Kurt of Gerolstein

A Night at the Addington races … eating

2012-02-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

It’s eighteen months now since I hung up my restaurant critic’s hat, and dived into the depths of New Zealand and the inconvenience of ill health. But last night I fished it out of the cupboard for another whirl.
Well, it was almost a challenge. The advertisement for the Raceway’s ‘fabulous new cooked-to-order menu’ popped up on my facebook, and then in my e-mails. Well, I thought, they must really want to know what I think! So my friend Simon and I cancelled our barbie and bottles on the terrace at Gerolstein, and headed for town.

Now, racecourse food is traditionally mediocre. Well, on the public levels anyway. You eat reasonably enough in the posh part where I usually go with my club. And Addington has been renowned for its awfulness in the past. Last week I dared a sandwich. $5.90 for a slab of supermarket bread with a 50c sliver of dubious looking ham and something like diet cucumber. Why can’t people make a decent sandwich that hasn’t been grown in a triangular plastic box? And tastes like it.
They should take lessons from the ladies at the North Canterbury OTB. The sandwiches on workout days at Rangiora are real food.

However, on to last night. The menu looked ideal (remember, I’m a no lettuce, no fries man) and happily there were surprisingly few of the risible adjectives of menu-ese in its nicely precise descriptions (what is ‘ground beef’? Mince?):

  Prime aged sirloin, crushed rosemary potatoes, seasonal vegetables
  Individual homemade ground beef lasagna   
Grilled chicken & bacon ciabatta, tomato relish, with fries & aioli
  Beer battered snapper fillets, crisp salad & fries
  Sautéed prawns, creamy penne pasta with Spanish onions & capers  
Baby back pork ribs, tangy BBQ sauce & onion rings  
Thai beef with crispy noodle salad

Someone was going to be busy cooking that lot to order!
So after we had purchased my small beer (advertisedly $3) and Simon’s house white ($9.50!!!!), we ordered. I challenged on the prawn pasta, Simon was brave and went for the steak. Medium rare.

And I gathered my team of tasters. Three trainers, four owners, one temporarily unoccupied driver. They were a bit unadventurous and mostly went for fish’n’chips or steak.

The food arrived correctly swiftly (time enough to be cooked to order, but not too long) and I thought I’d made a bad choice. My prawns looked ill. Simon’s sensibly-sized steak looked good, and the fish looked splendid. Appearances aren’t always right. My prawns (2 large, 4 small) were tasty, the pasta perfectly cooked and the sauce very agreeable. I didn’t find a caper – but I’m not complaining about that.
The steak was tender and, since this is New Zealand, a tad less rare than we would call rare, and the accompaniments fine.
All the fish eaters were pretty happy. Comments ranged from ‘OK’ from the youngest, to ‘hugely better than last week’.
And from the one venturer into chicken and bacon ciabatta: 'excellent except for the old knife being too blunt to cut the crust on the ciabatta'.
At $13, all a good bargain.

Only one person was unhappy. A member who sat by us. He went to get a drink, and while he was away the efficient waitress brought his food … and took it away! He demanded a refund. :-(

The races were enjoyable, my Seppl finished a slightly weary 7th in a very good trot and is being given a holiday, and Jan’s Rehab got knocked over … but that’s racing. And we had a good time. I’ll go back soon, and I will now – which I would never have done before – have a $13 meal at the track. I want to try the mince lasagna, and the Thai (does it really come from Siam?) beef…
Perhaps they could paint the prawns with fingernail polish to make them LOOK as appetising as they taste?

PS I took my camera to photograph the meal, but I ate everything before I remembered to do so, so here’s a photo of Simon and Seppl instead.

It's Time to Get On With Living

2012-01-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

2011 ended, and 2012 has begun in a manner I can only describe as ‘more of the same but mostly not so grim’.
But 2011 had one more brutal kick in the vitals to deliver before it finally sank, hated, quaken and reviled into the first stages of the past.
In December, we lost my very dearly beloved brother-in-law, Greg, who finally succumbed to a stomach cancer, which had been forecast to take him several years ago. So, brother John is now, like me, a widower at little more than sixty years of age. After 38 years of communal life and ultimately of marriage.

A brother ought to be around at such times, but I – enmeshed in my own health miseries – didn’t fly north. I just wrote and rang. Nevertheless, I started thinking. It was and is time to yank myself out of my drooping invalidism and to get back on the road. It was and is time to get out of the self-pitying groove I’ve made for my ailing self in New Zealand and get back to Europe, where, let’s face it, I’ve spent the better part of my life.
And yesterday I booked my ticket. I’ll leave just as soon as Easter is out of the way: and I’m trusting myself, my cabin-bag and my walking stick to Emirates airlines, who (apart from their all-night call bells) have treated me kindly in the past. They will take me back to Barry and Rosemary in Sydney, and they together will launch me forth towards Birmingham airport, and Johnny…
I’ve got a lot of catching up to do in 2012. The dear friends in Berlin, Jersey and Wight … Paris, where the DIVA musical-theatre festival is being staged in May, Vienna where Kevin and Marie-Theres’s grand Operette Exhibition will be showing, the Netherlands, too, or maybe Spain … the events and people are crowding my schedule deliciously already. Can I do it? Well, I’m bloody well going to. With a little help from my friends.

They’ll find me a little changed, those friends. Instead of a lively young 64 year-old, rather a rather baggy-eyed ageing slowish 66 year-old, but maybe they can change all that!

I’m not going to give a health bulletin this month. Simply say that I had my cataract done and now see so brightly that I have to imitate Harry and wear sunglasses. Clarity is longer coming, but that may be my specs. Teeth (such as remain) are done. And I’ve been acupunctured till I’m like a sea-urchin.

A Gerolstein bulletin? Nothing unusual. The regular number of breached fences and broken water pipes, the death of our jogger car ($100 a new one from the best local garage in the world) and yesterday a burst water main. My limpened hand will no longer undo a crusty pipe joiner, so that wonderful garage had to be called on again. Only one new invalid: Agnes (above) took fright at one of our periodic 5.0 earthquakes, ragged her cover and whacked her leg. Two weeks off, a month’s delay in her programme. Par for the horse, in the racing world.

That racing world has been, yet again, our main source of joy. Livia has run two thirds in Victoria, and Seppl … well, Seppl has done it yet again!

At the Banks Peninsula track at Motukarara … where I’ve never succeeded in wining a race … Sepp lined up on a 20 metres handicap against a full field of trotters, ranging from some rather ordinary 1-win types to several open class horses. (Open class is ‘higher you cannot go’). I watched alarmedly as he sat back in 13th or 14th place while the other better horses scooted round the field to do battle ... into the final straight, he was still almost last. Oh, dear. And the leader had dashed clear. But Murray pulled Seppl to the outside and pressed the turbo button. Down the outside he powered – eating up the ground like Livia on her most dramatic days. It was impossible: the distance was too great, the leader was too far ahead! But it wasn’t, and he wasn’t. Little Seppl notched up his fifth win with one of the most exciting performances a horse of mine has ever put up. Oddly, I didn’t get very excited. Till after. Because I was so sure he couldn’t—no one could – close that gap. But he did.
Last night, Seppl ran again, at Addington. He’s a multiple winner now, so he has to race the best. And last night’s field were all top-rated horses. He ran an honest race, and finished 5 lengths from the winner. I reckon soon he’ll be competitive at quite a high level. Whee! And Livia runs Monday at good old Yarra Valley ..

So it’s January. The sun is shining, we have the delightful company of our latest ‘farm workers’, Yasmine and Hermine from Ghent, the peachick count remains at five (Trixie 2 out of 5, Dixie 3 out of 3) until Miss Ing hatches in the days to come, Mr Cocky has given up courting, and pulled his tail feathers out to mark the end of the mating season …

Well, I’m not pulling my feathers out! I’m packing them (not that you can get many in a cabin bag, and I can’t carry a suitcase) and going into training for the Big Return. The gradually unfreezing north, here I come…

When you come to the end of an imperfect year ...

2011-12-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

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A month? A month has gone by since I blogged? And quite a lot has happened in that month.

I am still somewhat handicapped by the sequels of my nearly nine-month old stroke – so, thanks a heap all those pundits who said I’d be ‘totally re-established in one to six months’. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that folks of the medical establishment don’t know very much about strokes, or that every cerebral incident is different.

My reaction to this impuissance was to give up on pundits, expensive specialists etc, and only then did I start noticeably to improve. With, I should add, the help of my faithful acupuncturist and chinese herbalist. Brett Walker, take a bow.

So what’s wrong with me now? Well, my right arm, hand and frozen shoulder have regained most of their movement, but they lack singularly in strength. Lifting anything heavier than a small bucket of horse-feed, or opening a tricky bottle of wine, are out. But finally my typing is getting back to normal, which is a major fact of life for me.
Strength all round is the big thing … and weariness ... but when the sun shines and the horses win, the world is a less painful place. So, now, I just have to get rid of my neural twitch (only evident when lying down), get through next week’s cataract operation and dental adventure… and. well, post-stroke I’m on the blood-thinner clopidogrol (sounds like something a pooch would eat), so I guess I just have to put up with being covered in bruises and blood-marks, and bleeding ridiculously every time I knock myself or touch a rose-prickle.

That’s enough of the health bulletin. Except to say the sun HAS been shining and, yes, racing win number 43 came up last night.

I forced the issue with the sun, and took ten days with Barry and Rosemary in Sydney again. Training for my 40-hour flight back to Europe at the end of summer. We had a lovely lazy time, and I didn’t lift a finger (except to walk Holly the dog), so it was a limited ‘rehearsal’. I wonder how travelling and living on my own will go. We celebrated my dear friends’ 36th wedding anniversary (I was at the wedding!) with dinner at the Via Napolitana in Lane Cove (delicious) and I got to know the latest of the dynasty, grandson Harry. At 18 months, he has already developed a taste for Prada sunnies.

Babies and young things are everywhere at Gerolstein, too. But we have had our share of drama and disaster. Duchess’s stunning foal fractured a sesamoid at two weeks. He doesn’t seem to know it, though, for when he is let out for a few minutes from the pen where he and his mother are immobilised, he kicks his heels in the air!

Yearling Thomas tried out for a showjumper and jumped a double oxer wire fence. Somehow he landed on the other side, but the trailing leg … So he’s a sad and sorry boy and on bute today. Lucie also jumped two fences, and broke through a lot of tape – what a girl will do when she’s in season, and there’s a man down the block! Straight back into training for her. And Agnes, and Pattie.

The foals continue to be a joy, but give us regular frights. Little Johnny, who is to be christened Johnny Molecule after my brother’s new book, is growing up nicely at a month old, but has been left with a curious stub of umbilical cord …!

There is a lot of worry and incident in having horses, but when they win … well, last night was my ninth win of 2011. Something has gone right in this otherwise ill-starred year.

It was Seppl yet again. After his win at Kaikoura, he proceeded to the New Zealand Cup meeting. He ran an enormous race off 20 metres handicap on Cup Day (5th), and on Show Day got run down in the last bit for another 5th. He came home with a dirty nose, but it soon cleared up, and on he went to Geraldine. That is a race I prefer to forget. He was disqualified for allegedly interfering with a notoriously breakable horse … which meant his almost impeccable formline got a ‘0’ to it.
Perhaps that was why, against a large field of horses ,many of which he had already beaten, he went out, last night, tenth favourite at 26-1. Or was it perhaps partly because Murray elected to drive Pammy’s Boy, which had defeated Seppl twice this season. Seppl’s new driver – his fourth in 14 starts – was Jeremy Anderson, an enormously talented junior reinsman who I will always be pleased to have behind any horse of mine.
Seppl had drawn three – all but three of the front-markers were ’unruly’ and condemned to outside starting positions! – and, while a lot of the ‘unrulys’ showed just why they are classed ‘unruly’, Jeremy got him away from the barrier like an Exocet. Straight to his favourite place, in the lead.
But the driver of the favourite, Mamselle (I haven’t yet worked out why it was favourite, but someone knew something), had the same idea. Jeremy calmly let him past, and tucked our boy into the trail. A good decision. No one was game to take the favourite on, and she and Seppl came to the home straight in front. Seppl headed for the passing lane and my heart sunk. He has shown aversion to ‘passing on the inside’ before. But not this time! Jeremy kidded him through the gap and, as the two leaders drew clear of a field where nothing but Pammy’s Boy seemed to be coming forward, Seppl confidently took the lead and carried on to a comfortable ¾ length victory. 4 ½ lengths ahead of the third horse!
He had been given a perfect run, and responded perfectly, in his fastest winning time to date.
These were some of the best 2-4 win horses in the country. I’m beginning to wonder if our Sepp isn’t the best trotter I’ve owned and bred! So far. Watch this space.

The other babies round here have been avian. While I was in Australia, Trixie hatched five adorable peachicks. But nature is cruel, and peahens are not very good mothers it seems. After two weeks three have gone -- lost, stolen or strayed -- and our baby count is now down to two. Temporarily, I should say, because now Dixie is sitting secretly on another bunch of eggs … as for Mr P he just crows, doesn’t help at all with the babies, fans his tail and looks for more available hens …

Now, can something nice please happen in the last four weeks of my annus pretty horribilis...

Kool Kiwi Kittens

2011-11-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

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Very original cats in dress rehearsal 1981

Cats, performed by students? Hmmmm. I wasn’t sure. I was around in the West End musical world when the show was originally produced in 1981. It had, from the start, the buzz of a British A Chorus Line to it. Elitist, elegant, superior, snobbish even. Only the very best dancers in the country would be up to performing this show. When I first saw it, I wasn’t at all sure that its style and its tone, its almost self-conscious classiness, would gain it popularity. Well, I was wrong to doubt. A hundred thousand times wrong.
And wrong about it being suitable for students. These ones, anyhow. In this version.

As it moves into its fourth decade, from the professional stage to the amateur to the collegiate, Cats has changed. Like other shows of great originality, its individuality has become smoothed down, its quirkiness ironed out, finally it has become, in the nicest meaning of the word, more ‘popular’, more conventional.
As I sat there at last night’s premiere in Ashburton, I felt as if I was seeing a version of the show as re-done by Ralph Reader or Busby Berkeley. Huge, colourful, glamorous. Did it work? In a large part, yes. Why not? There are lots of students available—and, the best thing, capable – of taking part, so why not have squadrons of tapping cockroaches and Siamese Cats in colourful costumes, why not have 42nd Street echelons of dancing pussies pounding energetic moggie-steps to the accompaniment of a hugely voluminous vocal sound. Why not? It gives everyone plenty to do, thoroughly pleases the audience ... and much of it thoroughly pleased grouchy, jaded old me, too. OK, I’ll tell you what, give me back ‘Billy McCaw’ and cut ten minutes of all that Jellicle Balling off the end of Act One, and I’ll even go with the fiddled-about-with-since-1981 version.

Anyway, Cats in its 2011 version – with its large proportion of young, lively characters -- is thoroughly suitable for students. On one condition. That they are technically, choreographically and vocally, capable of correctly performing its series of stand-up character numbers and ensembles. And the Students of NASDA proved, last night, that they were decidedly capable. Each and every one of them could Dance with a capital D (and if anyone couldn’t, he was a bloody good faker), the volume of sound and the zing of half a dozen sopranos hitting top Z together, in the big ensembles, was im-press-ive …

When all were so good, large part or small, you aren’t supposed to pick out individuals. But, of course, I’m going to.

I’ve seen endless student shows over the last 35 years, in my old job as a talent-spotter, and I didn’t expect to find one of the best vocal performances of those years in Ashburton. Grizabella, as so unforgettably created by Elaine Paige, is necessarily in the show’s spotlight, as she has the one take-away tune of the affair, the soulful, yearning ‘Memory’. And not much else. Without a superb ‘Memory’ and a fine Grizabella, the show loses its ‘heart’. Last night, it had all the heart in the world. Shaan Antunovich, aged 21, a tiny figure drowned in a huge Miss Havisham costume, sang the famous song to within an inch of its life. I have never heard it sung better, except – of course -- by Ms Paige. It was a stunning vocal performance. This young artist still has learning to do, and her very lowest notes will gain the necessary richness in a year or two ... but, my goodness, if she can sing like that now … I hope I’m around to see her fly. Because she will.

Enjoyment of a performance is always tempered by enjoyment of the material. And I have to admit to having favourite bits in the score. And unfavourite one. I never liked the Kenn Wells and Wayne Sleep bits, and I adored Susan Jane Tanner (whom I snapped up as a client!). All my ‘best bits’ got yeoman service last night.

I especially liked Monica Hope as the Gumbie Cat tripping about in front of her Chocolate-Soldier cockroaches, truly comical and never overstated, and I was most impressed by a third player in an ‘old’ part – Tainui Kuru, suffocated in an even bigger costume than Grizabella’s, as Old Deuteronomy. Mr Kuru has the famous knack of appearing to do little, and riveting your attention. When he stepped forward, to sing his solos in a rangy and ringing baritone voice (I’m sure Brian Blessed never sang a top G), the storm of activity which had whirled relentlessly upon us suddenly calmed. There was just the big, still cat, and the fine singing … ‘beaut’, as they say down here.

Danica Brbich and Dayna Dodd were Sharon Lee-Hill and Geraldine Gardner (I’m sorry, the naming of cats isn’t one of my talents, and anyway the parts are all differently cut up) to a ‘t’, dancing and singing swingeingly about ‘Macavity’ in what was one of the best moments of the original show, and still is of this.
Jason Parker and Kelly Mahoney made a tasty meal of the highly-coloured Growltiger sequence, and played and sang the cod Italian aria-duet inserted for the show’s American version with OTT bravura.
Edwin Beats strutted his stuff splendidly as the sexy Rum Tum Tugger .. I spy potential there, if he remembers to stay in character when he is not soloing! – Nathan Tunbridge made excellent characters of Gus and Bustopher (when did that become a combo?), unlike enough Messrs Blessed and Tate to leave an agreeably clear memory of his performance with me ..

And, oh, there were so many more.

Of course, the largest star made by the original production of Cats (not counting those who already were stars) featured in one of the smallest roles. One of the smallest, but the best, roles. I can still see and hear the largely unknown Sarah Brightman, up on the rubbish heap in the starlight, joining Ms Paige in duet …
Manuao Ross sang the little part beautifully, with all the sweetness that it calls out for, and recalled for me perhaps the best moment of all of Cats 1981.

So, all in all, an extremely enjoyable evening, gingered up by some really grand performances and especially by a most memorable ‘Memory’ ..

Its quite a few years since I first saw a NASDA show, and they seem to be increasing in quality every time I see one. I wouldn’t have picked Cats as a suitable vehicle for these young men and women, so bravo! to whomsoever had the foresight to do so. THIS version. Bravo, all round.

What’s next year?

PS Hey, I just remembered, what happened to the Pekes and the Pollicles? When did they disappear? And wasn’t there a rather dull solo spot for W Sleep? And I see that disastrous Rumpus Cat is gone. Seems there’s rather a lot to say in favour of this version!

Seppl at the Seaside

2011-10-31T19:23:00.000-07:00

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There’s been a ‘false quietness’ about our little horsey world during these last weeks. Livia and Fritzl working themselves up for a return to the tracks, D’Arcy jogging, Lucie and Agnes resting, Seppl taking five …
Instead of racing horses, we’ve been rearing them. After the glamorous Franco

came Sally’s son, a lovely leggy Righteous Hanover colt, whom we have called Johnny

Next, was Annie’s little boy (also by Righteous Hanover), - so we have 'The Righteous Brothers'!

and Erin’s Badlands baby and dear old Gwen’s Monarchy foal – she is coming back to us to have it – are in the works.

But this weekend was the annual race meeting at Kaikoura. A festival of sunny seaside racing, featuring some of the best horses in the country, in the lead up to next week’s New Zealand Cup. I’ve only once had the delight of winning a race at Kaikoura – with Il Campione in 2002 – although Master Ado ran a mighty third a year or two later in the one-win trot.
Well, this year Seppl went to the seaside, to run in that very same one-win trot. Sixteen trotters in the field, and guess who opened favourite! Our wee boy! Gulp. As you know I get nervous when my horses are favourite, and today all sorts of wayward things were afoot: our Lawrence, Fritzl’s driver, won race one on a 113-1 shot, two hot favourites galloped hysterically out of contention, and there had been two scary-looking crashes, one involving Seppl’s last-start driver, the great Jimmy Curtin.

Well, by the time the race started the powers that punt had decided to go for the Purdon-trained horse, unfortunately named Contador, doubtless on the ground that the maestro could have another favourite blow up, and a North Island visitor. Seppl was third favourite.
He had drawn eight, the extreme outside of the front row, and, with a heap of shoving and manoeuvering on the part of those drawn inside him (if eight horses won’t fit across Kaikoura’s track, make it less), he was practically hung out on the post where the tape zings and slaps when released. When the tape did go, he didn’t make his usual flying beginning. He gasped a moment at the horrid machine … but then, where another horse would have galloped, got his mind back on the job and launched himself in pursuit of the best beginners.
Three back on the outside when they settled round the first bend, he waited only for the back straight, where Murray zipped out of his trailing spot and took Seppl straight to the lead. ‘He grows another leg when he’s in front’ the commentator once said. He does. He strode deliciously along in front, unchallenged, as, in the last 400 metres, the survivors of the pace and the gait lined up for the attack.
Wham! Contador galloped on the tricky home turn, wham! Royearl’s Quest, running parked, left his feet instants later, wham! Ruby and Diamonds, the original leader, flew to bits at the straight entrance and didn’t stop galloping until after the post … and Seppl? Murray glanced over his shoulder, saw he was well clear, and eased to the line more than two lengths clear of the field.

Seppl’s tenth start, his third win, and as Mr McNamara, the commentator – or was it Mr O’Connell, the link man – said, there will doubtless be more. The little boy with the most unfashionable breeding on show has turned out to be a distinctly nice racehorse.

Here he is, courtesy of Race Images, snapped hooning down the home straight with – look!—in the background, the famous Jack Litten colours, which I used to punt on decades ago in Julie Hanover days, here worn by runner-up, Game as Ned Kelly.
Colours? I know. Murray copped a $25 fine. He forgot to change his shirt, and went out wearing his colours instead of mine. But this picture will still be going on my wall. A lovely souvenir.
Win number 42!

"I'm about to be a mother..."

2011-10-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

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It seems only a year or two since I brought home the gangling yearling filly with the giraffe neck and the wonderfully haughty stare, from the Sales. Well, my beautiful Elena de Gerolstein had a little racing career, won one race and ran some fine placings, and is now retired. But, dammit, talk about the glamorous older woman! She looks better than ever, at seven years old ..

So it's time to become a mother. Hello, Mr Rob Roy Mattgregor ...

Duchess, meanwhile, has delivered us of her fifth baby: and after three girls in a row ... a baby brother for Fritzl!

Ganzl - the 21st Century

2011-10-11T20:19:00.001-07:00

Ganzls of now! Here are Régis and Segolène's daughters: Elena 7 and Lucie 3

And, well, I'm not likely to have human children, am I? But I have an Elena aged 7 and a Lucie aged 3 as well!

ROBIN HOOD ... back from the dead!

2011-10-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

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When England's Victorian Opera brought out their recording of Lurline, I hailed it as a double success: both as an historical document and as a jolly good listen. Now the organisation has followed up with Macfarren's opera, Robin Hood, and I can only repeat my former comment. Only more so.

Robin Hood is an absolutely English opera, written by a proven and sophisticated English playwright, and composed by a successful English composer, on the most wholly English of subjects. It looks English, it sounds English, it simply couldn't be anything else ... it just smells English.
It is also utterly typical of its time, conventional even, and in no way tries anything new in its music. We have a Florestan-cum-Fairfax prison scene for tenor, we have a Henry Phillips distraught father scena for the baritone, oodles of Malibran bravura for the prima donna, who in time-honoured fashion puts the denouement on hold while she does her vocalises, touches of English part-singing, a little bit of buffo, and there is a lilting take-away Sims Reeves ballad for ... well, for Sims Reeves.

And it's all absolutely splendid stuff of its kind.

Robin Hood is a star vehicle. Robin and Marian dominate the show and the score, and Macfarren has made their roles long and hard. Producer, E T Smith, who always did things in grandiose fashion, cast them with England's megastar tenor, Sims Reeves, and one of the best coloratura vocalists on the European concert scene, Helen Lemmens-Sherrington, who, I am quite sure, both vocally had their parts tailored to fit. He got Charles Santley, too, to play the Sheriff, who was duly made into a nice chap rather than the nasty henchman of Prince John we are used to. Top English singers Josephine Lemaire and William Parkinson took the little parts, but really, the show is all Robin and Marion, with occasional interludes by Santley. And a chorus of many. Since the Robin and Marion were huge public favourites, and the piece a fine one, lavishly staged, Smith had a splendid hit on his hands.

Victorian Opera had a task on its hands. Having had to cast Malibran and Louisa Pyne for its last two discs, now they had to cast Sims Reeves and Mme Lemmens. It can't be done, of course, but they have had a darned good try. Nicky Spence (Robin) lilts and thrills nicely. He drives the show's big hit, 'My Own, My Guiding Star', along in a ringing way that shows why it was a hit, and I particularly liked his moody prison scene. Kay Jordan (Marion) flings herself bravely into the hectic bravuras, but I liked her best when she joined the delicious mezzo Magdalen Ashman in the merry 'To the fair'. Miss Ashman also started things rolling with the grand 'The hunters awake'.
Geoffrey Hulbert sang the Sheriff's show-off scena ('My child has fled') vigorously, Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks was a merry Allan, and I found perhaps the most unalloyed joy on the discs in the ensembles and part-singing. Macfarren really could write for English voices, and English singers -- as proven here -- can sing his work a treat. With hardly a modified vowel.

