Travelling down was great: the 8:35 train from Piccadilly is a good option - not too early, yet early enough to leave most of Saturday available to sightsee/shop/watch the world go by. After dropping off the bags at the hotel, we set off to do touristy stuff. However, such touristy stuff normally happens in central London or the West End. This time, we were heading east and trying out Docklands and the area around the O2.
There is still much building and remodelling going on in Docklands. Certainly, the chill wind of austerity seems to be blowing rather warmer over this part of London. After traveling on the Docklands Light Railway (a first for us) to Canary Wharf and negotiating a building site, we managed to work our way down amongst the offices and shops that fill the area. There is definitely another world going on down in London! We came a cross a large subterranean shopping mall which was populated, in the main, by very upmarket brands. In fact, when I saw a branch of River Island I thought it seemed completely out of place, a retail pony amongst a paddock full of sleek, expensive thoroughbreds. As Elaine noted, the branch of Boots (hey, even bankers need cold remedies and prescriptions dispensed) carried franchises for Chanel and Clarins, something that a Boots of this size would never normally be granted. There was definitely money down here beneath the London streets.
Returning to the street level, we took a river taxi to North Greenwich, site of the O2. “River taxi” makes it sound quaint - a small boat that ambles politely along the Thames perhaps? No, this is a huge catamaran that seats more than 100 passengers and it provides a fabulously different way of looking at the capital. The ticket we had bought also included a ‘flight’ on the Emirates Airline, a cablecar across the Thames. After a nostalgic look round the O2 site (we were last there 15 years ago when it was still the Milennium Dome), we walked across to the the cablecar station. The ride across is fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to all visitors to London. At to top of the ‘flight’, you are 93 meters above the river and the view is wonderful (especially with the great weather that we had that day). Again, it gives a different view of a city that you think you know well. We rounded off the flight with a couple of beers on a converted lighter boat moored on one of the old docks where we watched water skiers practice using a pulley system rather than the traditional speedboat to drag them back and forth along the dock.
That evening, we explored Tower Bridge and environs (wow! I’d forgotten how many overseas visitors London gets - and quite how many are from Italy!) before heading to a pub for a preprandial libation in a very trendy pub. It is a strange fact of getting older. I recall being in a hotel in the Lake District on the day before Diana’s funeral in 1997 and looking around the dining room, realising that we were the youngest couple there by some way. Now, in that pub near to Tower Bridge, we were probably the oldest couple by 15-20 years! Sic transit gloria mundi - hey ho...
The meal that evening was a game of two halves: good cocktails (when they got them right), good food (when they got it right) and great customer service (which we fully tested!). The cocktails: Elaine’s arrived as ordered and was delish. I had ordered a London Gin Martini - basically a classic martini made with London dry gin. What I received was, in fact, just a glass of vermouth. And to make matters worse, not even a dry vermouth! I eventually managed to point this out to the waiter (“You have a martini - this is not what you ordered?” “No - a martini has gin in it, lots of gin”) and my martini, as ordered, duly arrived albeit as I was part-way through the starter. When the mains were brought, mine was fine but Elaine’s consisted of a medium steak (she’d ordered rare) and cold Lyonnaise potatoes. Again, to give them their due, the meal was taken away and replaced with a perfectly cooked version and the manager agreed to comp the wine. When the bill came, however, it featured not only the supposedly free wine but also a completely extraneous pint of lager! Things were not going well. The mistake was pointed out (we were starting to feel bad about calling the waiter over) and the bill revised accordingly. Just as we were getting ready to settle the bill, the second-in-command of the front of house came across with a rather nice bottle of wine, poured two very decent measures and gave them to us with his apologies for the problems we had experienced. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pull some kind of victory from the jaws of a customer service defeat: quickly correct your mistakes and be genuine in your apologies - it goes a mighty long way. Anyhow, I’d like to think the two very large parties the restaurant was dealing with (it was packed) went some way to explaining the problems we encountered and I would still reccommend the Perkin Reveller to anyone staying in the Tower Bridge area.
On Sunday, not wanting to pay £20 (!!!) for the hotel’s version of a full English, we headed to Dishoom in Covent Garden, an eaterie modelled on a Bombay cafe. There were so many intriguing things on the menu for breakfast and I wanted to try them all. What we had was excellent and, judging by the numbers eating there, it is popular because the food is good and reasonably-priced. We then found that the restaurant where Elaine was attend the reunion was three doors down from Dishoom! So, with time to kill, we wandered around. Went to Covent Garden to see the street performers (only two automatons), check if any of the shops that we used to know are still there (one or two are) and generally waste some time. We also had a look around Seven Dials and the streets that radiate from it (still love that area!). Eventually, I left Elaine at her reunion and I headed to sit in a small square in Neal’s Yard to read whilst soaking up the sun. It felt really relaxing - chilling amongst the crowds, a world rushing by as I remained motionless.
I had promised to take a selfie outside the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street so, off I set. I believe that, as part of the ongoing social cleansing of London which is removing all traces of the ‘true’ capital, Denmark Street is to be remodelled so it was probably a good time to see it before it goes the same way as the rest of Soho. Having walked up and down the street a couple of times (it’s not that long), I consulted t’internet as to where the 12 Bar is on Denmark Street only to find that, pre-empting the changes, it has moved to Harrow Road, so no selfie. However, I was able to drool all over the fabulous guitars in the windows all along that street! I didn’t dare enter any of the shops - I might not have been able to restrain my guitar-buying fetish (altough the prices were certainly a buzzkill - £22 grand for a ’67 Strat, anyone?)
17:37 train back from Euston - again, a good time as we were back home for half eight and we had had the whole of Sunday to do stuff. In all, a ‘proper’ two days, rather than the day-plus-a-bit that a weekend trip can sometimes yield. We know we can get the train tickets cheaper in future and we could also stay somewhere cheaper in town so we are thinking that, perhaps, trips to London might be a more regular thing and not just saved for when a Boots reunion is called!
Travelling down was great: the 8:35 train from Piccadilly is a good option - not too early, yet early enough to leave most of Saturday available to sightsee/shop/watch the world go by. After dropping off the bags at the hotel, we set off to do touristy stuff. However, such touristy stuff normally happens in central London or the West End. This time, we were heading east and trying out Docklands and the area around the O2.
There is still much building and remodelling going on in Docklands. Certainly, the chill wind of austerity seems to be blowing rather warmer over this part of London. After traveling on the Docklands Light Railway (a first for us) to Canary Wharf and negotiating a building site, we managed to work our way down amongst the offices and shops that fill the area. There is definitely another world going on down in London! We came a cross a large subterranean shopping mall which was populated, in the main, by very upmarket brands. In fact, when I saw a branch of River Island I thought it seemed completely out of place, a retail pony amongst a paddock full of sleek, expensive thoroughbreds. As Elaine noted, the branch of Boots (hey, even bankers need cold remedies and prescriptions dispensed) carried franchises for Chanel and Clarins, something that a Boots of this size would never normally be granted. There was definitely money down here beneath the London streets.
Returning to the street level, we took a river taxi to North Greenwich, site of the O2. “River taxi” makes it sound quaint - a small boat that ambles politely along the Thames perhaps? No, this is a huge catamaran that seats more than 100 passengers and it provides a fabulously different way of looking at the capital. The ticket we had bought also included a ‘flight’ on the Emirates Airline, a cablecar across the Thames. After a nostalgic look round the O2 site (we were last there 15 years ago when it was still the Milennium Dome), we walked across to the the cablecar station. The ride across is fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to all visitors to London. At to top of the ‘flight’, you are 93 meters above the river and the view is wonderful (especially with the great weather that we had that day). Again, it gives a different view of a city that you think you know well. We rounded off the flight with a couple of beers on a converted lighter boat moored on one of the old docks where we watched water skiers practice using a pulley system rather than the traditional speedboat to drag them back and forth along the dock.
That evening, we explored Tower Bridge and environs (wow! I’d forgotten how many overseas visitors London gets - and quite how many are from Italy!) before heading to a pub for a preprandial libation in a very trendy pub. It is a strange fact of getting older. I recall being in a hotel in the Lake District on the day before Diana’s funeral in 1997 and looking around the dining room, realising that we were the youngest couple there by some way. Now, in that pub near to Tower Bridge, we were probably the oldest couple by 15-20 years! Sic transit gloria mundi - hey ho...
