“ if you want to do the impossible, ask the young because they don’t know it cannot be done “
Cornwall boasts many delights to its residents, tourists and visitors: countryside, beaches, cliffs and coves, wild flora and fauna. But it also has something which goes far beyond these attractions and which celebrates them all. It may not be widely appreciated by many people outside Cornwall but near the small village of St Austell, on the site of a reclaimed clay pit, stands the Seventh Wonder of the World. The Eden Project. The largest botanic conservatory in the world housing the largest collection of plants outside their natural habitat the world has ever seen.
The ambition is stratospheric – to become the leading educational and research centre for the study of, and contribution to, man’s future on planet earth. Sited under specially created conservatories or biomes, which re-create a tropical rainforest, a Mediterranean habitat the project seeks to harness the power of story-telling and theatre to the narrative of the natural world building up the connections between people and the natural world through the plants that enable humankind to exist on the planet. One of the many mottos, aphorisms and inspirational sayings that adorn the exhibitions and displays such “the future depends on the stories we tell ourselves”.
These stories are told beautifully through poetry and sculpture, music and painting as well as narrative prose. For example, in the Mediterranean Biome the visitor learns of the ‘Tribunal of the Waters’ – a dispute-resolution council which has been meeting every Tuesday in Valencia, Spain to adjudicate farmer’s disputes since the times when the Moors ruled.
In the Rainforest Biome, for example, we learn of the connections between deforestation and the palm oil industry of Indonesia. It is about regeneration and education according to Chief Executive and co-founder of the Eden Project Tim Smit. (www.edenproject.com). It won a Reader’s Choice award at the Rough Guide to Accessible Britain Awards earlier in the year.
http://www.edenproject.com/come-and-visit/plan-your-visit/access-guide/index.php
http://www.edenproject.com/media/eden-top-uk-accessible-attraction-pr.php
From the appreciation of flora and fauna of the natural world to another sort of Cornish paradise. The beaches, inlets and coves are a surfer’s paradise and there are many surfing schools catering for those hungry to learn the art of taking the wave. One school, in Bude, has taken customer service that one step further and teaches in British Sign Language (BSL), which the instructor Becky Price has added to her other languages of French and Italian. There are internationally recognised hand signals in surfing and she regards BSL as a logical progression from that.
The Big Blue Surf School
www.bigbluesurfschool.co.uk
UK Deaf Sport
www.ukdeafsport.org.uk
Friday, 8 October 2010
Old School by Tobias Wolff ( Bloomsbury, 2005)
Tobias Wolff, a celebrated novelist and short story writer, has crafted a wonderful short novel which is both part-memoir and part literary criticism. It is set in an East Coast American boys boarding school, known as a prep school, in the early 1960s and is something of a coming-of-age, rites of passage story. But it is also much more than that – Wolff deals with big themes such as class, trust, loyalty, honour and the nature of friendship as well as the writer’s art, and artifice.
The plot is concerned with a story-writing competition amongst sixth form boys at the unnamed prestigious school, which could be one of a dozen such establishments, from Groton to Andover, that has educated the mainly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) offspring of networked established families of the East Coast elite from the mid-19th century until the present day.
The focus on literature is an important part of the school’s educational agenda. It provides the driving narrative of the story, which is in the first person. The visiting writer chooses the winner of the competition among the senior boys, the prize being a private audience with the visitor and publication in the school magazine.
The rivalry amongst the book-obsessed aspiring writers that make up the sixth form student body is intense. One of the themes taken up by Wolff is that of identity: the narrator has a fear that his Jewish origins will be discovered, which he has kept a secret.
The climax of the novel brilliantly brings these overt and hidden themes together. The narrator wins the competition but is expelled for copying another’s work and passing it off as his own. He discovers a story written some years before by a pupil from a nearby girls’ school and so closely identifies the events of the story with his own life that he believes it to be something he could and should have written himself. It deals with Jewish identity kept secret; privilege and class and self-concealment. It itself encompasses the strands of the wider novel. A story within a story expertly accomplished. The deed is discovered and punished by banishment for breaking the honour code.
This event is what forms the author as a writer, but the story does not end with disgrace and humiliation. Many years later his former master tells him a postscript to the saga which provides an insightful twist: the senior teacher known as the Dean resigned from his post the day of the expulsion. So who is the writer whose work is to prove both the undoing and salvation of more than one character in the novel? It is Ernest Hemingway.
The plot is concerned with a story-writing competition amongst sixth form boys at the unnamed prestigious school, which could be one of a dozen such establishments, from Groton to Andover, that has educated the mainly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) offspring of networked established families of the East Coast elite from the mid-19th century until the present day.
The focus on literature is an important part of the school’s educational agenda. It provides the driving narrative of the story, which is in the first person. The visiting writer chooses the winner of the competition among the senior boys, the prize being a private audience with the visitor and publication in the school magazine.
The rivalry amongst the book-obsessed aspiring writers that make up the sixth form student body is intense. One of the themes taken up by Wolff is that of identity: the narrator has a fear that his Jewish origins will be discovered, which he has kept a secret.
The climax of the novel brilliantly brings these overt and hidden themes together. The narrator wins the competition but is expelled for copying another’s work and passing it off as his own. He discovers a story written some years before by a pupil from a nearby girls’ school and so closely identifies the events of the story with his own life that he believes it to be something he could and should have written himself. It deals with Jewish identity kept secret; privilege and class and self-concealment. It itself encompasses the strands of the wider novel. A story within a story expertly accomplished. The deed is discovered and punished by banishment for breaking the honour code.
This event is what forms the author as a writer, but the story does not end with disgrace and humiliation. Many years later his former master tells him a postscript to the saga which provides an insightful twist: the senior teacher known as the Dean resigned from his post the day of the expulsion. So who is the writer whose work is to prove both the undoing and salvation of more than one character in the novel? It is Ernest Hemingway.
Monday, 16 August 2010
An evening in May at Glyndebourne
Every year since 1934 the Sussex country house of the Christie family has played host to an opera festival known the world over simply as Glyndebourne.
On any evening (from May to August) amongst the gentle Sussex hills near the old town of Lewes, people bearing rugs, collapsible chairs, picnic hampers and dressed in evening wear can be spotted. They are opera goers and are taking part in a uniquely British summer season ritual. The picnic is an integral part of the Glyndebourne experience, the consumption of which can be enjoyed during the ‘long interval’ – a performance break of up to 80 minutes.
The intimate setting of house and grounds, complete with grazing sheep, provides the backdrop to productions by composers including Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Stravinksy and Britten. The original theatre was replaced by a new opera house built in1994 with a capacity of over one thousand, and now luxuriates in the sounds produced by the celebrated Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, beloved of singers and musicians alike.
Cosi Fan Tutte is one of Mozart’s greatest works, but also one of his most perplexing. The music is sublime but it tells a story of jealousy, infidelity and cynical manipulation of emotion. The plot is simple enough: two men (Ferrando and Guglielmo) are persuaded by a friend (Don Alfonso) to test the love of their fiancees (Dorabella and Fiordiligi) by playing a trick on them. The men pretend they have been called to the war but disguise themselves in order to tempt each other’s girlfriend as an experiment in fidelity. Aided and abetted by the scheming housemaid Despina, the plan plays out with the two girls ‘falling for’ the two strangers and ends up with the four protagonists realising that they have played a game that has backfired and left them confused. The test has undermined their love, not strengthened it, and they will have to live with the consequences. The title of the opera has been debated ever since Mozart wrote the piece but it gives the general meaning as “they all do it”. It is a brilliant dissection of what men and women do to each other in the comedy and tragedy of life and love.
Hearing access at Glyndebourne is provided by a Sennhauser sound enhancement system which is available on request. It is an innovative, infra-red audio system which technician David Yapp describes as “ a two-channel or a stereo system. It can be run with an audio soundtrack of the show on one of the channels, and then the other channel can have an audio description of what’s happening on stage for blind or partially sighted audience members……... the receivers go under the neck. They’re very discreet, and there are no cables. There are no switches. You turn it on and it’s working “. Exactly as those at Glyndebourne would wish it.
On any evening (from May to August) amongst the gentle Sussex hills near the old town of Lewes, people bearing rugs, collapsible chairs, picnic hampers and dressed in evening wear can be spotted. They are opera goers and are taking part in a uniquely British summer season ritual. The picnic is an integral part of the Glyndebourne experience, the consumption of which can be enjoyed during the ‘long interval’ – a performance break of up to 80 minutes.
The intimate setting of house and grounds, complete with grazing sheep, provides the backdrop to productions by composers including Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Stravinksy and Britten. The original theatre was replaced by a new opera house built in1994 with a capacity of over one thousand, and now luxuriates in the sounds produced by the celebrated Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, beloved of singers and musicians alike.
Cosi Fan Tutte is one of Mozart’s greatest works, but also one of his most perplexing. The music is sublime but it tells a story of jealousy, infidelity and cynical manipulation of emotion. The plot is simple enough: two men (Ferrando and Guglielmo) are persuaded by a friend (Don Alfonso) to test the love of their fiancees (Dorabella and Fiordiligi) by playing a trick on them. The men pretend they have been called to the war but disguise themselves in order to tempt each other’s girlfriend as an experiment in fidelity. Aided and abetted by the scheming housemaid Despina, the plan plays out with the two girls ‘falling for’ the two strangers and ends up with the four protagonists realising that they have played a game that has backfired and left them confused. The test has undermined their love, not strengthened it, and they will have to live with the consequences. The title of the opera has been debated ever since Mozart wrote the piece but it gives the general meaning as “they all do it”. It is a brilliant dissection of what men and women do to each other in the comedy and tragedy of life and love.
Hearing access at Glyndebourne is provided by a Sennhauser sound enhancement system which is available on request. It is an innovative, infra-red audio system which technician David Yapp describes as “ a two-channel or a stereo system. It can be run with an audio soundtrack of the show on one of the channels, and then the other channel can have an audio description of what’s happening on stage for blind or partially sighted audience members……... the receivers go under the neck. They’re very discreet, and there are no cables. There are no switches. You turn it on and it’s working “. Exactly as those at Glyndebourne would wish it.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Michael Foot- A Life by Kenneth O Morgan
M Foot (1913-2009)–
The death of Michael Foot at the age of 96 has marked the passing into history of an era in British political life whose like, as the poet says, we shall never see again. With perhaps the exception of Foot’s friend and rival Denis Healey, now advancing into his nineties, there are few standard bearers left of that generation of political figures born in the closing years of the First World War who experienced the harshness of the “low, dishonest” decade that was the 1930s, survived the titanic struggle of the Second World War and emerged from that epoch-defining period to build the peace and a new world ‘fit for heroes to live in’. It is said that all political careers end in failure but, in Foot’s case, if failure, it was of a glorious and romantic kind. The political cause of democratic socialism never had a more eloquent exponent or more committed advocate. Whether writing leader columns for papers as diverse as Tribune or the London Evening Standard or books on HG Wells or his hero Aneuran Bevan, and in philosophical tracts and polemical pieces, his prose was scintillating and his wit razor-sharp; on public platform in full oratorical flight he could be mesmerising and in person charming and erudite.
All these traits have been brought to magisterial life by Foot’s biographer, the academic, historian and peer Kenneth O Morgan. With great insight and scholarship, one great intellectual and philosopher-historian has celebrated another. Although not from the same tradition of the Labour movement as Foot, Morgan has captured the life, the work and the man both sympathetically and objectively as well as generosity laced with scepticism when necessary.
Born to a prominent Liberal family near Plymouth, Michael Foot inherited the love of literature, music and public debate from his father, as well as a passion for soccer which he manifested in a life-long devotion to Plymouth Argyle. As a journalist in his late twenties, he published the book that made his name exposing the delusions of those who appeased Hitler – Guilty Men. The man who was later to become a founder-member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and self-styled ‘inveterate peace-monger’ was also the protégé of press baron Lord Beaverbrook and a supporter of humanitarian intervention by force in Bosnia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Old age may have slowed him but it never wearied him, although the death of his beloved wife Jill Craigie, a celebrated film-maker, affected him deeply.
The blessing of binaural hearing aids meant he was able to debate, comment and perform in private and public as vigorously as ever. Although an atheist by inclination he was ever the Nonconformist and his was a true Pligrim’s Progress, charted brilliantly by Professor Morgan - son of Wales and possessor of the gift of words himself.
The death of Michael Foot at the age of 96 has marked the passing into history of an era in British political life whose like, as the poet says, we shall never see again. With perhaps the exception of Foot’s friend and rival Denis Healey, now advancing into his nineties, there are few standard bearers left of that generation of political figures born in the closing years of the First World War who experienced the harshness of the “low, dishonest” decade that was the 1930s, survived the titanic struggle of the Second World War and emerged from that epoch-defining period to build the peace and a new world ‘fit for heroes to live in’. It is said that all political careers end in failure but, in Foot’s case, if failure, it was of a glorious and romantic kind. The political cause of democratic socialism never had a more eloquent exponent or more committed advocate. Whether writing leader columns for papers as diverse as Tribune or the London Evening Standard or books on HG Wells or his hero Aneuran Bevan, and in philosophical tracts and polemical pieces, his prose was scintillating and his wit razor-sharp; on public platform in full oratorical flight he could be mesmerising and in person charming and erudite.