If all this sounds a bit uncritical ... haven't I any complaints? Well, one or two of the Sims Reeves solos are a bit too conventional to be true -- their titles give it away: 'Englishmen by birth', 'The grasping Norman' -- but they were well liked in their time. So was buffo 'The Monk within his cell' -- created by comedian George Honey -- which I feel should rollick more. But it comes down to this: if you like the conventions -- the ballads, the scenas and the bravuras -- of 19th century English opera, and I do, very much indeed -- and the utter Englishness of it all, with its round and glee singing, it would be hard to find a more enjoyable opera than Robin Hood.
And unless you can raise Reeves and Mme Lemmens (to listen only, not look -- they were both vastly unheroic and unromantic-looking), I can't imagine it being more pleasingly and effectively presented than it is on this disc.

Next one, please, Victorian Opera.

Gänzl

2011-09-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

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Or Ganzl. Or, it seems, Gansl. Or, I've just discovered .. Gánsl.

For a man who spends a large part of his life, delving into the genealogy and personal facts and figures of other people's lives, I've always failed signally when it came to my own family history.
My brother and I had resigned ourselves to 'never knowing', since, years ago, my paternal grandmother told us -- and I was in my mid-twenties, already! -- that her husband, who had died before we were born, had been Jewish. Central European Jewish records ... after the war ..?
Well, I didn't know.

When you don't know, you invent. And when I came upon another Ganzl (no umlaut, that was my mistake, and I'm stuck with it!), Régis by name, and French, of Swiss descent, we immediately decided we must be some sort of distant cousins. Well, I was sure Switzerland came into my tale somewhere.

Two things then happened. My mother dumped upon me a vast plastic bag of photos and stuff which had been the property of said grandmother. I glanced in. Holiday snaps. And put them on a shelf.

Then I came in contact with Marie-Theres Arnbom of Vienna, operetta historian. I wrote a piece for her new book, and she mentioned her husband's forthcoming work: on Viennese Jewish families. 'Hah!', I laughed. 'Find mine!' And she did.

She found me a great-grandfather and mother, and ... there was grandfather Pepi, and his boring but long-lived brother Fritz, and the mysterious Onkel Max ... and three sisters, great aunts of whom I had never suspected the existence!
Great-grandfather was Adolf Gánsl, born in Mór, Hungary in 1844. Great-grandmother was Julie Rosenbaum from Königsberg, Bohemia, daughter of Adam Rosenbaum - great-great-grandfather .. how did they meet? Great-great-grandmother was Katharina Schweizer .. oh dear, is that how the muddle with Switzerland got into my head?

All this only came on us 24 hours ago, so I've got a bit of ordering and tidying to do, but I did cast a more careful eye at Nana's plastic bag.
And there they were: great-grandfather Adolf (b Mór, 1844; died Schulgasse 8, Währing, Vienna 8 April 1889). So young.

And great-grandmother Julie, died 8 Schulgasse, 5 June 1888. Oh dear. So the stories about Fritz and Max being brought up in an orphanage -- they really were five and two when their parents died. Why did I think it was a car crash. Cars were hardly invented.

And here, look, Pepi and Max. Photographed by Grillich in the Währing Hauptstrasse. Before the were split up. Max to the orphanage, and Pepi to be brought up, as we knew from my father, by Tante Rosenbaum ...

And Pepi on his wedding day, with his bride, Rudolfine Josefine Stojetz. Our Nana. Goodness, she was pretty. But strong .. and that's another story.

Here's the certificate, too, which confirms much of all that.

Well, we've opened the box of tricks now. We'll have to delve a little more into it. I mean, why were Adolf the Hungarian and Julie wed in Franzenbad (where the hell, IS Franzenbad ..), and why did they come to live in Vienna's Zirkusgasse, Antonsgasse, Mosergasse, Buchfeldgasse and Schulgasse? Come to that, why were they always moving! And ..

Oh dear, I'll have to put aside Miss Matilda Florella Illingworth, soprano, of Yorkshire, and spend a little time on the Gánsl family! Maybe Johnny and I aren't the end of the family -- by any of its variant names ... as we thought we were!

Drama at Gerolstein, or Oh! Minnie!

2011-09-03T17:43:00.001-07:00

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The wonderful Woodend Fire Brigade powers down our driveway at dawn after a frantic phone call ...!

Are we burning?

No. But Minnie has got herself up a very large gum tree and can't get down. This time her choice of time -- Saturday night -- wasn't so hot, and she spent 14 hours perched 15 metres above the ground until I could ring the sapeur pompiers!

Her descent was somewhat undignified

And after giving us a sleepless night, she's prancing around the place as if nothing had happened.
Oh, Minnie!

Please, it must be spring soon ..

2011-09-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

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A month has gone by since last I blogged ..
Not like recent years, eh?
No theatres, hotels, restaurants in 2011
The overwhelming topics of the day are my wretched health, and the pets.

I'm not going to rabbit on about my health. Although I should, because it might help someone else in a similar plight to understand a little what is happening to them. Suffice it that I'm bearably handicapped, with a few unpleasant side effects, and that from being a 'carer' I have rather become one who needs somewhat to cared for.
We shall see what the spring and summer bring. Because the recent burst of slightly warm sunshine -- after violent snow, and in spite of regular earthquakes in the 4-5 register -- has cheered and lifted me enormously.

I've also been muchly cheered by the pets. Little Livia didn't make the grand final of the Breeders Crown, but she ran what the racing press called a 'massive' race for a close fourth in the B Final, and then, on the last day of the season, easily disposed of a so-so field at Stawell. Her seventh win. Now she goes for a very well-earned rest, and the baton is taken up by Seppl, returning to NZ racing after a year out for growing pains. I actually made it to Rangiora raceway for his re-debut, thus we have 'Photograph' of him lining up in the birdcage after a nice third placing.

The next week, he ran a much closer third at Addington, and I think a win -- it will be my number 42! -- is very near.
The next up to the plate will be the beautiful Agnes, followed by Lucie and D'Arcy who, grown to manhood, feted his third birthday this week, before shipping out from Gerolstein to trainer Murray Edmonds to go back to work.

And, of course, foaling time is coming near...

We may see some breeding action n the avian world too. Mr Peacock has made the acquaintance of Dixie (Miss For Ward) and Trixie (Miss Back Ward) and has been parading his tail and making threatening motions with his nether areas non stop for a week

And there is just space for my special little pet. Minnie. She is eight years old -- and I remember as last week, the day she wandered on to my doorstep saying 'it's Easter holiday weekend, so you can't take me to the homefinder vet because he's closed for three days. And in three days, I'll get you ..'. She did, of course.

To Catch a Peacock ...

2011-08-09T22:32:00.000-07:00

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Eighteen months or so ago, a beautiful peacock made Gerolstein his home. As we watched him parading his glorious tail, up and down on the patio outside our windows, we realised suddenly that the spectacle wasn't for our benefit...

And so, for the last year we've been trying to acquire -- somehow, anyhow ... a female to share his life. So many efforts, so many dead ends ...

Then, yesterday, good friend Jen called. She was bringing three peahens that very evening!

They have to be caged and fed for a week or two, while they settle in. Caged? Where?
We set to, to turn the littlest horse pen into a bird-proof sanctuary in the fading light and double quick time. Every bit of chicken wire on the place, my Dad's old tarpaulin, the wire shelves from the dead frig, a couple of old gates and a mouldy trellis, an old wheel, miles of binder-twine which had once held hay, a branch for a perch ... a veritable artistic collage!

They arrived after nightfall, and Wendy and Jen showed them into their new home under the floodlights. Perfect! Well, not quite. During breakfast, next morning, we saw a lithe form scurrying across the paddock..

And then there were two.

Refortification done, and now the two Misses Peacock are settling in for their second night in Pasticcio Palace. Mr P is munching his kitty-biscuits on the verandah ... the escapee obviously didn't find him, and he hasn't found the hopeful virgins. I don't think so, anyway. But he looks very sprightly and proud tonight. Maybe he knows!

The city that was Christchurch

2011-08-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

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Brother John popped in from England, and brought mother down from Nelson for a couple of days to Gerolstein...

While he was here, he drove to the city that was Christchurch ...

Little Livia Degerolstein and her battle with the stars

2011-08-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

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I don't play sweepstakes. I've always felt they were a distasteful hangover from the 'rich man's sport' state of mind of nineteenth-century racing. So none of my horses, over the last decade, have been paid up for, or run in Sires Series, Sales Series, Breeders Crown Championships etc.
So I don't quite know how it happened that I ended up paying the entrance fees to the Australasian Breeders Crown for Livia. I think, the day that the young man from Harness Racing Victoria contacted me, I must have just had a win and was feeling positive about racing. So, I rang trainer Graeme and said 'should I pay?', and he said 'yes, she deserves a shot', so I did.
When I looked at the ranking for the acceptors, Aussie Made Lombo, Australia's 'Filly of the Year' 2010, was rated number one. Of course. And Livia was 300th, and counting. Oh, dear.
Since then, of course, Livia has developed into a nice wee racehorse. She had won five races, and had climbed up the rankings into the 100s by July this year. And, well, she was paid up, eligible, so it seemed silly not to run her in the Championship, in spite of the presence of Aussie Made Lombo, Bella's Delight, Lively Moth and Kiwis Tatijana Bromac and Victor's Delight in the field. You never know, we might draw a soft heat and get a race run to suit us and ...
When the fields came out, Livia was number one in the first heat. And, guess what, number two was Aussie Made Lombo. Oh, well.
The big day came, and Aussie Made Lombo was 1/10 on favourite. The pundits and men who talk couldn't see her beaten, although one or two did give a mention to Tatijana Bromac, at 7/1, a filly who had run some fine races in New Zealand. Livia was actually third favourite, at a distant 15/1, mostly I think because she'd drawn one, which -- given her slow starts - isn't always favourable to her.
Watching on the late-night TV at Gerolstein, fortified by a little bubbly and nervously hoping she'd run up to her third favouritism, we watched endless pictures of Aussie Made Lombo (Livia was next her, so sneaked on to the screen momentarily) and listened to lengthy chat about Tatijana, whom the commentator called 'Tijuana' before his courage failed him totally at Livia's name and he just called her 'number one'.

The start of the race went as predicted. Aussie Made Lombo cruised straight past Livia and into the lead, and having got there, slowed the pace. Livia had no trouble in gluing herself on to her back wheel, into the favoured trailing position. We just had to hope that Aussie Made Lombo would stay in front.
And she did. That's what a reputation does. No matter the first half mile was run really slowly, no-one was game to take the favourite on. Until the half mile. Then everything changed. Tatijana Bromac launched a mighty challenge and the speed up front increased dramatically. The duelling leaders were four lengths ahead of the field approaching the turn. And Livia? While the rest gasped for breath behind, she paced steadily on, a clear third. Oh, just stay there!
Round the bend, the titanic battle continued, and good heavens! Whips were flying, but Gavin Lang was just gently encouraging Livia and she was making ground on the two in front. Then the little head with the red nose roll was up to their backsides and the commentator alarmedy started calling her 'sneaking up on the inside' and 'coming fast'. Sneaking? She was doing a Livia finish. But for once, not way out in the middle of the track: up the sprint lane.
Suddenly it hit us, she was going to win! And win she did. The official margin says a neck, but she didn't have to win by any more, and Gavin had stopped driving her before the post.
Joy, rapturous joy, at Gerolstein. And the first person to call us was Bob McArdle of the Tatijana Bromac team. Don't tell me there isn't some 'sport' left in the racing industry!
Livia's win caused mild consternation in the press, who talked about the speed duel, the trail run, the sprint lane ... what they didn't talk about was that, in a last half run in 56.8 seconds, Livia had closed down a 4-length gap on the stars...
So, there we are. She is an ABC heat winner. In a funny system, the beaten horses run this week in a repechage, so Aussie Made Lombo and Tatijana Bromac, Bella's Delight and Lively Moth -- all beaten -- will obviously get back into the competition for the semi-finals on 12 August. When ... anything can happen.
It would be nice to be in the final, but it's not hugely important. No-one can take away that wonderful night from us. The 56.8 half, and the victory over the champ.
Bravo, Graeme, bravo Gavin, and -- oh! -- bravo little Livia Degerolstein.

"Snow in my kingdom..."

2011-07-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

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"Snow in my kingdom! A stain upon my grass ..."

The babies have never seen snow before, and aren't sure what to do with it. Rocky rolls in it, Thomas looks doubtful...

Boofie ignores it, and D'Arcy just pisses in it!

A shocking story

2011-07-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

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Last night, on the Gold Coast (of Australia), a three year-old horse curiously named ‘Return of the King’ won a race in grand style. It was his fifth win, already.

He wouldn’t have won any, had it not been for me.

A few years ago, Gerolstein housed a broodmare – and once a fine racehorse -- by name Hot Blooded Woman. ‘Tui’, as she was known, didn’t have much luck with her babies. The first one died, the second one had a very modest career and got exported, the third one seemed to be doomed to run places only,,. and then in 2007 came Carlos.
We called him Carlos (tongue-in-cheek, of course), after the tenorino of the singing group Il Divo, because he was such a ridiculously handsome boy.

One rare night, Wendy had to go out, and she asked me to check occasionally on the mares and foals, while she was away. Part way through the evening, something jogged me into action, away from the comfort of the telly and my wineglass. I slipped on my espadrilles and headed for the baby paddock. And I hove over the horizon just in time to see Carlos take off. He’d got a fence between him and his mamma and all he knew to do, to get to her, was … bugger a perfectly good, wide open gate ... to jump it.

He’s a pacer, not a steeplechaser. He didn’t make it. His little trailing leg caught the top wires, he toppled over … and, oh my God, the wires closed in a tight tourniqet around his little hoof.

I flew towards him. He wasn’t struggling or crying out. Just whimpering and looking un-understanding. And upside down! With his little trapped leg in the air. I grabbed the wires to pull them apart and … zonk! The electric fences had leeched full-power into the top wires. But you don’t think of things like that. I just had to get our beautiful little boy free. Shock after shock sizzled through me as I fought to untwist the unyielding wires …

Well, I did it. And Carlos gambolled off with only the marks of the hot wires on his well-shaped leg. I sat on the ground, dazed, thinking ‘they say electric shocks are good for you’.

What caused me to go to the paddock at precisely that time? Ten minutes later, and … I hate to think.
But one thing is certain, Carlos wouldn’t be a racehorse.
So, every time Return of the King, as he was renamed, wins a race, I think of that night. The night of the twenty-three shocks…

Australian episode

2011-06-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

I'm in Australia. Sydney. Well, Lane Cove.
It's not really a holiday, more a change of air, and a bit of a test to see if my health is in good enough condition yet to allow me to head back to the northern hemisphere.
The Emirates staff looked after me, gently, on the flight and Barry and Rosemary have looked after me wonderfully for the last week and weekends. But I haven't been very adventurous: truth is, I have to face it, I'm not really up to Doing Lots of Things. Especially solo.
The occasional walk to the shops, up the steep hills, once the morning chills are past, has been about the limit to my activity through the week, but yesterday, Sunday, we drove out for a delightful day up the Hunter Valley. Through the coalfields and vineyards and, of course, on into the green vastness of horse country ..

Our first target was under-new-management Brooklyn Lodge, 1000 acres of beautiful horseland and the home, for years, of many of Barry's horses. Manager Adam escorted us up through the impressive pastures to the dry mares paddock, to visit our mare, Rosmarino. Well, she's not mine now, but she was for eight years: when she was racing, and through her first four foals. It is hard to believe she's eleven years old. A decade since we bought her from the yearling sales. She is looking quite splendid, and that high-tensile, nervy, neurotic filly has mellowed into a gentle, friendly, healthy-looking mother. She'll give the boys some fine, future babies.

The last foal of which I'm part-owner (papa: Stratum) is a rising yearling now. He was down in a paddock with the other little boys, and he proved just as amiable as his mother. He is a fine looking lad, too, smashing legs!, and someone will get a beautiful (and, I hope, expensive) boy at next year's sales.

From Brooklyn Lodge, we travelled back to Lower Belford, near Singleton, to visit the new training establishment of Todd Howlett where Barry's two-year-old Mambo King has been prepared for his first campaign. Todd is building an all mod cons combination of boxes and yards, which are already filled with 32 magnificent-looking racehorses. Thank goodness, after my experience with Tenor, I've given up buying beautiful-looking horses. I'd have come away with two or three irresistibles.

Home then to Lane Cove, via a nice, light luncheon at Mama's of Cessnock, tired but happy ...

And tomorrow, New Zealand. The next day, to hospital. Fingers crossed.
And Europe? Well, I'll decide after the hospital experience.

PS What am I thinking of? I must chronicle Livia's ... fifth victory. Back to less than classic class, last weekend, she went out red hot favourite at Charlton, and duly obliged, narrowly but comfortably, officially breaking the two minute mile. Number thirty-nine!

You never know what you can do until you try!

2011-06-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t believe it when the fields went up.
I had thought we’d decided that Livia wasn’t quite up to the very best of Victorian fillies. Although she’d been barely whiskered by Aussie Made Lombo and Bella’s Delight (who ARE the very best) in the Vicbred Super Series, maybe she was better off running in slightly less ritzy races.
But Graeme evidently didn’t think so.
There she was, Livia degerolstein, one of twelve Friday starters for Tabcorp Park’s $20,000 Harness Breeders Trackbred Classic, along with classic placegetters Milliara Lombo and Rhodium Castle, and top-rated fillies Beach Melody and Leilani Lombo. And she was drawn ‘in the carpark’ again. Number seven.
Way2Bet didn’t judge her worthy of even a mention, but got curiously positive (as it does) about one Ezee Duzit Lombo (which Livia has previously beaten fair and square). The public did likewise, obviously influenced by Ezee’s good draw (three_ over the 1720 metres. Aalyah Rose, drawn one, was heavily backed too. And, if Beach Melody was duly elected favourite, the other three good fillies, from the second row, were neglected. As for Livia, she was paying 80-1. Utterly unloved. Less loved, even, than Riviera Kiss, which she beat last start!
I know, lots of names. But these are top fillies.
I can’t say I was confident. Other people’s disbelief makes you doubt. Like a proud mum who doesn’t want to believe that Little Johnny is going to come bottom of the class.
Good old Barry put a tenner each way on her, anyhow. And I sat up till after 10pm and drank too much wine to stay awake..
Well, from the start Livia, of course, dropped out to last. I don’t know why the tipsters worry about her draw, she’s always going to go out ‘at a walk’. Aalyah Rose, Ezee Duzit and Riviera Kiss used their draws to take the front, rattling along at (hurrah!) a tidy but not excessive pace. Livia was at the back with Milliara Lombo, Blissful Kisses and an uneasy looking Rhodium Castle. Third quarter in wow! 28.5 secs. But with the straight in sight, Blissful Kisses was having a go, and Milliara Lombo was powering from the back .. oh God there was a bloody gap between the second last horse and Livia. How shaming!
But into the straight and the little head stuck out, the red nose roll glowed like Rudolph, the little legs revved up and – with her eternal preference for the outside to the inside rail, home she steamed. Milliara Lombo had flown impressively towards victory, but just short of the line Livia bludged past the favourite, which a moment ago had looked a winner, and just failed to get to Blissful Kisses for second place. Third! $15 a place … and behind her not only Beach Melody, but the overrated Ezee Duzit, Leilani (8th), Aalyah Rose (9th), Rhodium Castle (10th) … ye Gods!
Mile rate 1.57.9. The fastest race of her life!
Joy! and … confusion! Where do we go from here? Not my problem. I shall leave that 100 percent in the hands of our nifty trainer-driver!
Note: the Vicbred fillies’ ratings have Aussie Made Lombo as number 1, with Leilani Lombo (3), Lively Moth (4), Bella’s Delight (5), Milliara Lombo (8), Rhodium Castle (11), Beach Melody (12), Aalyah Rose (23), Blissfull Kisses (33) and Livia .. thirty-eighth. Definitely unseeded, but maybe henceforth a little more considered?

Entertaining an Invalid

2011-06-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

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Invalid. Yes, that’s me. And has been for a whole four months now.

Last year, at this time, I was swanning round Europe, reviewing opera in Berlin, Operette in Dresden, classical music in Jersey, restaurants (ah! the gallybagger soufflé and the Bay Grill) in the Isle of Wight ..
This year, a little light gardening, water-blasting and too much typing having proved injurious to my health, I have been scotched to my armchair in New Zealand occupying my passive, one-armed waking hours in ... reading? No. Even the long-awaited new ‘Robert Jordan’ has failed to rouse me. Not surprisingly: that magnificent series has utterly lost its steam and its heart. I have, unbelievably, abandoned it half read.

Surfing the web? Some of the time, yes. But there is a limit. I exhaust easily.

Watching television. Yes, I have been watching television. Is that so unusual? For me, yes, a bit. I didn’t own a TV set until I started spending serious time in my triplex in St Paul de Vence, in 1990. In London, we had a rented set for the office, but not for pleasure. French TV was occasionally nice. Good live sports coverage, full-length operas, concerts and plays. We switched on at least once a week.
My place in New Zealand was for years TV-free, until … I bought my first horse. I watched Davey Crockett running his first race on a neighbour’s set, but after a while we gave in, bought a machine, and installed it in the bach in the garden, for racedays. And (TVNZ being barely receivable at Rotoiti), I had to subscribe to ‘Sky’.
A decade on I still subscribe, though I’ve several times considered cancelling. Most recently, last week. I booked for ‘basic’ plus ‘sport’. I like sport. Real sport.
Sky TV and I, however, have different ideas about what is ‘real sport’. They seem to think its consists entirely of big boys (and occasionally big girls) playing with little balls. Kicking balls, throwing balls, hitting balls (and occasionally each other). Round balls, oval balls, golf balls. I am bored by ball games, and especially team ball games. Oval balls even more than round ones. I recognise that there are people – even intelligent people – who like them, so they must have their place. But programmed on EVERY sports channel at once, all day, every day? There is a rugby channel: why aren’t all varieties of oval ball games put on that, to leave the other sport channels free for cycling, athletics, skiing, swimming, rowing, triathlon, fencing … the sports I subscribed to see, and hardly ever do?
Today, I am not in cancelling mood, however. Today, at last, we had a rare treat. Two hours of world champs triathlon, the Roland Garros final (only a small ball) and, best of all, a live broadcast of my favourite cycle race, Le Dauphiné Libéré. OK, its at 1am, but that’s the world. So my subscription survives until the boys and their balls come back. Then, we’ll see.

‘Basic’ apparently comprises about thirty channels. And it is amazing how often those thirty are showing thirty programmes which no adult with an IQ over 20 (that’s me, you know) would want to watch. How many clones of clones of spinoffs of repeats of clones does someone think we can take?
But the Gerolsteiner telly still mostly – about 60-70pc of the time -- does what it was bought for. It shows racing. My TV ‘homepage’ is channel 35. Trackside. Now, I could go on at vast length about the pros and cons of Trackside (actually, I will) but, the fact is, we are lucky to have it. A channel (momentarily two) devoted to racing… or, at the very least, to betting and accessorily to racing – which shows every New Zealand race and many, though alas not all the best, Australian ones, is a gift to be grateful for to anyone in the sport.
Well, a critic is always a critic, and if I can’t review opera, theatre or food … I can always do my daily stint by reviewing television, so here goes.

Trackside, love it and hate it.
Like a theatre show, a television channel has two parts: the play and the actors. The content of its programmes on one hand, and the people who present them and the manner in which they do so on the other.
The ‘content’ on Trackside, both during racing and in the race-less hours is good. I’d give it eight out of ten. I would be very happy if it showed just Australasian and maybe European horses -- no dog racing and no Asiatic racing (Sha Tin means turn-off in my language) -- but I can always turn off, or use the television set’s most valuable feature: the mute button. Of course, I don’t always turn on or unmute again, but since I don’t bet, the TAB doubtless couldn’t care less.
In the morning you have replays of the previous day’s races, so you can watch them without all the dreary chat in between, and you have excellent trials and workouts film. For the gamblers, there’s a longwinded talking heads (and some not very pretty heads! some folk should stick to radio) show previewing and tipping for the day’s events. It’s a healthy mix.
Once racing starts, its full on. Good filming, clear viewing, split screen when necessary, high technical expertise, clear incrustations (if sometimes too many), repeat views when the programming allows. I do object to the planners switching to a foreign dog race when there are a few minutes to go before or after an important horse race but, yes, the visuals are excellent.

The audio side ... commentators, link-men etc … well … there, there is more room for query. Here are a few of this listener’s disorganised thoughts.
Firstly, dear presenters, it is not necessary to talk ALL the time. Say what is relevant, then please stop. Even a beautiful voice gets boring when it is interminable. A less than beautiful one can cause insanity. Or somnolence. And, by the way, chitty-chatty between the presenters alienates the audience. Excludes them.
Secondly, spending time predicting the manner of the running of the race to come – inevitably wrongly -- is a bore. And an embarrassing hoot when replayed after the event. Stick, if you must, to tipping. Not crystal balls (round or oval).
Thirdly – banal interviews with trainers and drivers (the same ones, over and over) are hopelessly uninteresting. ‘Yeah, no, um, he’ll go good’ (the word is ‘well’ not ‘good’) may have several variations, but not many. Especially those predictable post-race ‘I’ve got a mobile microphone’ interviews with the returning driver (yeah, no, um, he went good).
Fourth: why read out loud every bit of text that can be seen on screen? Gabbling through lists of exotic returns, over forthcoming action, is just confusing. We can read. Most of us. If we are interested.
And, for me, the cardinal sin. Will whoever is commentating and linking PLEASE comment(ate) only what we can see -- only and exclusively the horses and the race that are on the screen -- and not chat about football, cricket, their friend’s babies, their first-name buddies in highish places or next week’s racing, as the mobile start goes into motion. There are hours of non-active time and programmes for that. We aren’t interested in the buddies, the ballgames and the babies. We are interested in the current racing action.

As for the cast of players… Well, Trackside evidently made a recent conscious decision. They outed all the ‘personality presenters’ of earlier years – Aiden, Sheldon, Michael, Justin – and replaced them with a blander breed. Fair enough. Faceless, unobtrusive link-men? Ideal. But it hasn’t quite turned out that way. Too many of the current blander breed seem to have got sudden (doomed) ambitions to be Personalities. No. We don’t need to see their faces on the screen, let’s have the horses; and, oy vay, I most particularly don’t want to see their hair. The HRNZ TV Comedy Prize for the past several years has gone without contest to the Trackside hairdresser. Oh, Lord! Who can forget Popplewell’s greasy porcupine .. ?