The meal that evening was a game of two halves: good cocktails (when they got them right), good food (when they got it right) and great customer service (which we fully tested!). The cocktails: Elaine’s arrived as ordered and was delish. I had ordered a London Gin Martini - basically a classic martini made with London dry gin. What I received was, in fact, just a glass of vermouth. And to make matters worse, not even a dry vermouth! I eventually managed to point this out to the waiter (“You have a martini - this is not what you ordered?” “No - a martini has gin in it, lots of gin”) and my martini, as ordered, duly arrived albeit as I was part-way through the starter. When the mains were brought, mine was fine but Elaine’s consisted of a medium steak (she’d ordered rare) and cold Lyonnaise potatoes. Again, to give them their due, the meal was taken away and replaced with a perfectly cooked version and the manager agreed to comp the wine. When the bill came, however, it featured not only the supposedly free wine but also a completely extraneous pint of lager! Things were not going well. The mistake was pointed out (we were starting to feel bad about calling the waiter over) and the bill revised accordingly. Just as we were getting ready to settle the bill, the second-in-command of the front of house came across with a rather nice bottle of wine, poured two very decent measures and gave them to us with his apologies for the problems we had experienced. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pull some kind of victory from the jaws of a customer service defeat: quickly correct your mistakes and be genuine in your apologies - it goes a mighty long way. Anyhow, I’d like to think the two very large parties the restaurant was dealing with (it was packed) went some way to explaining the problems we encountered and I would still reccommend the Perkin Reveller to anyone staying in the Tower Bridge area.
On Sunday, not wanting to pay £20 (!!!) for the hotel’s version of a full English, we headed to Dishoom in Covent Garden, an eaterie modelled on a Bombay cafe. There were so many intriguing things on the menu for breakfast and I wanted to try them all. What we had was excellent and, judging by the numbers eating there, it is popular because the food is good and reasonably-priced. We then found that the restaurant where Elaine was attend the reunion was three doors down from Dishoom! So, with time to kill, we wandered around. Went to Covent Garden to see the street performers (only two automatons), check if any of the shops that we used to know are still there (one or two are) and generally waste some time. We also had a look around Seven Dials and the streets that radiate from it (still love that area!). Eventually, I left Elaine at her reunion and I headed to sit in a small square in Neal’s Yard to read whilst soaking up the sun. It felt really relaxing - chilling amongst the crowds, a world rushing by as I remained motionless.
I had promised to take a selfie outside the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street so, off I set. I believe that, as part of the ongoing social cleansing of London which is removing all traces of the ‘true’ capital, Denmark Street is to be remodelled so it was probably a good time to see it before it goes the same way as the rest of Soho. Having walked up and down the street a couple of times (it’s not that long), I consulted t’internet as to where the 12 Bar is on Denmark Street only to find that, pre-empting the changes, it has moved to Harrow Road, so no selfie. However, I was able to drool all over the fabulous guitars in the windows all along that street! I didn’t dare enter any of the shops - I might not have been able to restrain my guitar-buying fetish (altough the prices were certainly a buzzkill - £22 grand for a ’67 Strat, anyone?)
17:37 train back from Euston - again, a good time as we were back home for half eight and we had had the whole of Sunday to do stuff. In all, a ‘proper’ two days, rather than the day-plus-a-bit that a weekend trip can sometimes yield. We know we can get the train tickets cheaper in future and we could also stay somewhere cheaper in town so we are thinking that, perhaps, trips to London might be a more regular thing and not just saved for when a Boots reunion is called!
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Making Your Mind Up
After a seemingly-endless yet curiously anodyne period of campaigning, the moment to actually vote is almost upon us: tomorrow is the 7th May - Election Day!
You can call me dogmatic, a fool, old-school or whatever, but I see no sense in voting anything other than Labour when I cast my vote tomorrow at Ramsbottom Library. The reasons for this choice are (to my mind) simple enough: in their five years in power, the coalition (main partners, the Tories; sleeping - nay, comatose - partners, the Lib-Dems) have done little but break promise after promise - no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, bringing debt under control by the end of the Parliament, no rise in tuition fees, no rise in VAT and so on - in the course of punishing the poor, the vulnerable and the sick whilst lining the pockets of their mates in the banks and big business. We are constantly told about ‘the economic recovery’, yet the average person in the street has seen no rise in wages over the last five years: any such ‘recovery’ seems to have benefitted the owners of the companies but not the workers who staff those companies. The Tories (let’s call a spade a spade: a shotgun marriage between a vicious, snaling lion released from captivity after 13 years and an amiable, bumbling hamster would never be described as ‘a coalition’!) and their allies in the Street of Shame have spent that five years trying to drive a wedge between those of us who do not share their priviledged existence: blame the immigrants, scapegoat the ‘undeserving’ poor (as opposed to those ‘hardworking families’ - i.e. employed) and, most of all, blame the previous Labour government.
David Cameron has spent a copious amount of time reminding people of the deficit that the coalition inherited when they came to power. He even (supposedly) had a copy to hand on the campaign trail this week of the note left by the outgoing Labour administration to say that there was ‘no money left’. Leaving aside that that the note was the kind of jokey note that is always left for the incoming government and the unlikelihood of Cameron carrying it around with him, I can agree with him that the coalition inherited a deficit. Where we disagree is the reason for that deficit. Cameron and his cronies have, from Day 1, banged on about it being Labour’s fault and , as such, an illustration of ‘typical’ Labour mismanagement of budgeting in office. Leaving aside the fact that, upto 2008, Labour were doing very well, thank you, and fiscal ‘mismanagement’ would have been impossible to claim, a little incident came along in that year that screwed everything up for everyone and, boy, do I mean everyone! The global financial crisis that hit in that year toppled some banks, almost toppled many others, brought the Eurozone to the point of collapse and cost an arm and a leg in this country to avoid us becoming an economic basket case. Sub-prime lending and completely reckless investments, begun by US banks but then replicated in this country were behind the crash. It is true that newly-relaxed banking regulations under Labour did not help at all. However, at the time, the Tories actually urged Gordon Brown to go further in relaxing the rules. I think it would be fair to say, therefore, the banking crisis was facilitated by the naivety of politiciancs of all stripes when it came to trusting the banks. However, only Labour is blamed by the Tories: the spendthrift bankers are never mentioned. And that gravy train just keeps rolling...
My personal ‘red line’ is the coalition’s deceitful treatment of the NHS. “No top-down reorganisation of the NHS” trumpeted Cameron pre-election in 2010. Equally, there was no mention of any NHS reorganisation in the party’s manifesto. However, almost immediately after coming to power, the coalition embarked on the biggest top-down reorganisation of the NHS since its inception in 1948. At a cost of some £3 billion (a conservative estimate), the NHS was transformed from a fairly bureaucratic but understandable structure into an even more bureaucratic structure. Tiers of management were stripped out and replaced by addtional layers of managers! Overnight, people who had worked in the NHS for years suddenly found they had no idea who was responsible for certain services. If it was bad for NHS employees, just think how patients and members of the public felt! And, to cap it all, on the eve of the election, the re-organisations have been largely abandoned as an unworkable and unwanted change. £3 billion wasted in a time of so-called austerity.
There are many other awful decisions by the coalition I could cite (the Bedroom Tax, employing IDS in the cabinet etc.) but I don’t want to waste more time on such obvious targets. So, the Tories and their corpse bride, the Lib-Dems, are out as voting options. UKIP are the neanderthal wing of the Tory party who, seemingly, have noting to offer beyond stopping immigration and getting out of the EU. If these two things don’t happen, then they have absolutely no funds for anything else in their manifesto. One-trick ponies and it’s a poor trick at that. That leaves the Greens (in terms of ‘real’ parties anyway - I realise there will be other chancers on the ballot paper who are looking for the quickest way to dispose of their deposit fee). There are things about the Greens that I like: locally, their candidate, John, is a nice guy and I think he would do a good job for Bury North. Nationally, I have some concerns - manifesto too much of a wish-list? track record in Brighton patchy? - but it would be good to see them get some more seats in Westminster. However, when it comes down to it, Bury North will be a straight contest between Labour and the Conservatives: voting for anyone else will not alter that fact. The incumbent, David Nuttall, has, frankly, done zip for this constituency. He is on the list of top ten Tory MPs most likely to defect to UKIP, opposes same-sex marriage and pay equality between the sexes. I am surprised that in the last few weeks he has managed to find his way back to Bury, suddenly realising that being quite so low-profile is probably doing nothing for his re-election chances. In a desperate last fling of the dice, he brought the Tory battle bus to Ramsbottom last week...and virtually no-one saw it. They visited one section of the newest estate where they had obviously found a concentration of confirmed Tory supporters before departing like thieves in the night. Campaigning only with your core supporters seems to have been a staple of this election and has been the same for all parties. As noted above, ‘anodyne’...
I know Labour at a national level are not perfect but, when we all vote tomorrow, we do need to remember that we are, first and foremost, voting for our local MP, the person who will best represent our interests on the national stage. James, the Labour candidate, is the only representative of the main parties who has consistently campaigned for a 'Fair Deal for Bury’ and seems to have the ‘tools to do the job’. For those reasons, I shall be voting for him tomorrow. If, as a side effect we will then see the back of David Nuttall forever and, hopefully, the Con-LibDem coalition that has proved so ineffective in ensuring “we are all in this together” over the past five years, then, all the better.
