This week’s chemotherapy seems to be sending me back to some kind of working groove. The process is a kind of coming together of existing ideas – my way of saying there is nothing original in all this, it is just a coalescence of facts and ideas, began with “60 Minutes” and an interview with Christine Lagarde, formerly France’s Finance Minister and is now head of the International Monetary Fund. She warned of economic dislocation leading to “social unrest.”
The Globe and Mail, in one of its centre spreads, commented on the end of left wing government in the Euro zone, punctuated by the victory of the centre-right in Spain. (Even though it seems like only months ago that the left won following the disaster of the terrorist attack on the Madrid Subway.)
In my wandering I remembered how many historians gave Roosevelt credit for saving Capitalism. There is a common thread. Lagarde recognizes that governments, of any political persuasion, were going to have to come up with money. Monti in Italy has already started. Tough guy, he will increase revenues and make the wealthy pay.
Behind all this is the threat of social upheaval. Roosevelt put a damper on the depression by spending millions in public works. (Critics complained that he stopped too soon just when America was on the brink of recovery. The war solved that one.)
That there is already social unrest is a fact. The rioting is back at Tahrir Square, There is unrest over cuts to social programs with Greece leading the way. The traditional establishment method of dealing with financial shortage is to impose austerity. “Austerity” usually translates into cutting benefits to the ones who need item most while making sure the wealthy do not suffer. The word used is “entitlements” which always sounds like poorly placed charity. The facts are always this: the ones who need it most are the ones who will spend it because they have to, while the ones who need it least continue to hoard money beyond their however expensive tastes.
Big companies squirrel away capital, the latest ploy being that they are spending capital to re-aquire assets in stock buybacks while spending little on capital or labor improvements.
I am truly sorry that we have marginalized the rather flimsy “dissent” here by deprecating the efforts of the “occupiers.” We have, instead of confronting the very real problem of inequities chosen to sneer at their effort characterizing them as intrusive koombayaw tent dwellers with no targets or policies. Unless of course you include silly stuff like unemployment and the rising costs of education.
The Euro group will have to face this reality: the stubbornness of Angela Merkel and her obvious striving for European hegemony. Ironically, when you look at “social unrest” is Germany; you would have to conclude that if there is any it will manifest itself in anger against the rest of Europe that wants Germany to bail it out. The Germans think it is a one-way street with all benefits flowing one way, from Germany to the rest of Europe. They refuse to admit that the Euro zone has been good for them, expanding their economy and guaranteeing their leadership. I would like to have been a fly on the wall for the conversations between David Cameron and Angela Merkel.
Behind it all is the utter tragedy of American politics, where November 2012 has trumped everything else; where the select panel of legislators fought fiscal change to a standstill, and where the American public has given a 7% approval rating to Congress. They got what they voted for. They just didn’t get what they deserved.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A GREAT WASTELAND
For the last couple of weeks I have been trapped,my only source an endless series of
news stories all starting to sound the same. You have to have done it to discover utter
boredo: the Greeks are up the Greeks are down and we are ready to pass over to the next basket case: Italy, where the profligate government pays six and a half percent for money to run things. Canada spends 2.3 percent for its debt. Enough said.
The Berlusconi factor is nore more.The hedonistic and corrupt man who has run Italy for the past 16 years is leaving.
I'm writing this only to touch base with all my blog readers. I very nearly died from cancerous lungs and am still languishing in PMH where if my luck holds, they will be sending me home, where I cancuddle up to the trap of my own TV.
I hope to survive. If not. It's been good.
news stories all starting to sound the same. You have to have done it to discover utter
boredo: the Greeks are up the Greeks are down and we are ready to pass over to the next basket case: Italy, where the profligate government pays six and a half percent for money to run things. Canada spends 2.3 percent for its debt. Enough said.
The Berlusconi factor is nore more.The hedonistic and corrupt man who has run Italy for the past 16 years is leaving.
I'm writing this only to touch base with all my blog readers. I very nearly died from cancerous lungs and am still languishing in PMH where if my luck holds, they will be sending me home, where I cancuddle up to the trap of my own TV.
I hope to survive. If not. It's been good.
Monday, October 17, 2011
OTHER VOICES
When I started writing this blog I hoped that it would be more than simply my comment and then your opinion if you cared. However, what I wanted most was to have a give-and-take among my readers.I hoped what I wrote would stimulate cross-talk, discussion, argument, disagreement, not only with me but with other readers.
Alas, I have not managed to find my way into that format with the energy generated by differing opinions. Your response would come only to me.
However, there is one way to generate cross-talk: that is to post your answers and let the readers join the discussion.
After my recent blog about "irrelevance" I got one response that I would like to share with all of you.
"Dear Larry:
Your recent cri de coeur was touching. You assumed that "like minded people" of your own generation would sympathize with your admonishments and condemnations, your deep loathing of misplaced apostrophes and those high English hedges that block your view of the ancient homes of the rich and privileged. You preach and preach, as though those who might read your blog didn't already know that the American Right is fraught with religious nuts and pro-lynch rednecks and gun-freaks. Your tedious rants are totally unnecessary and then you blame your readers for not getting it.
Would you want to listen to yourself? You can't even attend a concert without delivering a Mister know-all lecture on the composer and the artist and all that goes with it.
I felt sorry for you, jamming around tourist trap St. Ives, when only a few miles away, in the exquisite Tudor town of Totnes you could have been taking the little cruise boat down the river Dart when the tide was going out, seen the glorious countryside all the way to ancient Dartmouth, eaten the world's best fish and chips near the docks, and, when the tide turned a few hours later, puttered back upriver to Totnes where there are lovely pubs and hostelries and wonderful food to be had in a town built in the reign of Henry VII, not a straight line on the whole street.
What have you learned in 83 years? What truths have you discovered? Where do you find beauty in your life. What makes you happy? What do you love?
I wish you well
(name omitted)
Alas, I have not managed to find my way into that format with the energy generated by differing opinions. Your response would come only to me.
However, there is one way to generate cross-talk: that is to post your answers and let the readers join the discussion.
After my recent blog about "irrelevance" I got one response that I would like to share with all of you.
"Dear Larry:
Your recent cri de coeur was touching. You assumed that "like minded people" of your own generation would sympathize with your admonishments and condemnations, your deep loathing of misplaced apostrophes and those high English hedges that block your view of the ancient homes of the rich and privileged. You preach and preach, as though those who might read your blog didn't already know that the American Right is fraught with religious nuts and pro-lynch rednecks and gun-freaks. Your tedious rants are totally unnecessary and then you blame your readers for not getting it.
Would you want to listen to yourself? You can't even attend a concert without delivering a Mister know-all lecture on the composer and the artist and all that goes with it.
I felt sorry for you, jamming around tourist trap St. Ives, when only a few miles away, in the exquisite Tudor town of Totnes you could have been taking the little cruise boat down the river Dart when the tide was going out, seen the glorious countryside all the way to ancient Dartmouth, eaten the world's best fish and chips near the docks, and, when the tide turned a few hours later, puttered back upriver to Totnes where there are lovely pubs and hostelries and wonderful food to be had in a town built in the reign of Henry VII, not a straight line on the whole street.
What have you learned in 83 years? What truths have you discovered? Where do you find beauty in your life. What makes you happy? What do you love?
I wish you well
(name omitted)
Saturday, October 15, 2011
FORGITTEN PROMISES - OR JUST MISLAID?
FORGOTTEN PROMISES
When I launched my blog I was hoping to attract hundreds – no – make that thousands – of like-minded people with common needs, aims, and ideas. It was all about the retired, and the soon-to-be retired. It was all about staying relevant in a world that seems to be consumed with youth and needs of a rising generation.
I’ve missed the point. Instead of trying to rally like-minded and like-aged people around me with cogent and clear aims, I went back to being who I always was: a left-leaning social critic and burr under the saddle of the young and/or the privileged.
So my rants, which have diminished in number, partly because of my own physical shortcomings and partly because I realized I was singing all the old songs, go, un-listened to.
So I find myself today, far from physically well and 83 years old, striving for relevancy.
I have missed the boat. Instead of uniting people of like minds, I have gone back to be a crabby curmudgeon – railing at everything. I suspect that the railing may still reflect my sense of social injustice, but in fact, I am boring myself to tears. What, I ask myself, would I be saying and writing is I still had whatever media prominence I once had? Who would listen? Who would join the chorus? Very few people have, at least partly because they are, like me, a lot older and more tired than they used to be.
I ask myself what I can possibly say about the rain wreck that characterizes the American political scene? I ask myself why it is that the suburbs tend to be politically right wing and the urban centres a little more to the left. There are simple, perhaps too simple answers: in the 905 for example, the ring of suburbs and small towns surrounding Toronto, the central issue still seems to be taxes. They don’t ant to pay taxes. They comfort their stubbornness, not to self-interest, but with the fact that governments and politicians want to tax and spend. We get taxed. They spend.
It is prevalent. It is epidemic. It is Greece where the national pastime seems to be to outsmart the tax collectors, or simply to cheat. It is Ontario where the Tories’ election campaign consisted mainly of the notion that higher taxes kills jobs and that lower taxes create jobs. Utter nonsense, but it appeals to the discomforted people living from pay check to pay check with a huge mortgage overhanging their hopes; it is fuel for their political choices.
A few days ago on PBS, I watched a “debate” between Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson. More of the same. The Republican mouthed the right-wing boilerplate about how government was stifling enterprise and initiative, and reinforcing that point of view with the “fact” that the proposed tax of people earning a million or more would hurt small business. The Democrat said, and he wins it statistically, that about 1% of small business earns over 1 million. (By the way, many of those so-called small businesses are hedge funds and their investment brothers.) But we are in a generation where emotion trumps statistics, where prejudice trumps knowledge and where an entire generation contributes to what we now call “post literate society.”
Finally thought, I know. I am a small voice in the howling wind of the illiterate landslide. I am too old, too cranky, and too irrelevant to be listened to. The only question I have let is: why do I bother.
When I launched my blog I was hoping to attract hundreds – no – make that thousands – of like-minded people with common needs, aims, and ideas. It was all about the retired, and the soon-to-be retired. It was all about staying relevant in a world that seems to be consumed with youth and needs of a rising generation.
I’ve missed the point. Instead of trying to rally like-minded and like-aged people around me with cogent and clear aims, I went back to being who I always was: a left-leaning social critic and burr under the saddle of the young and/or the privileged.
So my rants, which have diminished in number, partly because of my own physical shortcomings and partly because I realized I was singing all the old songs, go, un-listened to.
So I find myself today, far from physically well and 83 years old, striving for relevancy.
I have missed the boat. Instead of uniting people of like minds, I have gone back to be a crabby curmudgeon – railing at everything. I suspect that the railing may still reflect my sense of social injustice, but in fact, I am boring myself to tears. What, I ask myself, would I be saying and writing is I still had whatever media prominence I once had? Who would listen? Who would join the chorus? Very few people have, at least partly because they are, like me, a lot older and more tired than they used to be.
I ask myself what I can possibly say about the rain wreck that characterizes the American political scene? I ask myself why it is that the suburbs tend to be politically right wing and the urban centres a little more to the left. There are simple, perhaps too simple answers: in the 905 for example, the ring of suburbs and small towns surrounding Toronto, the central issue still seems to be taxes. They don’t ant to pay taxes. They comfort their stubbornness, not to self-interest, but with the fact that governments and politicians want to tax and spend. We get taxed. They spend.
It is prevalent. It is epidemic. It is Greece where the national pastime seems to be to outsmart the tax collectors, or simply to cheat. It is Ontario where the Tories’ election campaign consisted mainly of the notion that higher taxes kills jobs and that lower taxes create jobs. Utter nonsense, but it appeals to the discomforted people living from pay check to pay check with a huge mortgage overhanging their hopes; it is fuel for their political choices.
A few days ago on PBS, I watched a “debate” between Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson. More of the same. The Republican mouthed the right-wing boilerplate about how government was stifling enterprise and initiative, and reinforcing that point of view with the “fact” that the proposed tax of people earning a million or more would hurt small business. The Democrat said, and he wins it statistically, that about 1% of small business earns over 1 million. (By the way, many of those so-called small businesses are hedge funds and their investment brothers.) But we are in a generation where emotion trumps statistics, where prejudice trumps knowledge and where an entire generation contributes to what we now call “post literate society.”
Finally thought, I know. I am a small voice in the howling wind of the illiterate landslide. I am too old, too cranky, and too irrelevant to be listened to. The only question I have let is: why do I bother.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
NOTES FROM A POST LITERATE SOCIETY
Caught on CBC Newsworld morning weather forecast Thursday October 13: "the rain has not arrived "as of yet."
Caught on same Wednesday October 12: a different weather person but she managed to insert "at this point in time" three times in one forecast.
Same program same day, interview with the newly elected premier of Newfoundland - premier said "at this point in time" twice!
Regularly on CBC News weather from the most amiable and dependable meteorologist: the rain blew in "Off of" the lake.
It doesn't really matter except that an organization as important as the CBC is giving licence to massacre the language.
This is the first in a series of "who cares anyway" on the misuse and degradation of language. The generation of text-messagers needs no more encouragement. They are already deeply into the massacre of language and the end of person-to-person communication.
Caught on same Wednesday October 12: a different weather person but she managed to insert "at this point in time" three times in one forecast.
Same program same day, interview with the newly elected premier of Newfoundland - premier said "at this point in time" twice!
Regularly on CBC News weather from the most amiable and dependable meteorologist: the rain blew in "Off of" the lake.
It doesn't really matter except that an organization as important as the CBC is giving licence to massacre the language.
This is the first in a series of "who cares anyway" on the misuse and degradation of language. The generation of text-messagers needs no more encouragement. They are already deeply into the massacre of language and the end of person-to-person communication.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
GIVING 'EM WHAT THEY WANT
One of marketing’s most compelling imperatives is that to succeed with anything – product, service, fashion – you name it- give people what they want.
So the CBC brass can hold their noses and present week-in-week out red-neckery in the service of “giving people what they want.” Don Cherry is at least as outrageous as the most outrageous performer/demagogue that has ever graced mass media. He is a fool. He is also rich. Bruce Dowbiggin, one of the media’s most thoughtful writers went on at length about the pros and cons of Cherry’s latest rant. And the CBC will continue to say he is too valuable i.e. he brings in a lot of revenue, to remove him.
If he does bring in revenue is it because the CBC is stubbornly keeping him employed? Certainly not – Cherry is an acquired taste – like ultimate fighting, another
”sport” that made it mainstream because is what “what so many people wanted.”
I don’t think we should try to be arbiters of public taste. It is what it is. If people want, for example to buy a house on a street with every house dominated by what are called “snouthouses” then that is their taste. The snouthouse is the projecting two car monstrosity that dominates the front elevation of thousands of cookie-cutter suburban houses. And it is what people want. Developers keep telling us that they build “what people want.” A few years ago an architect couple from Florida introduced the novel idea of houses with garages in the back. The front of the house would be dominated not by that two car snouthouse and its accompanying two car driveway where most of the time people park their cars, making the street look a little like a used car lot. But hey – that’s what people want. When I last checked the only place this “novel” idea took root was in Markham
May I cynically suggest, and I am not the first, that marketers know how to plug into and create a herd mentality. They aren’t always right. But in the case of a loud-mouth hockey guru, or organized killer-style fighting, or the subdivision houses that all look the same and are “saved” by having a slightly different front elevation or a different style from door, it seems to be “what people want.”
One has to believe that Hockey Night in Canada is an empire in itself. They make the decisions. If not, and the CBC has some concern over the emphasis on violence, what stops them from decreeing that when a fight begins the cameras do not pay any attention to it. To the contrary – it’s become an essential part of TV coverage
It is not up to any of us to declare Don Cherry persona non grata. It is up to people who tune in to Hockey Night in Canada, as much for Cherry as for the Leafs. I admit that I would tune in just to be there for the next outrageous, homophobic, racist, or brutal opinion the master was going to hurl at me. However, even I have a limit to my patience. After Cherry disgraced himself with his absurd welcome to Mayor Rib Ford and his idiotic comments about bike riding socialists, I was determined, even as a dedicated hockey fan, to be elsewhere when the first period ended.
Frankly, I don’t know how Ron McLean puts up with it. He takes his conversation with the motor-mouth as legitimate. He is made to look foolish, lurking in the corner, trying not to blush when his partner erupts in idiocy.
No my friends, it is not up to the CBC to cut him off. It is up to all of us to ignore him, and let it be known that he is being ignored.
So the CBC brass can hold their noses and present week-in-week out red-neckery in the service of “giving people what they want.” Don Cherry is at least as outrageous as the most outrageous performer/demagogue that has ever graced mass media. He is a fool. He is also rich. Bruce Dowbiggin, one of the media’s most thoughtful writers went on at length about the pros and cons of Cherry’s latest rant. And the CBC will continue to say he is too valuable i.e. he brings in a lot of revenue, to remove him.
If he does bring in revenue is it because the CBC is stubbornly keeping him employed? Certainly not – Cherry is an acquired taste – like ultimate fighting, another
”sport” that made it mainstream because is what “what so many people wanted.”
I don’t think we should try to be arbiters of public taste. It is what it is. If people want, for example to buy a house on a street with every house dominated by what are called “snouthouses” then that is their taste. The snouthouse is the projecting two car monstrosity that dominates the front elevation of thousands of cookie-cutter suburban houses. And it is what people want. Developers keep telling us that they build “what people want.” A few years ago an architect couple from Florida introduced the novel idea of houses with garages in the back. The front of the house would be dominated not by that two car snouthouse and its accompanying two car driveway where most of the time people park their cars, making the street look a little like a used car lot. But hey – that’s what people want. When I last checked the only place this “novel” idea took root was in Markham
May I cynically suggest, and I am not the first, that marketers know how to plug into and create a herd mentality. They aren’t always right. But in the case of a loud-mouth hockey guru, or organized killer-style fighting, or the subdivision houses that all look the same and are “saved” by having a slightly different front elevation or a different style from door, it seems to be “what people want.”