All these traits have been brought to magisterial life by Foot’s biographer, the academic, historian and peer Kenneth O Morgan. With great insight and scholarship, one great intellectual and philosopher-historian has celebrated another. Although not from the same tradition of the Labour movement as Foot, Morgan has captured the life, the work and the man both sympathetically and objectively as well as generosity laced with scepticism when necessary.
Born to a prominent Liberal family near Plymouth, Michael Foot inherited the love of literature, music and public debate from his father, as well as a passion for soccer which he manifested in a life-long devotion to Plymouth Argyle. As a journalist in his late twenties, he published the book that made his name exposing the delusions of those who appeased Hitler – Guilty Men. The man who was later to become a founder-member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and self-styled ‘inveterate peace-monger’ was also the protégé of press baron Lord Beaverbrook and a supporter of humanitarian intervention by force in Bosnia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Old age may have slowed him but it never wearied him, although the death of his beloved wife Jill Craigie, a celebrated film-maker, affected him deeply.
The blessing of binaural hearing aids meant he was able to debate, comment and perform in private and public as vigorously as ever. Although an atheist by inclination he was ever the Nonconformist and his was a true Pligrim’s Progress, charted brilliantly by Professor Morgan - son of Wales and possessor of the gift of words himself.
Review of The Ghost by Robert Harris
Robert Harris has written a critique of the Labour government in novel form.
The premise is brilliant – former Prime Minister Adam Lang is indicted on war crimes charges through endorsing the kidnapping and torture of suspects by the CIA. The agent of said ex-PM’s destruction is his former colleague and ex-Foreign Secretary. The ghost writer protagonist tells the tale in a Philip Marlowesque first person, having uncovered the plot during the course of his duties ‘ghosting’ the ex-Prime Ministerial memoirs. He is Lang’s alter ego personally and professionally – literally his shadow and his ghost. Packed with references and allusions to those he has modelled the characters on – direct comparisons do not have to be drawn because the audience knows for whom the plot tolls. The narrative voice of Robert Harris reveals a man writing with the hot indignation of one who knows of what he speaks and uses the novel’s creative devices to tell a wider truth: the satire borne of intimate knowledge.
In a television documentary on the Tony Blair years, Harris revealed his disappointment about his generation not living up to the promise of their own and others expectation when in power. This book is his response – a polemic disguised brilliantly as a satirical page-turning thriller of exceptional quality.
The novel is an encapsulation of the hopes and subsequent disappointments
of the generation that came to power, influence and prominence in the late 1990s. After a dozen years, the bright new dawn has given way to the dark night of the Iraq war, extraordinary rendition and the War on Terror; ‘governing for the many not the few’ ends up lining corporation pockets; ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the United States in its hour of sorrow ends up with acquiescence in extraordinary rendition and the condoning of torture. Written as much in sorrow as in anger by an insider who knows the way governments work as well as the personalities involved, it is a very powerful critique.
The premise is brilliant – former Prime Minister Adam Lang is indicted on war crimes charges through endorsing the kidnapping and torture of suspects by the CIA. The agent of said ex-PM’s destruction is his former colleague and ex-Foreign Secretary. The ghost writer protagonist tells the tale in a Philip Marlowesque first person, having uncovered the plot during the course of his duties ‘ghosting’ the ex-Prime Ministerial memoirs. He is Lang’s alter ego personally and professionally – literally his shadow and his ghost. Packed with references and allusions to those he has modelled the characters on – direct comparisons do not have to be drawn because the audience knows for whom the plot tolls. The narrative voice of Robert Harris reveals a man writing with the hot indignation of one who knows of what he speaks and uses the novel’s creative devices to tell a wider truth: the satire borne of intimate knowledge.
In a television documentary on the Tony Blair years, Harris revealed his disappointment about his generation not living up to the promise of their own and others expectation when in power. This book is his response – a polemic disguised brilliantly as a satirical page-turning thriller of exceptional quality.
The novel is an encapsulation of the hopes and subsequent disappointments
of the generation that came to power, influence and prominence in the late 1990s. After a dozen years, the bright new dawn has given way to the dark night of the Iraq war, extraordinary rendition and the War on Terror; ‘governing for the many not the few’ ends up lining corporation pockets; ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the United States in its hour of sorrow ends up with acquiescence in extraordinary rendition and the condoning of torture. Written as much in sorrow as in anger by an insider who knows the way governments work as well as the personalities involved, it is a very powerful critique.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Food for thought - nourishment of the soul - books
Not Quite the Diplomat
By Chris Patten
(published by Picador Penguin, £8.99)
Chris Patten has spent his entire professional life engaged in political affairs: as policy researcher, Conservative MP, Cabinet Minister, the last colonial governor of Hong Kong and European Commissioner. He is known for his engaging, witty style combined with a wide-ranging interest in matters beyond the political podium. He has a talent, rare amongst front-rank politicians, to set his thoughts and actions in a wide sweep of historical and cultural context. If any public figure has what the Labour politician Denis Healey called a “hinterland”, Patten has. This book, part-memoir, part commentary and part personal manifesto is something of a ‘state of the union’, or state of the planet, report on where we all are now. Using anecdote, reportage and historical devices, the author takes his reader on a tour of the world culturally, politically and geostrategically. However, he wears both his knowledge and experience lightly and manages to flatter the reader with a presumption of intelligence that can deal with a complex or contradictory argument whilst deploying a a wit that combines dryness with generosity. His pen-portraits of international leaders from Clinton to Chirac, Blair to Cheney are entertaining, shrewd and believable. He manages to mix criticism with compassion and disagreement with tolerance, yet his views are no less strongly held for his humanity. He also has a wonderful frame of reference, from ancient Chinese writings to American song-writers of the mid-20th century, from Rudyard Kipling to AA Milne and Confucius or Sartre. In the middle of a discourse about the nature of modern American power, he will make mention of Cole Porter or Irving Berlin. His chapter headings begin with a quotation from book, play or ancient text which sets the scene. This is a man who likes to read, listen, travel and talk in the service of the profession he has adorned for many years, underpinned by the historian’s sense of proportion and context.
James Naughtie sums it up by calling the book “masterly, elegant, sprightly, wry..” whilst The Independent calls it “warm, witty, stylish and readable”. It is also a wonderful introduction to international affairs for any aspiring student of the subject as well as for those well versed in its contradictions and fallibilities. A rich resource, garnished lightly by erudition gently applied.
The Hubris Syndrome
By David Owen
(published by Politico’s , £8.99)
David Owen is something of a Renaissance man in public life. A trained doctor before entering Parliament, he went on to become a Cabinet Minister, under Prime Minister James Callaghan, and Foreign Secretary aged 37 before going on to co-found the Social Democratic Party as one of the original Gang of Four. Having spent a lifetime ‘up close and personal’ with major political figures, and having a medical interest in the powerful and how ill-health effects leaders, Owen is well-placed to write about the nexus of power, personality and the mental state.
Written as part-case study, part-polemic Dr Owen puts the case for the idea that the nature of power today can send some leaders to the point of a kind of mental illness which manifests itself as a condition that is similar to what the Greek dramatists called hubris. Whilst the popular terminology would be that ‘power has gone to their head’ or he or she is unhinged or has ‘lost touch with reality’, Owen traces the roots of the concept of hubris and applies it to messrs Blair and Bush, taking as the template the handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath. The idea of hubris has its roots in ancient Greek drama, and in the study of power and the impact it has on those who seek to wield it. It is the study of how powerful people – heroes in the drama - can become puffed up with pride and thus become contemptuous and dismissive of others which leads to excessive self-confidence causing misunderstanding of the situation around them and eventual destruction at the hands of their nemesis. In the Greek experience, the hero is brought low by trying to act as though he were more like a god and thus is humbled and brought to earth. Thus the moral is that we should not allow power and success to go to their heads. It is, perhaps, also captured by the aphorism that ‘those who the gods wish to destroy they first make great’.
From drama, literature and history Owen develops his theme that hubris could be seen as an ‘occupational hazard’ for many leaders in political, military or business roles, and this should be considered as a medical syndrome when it arises and can be described as such. Owen sees it as illness of position as much as personality, and some leaders fall prey to it whilst others do not. Given the context of power, position and hierarchical deference in a governmental system, hubris can develop as a sense of omnipotence can develop in the individual. Owen cites a list of behavourial symptoms which could identify the condition such as: an identification with the state and themselves to the extent that they regard the outlook and interest of the two as identical; a messianic manner of talking about what they are doing and excessive confidence combined with unshakeable self-belief of being vindicated in a ‘higher court’ or by ‘history’ rather than colleagues or public opinion. All this combined with recklessness and restlessness leads to a loss of contact with reality, and major mistakes in decision-making with huge consequences for themselves and others.
The thesis continues with examples of leaders – from Attlee to Thatcher and Truman to Bush Senior - who became hubristic and those who did not, in the author’s opinion. Ways of avoiding hubris include having a sense of humour, developing perspective through a sceptical approach, support of family and friends and avoiding being cut off from the idea that power, ultimately, enables influence for a short while but not the dominance of events. Simply put, the leader who succumbs to the trappings of power over a long of period of time is more likely to become hubristic. The main case studies examined are that of Mrs Thatcher and how her premiership came to an end and the whole run-up to the recent war in Iraq involving Blair and Bush.
The reader may feel daunted by the subject matter but David Owen writes in a clear, lucid and straightforward manner which seeks to enlighten, based on his considerable experience of medicine, politics and international affairs. The author writes with wit and grace and is refreshingly candid about his own shortcomings as perceived by others – once accused himself of megalomania he admits to arrogance and an impatience of others combined with a tendency to ‘over-examine the spilt milk’. Owen has been seen in the past as a controversial figure, borne from a reputation as being a ‘serial resigner’ and a divider rather than uniter. However iconoclastic his view, it is an independent one which is the product of a questioning temperament. His criticisms, although profound and stinging, are nonetheless measured. His tone is one of the doctor giving advice, which if ignored will not be advantageous to the body politic. A penetrating study from a political figure who has often trod his own path in the face of harsh criticism. A survivor of the syndrome which he describes so brilliantly? The reader can judge.
Our Game
By John Le Carre
(published Hodder & Stoughton)
The premier British chronicler of Cold War intrigue and spy politics turns his attention to post-Soviet Union geo-politics in this typical tour de force. It is the mid-1990s and retired secret servant Timothy Cranmer is nursing his grapes on a country estate in Somerset – the English equivalent of the Italians’ ‘growing the olives’ in retirement. He is also dealing with the consequences of two simultaneously difficult relationships: that with his young girlfiriend and with his long-time agent, also retired but still troublesome.
Familiar themes abound in this as any other Le Carre novel which the author has come to make his own: identity in a clandestine world; the self-deceit of honour amongst spies; the English class system as manifested in schooling and occupation; the past lurking in the every day. These novelistic trademarks are set against the background of a post-Cold War Europe dealing with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the claims of Chechnya and regional conflict in the Cauacasus involving the former Russian republic of Ingushetia. Through the characters of Tim Cranmer and his agent Larry Pettifer the big geo-political questions of the 1990s are explored: the break-up of states and the resulting religious-ethnic identity conflict.
The characters are bound together by history, occupation and school – Cranmer is the spymaster to Pettifer’s agent just as he was the prefect to the junior boy at public school decades before. However, just as at school, it is Pettifer who is the wayward prodigy and beyond control and authority of a traditional sort. These underlying tensions are reinforced brilliantly by episodic flashbacks exploring these motivations further. The duo becomes an emotional ménage a trios when Cranmer’s girlfriend Emma becomes involved with Pettifer and is drawn into the central action dynamic plot of the novel – a bid to start a small war in the former Soviet republic of Ingushetia.
With the publication of the novel that made his name, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, it seems that Le Carre embarked on an ongoing voyage of autobiographical discovery which continues to this day. It is said that his first books were borne of anger at the outbreak of the Cold War and the way in which it was prosecuted by all concerned: he has knowledge of this as he was involved with the British foreign service in the 1960s and witnessed the building of the Berlin wall – the setting of the Spy. Subsequent books have developed, expanded and brought to life a parallel world which acts as a metaphor for everyday existence, as well as given birth to a host of vivid characters, notably George Smiley. Perhaps the anger has been tempered by experience but it is still evident and burnished by compassion and moral vigour. There is, as always, a whole universe of meaning in the title: the ‘game’ of the title is the traditional name given to the occupation of the spy as well as the game played out by the central characters – it is also the name traditionally given to football played at Winchester College. Our Game, as ever, in more ways than one.
The Time of My Life
By Denis Healey
There are many political biographies which can seem rather self-justificatory if not self-serving comprising a book-length catalogue of incidents in the life of the person concerned. This is not one of those. Written over twenty years ago by a man who had scaled the heights of the British political establishment by way of the British Army and the international department of the Labour Party to election as a Yorkshire MP and thence Defence Secretary and Chancelllor of the Exchequer, it stands as one of the best of the genre. Having a reputation as something of an intellectual bruiser, Healey’s style is both elegiac and honest – his well-known love of the Arts generally and poetry in particular is a central theme of the book. He is open about the trials and tribulations of political life and indulges a talent for character description with force and wit, even if his judgments are sometimes a little harsh. If he is unsparing with criticism he is also generous with praise, and his analysis of the post-war post-war world is all the more trenchantly convincing for the fact that he is of the generation that fought the Second World War and then set out to ‘win the peace’ by building the new Jerusalem based on social justice and equality of opportunity.