Basta! Vote Labour GE2015!
You can call me dogmatic, a fool, old-school or whatever, but I see no sense in voting anything other than Labour when I cast my vote tomorrow at Ramsbottom Library. The reasons for this choice are (to my mind) simple enough: in their five years in power, the coalition (main partners, the Tories; sleeping - nay, comatose - partners, the Lib-Dems) have done little but break promise after promise - no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, bringing debt under control by the end of the Parliament, no rise in tuition fees, no rise in VAT and so on - in the course of punishing the poor, the vulnerable and the sick whilst lining the pockets of their mates in the banks and big business. We are constantly told about ‘the economic recovery’, yet the average person in the street has seen no rise in wages over the last five years: any such ‘recovery’ seems to have benefitted the owners of the companies but not the workers who staff those companies. The Tories (let’s call a spade a spade: a shotgun marriage between a vicious, snaling lion released from captivity after 13 years and an amiable, bumbling hamster would never be described as ‘a coalition’!) and their allies in the Street of Shame have spent that five years trying to drive a wedge between those of us who do not share their priviledged existence: blame the immigrants, scapegoat the ‘undeserving’ poor (as opposed to those ‘hardworking families’ - i.e. employed) and, most of all, blame the previous Labour government.
David Cameron has spent a copious amount of time reminding people of the deficit that the coalition inherited when they came to power. He even (supposedly) had a copy to hand on the campaign trail this week of the note left by the outgoing Labour administration to say that there was ‘no money left’. Leaving aside that that the note was the kind of jokey note that is always left for the incoming government and the unlikelihood of Cameron carrying it around with him, I can agree with him that the coalition inherited a deficit. Where we disagree is the reason for that deficit. Cameron and his cronies have, from Day 1, banged on about it being Labour’s fault and , as such, an illustration of ‘typical’ Labour mismanagement of budgeting in office. Leaving aside the fact that, upto 2008, Labour were doing very well, thank you, and fiscal ‘mismanagement’ would have been impossible to claim, a little incident came along in that year that screwed everything up for everyone and, boy, do I mean everyone! The global financial crisis that hit in that year toppled some banks, almost toppled many others, brought the Eurozone to the point of collapse and cost an arm and a leg in this country to avoid us becoming an economic basket case. Sub-prime lending and completely reckless investments, begun by US banks but then replicated in this country were behind the crash. It is true that newly-relaxed banking regulations under Labour did not help at all. However, at the time, the Tories actually urged Gordon Brown to go further in relaxing the rules. I think it would be fair to say, therefore, the banking crisis was facilitated by the naivety of politiciancs of all stripes when it came to trusting the banks. However, only Labour is blamed by the Tories: the spendthrift bankers are never mentioned. And that gravy train just keeps rolling...
My personal ‘red line’ is the coalition’s deceitful treatment of the NHS. “No top-down reorganisation of the NHS” trumpeted Cameron pre-election in 2010. Equally, there was no mention of any NHS reorganisation in the party’s manifesto. However, almost immediately after coming to power, the coalition embarked on the biggest top-down reorganisation of the NHS since its inception in 1948. At a cost of some £3 billion (a conservative estimate), the NHS was transformed from a fairly bureaucratic but understandable structure into an even more bureaucratic structure. Tiers of management were stripped out and replaced by addtional layers of managers! Overnight, people who had worked in the NHS for years suddenly found they had no idea who was responsible for certain services. If it was bad for NHS employees, just think how patients and members of the public felt! And, to cap it all, on the eve of the election, the re-organisations have been largely abandoned as an unworkable and unwanted change. £3 billion wasted in a time of so-called austerity.
There are many other awful decisions by the coalition I could cite (the Bedroom Tax, employing IDS in the cabinet etc.) but I don’t want to waste more time on such obvious targets. So, the Tories and their corpse bride, the Lib-Dems, are out as voting options. UKIP are the neanderthal wing of the Tory party who, seemingly, have noting to offer beyond stopping immigration and getting out of the EU. If these two things don’t happen, then they have absolutely no funds for anything else in their manifesto. One-trick ponies and it’s a poor trick at that. That leaves the Greens (in terms of ‘real’ parties anyway - I realise there will be other chancers on the ballot paper who are looking for the quickest way to dispose of their deposit fee). There are things about the Greens that I like: locally, their candidate, John, is a nice guy and I think he would do a good job for Bury North. Nationally, I have some concerns - manifesto too much of a wish-list? track record in Brighton patchy? - but it would be good to see them get some more seats in Westminster. However, when it comes down to it, Bury North will be a straight contest between Labour and the Conservatives: voting for anyone else will not alter that fact. The incumbent, David Nuttall, has, frankly, done zip for this constituency. He is on the list of top ten Tory MPs most likely to defect to UKIP, opposes same-sex marriage and pay equality between the sexes. I am surprised that in the last few weeks he has managed to find his way back to Bury, suddenly realising that being quite so low-profile is probably doing nothing for his re-election chances. In a desperate last fling of the dice, he brought the Tory battle bus to Ramsbottom last week...and virtually no-one saw it. They visited one section of the newest estate where they had obviously found a concentration of confirmed Tory supporters before departing like thieves in the night. Campaigning only with your core supporters seems to have been a staple of this election and has been the same for all parties. As noted above, ‘anodyne’...
I know Labour at a national level are not perfect but, when we all vote tomorrow, we do need to remember that we are, first and foremost, voting for our local MP, the person who will best represent our interests on the national stage. James, the Labour candidate, is the only representative of the main parties who has consistently campaigned for a 'Fair Deal for Bury’ and seems to have the ‘tools to do the job’. For those reasons, I shall be voting for him tomorrow. If, as a side effect we will then see the back of David Nuttall forever and, hopefully, the Con-LibDem coalition that has proved so ineffective in ensuring “we are all in this together” over the past five years, then, all the better.
Basta! Vote Labour GE2015!
Thursday, 23 April 2015
St George's Day
It's that time of year again when we celebrate the patron saint of England, St George, famous for rescuing a damsel in distress by killing a dragon. The fact that St George was far from 'English' (in terms of the modern map of Europe, he would probably be Turkish) and that dragons only exist in the confines of children's story books (and Game of Thrones for the big kids out there), seems to do nothing to dampen peoples 24-hour patriotism-fest each 23rd April. I will admit, even I used to dig out my 'Cross of St George' cuff-links for St George's Day, so I am not immune. Some, however, go a lot further and use it to drape everything in the red and white. There are growing calls each year for the day to be made a Bank Holiday, a day to celebrate national pride, if you will. Is it important that we have such a day in the calendar?
Other countries do seem to have a day that centres on a date with national significance, the day that they see as a defining moment. For the US this is Independence Day (4th July) and for France, it is Bastille Day (14th July). Russia Day (12th June), only introduced in 1994, celebrates the re-emergence of Russia after the end of the Soviet Union, a holiday that is not universally popular as there are many who still yearn for thos good old Soviet days (not least, Vladimir Putin, seemingly). For the diehards in Russia, there is still Defender of the Fatherland Day or Victory Day that date back to the Soviet era. The Italians have Republic Day that celebrates the date when the monarchy was retired, the Spanish have...well, shedloads of public holidays, most of which are regional (including, in Catalonia, St George's Day celebrated on the same date as ours). You get the idea: national days exist in so many other countries, but not here in the UK.
In the UK, apart from Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, we can't even be arsed to give the others proper names! Instead, we just call them "Early May", "Spring" and "Summer". No, no, no - we don't want to be seen celebrating anything like the Signing of Magna Carta, the establishment of habeas corpus, the discovery of the structure of DNA or the even the first four minute mile. I realise it's not eveyone's cup of tea, but even military victories (Trafalgar, Waterloo, Battle of Britain, VE-Day for God's sake) are not commemorated by a national holiday. When considered in the context of the rest of the world, we come across as a little bit wierd in that respect.
I am not advocating here for a blind patriotism that borders on the jingoistic: a love of country that makes us blind to its imperfections and shortfalls. The US brand of partiotism can seem a little 'strong' for us Brits as it seems to be an over-demonstrative love of one's country that leaves us thinking "Get a room!". The chants of "USA! USA! USA!" at sporting events can feel intimidating for the non-Amenricans rather than being (for the most part) an innocent and total belief in the Land of the Free. Their very upbringing delivers a relationship to nationality and the national flag so different to ours. In contrast, we either shy away from such overt demonstrations of patriotism or else we head to head to the dark side of 'loving' our country, that of jingoism and xenophobia.