One has to believe that Hockey Night in Canada is an empire in itself. They make the decisions. If not, and the CBC has some concern over the emphasis on violence, what stops them from decreeing that when a fight begins the cameras do not pay any attention to it. To the contrary – it’s become an essential part of TV coverage
It is not up to any of us to declare Don Cherry persona non grata. It is up to people who tune in to Hockey Night in Canada, as much for Cherry as for the Leafs. I admit that I would tune in just to be there for the next outrageous, homophobic, racist, or brutal opinion the master was going to hurl at me. However, even I have a limit to my patience. After Cherry disgraced himself with his absurd welcome to Mayor Rib Ford and his idiotic comments about bike riding socialists, I was determined, even as a dedicated hockey fan, to be elsewhere when the first period ended.
Frankly, I don’t know how Ron McLean puts up with it. He takes his conversation with the motor-mouth as legitimate. He is made to look foolish, lurking in the corner, trying not to blush when his partner erupts in idiocy.
No my friends, it is not up to the CBC to cut him off. It is up to all of us to ignore him, and let it be known that he is being ignored.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
FINALLY - WHAT DID ENGLAND GIVE ME?
I have pondered. I have stewed. I have, especially after seeing Bristol, realized that my fruitless attempt to “see” the back roads and byways of the west of England, was nothing (for me only) but a romantic notion that I could see an idyllic element that makes the countryside of the U.K. so attractive. To me – it wasn’t. Yes, the size of the hedgerows was remarkable. Their very impenetrability daunting. But how many hedgerows do I have to see? How many narrow roads to I want to travel? How often did I find myself gazing out the car window at the pattern of farms, every field lush looking and fenced in by the ubiquitous hedgerows?
The small towns and villages did have charm. The castles appealed to my sense of history. But finally I realized once again, I am an urban creature. I think that cities, great and small, are the best reflection of the national ethos. The country road rurality (is there such a word) is interesting, but bucolic. If I were, I suppose, a landscape painter, or a member of the Barbizon school I would worship the outdoors. I don’t.
I am not without care for the quaint, the old and the sometimes exotic. But I am a city person. Which is why my greatest regret was that we stuck ourselves in the little town of Thornbury (kind of like Scarborough with an English accent) when I could have spent more time exploring the historic and the modern, the re-invention of famous cities like Bristol.
I thought that the main attractions in that once-famous city would be the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer responsible for fulfilling the dream of regularly scheduled Atlantic crossings. The only evidence I saw of his brilliance was the steamship Great Britain, and the suspension bridge crossing the gorge of the Avon. Great things most often happen in cities. Brunel characterizes that. His Great Western Railroad was the best in Britain, his suspension bridge was a masterpiece of engineering, certainly rivalling Roeblin who designed and created the first suspension bridge over the Ohio river at Cincinnati, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. So our trip to walk the decks and peer into the cabins of the ship was an experience. The ship was built in 1843 and plied the Atlantic before being sold to a consortium that made a fortune transporting settles to Australia. It was the biggest ship ever built. It could hold 700 passengers. Its “luxury” was of course limited, but in its day she was the Queen.
Brunel was responsible for the rebirth of Bristol and its shipbuilding industry. And that is what struck me most about Bristol. There is not much one can do about the twists and turns of the urban roads designed for a more leisurely time of carriages and horses. Bristol is an example, perhaps predicted by Brunel, of what can be done to “make” a city.
Our visits there were all too brief. You become tangled in traffic and wish only to find your way home. But “home” should have been someplace like Bristol or perhaps Cardiff.
I would like to have spent at least a week roaming the streets and back alleys, savouring the wonderful way the waterfront has been reclaimed with tasteful apartment buildings.
Because it was where Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot to us) took a leaky little ship – Henry VII was a real cheapskate) and claimed Newfoundland for Britain. It was Cabot who said the cod were so numerous you could walk on water by walking on the back of them. You “fished” by just putting a bucket overboard and helping yourself.
It all began in Bristol. I asked out exchanger-hosts in Thornbury if there was anything to commemorate Bristol’s position as Britain’s premier storage house for wine from Bordeaux. He seemed puzzled by the question. But he did recognize the name Harvey’s Bristol Cream.” Maybe it dawned on him that it was a name that commemorates a grand history from the time when Britain owned Aquitaine.
So I said farewell to the cunning little towns with their wall-to-wall tea rooms and antique ships, to the rural landscape with its soaring hedgerows, and those aggressive, impatient drivers who risk their lives speeding and passing on two lane roads which are difficult to call highways.
It was not what I expected. But what did I expect?
The night we left my Anglophilia took a real beating. I have always believed, or wanted to believe, that there was something somehow a little more civilized about the British. We sat in the restaurant of the hotel in Gatwick and struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to us. They were very friendly. They lived in a little village in the shadow of Windsor Castle. They were on their way to Tunisia where he would do a lot of drinking and play golf. I should have stopped there. She wanted me to know how it "really is" in Britain with terrorists and hordes of nasty immigrants. “They don't fit in.” I tried not to argue but told her that where we live there is harmony among the many races co-habiting our city. (Not true of course because we have our share of bigotry.) Nothing would calm her down. I felt like I was back on the radio listening to a half-baking nitwit tell me her very of the “truth.” It went something like: “They come here and are immediately put on the National Health, given money and houses. My own children can’t get a house, but they do.”
I wanted to remind her that “ her own children” had a head start, perhaps a hundred years with the benefit of a state paid education, and opportunities that they could take with no cultural or language difficulties. It was not, I would have said, the fault of some poor guy from Somalia that your kids have not succeeded. But you can’t argue with people who want to scapegoat.
It was a sad finish to the trip that started with so much optimism.
By the way, it seems my not-so-best-selling "Don't Be Blindsided by Retirement"
did not fly off the shelves. Whoever wants one can contact me and when I find out how much it will be to pay for postage. I'll mail you a book. The handling is free.
The small towns and villages did have charm. The castles appealed to my sense of history. But finally I realized once again, I am an urban creature. I think that cities, great and small, are the best reflection of the national ethos. The country road rurality (is there such a word) is interesting, but bucolic. If I were, I suppose, a landscape painter, or a member of the Barbizon school I would worship the outdoors. I don’t.
I am not without care for the quaint, the old and the sometimes exotic. But I am a city person. Which is why my greatest regret was that we stuck ourselves in the little town of Thornbury (kind of like Scarborough with an English accent) when I could have spent more time exploring the historic and the modern, the re-invention of famous cities like Bristol.
I thought that the main attractions in that once-famous city would be the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer responsible for fulfilling the dream of regularly scheduled Atlantic crossings. The only evidence I saw of his brilliance was the steamship Great Britain, and the suspension bridge crossing the gorge of the Avon. Great things most often happen in cities. Brunel characterizes that. His Great Western Railroad was the best in Britain, his suspension bridge was a masterpiece of engineering, certainly rivalling Roeblin who designed and created the first suspension bridge over the Ohio river at Cincinnati, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. So our trip to walk the decks and peer into the cabins of the ship was an experience. The ship was built in 1843 and plied the Atlantic before being sold to a consortium that made a fortune transporting settles to Australia. It was the biggest ship ever built. It could hold 700 passengers. Its “luxury” was of course limited, but in its day she was the Queen.
Brunel was responsible for the rebirth of Bristol and its shipbuilding industry. And that is what struck me most about Bristol. There is not much one can do about the twists and turns of the urban roads designed for a more leisurely time of carriages and horses. Bristol is an example, perhaps predicted by Brunel, of what can be done to “make” a city.
Our visits there were all too brief. You become tangled in traffic and wish only to find your way home. But “home” should have been someplace like Bristol or perhaps Cardiff.
I would like to have spent at least a week roaming the streets and back alleys, savouring the wonderful way the waterfront has been reclaimed with tasteful apartment buildings.
Because it was where Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot to us) took a leaky little ship – Henry VII was a real cheapskate) and claimed Newfoundland for Britain. It was Cabot who said the cod were so numerous you could walk on water by walking on the back of them. You “fished” by just putting a bucket overboard and helping yourself.
It all began in Bristol. I asked out exchanger-hosts in Thornbury if there was anything to commemorate Bristol’s position as Britain’s premier storage house for wine from Bordeaux. He seemed puzzled by the question. But he did recognize the name Harvey’s Bristol Cream.” Maybe it dawned on him that it was a name that commemorates a grand history from the time when Britain owned Aquitaine.
So I said farewell to the cunning little towns with their wall-to-wall tea rooms and antique ships, to the rural landscape with its soaring hedgerows, and those aggressive, impatient drivers who risk their lives speeding and passing on two lane roads which are difficult to call highways.
It was not what I expected. But what did I expect?
The night we left my Anglophilia took a real beating. I have always believed, or wanted to believe, that there was something somehow a little more civilized about the British. We sat in the restaurant of the hotel in Gatwick and struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to us. They were very friendly. They lived in a little village in the shadow of Windsor Castle. They were on their way to Tunisia where he would do a lot of drinking and play golf. I should have stopped there. She wanted me to know how it "really is" in Britain with terrorists and hordes of nasty immigrants. “They don't fit in.” I tried not to argue but told her that where we live there is harmony among the many races co-habiting our city. (Not true of course because we have our share of bigotry.) Nothing would calm her down. I felt like I was back on the radio listening to a half-baking nitwit tell me her very of the “truth.” It went something like: “They come here and are immediately put on the National Health, given money and houses. My own children can’t get a house, but they do.”
I wanted to remind her that “ her own children” had a head start, perhaps a hundred years with the benefit of a state paid education, and opportunities that they could take with no cultural or language difficulties. It was not, I would have said, the fault of some poor guy from Somalia that your kids have not succeeded. But you can’t argue with people who want to scapegoat.
It was a sad finish to the trip that started with so much optimism.
By the way, it seems my not-so-best-selling "Don't Be Blindsided by Retirement"
did not fly off the shelves. Whoever wants one can contact me and when I find out how much it will be to pay for postage. I'll mail you a book. The handling is free.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
As you drive north from Gloucestershire the valleys get deeper, the hills rise to almost mountains. Wales is what dreamers dream about. My earliest memories - fictionalized and romanticized - the life of a Welsh coal miner, a book by Llewellyn made into a movie. Long lines of sturdy men (and boys) heading to the pits singing lustily. Of course there is more to being Welsh than being able to sing. That movie remains with me through. Donald Crisp the patriarch of the Morgan family. It was pure bathos but beautifully done thanks to John Ford’s direction and stalwarts Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon. And the tragedies of the pits and the poverty of the company-owned row houses. .
Travelled through most of south Wales and never did see one colliery. We did drive by Swansea, the scene of the most recent tragedy – four miners drowned in a vertical mine. The hills around Swansea probably still contain vast amounts of coal, but there are now better and cleaner ways to generate power. There must be some nostalgic longing among the British people for the days when the natural presence of both iron and coal were the machine that drove the Industrial Revolution, a “revolution” that came first to the U.K, with factories and steam trains and shipping and made them the most successful industrialized country on earth. Nostalgia of course, because they are no longer that power. Only the memories (and some of the bravado) remain. Back to our voyage of discovery..
By the time we crossed the border at Monmouth the hills shone green and loomed higher. The valleys grew greener, deeper and more lush. And there were forests. Only one had a name that we could see: Bean. But unlike our roads that are often rimmed with trees with plenty of room on the shoulder of the road, there is no room here and the forest seems to stretch back deeply from the roadside, roadsides often made picturesque but daunting by the hedgerows where our shoulders would be. And that’s my poetry and illusion about the once-country of Wales, last home of the Britons forced back by hordes of Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Norsemen.
The language. “Sufferin” Succotash” spoke Mel Blanc, the voice of Daffy Duck. The cartoon character made the sound I hear in Welsh. The “double L” is pronounced “sshh” but seems to be formed between the tongue and the back teeth in a puddle of saliva. Today’s Wales pays tribute to the language and all the signs are in Welsh then English. There are ff’s, there are words without vowels. I am no linguist of course, but is the derivation Celtic? It reminded me of Basque, a language that was never written until the Basque nationalist scholars decided that it could be. The letters used approximate sounds unknown to English speakers. Similarly in Welsh there are back-tooth sounds, gutturals, and throat-clearing consonants that defy “spelling.” No word is spoken as it looks. Beyond this, and it is only speculation, I have no knowledge of the language. Was it strictly oral? Was it written in some ancient script? Don’t know. I DO know that “ll” is pronounced the way Daffy Duck would say it.
We had been starved for castles and Wales offered castles galore. We saw, with one exception, nothing but ruins. I’m a little vague on the history of the area. There were castles built by the English to defend Wales against the Normans. (But the “English, courtesy of William I were Norman.) There were Norman castles to defend Wales for the Normans. The two best we saw were Raglan, just inside the Welsh border, and Kidwelly, a Norman castle – one of a chain that guarded Norman possessions in southwest Wales. It fell several times during the 11th and 12th century to the Welsh and in 1159 was burnt by Lord Rhys. It went back and forth but was finally held by the English the least of them was a portion of a battered Norman castle all that was left after the Welsh hero Llewellyn got through with it. But don’t think that there were only English villains and Welsh heroes. The Welsh fought bitterly among themselves, just as the English did in the 17th century civil war. I’m not an authority on the somewhat Byzantine shape of politics, friends and enemies, invaders and residents of what is now the U.K. Remember, there was a time when a king without a throne named Alfred, hid in a swamp while the Danes hunted him – Alfred who would be the first king of what came close to a unified England. Hence – Alfred the Great. Don’t phone and ask me for more. I’m ion over my head already
It is clear that the winners were vindictive, the losers vanquished. There was no such thing as what we mistakenly call “chivalry.” Look how Henry VIII ravaged the monasteries.
Raglan represented, at least to Cromwell, the worst of the Royalists. It had a history. One owner, William Thomas, fought alongside Henry V at Agincourt. The next owner was the Earl of Pembroke. It was also the boyhood home of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII and was heir t0o the Lancastrian control of the throne.
During the Civil War it was garrisoned by the Royalists and subjected to a long siege accompanied by heavy artillery bombardment. Cromwell’s engineers finished the job, tearing the castle apart to the point where no one could live there, assuring that no upstart Royalist could shelter there and strive toward renewed power. The saddest of all is that for many years Raglan was a “quarry.” People were urged to carry off as much of its stone as they wanted. They did not finish the job. The ruins are spectacular. The architecture timeless. Sans roofs and some walls – it is magnificent.
There was still another ruin to be seen: the site used on the Antiques Road Show. What a disappointment. Nothing to rival either Raglan or Kidwell, and certainly nothing to compare with another “roadshow” taping site: Gloucester Cathedral. Then finally – a castle – standing and preserved: Tretower. It is really more of a manor house. There are no soaring towers. No moats. No massive gates. A two story manor house but of course, with Royalist sympathies. The York kings stayed there
Finally the rain was getting to us. Let’s find out about modern Wales. Let’s buckle in and head for Cardiff. I often wonder, as I see tour buses Toronto, how much they really see and how accurate the commentary is. I am always disappointed but I keep going back for more. Disappointed because the buses make only the designated stops while whizzing by other stuff you want to at least photograph. (I n Toronto I heard that at least one tour stops at the south side of Casa Loma and gives them a view but doesn’t go u-p into the castle lot for the complete view. Takes up too much time and what do tourists know anyway?)
In Bristol, after we finally trudged what seemed like miles from our hotel through chilling winds, we came to a tour bus in front of Cardiff Castle. (Most of the castle was built or rebuilt b y a wealthy Welsh philanthropist, the Marquis of something-or-other.
What I got from the commentary was the story of one of the U.K.’s most successful cities. The newest “capital” in Europe and the smallest. The fastest-growing – see the huge stadium and the most cleverly redeveloped – see the transformed waterfront. He talked about how Cardiff was once a huge shipping port courtesy exports of coal and steel, both of which have shriveled to nearly nothing. The city seems to bustle, and I could easily put up with the commercial hubris of the commentator. Sidebar: turns out he is a retired musician who played with the Welsh National Orchestra and has made many trips to Toronto, one of his favourite cities. He played at Roy Thompson Hall.
Bristol, like many “re-invented cities is bustling and hopeful. So is Bristol only more so.
One trip to see the incredibly restored transatlantic steamer “Great Britain.” But we’re heading back. More to come.
Travelled through most of south Wales and never did see one colliery. We did drive by Swansea, the scene of the most recent tragedy – four miners drowned in a vertical mine. The hills around Swansea probably still contain vast amounts of coal, but there are now better and cleaner ways to generate power. There must be some nostalgic longing among the British people for the days when the natural presence of both iron and coal were the machine that drove the Industrial Revolution, a “revolution” that came first to the U.K, with factories and steam trains and shipping and made them the most successful industrialized country on earth. Nostalgia of course, because they are no longer that power. Only the memories (and some of the bravado) remain. Back to our voyage of discovery..
By the time we crossed the border at Monmouth the hills shone green and loomed higher. The valleys grew greener, deeper and more lush. And there were forests. Only one had a name that we could see: Bean. But unlike our roads that are often rimmed with trees with plenty of room on the shoulder of the road, there is no room here and the forest seems to stretch back deeply from the roadside, roadsides often made picturesque but daunting by the hedgerows where our shoulders would be. And that’s my poetry and illusion about the once-country of Wales, last home of the Britons forced back by hordes of Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Norsemen.