I could fill a page with grizzles and giggles, but enough. I just wonder who is the casting director for the channel. Well, it’s a professional interest. In my eight years in such a job, there were sound basic rules. Applicants must speak well, clearly, brightly, interestingly, in a comprehensible and unexaggerated accent, and with a sufficient but not intrusive personality. You know: a voice with more than three notes in it. But above all, they must speak CORRECTLY. No ‘he went good’ or ‘I could of done it’ or the host of other gauche grammatical clangers that litter Trackside-speech ... and is it too much to ask that the very simplest of French and German words be correctly pronounced? Australia does it, is education so bad in New Zealand? …
I know, there’s always the mute button. It is permanently in my hand. I can safely unmute when Jess and Karen are on (when the only two women on the channel are its best advertisement, why are there only two?) and Greg has got a new lease of life with his sexy new ‘older man’ haircut .... and today is rainy Nelson which brings out the best in everyone (but, oh, how I miss Ian Chambers and his wonderful commentaries in the fog!) …

Wait a minute. Today, Trackside is delicious! And I’ve sussed why. Perhaps the planes couldn’t get to Nelson, but we seemingly have NO talking heads! NO dreary interviews!. Just horses and races. Bingo!
Sigh. Trackside. Love it and hate it. Perfect or imperfect. Ungrammatical, ill-educated and with bad hair. It’s on in my living room now. Mute, for the 4 minutes till the fifth from Richmond Park where the sun is coming out. It’s true, we’re lucky to have it. We really are.

Savoy Theatre, London, 1891

2011-06-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

Another box...
A lovely thing..
The complete costume designs by the celebrated Percy Anderson for the Richard D'Oyly Carte production of The Nautch Girl, the show which replaced .. and in many opinions, including mine, outshone ... the latter day Gilbert and Sullivan works.
The eighty or so designs, some by the artist, some by the artisans, have the original fabric swatches still attached ,,
A real piece of musical theatre history
Sigh. It should, of course, be in a theatre museum. But it is here, in New Zealand, of all places. Silly.

At the very bottom of the box .. another world ..

2011-06-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

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'Where are you, and what are you doing' reads the Christmas message from Dean.on the back..

What indeed. All dead.
Dean's Bar, Tangiers.
Another world. Another time.

Digging deeper I find ...

2011-06-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

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Underneath the ballet pictures there are some from the world of variety - I recognise Bud Flanagan, Danny Kaye, Cyd Charisse but who are 'the Blinard Brothers in their impersonation of the Andrews Sisters'? --

and, goodness me, what is this. It looks like a meeting of a cell of wartime miscreants, plotting the downfall of the Empire.

What I think it is, is a gathering in the 1940s or early '50s, of the Society of Australian Writers at Dolphin Square, Pimlico, London. It is attached to photos of Hugh Hastings, Catherine Gaskin, Dymphna Cusak and a delicious-looking, too-writerish-to-be-true, wannabe (maybe he was, oh heck he was!) called Ralph W Peterson. Oh that sweater! Oh, that Colman moustache ...! Cuuuuute!

There's also one of Henry Handel Richardson, but I think she might not have been a current member,
Anyway, I think it is a historical document, and .. is that Ngaio Marsh in the specs and woolly hat? No, can't be ..

La Lutte éternelle: a ballet by Schwetzoff

2011-06-04T17:06:00.001-07:00

Oh dear. When you start opening old boxes and files ..

Lots and lots of photos of ballet dancers. Mostly unlabelled, but here and there one is named. Irina Baronova. Bronislawa Nijinska. Georges Skibine. Tamara Grigorieva. Sono Osato as Beauty (or is it Reality). Loads of Tamara Toumanovas. It's Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes in their Australian season of 1939.

This one is clearly labelled. An unnamed ballet (I see it was La lutte eternelle) choreographed by Igor Schwetzoff (Schwezoff) with music taken from the works of Schumann. And the artists are Slava Toumine, Nina Verchinina, Paul Petroff, Yura Skibine and Oleg Tupine.

Action photos, posed press photos, somebody's happy snaps, a Christmas Card (of himself) from Skibine ..

Now, I know nothing and care nothing for ballet. But there must be a balletic equivalent of me, somewhere, to whom the contents of this file would mean a great deal. He or she had better get in touch.

A future star of page makes his stage debut ...

2011-06-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

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Well, I said I'd find a picture to jolly this page up, but I never thought this would surface ...

This is a photo of the cast of a little play called "Dream Angus", produced by Brian Douglas (Standard IV teacher) and directed by Brian Gallas (age 9) at Hataitai School, Wellington, New Zealand in 1955.
No prizes for guessing who appropriated the leading role. Teacher's pet, who nabbed himself the job -- already -- of casting director as well as stage director. I think I was supposed to be Bonnie Prince Charlie in my mother's pleated tartan skirt.
I wonder what became of Rina Brilleman, Judy Price, Katherine Steel and the romantic David Dunkley who, chuckle, always got good parts from this caster. I don't remember if he was any good, but he was -- American! Which was about as romantic and Martian as you got in 1955 Wellington.
Ah me, half a century ago and more..

Number 38, or Take me Back to the Yarra Valley!

2011-06-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

While the Promethean eagle has been tearing at my shoulder, while I have been suffering equally poignantly from the almost-as-painful experience of alcohol withdrawal (well, semi-withdrawal) and the affres of mal du pays for the Continent of Europe, while I have been frustrated by the inability to type, for the first time since the age of four, at a speed to keep up with my brain, to turn over in bed or to lift a bottle of milk from the frig without pain, and while I have been frozen by the temperatures of New Zealand in the autumnal months …
A little and lovely bit of joy has nevertheless come my way.
My New Zealand racing season has been thin. Worse than my French one, which seems to be over. Five horses in training here, and since my return to Canterbury in October – in large part to see them run – just five starts. Fritzl was the joy boy, with his four starts for a win and a second, but since February the dear wee boy has given us all sorts of health scares, from a tendon (he too!) to an abcess, and he won’t be back on track for a while.
But, across the water, in Australia, young Livia degerolstein continues to fly the Gerolsteiner flag.
After her qualification for the Vicbred Superseries, she ran at Melton and at Geelong and both times hit races that did not suit her. Livia’s trump card is that storming finish from the rear, so when she gets in a race where an unchallenged leader strolls round at a (fine-worthy) dull pace and only really runs a race for the last half or quarter, there’s little chance of her taking the biscuit. She came second at Geelong, thanks to an enterprising drive by Graeme, in spite of that.
And then she went back to Melton for the Vicbred semifinals. I was in two minds. Did I want her to qualify for a rich, classic final she could surely not win? Well, she went out at enormous odds, dropped characteristically to the rear, and, finishing stoutly down the inside, found herself squeezed up by those on the outside, and placed 7th. The first six qualified, and there is no doubt that, with a clear run, she would have made it. As it was, she was named ‘first emergency’, and Graeme nominated her for another race, for the probable event of ‘no scratchings’.
Well, there were no scratchings, and Livia went not to the glamour Group One race, but to Yarra again. I was quite relieved. At Yarra we had a good chance. In fact, I thought, we’d probably be favourite, and should win. The other top favourites, after all, were horses who hadn’t made the Vicbred finals, and Riviera Kiss and Elegantly had both been among Livia’s recent victims.
But, curiously, Way2Bet wasn’t on our side that day, and the punters also looked elsewhere. Everyone talked the other horses, and Livia went out paying $5. And that in spite of the fact that Graeme had ‘put the boy on’: his top driver son, Gavin.
Needless to say, Livia dropped straight to the rear from her outside draw, as the grey, Dufflecoat Jet Lag, rolled to the front. Riviera Kiss was on the leader’s elbow, and Elegantly covered up in the middle, as the well-liked colt Jefferson City improved three wide round the final turn. Livia cruised along in his wake, and as soon as they hit the straight, she just pulled out and left them for dead. Gavin hardly had to rustle her up: she just upped her stride, stuck out the red nose roll, hit the front well before the post, and waltzed home two lengths – which could have been several more – to the good.
Her easiest win yet! Number four for Livia, and number 38 for me … goodness, with only one horse racing I MAY still make it to 40 this year!

Oh, by the way, the Vicbred Final? It was won by Bella’s Delight, which beat Livia half a head for second place in the heats. That heat’s winner, Aussie Made Lombo, fiished third. I think we drew the hot heat!

Alas, no pictures. You don’t want photos of me in my present state, and getting pictures of Australian races is a no-no ..
I’ll jolly up this page with pictures of Gerolstein and the horses soon ..

Recovering from a stroke. Or not. In fifty painful and expensive lessons.

2011-06-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

I see its two months already since I ‘came out’ and admitted that I’d had a stroke. You might have thought that, given my measured optimism in April, I’d be on the high road to recovery now, and planning to head for Europe. Not So.
There have been hiccups. Side effects. Sequels. Pain and misery. Apparently, other ills. And, in some ways, I feel worse off now than then. Mentally as well as physical.

Part of my problem is that nobody has been able to tell me – black on white -- precisely what has happened to me, what is happening to me, and what will/can happen in the future. And, above all, what to do about it.
I’ve seen doctor, physiotherapists (two), osteopath, acupuncturists (two), masseuse, .. and I still don’t know what to do. Do they? We do this, it doesn’t work, so we do that, it doesn’t work, we do that … is my situation so very difficult? Perhaps it is.

One thing that seems clear is – yes, I had a classic stroke with classic effects – the maimed right arm, the spoiled speech, feelings of exhaustion – which should be well on the way to mended now. But they aren’t.
Oh yes, I can type now ... at about 60-70 percent. Thank goodness. When I’m not exhausted, that is. But my speech is still fallible, and, above all, I cannot use my right arm for anything more strenuous than typing. It is virtually frozen, and to try to move it out to the side, or behind my back is sickeningly painful and physically impossible. Why now? when I could wield a spade (gently), pluck a weed, brush my teeth, shave my head in April. Why now?

Well, it appears that, about 5 or 6 weeks ago, while asleep in bed, I developed a Frozen Shoulder. Don’t ask me how or why, and if its connected with the stroke or not. I awoke thinking I’d had a fifth stroke. But medical person number 4 diagnosed it firmly as Frozen, and I went off for two fearsome injections of corticosteroids in the blindingly painful shoulder joint. The last was five days ago. I await to be magically cured. So far, the results are mitigated.

At Reflect of St Albans, the clinic, the lady ultra-sounding the joint announced that I had a torn shoulder tendon. By ‘torn’ she apparently meant torn away from the bone. When? How? Since I’ve been struck, I’ve advisedly used the arm very little except to do the often painful exercises prescribed by my medics. And my shoulder was perfectly able to do windmills and dry my back in April. So, I’ve torn a tendon while sleeping? Or was it like that before, and no-one noticed? If so, I can live with it disconnected. And why can’t I move my arm?

So, you see, I’ve gone from ‘I have had a stroke’, to ‘I have had a stroke, and a frozen shoulder, and a torn tendon’. But no-one thought to tell me that before. And what will they add to the list next?

You will understand that I’m now mistrustful … … sometimes I feel that my multiple (expensive) medics seem to be working against each other, or at very best not agreeing… unbelieving, unconfident in the opinions of anyone.

Well, I give it a fortnight. If I’m not showing serious progress by then, I’m going to say farewell to all but one of my advisors and take it from there. Because in a fortnight I’m going to Australia for ten days fresh air and sunshine, and some decisions are going to be made while I’m there. Like … is it time to go home? Am I sufficiently strong to go home?
Home? You can guess of which side of the world I’m thinking.

Gerald Bordman .. RIP, my old friend.

2011-05-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Gerry died in Philadelphia today. He was 79, which wasn't bad because he'd never expected .. given his medical history ... to make it to such an age.
I suppose someone will be writing obituaries about him for the New York Times and other more seriously academic journals ... well, they may even ask me, but my recollections of Gerry would be perhaps a little personal and irreligious for a learned journal. And, anyway, neither of us had a huge penchant for being 'learned', which was quite a good thing, given the subject of which he chose to revolutionise the historical recording ... closely followed by his first and most enduring disciple: me.
His The American Musical Theatre was directly responsible for my The British Musical Theatre and the dozen tomes that followed it. So, you could say he changed my life.

This isn't the sort of photo you usually see of Gerry. He'll usually be black-and-white, stiff and rather embarrassed looking, So I hope some of the obituarists find this. I took it. And I declare it non-copyright. It was at my neighbour's wedding, on the ramparts at St Paul de Vence and - oh, Ian must have taken it, that's my wrist with the glass of champagne behind his shoulder.

I'll write some more when it's all sunk in properly. Funny, last time we spoke -- about six weeks ago -- across the world, it was he who was worrying about my health. The stroke, and all. Then suddenly he wasn't answering his phone ...

Exit stage centre, you might say. His book remains, and will always remain the best chronicle of the American Musical Theatre.
A fitting memorial. And one or two of us are left with a different kind of memorial as well ... a dear, lovely, generous man ..

It's Autumn in Gerolstein

2011-04-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

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Since its impossible to get race photos from Australian race tracks, I give you instead the view from my window .. yes, it's chilly autumn at Gerolstein..

Way2Bet: a very prescient tipster or, 'Livia keeps it up'

2011-04-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

I published an article, this week, in the New Zealand Harness Racing Weekly, detailing little Livia’s history and her splendid recent exploits. How we’d gone to Yarra Valley, last start, to avoid racing Aussie Made Lombo (Victoria’s top filly, 15 wins already!) and her dauphines in the Oaks, and how we’d duly won. So…
This week Yarra was hosting the first heat (of five) of the prestigious Vicbred Superseries. Since we’d paid the entry fee, we decided ‘why not go’? The biggest guns might not go to Yarra, they might wait for the heats at Mildura or Shepperton. We might sneak a fourth and get into the semi-finals, or even eventually and marvellously even the final: theoretically the top ten or twelve fillies in the state..
Wednesday, the acceptances came out:
No1 Livia de Gerolstein, No 2 Aussie Made Lombo …

Way2Bet wrote:
‘Terrific first heat of the Vicbred Super Series for the 3yo fillies to start the program where AUSSIE MADE LOMBO (2) is sure to go around well into the red. She has an outstanding record of 15 wins from 27 starts and the only time she has finished out of the money was last start when sixth in the Victoria Oaks Final behind Bettor Cover Lover after enduring a tough trip. She should cruise straight to the lead here and will have little trouble in disposing of these. Her only real danger will be BELLA’S DELIGHT (7). She is a tough type, as indicated by her gutsy death seat success at Ballarat four back in the Prendergast Memorial Oaks Trial. She too comes off the Victoria Oaks series, finishing a game second to AUSSIE MADE LOMBO (2) in her heat before running a great race in the Final when fifth, beaten only 8m by Bettor Cover Lover. She will have to sit parked today and although it is doubtful she can run past AUSSIE MADE LOMBO (2), she looks a moral to run second. The two key ones battling it out for third spot will be the well drawn and improving LIVIA DEGEROLSTEIN (1), and the honest RIVIERA KISS (6), who has been meeting some smart types of late on the provincials…’
Terrific, yeah. For some. But at least he gave us a place chance..
Well, he was right. Aussie Made Lombo made straight for the front, with Livia right behind her. Bella’s Delight duly sat parked, without unhappily putting any pressure on the leader, who, unchallenged, ran along the 1200 metres into the straight in a fair 1min 31secs. In the last 200 metres, Livia made a gallant effort up the passing lane, but she could not get closer than half a length to the cruising favourite, and in the end she was edged for second by a slightly disappointing Bella’s Delight, who seemed to have settled for second from the outset. Well, I guess we would have signed for third! But we tried. And I’m sure we momentarily got into second ..
I’m greedy now. Oh! how I wanted to be second! But we finished a length behind arguably the best Victorian filly of the 3 year-old generation, so how not be pleased? … even if they went no faster than last week.
So Way2Bet got it right again … and, while Lively Moth, Milliara Lombo and Rhodium Castle go to Mildura to battle out Heat 2, Livia lives to fight another day. And probably a semi-final. Hopefully not, this time, against Aussie Made Lombo!

Our Animals, by request

2011-04-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

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This is a blog ‘By Special Request’

With my recent lack of right-handed volubility, my state of health and horses who win have been the only topics to have got a look in here ..

‘What about the pets’? Okay, here they are ..
The kitties first.
Minnie, looking slim, fit and lazy, curled up on the John Siddeley couch ..
Chiqui checking out the comfort of the hay barn until its time to head for Wendy’s bed

Mr Peacock perching on the water tank. Last year, while I was back in Berlin, he disappeared for the winter. We’re feeding him many delicacies this year in the hope he will stay..

The horses? Well, here are the babies. Thomas and Anna, the Berlin babes, have been weaned from their mothers and introduced to the joys of a halter and a coat. Used to hooning around a 4-acre paddock, they aren’t altogether happy about spending time in the crush learning to lead and tie up!

And the newest addition to our team of boarders, little Rocky, brother to Patti, and like Thomas, a son of P FortySeven ..

And it looks as if we may have yet another member to add to the team. This big feller has taken up residence in the creek behind my house .. I wonder if he too likes Whiskas cat biscuits

Number Thirty-Seven!

2011-04-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

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“Some above average fillies engaged here with the pick of them being the widely drawn, but in-form LIVIA DEGEROLSTEIN (7). She was doing her best work late for a narrow 2nd to Scottish Glamour at Tabcorp Pk 8 days ago and is sure to be pelting home once more with a bit of luck from the wide draw. IT TAKES COURAGE (3) is the likely leader and will give you a sight over the short course. CALANDA GIRL LOMBO (1) is now back in the draw and will be dangerous in this with a cheap run on the pegs. MY NANNA FAYE (5), MONDAYITIS (6), LIFE SAVINGS (8) and the Jayne Davies-prepared debutante SAMANTHA SPARKLE (4), a daughter of Bettors Delight who has trialled ok in the lead-up to this are all in with a shot..”

So spoke the Way2Bet website – Aussie racing’s best (well, only, really) form guide - of last night’s last race at Yarra Valley …
Flattering, but we do hate being made favourite.
Well, we had our wish. She didn’t go out favourite. Somebody (probably the commentator, who seemed obsessed by her) plunged on Samantha Sparkle. who went out at a bit better than even money. Livia was 3-1.
Well, the commentator was wrong with his tipping and Way2Bet (as frequently) was right.
Livia dropped to the rear, from her outside draw, got interfered with by an ill-gaited out-the-back horse called Mondayitis, and Graeme decided ‘better get out of here’. He pulled Livia three wide and midfield ... and there she sat for a whole exhausting lap. Could she do that and run on?
Oh, yes. Into the straight and the bright red nose roll flashed as she pulled out her trademark home-run sprint, duly – as Way2Bet had it -- pelting past the pacemaker, It Takes Courage, 50m out, for a narrow, but comfortable victory. Much to the discomfort of the commentator who hopefully called Samantha Sparkle in first (she was an OK 3rd after having the trail all the way!), and much to the delight of her owners, watching on telly, thanks to NZ Trackside, on the other side of the Tasman. And she even tickled the famous 2 minute-mile (2.00.9), in spite of running about 50m extra, thanks to her wide berth in transit. Phew! What a wee dazzler.

So, I got my win number 37, and the way things are going I very well may make it to the fabled 40 in 2011. Which will be a decided help in my cure .. I slept like a babe, after the race (Interdominion Final? What Interdominion Final?) and awoke with altogether less aches and pains. A win a week would be just what the doctor, literally, ordered!

PS No photo. Yet. Tracking down the Victorian race photographers is trickier than mailing NZ Race Images. But I’ll keep trying!
In the meanwhile here is our wee girl with Kim, who visited her while in Victoria.

I have suffered a stroke...

2011-04-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

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Yes, the reason that the blog has been dormant for two months is that on 12 February 2011, just three days short of my officially becoming ‘elderly’, I suffered a series of what the French call ‘cerebral incidents’.
I was ambulanced to Christchurch Hospital – arm withered and speech awry – after the first, suffered two more while lying in the ‘waiting room’, and the granddaddy of the group during the night, in the ward.
Yes, the ward. Not my scene. I am into private rooms. I do not wish to share my misfortune with others, and I certainly do not wish to share theirs.
So, it was out with my Ellen Terry act (such cut glass, un-slurred English you never heard), fling aside the walking frame, and put on a convincing imitation of a laddie who had merely gone through a bumpy TIA ... I had shepherded Ian through enough of them to know what they’re like .. rather than a stroke.
I was released after one more night, my lovely Geraldine fetched me and ferried me home, and so I passed my 65th birthday – just! – in the comforts of Gerolstein, with Wendy and Kim.
The effort and the act told on me, of course. The eight weeks since have been a calvary of aches and pains and above all, frustrations. I ought to give details – for nowhere, no-how, could I find out what I should be feeling, what remedies I should be taking, and whether I should be resting to let the ‘hole in my brain’ heal or exercising to force life back into my affected limbs ..
But, a week after I came home, Christchurch suffered its earthquake, and my personal earthquake obviously took its place of importance in the scheme of things. For other people.
Now I have been visited by the ladies of the Stroke Foundation and understand things a little better. And I have been given exercises. Volumes of exercises. So many exercises that I simply don’t read them all. I carry on, mostly, doing this my way …

What has happened to me? Well. It is a stroke and not a TIA, and the right side of my body is affected. Principally my arm and shoulder, which I was initially unable to lift, but which I have bullied back into some sort of usability.
I could neither write my name, nor lift the right hand to the level of the keyboard to type, nor move the powerless fingers to find or tap a key. It’s coming gradually. Even yesterday I could not have typed this piece without exhausting my back and shoulder, and making hundreds of maddening ‘erreurs de frappe’ with the aching, stretching hand and fingers. I can sign a cheque again, I can print legibly, but cursive writing is harder. I can scrub a pot, lift (wonkily) a kettle, pick up things like coins, shave myself rather feebly, brush my teeth, drive a car, and – the big test – lift the arm to pat and brush a horse. How much more will come, we shall see, but the typing is the thing that matters to me..

My face was not good. The effects of the old Bell’s Palsy increased. My mouth and eye drooped nastily, I bit my cheek when chewing, at the first tiredeness my speech became worse than slurred. I took the same cure as I did 30 years go. Acupuncture, from my new friend, Brett. And I will continue to take it. The face now shows no signs of damage, the speech only fails when I am very tired.

Tired. Ay, there’s the rub. Power, energy, strength … those things cannot be faked or forced. I will have to wait before being able to spend more than a few hours in a row without lying down. That is just how it is.

There are other rubs. Rules which are laid down. Are they valid, or are they just a way for Them – the famous Them -- to impose their version of Health Hygiene on you? Two glasses of wine per day max. No smoking. No salt. No sex …
I leave it to you to imagine to which rules I adhere faithfully, and which not.
Whose life is it anyway?

So, here I am. On the mend. Will I mend wholly? How much will I mend?
And will my new sort-of Hygienic Life be any fun?
My friends will help. Some have already found their way out here from earthquake-torn Christchurch …
And my equine friends, too. They have well chosen their moment to perform ..
From the hospital ward, I heard my little Fritzl run second at Waikouaiti … and from my armchair, I watched him win his first race, so tantalisingly near, 15 mins drive away at Rangiora.

I roused myself and went to the track soon after to watch D’Arcy run his first real race – fifth, but breaking the NZ record .

And, on the other side of the ocean, lovely little Livia ran two smashing races in Victoria: coming from last to mow ‘em down to win at Maryborough, and the following week storming home for 2nd at Melton.

I should have been leaving for Berlin this week.
I won’t be of course. I will have to spend much of the winter marooned in New Zealand.
Tonight, at the Bar jeder vernunft, Berlin, my very favourite artist and my very fondest friend, ‘Montmorensy’, launches his new record, ‘Writ in water’. And I am not there …
All the pals will be – Kevin, PGB and Uwe, Olli, joli Thomas, Thomas and Wolfgang, Anna, Mirza and Hannes -- only I will be missing..
All because of a damned stroke.

Thinking back: that very first win ...

2011-01-16T13:38:00.001-08:00

Dreaming on about that fortieth win as a race-horse owner, got me thinking back to the very first of the 34 triumphs to date. I looked in my diary and there it was. June 1999.

"It was six o’clock in the June morning, South of France time. The sun shattered in at the window and into my eyes, and I woke up knowing half-consciously that there was something I had to do. Of course, Davey Crockett. Marlborough Day Two. Check the web. He’d given us a splendidly close third (I didnt know till later just HOW close) on Day One. Could he have come somewhere again?
I slid out of bed and hurried on naked feet (OK the rest of me was just as naked, but the world was asleep and, if it wasn’t, it wasn’t at my place) over the big red terracotta tiles of the passage into the living room where the old computer with its new Internet installation sat, rather vulgarly, where once had throned a more elegantly traditional phone.
French phone service and, above all French Internet service, is not - to put it in sweet English - good. In fact, its usually either bottom-of-the-class slow or just plain stubborn-won’t-ish. But for some reason, today everything clicked through in the few moments it took me to fill and turn on the kettle...
Click. Hrnz.co.nz. Click Results. Click Marlborough HRC. Click .. the trot...
Have you ever read a book where the heroine (for reasons best not gone into) suddenly goes off like the luncheon whistle at the local factory? Yes, I’m afraid I did. It was nessun dorma at Les Arabanes that morning. They heard me three flats away. And they knew right away what must have happened.
Davey Crockett had won. We had won our first race as owners.
It took me a while, though, to find out more than the bare facts and figures. Mike Grainger posted me a copy of that best-seller (well, it ought to be) the Harness Racing Weekly in which half a page was devoted to Davey’s exploits, and in which - and I didn’t realise the hugeness of the honour at the time - he was nominated one of the three “Runs of the Week”, but it wasn’t till months later when I returned to New Zealand and bought the video of the race from the TAB that I realised how much he had deserved it. It was quite a run..
Our horse had won a race. Won a race. Won a race ...

Out with the old year ...

2011-01-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

and in with the new.