There are things in our recent and more distant past that are huge blots on the national copybook - our involvement in the slave trade, our treatment of nationals in countries fighting for independence against the Empire, our involvement in the war in Iraq based on non-existent 'evidence' to name a few - but overall, I still think this is a pretty decent country and I am still proud to call myself 'British/English' (there is another debate!), despite our current 'leaders' who seem intent on destroying the systems that are the source of much of that pride for me. Perhaps we should have a national holiday to have a bit of a crow about how good this country can be. However, rather than 23rd April and celebrating a Turkish dragon-slayer, I would suggest another date - how about the 5th July, the date in 1948 when Trafford General was 'opened' as the first NHS hospital in Britain. Now that is something to be proud of!
Other countries do seem to have a day that centres on a date with national significance, the day that they see as a defining moment. For the US this is Independence Day (4th July) and for France, it is Bastille Day (14th July). Russia Day (12th June), only introduced in 1994, celebrates the re-emergence of Russia after the end of the Soviet Union, a holiday that is not universally popular as there are many who still yearn for thos good old Soviet days (not least, Vladimir Putin, seemingly). For the diehards in Russia, there is still Defender of the Fatherland Day or Victory Day that date back to the Soviet era. The Italians have Republic Day that celebrates the date when the monarchy was retired, the Spanish have...well, shedloads of public holidays, most of which are regional (including, in Catalonia, St George's Day celebrated on the same date as ours). You get the idea: national days exist in so many other countries, but not here in the UK.
In the UK, apart from Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, we can't even be arsed to give the others proper names! Instead, we just call them "Early May", "Spring" and "Summer". No, no, no - we don't want to be seen celebrating anything like the Signing of Magna Carta, the establishment of habeas corpus, the discovery of the structure of DNA or the even the first four minute mile. I realise it's not eveyone's cup of tea, but even military victories (Trafalgar, Waterloo, Battle of Britain, VE-Day for God's sake) are not commemorated by a national holiday. When considered in the context of the rest of the world, we come across as a little bit wierd in that respect.
I am not advocating here for a blind patriotism that borders on the jingoistic: a love of country that makes us blind to its imperfections and shortfalls. The US brand of partiotism can seem a little 'strong' for us Brits as it seems to be an over-demonstrative love of one's country that leaves us thinking "Get a room!". The chants of "USA! USA! USA!" at sporting events can feel intimidating for the non-Amenricans rather than being (for the most part) an innocent and total belief in the Land of the Free. Their very upbringing delivers a relationship to nationality and the national flag so different to ours. In contrast, we either shy away from such overt demonstrations of patriotism or else we head to head to the dark side of 'loving' our country, that of jingoism and xenophobia.
There are things in our recent and more distant past that are huge blots on the national copybook - our involvement in the slave trade, our treatment of nationals in countries fighting for independence against the Empire, our involvement in the war in Iraq based on non-existent 'evidence' to name a few - but overall, I still think this is a pretty decent country and I am still proud to call myself 'British/English' (there is another debate!), despite our current 'leaders' who seem intent on destroying the systems that are the source of much of that pride for me. Perhaps we should have a national holiday to have a bit of a crow about how good this country can be. However, rather than 23rd April and celebrating a Turkish dragon-slayer, I would suggest another date - how about the 5th July, the date in 1948 when Trafford General was 'opened' as the first NHS hospital in Britain. Now that is something to be proud of!
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
Favourite Films 1
Along the way, in no particular order and, of course, liable to added to or amended depending on new releases, day of the week, the side of bed I got out of etc. are my all-time film favourites with a little bit about why I like them. Because I could go on and on (and on) about them, rather than produce a 'Top Five' in one go, I'll just add more from time-to-time. Let's begin...
1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
This film, released in 1943, is a producion of The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) who wrote, produced and directed it. It stars Roger Livesey as Clive Wynn-Candy VC, Deborah Kerr in a triple role as the object of Wynn-Candy's affection (to varying degrees) over the course of his life and Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, a German who Wynn-Candy meets as a adversary in a duel but goes on to be his life-long friend. The story is told, for the most part, in flashback with the start and the end of the film set in the present (1943) and the bulk of the film telling us how Wynn-Candy became the man he is.
It is ostensibly a film about one man's life: from a young, decorated officer of the Boer War who goes on, via the First and Second Wars to be seen as something of a crusty old stick-in-the mud, a man whose sense of honour and decency is no longer valid to be fighting a war against the Nazis, a foe that does not recognise the honour code he still clings to. So, it is a film about the rights and wrongs of holding fast to 'absolute' moral values in a world that has changed dramatically. In effect, the tactics of the Nazis has meant that for some characters in the film, the gloves have come off and there is a need to fight back just as dirtily. But is the this 'the British way'? Should we 'lower' ourselves to their level? It is a question that is still relevant in the face of terror attacks today.
Equally, it is a brave film that, in 1943, chose to portray a sympathetic German character whilst, at the same time, having to keep up morale. Theo starts as Clive's enemy, becomes his friend, shuns him in the wake of Germany's defeat in the First War but is reconciled with Clive when the Nazis come to power in Germany. Theo's rejection of Clive's friendship after the First War seems to echo the resentment felt by Germany as the victors handed down punative reparations that added insult to wounded national pride. However, Theo rejects the 'restore pride at any cost' route taken by the Nazis just as Clive cannot contemplate waging war without 'rules'. In fact, it is Theo who tries to convince Clive that the only way the Nazis will be stopped is by ditching any notion of an 'honourable war'.
As Stephen Fry and others have said, it is a film that looks at "what it means to be English". Clive Wynn-Candy, far from being a dusty relic of a bygone age, is shown to be the man he is because of his experiences and his genuine decency has arisen from his training, his life and his sense of duty. Clive is the history of Britain embodied in one man's life. Add to this gorgeous colour photography and great acting by the leads and I think it results in a film to delight on several levels.
2. A Matter of Life and Death
Another Powell-Pressburger gem (I thought I'd get them out of the way first!). David Niven plays Peter Carter, the pilot of a crippled bomber returning to base after a bombing run in Germany. All his crew are dead and he has no parachute. In the last few minutes before he takes his chances by bailing into the sea (and almost certain death), he talks to June, a US radio-operator based in Britain. Jokingly, he promises to meet up with her when he 'lands'. Against all the odds, he wakes up on a beach having been washed ashore. Somehow, he is alive! Peter meets up with June and they fall in love. However, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) arrives from the afterlife to tell Peter that he should have died and he (the Conductor), is here to 'collect' him. Peter argues that he cannot go as he has fallen in love and it is not his fault that he was missed for 'collection'. Conductor 71 agrees that Peter should be allowed to argue his case in the afterlife to determine if he lives or dies. Upon revealing these 'visions' to June, she, in turn, tells them to a friend, Dr Reeves (Roger Livesey again) who interprets them as symptoms of a brain injury sustained when he bailed from the stricken bomber. A battle for Peter's continued existence ensues both on Earth (on the operating table as he undergoes brain surgery) and in the afterlife as he argues his case for contiuing to live. Which is 'real'?
There is so much to love about this film. On the one hand it is a brilliantly romantic love story and probably just the sort of escapism that audiences wanted to see in the all-too-real aftermath of the Second World War. David Niven is suitably dashing and terribly British while Kim Hunter as June is a beautiful all-Americal gal and, together, they make a lovely couple. However, there was a little more to the film than just a love story (wouldn't you know!). It was originally suggested that the film might be a vehicle to help smooth Anglo-American relations which had been strained somewhat through the thousands of US service personnel that had been stationed in the UK in the months leading up to D-Day and beyond. There were many stories of US servicemen marrying British women (GI Brides), so Powell and Pressburger reverse this and have the American girl fall for the British boy. In order that Peter's case for continued life is given the harshest possible examination in the court in the afterlife, the 'prosecuting' counsel is an Americal revolutionary killed at that hand of the Brits who tries to argue that no daughter of the Revolution could ever love a Brit. The evidence to prove otherwise is...I won't say - you'll have to watch the film!
It is also remarkable for a couple more things. Firstly, having the newish area of medicine/surgery - neurosurgery - as a central theme. This either 'explains' the visions Peter has or, if we go with the more magical 'reality' (remember, no explanation is ever given for how Peter survived falling from the aircraft), allows an Earthly resolution to the fact of Peter's brain injury. Certainly, there are references to particular things in the film that point to a brain injury (Peter imagines smells which can be a symptom of the injury he has) and care was taken that the medical 'facts' used in the film were correct. Secondly, and my favourite, the afterlife in AMOLAD is in black & white! This is in direct contrast to The Wizard of Oz, where reality is in black & white, while fantasy (Oz) is in eye-popping colour. To me, this kind of makes sense: we live in a world of colour, so 'unreality' should be different and the most straightforward change is to remove the colour. It makes the trial scenes all the better for it, too!
So, there we are: two films by the same auteurs (Powell & Pressburger), both featuring 'Life and Death' in the title and both more than worthy of your immediate attention.