No dewy-eyed sentimentalist, his realism and gritty understanding of the challenges of changing society does not detract from his idealism, although his wartime experiences temper his expectations with pragmatism. It was Healey who declared that a politician must have a ‘hinterland’, by which he means interests, enthusiasms and passions beyond the fields of political play which are themselves sustaining, and he has them in abundance. A complex man of immense ability, he comes across on occasion as arrogant which is ultimately forgivable because it is balanced with tremendous good humour and self-knowledge. Now in his nineties having recently celebrated 60 years of marriage to his wife Edna, herself a successful writer, his much-tendered hinterland must be a solace and a comfort in the evening years of a life well-lived.
Look Me In the Eye - A Life in Television by Jeremy Isaacs (published by Little Brown, 2006)
Jeremy Isaacs, son of Glasgow, has lived many lives at the glittering forefront of the arts and media in Britain. The list of his appointments and achievements is long and distinguished in a career that took him from beginnings as a producer at Granada TV, when commercial television began in the mid-1950s, to current affairs at the BBC and on to the highest pinnacle of the arts establishment as General Director of the Royal Opera House in the 1990s – a period of his life chronicled with typical verve and style in his memoir Never Mind the Moon.
These were the days when television was controlled by the great panjandrums who were the abiters of taste and lords of the airwaves, enlightened autocrats who oversaw the more limited schedules then on offer, compared to our multi-channelled opportunities, according to their view of the world. The old two-state system of the BBC and ITV held sway until Isaacs was appointed first Chief Executive of Channel Four, courting much controversy along the way. The roster of his pioneering firsts in television production include the epic history of the Second World War, the World at War, which further developed the use of eye-witness account allied to documentary film footage and voice-over (provided by Laurence Olivier) and the development of the independent production industry when founding director of Channel Four.
The book deals with big issues, as befits a big character, with Isaac’s usual ebullience and brio – he robustly defends the medium of television and celebrates its power to inform, educate and entertain. His is a life marked by personal tragedy borne stoically: his brother was killed by a bomb in Israel and his wife Tamara died of cancer but also a life of great abundance with the arts his joy, consolation and constant comforter. Isaacs has that rare ability to see large things largely and he paints the picture of his life and times in primary colours for all to see.
By Chris Patten
(published by Picador Penguin, £8.99)
Chris Patten has spent his entire professional life engaged in political affairs: as policy researcher, Conservative MP, Cabinet Minister, the last colonial governor of Hong Kong and European Commissioner. He is known for his engaging, witty style combined with a wide-ranging interest in matters beyond the political podium. He has a talent, rare amongst front-rank politicians, to set his thoughts and actions in a wide sweep of historical and cultural context. If any public figure has what the Labour politician Denis Healey called a “hinterland”, Patten has. This book, part-memoir, part commentary and part personal manifesto is something of a ‘state of the union’, or state of the planet, report on where we all are now. Using anecdote, reportage and historical devices, the author takes his reader on a tour of the world culturally, politically and geostrategically. However, he wears both his knowledge and experience lightly and manages to flatter the reader with a presumption of intelligence that can deal with a complex or contradictory argument whilst deploying a a wit that combines dryness with generosity. His pen-portraits of international leaders from Clinton to Chirac, Blair to Cheney are entertaining, shrewd and believable. He manages to mix criticism with compassion and disagreement with tolerance, yet his views are no less strongly held for his humanity. He also has a wonderful frame of reference, from ancient Chinese writings to American song-writers of the mid-20th century, from Rudyard Kipling to AA Milne and Confucius or Sartre. In the middle of a discourse about the nature of modern American power, he will make mention of Cole Porter or Irving Berlin. His chapter headings begin with a quotation from book, play or ancient text which sets the scene. This is a man who likes to read, listen, travel and talk in the service of the profession he has adorned for many years, underpinned by the historian’s sense of proportion and context.
James Naughtie sums it up by calling the book “masterly, elegant, sprightly, wry..” whilst The Independent calls it “warm, witty, stylish and readable”. It is also a wonderful introduction to international affairs for any aspiring student of the subject as well as for those well versed in its contradictions and fallibilities. A rich resource, garnished lightly by erudition gently applied.
The Hubris Syndrome
By David Owen
(published by Politico’s , £8.99)
David Owen is something of a Renaissance man in public life. A trained doctor before entering Parliament, he went on to become a Cabinet Minister, under Prime Minister James Callaghan, and Foreign Secretary aged 37 before going on to co-found the Social Democratic Party as one of the original Gang of Four. Having spent a lifetime ‘up close and personal’ with major political figures, and having a medical interest in the powerful and how ill-health effects leaders, Owen is well-placed to write about the nexus of power, personality and the mental state.
Written as part-case study, part-polemic Dr Owen puts the case for the idea that the nature of power today can send some leaders to the point of a kind of mental illness which manifests itself as a condition that is similar to what the Greek dramatists called hubris. Whilst the popular terminology would be that ‘power has gone to their head’ or he or she is unhinged or has ‘lost touch with reality’, Owen traces the roots of the concept of hubris and applies it to messrs Blair and Bush, taking as the template the handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath. The idea of hubris has its roots in ancient Greek drama, and in the study of power and the impact it has on those who seek to wield it. It is the study of how powerful people – heroes in the drama - can become puffed up with pride and thus become contemptuous and dismissive of others which leads to excessive self-confidence causing misunderstanding of the situation around them and eventual destruction at the hands of their nemesis. In the Greek experience, the hero is brought low by trying to act as though he were more like a god and thus is humbled and brought to earth. Thus the moral is that we should not allow power and success to go to their heads. It is, perhaps, also captured by the aphorism that ‘those who the gods wish to destroy they first make great’.
From drama, literature and history Owen develops his theme that hubris could be seen as an ‘occupational hazard’ for many leaders in political, military or business roles, and this should be considered as a medical syndrome when it arises and can be described as such. Owen sees it as illness of position as much as personality, and some leaders fall prey to it whilst others do not. Given the context of power, position and hierarchical deference in a governmental system, hubris can develop as a sense of omnipotence can develop in the individual. Owen cites a list of behavourial symptoms which could identify the condition such as: an identification with the state and themselves to the extent that they regard the outlook and interest of the two as identical; a messianic manner of talking about what they are doing and excessive confidence combined with unshakeable self-belief of being vindicated in a ‘higher court’ or by ‘history’ rather than colleagues or public opinion. All this combined with recklessness and restlessness leads to a loss of contact with reality, and major mistakes in decision-making with huge consequences for themselves and others.
The thesis continues with examples of leaders – from Attlee to Thatcher and Truman to Bush Senior - who became hubristic and those who did not, in the author’s opinion. Ways of avoiding hubris include having a sense of humour, developing perspective through a sceptical approach, support of family and friends and avoiding being cut off from the idea that power, ultimately, enables influence for a short while but not the dominance of events. Simply put, the leader who succumbs to the trappings of power over a long of period of time is more likely to become hubristic. The main case studies examined are that of Mrs Thatcher and how her premiership came to an end and the whole run-up to the recent war in Iraq involving Blair and Bush.
The reader may feel daunted by the subject matter but David Owen writes in a clear, lucid and straightforward manner which seeks to enlighten, based on his considerable experience of medicine, politics and international affairs. The author writes with wit and grace and is refreshingly candid about his own shortcomings as perceived by others – once accused himself of megalomania he admits to arrogance and an impatience of others combined with a tendency to ‘over-examine the spilt milk’. Owen has been seen in the past as a controversial figure, borne from a reputation as being a ‘serial resigner’ and a divider rather than uniter. However iconoclastic his view, it is an independent one which is the product of a questioning temperament. His criticisms, although profound and stinging, are nonetheless measured. His tone is one of the doctor giving advice, which if ignored will not be advantageous to the body politic. A penetrating study from a political figure who has often trod his own path in the face of harsh criticism. A survivor of the syndrome which he describes so brilliantly? The reader can judge.
Our Game
By John Le Carre
(published Hodder & Stoughton)
The premier British chronicler of Cold War intrigue and spy politics turns his attention to post-Soviet Union geo-politics in this typical tour de force. It is the mid-1990s and retired secret servant Timothy Cranmer is nursing his grapes on a country estate in Somerset – the English equivalent of the Italians’ ‘growing the olives’ in retirement. He is also dealing with the consequences of two simultaneously difficult relationships: that with his young girlfiriend and with his long-time agent, also retired but still troublesome.
Familiar themes abound in this as any other Le Carre novel which the author has come to make his own: identity in a clandestine world; the self-deceit of honour amongst spies; the English class system as manifested in schooling and occupation; the past lurking in the every day. These novelistic trademarks are set against the background of a post-Cold War Europe dealing with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the claims of Chechnya and regional conflict in the Cauacasus involving the former Russian republic of Ingushetia. Through the characters of Tim Cranmer and his agent Larry Pettifer the big geo-political questions of the 1990s are explored: the break-up of states and the resulting religious-ethnic identity conflict.
The characters are bound together by history, occupation and school – Cranmer is the spymaster to Pettifer’s agent just as he was the prefect to the junior boy at public school decades before. However, just as at school, it is Pettifer who is the wayward prodigy and beyond control and authority of a traditional sort. These underlying tensions are reinforced brilliantly by episodic flashbacks exploring these motivations further. The duo becomes an emotional ménage a trios when Cranmer’s girlfriend Emma becomes involved with Pettifer and is drawn into the central action dynamic plot of the novel – a bid to start a small war in the former Soviet republic of Ingushetia.
With the publication of the novel that made his name, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, it seems that Le Carre embarked on an ongoing voyage of autobiographical discovery which continues to this day. It is said that his first books were borne of anger at the outbreak of the Cold War and the way in which it was prosecuted by all concerned: he has knowledge of this as he was involved with the British foreign service in the 1960s and witnessed the building of the Berlin wall – the setting of the Spy. Subsequent books have developed, expanded and brought to life a parallel world which acts as a metaphor for everyday existence, as well as given birth to a host of vivid characters, notably George Smiley. Perhaps the anger has been tempered by experience but it is still evident and burnished by compassion and moral vigour. There is, as always, a whole universe of meaning in the title: the ‘game’ of the title is the traditional name given to the occupation of the spy as well as the game played out by the central characters – it is also the name traditionally given to football played at Winchester College. Our Game, as ever, in more ways than one.
The Time of My Life
By Denis Healey
There are many political biographies which can seem rather self-justificatory if not self-serving comprising a book-length catalogue of incidents in the life of the person concerned. This is not one of those. Written over twenty years ago by a man who had scaled the heights of the British political establishment by way of the British Army and the international department of the Labour Party to election as a Yorkshire MP and thence Defence Secretary and Chancelllor of the Exchequer, it stands as one of the best of the genre. Having a reputation as something of an intellectual bruiser, Healey’s style is both elegiac and honest – his well-known love of the Arts generally and poetry in particular is a central theme of the book. He is open about the trials and tribulations of political life and indulges a talent for character description with force and wit, even if his judgments are sometimes a little harsh. If he is unsparing with criticism he is also generous with praise, and his analysis of the post-war post-war world is all the more trenchantly convincing for the fact that he is of the generation that fought the Second World War and then set out to ‘win the peace’ by building the new Jerusalem based on social justice and equality of opportunity.
No dewy-eyed sentimentalist, his realism and gritty understanding of the challenges of changing society does not detract from his idealism, although his wartime experiences temper his expectations with pragmatism. It was Healey who declared that a politician must have a ‘hinterland’, by which he means interests, enthusiasms and passions beyond the fields of political play which are themselves sustaining, and he has them in abundance. A complex man of immense ability, he comes across on occasion as arrogant which is ultimately forgivable because it is balanced with tremendous good humour and self-knowledge. Now in his nineties having recently celebrated 60 years of marriage to his wife Edna, herself a successful writer, his much-tendered hinterland must be a solace and a comfort in the evening years of a life well-lived.
Look Me In the Eye - A Life in Television by Jeremy Isaacs (published by Little Brown, 2006)
Jeremy Isaacs, son of Glasgow, has lived many lives at the glittering forefront of the arts and media in Britain. The list of his appointments and achievements is long and distinguished in a career that took him from beginnings as a producer at Granada TV, when commercial television began in the mid-1950s, to current affairs at the BBC and on to the highest pinnacle of the arts establishment as General Director of the Royal Opera House in the 1990s – a period of his life chronicled with typical verve and style in his memoir Never Mind the Moon.
These were the days when television was controlled by the great panjandrums who were the abiters of taste and lords of the airwaves, enlightened autocrats who oversaw the more limited schedules then on offer, compared to our multi-channelled opportunities, according to their view of the world. The old two-state system of the BBC and ITV held sway until Isaacs was appointed first Chief Executive of Channel Four, courting much controversy along the way. The roster of his pioneering firsts in television production include the epic history of the Second World War, the World at War, which further developed the use of eye-witness account allied to documentary film footage and voice-over (provided by Laurence Olivier) and the development of the independent production industry when founding director of Channel Four.