Will it be any different? What will it bring ..? Something nice – really nice -- would be most welcome ..

I wish … oh no, therein lies disaster! I know what I wish, but to write it down …

2010 will go down in my memory very largely for my time in Berlin, with its extravagant highs and occasional distressing lows, but most particularly because of the very dear bunch of new friends that I made there ..
As for Gerolstein, little changes here – well, we wouldn’t want it to – except that, during the winter, our Horse Hotel got vigorously under way and as of mid-January 2011, we have eleven ‘boarders’ occupying our paddocks, alongside our little group of racehorses. My international team of racehorses actually had a pretty fair year, and I notched up five wins – Elena one and Seppl two, in New Zealand, Tenor one in France, and Livia one in Australia. Since I now have Fritzl, D’Arcy, Lucie and, later, the rising Agnes to add to that quartet, on the racetracks of the new season, 2011 will hopefully be even more successful. Let’s hope, by this time next year, I’ll have broken through the barrier of 40 wins!

More unusually, we have had visitors. First Kazu from Japan, and now Lisa and Vera from Germany, with Kim from Germany to follow, have come to us through the Farm Helpers in New Zealand scheme. If the young people the scheme sends out seem to have negligible farm or horse experience, and – I suspect -- some of them a rather different idea of what ‘work’ means to that we have!, we have so far found our own particular ‘workers’ both nice people and willing helpers ..

The special visit of the post-Christmas season, however, was that of my very, very old friend Denis and his partner, George. Denis and I go back more than half a century, to our very early college days as twelve year-olds, and throughout our years at college we were inseparable chums and … rivals! In all our studies and in music, throughout our school years at Nelson College, it was almost invariably Kurt and Dennis, first and second: in one order or the other!

Of course, the old school magazines came out and memories were tested for veracity .. I was quite sure that I had never come top of the class (the scientists with their 100pc in maths etc always beat us, the humanities boys), but there it was in black and white. Fifth form .. first Kurt, second Denis ..
The first-year school photo came out too and we tried to put names to faces. I’m afraid we have forgotten almost all our schoolmates who did not excel – there’s Kember who became Captain of the All Blacks, there’s Keightley who was always going to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, there are Harrison, Glasgow, Wadsworth, Wells, Oliver, Dickinson, Horrocks and ummmm .. I wonder where they are now?
I wonder if any of them made it to entries in Wikipedia and Grove and so forth, as Denis and I did, or whether the ‘humanities’ boys came out on top in the end!

Form 3P1 Nelson College, year of ... 1958?

Oh, Denis, by the way (we are on the opposite ends of the second row in the photo), is these days Dr Denis A Smalley, international celebrity in the world of electronic music. We both ended up in music .. but in rather different areas!

On the horsey front, Seppl and Tenor, sadly are out of action with small injuries, but dear old Elena has been up there spitting fire .. two fine thirds and a fourth in her last five starts! At six years of age, she is running the best races of her life. Yesterday, we took her to the trials, and she steamed home for second behind a much more highly qualified horse, the grey Will Play.

The previous evening, at 11.45pm NZ time (alas!) little Livia made her seasonal appearance in Melbourne ... up against three of Victoria’s top fillies! She couldn’t foot it with the first two, but she ran on stoutly for third place, and it is evident that she will give us lots of consistent grand fun this year.

Our next bit of excitement may, however, come from Fritzl (above). Remember Fritzl – the other half of the ‘Little Boys’ double act with Seppl? Well, Fritzl raced the last two years for my friends Mike and Sue, but now, by a combination of circumstances and earthquakes, he has come home. I am now his owner, and Wendy his trainer, and he has just made his first appearances for us at the workouts. First time, he was second behind last year’s Breeder’s Crown juvenile champion, and yesterday he cruised round Motukarara Racecourse at the head of his field, and stayed there. And I was so chuffed, I forgot to click the camera!
So Fritzl will go to the real races this week, along with Elena ... and I, for the first time in years, will have three horses -- and D'Arcy makes four -- racing at once!
Fingers crossed… because all four of them are racing with a chance!

D'Arcy's Début

2010-12-19T18:43:00.000-08:00

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It is three years now since Jack and I started our ‘Eurokiwi’ adventure in New Zealand, by breeding both my trotting mares, Gwen and her daughter La Grande-Duchesse, to the outstanding French stallion Love You.
The result, as I’ve recounted from their babyhood on, is the two now two year-old trotters, D’Arcy de Gerolstein (boy) and Lucie de Gerolstein (girl), both of which have been for some time in the care of trainer Murray Edmonds at Motukarara.
Two year-old trotters are not thick on the ground in New Zealand as early as December of the year and only a handful has so far been seen in action at the various workouts and trials, but today that number was swelled by … our D’Arcy!

And so, on a stifling Canterbury morning, my eyes heavy with hayfever, I revved up red Ted and made my way through the hundreds of red lights between Sefton and Addington Raceway. There he was, as I walked through the door of the vast, echoing hangar that does duty as stabling at Addington: no longer the little pony with the bandage on his knee, quietly standing in the shadow of the showier Lucie,

but a fine tall adolescent colt, yelling his head off in a voice which sounded as if it had barely broken. Little D’Arcy, little no more. But not exactly grown up, either!

The point of the day’s exercise was not ‘a race’: D’Arcy and his stablemate, the little filly Martini, were at the track simply to get their first experience of something like race conditions -- their first mobile start, to start with! – and their heat comprised just four inexperienced horses: another two year-old (a Monarchy filly), and, rather oddly, a four year-old.

I was decidedly proud of our little colt as he trotted round in his warm-up laps – fazed only by a large yellow grooming machine which overtook him on the inside and caused him to lose his stride …

When the ‘race proper’ began, Murray eased D’Arcy a couple of lengths back from the mobile arm. The Monarchy filly showed plenty of ringcraft, nosing up to the grill and going out clearly in front of the field, with Martini in second and D’Arcy settled in a couple of lengths back, trotting nicely, in third. All three babes were behaving impeccably! With half a kilometre of the 1950m to go, Murray took our boy off the rail and – as they came round the final bend -- gently moved him forward. Into the straight, and the wee lad kept on coming, passing the two fillies nicely with the finish line approaching. Having got to the front, however, he must have spotted a big question mark? OK, so what am I supposed to do now? He gawped about, put in a rough stride, and Murray had to call his mind back to his job, as he passed the line ahead of his two companions…

Mission accomplished, in a respectable 2mins 46 secs, with the last half in 63 and the last quarter in 30.6. And a sentimental mission accomplished, too – the first appearance on any New Zealand racetrack of one of the progeny of Love You could be counted a ‘winning’ one.

So, on from there we go! Because we have barely started yet. There is much hard work and much, much refining to do. When he next comes to the track, the refinements will have begun to set in. The pedicured feet, the new shoes .. for a first glimpse of something more like ‘racing’ as opposed to ‘running’ .. and I will bring my soft-boiled-egg racing colours and I shall have previously cornered the commentator – who did very well with the Gerolstein bit which has tripped many in its time – to explain that D’Arcy with an apostrophe is pronounced just the same as Darcy without one.

A new adventure begins …

November in Gerolstein

2010-11-29T16:08:00.000-08:00

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Spring gives place to summer, and Gerolstein is a blaze of colour ... the gardens which Wendy tended during the winter are now bursting with flowers, the rose bushes heavy with blooms, and our friend the peacock adds his bit to this crazy rainbow of colours as he strides across the lawn, usually in search of a vacant fence post on which to perch…

The babies are born, and frolicking in the paddocks... comical Thomas, of course, frolics highest …

the mares are reinseminated, and hopefully all four in foal .. the sunshine beats down … that dreadful breed, the New Zealand shoddy workman, has done its worst and been sent on its way … the earthquake commission stays resolutely silent … and once our reliable fencers, tree-trimmers and road-menders have been, hopefully that will be it for the year.

As for the racing game, yes, we have been off to the races, and this last fortnight the lovely Elena – in foal, all being well, to Royal Mattjesty -- has given us a pair of thrills with a dashing front-running fourth at Timaru, and a very fine, solid finish for third in a sixteen-horse field (she was 14th favourite!) at Geraldine.
Little sister Agnes (below) has made her first appearances on our home track,

and the final member of my NZ racing team, Fritzl, yesterday visited the beach for the first time in the hands of Lawrence (McCormick), now ‘by appointment’ the race-day driver of my horses here.

Off the property, and away from the sporting field, I made my visit to NASDA and spent a day with the young men and women of the second and third years classes during what was the last week of their term. We had an enjoyable and, I hope, instructive time as I put them through their paces before saying ‘goodbye’ to the graduating students, and ‘see you soon’ to the about-to-be-third-years, with whom I shall have another and more advanced session once the new term starts, in 2011.
Needless to say, I saw some interesting talent. And, no, I’m not putting the ‘results’ down here. They have gone, privately, to the school’s principal with whom I shall rendez-vous over the holidays to chat some and to plot future doings …

However, not all is sunny, winning, pregnant and well. Dear mother has been severely unwell and in hospital, and I myself am locked in battles with bureaucracy. To wit, the British pensions department (I am due mine in February), who simply don’t answer letters or questions, and the US Visa department, who insist that I fly to Auckland to be ‘interviewed’, before getting a stamp to allow me to change planes, or even dock, aboard my ship, in their country. The world has gone mad. Why don’t they just look me up on Wikipedia? That’s what their President would do…
And then there is the FDC (I should be sued for ‘disrepute’ if I de-acronymed), commonly known as the stipendiary stewards of the NZ Harness Racing Organisation. I hear their ranks are to be severely revamped. Good. Let’s hope their ‘rules’ and code of behaviour are too. For the present ones are so ridiculous as to inspire not one ounce of respect.

Oh … Ship? Yes, I have found one. And though I’m bound to repeat that flight from New Zealand to Berlin in April, I shall return south in August on the comfortable waves, in the owner’s cabin of the French cargo ship, Manet … ah! civilised travel again.

And now its outside, to shovel some civilised horse manure and pull some weeds. Whilst back in Berlin Paul is preparing for the launch of his record, PGB is rehearsing his new musical, Thomas Z has just opened his, Thomas H is zinging between stage and screen, Olli is off on tour in Russia and Vienna, and Kevin is launched upon a new journalistic job and completing his history of gay pornography..
And I? I am pulling weeds in the southern sunshine. I know they are all much younger than I, but sometimes I wonder if I did right to withdraw from the world of artistic action so completely. Well, come April I will be back … and come April, Berlin will no longer be shivering in the snow…
For now, I pull weeds.

"Curtains" for Kander and Ebb

2010-11-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

In forty years of attending musicals all round the world, I have been to the theatre in Christchurch just five times. Last night was the fifth. Back at the old Theatre Royal where in 1968 I sang Madama Butterfly with the New Zealand Opera.

The piece of the evening was entitled Curtains, and the once well-known names of Messrs Kander, Ebb, Peter Stone and Rupert Holmes were attached to it. I am told it has run for more than two years on Broadway, which doesn’t speak very well for the taste and brainpower of Broadway. Curtains is a weak concoction of theatrical clichés, borrowed from ancient here and there, which bases itself on the oldest cliché in the book: a show about a show. This one is so evidently put together with an eye to being ‘commercial’, that the writers –- in their devout commercialness -- have omitted to include wit, humour, style and melody, and left themselves only with a series of achingly old-hat items, such as a pale burlesque of Oklahoma!, set amongst a parade of copycat ‘period’ dances and songs and of cardboard characterisations.
Is this to what Broadway has come? No wonder American producers rush to mount pop pasticcios and kiddie spectaculars. No wonder I and my colleagues and friends no longer make the pilgrimages to New York that we did in the seventies and the eighties. This is the sort of unimaginative pap that certain publishing houses, in the mid 20th century, used to turn out especially for country amateur groups. And this from the writers of such pieces as Chicago and Drood. Or, perhaps more pertinently (‘original book and concept by’), the man responsible for imposing Sugar, My One and Only and Titanic on us.
We have had the stunning City of Angels, we have had the delightful Something’s Afoot, and we have had the splendid Drood in the realm of ‘murder mystery musicals’ … why do we have to have Curtains which does – or tries to do – something of the same with so very much less skill and sophistication?

If the show itself is poor stuff, the performance – by the final year students of NASDA, New Zealand’s premier musical theatre institution -- was splendid. The five leading players made the most both of the lines they were given and of the songs and dances of the unmemorable score.
James Norris made a delightfully Huckleberry Houndish detective, laid back and lovable, gently and ganglingly comical, and both attractive and effective in song and dance. If the book provided little suspense in his predictable love affair with his Niki (Stephanie Wood) and even less in his tracking down of the oh-so-obvious murderer, he nevertheless managed to keep the character doodling along very firmly at the centre of affairs, himself as the focal point of the show, and the audience actually interested in what was going on. Quite a feat.
Alexandra McKellar as the heavy lady sang strongly and pointed her one-liners with swingeing vigour, Abigail King as the leading lady showed up with a most delightfully flowing singing voice, Miss Wood’s ingénue (the character most deprived of decent material) was all an ingénue should be, and Simon Paenga displayed a splendidly ringing baritone voice in the rather limp part of the show-within-a-show’s composer. Some of the evening’s best moments came, however, in the performance of the concerted music. These pieces were so well sung that one could momentarily stop saying to oneself: ‘oh yes, that’s a copy of 42nd Street, that’s a copy of…’ and just lean back and enjoy the singing.

Next week, I get to meet these young people properly and to spend a little time working with them. I am looking forward to that very much …
We shall spend our time together, I hope, on some rather better stuff than Curtains.

Gerolstein in Spring

2010-11-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

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A month now I’ve been back at Gerolstein…
A whole springtime month, filled with the usual kind of spring cleaning, and of course the springtime arrival of the year’s quotient of foals..
The spring cleaning this year has been a little different from the usual … the earthquake left us with no water (temporarily), no sewage, and problems with various drains which, alas, New Zealand workmen seem congenitally unable to work out. Yet still expect to be paid for their failures.

In spite of these little problems, Gerolstein in the spring time greeted me looking as lovely as ever ... one of the first things did was go out and photograph the place, to send to my friends in autumnal Berlin …

The outstanding event of spring is always, however, the ‘little strangers’. It was Sally who foaled the first this year (sire: P-Forty Seven) .. a beautiful little bright boy, whose birth was duly celebrated with pink champagne and who, thus, simply had – for obvious reasons -- to be christened ‘Thomas’ in honour of the two Thomases of Berlin. Thomas is now four weeks old and a joy. He doesn’t walk or run like most foals do ... he bounces. He leaps. And when I tried to photograph him with his mother, he growled and scowled: ‘protecting mother from the paparazzi’ I labelled the resultant picture. Unfortunately, when it was published, my caption was replaced with something less imaginative.

Duchess foaled exactly one week later. And two weeks early. The reason was undoubtedly the size of her Love You foal … Anna was so tall and leggy that for the first day she had enormous trouble getting to her feet to feed. We had to go out every hour and encourage her. Her struggles unfortunately caused ‘bedsores’ and grazes on her legs, so Anna had her first visit from the vet, and now sports a big protective bandage. But, within a few days, her strength grew sufficiently to allow her to sit and stand reasonably elegantly, and to hoon around the paddock with mother..

Gerolstein has a third foal this year, for one of our boarders, Gracie, also produced – with a certain amount of difficulty -- a tiny bundle which doesn’t seem yet to have been given a name. The little filly has had a difficult start to life, but seems to be coming along all right …

The racing scene has been a little less joyous. Elena has run twice: once rather well (5th) and once not so well, and doesn’t seem to be able to recapture the flair of her first run of the season. But maybe she has other things on her mind. Elena has always been the cluckiest lady on the farm and, since I promised her a baby if she won a race – which she has – this week she will be put in foal to Royal Mattjesty. She will run out her racing career as a slightly pregnant lady, and next year she will be able hopefully to cluck over a baby of her own.

With spring, too, our lovely pet peacock has returned from his winter wanderings, and I was woken this morning by his counter-tenorial vocalisms. His favourite perch is the railing outside my bedroom window .. how not, then, be reminded of the song of the immortal Montmorensy about the crow who sang ‘art, art, art’ ..’outside my window’?
‘No, no, I want to sleep some more, please go! .. ‘Looked through my window, couldn’t see the crow, though I could see the day, fine, shining and mine to share…’

Yes, there it is. The day. And the farm … and a heap of farmerish things to do .. so off I go…

What did I do? I flew...!

2010-10-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Silent scream.

I have flown from Berlin, Germany, to Christchurch, New Zealand. It took me 42 hours from door to door. It was (with occasional remission) the worst piece of any kind of travel I have suffered – including pirates off Somalia -- in my entire life. And yet – with special reference to my aural ‘handicap’ -- we did everything that we could to ensure that things would go smoothly.

Hollow laugh. Start with, being a foreigner in Germany trying to book a return trip, Berlin-Christchurch-Berlin? Already you are in trouble.
The internet is flooded nowadays with people trying to sell you airtickets. The fact that some of those airtickets, or combinations of airtickets don’t exist or are impracticable doesn’t matter. The websites involved are also, it seems, responsible to no-one. Not you, nor the airlines whose tickets they sell.
Being a novice at all this, I sought the help of Uwe, who directed us towards a German firm named Opodo. Now Opodo may be all very well for Germans living in Germany wanting to travel round Germany. For a foreigner, they are a nightmare. Uwe and I found a sane flight, filled in the vast amount of detail required (most of it only so Opodo can subsequently send you unstoppable German-language junk mail), and entered my extra curly platinum debit card details. ‘Accepted’. All was well.
Until I got back to my flat, to find an email from the dreaded Opodo, changing its mind. ‘Not Accepted’. Posh platinum cards are not acceptable if they don’t have a German-address holder.
I try again. But the flights I had selected had now vanished, and I had to choose another set. Ah! Air New Zealand! And Air New Zealand all the way from Tegel to Christchurch! Perfect: I shall be able to check in – luggageless -- at Tegel for the whole flight, pick up my four boarding cards, and relax through the whole horrid affair. Booked. Using PGB’s German credit card. All was well.
No it wasn’t. Dining next evening with Kevin, I related my booking story, the horrors of Opodo and the Air NZ solution. ‘But Air NZ don’t fly from Tegel’. I fly to the computer, manage to find a customer service email for the airline and fire off my questions. ‘No’, they admit, they don’t fly from Tegel. I will be on British Midlands. I never fly British Midlands: they are late, unpleasant and unhelpful. I have been bamboozled. And as for check-in all the way through?: only if I turn up at British Midland three hours before the flight.
So, in spite of Kevin’s caveat that the desk wouldn’t be open three hours early, I did. Four hours, actually. 9am Friday. It was just as well that I did. There is no Air New Zealand desk at Tegel. Nor apparently is there a BMI one. It took me fifty minutes of asking every functionary in sight before I was finally directed to window B24, where Frln Khalid happily checked me in for the whole flight. Berlin-Heathrow-LA-Auckland-Christchurch. How come no-one told me about B24 before?

Much as I like Tegel airport, as an airport, it is not a place to spend three idle hours, so I took Kevin’s advice, checked through the first of the many security blocks I would encounter in the next two days, and found a nice bar serving nice cognac, which seemed just the thing for frazzled nerves at 10.30am. And I waited. And waited. This was BMI, you see. Masquerading as Air NZ, but BMI. So it was, of course, running late. My two hour ‘pad’ at Heathrow was disappearing.

Well, by dint of running for fifteen minutes, and in spite of more security checks, I made it to the Air NZ Transfer desk, Heathrow, with ¾ hour to spare before take-off. All would be well. But it wasn’t. ‘You have your ETSA?’ asked the lady. My what? Some sort of new American visa that you have to have, nowadays, to change planes in the most hideous airport in the world. No, I didn’t. There was a machine on the counter where you could get this famous visa – for it’s a self-service on-line affair, how ridiculous! – but I was 1 minute 30 seconds too late. Why was I late? because their bloody stupid BMI-ANZ flight was late. And, no, Air New Zealand couldn’t help because – haha! – I had been so wicked as to book via an agent (an agent surely accredited by them?) who should of course have told me about ETSA, but if they didn’t it’s not their fault …
There was, however, another Air New Zealand flight going via Hong Kong later in the day. If there were space, they would shift me to that. Halleluia! But, no, it couldn’t be done now: I had to wait till the desk opened for the next shift … So I did. And I got Terry who, hurrah!, spoke clear distinct English, reorganised my tickets via Hong Kong for me, and promised to get the lady from the next shift (arggggh!) to phone Wendy and tell her of the changed arrangements. All was well.
And only five hours had been added to my journey. I spent those hours in the company of another large cognac, two pints of Guinness and an airport ham and cheese toasted sandwich with fat and soggy chips, served to me by a most attentive young man, and I plunged in search of oblivion into a fat Terry Pratchett.
The next leg was vaguely anguish-free. On a ‘full plane, no aisle seats available’ I had a delicious empty aisle seat alongside me, and with the help of imovane, I managed a couple of hours doze. But I worried: would Terry’s colleague get the message through to Wendy? So when we stopped at Hong Kong, I went to the Air New Zealand desk and (explaining my phone handicap) asked again if someone could ring or text. The girls at the Hong Kong desk were miraculous. The looked after me, shepherded me to the plane, as if I were 100pc deaf, and even arranged for me to be shifted to a nice seat up-front, with extra leg room,..
Disaster. Up front is baby row. Four babies. Three delightful. The fourth a hyperactive, grizzly, whingey, plain female child of two or three. Next to me. At about hour three I shrieked at it (in French) to stop kicking me, and its baleful mother took it temporarily on her knee. But then I had to cope with the curtain into business class. Every time an attendant whisked through, it walloped my trying-to-doze-off leg ... or even my face .. soon any chance of sleep had fled. And I’d finished the Pratchett. Calvary to Auckland.
I fled that plane with horror in my heart – I am booked to return the same way in April! - and headed for the Domestic Terminal. Straight to the Assistance desk. If Wendy hadn’t heard from Terry’s colleague or the Hong Kong brigade, she’d just about be at the airport wondering where I was. But one more try. The lass at the desk was a champion: made the call in my presence, and left a clear and precise message .. All was well.
How many times had I said that since I started this hideous marathon? Only to be proven every time wrong?
But, this time, all was well. In spite of the fact that I was sat, for my last leg home, alongside ... guess what! ... a 7-week old baby! (Is there a case for flights for pensioners only?).
Christchurch airport – still under messy reconstruction – Wendy arriving to find me the precise second I emerged .. and then we were on our way to Gerolstein. The nightmare was over.
So here I sit, still battling with my jetlag and thinking on what I have learned:
(1) Do not book international flights, with connections, on the internet
(2) Do not expect to be able to use even the flashest credit or debit card in Germany. It may (a) be refused or (b) involve you in vast percentage ‘fees’
(3) Do not travel to, through or anywhere near – not on any pretext -- the United States of America. (If I can change my return ticket I shall).
(4) Go by ship. I have already written to the shipping line.

PS Wendy’s phone registered several incomprehensible incoming calls, maybe from Heathrow and Hong Kong, but it was Shakira (?) in Auckland who saved the day. Thank you, Auckland.

Serious Fun, or The Dinner Party of the Season

2010-09-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

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The Berlin season rose to its utmost height on Sunday. The occasion? ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Kurt!’, a banquet hosted by those celebrated Berlin characters Herrn Thomas Hermanns and Wolfgang Macht, at their lakeside Gross Glienecke ‘Seehaus’, for ‘Kurt Gänzl, renowned world traveller, lover of music and horses’.

The guests?: me, as (blush) ‘guest of honour’, and my dearest Berlin buddies. There were PGB and Uwe, mein jolly Zaufke -- two top composers at one table, how the bons mots flew! -- our glowing newlyweds, Hannes and Mirza, and, of course, darling Ollie, that utterly indispensable man, without whom Berlin for me simply wouldn’t be Berlin.
Only Kevin, detained by the Meistersingers at the Komische Oper, and Paul, on the eve of his Humboldt University concert, were scratchings. Alas, even Gänzl cannot compete with Wagner and Schumann.

Getting to the boys’ ‘country retreat’ at Gross Glienecke involved a U-Bahn, two different buses and a walk. We were lucky in having Thomas Z as a guide, lucky that Berlin buses always seem to run ping! on time, and unlucky in that it rained!

But we arrived safely if damply, popped into slippers (who says you can’t wear slippers at a formal dinner?), sipped our first champagne, and ah ….!
‘Ah!’ also goes for the modestly named ‘lakehouse’, with its plummeting lawns and the ‘lake’ of the title at the bottom of the garden. It is a wonderfully beautiful ‘retreat’ which I look forward to seeing, next season, when it is bathed in sunshine…

Our ‘Operettic’ dinner was ‘à la hauteur’ of everything else. After a delicious fig amuse-gueule, we launched into Course one, subtitled ‘Künneke’: a first-class Havelländer fish soup with pike dumpling (and heaps of fennel!), accompanied by a Lösslehm rieseling. I wonder, did I let out my predilection for fish soup some champagne-stained evening?
Then onto ‘Offenbach’: the softest and tastiest of ‘Kalbskarré’, served with ratatouille and lentils … I clearly must have ‘talked’ at some stage about my favourite food … and a delicious light Bourgogne from Auxerre.
And then it was time for dessert, and the Viennese Operette: ‘Strauss’ was represented by Apfelstrudel ... just like grandmother used to make! ... and a sip of Mirabelle…

My famously small appetite was utterly forgotten, as I gourmandised my way gleefully through all the goodies, drenched in a golden glow of the kind of happy, convivial friendship that, for so many years, had had to be a missing element in my life. Goodness! only now, hours later, do I realise … I can give all those guys twenty to forty years! But I certainly didn’t feel like that. They certainly don’t make me feel like that!

Dinner done, the pink champagne flowed once more … Thomas and I are kindred souls when it comes to pink champagne … and Vera-Ellen resurfaced in the conversation, along with – for heaven’s sake .. the silly old song ‘I Believe’, and far too late in the evening der Zaufke and I somehow (it must have been my fault) ended up at the piano giving an extraordinarily approximate version of ‘Once Nearly Was Mine’…

Needless to say, midnight past, the buses and the U-Bahn were not to be considered, and our little team cruised back down the Herrenstrasse towards central Berlin in a comfortable super-sized taxi … a warm and wise young hand holding mine somehow summed up the whole beautiful evening. ‘The Triumph of Friendship’, someone mediaeval called it.