The language. “Sufferin” Succotash” spoke Mel Blanc, the voice of Daffy Duck. The cartoon character made the sound I hear in Welsh. The “double L” is pronounced “sshh” but seems to be formed between the tongue and the back teeth in a puddle of saliva. Today’s Wales pays tribute to the language and all the signs are in Welsh then English. There are ff’s, there are words without vowels. I am no linguist of course, but is the derivation Celtic? It reminded me of Basque, a language that was never written until the Basque nationalist scholars decided that it could be. The letters used approximate sounds unknown to English speakers. Similarly in Welsh there are back-tooth sounds, gutturals, and throat-clearing consonants that defy “spelling.” No word is spoken as it looks. Beyond this, and it is only speculation, I have no knowledge of the language. Was it strictly oral? Was it written in some ancient script? Don’t know. I DO know that “ll” is pronounced the way Daffy Duck would say it.
We had been starved for castles and Wales offered castles galore. We saw, with one exception, nothing but ruins. I’m a little vague on the history of the area. There were castles built by the English to defend Wales against the Normans. (But the “English, courtesy of William I were Norman.) There were Norman castles to defend Wales for the Normans. The two best we saw were Raglan, just inside the Welsh border, and Kidwelly, a Norman castle – one of a chain that guarded Norman possessions in southwest Wales. It fell several times during the 11th and 12th century to the Welsh and in 1159 was burnt by Lord Rhys. It went back and forth but was finally held by the English the least of them was a portion of a battered Norman castle all that was left after the Welsh hero Llewellyn got through with it. But don’t think that there were only English villains and Welsh heroes. The Welsh fought bitterly among themselves, just as the English did in the 17th century civil war. I’m not an authority on the somewhat Byzantine shape of politics, friends and enemies, invaders and residents of what is now the U.K. Remember, there was a time when a king without a throne named Alfred, hid in a swamp while the Danes hunted him – Alfred who would be the first king of what came close to a unified England. Hence – Alfred the Great. Don’t phone and ask me for more. I’m ion over my head already
It is clear that the winners were vindictive, the losers vanquished. There was no such thing as what we mistakenly call “chivalry.” Look how Henry VIII ravaged the monasteries.
Raglan represented, at least to Cromwell, the worst of the Royalists. It had a history. One owner, William Thomas, fought alongside Henry V at Agincourt. The next owner was the Earl of Pembroke. It was also the boyhood home of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII and was heir t0o the Lancastrian control of the throne.
During the Civil War it was garrisoned by the Royalists and subjected to a long siege accompanied by heavy artillery bombardment. Cromwell’s engineers finished the job, tearing the castle apart to the point where no one could live there, assuring that no upstart Royalist could shelter there and strive toward renewed power. The saddest of all is that for many years Raglan was a “quarry.” People were urged to carry off as much of its stone as they wanted. They did not finish the job. The ruins are spectacular. The architecture timeless. Sans roofs and some walls – it is magnificent.
There was still another ruin to be seen: the site used on the Antiques Road Show. What a disappointment. Nothing to rival either Raglan or Kidwell, and certainly nothing to compare with another “roadshow” taping site: Gloucester Cathedral. Then finally – a castle – standing and preserved: Tretower. It is really more of a manor house. There are no soaring towers. No moats. No massive gates. A two story manor house but of course, with Royalist sympathies. The York kings stayed there
Finally the rain was getting to us. Let’s find out about modern Wales. Let’s buckle in and head for Cardiff. I often wonder, as I see tour buses Toronto, how much they really see and how accurate the commentary is. I am always disappointed but I keep going back for more. Disappointed because the buses make only the designated stops while whizzing by other stuff you want to at least photograph. (I n Toronto I heard that at least one tour stops at the south side of Casa Loma and gives them a view but doesn’t go u-p into the castle lot for the complete view. Takes up too much time and what do tourists know anyway?)
In Bristol, after we finally trudged what seemed like miles from our hotel through chilling winds, we came to a tour bus in front of Cardiff Castle. (Most of the castle was built or rebuilt b y a wealthy Welsh philanthropist, the Marquis of something-or-other.
What I got from the commentary was the story of one of the U.K.’s most successful cities. The newest “capital” in Europe and the smallest. The fastest-growing – see the huge stadium and the most cleverly redeveloped – see the transformed waterfront. He talked about how Cardiff was once a huge shipping port courtesy exports of coal and steel, both of which have shriveled to nearly nothing. The city seems to bustle, and I could easily put up with the commercial hubris of the commentator. Sidebar: turns out he is a retired musician who played with the Welsh National Orchestra and has made many trips to Toronto, one of his favourite cities. He played at Roy Thompson Hall.
Bristol, like many “re-invented cities is bustling and hopeful. So is Bristol only more so.
One trip to see the incredibly restored transatlantic steamer “Great Britain.” But we’re heading back. More to come.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
LETTER #7: GREAT VIEWS, GREAT FOOD, RUTTY ROAD WILDERNESS.
Shirley does not react well (significant gasps and spasmodic drawing in of breath) to driving on tiny side roads that seem to threaten that any minute they will peter out and we will plunge over an unseen cliff and not be seen by the odd car that passes by, or we’d be staring at a field full of sheep gazing with that ovine puzzlement at an intruder into their domain. I wax poetic again. Carried away.
I’m not quite sure why it happened, but as we navigated from home to Cirencester, we did not travel the broad M4. Instead, our Tomtom was taking us on the “scenic” route. For a short time we’d travel a reasonable two lane road where we could see the slopes of the Cotswolds rolling around us. But most of the time we were consigned to one lane winding roads, roads that would descend steeply with an abrupt turn at the bottom and deteriorate into a pair of wheel tracks – well almost. It is a times like this that my navigator, holding the GPS is going on about how stupid it is and that at the next layby we should turn around and go back. To where? She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that we were lost and our sun-bleached bones (impossible unless the rain stopped) would be all that rescuers would find. I thought of others who had been led by their GPS to strange places. There was the tragic story a year or two ago about the couple who found themselves on a muddy, unused road where their car became stuck. One of them had to leave to look for help. One of them, I don’t remember which one – died. This is the stuff that urban legends are made of.
I am impatient with her and our voices start to rise. Then we break free of the wilderness and turn on to a more hospitable highway with the prefix “A” attached. We are saved.
The upside of cruising the Cotswold back roads is that you get a wonderful view of these lush, rolling hills. There are surprises. We reach the bottom of a hill on a tiny road and there before us is a mansion. I don’t just mean a big house – I mean A MANSION!
An observation in passing: the Cotswolds are a tourist magnet. I was standing in a tourist information booth in,I think, Chipping Campden. A very agitated Chinese man was having a long and difficult (due to language) conversation with the tourist information woman. It was about finding a room. The “i” sign is what you head for most of the time. They will find you a place to stay. On this occasion she told the man: “It’s Friday night. The weekend. Prices always go up in the C otswolds.” In fact, as I will describe later, much of the “charm” of these little towns and villages is that the High Street is lined with antique shops – a magnet for the tourists. I wondered what the local residents did. I saw no evidence in these places, or snch other for that matter, of the convenience of a Mall.
Arrival at Cirencester. Took a while finding out to9 to pronounce the name. The opening two syllables rhyme with “siren” and the remainder pronounced as it looks. There may have been more but it appeared that the only things worth stopping for was thr massive (and under renovation) Parish Church of St. John the Baptist. It’s old. The nave was begun in the 12th century, the tower in 1400, the Lady Chapel in 1240. Old and big but not memorable. By this time I am getting “Cathedraled out.” We moved on.
Up the route designated by the most incomplete guide I have ever read (see this – see that – but where?) We push on to Stow on The Wold. (never got to see thre Wold.) The guide, for once being helpful, points us to a B&B called “Limes,’ an exquisite six bedroom cottage set in a lush garden. It is owned by a young couple with two little girls, one barely a toddler. (Later they will confide to Shirley that they will soon sell and get lout from under the hectic life of raising a family and running a major B&B.)
A comment about food. We ask our hostess for directions to a decent restaurant. In the old town square - this used to be a big market city - we choose the dining room in The Old Stocks Hotel. It is far beyond “decent.” The procedure is unusual. We are greeted at the bar. We are offered a small table and something to drink while our table is being prepared. . They take your order and call you to your table when the meal is ready to be presented. It was one of those succulent surprises: As good as the best meal we have had since leaving New York almost four weeks ago. I have ordered a salmon filet, Shirley a chicken breast. The salmon arrives on a bed of fettuccini Alfredo laced with spinach right in in the sauce. It is perfect, The salmon flakes under the fork. It has a sweetish tang to it, perhaps a honey marinade. There is a jardinière of fresh vegetables served on the side. Shirley’s chicken is perfect. I tell the wait person that this is as good a meal as have had, not only in England but on the QM2, where the meals could be either dazzling or indifferent.
A note in passing. It took some getting used to that in most restaurants we visited you did not take a seat and wait for table service. (Available sometimes) You order at the bar, sometimes carrying your drinks back to the table and waiting until a server arrives with your dinner. As often as not, you return to the bar to pay the bill. In every restaurant where we used our VISA card, there was no place on the machine to add a tip. It has to be done with cash. In some places they accept credit cards but put a surcharge on your bill. (I’m sure VISA frowns on this kind of discrimination.)
Something is happening in the culinary world. I would doubt that a place like Thornbury, say twenty years ago, would have had a really good restaurant. As TV shows for “foodies” proliferate, as celebrity chefs become stars, and as the wine lists grow larger and more discriminating – the food gets better and better. England is no exception. In an earlier blog I mentioned fish and chips at Rick Stein’s in Falmouth. Only later did I realize that he has become a “brand” – perhaps like the over-exposed, over-valued Gordon Ramsay who has made a career out of being a celebrity. Stein may be the hottest chef on British TV shows
In Thornbury there is Ronnies, which was named the best new restaurant in the UK I wouldn’t go that far, but it was pretty good. Also in Thornbury a hotel restaurant called “Mezzes.” By the name you would presume Greek. It was a sort of hodge-podge of Mediterranean foods from shishkabob to spreads. I have never, ever had “hummous” that compares with “Mezzes.”.
We head north for Stow and enter the realm of the everything in the Cotswolds for tourism. We stop every time but continue to find more and more antique shops and places to buy local crafts and cunning little tea rooms.. We ;pass from ?? to ?? then we come to a sign that points to “The Roman Villa” at Chedworth. We sometimes forget that the Romans were masters, occupiers, and long time residents of England for about 400 years. This “villa” first discovered on the 19th century, has now become the site of continuing archeological investigation and re-creation. For a villa presumed to be occupied by two families, it was remarkably large and luxurious. Occupied for 200 years, it included such quintessential Roman luxuries as baths, hot ones and cold ones, radiant heated rooms, spacious kitchens and latrines. The Romans brought that culture of progress with them.
If you read Bernard Cornwell, best known for his “Sharp” series, but wonderful on medieval times in England, he writes that the far more primitive people of Britain who followed the Roman departure understood little about Roman technology. Where the Romans had heated stone floors in their homes, the British lived kin huts with dirt floors. In the Cornwell books there is always some reference to a Roman wall or road that had fallen into disuse and ultimate decay.
The Cotswolds were pretty enough, but after a while everything starts to look the same. We finished our excursion in a town called Broadway, stopped for lunch, and pushed on with our search for access to the M5 and return to Thornbury.
Luck was on ojur side. A sign pointed to Sudeley Castle. We took the turn and drove endlessly. Often there are no signs giving distance. It was father than we thought,. But would bring us near Cheltenham and access to M5.
Sudely was a treat. A monument to nearly a thousand years of English history. Henry’s last queen,. Katherine Parr is remembered there. The chapel’s stained glass windows show her and Henry and other dignitaries. I was a little startled that when we entered the chapel there was a reminder that a contribution would be welcome. After paying 12.40 pounds (about $18) just to wander the grounds, we were asked for more!
The castle was occupied by permanent residents so the interior was completely closed to visitors. We paid the price to see – and it was worth it – a classic garden with topiary that rivals anything I have ever seen, Not the gargoyle-like figures in some pasrks, but yew trees trimmed to dozens of enormous shapes lined the gardens. Sheep (the ubiquitous ones) grazed in the fields. Had we not seen the sign and continued to depend on our “Country Roads of England (a great disappointment) we would have missed it completely.
We have one more week. Having joined the National Trust we now have a comprehensive book showing the location of dozens of castles and palatial estates. We hope for Wales. And soon I will take you to one of the great surprises in the west country – the re-invented city of Bristol. Remarkable!
Correction: thanks to my friend and historian Helen, ”The Lion in Winter” – played by Peter O’Toole, was Henry II not as I wrote Henry I.
Shows what name-dropping can do to your ego.
I’m not quite sure why it happened, but as we navigated from home to Cirencester, we did not travel the broad M4. Instead, our Tomtom was taking us on the “scenic” route. For a short time we’d travel a reasonable two lane road where we could see the slopes of the Cotswolds rolling around us. But most of the time we were consigned to one lane winding roads, roads that would descend steeply with an abrupt turn at the bottom and deteriorate into a pair of wheel tracks – well almost. It is a times like this that my navigator, holding the GPS is going on about how stupid it is and that at the next layby we should turn around and go back. To where? She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that we were lost and our sun-bleached bones (impossible unless the rain stopped) would be all that rescuers would find. I thought of others who had been led by their GPS to strange places. There was the tragic story a year or two ago about the couple who found themselves on a muddy, unused road where their car became stuck. One of them had to leave to look for help. One of them, I don’t remember which one – died. This is the stuff that urban legends are made of.
I am impatient with her and our voices start to rise. Then we break free of the wilderness and turn on to a more hospitable highway with the prefix “A” attached. We are saved.
The upside of cruising the Cotswold back roads is that you get a wonderful view of these lush, rolling hills. There are surprises. We reach the bottom of a hill on a tiny road and there before us is a mansion. I don’t just mean a big house – I mean A MANSION!
An observation in passing: the Cotswolds are a tourist magnet. I was standing in a tourist information booth in,I think, Chipping Campden. A very agitated Chinese man was having a long and difficult (due to language) conversation with the tourist information woman. It was about finding a room. The “i” sign is what you head for most of the time. They will find you a place to stay. On this occasion she told the man: “It’s Friday night. The weekend. Prices always go up in the C otswolds.” In fact, as I will describe later, much of the “charm” of these little towns and villages is that the High Street is lined with antique shops – a magnet for the tourists. I wondered what the local residents did. I saw no evidence in these places, or snch other for that matter, of the convenience of a Mall.
Arrival at Cirencester. Took a while finding out to9 to pronounce the name. The opening two syllables rhyme with “siren” and the remainder pronounced as it looks. There may have been more but it appeared that the only things worth stopping for was thr massive (and under renovation) Parish Church of St. John the Baptist. It’s old. The nave was begun in the 12th century, the tower in 1400, the Lady Chapel in 1240. Old and big but not memorable. By this time I am getting “Cathedraled out.” We moved on.
Up the route designated by the most incomplete guide I have ever read (see this – see that – but where?) We push on to Stow on The Wold. (never got to see thre Wold.) The guide, for once being helpful, points us to a B&B called “Limes,’ an exquisite six bedroom cottage set in a lush garden. It is owned by a young couple with two little girls, one barely a toddler. (Later they will confide to Shirley that they will soon sell and get lout from under the hectic life of raising a family and running a major B&B.)
A comment about food. We ask our hostess for directions to a decent restaurant. In the old town square - this used to be a big market city - we choose the dining room in The Old Stocks Hotel. It is far beyond “decent.” The procedure is unusual. We are greeted at the bar. We are offered a small table and something to drink while our table is being prepared. . They take your order and call you to your table when the meal is ready to be presented. It was one of those succulent surprises: As good as the best meal we have had since leaving New York almost four weeks ago. I have ordered a salmon filet, Shirley a chicken breast. The salmon arrives on a bed of fettuccini Alfredo laced with spinach right in in the sauce. It is perfect, The salmon flakes under the fork. It has a sweetish tang to it, perhaps a honey marinade. There is a jardinière of fresh vegetables served on the side. Shirley’s chicken is perfect. I tell the wait person that this is as good a meal as have had, not only in England but on the QM2, where the meals could be either dazzling or indifferent.
A note in passing. It took some getting used to that in most restaurants we visited you did not take a seat and wait for table service. (Available sometimes) You order at the bar, sometimes carrying your drinks back to the table and waiting until a server arrives with your dinner. As often as not, you return to the bar to pay the bill. In every restaurant where we used our VISA card, there was no place on the machine to add a tip. It has to be done with cash. In some places they accept credit cards but put a surcharge on your bill. (I’m sure VISA frowns on this kind of discrimination.)
Something is happening in the culinary world. I would doubt that a place like Thornbury, say twenty years ago, would have had a really good restaurant. As TV shows for “foodies” proliferate, as celebrity chefs become stars, and as the wine lists grow larger and more discriminating – the food gets better and better. England is no exception. In an earlier blog I mentioned fish and chips at Rick Stein’s in Falmouth. Only later did I realize that he has become a “brand” – perhaps like the over-exposed, over-valued Gordon Ramsay who has made a career out of being a celebrity. Stein may be the hottest chef on British TV shows
In Thornbury there is Ronnies, which was named the best new restaurant in the UK I wouldn’t go that far, but it was pretty good. Also in Thornbury a hotel restaurant called “Mezzes.” By the name you would presume Greek. It was a sort of hodge-podge of Mediterranean foods from shishkabob to spreads. I have never, ever had “hummous” that compares with “Mezzes.”.
We head north for Stow and enter the realm of the everything in the Cotswolds for tourism. We stop every time but continue to find more and more antique shops and places to buy local crafts and cunning little tea rooms.. We ;pass from ?? to ?? then we come to a sign that points to “The Roman Villa” at Chedworth. We sometimes forget that the Romans were masters, occupiers, and long time residents of England for about 400 years. This “villa” first discovered on the 19th century, has now become the site of continuing archeological investigation and re-creation. For a villa presumed to be occupied by two families, it was remarkably large and luxurious. Occupied for 200 years, it included such quintessential Roman luxuries as baths, hot ones and cold ones, radiant heated rooms, spacious kitchens and latrines. The Romans brought that culture of progress with them.