1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
This film, released in 1943, is a producion of The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) who wrote, produced and directed it. It stars Roger Livesey as Clive Wynn-Candy VC, Deborah Kerr in a triple role as the object of Wynn-Candy's affection (to varying degrees) over the course of his life and Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, a German who Wynn-Candy meets as a adversary in a duel but goes on to be his life-long friend. The story is told, for the most part, in flashback with the start and the end of the film set in the present (1943) and the bulk of the film telling us how Wynn-Candy became the man he is.
It is ostensibly a film about one man's life: from a young, decorated officer of the Boer War who goes on, via the First and Second Wars to be seen as something of a crusty old stick-in-the mud, a man whose sense of honour and decency is no longer valid to be fighting a war against the Nazis, a foe that does not recognise the honour code he still clings to. So, it is a film about the rights and wrongs of holding fast to 'absolute' moral values in a world that has changed dramatically. In effect, the tactics of the Nazis has meant that for some characters in the film, the gloves have come off and there is a need to fight back just as dirtily. But is the this 'the British way'? Should we 'lower' ourselves to their level? It is a question that is still relevant in the face of terror attacks today.
Equally, it is a brave film that, in 1943, chose to portray a sympathetic German character whilst, at the same time, having to keep up morale. Theo starts as Clive's enemy, becomes his friend, shuns him in the wake of Germany's defeat in the First War but is reconciled with Clive when the Nazis come to power in Germany. Theo's rejection of Clive's friendship after the First War seems to echo the resentment felt by Germany as the victors handed down punative reparations that added insult to wounded national pride. However, Theo rejects the 'restore pride at any cost' route taken by the Nazis just as Clive cannot contemplate waging war without 'rules'. In fact, it is Theo who tries to convince Clive that the only way the Nazis will be stopped is by ditching any notion of an 'honourable war'.
As Stephen Fry and others have said, it is a film that looks at "what it means to be English". Clive Wynn-Candy, far from being a dusty relic of a bygone age, is shown to be the man he is because of his experiences and his genuine decency has arisen from his training, his life and his sense of duty. Clive is the history of Britain embodied in one man's life. Add to this gorgeous colour photography and great acting by the leads and I think it results in a film to delight on several levels.
2. A Matter of Life and Death
Another Powell-Pressburger gem (I thought I'd get them out of the way first!). David Niven plays Peter Carter, the pilot of a crippled bomber returning to base after a bombing run in Germany. All his crew are dead and he has no parachute. In the last few minutes before he takes his chances by bailing into the sea (and almost certain death), he talks to June, a US radio-operator based in Britain. Jokingly, he promises to meet up with her when he 'lands'. Against all the odds, he wakes up on a beach having been washed ashore. Somehow, he is alive! Peter meets up with June and they fall in love. However, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) arrives from the afterlife to tell Peter that he should have died and he (the Conductor), is here to 'collect' him. Peter argues that he cannot go as he has fallen in love and it is not his fault that he was missed for 'collection'. Conductor 71 agrees that Peter should be allowed to argue his case in the afterlife to determine if he lives or dies. Upon revealing these 'visions' to June, she, in turn, tells them to a friend, Dr Reeves (Roger Livesey again) who interprets them as symptoms of a brain injury sustained when he bailed from the stricken bomber. A battle for Peter's continued existence ensues both on Earth (on the operating table as he undergoes brain surgery) and in the afterlife as he argues his case for contiuing to live. Which is 'real'?
There is so much to love about this film. On the one hand it is a brilliantly romantic love story and probably just the sort of escapism that audiences wanted to see in the all-too-real aftermath of the Second World War. David Niven is suitably dashing and terribly British while Kim Hunter as June is a beautiful all-Americal gal and, together, they make a lovely couple. However, there was a little more to the film than just a love story (wouldn't you know!). It was originally suggested that the film might be a vehicle to help smooth Anglo-American relations which had been strained somewhat through the thousands of US service personnel that had been stationed in the UK in the months leading up to D-Day and beyond. There were many stories of US servicemen marrying British women (GI Brides), so Powell and Pressburger reverse this and have the American girl fall for the British boy. In order that Peter's case for continued life is given the harshest possible examination in the court in the afterlife, the 'prosecuting' counsel is an Americal revolutionary killed at that hand of the Brits who tries to argue that no daughter of the Revolution could ever love a Brit. The evidence to prove otherwise is...I won't say - you'll have to watch the film!
It is also remarkable for a couple more things. Firstly, having the newish area of medicine/surgery - neurosurgery - as a central theme. This either 'explains' the visions Peter has or, if we go with the more magical 'reality' (remember, no explanation is ever given for how Peter survived falling from the aircraft), allows an Earthly resolution to the fact of Peter's brain injury. Certainly, there are references to particular things in the film that point to a brain injury (Peter imagines smells which can be a symptom of the injury he has) and care was taken that the medical 'facts' used in the film were correct. Secondly, and my favourite, the afterlife in AMOLAD is in black & white! This is in direct contrast to The Wizard of Oz, where reality is in black & white, while fantasy (Oz) is in eye-popping colour. To me, this kind of makes sense: we live in a world of colour, so 'unreality' should be different and the most straightforward change is to remove the colour. It makes the trial scenes all the better for it, too!
So, there we are: two films by the same auteurs (Powell & Pressburger), both featuring 'Life and Death' in the title and both more than worthy of your immediate attention.
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
The Transporter
Which sense is the most powerful generator of memories? Although we might think that sight or hearing would be the most obvious contenders given that we rely so heavily on them on a daily basis, it is in fact smell. Studies have proved that smells are more likely to be evocative of a time and/or a place than either a sound or a picture associated with that place or time. I'm going to stretch this a little to include taste which, obviously, is very closely associated with the olfactory sense. In that way, I can demostrate the power of smell/taste as a transporter back to a point in the past by reference to Proust's 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu', a spawling work which starts with the narrator's 'involuntary memory' as he calls it being triggered by the taste of a madeline cake: on tasting the cake, he is taken back to his childhood and the madelines served by his aunt. Proust, presumably without the benefit of evidence from research studies, understood the power of the olfactory and taste senses to recreate a time and a place so strongly, in such a real way.
When it happens to you, it is quite spine-tinglingly...'shocking' would be the word I would use: I am so taken aback at the completeness of the memory recreated by a smell or, more likely, a combination of smells. I have three examples - two from the past and one from only a couple of days ago.
Gardening
Just after Elaine and I left University, we found a council flat in Brixton. It was a one bedroom flat in a concrete sprawl called (ironically!) the Angell Town Estate. This place would go on to generate a very mixed bag of memories itself: it was our first 'proper' home and I was playing in a band throughout our time there (good memories) but we were broken into three times and mugged twice, once on the doorstep of the flat (definitely not so good). One day in the summer, I was pulling weeds out of the concrete trough that formed a window box on the edge of our first floor balcony. Elaine was inside putting together some lunch. The windows of the flat were open as it was a warm, sunny day. The weeds mainly consisted of clumps of grass that had taken up residence in the window box and, sometimes, in attempting to pull out a clump of grass, the grass would break off in my hand leaving the roots in place but releasing that unmistakable 'freshly-cut grass' smell in the air. At that moment, the aroma of ham salad sandwiches combined with that of the cut grass and I was taken back to a summer's day when I would have been seven or eight, my dad mowing the lawn of the house in Ealing, me collecting grass clippings and mum making ham salad sandwiches. Everything was there - I could visualise the back of the house, feel the warmth of the sun and hear my mum ask if she should bring the sandwiches out to us.
Hardware
Fairly soon after we moved to Ramsbottom, I was heading into Bury to go the B&Q for something. I can't recall what it was and I also can't recall whether or not I had already tried the hardware shop in Rammy. At Holcombe Brook, as I started to head for Longsight Road, I notice a 'proper' hardware store, the kind that has all sorts of goods displayed outside the shop from galvanised bins and wooden stepladders through to brooms and rakes. I thought I'd drop in and see if they had what I needed. As I approached the door, I noticed a sign on the glass declaring that the shop stocked paraffin. As I stepped across the threshold - boom! - the smells of the wood, of the metal of screws, locks, hasps and so forth, of the dust in the air and, most importantly, of the paraffin, all combined to take me back to Ealing once more. We used to have a paraffin heater at that time and I was often sent to the hardware shop on the high street to collect a gallon of paraffin (no worries about a child buying and handling flammable liquids back in the day!). That shop of my childhood smelled exactly like the shop I was now standing in. Again, the memories - plural - evoked were more than those associated with buying paraffin: it was the wider childhood memories related to that trip to the hardware shop - the coldness of the room that necessitated the use of the heater, trimming the wick on the heater so that it didn't smoke, even the tool used to trim it!