Thank you, Thomas and Wolfgang. Thank you my beautiful Berlin buddies. My momentary blues of that awful wet August weekend are all gone and, yes, of course.. my return ticket to Berlin is already booked. For just as soon as it stops raining, and der Frühling zurück kommt!

Cassandra was right!

2010-09-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

‘LIVIA DEGEROLSTEIN (2) sat behind the leader at Ballarat last start and didn’t finish too far from Bettor Give It, which followed a close up third to Justa Working Guy at Maryborough where she charged home along the pegs from an impossible position. She was a solid Geelong winner three back and draws to be an each way threat’.
Thus wrote an Australian tipster this morning …
It sounds nice, doesn’t it. Sounds just like the sort of horse one would like to own. Especially when one knows that the New Zealand-bred ‘Bettor Give It’ referred to is a filly who finished just behind the place-getters in Australia’s biggest two year-old race, the Breeders’ Crown, only last month.

Well, as all followers of this blog will know: we do own her, Wendy and I. And as a result, I was huddled over my computer this morning, listening to Radio Trackside, from the other side of the world.

Flashback two days. Scene: the Sissi restaurant. Paul and I taking our pre-concert supper. Paul has sort of become Livia’s European ‘godfather’, and the conversation turned to the forthcoming race. ‘She will come second’, he declared, with the air of a Cassandra. Strange: I had exactly the same unreasoning gut feeling.
The tipsters and the punters (7/1) thought she should come third. First was, barring accidents, out of the question, as the odds-on favourite was another Kiwi-bred horse, ‘It’s Dutch Courage’, which had run past Livia (which not many do) to pinch third in the ‘Bettor Give It’ race, and which had drawn the favoured number one slot at the start.

‘It’s Dutch Courage’ duly shot to the lead from the mobile gate and, as no-one was game to take her on, led the field through the first half of the race at a leisurely pace. Livia bided her time, nicely placed by driver Gavin Lang, in the one-one. With half a mile to go, the leader hotted up the pace noticeably and, as the horse in front of Livia began to weaken, Gavin was obliged – a little sooner than perhaps wished – to come off her back and steer three wide round the final turn. Into the straight, and the favourite was off and gone, but Livia – out in the middle of the track -- was coming with her usual stout finish, and although she only momentarily looked as if she might get close to the hotpot, she ran out her race nicely and – three lengths back -- held off the fast-finishing second favourite until the post.

Second! Maybe Paul and I should take up jobs as tipsters! Or Trojan oracles.

It is just five months since Livia first stepped on to a race-track and she has now run twelve times, for a win, a second, two thirds and four fourths (434475741352). Not against the very best, but not far behind horses like ‘Bettor Give It’ and ‘Dream Vacation’ who were capable, last month, of qualifying for the Crown final. Today, too, after that slow first half, the fillies ran home their last half in the neat time (for just-turned-three-year-olds) of 57.8 secs. So, even if she does not seem to have high speed, little Livia is no slouch.
It is going to be interesting, over the coming months, to see just how good ‘Bettor Give It’ and ‘It’s Dutch Courage’ turn out to be. Not to mention, of course, Livia. Who I would be interested to see running in a race where the pace is hot. And whom I am very, very glad that we own!

Death in Mycenae

2010-09-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

Last night, PGB and I visited the Deutsche Oper where I was covering the performance for Opera Magazine and Place de l'Opera. My review will be published in the Dutch language, so I include it here (alas, without photos) in English:

"It was in 2007 that the Deutsche Oper presented, for the first time, its operatic Atreid double-bill – the Cassandra of Gnecchi (1905) and the Elektra of Strauss (1909). It was, I think, an inspired pairing, for not only are the two short operas linked intimately by their subject matter, they are also linked opera-historically: a certain amount of ink has been spilled over the question as to whether the celebrated Strauss helped himself rather too liberally to the ideas and even the musical sounds of the earlier Italian piece. While Elektra went on to establish for itself a place in the basic repertoire, the opera of the ‘wealthy amateur’ Gnecchi was culpably squeezed from the stage, but the Deutsche Oper’s presentation of the two works, side by side, and pointedly connected in their design and staging, has been a major part of what must undoubtedly be considered its rehabilitation. If Elektra is worthy of its place on the operatic heights – and, of course, it is – then the admittedly less complex and less skilled Cassandra (a short one-acter, at less than 50 pages and minutes) is definitely worthy of more than a small foothold on those same heights. And, if its ‘raison de revivre’ is as a kind of prologue to Elektra, maybe that is only justice.

I’m not one to bother about who did what to whom back in the 1900s: my only care is, is Cassandra a good piece of music theatre? And about that I think there can be no doubt. Its atmospheric prologue for baritone and chorus, the lush love scene of Klytemnaestra and Aegisthus, the thoroughly winning and even moving return of Agamemnon, and the prophetic Cassandra’s climactic scena are all painted in ringingly colourful music, which reminds one as often of Puccini as it does of Strauss, and the libretto moves the story along, through its little series of set pieces, with praiseworthy force and briskness.
Sparely and extremely effectively staged by Kirsten Harms, against a soaring but imperfect Mycenaean-gold-panelled background, it is played this season with a principal cast made up – with the exception of the splendidly baritonic Markus Brück (Aegisthus), who tonight doubled excitingly in extremis as the Prologue – of young American vocalists. Julia Benzinger sang strongly in the title-role, although occasionally drowned out in her lower register by Donald Runnicles’ expansive orchestra, and Gaston Rivero (for some reason, dressed as what seemed to be Spiderman) produced some lovely tenor tones, stalwart yet sweet, in the part of the doomed King. However, it was the stylish Takasha Meshé Kizart, as a Klytemnaestra in a little black frock and teetering heels, wielding a slaughtered sacrificial goat in one hand and a bloody axe in the other, and singing with an opulently colourful and thoroughly dramatic soprano, who clearly won the audience’s vote. And mine. Somehow, last night, I really felt the opera should have been entitled Klytemnaestra.

While Cassandra has languished, Elektra has been produced hundreds and hundreds of times, and all sorts of stagings and visuals have been imposed upon it. Kirsten Harms follows through in the successful style established in the first opera -- the towering gold walls with their grim (if clunky) window, in the eerie light of which the deadly indoor action of the night can be seen taking place, the spookily stylish black frocks, the omnipresent axe and, when Orestes becomes king, he gets the Spiderman costume. It is an extremely effective staging, which – by its lack of frills and foolish ‘ideas’ -- focuses attention firmly and felicitously on the characters and their story. Although I’m not wholly sure why everyone was bogged down in an enormous sandpit, unless it was to suggest that their appalling lives were one enormous effort.

The experienced and powerful Eva Johannson as a blonde Elektra (had she been bleached since the forepiece?) started the evening a little rustily, but she grew steadily in voice through the night, and by the time Orestes turned up she was singing gloriously. She turned on some beautiful gentler tones in the recognition scene, and every imaginable ounce of swelling strength in the final scenes of the drama. The muscly orchestra, which had given no quarter all evening, was utterly vanquished by her searing singing.
Julia Juon as Klytemnaestra looked happily less, on stage, like the Sunset Boulevard-style Katisha the opera’s posters had suggested, and she sang her nightmarish music most effectively – especially once she got down off the scenery and on to the front of the stage. She spared us the too facile ‘wicked witch’ acting often imposed on the part, and made the Queen, agreeably, into a believable woman. This could, indeed, have been the lovely, amorous Klytemnaestra of Gnecchi’s opera in her tortured older age.

My abiding memory of my first Covent Garden Elektra, more than 40 years ago, is not of the Elektra (Shuard) nor the Klytemnaestra (Resnik) but of a glorious Chrysothemis (Tarres). Manuela Uhl, I reckon, deserves to be rated at that same high level. In a role which can be two-dimensional dramatically, she acted excitingly, unfussily and convincingly and she produced a flow of magnificent sounds and phrases in her singing. Maybe I just have a soft spot for Chrysothemis and her music, but this, for me, was the performance of the night.

Elsewhere, the men did the little bits Strauss allows to the men efficiently, the ballet (were those furies? waves?) accompanied Elektra effectively in her dance of death, and the ever swooping black-clad maids, like so many gossipy crows, played their part in the drama to good purpose. Even though it was quite odd to see Cassandra, apparently reincarnated, amongst their number.

However, as splendidly directed, designed and performed as the Deutsche Oper Elektra is, the real interest of this programme has to lie in the less familiar Cassandra and in the idea of playing the two works together. Half a row of people next to me thought so: they had evidently come only for Cassandra and they left after the first opera.
So ‘was it a good idea to do this opera? and to do it as a prologue to Elektra?’. My answer is, in both cases, a very decided ‘yes’. Especially when it is done so very well. A grand evening at the opera.

PS: A couple of notes. (1) Sacrifical goats should not be abandoned (when their effect has worn off), centre stage at the footlights where star baritones can trip over them in mid-aria. (2) Please, when will designers produce a convincing stage corpse? The Agamemnon tumbled from the butcher’s window -- not even in his Spiderman red – made us laugh at a truly inopportune moment."

Philharmonie or, what is 'beautiful'?

2010-09-22T04:39:00.000-07:00

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Even since my wonderful night out at the young musicians’ festival at the Konzerthaus, far too many weeks ago, I have been trying to find another Berlin concert at which I might get myself a comparable ‘fix’ of the kind of music I am discovering all too late in life. It hasn’t been easy. I have trudged for weeks through the local concert listings, looking for interesting programming – and for me that means nothing too ancient and ‘classical’ but no three vacuum-cleaners and a krumhorn either – and finally I lighted on last night’s concert at the Philharmonie. A building which I wanted to go and discover, anyway. Debussy, Ravel, Mahler and R Strauss. Go for it. Actually getting the tickets was a marathon task, for on-line booking is fraught with German-language dangers and fees, and using a foreign credit card in Germany a perfect nightmare. But – after riding the U-Bahn into town and the office of the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester -- I got there.
So, last night, after a small supper at Sissi, Paul – my music master by appointment -- and I headed through the falling shades of night for the Potsdamer-Platz and the Philharmonie. I had been told that this concert-hall was something remarkable, so I wasn’t unprepared to be knocked sideways. For remarkable it is. The clean, modern, foyer space is vast, littered with staircases, and – in spite of attendants every ten metres -- you need a map (or good German) to find your way to your seat in the auditorium. But once there! This is probably the most stunning modern concert hall I have visited. Layers upon layers of interlocked seating levels… and we were wonderfully seated both for seeing and for hearing (although Paul says the Philharmonie is aurally great from everywhere). I was, however, distinctly surprised to see the hall only two-thirds filled. Maybe this was because the concert was ‘an occasion’ -- the live-broadcast launch of a new German radio station, Deutschlandradio Kultur – which meant that we had a sizeable chunk of fuzzily-amplified talking from the radio announcer between numbers.

The billed performers for the evening – all young, which could not be said for some of the orchestra! --were Japanese-American conductor Eugene Tzigane, Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan and American mezzo Sasha Cooke. I knew nothing of any of them (nor, I suspect, did anyone else) but was not unprepared for slightly ‘young’ performances. I was unprepared for one stunning performance.

We started gently with ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’. The sound was splendid. The whole orchestra seemed to be singing with one voice. And, whereas in Petrouchka I had missed the visuals and drama of the ballet: here I felt exactly the opposite. I like this piece better without the dancing. We spent a very comfortable faunish afternoon and it served nicely to introduce me to the hall and the orchestra. Gently. Very gently.

The Ravel Piano concerto in G major was new to me, and I wasn’t at all sure, in its opening movement, that it suited me. After the homogeneity of the Debussy, we were suddenly presented with what sounded like an orchestra chopped up into bits, with each bit doing its own thing. The most notable ‘perversion’ was the violently braying introduction of the then (1932) fashionable sounds of America, which seemed to me to be ‘stuck on’ to the work, rather than an integrated part of it. I was happier when we moved to the slow movement, but here I wasn’t sure that the adept but perhaps slightly introverted soloist was quite getting the ‘vocal line’ out of his instrument that he might have. And then, it all came together -- pianist and composer, orchestra and the sometimes rather exaggerated conductor -- in a splendidly vivacious final movement, which brought the first half of the concert to a wholly effective climax.
Well, it would have, if the pianist hadn’t succumbed to the Berlin one-bow-too-many-syndrome, which he topped by coming back and giving an audience which was half on its way to the bar and the loo, ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’. Climax dissipated, and me left thinking of school competitions.

Part two of the concert proper began with the Rückert Lieder. Five songs in the established Mahlerian vein for orchestra and mezzo-soprano. Here again, I had only a general idea of what to expect, and here my expectations were excelled. The first three songs are delightful, but they do not make you sit up. Miss Cooke sang very, very pleasantly, the orchestra played too often too loudly (the lady is a mezzo, not a contralto, so her low notes, in particular, need to be liberated from exuberant accompaniment, especially brazen), and then ... with ‘Um Mitternacht’ the vocalist went and soared. Oh, did she soar. It is a beautiful voice, clear and even, rich and straight, expressive, sympathetic .. a classic mezzo-soprano that is surely ideally suited in songs such as these. And she performs with no false dramatics, no useless gesture, no grimaces: just a simple, lovely sincerity. When she followed up song number four with the soft, dying final piece of the set ... well, suddenly, the evening had turned into something else. I had written that I was coming to a ‘beautiful concert in beautiful company’. Here was beauty.
As the song’s last notes died away, I grinned gap-mouthed at Paul, he slapped me on the back, and we were up on our feet applauding and yelling. Wonderful stuff, wonderful singing …

How to follow that? Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung was, as a child, one of my and my father’s favourite records, so I was sure I would be safe. I remember how impressive and atmospheric I used to find it. Well ... tonight, I’m afraid my main impression was rather: ‘isn’t it noisy’. And ‘the string-players must have tennis elbow after that’. I didn’t ‘not like it’ – how could one? But I was just a little disappointed that it didn’t live up to my fond memories. And I knew I was being disappointed, because at one stage I found myself transfixed by the antics of the bouncing conductor as he turned – at comically top speed – the pages of his score. My concentration regained, I followed the piece to its end with mitigated feelings. I felt just a little let down.
As we left the hall, I said to Paul, ‘I liked the last two songs and the third movement of the Ravel best. What about you?’. His verdict was identical. So the professional and trained musician (him) and the instinctive, ex-professional and largely untrained me were in accord. Which, I’d say, probably means we were pretty right. Wouldn’t you?

We sat in the Potsdamer-Platz, when the music was done, with a beer, a cigarette and a little analysis of this and that, and watched a bass fiddle and a violin go by, greeted Paul’s young friends of the Berlin music world – Heidi the bassoon, Sacha the clarinet, a piano, an oboe – and managed to keep ourselves from rushing across the pavement like schoolboy film-fans when Miss Cooke passed by …
And then it was time for the U-Bahn ..
Oh dear, in ten days I will be out of here. Flying towards the southern hemisphere. And I feel I’ve only tipped a toe into what musical Berlin has to offer. But since I’m already booked to return for the spring, I guess the next stage of musical education can wait till then.

So, I got my beautiful concert. In beautiful company. For there is nothing like listening to music – especially unfamiliar music -- in congenial and knowledgeable circumstances to make it both comprehensible and memorable. So thank you, Paul. And thank you, Miss Sasha Cooke.

"I am a man who knows what he wants ..."

2010-09-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

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It’s taken me a whole ten days to brave entering another German theatre, after having witnessed the despicable murder of Die Blume von Hawaii at the Halle theatre, but last night I did – and, daringly, for another evening of pre-war Operette music.

The venue was the Kleines Theater, a house in the suburb of Friedenau which thoroughly lives up to its name. It is a delicious and characterful 100-seater, with mini-stage, mini-box office, mini-foyer, mini-bar (and mini-toilets): the whole so miniature that you wonder who ever had the idea of squeezing a theatre into such a space. The theatre’s ambitions, however, are in no way miniature. This month, in repertoire, they are playing versions of The Invitation and Misery, a show about Johnny Cash, an evening of Schlager, a piece about the inescapable (these days) Frida Kahlo, and Warum soll eine Frau kein Verhältnis Haben?, an entertainment constructed around the songs of pre-war Operette star, Fritzi Massary.

It was this last, of course, that I had come – just a little nervously -- to see. Was I going to have to ‘make allowances’? Well, none were needed… at the Kleines Theater I was to see sane and witty staging and direction and delightful choreography, witness some of the most enjoyable performances I’ve seen on the German stage, and listen to some of Germany’s most beautiful 20th century music sung, if not by Wunderlich, Gedda, Ahlers, Schwarzkopf or Massary, by artists who gave their all in respectful and wholly enjoyable versions of the works of Fall, Straus and their fellow greats.

The entertainment is, thankfully, not the musical stage’s 3000th biomusical. In fact, although the actors are listed as playing, and are more or less characterised as, Fritzi Massary, Max Pallenburg, Hans Albers et al, it does not pretend to be a play at all. Author/director James Edward Lyons has simply taken three dozen of the best songs of the Massary era, and linked them together with a light-hearted and ficticious skeleton of amorous fencing, in a piece which has much of the feeling of the best of 1930s German revue to it. Along with those perfectly marvellous songs.
As a barely German speaker, I might have preferred an ounce less talk and several ounces more of the songs – but the sold-out house (read my lips, Regietheater directors: ‘sold out’) chortled away merrily, and by part two I was well in the swing. Actually, I’d been swinging in my own way since the first musical moment – when a show opens with that wonderful number, ‘Anna was ist mit mir? (Der liebe Augustin) how not? And when the first act climaxes in the musical treat of the evening, with the entire cast joining in totally adorable harmony in the ‘Lied vom Schlafcoupé’ (Die geschiedene Frau) and the Automobile song from The Dollar Princess, how not go out in the interval in search of champagne?

The ‘entire cast’ consists of five acting-singing (unamplified)-dancing players and a hard-worked, pound-away, pianist, with trombone moment. A big cast. You would have trouble shoe-horning one more artist on to this stage and, indeed, from time to time one or two of them had to pop off into the auditorium for a bit.

The Fritzi of the night was the well-known actress Agnes Hilpert, elegant in teal (though handicapped by an ugly wig) and with the necessary acting, singing and dancing skills all at her fingertips. Her performance of the famous ‘Eine Frau, die weiss, was sie will’ ('I am a woman who knows what she wants') was the solo hit of the first half, but she moved truly into top gear in the much livelier and more theatrical second part, with a fun version of ‘Im Liebesfalle’ and as the central character of a wild, Marx-Brothersish burlesque of Straus’s Die Perlen der Cleopatra. Watching her manipulate a six-kilometre yellow train through the antics of her fellow players was one of the funniest moments of the night.

But there were plenty more of them, those funny moments. The three men of the team are all three consummate comedy players. Boris Freytag (Pallenberg) is a grotesque comedian of singular talents. Hollywood (or UFA) 1930 would surely have loved him. And if his singing voice is, shall we say, minimal, he puts over a humorous song with great effect and skill. Charles Lemming, as Albers, got his big moment in the burlesque, and grabbed it with both hands, but my particular favourite was the plumpishly bespectacled ‘ageing soubret’, Franz Frickel. His opening song-and-dance routine with the soubrette (Nini Stadlmann) was a total joy – I spent the whole evening wanting to see him dance again and again – his acting and timing were perfect throughout, his voice is light, sweet and true, and he does that appealing 'frightened rabbit' look better even than Gene Wilder. And as for his striptease…!

Miss Stadlmann, in a role which required her to be everything in turn, managed to be almost everything. If she lacked the accurate soprano heights, and the breadth to sing a piece such as ‘Jede frau hat irgendeine Sehnsucht’ ('Every woman thinks she wants to wander'), she more than made up for it the moment she began to dance, which is assuredly what she does best. Actually, perhaps not, for I gather that, though uncredited, she was responsible for the show’s choreography. And that, particularly her two pas de deux with Frickel, was another of the highlights of the entertainment.

When -- too soon! -- the evening sang and danced to its end to the tune of Krasznay-Krausz’s 1927 ‘Nebenbei’ (Eine Frau mit Format), I was feeling gloriously at peace with the world. And with the German theatre. But it does make me think. If a theatre such as this with, I imagine, very restricted finances, can invent and mount an entertainment (and, indeed, a repertoire) of this standard, with performers and performances of this standard … what is going on in those large and heavily-subsidised theatres that turn out pitiful, talentless rubbish such as I saw at Halle.

Never mind. I know where I’ll be going for my entertainment when I’m in Berlin again. And, who knows, I may catch up with Warum soll eine Frau kein Verhältnis haben? somewhere else in the country or the world. For it looks, to me, like a piece that will not live and die in one production. But, whoever does it next … you may have a job to do it as well as it is currently being done in Berlin’s Südwestkorso.

Photos by Jörn Hartmann

A Wedding on the Spree, or marriage à la men

2010-09-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

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I haven’t been to more than three or four weddings in my life. And all few of them of the male-female variety. So it was quite sailing in unknown waters for me to spend yesterday celebrating, at Berlin’s Rote Rathaus (Red Town Hall) and later at a Youth Club in Prenzlauerberg, the marriage between my young friend, Hannes, and his splendid ‘boyfriend from Bosnia’, Mirza.
And what a day it was! I am told hysteria sets in the lead-up to weddings, and there were indeed one or two tight throats on view at times, but the young folk had the luck to have our Ollie as their ‘fixer’ and everything, from start to finish, went on lavishly-lubricated wheels.

The hall of the Rathaus is a lovely place for a ceremony. Imposing, classical, but not too much so, and splendidly echo-ey in accoustics. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand much of the registrar’s apparently appreciable monologue, but the body language spoke better German than I, and, of course, once the music started…
The music was provided by my pal, Paul (‘Montmorensy’), on a keyboard hastily borrowed from Tim Fischer, and his song for the occasion was that aria of arch-devotion, ‘If I Were a Cloud’ (words and music: Montmorensy). Being decidedly of the devoted kind myself, I felt a little, self-indulgent prickle begin on the inside of my left eyelid as he reached the final ‘oh’…

Then the bridegroom kissed the bridegroom, the registers were signed, joy reigned everywhere … and not too many of us knew that Mirza had somehow lost his passport the previous day and that the newly-weds were going to have to spend the first hours of their married life at the Bosnian Embassy and the police-station…

We filled those first hours between the ceremony and the evening celebration with champagne on the edge of the Spree, and a stroll down the river’s banks to an Italian restaurant, after which Thomas H took Paul and I for a guided tour of his delicious little underground theatre, the ‘Quatch’: a former East German nude revue house now devoted with vast success to comedy programmes. It has everything of that 19th-century music-hall feel that I love to it … soon I must return and, German language or not, watch a show going on amid its red-and-gold intimacy.

By 7pm, Ollie had completed the transformation of the scruffy clubroom into a glittering cabaret, Hannes’s family had magicked up mountains of food, an Iranian taxi-driver had unbelieveably produced the missing passport, and – as, Julia poured gallon after gallon of champagne -- on came the Entertainment.
We started with a set of five of the best from Montmorensy, followed by an emotional rendering of the young couple’s favourite song from the omni-talented Ollie. And then, finally, we all sang. As rows of sparklers waved in the traditional fashion, we joined together in what must have been one of the rousing-est and ringing-est renditions of ‘Somewhere’ in a long time. Well, the room did contain some of Berlin’s best singing performers. And yours truly – who hasn’t operaticked in a long time – unshyly bawled out his bit along with them.

More champagne, more food – Paul even braved with gusto the top tier of the deeply-iced strawberry wedding cake! – and all sorts of new folk to meet – Marion the politician, Guido who I had enjoyed so much in Cabaret, Anthony from America, Dirk from South Africa … what a cosmopolitan lot we were and, thank goodness, everyone, it seemed, speaking English! Useful. For Mirza, like me, doesn’t (yet) speak German…

I’m sure the party went merrily on until the wee hours, but we slipped quietly away well before the witching moment. It had been a long day … but such a lovely one. The herald, I hope, to a marvellous married life for two really lovely young men.

Dammit, it’s days like today I get the feeling I want to be married, too …!

Birthday with Nefertiti

2010-09-09T03:29:00.000-07:00

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Not my birthday. I’m not ready for another of those, just yet. My friend Ollie’s. And we celebrated with a nice wander around the heart of Berlin and a visit to the remarkable Neues Museum.
The Neues Museum is situated on the ‘Museum Island’, amongst some of the grandest and greatest old public buildings of the city, but it is, itself, a re-born building, recreated from a badly war-damaged original – over a period of many years – under the management of the architect David Chipperfield.

It is not a ‘kitsch’ recreation of the original: it is a combination of the remnants of the C19th building with modern elements .. something that we have seen, time and again, can be either an great and imaginative success or an uncomfortable neither-one-thing-or-the-other flop.

This one – with its wonderful, uncluttered, looming rooms and crypts and its dizzily monolithic staircase -- is a great and imaginative success, one of the most enjoyable old-new exhibition buildings I have ever seen. And the collection – largely of Egyptian relics – that it has been built to house, make up a really enjoyable museum-visit.
The Big Star Item of the collection is the famous bust of Nefertiti, perfectly housed and lit, in a dark room (photographs not allowed) in a kind of space canister. However, I was just a tad disappointed in Nefertiti. She was just too perfect, too painted, her restored (?) nose impossibly pert, her make-up looking as if it could have been done yesterday. I grew up with a repro Nefertiti in the museum of Wellington, NZ. She was a little tatty, and somehow more convincing.

But there was plenty less famous material here to see and enjoy, the Egyptian items mixed with ancient pieces from other parts of the world – splendid! history is ‘of the world’ after all, not of just one area – and if we skipped through the cases of bronze-age adzes (sorry, one adze to me is just like another), we found plenty to admire as we struggled to refresh our knowledge of such subjects as the Egyptian pantheon and ancient funerary rites. Splendid statuary and sarcophagi, beautiful mummies and grave objects, and amongst all the major pieces, some marvellous little gods and animals and even a skeletal elk!