If you read Bernard Cornwell, best known for his “Sharp” series, but wonderful on medieval times in England, he writes that the far more primitive people of Britain who followed the Roman departure understood little about Roman technology. Where the Romans had heated stone floors in their homes, the British lived kin huts with dirt floors. In the Cornwell books there is always some reference to a Roman wall or road that had fallen into disuse and ultimate decay.
The Cotswolds were pretty enough, but after a while everything starts to look the same. We finished our excursion in a town called Broadway, stopped for lunch, and pushed on with our search for access to the M5 and return to Thornbury.
Luck was on ojur side. A sign pointed to Sudeley Castle. We took the turn and drove endlessly. Often there are no signs giving distance. It was father than we thought,. But would bring us near Cheltenham and access to M5.
Sudely was a treat. A monument to nearly a thousand years of English history. Henry’s last queen,. Katherine Parr is remembered there. The chapel’s stained glass windows show her and Henry and other dignitaries. I was a little startled that when we entered the chapel there was a reminder that a contribution would be welcome. After paying 12.40 pounds (about $18) just to wander the grounds, we were asked for more!
The castle was occupied by permanent residents so the interior was completely closed to visitors. We paid the price to see – and it was worth it – a classic garden with topiary that rivals anything I have ever seen, Not the gargoyle-like figures in some pasrks, but yew trees trimmed to dozens of enormous shapes lined the gardens. Sheep (the ubiquitous ones) grazed in the fields. Had we not seen the sign and continued to depend on our “Country Roads of England (a great disappointment) we would have missed it completely.
We have one more week. Having joined the National Trust we now have a comprehensive book showing the location of dozens of castles and palatial estates. We hope for Wales. And soon I will take you to one of the great surprises in the west country – the re-invented city of Bristol. Remarkable!
Correction: thanks to my friend and historian Helen, ”The Lion in Winter” – played by Peter O’Toole, was Henry II not as I wrote Henry I.
Shows what name-dropping can do to your ego.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
LETTER 6 - RAIN, WIND, HOPE
NOTE: Response to my recent blogs QM2 and England, have been almost nil. Is it because your server is posting the blog as "junk? Is it because somehow nothing has been going through? Is it because you have no response? If all I wanted was to keep a record for my own use, I would not send out a blog. Please let me know what I should do. Meanwhile - here, for those who read it, another entry.
Typical late summer in South Gloucestershire, wind, rain, chance of sunshine. This time it has been aggravated by the tail end of the last Atlantic hurricane which lashed (that’s journalese cliché) the British Isles, especially Ireland and Scotland. Trees fell. One man was killed. The Brits carried on. We stayed in and hoped for change. Sunday was ferocious. Trees bending, rain pelting, forecast: more of the same. By Tuesday it had calmed to a light gale so we decided to make one short excursion in the afternoon.
Gloucester Cathedral is one of England’s most storied churches. Built in the 11th century it is described as combining many Gothic styles. To me is has that architecturally delightful look – the sturdy towers soaring into the sky ands topped with (I forget the architectural term) spindly Gothic towers. Inside it is massive with enormous heavy pillars supported the classic vaulted (There seems to be no “style” to them i.e. Doric, Ionian etc.)
Being an unbeliever does not prevent me from being awestruck by the structure. There is a spiritual quality about it (I usually detest “spiritual” wanderings) perhaps because it is so awesomely huge, possible because it contains and reflects a thousand years of history.
Henry I (see Peter O’Toole in Lion in Winter) haunts the place. Rumours abound that somehow Henry use this place to hide his older brother Robert, whose right to succeed their father William, was usurped by Henry. There are, as is characteristic in these cathedrals, many chapels and tombs. I was attracted to the spot that alleges it is the burying; place of Edward II. He was known by most as the great lawmakers. He is known by some as the king who expelled the Jews. They were invited back by Oliver Cromwell.
There is always speculation about how Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice. Suspicion is that there must have been Jews around – even though he patterned Shylock after the worst legendary evil qualities of the Jews. (Strange of course that he redeemed them in the famous “Do I not…” speech. That’s another story.
Gloucester also has a waterfront and was once a bustling port. (I don’t know how it connects to the sea – directly, by estuary, or by river. But there are dozens of restored warehouses, a large marina, and promenade. There is a tribute to “The Fighting Glosters” (sic) commemorating their part in the Korean War.
The next day dawns bright, sunny, blue skies. Time for another day trip, the one I have most looked forward to: a day in Bath, on of the country’s gems and home of the most faithfully reproduced Roman Baths. I hoped also to get a better look at the famous Georgian architecture – the beautiful uniform Georgian town houses. (The real thing, as op posed to the “faux Georgian” that abounds in Toronto where everyone who lives there is pretending to come from old family.) I exaggerate.
First mistake. I miss another cutoff going on a roundabout. We are headed away from Bath on the M4. The M4 is one of those severely limited access highways. You can go 15 or 20 miles before you can turn around. I had planned to stop at a “Park and Ride”
and take a bus into the city centre. My highway mistake was remedied, courtesy of Tomtom by sending me, not back to M4 but to an “A” carriageway, sometimes not divided but two lanes. As much as I had to concentrate on driving, I could enjoy the quilt-like fields that spread out below the highway – farms with fields of green and gold and hedgerows looking neat and nearly perfect.
As I suspected, we were headed straight into Bath without a Park and Ride anywhere in sight. Miraculously found a large parking garage just a few steps away from the city centre. Stopped for a classic English lunch at the Hong Kong Noodle Restaurant. Astonishingly good but too challenging to finish. Started walking along the suggested two hour walking tour which would take us toe both the Abbey and the Roman Baths. Tiring much too easily, we took a “hop on hop off” tour bus. We “hopped off” at the Baths.
The fun began. I detest having to fight crowds just to get close enough to look. The slavering crowds at the Baths reminded my of a day spent dodging tour bus tourists at the Alhambra and trying to get close enough through ravening crowds at the Louvre fighting for enough space to see the Mona Lisa. The Roman Baths are right up there.
The restoration is perfect. Not only is the enormous spring fed pool surrounded by people, but so are all the other fascinating exhibits. There are all kinds of restored Roman artifacts. The frustration is that you can’t ever get a photo shot that doesn’t have the heads and other body parts of other tourists straining for a look. I am not so unrealistic to suppose that this is not part of tourism. I only wonder why the management does not meter the admissions so that everyone can get a decent view. They don’t. The groups pour in one entrance. The individuals in another. It is bedlam. And it is tiring. Having waited all this time to see what restoration has brought (I visited Bath in 1975 when restoration was in progress but there was nothing much to see) we decide on one stop at the adjacent Abbey.
It is worth a look. It is perhaps just another Gothic pile, or perhaps I’m becoming jaded. Perhaps I was exhausted. Perhaps we should get in the car and find our way home to Thornbury. It takes about 45 minutes just to find our way out of Bath. Worth it? Better to fight the crowds and gripe than to stay home and wonder.
Tomorrow we head for the thatched roof cottages of the Cotswolds.
Typical late summer in South Gloucestershire, wind, rain, chance of sunshine. This time it has been aggravated by the tail end of the last Atlantic hurricane which lashed (that’s journalese cliché) the British Isles, especially Ireland and Scotland. Trees fell. One man was killed. The Brits carried on. We stayed in and hoped for change. Sunday was ferocious. Trees bending, rain pelting, forecast: more of the same. By Tuesday it had calmed to a light gale so we decided to make one short excursion in the afternoon.
Gloucester Cathedral is one of England’s most storied churches. Built in the 11th century it is described as combining many Gothic styles. To me is has that architecturally delightful look – the sturdy towers soaring into the sky ands topped with (I forget the architectural term) spindly Gothic towers. Inside it is massive with enormous heavy pillars supported the classic vaulted (There seems to be no “style” to them i.e. Doric, Ionian etc.)
Being an unbeliever does not prevent me from being awestruck by the structure. There is a spiritual quality about it (I usually detest “spiritual” wanderings) perhaps because it is so awesomely huge, possible because it contains and reflects a thousand years of history.
Henry I (see Peter O’Toole in Lion in Winter) haunts the place. Rumours abound that somehow Henry use this place to hide his older brother Robert, whose right to succeed their father William, was usurped by Henry. There are, as is characteristic in these cathedrals, many chapels and tombs. I was attracted to the spot that alleges it is the burying; place of Edward II. He was known by most as the great lawmakers. He is known by some as the king who expelled the Jews. They were invited back by Oliver Cromwell.
There is always speculation about how Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice. Suspicion is that there must have been Jews around – even though he patterned Shylock after the worst legendary evil qualities of the Jews. (Strange of course that he redeemed them in the famous “Do I not…” speech. That’s another story.
Gloucester also has a waterfront and was once a bustling port. (I don’t know how it connects to the sea – directly, by estuary, or by river. But there are dozens of restored warehouses, a large marina, and promenade. There is a tribute to “The Fighting Glosters” (sic) commemorating their part in the Korean War.
The next day dawns bright, sunny, blue skies. Time for another day trip, the one I have most looked forward to: a day in Bath, on of the country’s gems and home of the most faithfully reproduced Roman Baths. I hoped also to get a better look at the famous Georgian architecture – the beautiful uniform Georgian town houses. (The real thing, as op posed to the “faux Georgian” that abounds in Toronto where everyone who lives there is pretending to come from old family.) I exaggerate.
First mistake. I miss another cutoff going on a roundabout. We are headed away from Bath on the M4. The M4 is one of those severely limited access highways. You can go 15 or 20 miles before you can turn around. I had planned to stop at a “Park and Ride”
and take a bus into the city centre. My highway mistake was remedied, courtesy of Tomtom by sending me, not back to M4 but to an “A” carriageway, sometimes not divided but two lanes. As much as I had to concentrate on driving, I could enjoy the quilt-like fields that spread out below the highway – farms with fields of green and gold and hedgerows looking neat and nearly perfect.
As I suspected, we were headed straight into Bath without a Park and Ride anywhere in sight. Miraculously found a large parking garage just a few steps away from the city centre. Stopped for a classic English lunch at the Hong Kong Noodle Restaurant. Astonishingly good but too challenging to finish. Started walking along the suggested two hour walking tour which would take us toe both the Abbey and the Roman Baths. Tiring much too easily, we took a “hop on hop off” tour bus. We “hopped off” at the Baths.
The fun began. I detest having to fight crowds just to get close enough to look. The slavering crowds at the Baths reminded my of a day spent dodging tour bus tourists at the Alhambra and trying to get close enough through ravening crowds at the Louvre fighting for enough space to see the Mona Lisa. The Roman Baths are right up there.
The restoration is perfect. Not only is the enormous spring fed pool surrounded by people, but so are all the other fascinating exhibits. There are all kinds of restored Roman artifacts. The frustration is that you can’t ever get a photo shot that doesn’t have the heads and other body parts of other tourists straining for a look. I am not so unrealistic to suppose that this is not part of tourism. I only wonder why the management does not meter the admissions so that everyone can get a decent view. They don’t. The groups pour in one entrance. The individuals in another. It is bedlam. And it is tiring. Having waited all this time to see what restoration has brought (I visited Bath in 1975 when restoration was in progress but there was nothing much to see) we decide on one stop at the adjacent Abbey.
It is worth a look. It is perhaps just another Gothic pile, or perhaps I’m becoming jaded. Perhaps I was exhausted. Perhaps we should get in the car and find our way home to Thornbury. It takes about 45 minutes just to find our way out of Bath. Worth it? Better to fight the crowds and gripe than to stay home and wonder.
Tomorrow we head for the thatched roof cottages of the Cotswolds.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
LETTER 5 CORNWALL - CROWDS - FOG - EDEN.
The road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Heading toward me is a leviathan – a huge tractor. The machine has an enormous motor-driven trimming mechanism and he is trimming the top of his more than ten-foot-high hedgerow. He moves relentlessly toward me. I have no alternative but to back up until I find a place where the road widens. After several muddy impacts with the hedgerow, I make it. He lumbers on, turns in the roadway where I have waited, and waves acknowledgement. What choice did I have! We are lost somewhere on the back roads still looking for signage to lead us to the King Henry ferry. It was late afternoon of our third day.
Day one. Thursday, Finally we are in St. Ives. Nothing like what I expected. It hangs from steep hills the way Nice hangs from the slopes of the Alpes Mediterranee. Our Cornwall discovery drive will begin. But first….
It is spitting rain, a fine mist that comes and goes. I decided that we should use a “wasted” rain day to begin our next “excursion:” Cornwall starting at St. Ives. Long tedious drive made worse by the Tomtom GPS – made to drive you mad. The voice finally started working but not well. Following the explicit instructions we headed west. We were told to get on M5, then told to exit. No sooner had we exited than we were told again to head for M5. Maybe it was my fault – some costly error in the maze of directions on a roundabout. At one point I drove an extra 30 miles, only because we were sent (for the last time) to M5 – sent in the wrong direction and having to drive 15 miles before we could turn around and resume. If the GPS had belonged to me and not to our exchanger, who is now happily n Toronto using my Garmin GPS, I would have tossed it out of the car window accompanied by vile and foul imprecations.
A note in passing. I have never been so shouted at or so honked at angrily, than on this trip. I found myself wondering: do people in Toronto honk impatiently at anyone who seems either to be confused, disoriented, or simply slowing down to read the signs? Perhaps we do. I am impatient when someone seems to be driving slowly as if looking for a place to park. I identify them as visitors and cut them some slack. Here I have not been given that kind of latitude. If I dare slow down on a roundabout so that I can easily see which of the many directions I should take, there is angry horn-honking. Even worse, when I am a little confused and have to pull over to check things out, the anger behind me exploded – especially if I have made a sudden turn off the roadway. One man rolled down his window and let fly with expletive-loaded scolding. My response was that while I may have turned in without notice, he, as the following car, has the responsibility to stay clear or be able to stop. Maybe not in England. I am thinking of printing a sign for the back window “Tourist – please be kind.”
Returning to the tried and true we opened a map, took the correct route from Exeter, arriving tired in St. Ives several hours later. The next hour was spent fruitlessly looking for accommodation. None available. I had thought that the “season” was over when the kids went back to school. Not in St. Ives. They have a huge music festival starting in a couple of days. After an hour found a room in the Badger Inn. Room tiny. Kleenex unavailable. Bathroom exhaust fan continued to run annoyingly loudly for several minutes after the light was turned off. On the plus side the food was surprisingly good, and there were sweeties topped with clotted cream. (Later in the trip I would “get into it” with a woman in Cornwall who adamantly told me that the clotted cream in Cornwall was the best, in spite of Devon having the reputation for it.) I was a little surprised. I thought “cream.” Whitish? Not so. Looks more like butter..
Today we try – with some success this time – to find a tourist information booth so we can pick up a map and go discovering St. Ives famous galleries, including a branch of the Tate. By 10 am it”s getting crowded. No parking anywhere on the street. The parking lots are as high as you can get in St. Ives. Walking into town is easy – all downhill. Getting back will be the problem. (Turns out we found the bus that goes there.)
The Tate is a masterpiece but we chose, unwisely I think, to take a guided tour. The young man , artist in residence for nearly 20 years talked and talked and talked. We saw most of what was on one floor – exciting work by Gabo, and a fun piece of hundreds of white balloons riding on a curtain of air. But by this time my usual gallery “fatigue” had set in. We established ourselves at a table in a small restaurant overlooking the ocean and a huge sandy beach and dozens of surfers. An exquisite vista. We were simply played out. The Barbara Hepworth Museum would have to wait, perhaps forever.
Observations. Too many people visiting a strange place get into a taxi and let the cab driver tell them everything that is right and wrong with the people, the politiucians and liofe itself.. I find that deplorable. But what about a bus driver? Sitting on the bus at the seaside esplanade he announced:. “St. Ives” isn’t what it used to be, The best properties are being picked u-p by rich people from London. Everything has become so commercial. Right here (pointing to the land overlooking the sea) used to be Council Houses. (Subsidized housing so well known in Britain.) Now it’s all luxury buildings that only the rich can afford.”
I thought suddenly of the Ford brothers and their plan for Toronto’s Portlands. They seem taken not by how the lands can be made a part of the dynamic of good living in our city and a magnet for visitors. Instead they see it as a chance to exploit property values: a big shopping mall to be built by a world-famous Australian firm known for the blandness and detachment from the outside world, a ferris wheel, and more and more condos. Nothing wrong with that if all you want is to maximize profit, which seems to have happened here in St. Ives. The human factor, alas, seems to have fallen into a distant second place.
Leaving the seaside we ventured along a street, hoping to see some of what makes St. Ives famous. Yes, there were a few galleries, but nothing in them that would alarm a middle-class tourist. There were snack shops. Every other shop it seemed, was selling fudge. Of course, it was, according to the signage – unique – and very Cornish. To me it was more of the same-old-same-old. Either we couldn’t find it or the vaunted St. Ives chic is not there.
We awaken on day three to fog. Our waitress at breakfast says that Cornwall is “socked in.” It was not a pea-souper, where you could barely see your hand in front of your face. But it was unpleasant. Visibility on the road was perhaps 50 metres. Everyone else drove fast. I crept. Impatient drivers would swerve out into the fog and tear by us.
Because it was “there” and on the way – we drove through Penzance. No pirates. Fog, palm trees, guest houses, B&Bs, and hotels A boat basin with all the boats high and dry. Low tide.
The real disappointment was that we could not see any of the seaside sights. St. Michael’s Mount has a 12th century castle, now a private home, that can be walked to at low tide and boated to when the tide was in. We pulled into the parking lot. There were tour coaches parked. Fog or no fog it was on their schedule. All I could see was a stretch of tidal flat disappearing into the fog. I am guessing that some of the more intrepid took off shoes and socks and walked across the mud to the castle. Most seemed to be standing around and staring.