Wholefoods
We went into a whole food store in Brighouse last week. It sold orgainc veg, bread, pulses and grains bagged on the premises (I would guess) as well as non-food items such as 'natural' cosmetics and cleaning products. As we stepped through the door, I was immediately transported back to The Balham Food & Book Co-Operative in 1985, the first place I worked when it became clear that music superstardom wasn't going to happen quickly enough to provide actual money in our lives! That mix of the smells of the veg and the bags of pulses, herbs and muesli combining with the floral notes of the soaps and all mixed with the faint aroma of earnestness dragged me back 30 years in an instant. That sudden arcing of a spark between the 26 year old me in Balham and the 56 year old me in Yorkshire suddenly brought a smile to my face.
When it happens to you, it is quite spine-tinglingly...'shocking' would be the word I would use: I am so taken aback at the completeness of the memory recreated by a smell or, more likely, a combination of smells. I have three examples - two from the past and one from only a couple of days ago.
Gardening
Just after Elaine and I left University, we found a council flat in Brixton. It was a one bedroom flat in a concrete sprawl called (ironically!) the Angell Town Estate. This place would go on to generate a very mixed bag of memories itself: it was our first 'proper' home and I was playing in a band throughout our time there (good memories) but we were broken into three times and mugged twice, once on the doorstep of the flat (definitely not so good). One day in the summer, I was pulling weeds out of the concrete trough that formed a window box on the edge of our first floor balcony. Elaine was inside putting together some lunch. The windows of the flat were open as it was a warm, sunny day. The weeds mainly consisted of clumps of grass that had taken up residence in the window box and, sometimes, in attempting to pull out a clump of grass, the grass would break off in my hand leaving the roots in place but releasing that unmistakable 'freshly-cut grass' smell in the air. At that moment, the aroma of ham salad sandwiches combined with that of the cut grass and I was taken back to a summer's day when I would have been seven or eight, my dad mowing the lawn of the house in Ealing, me collecting grass clippings and mum making ham salad sandwiches. Everything was there - I could visualise the back of the house, feel the warmth of the sun and hear my mum ask if she should bring the sandwiches out to us.
Hardware
Fairly soon after we moved to Ramsbottom, I was heading into Bury to go the B&Q for something. I can't recall what it was and I also can't recall whether or not I had already tried the hardware shop in Rammy. At Holcombe Brook, as I started to head for Longsight Road, I notice a 'proper' hardware store, the kind that has all sorts of goods displayed outside the shop from galvanised bins and wooden stepladders through to brooms and rakes. I thought I'd drop in and see if they had what I needed. As I approached the door, I noticed a sign on the glass declaring that the shop stocked paraffin. As I stepped across the threshold - boom! - the smells of the wood, of the metal of screws, locks, hasps and so forth, of the dust in the air and, most importantly, of the paraffin, all combined to take me back to Ealing once more. We used to have a paraffin heater at that time and I was often sent to the hardware shop on the high street to collect a gallon of paraffin (no worries about a child buying and handling flammable liquids back in the day!). That shop of my childhood smelled exactly like the shop I was now standing in. Again, the memories - plural - evoked were more than those associated with buying paraffin: it was the wider childhood memories related to that trip to the hardware shop - the coldness of the room that necessitated the use of the heater, trimming the wick on the heater so that it didn't smoke, even the tool used to trim it!
Wholefoods
We went into a whole food store in Brighouse last week. It sold orgainc veg, bread, pulses and grains bagged on the premises (I would guess) as well as non-food items such as 'natural' cosmetics and cleaning products. As we stepped through the door, I was immediately transported back to The Balham Food & Book Co-Operative in 1985, the first place I worked when it became clear that music superstardom wasn't going to happen quickly enough to provide actual money in our lives! That mix of the smells of the veg and the bags of pulses, herbs and muesli combining with the floral notes of the soaps and all mixed with the faint aroma of earnestness dragged me back 30 years in an instant. That sudden arcing of a spark between the 26 year old me in Balham and the 56 year old me in Yorkshire suddenly brought a smile to my face.
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Racing to the bottom....and beyond
I'm begining to wonder if I really 'get' social media.
For a time there, I thought that it was an absolutely fantastic thing. I'd signed upto Friends Reunited (remember that, hey?) and enjoyed looking at photos and stories from my old schools and uni. I wasn't really 'interacting' as such, so I couldn't really say that I was using it as a social tool. That was until someone who I hadn't seen for nearly 30 years posted a message to me asking how I was and wondering if I still had the guitar I used to play when I was in a band at uni (I do indeed still have it!). It was amazing! After all that time, a blast from the past appearing in my Inbox! I typed in a message in reply and waited to get a response. And waited. And waited. And...I'm still waiting. Like a man stranded on a desert island who sees a ship on the horizon, only to realise it is headed away from him, for a brief moment, there were possibilities.
One friend from Uni that I re-established a link with via FR noted that she was using FR less and had moved onto something called Facebook and I determined to give it a go. I dived into Facebook soon after and it proved to be a much more successful adventure in interaction. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing in terms of conversation, interesting things being posted, 'meeting' people outside the local or work environment as well as reuniting with more people from back in the day. After that, I tried Twitter. I set up an account, followed a few famous names and Tweeted my first Tweet (something like "Hello everyone on Twitter!" *cringes*). Of course, I sat around awaiting some interaction with absolutely zero success until, eventually, I connected with a few people that I know in the 'real' world and then, little by little, I found that posting a Tweet would lead to a 'conversation' starting. It was really quite fun and the 140 character limit provided a discipline that made me really think about ensuring clarity in each Tweet.
But (there is always a 'but', isn't there?), things started to change or, more probably, I started to see the downside pretty quickly. Firstly, there are a lot of FB postings and Tweets that still contain mudane information that is seemingly of no interest to the wider world: this is my lunch; I'm going shopping; here is a picture of my cat; *selfie* and so on. Is this merely a 21st Century version of keeping a written diary but utilising the tools and technology of the age, shared with the world but primarily for the benefit of the diary writer? Or is it a way of validating our existence in a an increasingly disconnected life in the 'real' world: as the way we live now - away from the physical community provided by relationships with others in our place of residence, the church, even, for homeworkers, the workplace - removes us from a physical acknowledgement of our existence, so we need to find another way to make ourselves heard in an increasing chaotic and congested world? I'm not really knocking this trend and I have been happy to go along with it: I have posted my share of food/cat/boring items and, no doubt, will continue to do so. After all, it hurts no-one.
Another trend, though, is a nasty development arising from Web 2.0: personal abuse and victimising. Don't get me wrong, as long as the internet has allowed Person A to express an opinion with a view to inviting comment, Persons X,Y and Z have been more than willing to respond by agreeing, disagreeing, counter-proposing or just ignoring them. Originally, it was just like a debate that one might recognise from school or the pub. However, as time has gone on, it seems that two things have happened.
Firstly, comment in many cases has been replaced by personal abuse. It is no longer enough to debate, to argue with someone. Now, it seems to be the norm to start wading in with personal attacks or foul-mouthed tirades almost from the get-go. In some cases this has even been in the form of organised and sustained attackes against individuals who have dared to speak out on a subject, the abuse even spilling over into threats of violence (the case of Mary Beard springs to mind). People feel free to say things that they would never say to their target face-to-face in the real world. The web seems to have become all about 'rights' and screw 'responsibilities'. Personally, I have found myself self-censoring to a greater degree now. I don't post some things I might like to say because I fear the response that it may generate.
The second change is possibly worse. Social media has give platforms to 'professional provocateurs' such as Katie Hopkins to 'say the unsayable'. In the past, when the main media outlets for such 'characters' as Ms Hopkins were TV, radio and newsprint, the rules governing those services would have stopped some of the more extreme views she promotes from reaching us. If she did get something printed or broadcast, we could largely ignore her output by not buying the paper she writes for or not watching programmes in which she appeared. Now, via the facility of Twitter, she is able to promote the most extreme and ignorant views without any handbrake to hold back her juggernaut. The more she provokes, the more column inches she generates and the more TV appearances she gets. Ker-ching! She is not winning friends because, in her view, being 'Britain's biggest bitch' (her description) is a career choice and one that she is successfully pursuing. Unfortunately, she will convince others that this is a viable career path. I, for one, do not want to see any lingering sense of community or decency further eroded by the unthinking, unfeeling "I can say what I like!" brigade.
I thought I 'got' social media. The emphasis was on the 'social' element and all was fine and dandy. Unfortunately, in an age of reality TV where unearned or transient celebrity trumps hard-won and enduring achievement, and in a Britain where the 'haves' now feel free to openly scorn and deride the 'have-nots', the 'media' element is now in the ascendent: Twitter and Facebook let us all star in our very own little reality broadcasts and lets us forget any sense of self-censorship. And, as we become anaesthetised to each new low, what will we need to do to make ourselves stand out from the social media crowd going forward?