The Neues Museum is, for me, with or without Nefertiti, a total success. Both the building and the collection. And we spent a splendid 90 minutes doing the rounds before moving back into the modern world, and on to a sushi supper at Prenzlauerberg…
A decidedly nice way to spend a birthday. Even someone else’s.

Postscript: on our way, Ollie introduced me to his favourite Denkmal (‘monument’). It is now one of mine, too. The subject commemorated is the devastating 1933 Nazi episode of ‘the burning of the books’, and the monument is below ground. You look, at your feet, through a glass panel set in the cobbles of the Bebelplatz and you see … nothing. Rows of achingly empty white bookshelves. It may sound simple, but its effect is chilling.

Whoops! She nearly did it again!

2010-09-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

6 September, and out again on the racetracks of Australia goes little Livia, for her first race as a just-turned-three-year-old! And, goodness me, it was almost a repeat performance..

Once again, she was dropped out at the start and, with a lap to go, she was -- as ever -- running along cold, motherless last of the ten runners. Down the back, she got a nice run up the inside, but coming round the last bend she was still a good half-dozen lengths off the leader. Into the straight (and, my goodness, she does corner now better than she used to!) and now she turned on that same staunch finishing run that had got her gold at Geelong. She doesn't go 'whoosh!', with that violent change of gear that some horses have, she just turns up the wick and puts her little shoulders in to it...

Down the home straight, the six-length gap began to melt, and it really did look as if she might power past the leaders, just as she had last time out. But the six lengths were three-parts-of-a-length too much, and at the line she was third, beaten a mere metre and a half, and just half-a-neck off the second horse.

Little Livia may not be a star, but she is a wonderfully honest wee filly who, I suspect, is going to run in the money for us on a good few more occasions..

http://www.harness.org.au/video/vic/MHC06091005.wmv

The Happy Half of Halle

2010-09-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

If Halle has turned out to be my own particular theatrical disaster area, my trip there was – prior to curtain time -- anything but a disaster.
I seem to remember that last year I found the city rather downhearted and drab. Well, either they have done wonders with it in the meanwhile, or I just didn’t look at the right bits. This time it was lively, bright, attractive and fun..
In the company of three generations of the Clarke family, I wandered the bustling streets, snapped the attractive buildings, in particular the celebrated church, and while the Clarkes did the rounds of the art gallery at the Moritzburg (which I did last year), I sat in the palace courtyard and the sun with a glass of the local white wine and relaxed happily… right opposite a stage erected for performances of Verdi’s Otello!
A huge (for me) dinner of salt pork and sauerkraut at a local hostelry … and then off to the beautiful theatre and ..
Well, you can’t win ‘em all!

Murdering a Magnificent Musical

2010-09-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

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Last season, I made a trip to the town of Halle, to view and review a new musical entitled Poe. It turned out to be one of the few dozen most unpleasant theatrical experiences of my life.
But, yesterday, I went there again. Masochistic? I thought not. For this time the theatre was producing one of my very favourite central European musical plays, the classic Operette Die Blume von Hawaii. Last time I saw it, was in semi-professional summer-theatre at Baden bei Wien more than twenty years ago, and the chance of seeing it again, and hearing its wonderful lavish and lilting Pal Abraham music, in a proper theatre was not to be missed.
Result? Disaster. Disgust. Disillusion. One of the very worst productions of any musical that I have seen in fifty years of theatregoing, anywhere in the world.

What I saw on the stage at Halle was not Abraham and Földes brilliant and beautiful Die Blume von Hawaii. It wasn’t even a burlesque of the piece: burlesque is, after all, a legitimate art form. This wasn’t any kind of art. This was amateurism and incompetence run rife: a performance that you would shudder at had you seen it in a village hall in Paekakariki, New Zealand.

Three people have to take the bulk of the blame. The producer, the ‘dramaturg’, and the director.

The producer. Why did he want to do this piece? He evidently despises the Operette genre. Thinks himself above it. So instead of putting on the piece as it was written, he had it deconstructed, camped-up, sneered at, grossly rewritten …

Rewritten. The libretto of Die Blume von Hawaii is an admirable 1931 mixture of the romantic and the stylishly light comic, illustrated by a marvellous mixture of classic European music and the American dance rhythms then being melded into the Austro-Hungarian tradition. ‘Romantic’, however, was far too challenging for this fellow. Way outside his abilities. The whole text was reduced to a low – and I can’t avoid repeating the word – campy load of rubbish, ‘compered’ by a largely invented character in the most juvenile fashion. As for ‘comic’ .. the merry, lighthearted moments of the show, in dialogue and song and dance, were simply reduced to gross buffoonery. ‘Stylishly’? He clearly doesn’t know what the word means.

Directed? You have to laugh. Where does the German provincial theatre get its stage directors from? First Masaniello at Dessau, now this. And this was far, far worse. I didn’t invent the phrase ‘camp covers incompetence’, but I shall repeat it here. Incompetence. Paekakariki could definitely find a dozen more capable directors. This was amateur time, in the worst sense of the word. There was not a moving moment, a moment of genuine humour, an idea, a breath of scenic or picturesque enjoyment … just boring, unimaginative, old-fashioned, limp-wristed, concert-party clowning. And camp. I think that if I had to give a prize for the worst direction of any piece, from during my fifty years of musicals-going, this one just might be the winner.

The players, with a producer, a dramaturg and a director with no confidence in their material, had little chance. Those who had to sing didn’t even get an opportunity to do that, for the beautiful music, inadequately played and reorganised, could not be sung. The most magnificent musical numbers were wrecked by more guying, more stupidity, more camp. More amdram antics.
But, in any case, not one performer showed up with anything like the ability needed to play and sing this show. The Lilo Taro (tenor?) might just do for the D’Oyly Carte chorus, the Princess Laya, who did struggle to be allowed to sing, gave a feebly grotesque drunk scene which revealed the extent of her inabilities, and the Captain Stone – who staunchly did push some melody out of his small light baritone – was one of the worst ‘coarse acting’ criminals.
The actor who played the invented ‘compere’ is apparently a well-known personality. Well, he won’t want to be ‘known’ for this. Clad in cruise-ship gold lame, he creaked omnipresently through the show like an end-of-the-pier comic doing a Frankie Howerd impersonation. I had to look at my shoes with embarrassment.

I could go on in the same vein, but to what good? It is very, very rare for me to come out of a theatre unable to find one good word for anything in the production and performance of a show. At Halle, I did.

I did not get a programme, so I did not know until we were driving home to Berlin that the three criminals of the night – the three murderers of this great classic show – were, in fact, one and the same person. That figures. Three as totally untalented would be hard to find. I don’t need or wish to know the gentleman’s name, but in my humble opinion he should get out of the theatre. Or will he go on to direct Mother Courage next, in the same style? Lord forbid he should be allowed to touch another musical piece.

I am exhausted by the strength of my disgust and disappointment. And, yes, I imagine this is the most disgusted and disappointed review I have ever written in my life. And it leads me to two rather important thoughts.

Firstly: the Halle theatre is state supported. This vain, amateurish stuff is being put on with tax-payers’ money. Somebody in the subsidy department should be looking long and hard at how their money is being spent, or Halle and its theatre, and those who support it, will become a bad joke.
Secondly: Die Blume von Hawaii (which must surely still be under copyright) is, I believe, represented by the respected music firm of Josef Weinberger. Why is this firm permitting this Operette (and others?) to be textually and musically destroyed in such a way. Do not their heirs of Földes and Abraham, and their show, deserve to be better protected?

I need a very hasty ‘fix’ of good, professionally produced and played German musical theatre to wipe this nightmare out of my mind. I shall hasten to Berlin’s Kleines Theater next week in quest of it. I do not want to leave Germany believing that what I saw last night represents the nation’s abilities in musical theatre.

Postscript: comment on this article from a well-known British composer: 'If only German had the equivalent of the English 'wanker', Regietheater might have died long ago...' Oh, that it were so.

Where to, 'Revue'?

2010-09-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Eleven o’clock on an autumnal Berlin night, and I’ve thrown off my shoes and am curled up with a pile of smoked salmon, an ice-cold bottle of Köstritzer schwarzbier and an ice-cream Mars bar, while I muse on the evening I have just spent.
I have been to a sort of a premiere. The premiere of the show is actually tomorrow, but the press (intelligent idea!) were given their own avant-premiere tonight, and that meant Kevin and I. And the show…? It is called Yma (I’m not sure why), and it is the annual production at the Friedrichstadtpalast, advertisedly the largest revue theatre in Europe. Which I guess means it is a ‘revue’.

The word ‘revue’ has undergone a sea-change, evidently, from tonight’s showing, since the great days of Parisian and Berlin ‘revue’ of a century ago. In 1850, ‘revue’ satirically reviewed the years events, in 1900, ‘revue’ was the wittiest, cleverest, freshest and newest thing in town, bubbling over with freshly-minted or imported songs and sketches. Now, it could be best described as a ‘show’. The only trace of the ‘revue’ of olden times that I could discern tonight was the use of a commere, a meneuse de revue, to more or less (and rather less than more) link together the numbers of the night. For that is what Yma is: a succession of mostly sung, mostly choreographed numbers, relieved by a handful of specialities, and staged with ‘a hundred performers’ on the ‘biggest revue stage in Europe’.

Fair enough. So is bigger better? Well, my only experience of this kind of show goes back more than 20 years, to when I did the rounds of the Parisian shows – the Lido, the Moulin Rouge et al – and visited the Radio City Music Hall, New York, in the course of duty. I have never been to Las Vegas, but the man who introduced the show (in German) tonight -- theatre Intendant Berndt Schmidt, Kevin tells me -- clearly has. He must have said ‘Las Vegas’ thirty times in his introduction. I think he was courting comparison. I am told that he was snooty about the Moulin Rouge, too, although I missed that bit.
I liked the Moulin Rouge. I liked it a lot better than Yma. Even if it wasn’t bigger. It had heart, and style, and character. And the funny old building had a warmth.
The Friedrichstadtpalast is an ex-East German 1984 monolith. I don’t mind it, but you couldn’t accuse it of warmth. And the show? Well, if you have the ‘biggest revue stage in Europe’ you really need to fill it. Fill it with spectacle and colour and movement … design treats and design tricks .. girls and costumes, boys and scenery, routines and acts …
About the only place Yma fulfilled the needs on that list was with the girls and the boys. The chorus dancers and acrobats, who worked their beautiful young bodies with endless energy and flair … just like the young folk I saw the other night on the tiny stage of the Chamaleon. But you can work till you are blue and still make limited effect, if you have little or nothing to work on or with.

The first part of the show did hold a few goodies to keep things alive. There was a comical routine where the boys stripped off behind frosted (why, in 2010?) shower cubicles (all show fotos by Stefan Gustavus xix), and there was a first rate trampoline-acrobatic routine in a kinky modernist settingby a group called U-Show Team. The swimming-pool stage was put into regulation use, and anything that could fly flew. But elsewhere ... the commere was over-studied, uncharismatic and looked like a man in drag. I found out why: she was a man in drag. Why? Apparently because this is, according to Herr Schmidt, 'the gayest hetero show in town'. Hmm. I didn't notice. And talk about covering your front, back and all sides!

The male vocalist had been cast for charm not voice, and of the two overaged (?) female vocalists one (Jürgens) yowled painfully and the other (Krabbe) had merely moments of Petula-Clarkeish acceptability. Not nice, in any sense. No, you just had to focus on those splendid young chorus people and virevolteurs, their fine dancing and their occasionally fun routines …

Alas, by part two, director and choreographer had (give or take an Aenea act for a girl and two boys) run out of any ideas they may have had … the designer had never had many from the start … and the ‘half’ was only saved from disaster by the hit routine of the night: a simply dazzling aerial acrobatic performance by a Ukrainian pair calling themselves, embarrassingly, ‘The Flight of Passion’. I see from the programme that they won a Golden Clown at my dear old Monaco Festival de Cirque. They deserve it. They were amazing, and the audience let them know it. Their routine won thrice the applause of anything else during the entire evening.
So, if the music of the night was just reheated old tunes (the finale was, for heaven’s sake the 1968 Canfora/Amurri 'La vita' aka Shirley Bassey's ‘This is my Life’!), pounded out down a vast sound system by insufficient voices, if the dance routines too often lacked imagination and originality and got by only through the tireless efforts of the delightful dancers, if the solo performers were somewhere below cruise ship level and too much of the design colourless, pointless and dreary … I don’t care. I would have walked across Berlin, and squirmed through a full hour of Frln Jürgens’s yowling, just to see Dimitri and Olesya do their magnificent routine.

Obviously, ‘revue’, style 2010, is not for me. I was definitely more at home at the Chamaleon. So, who, I wonder, is it for? The ‘welcome’ at the show’s opening came in a number of languages, including Japanese. I suspect this is pure and simple coach party entertainment. But, then again, twenty years ago, I don’t suppose there were too many Parisians in the house at the Moulin Rouge. So, if things have changed rather drastically in the last century, maybe they have changed less than I imagine in the last decades.

Let me go out with an accolade. If I can’t say that, with just a few exceptions, I admired much about the show, I hugely admired the way the Friedrichstadtpalast people run an opening night. I’ve run a few myself, and know the difficulties. The vast audience of guests was ticketed, programmed, wined with utmost efficiency. So thank you, Friedrichstadtpalast for looking after me so nicely. I’m sorry Yma isn’t my cup of saki.

Well, the Köstritzer is all gone. Shame I only got one. And midnight is past. I shall sneak into bed and go to sleep thinking of the silver glitter falling from the heights and Olesya’s hair as that magnificent pair finished their act …

Postscript: This morning I have found my ticket stub, and it does not actually mention the word 'revue'. The theatre is described as 'Europas grösster und modernster Show-Palast' and the production as 'Die neue grosse mega-show'. 'Show' is, it seems, the replacement for 'revue' in the 21st century.

FischGrätenMelkStand.

2010-08-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

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When I said to Anna, let’s go out together and do something ... see something … one day this week, I wasn’t really thinking of something like FischGrätenMelkStand.
Because that sort of thing is way, way outside my experience. Even Ian, who loved modern art, who used to traipse me round the Galerie Maeght, and who once made me stand and look at a vast and ludicrous Jackson Pollock in Venice (he did apologise later) would, I think, have been a bit puzzled in the presence of FischGrätenMelkStand. But, how do you know if you don’t try?
So I put on my walking shoes, and headed off through the city – tiens! there’s the Gendarmenmarkt! I am beginning to see how Berlin’s bits fit together – to the Schlosspark and its Temporary Kunsthalle. It is temporary (and due to be demolished this week) because the whole area where the old ‘Schloss’ stood is under reconstruction. It would make a nice park, I thought, but I fear it is going to be a ‘reconstruction’.

The exhibition with the funny name (it means one of those milking parlours where the cattle stand interlocked, head to head) consists of a four-story metal jungle-gym (thus the name), built up with staircases and rooms, in each of which rooms is featured an exhibit of some kind. I’m not sure if there is ‘meaning’ anywhere in there: I didn’t try to find any. Once we were let in (there was a vast queue, as the construction can hold only 40 people), I just clambered up and down and looked. Quite a few of the things seemed to be damaged, or have their video and/or audio components out of order, but I just took what I was seeing for what I was seeing, and …
When we emerged, nearly an hour later, and sat down with a quiet beer in the café, I said to myself: well? The answer to ‘well?’ was that, as a whole, the series of ‘rooms’ were just an ‘art gallery’, and the ‘art’ they contained? … twenty-four hours later, as I write this, exactly the same images remain, now as then, remarkably vividly, in my mind. A group of handbags on a wall, ‘magically’ tossing their own shadows – by some filmic process – round and round (and unphotographically) in circles

and a rough wooden room lined with rows of burned pizzas and entitled ‘Mutter Tod mit Pepperoni’ (Martin Kippenberger/Heimo Zobernig). I don’t know what Mrs Death had to do with things, but – in spite of the fact that the exhibit had suffered destructively from knees and shoulderbags -- the dilapidated rows of pizzas were strangely compelling!

There was an cleverly unpleasant-feeling piece, Vinyl Terror and Horror, featuring distressed electronic equipment enclosed in a filthy caravan, and Anna was particularly taken by the ‘Backstage’ which I imagine represented the ‘artist’s’ or ‘caretaker’s room and which enclosed a vast variety of crazed and crumpled and ‘rejected’ bits and pieces, which may or may not have been still where the creator had put them.

There was a good deal more, a great deal more, but those are the bits I remember.
And only once did I sneer the sneer that says ‘oh this is just tiresome’: in an item called ‘sexy socks’ (the title already is wearisome) where, sadly, drearily, the creators fell back on juvenile ‘naughty words’ for their ‘cleverness’. Yawn…

From the FischGrätenMelkStand we made our way the nearby Friedrichswerdesche Kirche. This C19th, neo-Gothic building was, of course, in considerable contrast to what we had just seen, but there was a surprise. It is now an art gallery, too, and its soaring space contains a selection of (copies of?) classical sculpture. But amongst those sculptures was a well-staged contemporary piece by Yinka Shonibara entitled Colonel Tarleton and Mrs Oswald shooting. I found it very effective and, yes, perfectly comprehensible ... indeed, I was altogether pleased, until I read the heavy-handed publicity blurb, with all its effortful politics and points. I don't want to be told what to see, thank you. If the artist can't make his point in his art...?

This morning, I have also read the hand-out material on the FischGrätenMelkStand. And now I don’t like it nearly so much. So much pompous stuff about ‘spatial situations’ and artworks ‘fusing with space’ and … it is all so pretentious and unreadable, quite the perfect poison with which to eradicate the enjoyment one can get simply by looking at the works in question. I am binning it, as of this moment, wiping it from my brain, and I shall just keep my agreeable images of handbags and pizzas, thank you.

My day ended, in suitably ‘cosmopolitan’ fashion with dinner with Kevin in a Brazilian restaurant down near the Schwules Museum, where his exhibition has been breaking all house records of affluence. And, to end a colourful day on a high, the buffet eat-as-much-as-you-can meal turned out to be stunning – from a first-class fish soup, to a truly wonderful beef (?), black sausage and black bean stew that had me longing for a larger appetite. The Café do Brasil, 72 Mehringdamm, is unchallengeably the best value-for-money feast I have eaten, anywhere, since I set out from New Zealand …

And then to bed, to dream of revolving handbags, burned pizzas, and delicious fish soup…

'At Home' in the Krumme Strasse

2010-08-31T02:10:00.000-07:00

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When you are travelling incessantly, the nicest thing that can happen is to be invited to spend an evening snuggled up in the midst of somebody else’s quiet and comfy ‘home’ atmosphere…
Paul (otherwise PGB, otherwise Paul Graham Brown the musical-theatre writer) and his partner, Uwe, asked me around and ‘in’ for a delicious chick pea stew, imaginative ice-cream, a little vin rouge and, above all, a cosy evening of ‘en famille’ friendship and fun…
It felt soooooo goood …

A Visit to Sissi

2010-08-29T02:38:00.000-07:00

I’d thought, when I returned to Berlin, that I would be carrying on my cavalcade through the restaurants of Europe .. but somehow, one way and another, that hasn’t come to pass. Give or take my Jamaican and Irish adventures, most of my food and drink jollification, over the last month, has happened round the picknick table, right here at no 32 Nollendorfstrasse.
Livia’s win, however, had to be fêted in suitable style, so – after a nice cold aperitif of French bubbly, round my little red table – PGB and I set out in search of a nice place to eat. And we found one. When first I came back to the Nollendorfstrasse, my friend Horst pointed me in the direction of a tiny, Austrian restaurant named – what else – Sissi. There it was, just round the corner in the Motzstrasse. And, goodness me, Horst was right.

Tiny, charming, delightful staff and ... well, I have honestly to say, better food than I have ever eaten, anywhere, in Vienna itself. And at very reasonable prices. I had a consommé with a nice light leberknoedel, followed by what the English menu described as boiled calf carpaccio. The mind boggled. But it was delicious thin slices of cold boiled beef, served with a tiny light salad … delicious, and you come out at the end (as I like to do) thinking you have eaten nothing. Paul had a gulasch. Now I’ve seen all sorts of gulasches in my life and most of them would sink a sailor. Not this one. This is food for enjoying, not for simply swelling your stomach. And that means, of course, that grown-ups have space for pudding: Paul could not resist an apricot dumpling…
Our meal was completed by a nice bottle of Pinot (28 euros, wines in restaurants and bars here are grotesquely expensive – 200 to 400pc markup), served with decided talent by a young waiter who made the single bottle last tidily and precisely through our meal, instead of slurping it forcefully into the glasses in the hope the customer will order a second bottle…
We saved ourselves for the Chateauneuf du Pape (11euros at Kaiser’s Supermarket) waiting for us, nightcappishly, back at the Nollendorfstrasse.
A delightful evening. A delightful restaurant. I am already booked for a return visit Thursday… and that will not certainly be the last during my month-to-go in Berlin. Would it be too much to hope that one of the horses might win again, too?

Oh, Livia!

2010-08-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Back in May – goodness, how long ago was that -- I blogged hopefully, from the northern hemisphere, about the latest addition to the ‘Gerolstein’ stable of racers .. our little Australian filly, Livia Degerolstein.
She had begun her baby two year-old career quite promisingly – four starts for a third and three fourths, which looked as if they could be fairly soon improved on. The idea of a first ever Gerolstein juvenile winner, and of my first harness-racing win in Australia – to add to those already scored in New Zealand and in France -- didn’t look impossible. But it didn’t happen.
Without ever running badly, Livia just didn’t seem to make that extra bit of progress necessary to snare her a race, and, after a couple of nowheres, instead of lining up for the big races we had looked forward to, she instead went out to have a little rest. All our rosy hopes looked doomed: the season was drawing to its end – soon she would no longer be a two year-old.
Then, suddenly, last week, as I scanned the Down Under racing pages from my flatlet in Berlin’s Nollendorfstrasse, I noticed … Livia was back! With a fortnight to go till September 1st. Was there still a smidgin of hope?
It didn’t look like it. She went to Geelong August 16, and finished seventh of nine, she went to Maryborough, just three days later, and got fourth of six. She was, as ever, running on at the end, but why oh why, no matter where drawn, did she always seem to end up at the too-far-back of the pack in the running?
One last chance. Geelong again, today 26 August. And the competition included the two horses, Blissful Kisses and Saunders Girl, that had dead-heated for second when she had been seventh there ten days ago, as well as a filly dropping back from the classic races we had once eyed hopefully for Livia. The public took the obvious view, and Livia, sporting a nice new red nose-roll, went out at odds of 20-1. Sixth fancy out of eight.
The classic filly blew up at the start, an outsider hooned suicidally to the front and .. sure enough, as they got to the bell, Livia had managed to get herself into second last place, maddeningly off the slipstreaming back of the one in front of her. Happily, the one behind her was Saunders Girl, and she was pulled swiftly out to loop the field as they headed into the final section. Livia tagged gappily on to her wheel, followed her around, three wide on the last turn, and as Saunders Girl and Blissful Kisses settled down, it seemed, to battle it out, down the middle of the track came stomping Livia! There was a heart-stopping second as she put in one short stride, but then she stuck her tough little head forward, bullocked on, and several strides before the post she elbowed past her rivals to hit the line with nearly half a length to spare!
Within ten days, she had turned round a distance of ten metres on the two runners-up, in the respectable mile time of 2mins 02.4. That ‘improvement’ we had been waiting for had well and truly happened, and that two year-old win, which had seemed so improbable just days earlier, had actually come to pass!
So, tonight – while Wendy (give or take the time difference) raises a glass to little Livia, and to trainer-driver Graeme Lang, down in Gerolstein, New Zealand – I and my pal PGB will do the same at the Nollendorfstrasse …

Goodness, what a horsey year! Elena wins (in NZ while I’m in Australia), Tenor wins (in France while I’m in Australia again), Seppl wins twice (in NZ while I’m in the Isle of Wight) and now Livia wins .. in Australia while I’m in Germany! I’m not complaining, but hopefully, one day soon, my winners and I may be in the same place at the same time? But as my friend Jack – who last week scored a zinger at Cabourg, France -- says, they never are.

http://www.harness.org.au/video/vic/GEC26081006.wmv

Life is a Kabarett

2010-08-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

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When Hannes told me that Cabaret was playing at TIPI am Kanzleramt – that delightful ‘tent’ venue in the Tiergarten -- I have to say I didn’t rush there. How many times have I seen Cabaret over the last forty years? I can’t count. And Cabaret in German? Ah well, I guess its part of the same ‘good old days’ thing that I recognised in this afternoon’s “Modernen Zeit’ exhibition. But then other folk, too, told me I ‘should’ see it (why? I wondered) and so last night I strolled up to the grand, green Tiergarten from my home in the Nollendorfstrasse (30 minutes flat, even with the ghastly pedestrian lights), and met up with Hannes and Anna for a night ‘at the musical’.
TIPI is, in fact, an ideal venue for this show. It is sufficiently compact, and it has the right ‘Kabarett’ atmosphere. Even more ideal, to my thinking, would be the companion Bar Jeder Vernunft, where this production was originally staged, in a version that has been (sometimes too obviously) now opened out for this larger platform … and, of course, auditorium.

The original stage musical Cabaret was not a huge success, and it owes its continuing life very largely to its film version and the performance therein of Liza Minnelli in the role of Sally Bowles. The filmmakers, alas, in search of youth and beauty, destroyed the show’s two most interesting, central – and ageing -- characters (Herr Schultz and Frln Schneider), so I am always very happy indeed to get back to the original theatre text. Or something like it. The TIPI version – and boy! how many ‘versions’ of Cabaret have there been, tacked together by royalty-chasers and usually involving chunks of the film – seems to me to be sufficiently back-to-basics (I admit to a groan when a yowled chunk of ‘Maybe This Time’ was tacked in), but there were some bits which I didn’t think I recognised. This may simply be because it’s so long since I heard an un-butchered performance of Cabaret.
This production’s principal curiosity was to have the text in German, and the lyrics sung in either English or German or, in the disastrous case of ‘Cabaret’, half and half.