We ;passed through the pretty village of Marazion and headed once more into the fog. Of course it is complicated by twist and turn, impatient drivers, and widths that terrify me when another car approaches. I have still not quite grasped the “feel” of the car and a sense of how close I am to the hedgerow on one side and the oncoming car on the other. There is a lot of breath-holding. And of course there are impatient drivers behind me. From time to time, if I spot a “layover” I will pull in and let the impatient roar on ahead.
We stumble on Trelisick Grdens. (It was once again, not in the guide book.) We decided that it wouold b e cheaper to join the National Trust and get free parking and free admission to all their listed properties. Trelissick was one of them It actually turned out to be a good deal. For the price – something over 30 pounds, we got a ten pound voucher, our parking fee of 3.50 was refunded and we got to walk through exquisite gardens covering many acres of foliage, tries, and lawns. (English lawns are evergreen – the upside of the continuing rain.) On the way out we used our voucher for what the menu calls “cream tea.” It is more. A large pot of tea with hot water to add, two crumbly scones, a little pot of clotted cream and a jar of jam. For the two of us, under 10 pounds! It would, we discover, take the place of dinner at our next stop.
Before we stop, another castle visit, the one with the hair-raising confrontation with the hedgerow-trimming juggernaut. Turning right as we leave the garden, it is a short drive to the road leading to King Henry’s Ferry. I am assured that it is a better way to go than the land route which is another 20 miles through Truro. They were wrong! The ferry crosses a “river” which I think is a port estuary. Two large ships are anchored, waiting, I presume for docking instructions. The ferry takes us across but then there is a 6 mile twisting road drive to the fortress. We almost don’t stop. We pass the fortress without seeing a place to park. We continue on down a hill into the town. People are walking up the hill, a long dreary trudge to the castle, not made any more pleasant by the light misty rain. Shirley informs me that she is not walking. I go back to in what I think will be a fruitless search for a place to park. Eureka. A small sign points to the castle parking lot.
It is a masterpiece. Built as part of a chain of forts by Henry V!!! in around 1550 is is marvelously preserved. We enter and congratulate ourselves for having joined Nationsl Trust. Turns out this ;place is run by the English Heritage society or something. We pay. It’s worth it. Heavy stone blocks that, according to the gatekeeper, are the original with very little renovation or repair required. The rooms are stark. The walls thick. Cannons point out to see, presumably in the direction of hostile French or Spanish forces.
Strange, you tend to think of Henry as the gay divorcer, forgetting that as king, however venal and savage the kings of his day all were, he did protect England. To be cynical about it – not for his people but for himself - his own privately held fief.
The trip back, looking for the ferry was highlighted by the encounter with the hedge trimmer and occasionally, with cars tearing in the opposite direction totally confident that there will be no collision. After many false starts and bad turns we spot the ferry and make our way back to the road.
We arrive in Falmouth, once one of Britain’s principal ports and embarkation port for the Shackleton Antarctic expedition. The town is teeming with tourists. I observe that most of the tourists who arrive by car are Brits. The ones arriving by tour coach are Europeans. Falmouth is not listed as a “must see “in “Back Roads of Great Britain.” Surprising. The Marine Museum is a wonderful compendium of the sea and of explorations, with the accent on Antarctic exploration. The complex of buildings which include the museum, are wonderfully designed. The facing of the buildings is all weathered wood. The biggest surprise was Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips. The word must have gotten out. The place was pretty full, The food and th4e service were perfect. There were almost to many fish and chip choices – from battered to grilled to fried. We chose to split (old folks split portions) an order of battered sole. Perfect. Chips done the way they should be – cooked through then fried for crispness. A little light for my taste, but we didn’t leave a single chip. They had ginger beer. Not just any ginger beer. There were choice. I picked “hot.” It had an extra tangy kick. To finish we shared a treacle tart with clotted cream. On the way out I noticed a large bookshelf with travel books and food books all written by Rick Stein. Where have I been all this time?
From Falmouth our next stop would be the famous “Eden Project.” But first, a stop for the night. We find a B&B on the main road and bedded down without dinner. The cream tea snack was enough. Observation: another Englishman, our host, gives us all the inside stuff on what’s wrong with England. (He reminded me in his scorn for government of the Viet Nam vet we met on the QM2.) He had been a farmer. His first target was the control of food prices and marketing by the supermarket chains. He was angry that marketing boards disappeared with the joining the EU. Then he told me how brainless politicians were. Then he blamed unions. He didn’t seem to know where to focus his anger. He seems also to believe that Thatcher was good for England, just as so many Americans, out of touch with the facts, believe Reagan was good for America.
Final stop. Maybe the best of all: The Eden Project. The entire complex was built by private charities. They found a worked-out clay quarry, dug a little deeper, and created a masterpiece of exotic space covered by enormous geodesic domes, which they call “biomes.”. \
You reached the “biomes” walking along winding paths with lavish plant and horticultural displays. Palm trees, dahlia bushes, plants I had never heard of. Each carried the message of conservation and the nurturing of the world we live in. Eden Project is an evangelist for the environment, for renewable energy, for natural foodstuffs.
Each biome led seamlessly to the next. We started at the Mediterranean. It was a massive collection of plan t life from temperate climates – everything from Italy to the American south-west, from South Africa to Saharan Africa. Paths twisted and turned. Hundreds of plants and trees were marked. Flowers we all coupled with descriptions of where they came from. The Tropical rain forest was as you would expect – jungle and forest from Africa. Asia, Indonesia, Australia. The wood used was bamboo. The arguments made were for sustainable resources. It would gladden the heart of every devout tree-hugger.
I confess. I find many of these people tiresome. I am an environmentalist but not a zealot. I do my part by separating garbage, by using public transit, and when highway driving maintaining a fuel saving, pollution saving speed, and we buy our own supermarket shopping bags I want us to learn bout biofuels and biomass power generation. I do not march in demonstrations against the killing of baby harp seals.
What was absolutely overwhelming was not just the message of living without the environmental chaos, it was the massive enterprise of conceiving and building the project. One of the ironies of course it that enorous fuel-burning trucks and machinery were needed,
There are still people who want to do a project dedicated to the environment by using only primitive tools and lots of willing manpower. You couldn’t have built Eden Project with good intentions. Some small wrinkles like a little mock train station where we took the land train back up the hills to the welcome office. It was made entirely from scraps of wood, old window sashes, doors, and windblown lumber. Cute.
The drive back was clear but horrible black clouds darkened the horizon. We managed to skirt most of the rain. Arrived “home” exhausted. Tomorrow, a day of rest.
Day one. Thursday, Finally we are in St. Ives. Nothing like what I expected. It hangs from steep hills the way Nice hangs from the slopes of the Alpes Mediterranee. Our Cornwall discovery drive will begin. But first….
It is spitting rain, a fine mist that comes and goes. I decided that we should use a “wasted” rain day to begin our next “excursion:” Cornwall starting at St. Ives. Long tedious drive made worse by the Tomtom GPS – made to drive you mad. The voice finally started working but not well. Following the explicit instructions we headed west. We were told to get on M5, then told to exit. No sooner had we exited than we were told again to head for M5. Maybe it was my fault – some costly error in the maze of directions on a roundabout. At one point I drove an extra 30 miles, only because we were sent (for the last time) to M5 – sent in the wrong direction and having to drive 15 miles before we could turn around and resume. If the GPS had belonged to me and not to our exchanger, who is now happily n Toronto using my Garmin GPS, I would have tossed it out of the car window accompanied by vile and foul imprecations.
A note in passing. I have never been so shouted at or so honked at angrily, than on this trip. I found myself wondering: do people in Toronto honk impatiently at anyone who seems either to be confused, disoriented, or simply slowing down to read the signs? Perhaps we do. I am impatient when someone seems to be driving slowly as if looking for a place to park. I identify them as visitors and cut them some slack. Here I have not been given that kind of latitude. If I dare slow down on a roundabout so that I can easily see which of the many directions I should take, there is angry horn-honking. Even worse, when I am a little confused and have to pull over to check things out, the anger behind me exploded – especially if I have made a sudden turn off the roadway. One man rolled down his window and let fly with expletive-loaded scolding. My response was that while I may have turned in without notice, he, as the following car, has the responsibility to stay clear or be able to stop. Maybe not in England. I am thinking of printing a sign for the back window “Tourist – please be kind.”
Returning to the tried and true we opened a map, took the correct route from Exeter, arriving tired in St. Ives several hours later. The next hour was spent fruitlessly looking for accommodation. None available. I had thought that the “season” was over when the kids went back to school. Not in St. Ives. They have a huge music festival starting in a couple of days. After an hour found a room in the Badger Inn. Room tiny. Kleenex unavailable. Bathroom exhaust fan continued to run annoyingly loudly for several minutes after the light was turned off. On the plus side the food was surprisingly good, and there were sweeties topped with clotted cream. (Later in the trip I would “get into it” with a woman in Cornwall who adamantly told me that the clotted cream in Cornwall was the best, in spite of Devon having the reputation for it.) I was a little surprised. I thought “cream.” Whitish? Not so. Looks more like butter..
Today we try – with some success this time – to find a tourist information booth so we can pick up a map and go discovering St. Ives famous galleries, including a branch of the Tate. By 10 am it”s getting crowded. No parking anywhere on the street. The parking lots are as high as you can get in St. Ives. Walking into town is easy – all downhill. Getting back will be the problem. (Turns out we found the bus that goes there.)
The Tate is a masterpiece but we chose, unwisely I think, to take a guided tour. The young man , artist in residence for nearly 20 years talked and talked and talked. We saw most of what was on one floor – exciting work by Gabo, and a fun piece of hundreds of white balloons riding on a curtain of air. But by this time my usual gallery “fatigue” had set in. We established ourselves at a table in a small restaurant overlooking the ocean and a huge sandy beach and dozens of surfers. An exquisite vista. We were simply played out. The Barbara Hepworth Museum would have to wait, perhaps forever.
Observations. Too many people visiting a strange place get into a taxi and let the cab driver tell them everything that is right and wrong with the people, the politiucians and liofe itself.. I find that deplorable. But what about a bus driver? Sitting on the bus at the seaside esplanade he announced:. “St. Ives” isn’t what it used to be, The best properties are being picked u-p by rich people from London. Everything has become so commercial. Right here (pointing to the land overlooking the sea) used to be Council Houses. (Subsidized housing so well known in Britain.) Now it’s all luxury buildings that only the rich can afford.”
I thought suddenly of the Ford brothers and their plan for Toronto’s Portlands. They seem taken not by how the lands can be made a part of the dynamic of good living in our city and a magnet for visitors. Instead they see it as a chance to exploit property values: a big shopping mall to be built by a world-famous Australian firm known for the blandness and detachment from the outside world, a ferris wheel, and more and more condos. Nothing wrong with that if all you want is to maximize profit, which seems to have happened here in St. Ives. The human factor, alas, seems to have fallen into a distant second place.
Leaving the seaside we ventured along a street, hoping to see some of what makes St. Ives famous. Yes, there were a few galleries, but nothing in them that would alarm a middle-class tourist. There were snack shops. Every other shop it seemed, was selling fudge. Of course, it was, according to the signage – unique – and very Cornish. To me it was more of the same-old-same-old. Either we couldn’t find it or the vaunted St. Ives chic is not there.
We awaken on day three to fog. Our waitress at breakfast says that Cornwall is “socked in.” It was not a pea-souper, where you could barely see your hand in front of your face. But it was unpleasant. Visibility on the road was perhaps 50 metres. Everyone else drove fast. I crept. Impatient drivers would swerve out into the fog and tear by us.
Because it was “there” and on the way – we drove through Penzance. No pirates. Fog, palm trees, guest houses, B&Bs, and hotels A boat basin with all the boats high and dry. Low tide.
The real disappointment was that we could not see any of the seaside sights. St. Michael’s Mount has a 12th century castle, now a private home, that can be walked to at low tide and boated to when the tide was in. We pulled into the parking lot. There were tour coaches parked. Fog or no fog it was on their schedule. All I could see was a stretch of tidal flat disappearing into the fog. I am guessing that some of the more intrepid took off shoes and socks and walked across the mud to the castle. Most seemed to be standing around and staring.
We ;passed through the pretty village of Marazion and headed once more into the fog. Of course it is complicated by twist and turn, impatient drivers, and widths that terrify me when another car approaches. I have still not quite grasped the “feel” of the car and a sense of how close I am to the hedgerow on one side and the oncoming car on the other. There is a lot of breath-holding. And of course there are impatient drivers behind me. From time to time, if I spot a “layover” I will pull in and let the impatient roar on ahead.
We stumble on Trelisick Grdens. (It was once again, not in the guide book.) We decided that it wouold b e cheaper to join the National Trust and get free parking and free admission to all their listed properties. Trelissick was one of them It actually turned out to be a good deal. For the price – something over 30 pounds, we got a ten pound voucher, our parking fee of 3.50 was refunded and we got to walk through exquisite gardens covering many acres of foliage, tries, and lawns. (English lawns are evergreen – the upside of the continuing rain.) On the way out we used our voucher for what the menu calls “cream tea.” It is more. A large pot of tea with hot water to add, two crumbly scones, a little pot of clotted cream and a jar of jam. For the two of us, under 10 pounds! It would, we discover, take the place of dinner at our next stop.
Before we stop, another castle visit, the one with the hair-raising confrontation with the hedgerow-trimming juggernaut. Turning right as we leave the garden, it is a short drive to the road leading to King Henry’s Ferry. I am assured that it is a better way to go than the land route which is another 20 miles through Truro. They were wrong! The ferry crosses a “river” which I think is a port estuary. Two large ships are anchored, waiting, I presume for docking instructions. The ferry takes us across but then there is a 6 mile twisting road drive to the fortress. We almost don’t stop. We pass the fortress without seeing a place to park. We continue on down a hill into the town. People are walking up the hill, a long dreary trudge to the castle, not made any more pleasant by the light misty rain. Shirley informs me that she is not walking. I go back to in what I think will be a fruitless search for a place to park. Eureka. A small sign points to the castle parking lot.
It is a masterpiece. Built as part of a chain of forts by Henry V!!! in around 1550 is is marvelously preserved. We enter and congratulate ourselves for having joined Nationsl Trust. Turns out this ;place is run by the English Heritage society or something. We pay. It’s worth it. Heavy stone blocks that, according to the gatekeeper, are the original with very little renovation or repair required. The rooms are stark. The walls thick. Cannons point out to see, presumably in the direction of hostile French or Spanish forces.
Strange, you tend to think of Henry as the gay divorcer, forgetting that as king, however venal and savage the kings of his day all were, he did protect England. To be cynical about it – not for his people but for himself - his own privately held fief.
The trip back, looking for the ferry was highlighted by the encounter with the hedge trimmer and occasionally, with cars tearing in the opposite direction totally confident that there will be no collision. After many false starts and bad turns we spot the ferry and make our way back to the road.
We arrive in Falmouth, once one of Britain’s principal ports and embarkation port for the Shackleton Antarctic expedition. The town is teeming with tourists. I observe that most of the tourists who arrive by car are Brits. The ones arriving by tour coach are Europeans. Falmouth is not listed as a “must see “in “Back Roads of Great Britain.” Surprising. The Marine Museum is a wonderful compendium of the sea and of explorations, with the accent on Antarctic exploration. The complex of buildings which include the museum, are wonderfully designed. The facing of the buildings is all weathered wood. The biggest surprise was Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips. The word must have gotten out. The place was pretty full, The food and th4e service were perfect. There were almost to many fish and chip choices – from battered to grilled to fried. We chose to split (old folks split portions) an order of battered sole. Perfect. Chips done the way they should be – cooked through then fried for crispness. A little light for my taste, but we didn’t leave a single chip. They had ginger beer. Not just any ginger beer. There were choice. I picked “hot.” It had an extra tangy kick. To finish we shared a treacle tart with clotted cream. On the way out I noticed a large bookshelf with travel books and food books all written by Rick Stein. Where have I been all this time?
From Falmouth our next stop would be the famous “Eden Project.” But first, a stop for the night. We find a B&B on the main road and bedded down without dinner. The cream tea snack was enough. Observation: another Englishman, our host, gives us all the inside stuff on what’s wrong with England. (He reminded me in his scorn for government of the Viet Nam vet we met on the QM2.) He had been a farmer. His first target was the control of food prices and marketing by the supermarket chains. He was angry that marketing boards disappeared with the joining the EU. Then he told me how brainless politicians were. Then he blamed unions. He didn’t seem to know where to focus his anger. He seems also to believe that Thatcher was good for England, just as so many Americans, out of touch with the facts, believe Reagan was good for America.
Final stop. Maybe the best of all: The Eden Project. The entire complex was built by private charities. They found a worked-out clay quarry, dug a little deeper, and created a masterpiece of exotic space covered by enormous geodesic domes, which they call “biomes.”. \
You reached the “biomes” walking along winding paths with lavish plant and horticultural displays. Palm trees, dahlia bushes, plants I had never heard of. Each carried the message of conservation and the nurturing of the world we live in. Eden Project is an evangelist for the environment, for renewable energy, for natural foodstuffs.
Each biome led seamlessly to the next. We started at the Mediterranean. It was a massive collection of plan t life from temperate climates – everything from Italy to the American south-west, from South Africa to Saharan Africa. Paths twisted and turned. Hundreds of plants and trees were marked. Flowers we all coupled with descriptions of where they came from. The Tropical rain forest was as you would expect – jungle and forest from Africa. Asia, Indonesia, Australia. The wood used was bamboo. The arguments made were for sustainable resources. It would gladden the heart of every devout tree-hugger.
I confess. I find many of these people tiresome. I am an environmentalist but not a zealot. I do my part by separating garbage, by using public transit, and when highway driving maintaining a fuel saving, pollution saving speed, and we buy our own supermarket shopping bags I want us to learn bout biofuels and biomass power generation. I do not march in demonstrations against the killing of baby harp seals.