For a time there, I thought that it was an absolutely fantastic thing. I'd signed upto Friends Reunited (remember that, hey?) and enjoyed looking at photos and stories from my old schools and uni. I wasn't really 'interacting' as such, so I couldn't really say that I was using it as a social tool. That was until someone who I hadn't seen for nearly 30 years posted a message to me asking how I was and wondering if I still had the guitar I used to play when I was in a band at uni (I do indeed still have it!). It was amazing! After all that time, a blast from the past appearing in my Inbox! I typed in a message in reply and waited to get a response. And waited. And waited. And...I'm still waiting. Like a man stranded on a desert island who sees a ship on the horizon, only to realise it is headed away from him, for a brief moment, there were possibilities.
One friend from Uni that I re-established a link with via FR noted that she was using FR less and had moved onto something called Facebook and I determined to give it a go. I dived into Facebook soon after and it proved to be a much more successful adventure in interaction. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing in terms of conversation, interesting things being posted, 'meeting' people outside the local or work environment as well as reuniting with more people from back in the day. After that, I tried Twitter. I set up an account, followed a few famous names and Tweeted my first Tweet (something like "Hello everyone on Twitter!" *cringes*). Of course, I sat around awaiting some interaction with absolutely zero success until, eventually, I connected with a few people that I know in the 'real' world and then, little by little, I found that posting a Tweet would lead to a 'conversation' starting. It was really quite fun and the 140 character limit provided a discipline that made me really think about ensuring clarity in each Tweet.
But (there is always a 'but', isn't there?), things started to change or, more probably, I started to see the downside pretty quickly. Firstly, there are a lot of FB postings and Tweets that still contain mudane information that is seemingly of no interest to the wider world: this is my lunch; I'm going shopping; here is a picture of my cat; *selfie* and so on. Is this merely a 21st Century version of keeping a written diary but utilising the tools and technology of the age, shared with the world but primarily for the benefit of the diary writer? Or is it a way of validating our existence in a an increasingly disconnected life in the 'real' world: as the way we live now - away from the physical community provided by relationships with others in our place of residence, the church, even, for homeworkers, the workplace - removes us from a physical acknowledgement of our existence, so we need to find another way to make ourselves heard in an increasing chaotic and congested world? I'm not really knocking this trend and I have been happy to go along with it: I have posted my share of food/cat/boring items and, no doubt, will continue to do so. After all, it hurts no-one.
Another trend, though, is a nasty development arising from Web 2.0: personal abuse and victimising. Don't get me wrong, as long as the internet has allowed Person A to express an opinion with a view to inviting comment, Persons X,Y and Z have been more than willing to respond by agreeing, disagreeing, counter-proposing or just ignoring them. Originally, it was just like a debate that one might recognise from school or the pub. However, as time has gone on, it seems that two things have happened.
Firstly, comment in many cases has been replaced by personal abuse. It is no longer enough to debate, to argue with someone. Now, it seems to be the norm to start wading in with personal attacks or foul-mouthed tirades almost from the get-go. In some cases this has even been in the form of organised and sustained attackes against individuals who have dared to speak out on a subject, the abuse even spilling over into threats of violence (the case of Mary Beard springs to mind). People feel free to say things that they would never say to their target face-to-face in the real world. The web seems to have become all about 'rights' and screw 'responsibilities'. Personally, I have found myself self-censoring to a greater degree now. I don't post some things I might like to say because I fear the response that it may generate.
The second change is possibly worse. Social media has give platforms to 'professional provocateurs' such as Katie Hopkins to 'say the unsayable'. In the past, when the main media outlets for such 'characters' as Ms Hopkins were TV, radio and newsprint, the rules governing those services would have stopped some of the more extreme views she promotes from reaching us. If she did get something printed or broadcast, we could largely ignore her output by not buying the paper she writes for or not watching programmes in which she appeared. Now, via the facility of Twitter, she is able to promote the most extreme and ignorant views without any handbrake to hold back her juggernaut. The more she provokes, the more column inches she generates and the more TV appearances she gets. Ker-ching! She is not winning friends because, in her view, being 'Britain's biggest bitch' (her description) is a career choice and one that she is successfully pursuing. Unfortunately, she will convince others that this is a viable career path. I, for one, do not want to see any lingering sense of community or decency further eroded by the unthinking, unfeeling "I can say what I like!" brigade.
I thought I 'got' social media. The emphasis was on the 'social' element and all was fine and dandy. Unfortunately, in an age of reality TV where unearned or transient celebrity trumps hard-won and enduring achievement, and in a Britain where the 'haves' now feel free to openly scorn and deride the 'have-nots', the 'media' element is now in the ascendent: Twitter and Facebook let us all star in our very own little reality broadcasts and lets us forget any sense of self-censorship. And, as we become anaesthetised to each new low, what will we need to do to make ourselves stand out from the social media crowd going forward?
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
A Shared Moment
I saw him, some sixty feet from our back door,
The sun russeting his fur.
Completely at ease in a world of men who,
Though admiring his beauty, would surely kill him
As a pest and common thief.
He chose a spot, a sun-warmed nest of grass
And, wrapping close his brush,
He lay down and curled contentedly, ready
To soak in his selected pool of sunlight and
Dream easy on a balmy day.
I watched and felt a peace spread within me,
His total relaxation,
Far from the hunters who would have him dead.
We shared that peace and, later, as the air cooled,
He stole silently away.
The sun russeting his fur.
Completely at ease in a world of men who,
Though admiring his beauty, would surely kill him
As a pest and common thief.
He chose a spot, a sun-warmed nest of grass
And, wrapping close his brush,
He lay down and curled contentedly, ready
To soak in his selected pool of sunlight and
Dream easy on a balmy day.
I watched and felt a peace spread within me,
His total relaxation,
Far from the hunters who would have him dead.
We shared that peace and, later, as the air cooled,
He stole silently away.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Lucky
I noticed through the modern day oracle that is Facebook that at least two new bar/restaurants are to open in Ramsbottom in the near future. One, while not (so far at least) proclaiming any particular 'theme' in terms of cuisine, is looking to provide community facilities: space for mother-toddler groups, space for book clubs or discussion groups to meet and so forth. The other is apparently going to incorporate a vegan restaurant. Broadly, I am very much in the "Yay!" camp on these developments, not least because empty shops (which one of them is and in a very prime spot to boot) do not look good in terms of selling the town to tourists as a thriving community. Having these units occupied and providing good food and service to townsfolk and tourists alike is a good thing. I do have a little reservation about the 'bar' aspect of both developments, though. More of this later.
When we first moved to Rammy almost 23 years ago, the places to eat (as in restaurants rather than take aways) were much more limited than today. At the top end of the scale, there was the Village Restaurant (later to become Ramsons although not at that time quite as 'fine dining' as it later became). Then there were The China Cottage (good then, good now), the Eastern Eye (ditto), an Italian (been through several owners - variable quality but, overall, a little generic) and another Indian (again, has been through several owners and is currently pretty good). I think there may also have been a restaurant attached to the hotel side of the Grants Arms but I never tried it and it seemed to come and go. Some of the pubs in the centre did food but, generally, it was not much beyond things that go 'Ding!' in the microwave. But, talking of pubs, Rammy had shedloads! The Rammy Mile, the pub crawl traditionally attempted following the Good Friday service up at Peel Tower above the town, consisted of a pint in each pub starting from the Hare & Hounds in Holcombe Brook and continuing via The Brook, The Fusilier, The Masons Arms, The Old Dun Horse, The Major, The Old Grey Mare, The Clarence, The Rose & Crown, The Grants Arms, The Royal Oak, The Railway and, finally, The Good Samaritan. That was 13 pints and a fair old walk!
Today, The Old Dun Horse is flats, The Good Sam is an excellent (still not verified this!) restaurant, The Hearth of the Ram, and The Clarence is an Indian Restaurant yet there are actually more places to have a pint than ever before! The lost watering holes have been replaced by several eating places which can also be treated as a bar for drinks only: the Lounge, Bar XLII, the First Chop, the Venetian Hideaway and Levanter. In addition, there is the Irwell Works microbrewery in the centre of town that has its own bar. There is definitely no shortage of beer in Rammy! However, just as some pubs have gone or have changed, so too have the options for eating. Ramsons may be no more, but the food served at its successor, the Venetian Hideaway, is superb in its own way; Levanter's tapas are praised far and wide; the Spice Garden offers excellent Thai food; the Hearth, as I have mentioned, is supposedly very good and, in addition, pubs are now upping their game with The Eagle & Child and The Major both offering excellent homecooked food, the former a little more 'cheffy', the latter more down-to-earth and excellent value. In addition, whereas Bailey's Tearoom offered the only afternoon tea option when we moved here, there are now several places offering light snacks and a pot of tea.