The stage production was suitably ‘of today’. The first half was slick, quick-moving, occasionally visually arresting (a practical train outdid Miss Saigon’s helicopter easily), it didn’t seem to run nearly 100 minutes, and it was pretty loud and pretty soulless. But, come half time, the whole thing changed gear. Suddenly the audience (mostly ladies with hair, why?) was no longer giggling at the romantic and emotional Schultz-Schneider scenes, but cooing; suddenly the Sally, who had done little more than shout and flail her way through the first half, started to act; suddenly we had a play. A musical play. Instead of an agreeable but pretty banal heap of lively camping and leaping around. And I cheered inwardly.
I guess it depends what you want Cabaret to be. For me the Schultz/Schneider story is the heart of the show. Miss Bowles is a supporting character. But, of course, since Liza Minnelli, the musical and the character are no longer allowed or expected to be like that. We don’t get the silly little English Sally Bowles as written by Isherwood and van Druten, we get Liza Minnelli Bowles. Topbilled. And there aren’t a handful of performers, maybe even a fingerful, in the world who can ‘be’ Liza Minnelli Bowles in such a way as not to suffer horribly in comparison with the lady they are apeing.
I was pretty sure I was in trouble as soon as tonight’s Sally (Sophie Berner) walked on. She was wearing a Liza Minnelli wig. Oh, dear, I thought. It is going to be a that sort of production of Cabaret.
Well, happily, it didn’t turn out quite that way, and that very largely thanks to some decidedly fine performances elsewhere in the cast.

Easily my favourite performer of the evening was the Cliff (Guido Kleineidam). How often does that happen? That Cliff is the strongest character in this musical? Almost never, I would say. And, guess what, it gives the piece a great focus. The 'I' who is 'the camera' is important and central, and not just an 'instrument'.
Unlike the lady, Kleineidam never forgot to act for a second, and he established a credible, interesting and moving personality right from the start. And in the tiny bit he has to sing, he even turned up with a most agreeably uneffortful baritone. It was thoroughly due to him that the Cliff-Sally relationship developed any shape and any interest at all, and his final departure from Berlin, surrounded by the debris of his Berlin life, was decidedly the most moving moment of an evening which didn’t go in for very many moving moments. A first-class performance.
Frln Schneider (Regina Lemnitz as replacement for Maren Kroymann) and Herr Schultz (Peter Kock), who turned out, miraculously, both to have wholly agreeable singing voices, played their scenes well – though they were left standing curiously ‘undirected’ in the middle of an open stage during confrontations which cry out for intimacy. They made ‘Heirath’ into the musical hit of the night ... I was humming it in the interval and again after the show. They also both played their characters as pleasantly ‘ordinary’ everyday people: the role of Frln Schneider, often star cast, can easily become overcooked. She is a boarding-house keeper. Here, reality remained, and the show gained greatly.

So much for the ‘real’ people of the tale. Except, of course, Sally should be one of these, too. I haven’t enthused over any Sally since I saw her played, with touching naivety (and plenty of voice), by a little blonde ex-chorine at Farnham Repertory Theatre in the 1980s. I guess that lass hadn’t seen the movie, or else she had the sense to know that she wasn’t equipped to compete with the Minnelli image. So much the better for her. And me.
Tonight’s shapeless Sally was all over the place. She blasted her way through act one, with nary an ounce of light and shade, and just when – in the second act – one started to feel that there was a real and sympathy-worthy woman hiding under that tacky wig, she came out with shudderworthy, draggy, misshapen versions of ‘Maybe This Time’ and ‘Cabaret’ which seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the show or the (otherwise very effective) orchestrations. No. As the youth of today say: ‘fail’.

The role of the emcee (Eric Rentmeister) was efficiently played – in song, speech and dance – in the established, but now rather uninteresting, Joel Grey style, the four Kit Kat girls (one an extremely clever male, Mogens Eggemann) were choreographed, in the manner we are supposed to believe has something to do with the 1930s, in a most lively, vigorous and enjoyable set of routines, and the small parts were all competently played. Except one. How on earth did the director permit the amateurish, end-of-the-pier portrayal of Frln Kost? Has he (and she) never heard of ‘less is better’? This woman’s pantomimish antics took the edge off the scenes of Frln Schneider’s romance and also off the climactic end of act one. The two key moments of the evening’s drama were almost ruined by an inept clown.

I realise that my comments here do contain a lot of negatives. But, at the end of the show, I am happy to say that (as the ladies with hair squealed out jolly volleys of hoorays) I really didn’t feel too bad at all. I wasn’t complaining about the sum total of the evening's entertainment. Cliff had been superb, Schultz and Schneider very fine … and that meant that the show’s heart had been sweetly and dramatically solid. Sally? I’d more or less given up on her as soon as I saw the wig, and I simply didn’t let her bother me too much. She was back where she should be: a supporting character. Frln Kost, of course, did bother me .. but then, to make up for her, we had the train!

A Cabaret with a solid heart will do me. Especially when it is as vigorously enlivened by its Girls and by its orchestra as this one is, and especially when it is played in such a friendly venue … but I think I may now go for a few years without seeing another version – any version – of this musical. Enough is enough is enough.

Berlin on a roller-coaster

2010-08-25T00:46:00.000-07:00

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Yes, that means what it sounds like. My budding love affair with this city has not run altogether smoothly.
What went wrong? There was I on a huge high after my Best Concert Night Out probably ever … and the next thing …
Friday. Arrangements awry and suddenly … unreasoning panic. Alone in a big city, where I can’t speak the language, and where this machine is my only contact with an outside world which seems to have vanished… Where is everyone? Anyone? Living their own lives, of course. Off on holidays, away or out on business, other folk to see, but not around ... Probably someone was on the end of a sanity-saving txt, but I don’t have a phone.
The sky clouded over, and the rains came down, and as I sat imprisoned through Saturday and half of Sunday, in my normally beloved no32, listening to the man next-door doing loud repairs, the man downstairs doing ditto ... with no escape to .. where? .. through the storm … uselessly spiralling into a real and wholly untypical tempest of lonesome blues … I could only think: I want to be back at Gerolstein. Have I stayed away too long?
And the realisation punched itself into my brain: how could I ever, ever have imagined that I could make a home base in a city where I don’t speak the language? Where I can’t even go out to a bar or a resto, if I should want to, and chat to some jolly company, on a horrid weekend like this one, because I’m half-deaf and foreign and, anyway, too many places here don’t take credit cards? The Berlin real-estate books, which had, in my imagination, been invitingly half-open since I got back here, closed that weekend with a definitive bang. What was I thinking of? End of dream. End of wonderful but foolish dream.

The mean blue moment passed, of course. Dear PGB arrived back in truly timely fashion from his hiking in Croatia, and we dined out in the Winterfeldstrasse on Sunday, picknicked on floods of bubbly and smoked salmon and a whirl of gossip on Monday, and on Tuesday I went out on the town, for a delicious night out with the boys … Life was back on wheels again, but that wicked wet weekend had left its traces. I was going to have to work at it, to once again feel as wholly comfortable here as I did a fortnight ago. Needless to say, I am winning the war. But I’d rather have not needed to.

My night out with the boys – Thomas H, Thomas Z, Christian and Ollie -- was a treat. We started off at the Soho Club – an up-to-date version of the old English ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ (though they have ladies as well, now) implanted semi-congruously into the heart of Berlin. On the superb ‘roof-terrace’, a delightful rounded bar, a swimming pool, and a view out over the Berlin rooftops, which the rain rendered rather surreal …

From the Soho Club to the Chamaleon, a proper European-style cabaret room – central platform surrounded by tables -- where the entertainment was an act named ‘Versus’ – eight young acrobat-dancers in a very strenuous, skilled, agreeable and sometimes even imaginative modern version of the circus routines we’ve known since circus was invented. My mind flew back to Barnum days. Where were young folk like this when I was casting in the ‘eighties?
From the show, on to a real Berlin gay bar, by the name of ‘Betty F’ (in homage to Mrs Ford) .. and hey! not only could I hear in the small room with its moderate music, but I found I was thoroughly enjoying myself amid our delightful company. Still, elderly gentleman have to take care, and I tip-taxied away at midnight, leaving the lads to their foreseeable long, long night..
Thursday, out to Kreuzberg with Ollie to ... wait for it ... a Jamaican restaurant. Well, why not? Delicious spicy food, a touch of genuine Jamaica rum to finish … thank you Kirk and Troy of the Rosa Caleta, Muskauer Strasse, a grand evening … with a surprising result. Next day, Ollie turned up at no32 bearing the prophylactic for the previous weekend’s blues … a mobile phone! After all these years of saying ‘I can’t’, I have already learned to text! Slowly. Maybe next week I may see if I can hear a call: but I find it quite hard, already, to hear the thing tinkle ... so we shall have to see.

Saturday, a lovely family evening with the Leclair-Clarkes – dining on a real ‘Ulster Fry’ (the children are just back from holiday in Ireland, and brought the stock of the local butcher’s shop with them) and -- this you are never going to believe – watching not only the holiday snaps of beautiful Ireland but … a movie! Kevin and Maxime biked to the store to get the ‘for hearing-impaired English-speakers’ version of Hangover, and I got used to ‘listening’ to it quite quickly. The film was American-silly-funny (and laced with plot incoherencies) but I can see it will be much liked by filmgoers.

Sunday night, a picknick with Kevin – music and bubbly and a whole fortnight’s worth of catch up -- and today, out to the new Nationalgalerie for a very fine and admirable exhibition entitled Modernen Zeit.

The times it dealt with were, happily, not so modern as that: it was an exhibition of art from the first 40 years of the 20th century, a period which this country seems now to have idealised as ‘the good old days’. I don’t know a heap about German 20th century painting – one knows the name of Grosz for not entirely pictorial reasons, Kirschner and Dix ring a bell, but the French artists of the same years, when they were busy inventing cubism and the like and lunching out at St Paul de Vence, are obviously much more familiar to me. So I was rather delighted to see a great deal of strong and often colourful painting in all sorts of styles, which seemed to show that the German painters of the time had perhaps more individualism than their French counterparts. I particularly liked one room of elbow-to-elbow portraits, all from the same years but yet all so contrasting in style … alas, I couldn’t stop my camera flashing, so one photo was all I got … this is only a tiny sample of the collection … but the bug-eyed family in the middle is the star exhibit…

Alongside the exhibition, a multi-part silent film of Berlin in the 1920s was playing. I watched about 20 minutes of it, and could only think .. 1920? those men could be my grandfather, and oh! how different the world was…

Tonight, back to the Tipi .. the tent-theatre .. to see (is this an anomaly?) a German-language version of the musical Cabaret …
Oh yes, my Berlin is well and truly back on wheels and, as September looms, my dance card is filling rapidly with opera, with theatre premieres, with coffee dates, lunches and events, the colourful memories of which I shall be able to live on for many a quiet country month ..

I shall enjoy Berlin in the summer, I just sha’n’t get involved.
And next time I come here, I shall, I think, avoid August. I don’t ever want to live another weekend like that one I just lived…

ESPANA ... one hundred points!

2010-08-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

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It is summer in Berlin. Everywhere you look, vast bunches of sunflowers symbolise the fact … and I am riding high on Berlin in summer.
So far, it’s been largely Picknicks at number 32, catching up with those friends who aren’t out of town for the holidays: on Friday Kevin and sister Sandra called by, and nephew Maxime got his first taste of Châteauneuf du Pape (‘its never too early’), and Saturday, my dear friend Ollie came and we chatted and drowned ourselves in bubbly way, way past the witching hour and my usual bedtime. On Saturday Paul returned bearing the almost final cut of the CD he has been working on, and no32 became a sound bowl as we listened to the recording which we hope will take Montmorensy, his name and work, to the millions. I am quite staggered with what he has done and, even though I have heard all the material before, I was overwhelmed by the effect of hearing it en dazzling bloc. God, Gänzl, you most absolutely can spot talent!

Off to Winterfeldplatz market to buy flowers for my room, to order some more of the delicious hand-made visiting cards I discovered here in April, to investigate the charcuterie and the cheeses and all the other goodies. Tragic, that this market is only here one and a half days a week: if it were permanent I’d be moving into this street for good! Which I even may, yet…

Monday 9 August. I’ve been here a week. And – even though PGB and Kevin are away -- the planning of my summer is well under way. It is going to be a summer of music. It is about time that music found its way back into my life, after those years in the sad wilderness, and I have found myself a very darling Dante (or did Virgil do the leading?) to guide me …
As we nibbled our picknick, after the Montmorensy concert, last week, Paul and I began to plan 'summer music in Berlin’. Well, the bollard outside this flat advertises the Young Euro Classic series of orchestral concerts at the Berlin Konzerthaus. Sounded good, so we pulled up the programmes on the web. Lots of fun stuff, lots of new music, but the concert that leaped out at us was the one to be given by the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España. And it just happened to be on Monday night. It also happened – hey! Kurt the Victorian – to be made up entirely of twentieth-century music.
So this evening, off we set. A little visit to the record store for some educational material – four Händel oratorios and a disc of Janácek piano music. Then to the delightful Café Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt for a pair of delicious boiled white sausages (me) and a heap of mountain cheese (Paul). And, finally, the Konzerthaus.

The Konzerthaus still has the old ‘Tageskasse’ and ‘Abendkasse’ system (2 euros cheaper for ‘standby’ tickets with no 'booking fee'), but I don’t know why they bother. The first thing that is blazingly obvious when, having negotiated the horde of little men in red bowties who infest every corner of the magnificent Konzerthaus, doing nothing but look bored, we entered the top tier of the salle (only seats available, 17 euros), was that there was no money in the house. It was assiduously and utterly papered with other young musicians and with members of the local Spanish community. But, as Paul remarked, if you are going to have paper, have Spanish paper: this audience gave the concert a howlingly enthusiastic reception. Which, I am here to say, it absolutely deserved.
However, when paying customers end up in the slips, gazing down on the tell-tale gaps in the papered stalls, it does give an unfortunate aura of unprofessionalism. Some sponsor is doubtless paying the whole jaunt for the young Spaniards.
The air of unprofessionalism, alas, continued a wee bit longer, for after a wholly splendid opening with a specially-written brass fanfare (my second this year!) by Manfred Trojahn, echoing down on us excitingly from the organ loft, we were obliged to suffer twelve and a half minutes of self-indulgent chatter from a certain Herr Lange of the Komische Oper, 'godfather' for the evening. Having quite destroyed the atmosphere created by the fanfare with his banal football jokes, he finally got off and the music was .. at past 20h15 already .. actually able to start. But it turned out to be worth the waiting for.

The first piece on the programme was Cristóbal Halffter’s Tiento del primer tono y batalla imperial which, as far as I could work out from the programme (1 euro and carelessly misprinted), is based on 15th and 16th-century Spanish music. It is, however, ‘retold’ here in a thoroughly modern style. I fell utterly, enthusiastically and totally for this picture-piece with its screamingly vibrant clashes between ancient and modern. I have never heard a piece of music which portrays the conflict of man with man so searingly. And the young orchestra flung themselves into its strident and violent emotions with the most amazing vigour and with evident enjoyment.
And now, I was delighted to be up in the slips, peering down over the orchestra, able to watch every soloist and section … unable to take my eyes from the young lady on the contra-bassoon, the much-used timpaniste, or the beautiful-toned horn player …
How to follow such an evident success? Why, with Strauss’s Don Juan. And they quite simply did it again. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this piece played with such warmth and vivacity. ‘This is what orchestras were invented for’ ran irreverently through my head… ‘This is the concert of my life’.
It probably is. Though the second part could never hope to equal that dazzling first. A group of songs by Xavier Montsalvatge, sung by an attractive mezzo, Magdalena Llamas, showed up for the first and only time the disadvantage of our seats. The lady played solely to the radio mike and the front rows: we saw little and heard not much more of what seemed to be an unexceptional group of rather ‘film-musik 1945’ songs, of which a pretty lullaby made most effect. The stalls, I need to record, went mad for the singer. The slips, of course, couldn’t.
And so to the final item on the bill: Petruschka. I’m not sure quite why – everything else had had a Spanish connection. Also it was the orchestral suite manufactured from the ballet music, rather than the real thing, so I – who know only the ballet – did get rather confused. The thing seems rather shapeless without its story and its visuals. But maybe this is part of my learning curve. What Petruschka did do, was allow the whole panoply of young principals each to have her or his moment, and in that it was well chosen, for each and every one of them – especially the wind players, and a remarkable set of horns and cornets – took that moment skilfully and gleefully.

Gleefully: that is what made this concert so special. The young players were so evidently having a most wonderful time making music together, and their joy was wholly infectious. Since the programme chosen was (mostly) marvellous, as well, the result was an evening of the most enjoyable music imaginable.
The audience (and the orchestra!) stamped and cheered and applauded fit to bust at the concert’s end, leading to first an encore with a rather common march, and then – o wise judgement – a repeat of the second part of that wonderful ‘klingendes’ Halffter piece. What a note to go out on!

They almost didn’t. In the dreadful habit of this part of the world, the band lingered for just one too many a round of applause, one too many set of bows, and the thrilled atmosphere began to sag as half the audience wandered from the auditorium. But then, in a wonderful finale, the players each hugged his or her neighbour and put a splendid Punkt to the proceedings, a fullstop to a wonderful musical night.
Paul and I proceeded back to the Augustiner for a cold beer, and of course a look to see what other joys this Festival may hold for us – between his music-making and my social and writing schedule – in the days to come…
I wonder if I can make sure that Mr Lange’s peroration isn’t a nightly affair. I wonder if I can get on the ‘paper’ list for Austria or Bulgaria or Azerbaijan. Actually, unless there is a singer, I ... a life long habitué of Row G in the stalls ... might prefer to climb again to the slips ..
Gracious. Music is coming back to me .. I can feel it … I went home on the U2 to Nollendorfplatz singing the tenor aria from the Rossini Stabat Mater! Well, Halffter is a little tricky to hum…
So thank you Spain, thank you Konzerthaus, thank you my Magister Paul ... I think I’m on the road back!

Museums, Musicians and More...

2010-08-05T02:54:00.000-07:00

or Protégés and Picknicks

So, my bags are unpacked, my clothes stored away, Kaiser’s supermarket on the Nollendorfplatz has been raided -- my cupboards are stocked, the wine-racks o’erflowing – and the No 32 Picknick Sommer Series is under way!

My first Berlin ‘appointment’, however, was at a Museum. I have related already how Kevin (‘Dr Kevin Clarke’ to the uninitiated) has – under the auspices of the Berlin Schwule Museum (Gay Museum) -- been busy through the spring organising an important exhibition, ‘Glitter and be Gay’ (ah! how Mr Sondheim’s phrase has installed itself in the English language), around the life and career of director Erik Charell and the largely homosexual set of collaborators with whom he worked in revue, Operette and film in the 1920s and 1930s.

Charell, for those of you who don’t know, is internationally celebrated as the original conceiver and director of the exceptionally famous Operette Im weissen Rössl (White Horse Inn) and of the hit musical film Der Kongress tanzt. In Berlin, however, he has a wider claim to fame, having mounted here first a series of spectacular revues, and then another of equally spectacular and sometimes idiosyncratic Operetten, including versions of The Mikado and Die lustige Witwe as well as the Strauss pasticcio Casanova before his apotheosis with White Horse Inn.
Jewish and homosexual, his career was brusquely interrupted by the rise of Nazism, and he left Germany to continue on to London, New York and Hollywood. He did not have the same success there – his trademark, as Kevin explains, had been to introduce the ‘Ziegfeld brand’ of glitz and glamour to the Berlin theatre, and that could scarcely re-export. However, an attempt at a black musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Louis Armstrong starred, on Broadway, proved that he had imagination and enterprise of his own.

I have never been – as I admitted thoroughly in my opening to Kevin’s anthology on homosexuality and Operette, also entitled Glitter and be Gay – a particular fan of spectacular theatre. I’ve always preferred to listen first and look (much) later. In fact, I have quite an aversion to ostrich feathers and spangles, vast chorus lines and vaster scenery. Nor do I care for jazzed-up and remade versions of the great shows of the past. As a result, apart from Im weissen Rössl – now recognised correctly as a masterpiece of the musical theatre – I have never paid too much attention or consideration to the work of Charell and his teams. Kevin has gently berated me, over the years, for my predilections, and today he put forward his most convincing argument yet.

The exhibition.

It is a first-class exhibition. A model of the genre. Done in a wholly scholarly way, yet a feast for the eye as well as for the historian’s brain. The two large rooms of material are laid out in chronological order, the first dealing with Charell’s early career – as a dancer, and then in revue and Operette, mostly notably at the Grosses Schauspielhaus (a wonderful scale model of the famous theatre is on show)

There is a welter of photographs which I have never seen before, there are posters, music sheets and costume designs – all the paraphenialia and ephemera of the theatre and its creators – everything explained (alas! in German! but my tour guide translated) in a series of precise and historically correct pink panels.
Amongst my favourite items, were some delicious costume designs for the Schauspielhaus version of Der liebe Augustin and a splendid portrait of Rössl composer Ralph Benatzky.

Amongst the vast variety of material from various Rössl productions – stage versions from round the world, and the several film versions – I particularly liked this photo of the making of one early black-and-white movie. I’ve no idea who this Giesecke is, but he looks quite marvellous. Alas, trying to photograph glassed photographs is not easy: apologies for the quality, but I love the subject.

The second room carries on the tale to the end of Charell’s career, and a particularly interesting wall features photographs and biographies of his collaborators. How splendid, especially, to see the handsome Hans Müller and his partner .. I had no idea what he looked like, nor anything about him, he has always been just a name on a playscript. The author of Rössl deserves surely to be better know?

In sum, a really outstanding exhibition. I not only enjoyed it, it also taught me – I who am supposed to know everything – and informed me, and helped me understand rather more of the nature of this man and his work. And that, surely, is the double aim of any good exhibition. To please, and at the same time to educate.
Kevin, my dear ex-protégé, now grown great: I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart.

FROM ONE PROTÉGÉ TO THE NEXT

Home I rumbled (in spite of the fact that U-Bahn Line One has been inconsiderately closed for repairs for the summer), to prepare for the evening and the opening of my Picknick season. The No 32 Picknicks are mostly tête-a-tête affairs – and the first five nights are already ‘cast’! – because my hearing problem goes blurringly into overdrive in anything resembling a group. So it’s finger food – salmon, ham, melon, cheeses, salamis, olives, cornichons etc -- and champagne a deux! Chuckle, given that this is Berlin and the Nollendorfstrasse, an eyebrow or two may be raised as a different young gentleman or lady climbs my stairs alone and punctually each evening at six or seven – Paul, Kevin, Ollie, Amélie, Horst, the other Paul …

Now if you go back in this blog to May last year, you will read my stunned review of a concert given at the Bar Jeder Vernunft by a young Australian calling himself Montmorensy. It is what may be called an unmitigated rave. And I guess you could say that I quite simply fell in love (in the nicest possible way) that night with … well, his real name is Paul.

We met again, briefly, when I was in Berlin this April, and I expressed my determination to do anything that I might be able (and I am not quite sure, given my time out of showbiz, just how much that is) to encourage and help him on his way to Real Success. For if there is any justice in the musical world (OK, I know there often isn’t) this young man simply has to make a mark..
And I want to be there in the wings to see it and share it.
Am I soft in the head? I who already escaped from the music world … ?
I can’t help it. I do love a protégé. Folk helped me to get where I have, now, in my ummm 'middle-age', it's my turn to do the helping. Anyway, I now have my protégé (I actually have two, the other will make his entry in due course, when he comes back from tramping through Croatia). A protégé and a purpose. Which is decidedly, I think, healthy.
So Paul and I picknicked, chatted, caught up, planned and flung tales and ideas joyously around for three and a half hours ... before he headed for the U6 (not closed) and I for a weary old man’s pillow! Boy! Keeping up with the young …
So, the Series of 2010 has opened splendidly… and now I’m off to Kaiser’s to re-fill the fridge .. for the next Picknick may be as early as .. this evening!
Hello to Berlin!

Back in Berlin!

2010-08-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I’m back! I back, and installed once again in my delicious little apartment at the no32 Nollendorfstrasse which, the way things are going, is going to end up as eventful and famous as the ‘Sally Bowles house’ just down the same street, which was the one-time Berlin home of Christopher Isherwood.
Getting to Berlin was a bit of a trial, mainly because, not having done said trip before I left enormous time buffers between the various stages (car-train-ferry-minicab-plane-taxi). So I spent 1 ½ hours awaiting my minicab on the pavement outside Portsmouth Station (where Sean of A1-Sunset Cabs, came valiantly to my rescue) …

I spent five hours at Heathrow, where everything has changed since I was last there, but which was surprisingly less ghastly (going out!) than I feared. Mind you, four of those hours were passed in the pub, getting rid of my English small change. Tegel airport was, as ever, an efficient delight – I shall go into mourning if they close it down! – as was the poor taxidriver who buzzed me to Kevin’s house and gave me – twice! – too much change.
A reunion with most of the Clarke family, a night on Kevin’s couch, and the next afternoon, southwards to the Nollendorfplatz, to meet my ‘landlord’, Andrew, and gather up the keys to my Berlin home. And the sun shone, and it was as lovely as ever and .. well here I am! (No photo until I can shop for flowers!) And into action!

I have a strong feeling -- I do hope I am right! -- that I am going to have a very happy time here!