The book deals with big issues, as befits a big character, with Isaac’s usual ebullience and brio – he robustly defends the medium of television and celebrates its power to inform, educate and entertain. His is a life marked by personal tragedy borne stoically: his brother was killed by a bomb in Israel and his wife Tamara died of cancer but also a life of great abundance with the arts his joy, consolation and constant comforter. Isaacs has that rare ability to see large things largely and he paints the picture of his life and times in primary colours for all to see.
Friday, 12 March 2010
October in the West - San Franciscan ventures
It is often said that the people of the United Kingdom and the people of the United States of America are divided by a common language. The framer of this much-quoted aphorism, which has something of the cliché about it, was articulating the myriad of ways in which so-called American English and so-called British English differs. Just as a ‘sidewalk’ is a pavement, the ‘trunk’ of a car is the boot, a supermarket has ‘carts’ and not trolleys and road users are told to ‘yield’ rather than give way so it is in the world of hearing devices.
I have, therefore, a set of instructions for obtaining hearing aid filters when on vacation in the United States. When preparing to travel internationally it is advisable for the hearing aid user to pack enough (wax) filters to cover the period away. To those not familiar with such matters the filter is a small perspex finger-tip sized piece of plastic which is affixed to the hearing aid to prevent wax from the inner ear entering the device. In the United Kingdom they are known as ‘filters’ and in the United States as ‘wax traps’.
Step One: find a representative of the company that supplies your hearing aids (or listening devices as the current parlance has it) by way of internet search and the discovery of an exhibition (Hear the World – www.hear-the-world.com ) at a downtown department store in the city. Macy’s Department store, Union Square, San Francisco was the scene of the latest stage of the globe-trotting exhibition of celebrity photographs by the celebrated musician Bryan Adams aimed at publicising hearing loss issues specifically and the promotion of hearing health issues more widely. The exhibition consisted of a series of photographs of artists striking a hand-behind-ear pose as if they were straining to hear something being said – a typical every-day gesture brilliantly conceived to make the wider point. The singer Annie Lennox graced the front cover of the publicity leaflet which relayed a number of startling facts: one in every six people worldwide is affected by hearing loss which is equivalent to the number of people who own a car and on average people with hearing loss wait 10 years before doing anything about it.
Step Two: Contact the Hearing & Speech Center of Northern California and discover that the nearest audiologist dispensing hearing aid accessories has an office in the next bloc to the bookshop you are visiting.
Step Three: Locate the audiologist in his office and after some initial confusion about the elusive Dr Schindler (who has moved to the other side of the city) subsequently you are presented with two complimentary packs of wax traps. All courtesy of the company network via Macy’s department store, the Hear the World exhibition and the information resources of the Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California – a wonderful example of the combination of American know-how, can-do philosophy and pure serendipity.
Sitting on a balcony in Tiburon, California overlooking the yacht club in late October with the sun pushing its way through the cloud amid the famous fog rolling across the San Francisco Bay, one would be forgiven for thinking that there cannot be many better ways to spend a late autumnal day. The former railroad terminus town of Tiburon, named after the Spanish word for shark, faces San Francisco across the Bay which is itself flanked by one of the greatest engineering wonders of the world and symbol of the city the world over – the Golden Gate Bridge The town once known as rowdy and raffish – think navvies, trains, saloons and hard-living – is now a sought-after commuter town of smart shops, smarter houses and even smarter cars. - with the many BMWs, V-Ws and Mercedes to be seen, the European car market is being supported mightily in Northern California.. The nearest to a disturbance of the peace to be found of an evening these days is an argument over protocol in the Corinthian Yacht Club, scene of the annual Commodore’s Ball which is the social event of the autumn season. To be seen twisting the night away in the main room of the clubhouse is proof that you are on good terms with the cognoscenti and the ‘movers’n’shakers’ of this Californian enclave which could be a town out of Hollywood central casting with its wooden houses, main street, coffee shop and every kind of boutique outlet imaginable. It is reminiscent of the setting for the movie Roxanne, a remake of the French play Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, based in small-town America.
The people of Tiburon have what is perhaps one of the easiest and most scenic commutes in the world. For those with houses overlooking the quay where the ferry docks it is a matter of watching the approaching vessel from kitchen or bedroom window and moseying or sauntering down to the waterfront, perhaps via the coffee house to pick up the obligatory ‘take out’, before boarding. Then it is sit back and admire the view of the Bay as your water-borne version of bus or tube conveys you towards the city either resplendent in its fog-bound glory or newly emergent from it as the ferry sails stately onwards.
At the ferry terminal building in San Francisco there is the wonderfully-named bookstore ‘Book Passages’ which contrasts in atmosphere and approach to the big down-town Borders bookshop on Union Square in middle of the city where the statue to Commodore Dewey hero of the Spanish-American war in late 19th Century (later made an Admiral) stands proud in front of Macy’s department store.
Fisherman’s Wharf with shops, such as Seasons dedicated to Christmas gifts and the National Football League (NFL) official outlet for American football merchandise, boasts restaurants and views of the harbour overlooking the infamous Alcatraz, now a museum.
As Tony Bennett describes in his signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, the cable cars do rise half-way to the stars and the morning fog may chill the air -
through the evocative names of the streets as the cable car makes its journey up, over and through those famous avenues ( “the little cable cars rise half-way to the stars”).
The hills of San Francisco are well-known for the large houses perched on top of the impossibly vertical streets named after robber barons from the romantic buccaneering days of the Gold Rush and the frontier: Nob Hill is named after Leland Stanford of the Union Pacific railway and founder of California’s Stanford University – who had a house on Nob Hill. The name Russian Hill conjures up White Russians escaping both the Bolshevik Revolution and the frozen steppe with Dr Zhivago not far behind; and downtown can be found the streets where the iconic car chase scene in Steve McQueen’s Bullitt was filmed.
Twenty years after the first visit of the Tutankamun exhibition to San Francisco, the young pharaoh and his entourage into the afterlife was back at the city’s de Young Musuem. Dedicated to fine art, this now-venerable institution was set up by the patronal family that founded the daily newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle. Our early morning tour, before the museum opened for the day, was facilitated by a member of the fundraising committee and we were accompanied by the ladies of that committee . The guided preview , often undertaken by volunteer guides or ‘docents’ at the Museum. The story of how the archaeologist Howard Carter and the aristocrat Lord Carnarvon unearthed the tomb of the boy Pharoah is still a stirring one of adventure and romance. The exhibition was enhanced by all the knowledge and understanding developed over the succeeding decades and also featured the photographs taken at the original opening of the tomb in the 1920s now stored in New York (on loan to de Young). The physical access for disabled museum-goers is very good – hearing access is facilitated by trained museum guides and there is a deaf docent service provided by an organisation called Deaf Media. (www.deafmedia.org / www.tutsanfrancisco.org / www.deyoungmuseum.org).
The de Young specialises in art and a striking piece of sculpture was the anti-war installation model of a Cathedral, by Al Farrow, made out of old and decommissioned weapons and consisting of further materials such as guns, bullets, steel, glass, bone. It serves as a graphic illustration of the link between war and religion – http://www.alfarrowcathedral.com. My art education has been enhanced considerably and given a boost courtesy of Amy Whitaker’s book on museums (Museums Legs – Fatigue and Hope in the Face of Art)
The Muir Woods National Park Monument is a living museum of nature. Set up in 1908 by naturalist, frontiersman and ranger Gifford Pinchot, who was appointed first head of the US Forest Service (forerunner of National Park Service) by President Theodore Roosevelt, it boasts some of the tallest and oldest trees in the United States – the redwoods. These majestic trees can live up to 2200 years and many stand taller than the Statue of Liberty. They are guardians of the plant and animal life which grows in profusion across the national park and they are playing a vital role of environmental protection through carbon capture and water preservation. Pinchot was influenced by the pioneering environmentalist and woodsman John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. The founding/organising conference of the United Nations in 1945 was held at Muir Woods. (http://www.nps.gov)
A Sunday afternoon trip to the Marin Headlands National Park which sits atop San Francisco Bay affords spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay and City. The land was originally farmed by the “vaqueros” cowboys of Spanish origin – followed by the Portugese community who made a living from dairy farming. The lighthouse commanding the entrance to the Bay, a difficult passage for vessels past and present, stands on its own promontory with the original mid-19 Century glass still intact which continues to bring light and relief to those who may find themselves in peril on the sea. A reminder of recent Cold War history and the real possibility of nuclear confrontation in those decades is the NIKE missile military encampment which stood on the Marin headlands, before the advent of the inter-continental ballistic missile rendered the base obsolete. The base is now a museum.
The Fort Bay yacht club stands in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge – it has a raffish, down-at-heel slightly faded but charming old-world feel with an air of past glory but uncertain future. The rather theatrical old salt of a barman was dumbfounded when confronted with the idea of a shandy – mixing beer and lemonade – which he regarded as both mystifying and almost sacrilegious. A white wine sprizer (white wine and soda) was incomprehensible so we settled on a glass of white wine straight – almost acceptable!
A late afternoon trip to Mill Valley reveals a slice of American and Californian social history. It is one of the original hippy communities of Northern California (“if you are going to San Francisco be sure to go with flowers in your hair”) complete with Mill Valley Market selling everything organic from West Coast to Eastern Oriental and back via Northern approaches – including Yorkshire tea. Mill Valley also boasts some fine restaurants – Italian a speciality.
A Saturday afternoon spent sailing on San Francisco Bay aboard the fifty-foot yacht Georgia J with the Vice-Commodore of the Corinthian Yacht Club and her husband-Captain is quiet an experience. Under Captain Kim we sailed around the former prison and military camp of Alcatraz (being reliably informed that Burt Lancaster as the bird man had flown long ago) and into the famous fog – which descends and lifts in an instant – after nearly losing both the winch and the Captain’s hand. The ever-present sealions in and around the bay – sometimes to be seen sitting on the yacht club dock – provided an amused audience. It all brought to mind the old sea shanty, The Mermaid, that tells the story of how ships were lured on to rocks by pretty creatures holding a comb and a glass: “ when we set sail, and our ship not far from the land, we there did espy a fair pretty maid, with a comb and a glass in her hand….”. The night was danced away at the annual yacht club ball when tales of the sea were swapped to the sounds of the 1970s.
The wine-country of Northern California, based in and around the Napa Valley and its towns, was traditionally a patchwork of family-owned vineyards and wineries which are now increasingly being taken over by larger commercial entities. The region also has a growing reputation internationally for olive oil. As a sign of affluence, confidence and ‘chutzpah’ many of the vineyards boast art installations and architectural structures not out of place in big city plazas. They are incongruously sited in the middle of the Napa Valley ranges, commanding views across the Valley.
Just as the European immigrants who found themselves in Southern California used the natural resources (of light and space) to invent and develop the quintessential American art form of the 20th Century – the motion picture – so their compatriots who came to Northern California brought with them the skills of their forefathers in wine production, making use of the abundant natural resources of the Western fertile plains.
The history of the state of California is also bound up with the Spanish missions which were built by missionaries along the length of the coastline from San Rafael in the North to San Diego in the South – all the names we know that are synonymous with Californian living have their origin here. Indeed, the American rock band The Eagles – whose sales of records necessitated a new category (platinum) to be invented by the record industry – pay tribute to the “mission bells” which line the route of the highway across the state in the hit song Hotel California.
A visit to Angel Island, across the Bay from Tiburon, was a sobering one. It was the historic immigration station – the ‘guarded gateway to the West’ - and former Civil War Army base, although San Franciso never heard a shot fired in anger during the American Civil War of the 1860s. All the immigrants from Asia – particularly Chinese and Japanese – were held on Ellis Island (sometimes called California’s equivalent to the New York entry point Ellis Island) whilst paperwork was processed. A poignant moment was provided by a Chinese man, on a works outing from a city-based company who told the assembled company that his own mother had been held at the barracks we were visiting, as one of the last cohort of immigrants to pass through before closure in the 1940s. This is a powerful reminder that the American Dream is a story based on injustice as well as heroism, brutality as well as courage. The manifest destiny of the United States was forged in adversity and history lives on in people’s lives. The Island affords views of the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the city from various vantage points.
In the canon of American popular music there are many songs celebrating the joys of particular places at particular times of the year: Frank Sinatra sings of the delights of Autumn in New York or Moonlight in Vermont, Joan Baez begs the object of her love (‘a rambling boy’) to Please Come to Boston for the Springtime. The Great American Songbook lyricists and composers turned their attentions to European cities as well – Yip Harburg on April in Paris or the Gershwins on A Foggy Day in London Town.. There should surely be a hymn to San Francisco in October, for it is very heaven. Perhaps it was October when Tony Bennett left his heart in the City by the Bay. I certainly did.
I have, therefore, a set of instructions for obtaining hearing aid filters when on vacation in the United States. When preparing to travel internationally it is advisable for the hearing aid user to pack enough (wax) filters to cover the period away. To those not familiar with such matters the filter is a small perspex finger-tip sized piece of plastic which is affixed to the hearing aid to prevent wax from the inner ear entering the device. In the United Kingdom they are known as ‘filters’ and in the United States as ‘wax traps’.