What was absolutely overwhelming was not just the message of living without the environmental chaos, it was the massive enterprise of conceiving and building the project. One of the ironies of course it that enorous fuel-burning trucks and machinery were needed,
There are still people who want to do a project dedicated to the environment by using only primitive tools and lots of willing manpower. You couldn’t have built Eden Project with good intentions. Some small wrinkles like a little mock train station where we took the land train back up the hills to the welcome office. It was made entirely from scraps of wood, old window sashes, doors, and windblown lumber. Cute.
The drive back was clear but horrible black clouds darkened the horizon. We managed to skirt most of the rain. Arrived “home” exhausted. Tomorrow, a day of rest.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
LETTER #4 HELLO LORNA DOONE
LETTER #4 – HELLO LORNA DOONE
A crow raucously signals the start of a sunny day. Maybe he was just signaling some road kill.Out my window I see two fat sheep grazing in a hillside pen. At the crest of the hill there are more sheep. It is the beginning of our second day and we are in Somerset. We’re headed for the sun-tossed (we hope) surf off the coast of Devon and the Bristol Channel. Our host Jan, a former engineer, who with her husband David, own the B&B we have chosen - tells me that the two sheep are pets. Their owner is a “Horse Whisperer” much in demand for her laying on of hands and curing sick animals. She visits her sheep regularly. Are they one day to become food? Certainly not. They are her pets. Raised from infancy. They will die natural deaths and will not be sent to a dog food slaughterhouse but interred with respect.
Our high hopes for picturesque West Somerset began at Taunton. The town and much of the countryside have a long and colourful history dating back to before the Civil War. No one seemed able to tell me if Taunton was Royalist or Puritan. Finally found the famous castle only to discover that the renovation s and conversion to a museum, which the guidebook had said would be finished in 2010, were still underway. (It reminded me of the Orangerie in Paris where the announced dates for finishing renovations were delayed again and again, finally re-opening last year after many years of delay.)
Taunton, like many cities everywhere, has closed a large street to traffic. This one was a little sad, almost tawdry. No chic boutiques. The restaurants Рexcept for a Burger King and a caf̩ across the road Рwere closed. We had our first High Tea. It did not disappoint. Dainty sandwiches, scones (no clotted cream) quiche and other little delicacies. But that, and the outside of the castle, were all we got to see of Taunton. Getting out and back on the road was a challenge, around and around we went never finding the highway. Frustrated, I finally turned on the TomTom GPS, which refused (and continues to refuse) to talk to us. Eventually we found our planned route which would take us to our planned overnight РWashford.
After an aborted look at a B&B whose only virtue seemed to be its price, we found Jan and David in their wonderful oak-beamed cottage; “Monkscider” named for the monks who has used it as a cider mill. (This part of Somerset is apple country, but not everyone knows it. More in a minute.)
Jan, she was an engineer, and David, has was and still is a writer and magazine editor, bought the place several years ago and proceeded to embellish it, almost too much, with pictures, knick knacks and all very tasteful adornments. Our room was a-flutter with things like marionettes hanging from a rafter. Jan promised us that we must spend at least a day exploring her part of Somerset. We booked a second night and hit the road early to the next town, Williton, where we would find an ATM machine. Monkscider, like many B&Bs does not accept credit cards. On the way, a fortuitous wrong turn led us to Wachet, a little place clinging to the side of the hill leading to the sea. Narrow streets. Cunning little shops and ;pubs. A promenade with a statue of the Ancient Mariner. Below the boat basin with fishing boats and pleasure yachts.
Scenery abounds. Hills everywhere. The “highway” rolls, twists and turns, rises and falls with the hills and challenges my sense of space as cars whiz by in the opposite direction and I hold my breath hoping not to graze a mountainous hedgerow. Highlight of the day: a trip to the once-wrecked (courtesy of Henry VIII) now mainly restored Cleeve Abbey, a Cistercian monks monastery dating from 1188. Interesting conversation with the woman in the shop who sells the tickets. She complained that people seem not to know about the abbey. That day, excluding a group of students on a field trip, there were, including the two of us, just 12 visitors. Thousands are missing one of the loveliest cloisters I had ever seen, mainly restored. For the children - a treat. They are given monks robes with cowls and shuffled along, looking very Cistercian, from one stone chamber to another.
One wasted afternoon. Jan suggested w ride the steam train thr0ough and around part of Exmoor with step-off step-on stops along the way. Landscapes, when you could see them. Beautiful. Otherwise, bad advice.
We left the Abbey and stopped for a little thirst-quencher at the White Horse Inn just up the road. There I meet a young female bartender who proves to me that my notions of many young people living in their own cocooned world remain unclear about what surrounds them. Making light of it, I asked her if the beer was cold, having been served a Boddington’s pint at room temperature in Taunton. She said she didn’t know. She doesn’t drink beer. Later I asked her about apples. She didn’t know. “You are in the heart of apple country. Look there -a tree full of red fruit.” She hadn’t noticed!
In fact, when I told Jan the story, she was appalled. Said she’d speak to the owners who happen to be friends of hers. In this part of the world everyone is “friends,” even though unless your great-great-great grandfather had tended sheep on the hilly pastures, you were still (as they say in the Maritimes) “from away.” Jan said that was the way it was.
I told her about having read in the wonderful novel “Maine” about an Irish-American family from Boston’s “Southie” – and the comment that Americans all seem to want to be from somewhere else. After generations the family in the book clung to their Irishness. I commented about a sweet lady we had sat next to on a bench in Thornbury. She was English to the core. I got the sense, and I have always had it, that the English are English, even if they come from somewhere else. Sometimes that clinging to heritage can be annoying when you have English friends who have lived in Canada for thirty years and still speak of “home.” Another story.
Dunster Castle was next. A huge well preserved (thanks to National Trust) castle with a view of Bristol Channel. A storied castle that was seized by the Royalists and then besieged by Cromwell’s forces. The walls are covered in portraits, more than a few by the likes of Joshua Reynolds. The usual elaborate bedroom and formal sitting rooms. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see palm tress thriving in the beautiful gardens.
More hills and narrow-escape roads take us to Selworthy which is, according to “Back Roads of Great Britain” is a must-see for its collection of thatched roof cottages. Ho-hum. Not worth the drive, except for those wonderful moments where you came to the crest of yet another hill and the countryside spread before you.
Next morning said farewell to Jan and headed for Lynmouth. But on the way, a breathtaking view of everything from the famous Porlock Hill. Drivers are advised to avoid the steep hill, especially in the rain, and take the toll road that winds its way via numerous switchbacks to the summit and heart-stopping views of the sea below. Even more enthralling was the twisting “toll road” through a lush rain forest. Canopies of green. Enormous tress, looking like the famed Douglas firs. Along the way you pay a toll and proceed through more woods. Suddenly you break free of the forest and drive along the narrow roads at the crest. Below you is Lorna Doone Country – Exmoor, where the Doone brigands terrorized the countryside and Blackmore got his inspiration. The result was the book almost everyone read in high school lit.
On and up and more up. Then the descent began into Lynmouth. There is a hall memorializing the death of 34 people. You could see why. Even after a bit of rain, the Lyn rivers poured in a torrent from the gorge. Stopped for pictures and my first Cornish pasty. Flaky, delicious and we’re not even in Cornwall.
The rest of the day was a waste, except for a long drive along a one-car-wide road to Barnstaple. That was a stop we could have missed. Wandered around the town fruitlessly looking for the once important waterfront. Gave up. Back to Thornbury the fast way.
Next – we go look for the “man with seven wives.”
A crow raucously signals the start of a sunny day. Maybe he was just signaling some road kill.Out my window I see two fat sheep grazing in a hillside pen. At the crest of the hill there are more sheep. It is the beginning of our second day and we are in Somerset. We’re headed for the sun-tossed (we hope) surf off the coast of Devon and the Bristol Channel. Our host Jan, a former engineer, who with her husband David, own the B&B we have chosen - tells me that the two sheep are pets. Their owner is a “Horse Whisperer” much in demand for her laying on of hands and curing sick animals. She visits her sheep regularly. Are they one day to become food? Certainly not. They are her pets. Raised from infancy. They will die natural deaths and will not be sent to a dog food slaughterhouse but interred with respect.
Our high hopes for picturesque West Somerset began at Taunton. The town and much of the countryside have a long and colourful history dating back to before the Civil War. No one seemed able to tell me if Taunton was Royalist or Puritan. Finally found the famous castle only to discover that the renovation s and conversion to a museum, which the guidebook had said would be finished in 2010, were still underway. (It reminded me of the Orangerie in Paris where the announced dates for finishing renovations were delayed again and again, finally re-opening last year after many years of delay.)
Taunton, like many cities everywhere, has closed a large street to traffic. This one was a little sad, almost tawdry. No chic boutiques. The restaurants Рexcept for a Burger King and a caf̩ across the road Рwere closed. We had our first High Tea. It did not disappoint. Dainty sandwiches, scones (no clotted cream) quiche and other little delicacies. But that, and the outside of the castle, were all we got to see of Taunton. Getting out and back on the road was a challenge, around and around we went never finding the highway. Frustrated, I finally turned on the TomTom GPS, which refused (and continues to refuse) to talk to us. Eventually we found our planned route which would take us to our planned overnight РWashford.
After an aborted look at a B&B whose only virtue seemed to be its price, we found Jan and David in their wonderful oak-beamed cottage; “Monkscider” named for the monks who has used it as a cider mill. (This part of Somerset is apple country, but not everyone knows it. More in a minute.)
Jan, she was an engineer, and David, has was and still is a writer and magazine editor, bought the place several years ago and proceeded to embellish it, almost too much, with pictures, knick knacks and all very tasteful adornments. Our room was a-flutter with things like marionettes hanging from a rafter. Jan promised us that we must spend at least a day exploring her part of Somerset. We booked a second night and hit the road early to the next town, Williton, where we would find an ATM machine. Monkscider, like many B&Bs does not accept credit cards. On the way, a fortuitous wrong turn led us to Wachet, a little place clinging to the side of the hill leading to the sea. Narrow streets. Cunning little shops and ;pubs. A promenade with a statue of the Ancient Mariner. Below the boat basin with fishing boats and pleasure yachts.
Scenery abounds. Hills everywhere. The “highway” rolls, twists and turns, rises and falls with the hills and challenges my sense of space as cars whiz by in the opposite direction and I hold my breath hoping not to graze a mountainous hedgerow. Highlight of the day: a trip to the once-wrecked (courtesy of Henry VIII) now mainly restored Cleeve Abbey, a Cistercian monks monastery dating from 1188. Interesting conversation with the woman in the shop who sells the tickets. She complained that people seem not to know about the abbey. That day, excluding a group of students on a field trip, there were, including the two of us, just 12 visitors. Thousands are missing one of the loveliest cloisters I had ever seen, mainly restored. For the children - a treat. They are given monks robes with cowls and shuffled along, looking very Cistercian, from one stone chamber to another.
One wasted afternoon. Jan suggested w ride the steam train thr0ough and around part of Exmoor with step-off step-on stops along the way. Landscapes, when you could see them. Beautiful. Otherwise, bad advice.
We left the Abbey and stopped for a little thirst-quencher at the White Horse Inn just up the road. There I meet a young female bartender who proves to me that my notions of many young people living in their own cocooned world remain unclear about what surrounds them. Making light of it, I asked her if the beer was cold, having been served a Boddington’s pint at room temperature in Taunton. She said she didn’t know. She doesn’t drink beer. Later I asked her about apples. She didn’t know. “You are in the heart of apple country. Look there -a tree full of red fruit.” She hadn’t noticed!
In fact, when I told Jan the story, she was appalled. Said she’d speak to the owners who happen to be friends of hers. In this part of the world everyone is “friends,” even though unless your great-great-great grandfather had tended sheep on the hilly pastures, you were still (as they say in the Maritimes) “from away.” Jan said that was the way it was.
I told her about having read in the wonderful novel “Maine” about an Irish-American family from Boston’s “Southie” – and the comment that Americans all seem to want to be from somewhere else. After generations the family in the book clung to their Irishness. I commented about a sweet lady we had sat next to on a bench in Thornbury. She was English to the core. I got the sense, and I have always had it, that the English are English, even if they come from somewhere else. Sometimes that clinging to heritage can be annoying when you have English friends who have lived in Canada for thirty years and still speak of “home.” Another story.
Dunster Castle was next. A huge well preserved (thanks to National Trust) castle with a view of Bristol Channel. A storied castle that was seized by the Royalists and then besieged by Cromwell’s forces. The walls are covered in portraits, more than a few by the likes of Joshua Reynolds. The usual elaborate bedroom and formal sitting rooms. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see palm tress thriving in the beautiful gardens.
More hills and narrow-escape roads take us to Selworthy which is, according to “Back Roads of Great Britain” is a must-see for its collection of thatched roof cottages. Ho-hum. Not worth the drive, except for those wonderful moments where you came to the crest of yet another hill and the countryside spread before you.
Next morning said farewell to Jan and headed for Lynmouth. But on the way, a breathtaking view of everything from the famous Porlock Hill. Drivers are advised to avoid the steep hill, especially in the rain, and take the toll road that winds its way via numerous switchbacks to the summit and heart-stopping views of the sea below. Even more enthralling was the twisting “toll road” through a lush rain forest. Canopies of green. Enormous tress, looking like the famed Douglas firs. Along the way you pay a toll and proceed through more woods. Suddenly you break free of the forest and drive along the narrow roads at the crest. Below you is Lorna Doone Country – Exmoor, where the Doone brigands terrorized the countryside and Blackmore got his inspiration. The result was the book almost everyone read in high school lit.
On and up and more up. Then the descent began into Lynmouth. There is a hall memorializing the death of 34 people. You could see why. Even after a bit of rain, the Lyn rivers poured in a torrent from the gorge. Stopped for pictures and my first Cornish pasty. Flaky, delicious and we’re not even in Cornwall.
The rest of the day was a waste, except for a long drive along a one-car-wide road to Barnstaple. That was a stop we could have missed. Wandered around the town fruitlessly looking for the once important waterfront. Gave up. Back to Thornbury the fast way.
Next – we go look for the “man with seven wives.”
Friday, September 2, 2011
LETTER # 3 - ENGLAND AT LAST
Apologies for getting sick our first five days in England in bed. Up today and ready to see things and remember,
First, leaving the Queen without having done everything – from dance lessons to duplicate bridge, I don’t feel cheated. The final night was about as vulgar as possible, only because vulgar is what I usually ascribe to any show that is like Vegas – loud and showbizzy. The Cunard singers and dancers opened with a meaningless but well done set of songs and dances, Then came the classic first three buttons open swagger of the Vegas hitmaker – Joel Bennett. Yes, he did do the lead in Les Miz. Yes, he did the lead in the Broadway flop musical based on Cyrano. But here he was, belting it out. He also has a deep and profound side, which you can see the minute he starts talking about Jimmy Webb and the drama surrounding the cake left out in the rain in McArthur Park. He did an Italians song and archly commented: “Why do I sing in Italian? Because I can.” The audience seems to be mainly the same kinds of people who still want to hear Bobby Vinton and kept Celine Dionne running for years – middle aged throwbacks to the fifties and still hoping for a return of Doris Day.
My friend who hates this kind of talk will once again suggest that I am becoming vituperative. Not at all – just terrible superior.
We hacve an early call dor departure. Characteristically, we both lie awake in anticipation. There was a short burst of sleep somewhere around 4 a.m. We trudged wearily to breakfast then to the disembarkation procedure which are nothing if not tedious. On a signal from the tanoy (or whatever their speaker system is) we on deck 11 herd ourselves to the club on deck 7 where we await orders. We are cleared for departure. Down and down we go arriving at the disembarkation point. Having been cleared by customs while still on board, we have only to check out and collect or luggage. It always seems like an eternity of shuffling slowly to the front of the line. It wasn’t. Our bags were where they were supposed to be. We had no trouble getting a taxi. He had to stop on the way to the train station so I could visit an ATM. An anxious moment: at five minutes before arrival of our train to Bristol, we were told to go to a different platform which meant take the elevator up and then another down and we rushed to get a train that was so crowded there wasn't enough room to change your mind. I’d done it! Our arrival coincided with the last bank holiday of the season and the back-to-school date for millions. The train was a zoo. Our baggage stayed in the hallway. We did find two seats which for me were knee-bruisers. The train was a local making every stop. By the time we reached Bristol it was half full.
Our host was at the station He greeted Shirley with a kiss and me with a hearty handshake – lugged all our stuff to his car and off we went. Graham is a classic. Retired young, his “Lanky” accent is still strong. He took us briefly through his town - Thornbury – small town ex.-urban chic.
I had already started to cough – incessantly. One more tour of the town and we returned for dinner. I ate well, thanks to his loquacious and charming Mary, an Irish girl and mother of their three grown children and numerous grandchildren; I excused myself and hit the sack so I could cough in private.
Thornbury is our first look at a small English town. It holds about 15,000. It is neither quaint nor clever. There are no thatched roof cottages, (that I could see) clever little pubs left over from the reign of Henry IV. There are many old stone houses, some of them stuccoed, perhaps to give them a Regency look. There are no high rise buildings – no office building, no condos – just human scale. There is something slightly “precious” about it all. We parked in a huge free parking lot right next to a clever little mall which leads to the High Street. Graham told us they were especially fussy about “how” you parked. They did not like anyone parking improperly. You had to be within the lines and not even touching a line. I’m not sure what the penalty is for this enormous malfeasance.
The high street reminds you of every ex-urban community that found itself part of the flight from the city. Chic little shops – like perhaps what you would see in Unionville, or the old part of Markham or perhaps Uxbridge. Holding enough small town charm to make you feel peaceful I guess.
It makes me miss the sound of fire sirens churning by yet all hours along Wellington...