Two things seem to have arisen out of the new 'eating/bar' culture in Rammy. The first is an extension of something that was already started when we moved here: the inverted snobbery. There is an attitude that seems to suggest that Rammy is a working town for working people and we can do without 'incomers' blocking up the roads and drinking in their chi-chi bars. Well, the facts of the matter are, there are no longer cotton mills in Rammy, fewer and fewer people work in manual industries and the demographic of the town is changing becoming younger and more affluent. A town that was dying as the mills shut down has been regenrated and is thriving once more. And if that means there are going to be some restaurants that charge a bit more for food, so be it. There are still plenty of places offering down-to-earth, good value food that is not cook-chill microwave shit. What we have here is choice and we should be thankful rather than pining for those not-so-long-ago days when the food was, in the main, not so great. It's not about 'us' and 'them', it's about having a thriving, viable town.
Which brings me to my second consequence of the changes I have noted. There is a danger in the town swinging too far to the bar/restaurant side of things. Such venues largely cater for an evening trade. If a shop shuts, I think we need to be careful about another bar opening in its place. This is apparently a new trend on the high street because the conversion of a shop to a bar is fairly cheap and licenses are easy to obtain. We need to ensure diversity is a feature of the town, that we have a daytime economy as well as good places to eat and drink in the evening. I think we still have that balance right and the two new ventures I started with show that, hopefully, that diversity is still there. As long as we have that, I think we are very lucky to live where we do.
When we first moved to Rammy almost 23 years ago, the places to eat (as in restaurants rather than take aways) were much more limited than today. At the top end of the scale, there was the Village Restaurant (later to become Ramsons although not at that time quite as 'fine dining' as it later became). Then there were The China Cottage (good then, good now), the Eastern Eye (ditto), an Italian (been through several owners - variable quality but, overall, a little generic) and another Indian (again, has been through several owners and is currently pretty good). I think there may also have been a restaurant attached to the hotel side of the Grants Arms but I never tried it and it seemed to come and go. Some of the pubs in the centre did food but, generally, it was not much beyond things that go 'Ding!' in the microwave. But, talking of pubs, Rammy had shedloads! The Rammy Mile, the pub crawl traditionally attempted following the Good Friday service up at Peel Tower above the town, consisted of a pint in each pub starting from the Hare & Hounds in Holcombe Brook and continuing via The Brook, The Fusilier, The Masons Arms, The Old Dun Horse, The Major, The Old Grey Mare, The Clarence, The Rose & Crown, The Grants Arms, The Royal Oak, The Railway and, finally, The Good Samaritan. That was 13 pints and a fair old walk!
Today, The Old Dun Horse is flats, The Good Sam is an excellent (still not verified this!) restaurant, The Hearth of the Ram, and The Clarence is an Indian Restaurant yet there are actually more places to have a pint than ever before! The lost watering holes have been replaced by several eating places which can also be treated as a bar for drinks only: the Lounge, Bar XLII, the First Chop, the Venetian Hideaway and Levanter. In addition, there is the Irwell Works microbrewery in the centre of town that has its own bar. There is definitely no shortage of beer in Rammy! However, just as some pubs have gone or have changed, so too have the options for eating. Ramsons may be no more, but the food served at its successor, the Venetian Hideaway, is superb in its own way; Levanter's tapas are praised far and wide; the Spice Garden offers excellent Thai food; the Hearth, as I have mentioned, is supposedly very good and, in addition, pubs are now upping their game with The Eagle & Child and The Major both offering excellent homecooked food, the former a little more 'cheffy', the latter more down-to-earth and excellent value. In addition, whereas Bailey's Tearoom offered the only afternoon tea option when we moved here, there are now several places offering light snacks and a pot of tea.
Two things seem to have arisen out of the new 'eating/bar' culture in Rammy. The first is an extension of something that was already started when we moved here: the inverted snobbery. There is an attitude that seems to suggest that Rammy is a working town for working people and we can do without 'incomers' blocking up the roads and drinking in their chi-chi bars. Well, the facts of the matter are, there are no longer cotton mills in Rammy, fewer and fewer people work in manual industries and the demographic of the town is changing becoming younger and more affluent. A town that was dying as the mills shut down has been regenrated and is thriving once more. And if that means there are going to be some restaurants that charge a bit more for food, so be it. There are still plenty of places offering down-to-earth, good value food that is not cook-chill microwave shit. What we have here is choice and we should be thankful rather than pining for those not-so-long-ago days when the food was, in the main, not so great. It's not about 'us' and 'them', it's about having a thriving, viable town.
Which brings me to my second consequence of the changes I have noted. There is a danger in the town swinging too far to the bar/restaurant side of things. Such venues largely cater for an evening trade. If a shop shuts, I think we need to be careful about another bar opening in its place. This is apparently a new trend on the high street because the conversion of a shop to a bar is fairly cheap and licenses are easy to obtain. We need to ensure diversity is a feature of the town, that we have a daytime economy as well as good places to eat and drink in the evening. I think we still have that balance right and the two new ventures I started with show that, hopefully, that diversity is still there. As long as we have that, I think we are very lucky to live where we do.
Monday, 23 March 2015
The Blank Page
I have contemplated the empty screen for some considerable time. My thoughts swirl restlessly but fail to coalesce, my fingers remain poised in anticipation above the keyboard and the page remains stubbornly blank. I look up at the clock: three minutes have elapsed since I last looked, three minutes that might have been an hour or a day or a week but all filled with...nothing. It seems the harder I will a subject to appear and the inspiration to strike, the further that sweet release recedes. And the page remains blank and, seemingly, getting blanker.
I decide to look at my social media feeds - purely for the purposes of inspiration, you understand - even though I know that this is the worst possible direction to choose. Instead of finding a the piece of grit that I can use to build into a literary pearl, I know I will only find a way to waste a bit of time and avoid the blank sheet for an hour or two longer. Ninety minutes of humorous cat videos and depressing tweets from right-wing nutters later, the guilt finally gets he better of me and I return to the (still) blank page. I look a it a while longer: pristine, virgin, awaiting my words, my wisdom to anoint its snowy field. I sigh and suddenly realise that I really need to make a cup of tea. Perhaps dehydration has been the problem all along! I make the tea, drink it slowly, wash up my cup, straighten the kitchen and take the bin out. As I walk back into the living room, the laptop seems to glower at me. "You're avoiding me!" it chides. "This page isn't going to fill itself you know. You have to write the words!", Shamed by the voices in my head, I touch the mouse to activate the screen. As the brilliant whiteness of the blank page momentarily shocks my eyes, I find that the word pixies have not visited me and filled the page while I procrastinated in the kitchen. Damn!
"Right!" I say with exaggerated force as I stretch my fingers and crack my knuckles over the keyboard, a gesture of resolve that, while it might look and sound good to the casual observer, actually has no effect whatsoever on my creative output over the next thirty minutes. Five times over the course of that painful half hour I type a single word, contemplate it and, finding there is no work that springs to mind to follow it, I backspace it back into the ether from whence it came. Eventually, I close the laptop and admit defeat for the day. All I can hope now is that the evening radio or TV might provide a starting point on tomorrow's blank page or, failing that, I not only dream the contents of the page but I wake up remembering every golden word!
For this evening, however, the page will remain blank and I will thank God that I am only doing this for 'fun' and not working to a deadline where my salary depends upon my timely output. I can live with the blank page better than I can live with a blank current account.
I decide to look at my social media feeds - purely for the purposes of inspiration, you understand - even though I know that this is the worst possible direction to choose. Instead of finding a the piece of grit that I can use to build into a literary pearl, I know I will only find a way to waste a bit of time and avoid the blank sheet for an hour or two longer. Ninety minutes of humorous cat videos and depressing tweets from right-wing nutters later, the guilt finally gets he better of me and I return to the (still) blank page. I look a it a while longer: pristine, virgin, awaiting my words, my wisdom to anoint its snowy field. I sigh and suddenly realise that I really need to make a cup of tea. Perhaps dehydration has been the problem all along! I make the tea, drink it slowly, wash up my cup, straighten the kitchen and take the bin out. As I walk back into the living room, the laptop seems to glower at me. "You're avoiding me!" it chides. "This page isn't going to fill itself you know. You have to write the words!", Shamed by the voices in my head, I touch the mouse to activate the screen. As the brilliant whiteness of the blank page momentarily shocks my eyes, I find that the word pixies have not visited me and filled the page while I procrastinated in the kitchen. Damn!
"Right!" I say with exaggerated force as I stretch my fingers and crack my knuckles over the keyboard, a gesture of resolve that, while it might look and sound good to the casual observer, actually has no effect whatsoever on my creative output over the next thirty minutes. Five times over the course of that painful half hour I type a single word, contemplate it and, finding there is no work that springs to mind to follow it, I backspace it back into the ether from whence it came. Eventually, I close the laptop and admit defeat for the day. All I can hope now is that the evening radio or TV might provide a starting point on tomorrow's blank page or, failing that, I not only dream the contents of the page but I wake up remembering every golden word!
For this evening, however, the page will remain blank and I will thank God that I am only doing this for 'fun' and not working to a deadline where my salary depends upon my timely output. I can live with the blank page better than I can live with a blank current account.
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