Step One: find a representative of the company that supplies your hearing aids (or listening devices as the current parlance has it) by way of internet search and the discovery of an exhibition (Hear the World – www.hear-the-world.com ) at a downtown department store in the city. Macy’s Department store, Union Square, San Francisco was the scene of the latest stage of the globe-trotting exhibition of celebrity photographs by the celebrated musician Bryan Adams aimed at publicising hearing loss issues specifically and the promotion of hearing health issues more widely. The exhibition consisted of a series of photographs of artists striking a hand-behind-ear pose as if they were straining to hear something being said – a typical every-day gesture brilliantly conceived to make the wider point. The singer Annie Lennox graced the front cover of the publicity leaflet which relayed a number of startling facts: one in every six people worldwide is affected by hearing loss which is equivalent to the number of people who own a car and on average people with hearing loss wait 10 years before doing anything about it.
Step Two: Contact the Hearing & Speech Center of Northern California and discover that the nearest audiologist dispensing hearing aid accessories has an office in the next bloc to the bookshop you are visiting.
Step Three: Locate the audiologist in his office and after some initial confusion about the elusive Dr Schindler (who has moved to the other side of the city) subsequently you are presented with two complimentary packs of wax traps. All courtesy of the company network via Macy’s department store, the Hear the World exhibition and the information resources of the Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California – a wonderful example of the combination of American know-how, can-do philosophy and pure serendipity.
Sitting on a balcony in Tiburon, California overlooking the yacht club in late October with the sun pushing its way through the cloud amid the famous fog rolling across the San Francisco Bay, one would be forgiven for thinking that there cannot be many better ways to spend a late autumnal day. The former railroad terminus town of Tiburon, named after the Spanish word for shark, faces San Francisco across the Bay which is itself flanked by one of the greatest engineering wonders of the world and symbol of the city the world over – the Golden Gate Bridge The town once known as rowdy and raffish – think navvies, trains, saloons and hard-living – is now a sought-after commuter town of smart shops, smarter houses and even smarter cars. - with the many BMWs, V-Ws and Mercedes to be seen, the European car market is being supported mightily in Northern California.. The nearest to a disturbance of the peace to be found of an evening these days is an argument over protocol in the Corinthian Yacht Club, scene of the annual Commodore’s Ball which is the social event of the autumn season. To be seen twisting the night away in the main room of the clubhouse is proof that you are on good terms with the cognoscenti and the ‘movers’n’shakers’ of this Californian enclave which could be a town out of Hollywood central casting with its wooden houses, main street, coffee shop and every kind of boutique outlet imaginable. It is reminiscent of the setting for the movie Roxanne, a remake of the French play Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, based in small-town America.
The people of Tiburon have what is perhaps one of the easiest and most scenic commutes in the world. For those with houses overlooking the quay where the ferry docks it is a matter of watching the approaching vessel from kitchen or bedroom window and moseying or sauntering down to the waterfront, perhaps via the coffee house to pick up the obligatory ‘take out’, before boarding. Then it is sit back and admire the view of the Bay as your water-borne version of bus or tube conveys you towards the city either resplendent in its fog-bound glory or newly emergent from it as the ferry sails stately onwards.
At the ferry terminal building in San Francisco there is the wonderfully-named bookstore ‘Book Passages’ which contrasts in atmosphere and approach to the big down-town Borders bookshop on Union Square in middle of the city where the statue to Commodore Dewey hero of the Spanish-American war in late 19th Century (later made an Admiral) stands proud in front of Macy’s department store.
Fisherman’s Wharf with shops, such as Seasons dedicated to Christmas gifts and the National Football League (NFL) official outlet for American football merchandise, boasts restaurants and views of the harbour overlooking the infamous Alcatraz, now a museum.
As Tony Bennett describes in his signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, the cable cars do rise half-way to the stars and the morning fog may chill the air -
through the evocative names of the streets as the cable car makes its journey up, over and through those famous avenues ( “the little cable cars rise half-way to the stars”).
The hills of San Francisco are well-known for the large houses perched on top of the impossibly vertical streets named after robber barons from the romantic buccaneering days of the Gold Rush and the frontier: Nob Hill is named after Leland Stanford of the Union Pacific railway and founder of California’s Stanford University – who had a house on Nob Hill. The name Russian Hill conjures up White Russians escaping both the Bolshevik Revolution and the frozen steppe with Dr Zhivago not far behind; and downtown can be found the streets where the iconic car chase scene in Steve McQueen’s Bullitt was filmed.
Twenty years after the first visit of the Tutankamun exhibition to San Francisco, the young pharaoh and his entourage into the afterlife was back at the city’s de Young Musuem. Dedicated to fine art, this now-venerable institution was set up by the patronal family that founded the daily newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle. Our early morning tour, before the museum opened for the day, was facilitated by a member of the fundraising committee and we were accompanied by the ladies of that committee . The guided preview , often undertaken by volunteer guides or ‘docents’ at the Museum. The story of how the archaeologist Howard Carter and the aristocrat Lord Carnarvon unearthed the tomb of the boy Pharoah is still a stirring one of adventure and romance. The exhibition was enhanced by all the knowledge and understanding developed over the succeeding decades and also featured the photographs taken at the original opening of the tomb in the 1920s now stored in New York (on loan to de Young). The physical access for disabled museum-goers is very good – hearing access is facilitated by trained museum guides and there is a deaf docent service provided by an organisation called Deaf Media. (www.deafmedia.org / www.tutsanfrancisco.org / www.deyoungmuseum.org).
The de Young specialises in art and a striking piece of sculpture was the anti-war installation model of a Cathedral, by Al Farrow, made out of old and decommissioned weapons and consisting of further materials such as guns, bullets, steel, glass, bone. It serves as a graphic illustration of the link between war and religion – http://www.alfarrowcathedral.com. My art education has been enhanced considerably and given a boost courtesy of Amy Whitaker’s book on museums (Museums Legs – Fatigue and Hope in the Face of Art)
The Muir Woods National Park Monument is a living museum of nature. Set up in 1908 by naturalist, frontiersman and ranger Gifford Pinchot, who was appointed first head of the US Forest Service (forerunner of National Park Service) by President Theodore Roosevelt, it boasts some of the tallest and oldest trees in the United States – the redwoods. These majestic trees can live up to 2200 years and many stand taller than the Statue of Liberty. They are guardians of the plant and animal life which grows in profusion across the national park and they are playing a vital role of environmental protection through carbon capture and water preservation. Pinchot was influenced by the pioneering environmentalist and woodsman John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. The founding/organising conference of the United Nations in 1945 was held at Muir Woods. (http://www.nps.gov)
A Sunday afternoon trip to the Marin Headlands National Park which sits atop San Francisco Bay affords spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay and City. The land was originally farmed by the “vaqueros” cowboys of Spanish origin – followed by the Portugese community who made a living from dairy farming. The lighthouse commanding the entrance to the Bay, a difficult passage for vessels past and present, stands on its own promontory with the original mid-19 Century glass still intact which continues to bring light and relief to those who may find themselves in peril on the sea. A reminder of recent Cold War history and the real possibility of nuclear confrontation in those decades is the NIKE missile military encampment which stood on the Marin headlands, before the advent of the inter-continental ballistic missile rendered the base obsolete. The base is now a museum.
The Fort Bay yacht club stands in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge – it has a raffish, down-at-heel slightly faded but charming old-world feel with an air of past glory but uncertain future. The rather theatrical old salt of a barman was dumbfounded when confronted with the idea of a shandy – mixing beer and lemonade – which he regarded as both mystifying and almost sacrilegious. A white wine sprizer (white wine and soda) was incomprehensible so we settled on a glass of white wine straight – almost acceptable!
A late afternoon trip to Mill Valley reveals a slice of American and Californian social history. It is one of the original hippy communities of Northern California (“if you are going to San Francisco be sure to go with flowers in your hair”) complete with Mill Valley Market selling everything organic from West Coast to Eastern Oriental and back via Northern approaches – including Yorkshire tea. Mill Valley also boasts some fine restaurants – Italian a speciality.
A Saturday afternoon spent sailing on San Francisco Bay aboard the fifty-foot yacht Georgia J with the Vice-Commodore of the Corinthian Yacht Club and her husband-Captain is quiet an experience. Under Captain Kim we sailed around the former prison and military camp of Alcatraz (being reliably informed that Burt Lancaster as the bird man had flown long ago) and into the famous fog – which descends and lifts in an instant – after nearly losing both the winch and the Captain’s hand. The ever-present sealions in and around the bay – sometimes to be seen sitting on the yacht club dock – provided an amused audience. It all brought to mind the old sea shanty, The Mermaid, that tells the story of how ships were lured on to rocks by pretty creatures holding a comb and a glass: “ when we set sail, and our ship not far from the land, we there did espy a fair pretty maid, with a comb and a glass in her hand….”. The night was danced away at the annual yacht club ball when tales of the sea were swapped to the sounds of the 1970s.
The wine-country of Northern California, based in and around the Napa Valley and its towns, was traditionally a patchwork of family-owned vineyards and wineries which are now increasingly being taken over by larger commercial entities. The region also has a growing reputation internationally for olive oil. As a sign of affluence, confidence and ‘chutzpah’ many of the vineyards boast art installations and architectural structures not out of place in big city plazas. They are incongruously sited in the middle of the Napa Valley ranges, commanding views across the Valley.
Just as the European immigrants who found themselves in Southern California used the natural resources (of light and space) to invent and develop the quintessential American art form of the 20th Century – the motion picture – so their compatriots who came to Northern California brought with them the skills of their forefathers in wine production, making use of the abundant natural resources of the Western fertile plains.
The history of the state of California is also bound up with the Spanish missions which were built by missionaries along the length of the coastline from San Rafael in the North to San Diego in the South – all the names we know that are synonymous with Californian living have their origin here. Indeed, the American rock band The Eagles – whose sales of records necessitated a new category (platinum) to be invented by the record industry – pay tribute to the “mission bells” which line the route of the highway across the state in the hit song Hotel California.
A visit to Angel Island, across the Bay from Tiburon, was a sobering one. It was the historic immigration station – the ‘guarded gateway to the West’ - and former Civil War Army base, although San Franciso never heard a shot fired in anger during the American Civil War of the 1860s. All the immigrants from Asia – particularly Chinese and Japanese – were held on Ellis Island (sometimes called California’s equivalent to the New York entry point Ellis Island) whilst paperwork was processed. A poignant moment was provided by a Chinese man, on a works outing from a city-based company who told the assembled company that his own mother had been held at the barracks we were visiting, as one of the last cohort of immigrants to pass through before closure in the 1940s. This is a powerful reminder that the American Dream is a story based on injustice as well as heroism, brutality as well as courage. The manifest destiny of the United States was forged in adversity and history lives on in people’s lives. The Island affords views of the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the city from various vantage points.
In the canon of American popular music there are many songs celebrating the joys of particular places at particular times of the year: Frank Sinatra sings of the delights of Autumn in New York or Moonlight in Vermont, Joan Baez begs the object of her love (‘a rambling boy’) to Please Come to Boston for the Springtime. The Great American Songbook lyricists and composers turned their attentions to European cities as well – Yip Harburg on April in Paris or the Gershwins on A Foggy Day in London Town.. There should surely be a hymn to San Francisco in October, for it is very heaven. Perhaps it was October when Tony Bennett left his heart in the City by the Bay. I certainly did.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Julie&Julia: love&food across time in US and Europe
Food, marriage and intertwined lives combine in this latest feel-good factor film from Hollywood screenwriter-producer Nora Ephron, who brought the world When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and Heartburn. It tells the story of Julia Child, food writer and doyenne of TV chefs, whose cookery show was the first to have subtitles of the deaf and hard of hearing, in the America of the 1950/60s/70s through the eyes of a twenty-something newly married girl in New York, Julie. Julia Child wrote the seminal book on French cuisine (Mastering the Art of French Cooking), that revolutionised American attitudes to cooking. A daughter of Californian privilege and wife of an American diplomatic official, Julia Child became the unlikely star of the television age and food writer of enormous distinction. It was said that every College girl moving to New York across the decades of the mid-twentieth century had to have three items in her possession: a couch, a copy of Joseph Heller’s book Catch 22 and a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.
Based on Child’s autobiography and a book by Julie Powell, the film’s central dynamic takes a twenty-first century newly married girl Julie, played by Amy Adams, living with her journalist husband above a pizza shop in downtown New York. Commuting to an uninspiring government agency job Julie dreams of accomplishments beyond her humdrum existence. She finds it in her twin passions of cooking and writing by resolving to spend a year cooking her way through recipes in Julia Child’s magnus opus Mastering the Art of French Cooking and to blog about the experience.
By using the classic cinematic device of running two stories simultaneously, Julie’s story unfolds in the New York of the 2000s whilst Julia’s autobiography develops in the postwar Paris as she evolves from government service wife to legendary food writer by way of happenstance and accident. Meryl Streep gives one of her best screen performances to date, displaying once again a gift for light comedy as luminous as her dramatic talent. Streep captures the awkward, ungainly, forthright yet well-meaning manner of a very tall woman brilliantly and her well known facility with accent and tone evokes the educated, well-bred voice of her subject precisely. Stanley Tucci plays her affectionate husband Paul with humour and a touch of gentle comic irony which complements his co-star’s large screen persona. The film is as much an analysis of a loving marriage as it is affectionate tribute to a much-loved figure. The theme of relationships between the central characters are contrasted by the pressures of modern living faced by Julie and husband Eric in twenty-first century New York with the diplomatic life of Julia and her husband in postwar Europe.