First, leaving the Queen without having done everything – from dance lessons to duplicate bridge, I don’t feel cheated. The final night was about as vulgar as possible, only because vulgar is what I usually ascribe to any show that is like Vegas – loud and showbizzy. The Cunard singers and dancers opened with a meaningless but well done set of songs and dances, Then came the classic first three buttons open swagger of the Vegas hitmaker – Joel Bennett. Yes, he did do the lead in Les Miz. Yes, he did the lead in the Broadway flop musical based on Cyrano. But here he was, belting it out. He also has a deep and profound side, which you can see the minute he starts talking about Jimmy Webb and the drama surrounding the cake left out in the rain in McArthur Park. He did an Italians song and archly commented: “Why do I sing in Italian? Because I can.” The audience seems to be mainly the same kinds of people who still want to hear Bobby Vinton and kept Celine Dionne running for years – middle aged throwbacks to the fifties and still hoping for a return of Doris Day.
My friend who hates this kind of talk will once again suggest that I am becoming vituperative. Not at all – just terrible superior.
We hacve an early call dor departure. Characteristically, we both lie awake in anticipation. There was a short burst of sleep somewhere around 4 a.m. We trudged wearily to breakfast then to the disembarkation procedure which are nothing if not tedious. On a signal from the tanoy (or whatever their speaker system is) we on deck 11 herd ourselves to the club on deck 7 where we await orders. We are cleared for departure. Down and down we go arriving at the disembarkation point. Having been cleared by customs while still on board, we have only to check out and collect or luggage. It always seems like an eternity of shuffling slowly to the front of the line. It wasn’t. Our bags were where they were supposed to be. We had no trouble getting a taxi. He had to stop on the way to the train station so I could visit an ATM. An anxious moment: at five minutes before arrival of our train to Bristol, we were told to go to a different platform which meant take the elevator up and then another down and we rushed to get a train that was so crowded there wasn't enough room to change your mind. I’d done it! Our arrival coincided with the last bank holiday of the season and the back-to-school date for millions. The train was a zoo. Our baggage stayed in the hallway. We did find two seats which for me were knee-bruisers. The train was a local making every stop. By the time we reached Bristol it was half full.
Our host was at the station He greeted Shirley with a kiss and me with a hearty handshake – lugged all our stuff to his car and off we went. Graham is a classic. Retired young, his “Lanky” accent is still strong. He took us briefly through his town - Thornbury – small town ex.-urban chic.
I had already started to cough – incessantly. One more tour of the town and we returned for dinner. I ate well, thanks to his loquacious and charming Mary, an Irish girl and mother of their three grown children and numerous grandchildren; I excused myself and hit the sack so I could cough in private.
Thornbury is our first look at a small English town. It holds about 15,000. It is neither quaint nor clever. There are no thatched roof cottages, (that I could see) clever little pubs left over from the reign of Henry IV. There are many old stone houses, some of them stuccoed, perhaps to give them a Regency look. There are no high rise buildings – no office building, no condos – just human scale. There is something slightly “precious” about it all. We parked in a huge free parking lot right next to a clever little mall which leads to the High Street. Graham told us they were especially fussy about “how” you parked. They did not like anyone parking improperly. You had to be within the lines and not even touching a line. I’m not sure what the penalty is for this enormous malfeasance.
The high street reminds you of every ex-urban community that found itself part of the flight from the city. Chic little shops – like perhaps what you would see in Unionville, or the old part of Markham or perhaps Uxbridge. Holding enough small town charm to make you feel peaceful I guess.
It makes me miss the sound of fire sirens churning by yet all hours along Wellington...
Sunday, August 28, 2011
LETTER #3 - TOMORROW SOUTHAMPTON
After one day of reltively heavy weather with wind and rain we awoke this morning to the Atlantic looking like a millpond. The day then begam as it has for the past three - a musical morning with Hugh. I look forward to his congeniality, his encyclopedic memory for music and his tendency to logharaeia. (Heaven knows how to spell that one. I'm already in pain from a response reminding me about improperly proof read blogs.)
Last night I endured (my friends will understand) a 3D performance of Carmen. I apologize I guess, for being unfriendly to most opera which , like last night's Carmen is actually a few wonderful arias interspersed with endless melodrama. Besides, the mezzo who sang Carmen tried far too hard to be sensuously sexy and slithery. She carressed and made faces, she slid her skirt tantlizingly up a rather too-large leg. At intermission I pleaded sleepiness and Shirley followed my, grudgingly, back to our cabin.
By now it is mid-afterboob and we have just come through our first, and heavily anticipated chamber music conert. Alas, it was more of a parade of chamber favourites than a concert. Appalingly, perhaps because the acoustics in the theatre are not made for music, the instruments were elctrically "enhanced." It made the music sound like it was telephoned in from the next room. The Adagio String Quartet played, without interruption nine selections starting with Corelli and ending with the Pizzicato Polka with stops in between for the Pachelbell Canon, Handel's Arrival of The Queen of Sheba. The four ladies stayed in their seats and the audience, tiny, appluaded a little between each selection.
Tonight we look forward to another performance by Joel Bennett, the star of Les Miz. What he does is pure Las Vegas. But it is, however heavily embellished, well done.
And a bit of redemption. Lunch today included roast prime rib. It was perfect! Cunard hs been vindicated. Did they really need my stamp of approval?
Last night I endured (my friends will understand) a 3D performance of Carmen. I apologize I guess, for being unfriendly to most opera which , like last night's Carmen is actually a few wonderful arias interspersed with endless melodrama. Besides, the mezzo who sang Carmen tried far too hard to be sensuously sexy and slithery. She carressed and made faces, she slid her skirt tantlizingly up a rather too-large leg. At intermission I pleaded sleepiness and Shirley followed my, grudgingly, back to our cabin.
By now it is mid-afterboob and we have just come through our first, and heavily anticipated chamber music conert. Alas, it was more of a parade of chamber favourites than a concert. Appalingly, perhaps because the acoustics in the theatre are not made for music, the instruments were elctrically "enhanced." It made the music sound like it was telephoned in from the next room. The Adagio String Quartet played, without interruption nine selections starting with Corelli and ending with the Pizzicato Polka with stops in between for the Pachelbell Canon, Handel's Arrival of The Queen of Sheba. The four ladies stayed in their seats and the audience, tiny, appluaded a little between each selection.
Tonight we look forward to another performance by Joel Bennett, the star of Les Miz. What he does is pure Las Vegas. But it is, however heavily embellished, well done.
And a bit of redemption. Lunch today included roast prime rib. It was perfect! Cunard hs been vindicated. Did they really need my stamp of approval?
Friday, August 26, 2011
LETTER #2 THE QUEEN GETS CLOSER
Letter #2 – THE QUEEN GETS CLOSER
Friday August 26 and with three days to go I finally met what I had dreaded, an American with “attitude.” Sitting at a table next to us, a gangly man in his 60’s is wearing a Viet Nam Veteran peaked cap complete with the gold braid. The cap is an invitation to others of like age and mind to join him. One does. He’s a man in his 80s who trumps Viet Nam with his stories about WW2 landings in Okinawa.
The response from the Viet Nam vet was something like: “We dropped two nucular (sic) bombs on them and ten years later they were running high speed trains. I was there on R&R (from Viet Nam) and they were better off than most Americans.”
But what really got me cranked up was earlier in our conversation when he declared that “all politicians are corrupt and on the take. Name me one who isn’t. My own congressman from Arizona admitted as such.” So, instead of meeting an Ugly American, I met an Angry one. Really, not so much “angry” as completely disillusioned,
to the point that he believed American s were being “taken for a ride by
politicians.” In spite of his condemnation of politicians, he seemed to be thriving.
I didn’t dare get into things like health care or economics – I’d have had an earful of stuff like: “Too much government.”
He even declared that our old enemies made better cars than “we” did and that all American cars were not worth the money.
It was not long Ago that one of my blogs was all about how negativity has tarnished all politicians. How were have so degraded them that we are losing faith in the entire institution of politics. We do have it in Canada, but nothing like the disaffection and alienation Americans – while still believing they live in the greatest country on earth - have to endure.
I would have to be that this man votes about as far Right as you can get. Everything about him was cynicism mixed with patriotism. But what came through for me was that he had been anaesthetized by events and instead of trying to change things, simply wants no more to do with it. But I’m betting that if there were a national emergency – he’d be back volunteering, just as he had volunteered to go to Viet Nam.
It was an eye-opener. For the past couple of days my connections seem to have been to nothing but middle class Brits and their families and their eternal need to find other middle class Brits to talk to. A couple we sat next to yesterday chatted with us briefly until another couple arrived and they could talk about Blighty to each other. Do I sound cynical?
The crossing has become rather humdrum. What there is to see we have seen. What there is to do is more of the same. Last night we were treated to a show in the big theatre.
A man named Bob Arno, billed as the world’s only legal pickpocket, treated us to a hilarious evening as he literally undressed several passengers while relieving them of credit cards, watches and wallets.
Now I am sitting next to the door to the balcony. To my right the sun “glisters” (thank y0ou John Keats) off an endless ocean. Shirley is wrapped up in a book. I too have a book, appropriately “Atlantic” by one of my favourites – Simon Winchester. I have to quote him because he writes in an evocative way I can only dream off. He is still a youth and is taking his first ocean voyage – the Empress of Britain from Liverpool to Montréal.
The ship is off Newfoundland when suddenly it stops. An RCAF plane appears and drops, via parachute, a package containing a drug needed by a suddenly sick elderly woman. The engines start up and they resume the passage. Winchester writes: “There was something uncanny about the sudden silence, the emptiness, the realization of the enormous depths below us and the limitless heights above, the universal grayness of the scene, the very evident and potentially terrifying power of the rough seas and the wind, and thru fact that despite our puny human powerlessness and insignificance, invisible radio beams and Morse code signals had summoned readily offered help from far away.”
I am humbled by Winchester knowing that the best I can come up with is the clichéd “trackless ocean” which spreads itself around us.
Finally, for those who have cruised and expect groaning tables of continuous food, this transatlantic trip doesn’t have it. I am still trying to get a decent breakfast. Yesterday we tried the Britannia Room for breakfast. It started well with two small puffy triangles of French toast but quickly went downhill with corned beef hash that was so salty it would have killed anyone with high blood pressure. When I complained, I was told that it came from a can from their supplier. I told them to speak to their supplier. I didn’t get into kitchen orthodoxy which preaches that no decent chef allows food to be taken from the kitchen unless he has tasted it. Shame on Cunard for that one.
We had even tried an alternative to the wonderful dinner in the Britannia and headed for “The Carvery.” It consisted to a typical buffet “bain marie” with an assortment of pre-cooked meat dishes. The only “carved” meat was desperately overcooked pork tenderloin accompanied by soggy roast potatoes. Tonight we return to the safe haven of the Britannia.
This afternoon we’ll do a movie in the “Illuminations” room.
If these words are a bit hard to follow blame the slight rolling of the ship. Nothing is perfect – but we’re close. The slight roll and my having to concentrate on a moving computer screen is have an unwanted effect.
Friday August 26 and with three days to go I finally met what I had dreaded, an American with “attitude.” Sitting at a table next to us, a gangly man in his 60’s is wearing a Viet Nam Veteran peaked cap complete with the gold braid. The cap is an invitation to others of like age and mind to join him. One does. He’s a man in his 80s who trumps Viet Nam with his stories about WW2 landings in Okinawa.
The response from the Viet Nam vet was something like: “We dropped two nucular (sic) bombs on them and ten years later they were running high speed trains. I was there on R&R (from Viet Nam) and they were better off than most Americans.”
But what really got me cranked up was earlier in our conversation when he declared that “all politicians are corrupt and on the take. Name me one who isn’t. My own congressman from Arizona admitted as such.” So, instead of meeting an Ugly American, I met an Angry one. Really, not so much “angry” as completely disillusioned,
to the point that he believed American s were being “taken for a ride by
politicians.” In spite of his condemnation of politicians, he seemed to be thriving.
I didn’t dare get into things like health care or economics – I’d have had an earful of stuff like: “Too much government.”
He even declared that our old enemies made better cars than “we” did and that all American cars were not worth the money.
It was not long Ago that one of my blogs was all about how negativity has tarnished all politicians. How were have so degraded them that we are losing faith in the entire institution of politics. We do have it in Canada, but nothing like the disaffection and alienation Americans – while still believing they live in the greatest country on earth - have to endure.
I would have to be that this man votes about as far Right as you can get. Everything about him was cynicism mixed with patriotism. But what came through for me was that he had been anaesthetized by events and instead of trying to change things, simply wants no more to do with it. But I’m betting that if there were a national emergency – he’d be back volunteering, just as he had volunteered to go to Viet Nam.
It was an eye-opener. For the past couple of days my connections seem to have been to nothing but middle class Brits and their families and their eternal need to find other middle class Brits to talk to. A couple we sat next to yesterday chatted with us briefly until another couple arrived and they could talk about Blighty to each other. Do I sound cynical?
The crossing has become rather humdrum. What there is to see we have seen. What there is to do is more of the same. Last night we were treated to a show in the big theatre.
A man named Bob Arno, billed as the world’s only legal pickpocket, treated us to a hilarious evening as he literally undressed several passengers while relieving them of credit cards, watches and wallets.
Now I am sitting next to the door to the balcony. To my right the sun “glisters” (thank y0ou John Keats) off an endless ocean. Shirley is wrapped up in a book. I too have a book, appropriately “Atlantic” by one of my favourites – Simon Winchester. I have to quote him because he writes in an evocative way I can only dream off. He is still a youth and is taking his first ocean voyage – the Empress of Britain from Liverpool to Montréal.
The ship is off Newfoundland when suddenly it stops. An RCAF plane appears and drops, via parachute, a package containing a drug needed by a suddenly sick elderly woman. The engines start up and they resume the passage. Winchester writes: “There was something uncanny about the sudden silence, the emptiness, the realization of the enormous depths below us and the limitless heights above, the universal grayness of the scene, the very evident and potentially terrifying power of the rough seas and the wind, and thru fact that despite our puny human powerlessness and insignificance, invisible radio beams and Morse code signals had summoned readily offered help from far away.”
I am humbled by Winchester knowing that the best I can come up with is the clichéd “trackless ocean” which spreads itself around us.
Finally, for those who have cruised and expect groaning tables of continuous food, this transatlantic trip doesn’t have it. I am still trying to get a decent breakfast. Yesterday we tried the Britannia Room for breakfast. It started well with two small puffy triangles of French toast but quickly went downhill with corned beef hash that was so salty it would have killed anyone with high blood pressure. When I complained, I was told that it came from a can from their supplier. I told them to speak to their supplier. I didn’t get into kitchen orthodoxy which preaches that no decent chef allows food to be taken from the kitchen unless he has tasted it. Shame on Cunard for that one.
We had even tried an alternative to the wonderful dinner in the Britannia and headed for “The Carvery.” It consisted to a typical buffet “bain marie” with an assortment of pre-cooked meat dishes. The only “carved” meat was desperately overcooked pork tenderloin accompanied by soggy roast potatoes. Tonight we return to the safe haven of the Britannia.
This afternoon we’ll do a movie in the “Illuminations” room.
If these words are a bit hard to follow blame the slight rolling of the ship. Nothing is perfect – but we’re close. The slight roll and my having to concentrate on a moving computer screen is have an unwanted effect.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
LETTER #1 - NORTH ATLANTIC
Standing next to me in the men’s loo, a gentleman asks: Is today Tuesday?” There was a kind of wry amusement in his question, my own amusement that we had bee on board the Queen Mary Two since only last night. The sense of time will attenuate as the week goes on. But for now, everything is new, brilliant, eye-catching and seductive. It all makes the time seem to stand almost still.
Enough poetic wool-gathering. We have been on this remarkably calm and serene ocean for almost two fays. Today there is a breeze and a long ocean swell has developed a swell that this superb piece of marine engineering has conquered – so far. She is living up to all the advance billing about the engineering that reduces (but doesn’t eliminate) any sense of pitch and roll. Only a delicate swing. I worried that Shirley would find it uncomfortable, given her distaste for travel by water, Not at all.
I had hoped that I could, as in past “letters” deliver some kind o observations about the “who” and “what” of my fellow travellers. The first surprise was that the passengers, whom I had expected to belong to my own geriatric class, included hundreds of young people, young families, singles and seekers and even at least one aging but still predatory unmarried women from Arizona.
We have just come from a lecture (to a packed theatre) by famed British journalist and independent M.P. Martin Bell. He is the elder statesman among British TV journalists and he took us on a trip through the world’s past as he reported it – Bosnia, Yemen, Darfur – and points in between. He has been q witness to history. He served most recently with UNICEF. His “take” on war, is predictable and he sometimes seems more interested in amusing than enlightening his audience. But he is good at it.
Before that an unexpected breakfast treat: a conversation with Hugh Petter. He does “lecture recitals” and is one of many celebrity attractions we meet every day. I heard him yesterday in a recital with commentary. His commentaries were amusing, but then I love anything to do with music. He playing was not up to the same standard. He was, to put it simply – sloppy – missing notes, “faking” passages he couldn’t or wouldn’t handle. He trudged along through Beethoven and a very flawed “Pathetique” sonata. Then some Schubert and a musical massacre of Grieg’s Wedding at Troldhaugen. I’m exaggerating. He plays better than I do.
I saw him at breakfast and asked if I could join him. What do I say now? Your playing was slipshod? What followed was about two hours of my favourite conversation with musicians about music. We ranged from Bach thr9ough Beethoven. He is encyclopedic about chamber music and hummed parts of Schubert and Beethoven. We got into very special themes, like the repetitive theme that Sibelius used in his – I think – seventh symphony. We had a grand time chewing through Dvorak and Debussy, through the great \artists like Horowitz and Rubenstein, with a detour for Martha Argerich. I was in a state of bliss and I forgot totally about his playing.