A recurring theme beloved of Nora Ephron is that of friendship between women – they meet for lunch and dinner to compare notes, parade successes and give bittersweet advice to each other. There is the inevitable tension between Julie and her partner as the cooking obsession takes hold and starts to affect their relationship with crisis ultimately resolved when the project ends with media interest and beginnings of a writing career. This is in counter-point to Julia’s life – she forged a career almost by accident and in spite of herself from a desire to be occupied when women of her age and class were expected to marry well and be decorative, whereas the young protagonist Julie has a conscious drive to succeed with an expectation of that possibility in an age of opportunity for women that would have been almost unknown to Julia’s contemporaries. These parallels, however, should not be overplayed. If the film is an examination of modern sensibilities: relationships, work, career, self-fulfillment, ambition and the role of the internet in life and living; it is also a reminder of the universal theme of the quest for the good relationship and what the songwriter called the ‘fight for love and glory’. Could it be that it really is the same old story after all?
Based on Child’s autobiography and a book by Julie Powell, the film’s central dynamic takes a twenty-first century newly married girl Julie, played by Amy Adams, living with her journalist husband above a pizza shop in downtown New York. Commuting to an uninspiring government agency job Julie dreams of accomplishments beyond her humdrum existence. She finds it in her twin passions of cooking and writing by resolving to spend a year cooking her way through recipes in Julia Child’s magnus opus Mastering the Art of French Cooking and to blog about the experience.
By using the classic cinematic device of running two stories simultaneously, Julie’s story unfolds in the New York of the 2000s whilst Julia’s autobiography develops in the postwar Paris as she evolves from government service wife to legendary food writer by way of happenstance and accident. Meryl Streep gives one of her best screen performances to date, displaying once again a gift for light comedy as luminous as her dramatic talent. Streep captures the awkward, ungainly, forthright yet well-meaning manner of a very tall woman brilliantly and her well known facility with accent and tone evokes the educated, well-bred voice of her subject precisely. Stanley Tucci plays her affectionate husband Paul with humour and a touch of gentle comic irony which complements his co-star’s large screen persona. The film is as much an analysis of a loving marriage as it is affectionate tribute to a much-loved figure. The theme of relationships between the central characters are contrasted by the pressures of modern living faced by Julie and husband Eric in twenty-first century New York with the diplomatic life of Julia and her husband in postwar Europe.
A recurring theme beloved of Nora Ephron is that of friendship between women – they meet for lunch and dinner to compare notes, parade successes and give bittersweet advice to each other. There is the inevitable tension between Julie and her partner as the cooking obsession takes hold and starts to affect their relationship with crisis ultimately resolved when the project ends with media interest and beginnings of a writing career. This is in counter-point to Julia’s life – she forged a career almost by accident and in spite of herself from a desire to be occupied when women of her age and class were expected to marry well and be decorative, whereas the young protagonist Julie has a conscious drive to succeed with an expectation of that possibility in an age of opportunity for women that would have been almost unknown to Julia’s contemporaries. These parallels, however, should not be overplayed. If the film is an examination of modern sensibilities: relationships, work, career, self-fulfillment, ambition and the role of the internet in life and living; it is also a reminder of the universal theme of the quest for the good relationship and what the songwriter called the ‘fight for love and glory’. Could it be that it really is the same old story after all?
Monday, 8 February 2010
The Eternal City on screen and in print
For the discerning actual or armchair traveller, there are many city guides giving details of where to visit and how to spend time. This is a different approach – introducing some wider ‘popular culture’ reference points – some history, some reading, a film or two.
Attempting to condense the history of Rome into a few hundred words is a little like setting out to paint the Forth Road Bridge with one tin of paint – a wee bit optimistic. However, what the Reduced Shakespeare Company has managed to do for the Bard, appreciated by many over a long period of time at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I will attempt for the Eternal City.
From its beginnings in the early settlement of antiquated legend through to its heyday as seat of Republic, Empire and on to its role as capital city of the Catholic Church, Rome has enjoyed a history about which big words are used: resplendent, majestic, awe-inspiring. The settlement on the banks of the Tiber, beleaguered by warring tribes, was fated to grow into a city-state that dominated the world in antiquity and the history books from the moment Romulus, Remus and a she-wolf entered the scene at stage left – or forest right depending on your view. Being men – nearly always men but Roman matrons are not to be trifled with – of rugged independence with a tendency to violence when het up or riled the Romans re-invented the idea of the Republic as a way of governing affairs. This idea was inherited from the Greeks whose power by this time had waned but still had an influence: heard of that chap Socrates or his friends Plato or their pal the playwright Aristophanes?
Due to a series of accidents; murders; armies needing pacifying and powerful men seeking more power, the Republic gave way to the Empire which, as old-fashioned historians (often in glasses and tweed jacket with initials such as AJP or WF or BHS) used to tell their students and anyone who would listen, sowed the seeds of its decline from its very inception. Thus began an era which made internecine warfare between families such as the Mafia quite tame. Aristocrats, plebians, the mob, heroes and villains, soothsayers, political intrigue, big battles, huge triumphs with lunatic Emperors and their loopier progeny and relations – the story has it all.
These themes were to be repeated in later medieval and Renaissance periods – the Romans gave their fellow Italians a taste for city governance combined with family madness, public intrigue and dangerous power-plays involving Uncle Umberto or Auntie Bella. Eventually, as it is with these vainglorious human endeavours (as they say in all the best Victorian hymns), earth’s proud empires pass away and another rises from the ashes. Instead of the Circus Maximus with spectacles involving Christians being thrown to the lions, the Christians took charge and non-Christians or heretics (believers of a different sort) were often thrown into the fire. The martyr St Peter, the rock on which the Church was built, established the Apostolic Succession and his successors created the Papacy, built the Vatican and established the Holy See which became another city state with all the accompanying intrigue and machinations. This time the story involved men in cassocks of many colours (black for the humble priests and red for the not-so-humble cardinals), with the leader both temporal and spiritual, meaning in this world and the next, of the universal church known as Pope dressed in white. The Pope may not have many divisions (as 20th century dictator and son of the seminary Joseph Stalin once put it) but he did have millions of followers, an impressive civil service known as the Curia and ‘wheels’ to boot. Any aspiring Cardinal (in red) who was ‘papabile’ (deemed as suitable for both a change of wardrobe and status) could look forward to the motoring possibility of the ‘Popemobile’ – a transport of delight Vatican-style made famous by Pope John Paul II. In short, the man who is ‘papabile’ has a chance of transportation in the Popemobile. If the smoke from the chimney puffed white the world knew that a new occupant of the Throne of St Peter had been elected. A curious thing – God’s ultimate Holy Father is chosen by a ballot of his peers – the anointed one is elected.
The city on film – Spartacus, Quo Vadis, Roman Holiday, La Dolce Vita, The Shoes of the Fisherman
The late actor, writer, raconteur and all-round Renaissance-style polymath Peter Ustinov used to remark that the Americans were very good at making Hollywood movies about the Romans – they understood the Ancient Roman mentality. Thus it is fitting that Ustinov stars in two of the recommended films. Spartacus (1960) tells the story of the slave revolt led by Kirk Douglas as the eponymous hero and pitted against the might of Rome’s legions led by Crassus, played magisterially by Laurence Olivier. Ustinov plays the weaselly slave auctioneer (a memorable line is “why me? I am more civilian than most civilians”) who ends up helping to save Spartacus’ love interest, played by the classical actress Jean Simmons, by smuggling her out of the city
In Quo Vadis (1951), the story of the rise and spread of Christianity from the birthplace of Christ in Judea to the very gates of Rome is told set against the background of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Nero. Peter Ustinov plays the murderous emperor with maniacal glee and much declaiming and rolling of eyes.
On a lighter, and much less epic note, Roman Holiday (1953) has two leading Hollywood stars of their day – Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn – having the time of their lives in 1950s Rome and duly falling in love. Scooters and ice cream abound which predates some of the famous scenes in La Dolce Vita (1960) when Swedish actress Anita Ekberg took a fully-clothed but very suggestive dip in the Trevi Fountain.
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) is a film adaptation of a Morris West novel that imagines the election of an eastern European pope a full decade before it happened, played by the late film actor Anthony Quinn, famous for his role as Zorba the Greek. Quinn’s character tries to mediate between Russia and the United States during the Cold War and has a penchant for going among the people of Rome disguised as a parish priest. He has difficulty coming to terms with modern life after years in a Siberian gulag in the Soviet Union.
The city between book covers – Imperium by Robert Harris; I Claudius by Robert Graves; the Falco mysteries by Lyndsey Davis.
If the reader is looking for an insight into the political, social and familial workings of Ancient Rome the two Roberts – Harris and Graves – provide that in abundance. In Imperium Robert Harris, political journalist turned novelist, tells the story of the young lawyer Marcus Cicero who rose to greatness in the dying years of the Roman Republic as one of the finest orators the world had ever seen (note all those superlatives – the Roman story as a whole invites them). Harris writes a thriller at once captivating and colourful and evokes the very smell of the city as he paints the portrait of political lives in dangerous times.
Robert Graves (1895-1985) develops similar themes in his much earlier work – Graves is of Harris’ grandfather’s generation. Classical scholar, poet and writer of great renown in the mid 20th century, Robert Graves sets his novel during the high-point of the Roman Imperial adventure and the extraordinary story of the unlikeliest of Emperors – Claudius. A scholar, librarian and writer he is part of the Imperial Julian family and is a chronicler of the family goings-on. Murder, intrigue and lust for power form the driving narrative with Claudius grandmother Livia emerging as the most ruthless operator of them all, manipulating the central players through a combination of guile, charm and deadly poison. The book was turned into a celebrated TV serial by the BBC, starring many of the best and brightest of British stage and screen; Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Sian Phillips as Livia and Brian Blessed as the Emperor Caesar Augustus leading the cast.
Lyndsey Davis’ Falco is a private detective in late-Empire Rome with a line in world-weary scepticism and a complicated emotional life. Davis paints a vivid picture with her hero constantly fighting Roman bureaucracy and his prospective in-laws. His adventures takes the reader into the heart of the uncivilised aspect of the Rome of the Emperor Vespasian where slaves are downtrodden, life is cheap and business of any sort corrupt. Falco does his best to remain above the stench whilst wooing his love - the aristocratic Helena Justina.
- All films mentioned are available on DVD and books from all bookshops and online. Imperium and the Falco mysteries are published by Arrow Books and I Claudius is published by Penguin
Attempting to condense the history of Rome into a few hundred words is a little like setting out to paint the Forth Road Bridge with one tin of paint – a wee bit optimistic. However, what the Reduced Shakespeare Company has managed to do for the Bard, appreciated by many over a long period of time at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I will attempt for the Eternal City.
From its beginnings in the early settlement of antiquated legend through to its heyday as seat of Republic, Empire and on to its role as capital city of the Catholic Church, Rome has enjoyed a history about which big words are used: resplendent, majestic, awe-inspiring. The settlement on the banks of the Tiber, beleaguered by warring tribes, was fated to grow into a city-state that dominated the world in antiquity and the history books from the moment Romulus, Remus and a she-wolf entered the scene at stage left – or forest right depending on your view. Being men – nearly always men but Roman matrons are not to be trifled with – of rugged independence with a tendency to violence when het up or riled the Romans re-invented the idea of the Republic as a way of governing affairs. This idea was inherited from the Greeks whose power by this time had waned but still had an influence: heard of that chap Socrates or his friends Plato or their pal the playwright Aristophanes?
Due to a series of accidents; murders; armies needing pacifying and powerful men seeking more power, the Republic gave way to the Empire which, as old-fashioned historians (often in glasses and tweed jacket with initials such as AJP or WF or BHS) used to tell their students and anyone who would listen, sowed the seeds of its decline from its very inception. Thus began an era which made internecine warfare between families such as the Mafia quite tame. Aristocrats, plebians, the mob, heroes and villains, soothsayers, political intrigue, big battles, huge triumphs with lunatic Emperors and their loopier progeny and relations – the story has it all.
These themes were to be repeated in later medieval and Renaissance periods – the Romans gave their fellow Italians a taste for city governance combined with family madness, public intrigue and dangerous power-plays involving Uncle Umberto or Auntie Bella. Eventually, as it is with these vainglorious human endeavours (as they say in all the best Victorian hymns), earth’s proud empires pass away and another rises from the ashes. Instead of the Circus Maximus with spectacles involving Christians being thrown to the lions, the Christians took charge and non-Christians or heretics (believers of a different sort) were often thrown into the fire. The martyr St Peter, the rock on which the Church was built, established the Apostolic Succession and his successors created the Papacy, built the Vatican and established the Holy See which became another city state with all the accompanying intrigue and machinations. This time the story involved men in cassocks of many colours (black for the humble priests and red for the not-so-humble cardinals), with the leader both temporal and spiritual, meaning in this world and the next, of the universal church known as Pope dressed in white. The Pope may not have many divisions (as 20th century dictator and son of the seminary Joseph Stalin once put it) but he did have millions of followers, an impressive civil service known as the Curia and ‘wheels’ to boot. Any aspiring Cardinal (in red) who was ‘papabile’ (deemed as suitable for both a change of wardrobe and status) could look forward to the motoring possibility of the ‘Popemobile’ – a transport of delight Vatican-style made famous by Pope John Paul II. In short, the man who is ‘papabile’ has a chance of transportation in the Popemobile. If the smoke from the chimney puffed white the world knew that a new occupant of the Throne of St Peter had been elected. A curious thing – God’s ultimate Holy Father is chosen by a ballot of his peers – the anointed one is elected.