I had hoped to be able to observe some common quality about people who tackle a sea passage and how they compare with the gluttonous “cruise” patron s who gorge themselves at very opport7unity on a 24 hour smorgasbord then troop off collectively to the next port of call where they infest the streets and jam the stores. (That is a completely unqualified observation. I have never r taken a cruise (except for two river cruises, and have only the reports of friends to base my comments on.)
I worried that the table assigned to us in the huge Britannia Room would be with an overweight couple of hard-right Republican s from somewhere in the Midwest. Instead we struck gild. A real estate man from San Francisco, twice divorced and on his way to a family wedding in Cortona. An undisguised liberal. A German couple who seem on the one hand to be concerned about how the Right has taken over managing the American economy, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that hard-working Germans are being asked to bail out a Greece, a county of lazy ne’er-do-wells. For spice we were joined by a couple of English women, one a doctoral candidate in motion picture arts, the other a ballet teacher – both with wide ranging and humourous points of view. In all, a fortuitous assembly for us. There was only one bump in the road – lunch today with a couple from London Ontario I “picked up” on the way into the dining room. She was Scottish and didn’t seem to have an “off” switch on her mouth.
I promised I wouldn’t spend a lot of time talking food. If you’
If you've cruised you know all about it. The Britannia Room food was superb, the service impeccable. I remember a few items: a gently poached piece of Boston Cod, a tenderloin that was broiled with care, and a rack of lamb pink and perfect. However, I learned again, to my dismay that breakfast buffets are all the same: rubbery eggs, cold bacon, indigestible pancakes and not even close to laky croissants.
Briefly – a note about performances. There is nightly fare in a spacious theatre. The first was a knockout cabaret performance by the star of the Los Angeles production of “Les Miz” and last night a meaningless pastiche called “Viva Italia” – a pointless, but well performed string of Italianesque songs (sung in English) and danced to with vigour but not much else. No plot. No script. No meaning. A kind of mindless “Mama Mia.”
It is already Thursday morning, and I am finishing this off on the way to a better breakfast.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
IF THEY SAY SO - IT HAS TO BE GOOD
I used to be a copywriter – a good copywriter. My partner and I won prizes for copywriting, even though I had to remind him not to write stuff like: “There’s two things etc…” told him he meant “there ARE…” but the mistake has flourished until today everyone, even educated people who actually know how to read use a singular verb with a plural subject.
I got sidetracked. This was supposed to be about the fine art of writing advertising copy.
So much “copy” has deteriorated into mindless jargon that it no longer is a question of truth or accuracy. Today I nearly fell off the chesterfield as a TV commercial announced that a special cheeseburger was made with “naturally aged Cheddar Cheese.” AS OPPOSED TO WHAT? Artificially aged and if so, by what chemical magic do you age cheese?
The other one that has my brain frying is the claim by Tim Hortons that their “Smoothie” contains a “full helping of fruit.” What pray tell is a “full” helping? It is a bowlful, a dessert-sized portion?. It is none of those. It is a mindless bit of fake hyperbole that some copywriter put down, and that some artistic director approved and that some client accepted.
Nonsense!
While I’m here doing my typically purist, elitist carping about language. On ABC News a reporter in Libya, announcing that Ghadaffi’s end may be near said: “He’S up against the ropes.” I believe we still call that a mixed metaphor. He was either: “on the ropes” or “up against the wall.” Ah me. How great it is to be perfect.
And on the same network news a story about a 13 year old named Jessica who, like Nancy Drew, was able to solve a crime the police could not. The news anchor declared: “Jessica has quite a future ahead of her.” Or did he mean a past behind her?
The other day a CBC News reporter talking about the glass falling from condominium balconies referred to “incidences.” Nice new word. Wouldn’t the original “incidents” have worked?
In the face of blood-letting in Syria, Hamas incursions into the Sinai and famine in the horn of Africa – I choose to meddle with trivialities.
Starting next week another in epic series “Letters from….” Not Paris this time, but from first – the Queen Mary Two, taking us across the Atlantic to Southampton. Then four weeks in the west country of England – Cornwall, Devon and Wales.
I’m off to see…..
Thursday, August 18, 2011
WHISTLING IN THE GRAVEYARD
President Obama is busing around Middle America there trying to buoy up his chances for re-election next year. His best friends, it may turns out, are the Republicans who seem to have a kind of bizarre death wish as they back the Bible-toting, homophobic, Obama-hating Michelle Bachman.
That’s all pretty obvious. Even more obvious is the emptiness of the Obama speeches – sounding more like a pep rally than a genuine look at what ails the country. He toured Minnesota and told them how wonderful they were. From there he went Iowa where he mouthed platitudes like: “America will come out of all this stronger than ever.” Brave words. Empty words. You can’t escape with rhetoric and fine oratory anymore. You have not made a specific statement in months. To keep on proclaiming that “America is the greatest country on earth and Americans are the hardest working people on earth, simply isn’t going to cut it. It may bolster his popularity which popped up a whole 2 percentage points in the last few days but is still under 50%.
The interesting note here has to be that his Republican wannabees accuse him of bad-mouthing America. It is not allowed. No politician who thinks he can win does it by poor-mouthing America's performance. The other point he made, and it got the applause he expected, “recovery is not something that can be done by Washington!” Pure pandering to the voters’ worst instincts. Please, if not by Washington – who? The tooth fairy.
The last few weeks the media have been full of stories about how American corporations are sitting on billions in cash – billions that they will not put to work to create jobs. The story is that they are worried by the uncertainty. They should worry – they are the authors of most of it.
Obama did, to give him some credit, talk about how much there is to be done: schools, construction projects – all labour-intensive – and all provided of course by Washington, or through Washington by the States.
There is nothing new in what Warren buffet said the other day. He, and other rich people like George Soros, have long said that they and all the rest of the billionaires should be paying their share. Buffet said that the total percentage he paid on income was less than the percentage being paid by a secretary in his company. The reason of course is that much of the Omaha tycoon’s profit comes from capital gains, and those are a sacred cow – sacred for the wealthy of course. The same could be said of mortgage interest deductibility. It is a boon to the people who can afford to own houses. It has also been part of the problem of overheating demand in the housing market.
Looking back at everything he has said, and aside from the jingoistic stuff about how great the country is, he did manage to say that construction was the biggest mover of the economy. No secret there. Construction is the biggest employer in America – and in Canada too.
The stories about the big corporations hoarding money in their treasures told another sad tale: the accumulated capital held by just four major companies would be enough to buy back all the repossessed houses in America!
As long as Michelle Backman and Texas Governor Perry are the front runners, America has a lot to fear. And it won’t heal itself because America is the greatest …blah, blah blah
That’s all pretty obvious. Even more obvious is the emptiness of the Obama speeches – sounding more like a pep rally than a genuine look at what ails the country. He toured Minnesota and told them how wonderful they were. From there he went Iowa where he mouthed platitudes like: “America will come out of all this stronger than ever.” Brave words. Empty words. You can’t escape with rhetoric and fine oratory anymore. You have not made a specific statement in months. To keep on proclaiming that “America is the greatest country on earth and Americans are the hardest working people on earth, simply isn’t going to cut it. It may bolster his popularity which popped up a whole 2 percentage points in the last few days but is still under 50%.
The interesting note here has to be that his Republican wannabees accuse him of bad-mouthing America. It is not allowed. No politician who thinks he can win does it by poor-mouthing America's performance. The other point he made, and it got the applause he expected, “recovery is not something that can be done by Washington!” Pure pandering to the voters’ worst instincts. Please, if not by Washington – who? The tooth fairy.
The last few weeks the media have been full of stories about how American corporations are sitting on billions in cash – billions that they will not put to work to create jobs. The story is that they are worried by the uncertainty. They should worry – they are the authors of most of it.
Obama did, to give him some credit, talk about how much there is to be done: schools, construction projects – all labour-intensive – and all provided of course by Washington, or through Washington by the States.
There is nothing new in what Warren buffet said the other day. He, and other rich people like George Soros, have long said that they and all the rest of the billionaires should be paying their share. Buffet said that the total percentage he paid on income was less than the percentage being paid by a secretary in his company. The reason of course is that much of the Omaha tycoon’s profit comes from capital gains, and those are a sacred cow – sacred for the wealthy of course. The same could be said of mortgage interest deductibility. It is a boon to the people who can afford to own houses. It has also been part of the problem of overheating demand in the housing market.
Looking back at everything he has said, and aside from the jingoistic stuff about how great the country is, he did manage to say that construction was the biggest mover of the economy. No secret there. Construction is the biggest employer in America – and in Canada too.
The stories about the big corporations hoarding money in their treasures told another sad tale: the accumulated capital held by just four major companies would be enough to buy back all the repossessed houses in America!
As long as Michelle Backman and Texas Governor Perry are the front runners, America has a lot to fear. And it won’t heal itself because America is the greatest …blah, blah blah
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
PARASITES AMONG US
There is certainly no simple solution to the economic crisis. Too many people and too many governments owe too much money. Pure and simple – that’s it!
Better late than never Italy is planning a massive ad campaign to persuade people to pay their taxes. Citing “parasites who live at other people’s expense,” the Italian government wants to shame Italians into paying their taxes. I’m not hopeful. Persuasion doesn’t work. Punishment, even jail, that’s what works.
As you know. I’m not an advocate for the “tough on crime” advocates who think there is nothing like threat of a prison sentence that will “send a message” to potential wrongdoers. The fact is that tougher prison sentences become a political means to tame the anger that some people live on. But when the so-called “good citizen” believes it is his right, better still – his obligation – to avoid paying taxes, we are in trouble. The whole world is in trouble, as much because people won’t or can’t pay their share as the sinister machinations of banks, investment firms, hedge funds, and mortgage lenders.
A few weeks ago the Globe and Mail, in their centerfold “Folio” section did an analysis of tax rates paid in difference countries. Canada was up there around the middle, below such countries as Denmark, but far ahead of the United States, whose citizens not only pay lower tax rates, but who insist on even lower taxes all the time. I remember Ronald Reagan of all people, the president who single-handedly raised the deficit to new heights, reminding people that there is no such thing as a “free lunch.”
Closer to home, there is an “underground” economy in this country that robs Canada of billions of dollars in revenue. There are rather sadly, hordes of immigrant women who do domestic work and do not declare earnings. That, sadly, is aided and abetted by people who hire them knowing that the money they pay them will be unencumbered by taxes, and that they, the employers, don’t have to mess around with stuff like Employment Insurance and reporting payment. It’s a cozy arrangement.
But even worse, are the thousands of people who “avoid” paying sales tax.
This is where persuasion doesn’t work. Punishment might. I have declined offers of “pay cash and we won’t charge HST” and have told the merchant or service provider that I prefer to pay my taxes. The government should set up a department that systematically goes after both the vendors who skirt the law and the buyers who are only too willing to help them. They are, like the Italian ads will say, “parasites who live at others expense.
Until we do something, including punishment, about the entire culture of aversion to paying taxes, we will continue to wallow in economic misery. And shame on every politician who gathers votes by promising lower taxes.
Mayor Ford take note.
Monday, August 8, 2011
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF...
No one says I can’t have an opinion about marketing a product. Especially if that product has tried everything and nothing works. I remember how right I was several years ago when I guffawed at General Motors investing millions to advertise the Cadillac, the car that every market survey said was driven by people over 60. “Waste of money,” I cried. “Chasing rainbows,” I declared. “The brand deserved to be laid to rest,” I insisted. The rest is history. I was wrong. And even though GM needed a multi-billion dollar federal rescue, the one bright spot was Cadillac, now being marketed as hip, cool, and “today!” The Escalade was probably the reason. But even today, are they sending good money after bad with “It’s not just a luxury car – it’s a Cadillac?” Then they let fly all those arrows and the hottest new Caddy slips in among them all and emerges unscathed.
But How big a danger are bowmen today? Do they lurk behind every bend in the road?
Forget about General Motors. I have a new target – and what a target! Research in Motion.
For years I have watched as everyone who was anyone depended on his Blackberry. I received Email replies tagged “sent from my Blackberry.” Even President Obama and his Blackberry were inseparable. But the vagaries of marketing hi-tech electronic are so Byzantine, so unpredictable, who can depend on anything?
Getting serious. R.I.M. stock has dropped more than two thirds in the past year. (I haven’t checked since the last crash, it has to be even lower.) Because I am a baseball fan and wherever possible, tune in to Blue Jays games, I see the constant pounding by RIM of their new “pad.” They must be spending a fortune to try to sell a product that has been put in the shadows by Apple’s IPad. They are now saying that their new generations of phones will win the markets back, or at least stop the bleeding. The hubris developed by years of dominating success is hard to set aside. It’s almost like the Big Three in Detroit sneering at Japanese cars while their (Big 3) market share kept dissolving before their unbelieving eyes.
R.I.M. has tried to turn things around. They are laying off thousands to reduce costs. They continue with their current executives even though investors are howling for their removal. And the stock continues to drop. Only the contrarians are buying.
So – here’s my idea: stop promoting the new and better pad. In fact, prepare a series of mea culpa commercials in which the President, who can be made to look earnest and sincere, admits that they have fallen behind and that they owe it to their faithful to promise better days ahead. Then you announce serious price cuts to the Playbook Tablet so that it comes in at a huge bargain compared to IPad and the other Android powered “pads.” Give it away. Then announce that soon there will be pad that will surpass anything that is now on the market. When it is introduced everyone who bought a discounted Playbook Tablet will be able to turns that item in and be given a discount on the new winner.
The hitch of course is that they have to produce that winner.
But one thing is certain in my mind: the executives, who have been announcing a recovery and a stop to the shrinking of their markets, will have to produce.
The trouble with Research in Motion is that they have been coasting, living off past laurels. A little fix is not enough.
For all you marketing gurus – something to think about. But don’t blame me if I’m dead wrong.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
FORECAST - GLOOMY. FUTURE - UNCERTAIN
I have been absent for some time, partly because I can’t go on and on griping about the same stuff – American foolishness from a country that knows better. Partly because for the last two weeks I have immersed myself in glorious music at the Festival of The Sound. (More on that later)
There has been a kind of “schadenefreude” over the America gloom that has settled on world markets. I think that quietly much of the rest of the world is enjoying the American distress.Tomorrow’s big U.S. papers should carry it all: the accusations by the right wing of the Republican party, the insistence by the Democrats that they did the best they could, and a fading President trying to shore up his image and pretend that November 2012 is not the issue.
It was most interesting to me that Standard and Poors (the same people who once thought that mortgage-backed securities were triple A) has made a judgment that is at least partly political. It may only be an excuse to conjure up the image of two parties fiddling while Washington burns; of factional quibbling that became more important that economic survival; that seeing who would blink first was part of the game; and a continuing belief in their basic values.
I would keep watching with amazement and amusement at how the Republicans could continue to mouth political and economic platitudes, like buzzword realities and truisms: big government is the cause of unemployment. Or – higher taxes for the rich are job-killers. In all the debates (although I may have missed it) I have not heard any say “Mr. Boemer, exactly how does increasing taxes on the rich cause unemployment?” Just keep saying it often enough... – and the rest you know.
Even though poll after polls shows that Americans are much more concerned about unemployment than about the deficit, the pounding about deficit reduction goes on and on.
Some economists have railed against the “compromise” especially since it reduces government spending which reduces employment even further. Wall Street may be the home of an interest vested in capital success, but it is also possessed of enough wisdom to see (and perhaps Standard and Poors sees it too) that in America the public service is a huge employer. It does not make a profit at what it does, but it is essential to the survival of the country. To hear the Tea Party talkers, it is just another symptom of the evil of Big Government. (These Constitution worshipers aren’t even slightly aware that Founding Fathers were in favour of strong central government.)
Most of all, I am sorry that Obama did not use the power he has under the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by executive order. I guess he didn’t want to carry that burden into November 2012 – especially if unemployment stays high – and it will.
The situation may have gone from desperate to hopeless. But when you are the world’s biggest economy with a population of the world’s biggest consumers – I guess you can go on hoping.
We all can.
There has been a kind of “schadenefreude” over the America gloom that has settled on world markets. I think that quietly much of the rest of the world is enjoying the American distress.Tomorrow’s big U.S. papers should carry it all: the accusations by the right wing of the Republican party, the insistence by the Democrats that they did the best they could, and a fading President trying to shore up his image and pretend that November 2012 is not the issue.
It was most interesting to me that Standard and Poors (the same people who once thought that mortgage-backed securities were triple A) has made a judgment that is at least partly political. It may only be an excuse to conjure up the image of two parties fiddling while Washington burns; of factional quibbling that became more important that economic survival; that seeing who would blink first was part of the game; and a continuing belief in their basic values.
I would keep watching with amazement and amusement at how the Republicans could continue to mouth political and economic platitudes, like buzzword realities and truisms: big government is the cause of unemployment. Or – higher taxes for the rich are job-killers. In all the debates (although I may have missed it) I have not heard any say “Mr. Boemer, exactly how does increasing taxes on the rich cause unemployment?” Just keep saying it often enough... – and the rest you know.
Even though poll after polls shows that Americans are much more concerned about unemployment than about the deficit, the pounding about deficit reduction goes on and on.
Some economists have railed against the “compromise” especially since it reduces government spending which reduces employment even further. Wall Street may be the home of an interest vested in capital success, but it is also possessed of enough wisdom to see (and perhaps Standard and Poors sees it too) that in America the public service is a huge employer. It does not make a profit at what it does, but it is essential to the survival of the country. To hear the Tea Party talkers, it is just another symptom of the evil of Big Government. (These Constitution worshipers aren’t even slightly aware that Founding Fathers were in favour of strong central government.)
Most of all, I am sorry that Obama did not use the power he has under the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by executive order. I guess he didn’t want to carry that burden into November 2012 – especially if unemployment stays high – and it will.
The situation may have gone from desperate to hopeless. But when you are the world’s biggest economy with a population of the world’s biggest consumers – I guess you can go on hoping.
We all can.
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