The city on film – Spartacus, Quo Vadis, Roman Holiday, La Dolce Vita, The Shoes of the Fisherman
The late actor, writer, raconteur and all-round Renaissance-style polymath Peter Ustinov used to remark that the Americans were very good at making Hollywood movies about the Romans – they understood the Ancient Roman mentality. Thus it is fitting that Ustinov stars in two of the recommended films. Spartacus (1960) tells the story of the slave revolt led by Kirk Douglas as the eponymous hero and pitted against the might of Rome’s legions led by Crassus, played magisterially by Laurence Olivier. Ustinov plays the weaselly slave auctioneer (a memorable line is “why me? I am more civilian than most civilians”) who ends up helping to save Spartacus’ love interest, played by the classical actress Jean Simmons, by smuggling her out of the city
In Quo Vadis (1951), the story of the rise and spread of Christianity from the birthplace of Christ in Judea to the very gates of Rome is told set against the background of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Nero. Peter Ustinov plays the murderous emperor with maniacal glee and much declaiming and rolling of eyes.
On a lighter, and much less epic note, Roman Holiday (1953) has two leading Hollywood stars of their day – Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn – having the time of their lives in 1950s Rome and duly falling in love. Scooters and ice cream abound which predates some of the famous scenes in La Dolce Vita (1960) when Swedish actress Anita Ekberg took a fully-clothed but very suggestive dip in the Trevi Fountain.
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) is a film adaptation of a Morris West novel that imagines the election of an eastern European pope a full decade before it happened, played by the late film actor Anthony Quinn, famous for his role as Zorba the Greek. Quinn’s character tries to mediate between Russia and the United States during the Cold War and has a penchant for going among the people of Rome disguised as a parish priest. He has difficulty coming to terms with modern life after years in a Siberian gulag in the Soviet Union.
The city between book covers – Imperium by Robert Harris; I Claudius by Robert Graves; the Falco mysteries by Lyndsey Davis.
If the reader is looking for an insight into the political, social and familial workings of Ancient Rome the two Roberts – Harris and Graves – provide that in abundance. In Imperium Robert Harris, political journalist turned novelist, tells the story of the young lawyer Marcus Cicero who rose to greatness in the dying years of the Roman Republic as one of the finest orators the world had ever seen (note all those superlatives – the Roman story as a whole invites them). Harris writes a thriller at once captivating and colourful and evokes the very smell of the city as he paints the portrait of political lives in dangerous times.
Robert Graves (1895-1985) develops similar themes in his much earlier work – Graves is of Harris’ grandfather’s generation. Classical scholar, poet and writer of great renown in the mid 20th century, Robert Graves sets his novel during the high-point of the Roman Imperial adventure and the extraordinary story of the unlikeliest of Emperors – Claudius. A scholar, librarian and writer he is part of the Imperial Julian family and is a chronicler of the family goings-on. Murder, intrigue and lust for power form the driving narrative with Claudius grandmother Livia emerging as the most ruthless operator of them all, manipulating the central players through a combination of guile, charm and deadly poison. The book was turned into a celebrated TV serial by the BBC, starring many of the best and brightest of British stage and screen; Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Sian Phillips as Livia and Brian Blessed as the Emperor Caesar Augustus leading the cast.
Lyndsey Davis’ Falco is a private detective in late-Empire Rome with a line in world-weary scepticism and a complicated emotional life. Davis paints a vivid picture with her hero constantly fighting Roman bureaucracy and his prospective in-laws. His adventures takes the reader into the heart of the uncivilised aspect of the Rome of the Emperor Vespasian where slaves are downtrodden, life is cheap and business of any sort corrupt. Falco does his best to remain above the stench whilst wooing his love - the aristocratic Helena Justina.
- All films mentioned are available on DVD and books from all bookshops and online. Imperium and the Falco mysteries are published by Arrow Books and I Claudius is published by Penguin
Valkrye – Cert 12 A
Tom Cruise and host of British stars in this retelling of the July 1944 plot - - a war-time story of heroism and daring ending in tragedy
The latest vehicle for Tom Cruise is a well-made and exciting thriller set in the last months of the Second World War. It tells the story of the July 1944 plot against Hitler’s life by a group of German Army officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was an establishment aristocratic scion of the German officer class, a decorated war hero, who became convinced that the only way to secure Germany’s future and save the fatherland from the continuing evil and madness of the Nazi regime was to kill Hitler and stage a coup allowing the Germans to sue for peace. This project was astoundingly difficult for practical and psychological reasons – Hitler was the German Army’s Commanding Officer and on taking power as Chancellor in 1933 had made the German armed forces swear a personal oath of allegiance to him as their Fuhrer. The film opens with that oath displayed up on screen. This meant that any disobedience or questioning of orders was considered as treason and the very notion of defying the chief went against the Army code. Thus the cause has to be honourable – that of stopping the horror and bringing peace – or the will to carry out the plot would have been lacking. These are men, by no means democrats, who would rather die in the attempt to show that some were prepared to resist Hitler than have the ignominy and shame cast on them as perpetuators of Germany’s dark night of tyranny.
Stauffenberg is invalided out of the fighting in the Western Desert and is posted back to Berlin as a staff officer where he falls in with the various groups of civilians, soldiers and diplomats who formed the disparate German ‘resistance’ at this stage in the war and at this moment in the life of the Nazi regime. The plot is hatched to plant a bomb in Hitler’s Army HQ and run Operation Valkryie designed to topple the Nazi government. Although Tom Cruise is hardly the epitome of what may be imagined as the Prussian officer of the old school he carries off the part with dash and style. Sporting an eye patch and a prosthetic arm, Cruise portrays Stauffenberg as arrogant yet a caring family man, driven yet compassionate. He has a fine supporting cast of leading British actors as his co-conspirators: the dependable Bill Nighy; Tom Wilkinson as the duplicitous General Frohm who switches sides; a character part for comedian Eddie Izzard as the staff officer inside Hitler’s command HQ; the hard-working and multi-talented Kenneth Branagh as the original leader of the plotters who makes a failed attempt on the Fuhrer’s life at the beginning of the film and ends up being posted to the Eastern Front; a strong performance by 1960s heart-throb Terence Stamp as the old general lending moral support to the operation and a study in fear from politician Kevin Mcnally.
The audacious plan to plant a bomb under the table in Hitler’s map room of his command bunker has been the most celebrated of the numerous plots on his life that took place in those last, increasingly desperate days of the Third Reich. The film is an exciting thriller which maintains pace and plot whilst giving due attention to character and motivation. Stauffenberg is worried about the safety of his wife and family and there is a scene in which she signals that she is only too well aware of the consequences of failure for them all. There is a rather moving scene, handled well, between Stauffenberg and his wife when he sends them out of the city knowing they might not see each other again. At the end of the film the credits inform the audience that not only did Nina von Stauffenberg survive the war, she lived a long life into her nineties, only recently passing away. Although the audience knows the story ends in tragedy and the plotters will not succeed, the telling of the tale as to what went wrong with mishaps, mistakes and near-misses is compelling and the courage of those involved inspiring.
The threads of honour and decency and conflicts of conscience are well handled amidst the frenetic pace that builds through the movie. At one point one of the generals declares that even if they fail it will show that not all Germans went along with the Nazis to the bitter end and some had the courage to resist. That, of course, is a central thrust of the whole affair – some were prepared to risk all and resist the tyranny. Many of the best films, plays and books dealing with the wartime period confront the viewer with the uncomfortable but necessary question, contemplated from the safety of our modern lives in peace and security, of what we might have done or not done in circumstances depicted on screen, stage or page. As we salute the bravery of Stauffenberg and his comrades, and all those prepared to confront evil in whatever era, it is a thought to be pondered still.
The latest vehicle for Tom Cruise is a well-made and exciting thriller set in the last months of the Second World War. It tells the story of the July 1944 plot against Hitler’s life by a group of German Army officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was an establishment aristocratic scion of the German officer class, a decorated war hero, who became convinced that the only way to secure Germany’s future and save the fatherland from the continuing evil and madness of the Nazi regime was to kill Hitler and stage a coup allowing the Germans to sue for peace. This project was astoundingly difficult for practical and psychological reasons – Hitler was the German Army’s Commanding Officer and on taking power as Chancellor in 1933 had made the German armed forces swear a personal oath of allegiance to him as their Fuhrer. The film opens with that oath displayed up on screen. This meant that any disobedience or questioning of orders was considered as treason and the very notion of defying the chief went against the Army code. Thus the cause has to be honourable – that of stopping the horror and bringing peace – or the will to carry out the plot would have been lacking. These are men, by no means democrats, who would rather die in the attempt to show that some were prepared to resist Hitler than have the ignominy and shame cast on them as perpetuators of Germany’s dark night of tyranny.
Stauffenberg is invalided out of the fighting in the Western Desert and is posted back to Berlin as a staff officer where he falls in with the various groups of civilians, soldiers and diplomats who formed the disparate German ‘resistance’ at this stage in the war and at this moment in the life of the Nazi regime. The plot is hatched to plant a bomb in Hitler’s Army HQ and run Operation Valkryie designed to topple the Nazi government. Although Tom Cruise is hardly the epitome of what may be imagined as the Prussian officer of the old school he carries off the part with dash and style. Sporting an eye patch and a prosthetic arm, Cruise portrays Stauffenberg as arrogant yet a caring family man, driven yet compassionate. He has a fine supporting cast of leading British actors as his co-conspirators: the dependable Bill Nighy; Tom Wilkinson as the duplicitous General Frohm who switches sides; a character part for comedian Eddie Izzard as the staff officer inside Hitler’s command HQ; the hard-working and multi-talented Kenneth Branagh as the original leader of the plotters who makes a failed attempt on the Fuhrer’s life at the beginning of the film and ends up being posted to the Eastern Front; a strong performance by 1960s heart-throb Terence Stamp as the old general lending moral support to the operation and a study in fear from politician Kevin Mcnally.
The audacious plan to plant a bomb under the table in Hitler’s map room of his command bunker has been the most celebrated of the numerous plots on his life that took place in those last, increasingly desperate days of the Third Reich. The film is an exciting thriller which maintains pace and plot whilst giving due attention to character and motivation. Stauffenberg is worried about the safety of his wife and family and there is a scene in which she signals that she is only too well aware of the consequences of failure for them all. There is a rather moving scene, handled well, between Stauffenberg and his wife when he sends them out of the city knowing they might not see each other again. At the end of the film the credits inform the audience that not only did Nina von Stauffenberg survive the war, she lived a long life into her nineties, only recently passing away. Although the audience knows the story ends in tragedy and the plotters will not succeed, the telling of the tale as to what went wrong with mishaps, mistakes and near-misses is compelling and the courage of those involved inspiring.
The threads of honour and decency and conflicts of conscience are well handled amidst the frenetic pace that builds through the movie. At one point one of the generals declares that even if they fail it will show that not all Germans went along with the Nazis to the bitter end and some had the courage to resist. That, of course, is a central thrust of the whole affair – some were prepared to risk all and resist the tyranny. Many of the best films, plays and books dealing with the wartime period confront the viewer with the uncomfortable but necessary question, contemplated from the safety of our modern lives in peace and security, of what we might have done or not done in circumstances depicted on screen, stage or page. As we salute the bravery of Stauffenberg and his comrades, and all those prepared to confront evil in whatever era, it is a thought to be pondered still.
A weekend in the City of Light
“Look at Paris in the Spring/Where each solitary thing is more beautiful than ever before” (Gigi, Learner & Lowe)
Our weekend trip to Paris, to celebrate our anniversary began at the new Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet in Kent. On arrival at the Gare du Nord, our hotel was some distance from the city, so we prepared for the walk uphill along the Rue de Dunkirk, a street we got to know well after missing several turnings.
Once settled into the hotel, small but with good views of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, a monument to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and unfinished till the next great conflagration in 1914. We ventured out for the classic French dish, steak-frites, at a local bistro and soaked up some local colour.
Montmartre, built on a hill at the heart of the city, is easily accessible. We headed for the bars and cafés forming the centre of the artists’ colony, previously frequented by artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Then we visited the studio off the Rue Lepic which, by repute, saw the birth of modern art.
Lunching at the Café Sancerre, with tables spilling onto the pavement in haphazard fashion we then walked back along the Boulevard by way of the Moulin Rouge. Walking through student populated Paris, the Latin Quartier and Sorbonne, the Rue St Germain and Rue St-Michel, the tour was a reminder of the lyrics from Peter Sarsted’s hit song ‘Where do You Go To My Lovely?’
The traditional farmhouse-style restaurant behind the former HQ of the Ècole Polytechnique, where a meal with wine must be purchased with cash scratched together from purse or wallet, is a reminder there are still establishments left in the world that do not accept the ‘carte bleu’, as credit cards are known in France. So the diner resorts to counting the cash and enjoying steak and frites, a glass of wine à la rustic serves admirably. Neither ‘a la carte’ or ‘prix fixe’ but somewhere between the two.
The Metro looked more inviting from the surface, with its welcoming ‘belle époque’ signs above, giving way to a down-at-heel feel below. A tour of Paris by commuter bus can be taken with stops at such evocative place names and iconic buildings as Palais Royale and Comédie-Française.
The Louvre Museum was disappointing with crowds let loose with no control. It is also best to remember many Parisian museums and galleries are closed on Monday. This fact can be more than compensated for with a lunch near the Tuilleries Gardens in a typical city centre bar-bistro complete with waist coated waiters. We took a post-prandial stroll along the Seine’s Rive Gauche through the rain, passing green boxes where the artists keep their materials. The imposing riverside buildings of cultural and political Gallic life such as the Institute de France look down upon the artists at their easels, displaying the hauteur of their French Second Empire architectural heritage.
We took the last bus to the Gare du Nord through the famous Parisian rush hour and homewards on the Eurostar with billboards displaying the glories of the refurbished St Pancras station, running fashionably late as befits the essence and joy of Paree
Our weekend trip to Paris, to celebrate our anniversary began at the new Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet in Kent. On arrival at the Gare du Nord, our hotel was some distance from the city, so we prepared for the walk uphill along the Rue de Dunkirk, a street we got to know well after missing several turnings.
Once settled into the hotel, small but with good views of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, a monument to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and unfinished till the next great conflagration in 1914. We ventured out for the classic French dish, steak-frites, at a local bistro and soaked up some local colour.
Montmartre, built on a hill at the heart of the city, is easily accessible. We headed for the bars and cafés forming the centre of the artists’ colony, previously frequented by artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Then we visited the studio off the Rue Lepic which, by repute, saw the birth of modern art.
Lunching at the Café Sancerre, with tables spilling onto the pavement in haphazard fashion we then walked back along the Boulevard by way of the Moulin Rouge. Walking through student populated Paris, the Latin Quartier and Sorbonne, the Rue St Germain and Rue St-Michel, the tour was a reminder of the lyrics from Peter Sarsted’s hit song ‘Where do You Go To My Lovely?’
The traditional farmhouse-style restaurant behind the former HQ of the Ècole Polytechnique, where a meal with wine must be purchased with cash scratched together from purse or wallet, is a reminder there are still establishments left in the world that do not accept the ‘carte bleu’, as credit cards are known in France. So the diner resorts to counting the cash and enjoying steak and frites, a glass of wine à la rustic serves admirably. Neither ‘a la carte’ or ‘prix fixe’ but somewhere between the two.
The Metro looked more inviting from the surface, with its welcoming ‘belle époque’ signs above, giving way to a down-at-heel feel below. A tour of Paris by commuter bus can be taken with stops at such evocative place names and iconic buildings as Palais Royale and Comédie-Française.
The Louvre Museum was disappointing with crowds let loose with no control. It is also best to remember many Parisian museums and galleries are closed on Monday. This fact can be more than compensated for with a lunch near the Tuilleries Gardens in a typical city centre bar-bistro complete with waist coated waiters. We took a post-prandial stroll along the Seine’s Rive Gauche through the rain, passing green boxes where the artists keep their materials. The imposing riverside buildings of cultural and political Gallic life such as the Institute de France look down upon the artists at their easels, displaying the hauteur of their French Second Empire architectural heritage.
We took the last bus to the Gare du Nord through the famous Parisian rush hour and homewards on the Eurostar with billboards displaying the glories of the refurbished St Pancras station, running fashionably late as befits the essence and joy of Paree
An Hour in a Bookshop
Oh what a delight
To pass an hour
In the confines of a bookshop
A universe to be discovered
As varied as the four walls
Containing it
Sometimes to be found in
Shopping arcade, sometimes in favourite
Hideaway places, up alleyways, off high-street
At others in transient arenas
Such as airports, train stations
or hospital concourses
Sporting titles for their literary emporiums
As revealingly innocuous as ‘books etc’
An hour spent in the company of books
Wherever the purveyor may be
Whether before a flight or train
Or awaiting others on a family shop
Perhaps as a form of retail therapy
Is never wasted
Tis a joy and a balm for the soul
An uplift which never fails
To restore good humour whatever the travails
Of time and circumstance
Try it sometime – pop into your local
Arena of words
And marvel
WBR Jeremy
To pass an hour
In the confines of a bookshop
A universe to be discovered
As varied as the four walls
Containing it
Sometimes to be found in
Shopping arcade, sometimes in favourite
Hideaway places, up alleyways, off high-street
At others in transient arenas
Such as airports, train stations
or hospital concourses
Sporting titles for their literary emporiums
As revealingly innocuous as ‘books etc’
An hour spent in the company of books
Wherever the purveyor may be
Whether before a flight or train
Or awaiting others on a family shop
Perhaps as a form of retail therapy
Is never wasted
Tis a joy and a balm for the soul
An uplift which never fails
To restore good humour whatever the travails
Of time and circumstance
Try it sometime – pop into your local
Arena of words
And marvel
WBR Jeremy
Ear Pieces
I sit in the room engaged in conversation
With a charming, warm man talking of
Disability – hearing impairment – in terms
Of ranges of sound and levels of loss
Of hearing retention and damage done
Of future worsening and capturing sound
Told “grasping the nettle just as well now
Or face worse problem to come”
Told it is about enhancement and sustainment
If not replacement of sound
We talk of many things my
Hearing confessor and I
Of family and society
Children and parents
Speech and cadence
Rhythm and tone
Accent and articulation
The state of the health service
Situations and circumstances
We go on twice the time of
Regular consultations
Then comes the fitting
First the choosing
Involving discussions of placement
Where is comfortable, less or more conspicuous
Inside or out, noise control or not, larger or smaller
“No point if they are not to be worn but sit in a draw
Like so many do nowadays”
Next the moulding with wax imprinted
By firing from a special gun
Sitting with wedge in mouth whilst
Waxy substance melts
It goes off without hitch
The time is late we break off
To stroll to the gents still talking companionably
In generalities
And then more forms
Arrangements made to collect
A good-natured farewell
The deed is done
The nettle grasped
What has been spoken of, debated, alluded to, put off
Has been achieved
In short, two words describe my official state of disability
WBR Jeremy, May 2007
With a charming, warm man talking of
Disability – hearing impairment – in terms
Of ranges of sound and levels of loss
Of hearing retention and damage done
Of future worsening and capturing sound
Told “grasping the nettle just as well now
Or face worse problem to come”
Told it is about enhancement and sustainment
If not replacement of sound
We talk of many things my
Hearing confessor and I
Of family and society
Children and parents
Speech and cadence
Rhythm and tone
Accent and articulation
The state of the health service
Situations and circumstances
We go on twice the time of
Regular consultations
Then comes the fitting
First the choosing
Involving discussions of placement
Where is comfortable, less or more conspicuous
Inside or out, noise control or not, larger or smaller
“No point if they are not to be worn but sit in a draw
Like so many do nowadays”
Next the moulding with wax imprinted
By firing from a special gun
Sitting with wedge in mouth whilst
Waxy substance melts
It goes off without hitch
The time is late we break off
To stroll to the gents still talking companionably
In generalities
And then more forms
Arrangements made to collect
A good-natured farewell
The deed is done
The nettle grasped
What has been spoken of, debated, alluded to, put off
Has been achieved
In short, two words describe my official state of disability
WBR Jeremy, May 2007
Biographica Audiologica
The creative process is often accompanied by some sort of compulsion. This is what is sometimes known as the creative urge. And so it was with my poem Ear Pieces The compulsion was to explain what had happened – a diagnosis of hearing loss – and the urge took the form of a poem. It is said that the material chooses the writer.
The story is not conventional, in keeping with much of my life. Many narratives of hearing loss run thus: sound or possibly perfect hearing since childhood and into adulthood followed by loss – gradual or steep – into middle or later age. A traditional, linear, almost accepted, progression from perceived ‘perfection’ to imperfection, from ‘full faculty’ to ‘impairment’.
I discovered my hearing loss in my late 30s. I had difficulties with ears when young but this may have been hidden due to attention given to a stammer/speech impediment Growing up in a large voluble family with an average noise level much higher than the conversational norm, I was used to the projection of voices with an emphasis on diction and thus any problem would not necessarily have been picked up on because most of the time I heard everyone around me only too clearly!
On marrying and moving to a much quieter environment my wife Karen realised I must have a hearing problem – she noticed I would not respond if I stood at one end of the kitchen with my back turned. I also had difficulty hearing low tones and certain pitches of sounds, both vocal and electronic.
Further investigation led to a diagnosis of audiosclerosis. This means the inner ear bone is stuck fast and does not vibrate. Through the process of diagnosis and acquisition of hearing aids I have learnt about the world of audiology, both its science and art. The hearing sense requires more in terms of ‘brainpower’ than sight. When man was living in the cave, the predators would come at night and sharp hearing was paramount in detecting them. Each person has a set number of ear hairs that facilitate hearing and once damaged the brain compensates in all sorts of ways. It is possible that I have been unconsciously lip-reading for many years. So much for survival of the fittest! The specialists could not accurately tell when the problem started, possibly in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. Any operation to substitute an inner ear piece of bone would not be effective due to nerve damage. Hearing aids followed and the rest is an ongoing revelation, if not quite history.
The adjustment to the onrush of sounds and sensations with the hearing aids – birdsong, footfall on stairs, wind-in-trees, traffic – was unexpectedly emotional. I ‘knew’ all those sounds but re-discovered them anew in sharper definition for the first time in a long time. I had always been able to listen to the radio or TV and read at the same time. With my new ‘ears’ in the sounds are much higher volume, so the concentration on one medium at a time is important.
The hearing adventure has provided something of an explanation of things past: from school, through to University and into the working world. With a childhood stammer giving an existing, perhaps self-imagined perception of ‘slowness’, speed (of thought, reaction, approach) and its lack has always been an issue. In retrospect, how much might have been missed in arenas requiring aural faculty - the classroom, lecture-hall, at interviews and in the court-room?
Despite these difficulties early on I have achieved academically – at degree and post-graduate levels and professionally in public and legal affairs, research and the media.
My passion is the radio and all things audio and I am developing a freelance practice in research, writing and broadcasting. My hearing loss is by no means a curtailment of ambitions in the aural arena and may add an extra dimension to my life through the enhanced understanding of people with disability generally and hearing loss in particular.
The story is not conventional, in keeping with much of my life. Many narratives of hearing loss run thus: sound or possibly perfect hearing since childhood and into adulthood followed by loss – gradual or steep – into middle or later age. A traditional, linear, almost accepted, progression from perceived ‘perfection’ to imperfection, from ‘full faculty’ to ‘impairment’.
I discovered my hearing loss in my late 30s. I had difficulties with ears when young but this may have been hidden due to attention given to a stammer/speech impediment Growing up in a large voluble family with an average noise level much higher than the conversational norm, I was used to the projection of voices with an emphasis on diction and thus any problem would not necessarily have been picked up on because most of the time I heard everyone around me only too clearly!
On marrying and moving to a much quieter environment my wife Karen realised I must have a hearing problem – she noticed I would not respond if I stood at one end of the kitchen with my back turned. I also had difficulty hearing low tones and certain pitches of sounds, both vocal and electronic.
Further investigation led to a diagnosis of audiosclerosis. This means the inner ear bone is stuck fast and does not vibrate. Through the process of diagnosis and acquisition of hearing aids I have learnt about the world of audiology, both its science and art. The hearing sense requires more in terms of ‘brainpower’ than sight. When man was living in the cave, the predators would come at night and sharp hearing was paramount in detecting them. Each person has a set number of ear hairs that facilitate hearing and once damaged the brain compensates in all sorts of ways. It is possible that I have been unconsciously lip-reading for many years. So much for survival of the fittest! The specialists could not accurately tell when the problem started, possibly in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. Any operation to substitute an inner ear piece of bone would not be effective due to nerve damage. Hearing aids followed and the rest is an ongoing revelation, if not quite history.
The adjustment to the onrush of sounds and sensations with the hearing aids – birdsong, footfall on stairs, wind-in-trees, traffic – was unexpectedly emotional. I ‘knew’ all those sounds but re-discovered them anew in sharper definition for the first time in a long time. I had always been able to listen to the radio or TV and read at the same time. With my new ‘ears’ in the sounds are much higher volume, so the concentration on one medium at a time is important.
The hearing adventure has provided something of an explanation of things past: from school, through to University and into the working world. With a childhood stammer giving an existing, perhaps self-imagined perception of ‘slowness’, speed (of thought, reaction, approach) and its lack has always been an issue. In retrospect, how much might have been missed in arenas requiring aural faculty - the classroom, lecture-hall, at interviews and in the court-room?
Despite these difficulties early on I have achieved academically – at degree and post-graduate levels and professionally in public and legal affairs, research and the media.
My passion is the radio and all things audio and I am developing a freelance practice in research, writing and broadcasting. My hearing loss is by no means a curtailment of ambitions in the aural arena and may add an extra dimension to my life through the enhanced understanding of people with disability generally and hearing loss in particular.
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