The Isle of Wight: Over and Out

2010-07-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

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My days in Wight have been wittering away, one by one … and very soon my stay here will be done. Tomorrow, I’ll be on my way back to Berlin.
To be truthful, I haven’t paced myself very well during my stay here. Equipped with that pseudo-youthful vigour that I seem somehow to have discovered in myself this year, I hurled myself into action from my first days on the island – dining, wining, gallivanting, socialising and exploring – and once I began writing my daily pieces for the VentnorBlog, the tempo only increased. And, after six Wightish weeks, gentle signs of Kurt Implosion started to show. Time to slow down!
But ‘slow’ doesn’t mean ‘stop’! So I do have a few more restaurants, a few more dinners and lunches, a few more outings to add to my score for July, from Quarr to Totland – one end of the island to the other.
The visit to Totland was a lunch out with Richard, a new VB pal. I said ‘pick a place’ and he opted for the High Down Inn, way out beyond Dimbola, in a part of the island I had never penetrated. Excellent! The Inn – which has a somewhat colourful and drug-stained past history -- turned out to be a very jolly place indeed. Properly pubby, not too big, light and comfy, carpark not coachpark, ale from the barrel. Nice. We had an agreeable ‘pub lunch’ – having seen the world-record doorstep sandwiches, I had a neat smoked mackerel with my shandy – and a good time was had by all. I’d pop in there for a quick one any time.

I have been told for a long time that I, who love Quarr Abbey so, ought to go there to hear the monks sing vespers. So when my friend Gilly said she would like to go too, it seemed the good moment. Red Fred was called into action and off we trekked. Quarr was looking its loveliest in the semi-dusk..
What did I expect to hear? As a heathen, I suppose I didn’t know what Benedictine monks do for vespers. But somehow I expected singing. Alas, I didn’t get it. If this is what is called ‘plainsong’, then rightly so. It is very plain indeed. Most of the time on one note. Unfortunately, not all of the seven and a half mostly elderly monks performing seemed to agree on quite what that note was. Nor on the timing. Nor when to come in together. And, well, I have an MA (Hons) in Latin, and I had the text in front of me … I could barely distinguish a word. It sounded like an unenthusiastic washing list. An out-of-tune-and-time washing list.
Benedictine vespers are not for me. But Quarr Abbey is. Once again it moved me hugely. And, as the sun sank behind the spire, I snapped it one last time before leaving …

Quarr day was a big day, for on our return I dined on luscious, plump local plaice with Gilly and Chris at Jasmine Cottage. And before our jaunt, I had lunched with Simon and Sal, the owners of VentnorBlog at their palazzo in Medina Road. I didn’t take a photo, so here’s one taken a few days earlier, when I introduced them to what every Wightman and WIghtwoman should know: the Royal Hotel’s famous Gallybagger soufflé!

I have a wonderful souvenir of my visit to Medina Road, and of my stint as ‘boy reporter’ on the VentnorBlog. Simon and Sal manufactured me two delicious commemorative tiles to take back to Gerolstein. Oddly enough, they are just the right size to take a wine glass..

The round of goodbyes continued, but my ‘last lunch’ had to be saved for the Bay Grill. I’d intended to visit Ryan Burr’s resto regularly after my first fab feed there, but geography and my ‘indisposition’ meant I’d never even got back once. So, yesterday, off I set. I arrived well and truly early, so as to have time for a nice long chat with Ryan and his team before things got too busy, the ‘star’ cooked me my favourite chicken dish with his own fair hands .. and yes! it was just as good second time around! ... and he even let me try his Raybans. Well, every star needs them these days, yes? He does the sulphurous look that goes with them much better than I..

My last evening was saved for my friend Debby. She’s had an ‘indisposition’ of her own, as well as being occupied running three businesses and the town of Ventnor, so we’ve missed each other quite a lot. So where did we go? To the Hermitage. The Hermitage is 500 metres from my ‘home’. It’s the original early-19th century mansion that throned over all the lands round here, and its now an hotel. Very recently, Debby’s friends Ian and Jo have taken over the day-to-day running of the place so .. why not?

I could write a whole article on this place. The building is lovely, the grounds are lovely, the lounge was comfy and the dining room delightful. With very little expense and effort (and some is sorely needed) this could be an absolute top-class luxury small hotel (10 rooms). At the moment, it falls somewhere in a stylistic and characterful no-man’s land. Everything is very pleasant (especially my definitely home-made soup!), but all I could see .. all I could think .. was what it could be. Heck, give me (and Mr Burr?) a free hand here for a bit and .. wow! the possibilities are huge.
An impossible rumour says the owner thinks to install a helipad. He’d be mad. He hasn’t got (yet) a place that helicopter-style people would find even nearly up to the mark. Spend the helipad money on getting The Hermitage right, sir … and then … then invite me down from my luxurious suite next-door.

So, come the morrow, I’m off. Down to Shanklin to return Red Fred. The little train to Ryde, and the FastCat to Portsmouth, where an Airport Transfer minicab (55 quid) awaits to take me to Heathrow. At 5pm, I fly by British Midland (I wonder if they can get everything right this time) to Tegel, Berlin .. sigh .. by the time I roll in to Kevin’s flat, it will be some 14 hours from Hermitage Court Farm …
Such is the traveller’s life.

Kenny Ball and Me.

2010-07-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

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I’ve talked on the air, and written here, there and everywhere, about what seems to be considered (although I don’t quite see it that way) My Fabulous Life, rather a lot over the past twenty years or so. In English and once, marvellously, at great length in French. I’ve been a good fellow, and I’ve always told only the truth. And I also haven’t spilled any of the beans that I have in the depths of my pockets about others with lives very much more fabulous than mine … although, as an historian, maybe I owe it to posterity to empty my pockets one day.
The latest, and one of the most enjoyable – for me – of these broadcasts was recorded this week, right here in my suite at Hermitage Court Farm, Isle of Wight. Local ‘Interviewer to the Stars’, John Hannam – host of Britain’s longest-running radio chat show, on 107FM – turned up with his portable studio, and we spent a very merry hour and more putting down a programme which will air … maybe fortunately ... after I have left the island.

Why was it one of the most enjoyable? Because you so rarely meet an interviewer who has so thoroughly done his homework, who doesn’t ask such foolish and inapposite questions that you have to twist things round frantically to get the interview back on sensible wheels, who is self-effacing to precisely the right degree, so that it is his guest, rather than he, who ‘shines’ … I’ve met far too many of the other kind of interviewer in my life, not to appreciate a consummate professional when I meet one.

When we were done, I signed my name in the Guest Book that John has kept through the twenty years of his show. The last name there inscribed was that of actress Harriet Walter. Further back appear such memorable men and women as Charlton Heston, Stirling Moss, John Mills, Alan Rickman, Anne Shelton, Jeremy Irons, Cliff Richard, Michael York, Vera Lynn … and as we chatted, after the recording, there came a call arranging his next appointment. With Kenny Ball.
Oh, heck, thirty-five years ago, I was the ‘boy from the office’ when Harold and Ian presented Kenny Ball at the top of the bill in Sunday Concerts at the Blackpool Winter Gardens. It makes you want to blush.
Or laugh out loud.
But, hey, if other people think my life has been fabulous enough that they want to hear me talk about it, that’s fine by me. Me, I know just how fabulous it has been.

PS The famous forty-minute French interview actually still exists! In these days of the World Wide Web, it has been enshrined on the website of Paris’s Canal Académie, and leaps up before me every time I google myself to make sure that I am still alive!

The Return of Elena

2010-07-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

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The story of my beautiful Elena ... no, not story, ‘saga’ … has, during the four and a half years since I brought her home from my first visit to the yearling sales, been what can only be called colourful, and her adventures and misadventures filled many a page of this blog, up till the day that she finally made it to the races, and then, earlier this year, at the age of five and at only her seventh raceday start, scored her maiden victory at Addington.
However, in four subsequent starts, she behaved rather badly at the start and, as a result, she was listed as ‘unruly’, and condemned to start from the back row in her races.
We puzzled over her misbehaviour. In her first trials, she had gone away securely from a standing start: now she was being difficult from the theoretically ‘easier’ mobile gate. Gear changes didn’t see to help. So Wendy decided on ‘back to basics’. Elena was put out to spell and, a few weeks ago, she went back to the trials .. back where she started out. The standing start. And she did it. Two ‘safe’ runs, and if she was beaten 15 lengths ... well the horse in front was a Derby horse and a multiple high-class winner.

17 July was our local Rangiora raceday, and Wendy – why not? – decided to enter Elena. She was probably not ready to run anywhere near her best, but she needed practice ... this was to be her first raceday start from a stand. So why not? Still, one way and another, I was barely confident, and the betting public agreed. In a fourteen horse field, Elena went out … fourteenth favourite!
Things began well. Gavin (Smith) got her away nicely, although her draw meant that, when they settled she was at the rear of the field. The pace, however, wasn’t too hot, and when Paul Borcoskie chose a wise moment to take his horse round the field, Gav latched on behind. My eyes boggled. Look at Lena! Round she swept, and when threatened with being left three wide outside the favourite and leader, she and Gav simply went straight on and, as they hit that last hectometres, into the lead. Into the straight she even skipped a length or two clear .. could this be another 100-1 winner for Wendy?
Well, not quite. In the very last metres her condition – unsurprisingly – gave out, and she was pinned back, a length and a bit back, into third. But a decidedly impressive third.

Stoked owner and trainer! One on each side of the world…

Well, if Elena can keep on running like that, this could be a merry season! I hope she can. We know she can do it – Wendy and I have always had faith in her, even through the darkest days of her medical problems – but there were moments when I think we were the only ones. Were we right? The next months should tell. Fingers crossed.

Lasagna fantastica!

2010-07-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

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A BONZER TIME AT THE BONCHURCH INN

After the Help Beyond the Call of Duty rendered me the other day, in my vehicular distress, by the lads of the Medina Monarch, I reckoned I owed these Jolly Young Watermen a shout. Pick your place, I said. And so, last night, Matt, Ian, friend Carole and I headed for the Bonchurch Inn. ‘You’ll like it’ said Matt in a tone of voice that showed that he wasn’t wholly sure. Why wasn’t he sure?, I wondered. I’m a Very Open-Minded Person. As long as the food’s good, the drink’s good, the service is good, the atmosphere is good..
As soon as we walked through the door any doubt on the last count blew away. Triple Yes! A Proper Pub. With, good grief, barrels of ale! So who cares if they don’t have Guinness on tap, or if mine host admits shamefully to having drunk the entire stock of Chardonnay himself: a pint of Best from the barrel will do me splendidly.

A cosy table in a corner, and a menu which I don’t even open, because Il Signor Besozzi (for, yes, there is an ancient Italian influence here) is telling us what he’s cooked today. Cannelloni spinaci .. oh yes! Or, what? Lasagne with chicken livers and chorizos .. unheard of. Impossible. Who dreamed that up? This creation simply has to be tried.
Salad? No. I explain my allergy to lettuce. But Carole is having salad, so one comes anyway. And Il Signor presents me with a magnifying glass, so I can check it for lettuce. I almost choke with chuckles on my second pint of Best. Oh, what fun eating out can be!
Even better than fun, of course, is good food. And I can tell you the Lasagna Fantastica is good, good, marvellously good food. I almost wept that the helping was so enormous that even with the help of the third pint of Best, I had to leave too much of it on my plate. Next time I shall ask for a Pensioner’s Portion.

Eating done, I had no wish to leave this merry place, even though it was dangerously near my usual bedtime, and so a fourth pint of Best was called for …
Matt need not have worried. One can love Tio Pepe and soufflé, as served by the suave Buggy at the Royal Hotel, and love Lasagna Fantastica and a barrel of best bitter in a cosy pub just as well. I know one can, because I do.
My evening at the Bonchurch Inn was a total success. The food was grand, the drink was grand, the room is grand, Mine host Adrian is veritably ‘a host in himself’, and his supporting cast help keep the atmosphere humming merrily.

What could one ask for more? The day when I whinged about having nowhere to eat in Ventnor is a century away.

PS I’m told that ‘Jolly Young Waterman’ won’t ring a bell in the 21st century. It’s the title of a very famous old show song, the sort of thing that most of my books are about. Using C19th expressions has almost got me into trouble in recent days. Twice, words I’ve used have had to be edited because the 21st century has given them a new blue meaning of which I wot not. So I can’t say nonce’ anymore, and I can’t say ‘hummer’ (see Urban Dictionary).
PPS ‘Bonzer’ is New Zealandish for ‘terrific’

In Pursuit of a Picnic

2010-07-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

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Sunday evening. And I’m starting to feel just a bit worn and torn with all this lunching and dining and zooming around the Island. I’ll have a couple of quiet days ‘in’, with just picnics on my hilltop.
No.
Monday, young Mr Ryan Burr had an evening off, so I zoomed away in his dashing coupé – occupying for the nonce the seat usually, doubtless, occupied by the latest blonde – for a splendid evening out. Where does one go with the Rising Young Chef of the place? To the Established Star Chef, of course. So, once more, back to the Royal Hotel and ... well, I don’t need to tell you.

Tuesday I shut my ears to all offers and ideas, and around midday snuck quietly and quickly forth to gather picnic materials for the evening. I returned home four hours later. I’d got my picnic, but I’d also got sidetracked. Because I went shopping at Farmer Jack’s. And, since I was at Arreton – this time well-populated with coaches and many more than 77 cars -- I naturally popped into the Daughter for a pint, and couldn’t resist a return to the ‘machines’.
Well, I was wrong – most of them are post-Victorian – but hey! most of them are also in working order. And were they working! Happy punters, equipped with handsful of old pennies, crowded the two rooms, merrily playing machines that are ten times more fun that the flashing-light gizmos of today. I felt I was back in the beloved Blackpool of my twenties! Brilliant.
I should have put a penny into ‘The French Execution’, which I assume is – behind its secret doors -- a gory guillotine exhibition, I should have tried ‘The Drunkard’s Dream’ and watched the room go round, or ‘The Spiritualist Room’. I wonder what happens there. I am too modest, of course, for ‘The Peeping Butler’ (‘adults only’).

From the machines, I continued on, this time, to the Shipwreck Museum: a splendid collection of maritime memorabilia – even a Feejee Mermaid! -- put together over half a century by Mr Martin Woodward, and supplemented by all sorts of exhibitions of rural machinery and tools. I was a bit alarmed to see the tractor I still use on my farm classed as an antique, and several of the instruments in the ancient forge also looked all too familiar, as did the heap of rusting horseshoes, which gave me just a twinge of ‘homesickness’.

I reckon personal collections always make the best small museums, and such museums – from Dimbola to Brightstone to Arreton – the Island seems to have a fill of.

Before I knew it, more than two hours had gone by. I don’t spend two hours in the Louvre. And I don’t spend ten minutes around ‘the pokies’. Two hours and I hadn’t bought a single picnickable item. I hastened on to Farmer Jack’s.

So here I am at Farmer Jack’s. Nice cheese counter, with familiar French cheeses, but for once I’m not buying French. While I’m here, I’m strictly on ‘local’. Alas, there is no such thing as a local saucisse (although the lady behind the counter tells me it’s been tried), so in that department I have to go foreign.
A rather original looking and slightly floppy cucumber. Heavens, these days a little cucumber costs a pound. It’s a while since I veggie shopped in England. They were 20p in those days.
I’ve been told that they make nice sausages here. None in the cabinet, but the lads are on the ball, and I get sausages made for me, while I wait.
Down to the bakery for some rolls, and – are those cheese straws! .. my picnic is looking OK. However, Farmer Jack, for all his delights, doesn’t do alcoholic beverages so, before I head on home, a small detour is needed. I shall pop quickly down to the Godshill Cider shop and grab some of their ginger beer and cider.

I realised, as soon as I turned into the High Street, that I’d miscalculated. And there was no turning back. If Arreton was buzzing, Godshill was shrieking with activity. The threatening thatch towered over Fred and I, the thronged tearooms tentacled towards us, cavalcades of coaches promised simply to crush us, and people! People wandered unheedingly down the road as if it were a walkway, or simply loitered chattily in front of my moving bumper ... I headed cravenly for the safety of the nice big (free) carpark and … I couldn’t get in. A huge blue bus was stuck in the exit. Traffic piled. Cars wiggled hopelessly. I couldn’t. The bus was in my face and another car two inches behind me.
When finally I managed to get into the parking area, it was full and customers were cruising for a spot. Too much. I would go round and out, I would flee this terrifying place. But a gap opened and in I dashed.

Finally, I arrived at Godshill Cider, and pried my way in. Push and shove, I got to the relevant shelves and loaded my basket with as much as I could carry. ‘Is it always like this?’ I puffed to the lass who took my money. ‘Oh, its busier in the summer’. ‘But this is the summer’. She shook her head as she put my bottles into a carton, ‘next month’.
I shall be in Berlin next month. I’m sure there will be less people, and certainly less coaches, and probably even less money changing hands per square centimetre, there.

Getting out of Godshill’s nice big free carpark was as crazy as getting in. Getting out of the village, similarly. Some of those tea-takers must surely have a death wish. Why did I get the feeling that, if they were squashed, the next squad of tea-takers would just walk unseeingly over them?
But I had my picnic, and enough in reserve that I sha’n’t have to go back too soon.
When I do, I shall do it at dawn, before the tearooms are stirring and while the coaches still sleep ... and never, but never, in the month of August!

I am, however, happy to say that it was all worth it. I had a splendid picnic and the delicious, cold Godshill cider just topped it off nicely. But ..

Until when the Godshill bypass?
Or a ten-story parking building?

The Merstone Warning

2010-07-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

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Road signs were surely invented to tell us which way to go to get where we want to be.
But then the wheel was invented, and we got road signs telling us how fast to drive. Or, rather, nor to drive.
The Americans have taken all this to extreme, of course, and these ‘basic’ signs have got drowned amongst pointers to Dolly‘s One-Hour Day Motel and Bert’s Beer Parlour and advertisements for exceptionally fast food and cars. But, over here, we can still – most of the time – get the instructive and necessary messages that road signs deliver.

This isn’t to say that they can’t sometimes be a bit confusing. I came upon one signpost the other day, in the no-mans land between the Military Road and Shorwell, which seemed to have got turned round a bit, and I ended up in a field. And sometimes I forget, amongst the positive plethora of speed signs, whether it was a 30-40-40-30 or a 40-40-30-40 I last passed. Or what I have been de-restricted from/to.

The third principal variety of road signs is the Warnings. Watch out for low flying cows, and so forth. The Island does pretty well with interesting ones: I’ve been warned against badgers crossing and, for heaven’s sake, red squirrels crossing. But my favourite Wightish sign is in the village of Merstone.
I like it because it is quietly witty, original, and very much to the point.

You don’t see too many folk speeding past the thirty (it used to be thirty-one, I wonder what happened) driveways of Merstone, and every time I see this sign my knee-jerk reaction is to look at my speedo.
I reckon the villagers should get together and shout themselves a nice painted version of this sign. It can go down in road history as ‘the Merstone warning’.

Kurt the Travel and Food Writer becomes Quotable!

2010-07-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. It's a seriously 'selective' quote. In fact one which makes me say something rather different to what I did. But that's show biz. Exactly like show biz: if you have ever read the 'quotes' outside a theatre!
Chuckle, you can see why they didn't insert a link (as they should have), but I shall insert one to them .. and you can read what I really wrote below!

http://www.redfunnel.co.uk/why-choose-us/isle-of-wight-news/isle-of-wight-holidays/critic-praises-isle-of-wight-hotel/19882318

The Gallybagger Soufflé

2010-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

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Today, to my enormous surprise, I found myself accused on the Internet of, by my recent restaurant reviews, ‘making the Gallybagger soufflé world famous’.

I scratched my head, and then did what any man would do in such a circumstance: I Googled the phrase. Sure enough, up it came ... a meagre eight hits, and four of them were me! My various gluttonous rave notices (see below) of the soufflés made, with the Isle of Wight’s very own to-die-for cheese, and served on a bed of Waldorf salad, by Chef Alan Staley at Ventnor’s Royal Hotel.

Here was I thinking that I was partaking of what was surely a familiar Wightish food treat – like toheroas in New Zealand or caviar in St Petersburg – and I find that I am a veritable discoverer. A culinary Captain Cook! A torchbearer!

Well, light that torch. And I’ll say it one more time. If you are a first-class foodie, don’t dare die without experiencing this ..

You will, of course – as I explained when I visited the farm where Gallybagger cheese is made – have to come to the Isle of Wight for the experience. For Gallybagger is what would, I suppose, in this day and age be comically called a ‘boutique’ cheese. A Limited Edition. Not enough of it is produced to supply the rest of the world. But, happily, there is enough to supply the Royal Hotel..

whither, it just so happens, I am heading in two and a half hours, for a glass of chilled tio pepe in the Conservatory, a little gaspacho with Ventnor Bay crab and avocado, a nice (shared) bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape and, need I say it, my fix of the famous soufflé.

I shall take my camera, and illustrate subsequently …. ☺

PS I did

I'M AFLOAT

2010-07-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

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I’M AFLOAT!
Kurt goes cruising on the very merry Monarch

I’m a sort of a sea dog. I’ve spent several years of my colourful life sailing on at least seven seas – two years at a stretch when I was young, several months a year recently. Until this year, when the cargo ships I used for my travels went off to be made into teaspoons in Taiwan, leaving me at the mercy of Airlines. So when VB brought me a message from an old salt named Matt to come and take a turn down the Medina from Newport on the paddle-steamer ‘Monarch’, I signed up with alacrity. A nice, quiet hour, idling uneventfully on the river on a vintage steamer … what better way to spend a peaceful Sunday? Hah!

The P S Monarch is moored at Newport Harbour. I couldn’t see quite how Newport, being in the middle of the island, could have a Harbour, nor did I know how to find it, but Red Fred and I have conquered Skinner’s Lane, so we set intrepidly out, mastered the Nameless Horror and suddenly found ourselves in the ghastly embrace of a one-way system. So I stopped. Is it illegal to stop in a one-way system? A couple of cars just passed me, but then the Wicked Witch of the West, with her camp dark glasses and her HPH plates, stopped at my back and simply hooted and hooted. My forefingers itched, but – reorientated -- I moved on, and seconds later there I was on the harbour. An absolute Dark Tower of Pay Parking Lots, all but one utterly empty. I won’t tell you where I parked (well, his Lordship wouldn’t need it on a Sunday) but I didn’t break my vow.

And there was the Monarch. What a ripping little lady! Down the river she paddled, towards me, every inch a dinky red-funnelled Duchess … but where was my seadog, with the parrot on his shoulder and the promised gin-bottle in his hand? All I could see was two teenaged lads.

Well, there is no sea dog. You see how you can get tricked by your imagination and the Internet? And no parrot. But Matt and Ian gave me and my ten fellow-passengers, the jolliest cruise imaginable, down the river and back, and it is just as well that the threatened bottle of gin wasn’t there, for I am quite sure that, had it been, the whole thing would have turned into one helluva a party.
Ian explained to me the workings of the steam-engine, from which I retain mainly the words ‘an eight-foot flame…’, Matt explained his triple function from his place behind the wheel, from which I retain only the words ‘we would all blow up’, and in between there were lots of other bits much less didactic, and a good deal more fun, to listen to and enjoy, as the funnel joined in the jollity, and hooted steam and a shower of droplets over us …

All too soon, the merry ride was over—it was never an hour! – and, as we clambered ashore, I made a ghastly discovery. The Wicked Witch had had her revenge. She had sufficiently unnerved me, that I had locked my car with the keys still in the ignition! But Ian and Matt are not just marine engineers, cruise directors and lively lads, they are equal to even such dire emergencies as this. A mobile phone call (I guess I am going to have to get one of those things one day), some businesslike conversation, and in no more than ten minutes – yes! read my lips, ten minutes and on a Sunday, too – Darren, the AA Man pulled up on the Dock. Five minutes more and Red Fred was free.

The tempting sound of Sunday ice in a glass was mighty near, and the roar of a speedboat motor hovered, but I thought ‘enough is the day unto itself’, elderly gentlemen need to know their limits, and even if the valiant Darren on his dashing white steed has vanquished the curse of the Wicked Witch, time to get back to my nest on the downs. And my writing-machine …
Another time, guys?
Soon?

There is a sad coda to this story. Matt and Ian have other ‘serious’ careers to follow, so they will soon no longer be here to paddle the P S Monarch out of Newport Harbour. She is being put up for sale. Matt told me that they would dearly love her to stay on her ‘home waters’. So, any takers? Before the rest of the world catches on, and ‘the world’s smallest commercial paddle streamer’ gets snapped up by Disney or exported to Florida Keys.

And some more...

2010-07-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

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Gold Medal Grub
Kurt does a double-take to get his favourite lunch

Last week, when I listed my ‘Best Lunches So Far’ for you, I did kind of cheat by giving gold medal to somewhere I hadn’t actually eaten at lunchtime. So I thought, in the cause of journalistic honesty, that I better had, and I e-mailed the Royal Hotel to book myself in for a midday Gallybagger soufflé with music in the Conservatory. No go. The twinkling fingers of Mr Simon Fricker don’t do lunchtimes, just Friday and Saturday from 7pm. I would have to decide whether to compromise on my entertainment or my honesty.
To hell with honesty. I booked myself in for 6.45pm Friday night. Music night. I would simply pretend it was a late lunch.
I settled in my favourite corner of the ‘Brasserie’, Buggy, my perfect waiter (what language is that name?), fixed me up with a properly cold tio pepe, and Simon installed himself at the piano, to entertain me and me alone with his musical comedy melodies. I ordered a nice bottle of Châteauneuf de Pape ’07, toyed with the menu, and the ghastly truth hit. Soufflé was .. off!
I sipped my wine, stared at the menu and opted for a Waldorf salad with the other island cheese, and – what the hell – a simple sole. I was peeved: my plans were all awry. But I couldn’t stay peeved for long. The music rolled on, the wine rolled down, and I struck up a pleasant conversation with David and Jenny from Northampton, at the next table, over their gaspacho and Ventnor Crab. Must try that next visit.
Then, in no time, it was that time. Simon’s recital was done, and he joined us for a nightcap and – oh, dear – the bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape was empty. Had I …? Oh,dear. And Red Fred was waiting for me in the (free) carkpark.

But Good Angels were at hand. David and Jenny don’t do alcohol, and thus, our convivial evening done, I was just ever so slightly shamefacedly chauffeured up to the top of the Downs.
I bid my ‘angels’ goodbye and ... realisation dawned. I had taken to dinner my one and only jacket -- more as a prop than for propriety – and it was still hanging over the back of my chair at the Royal.
Chuckle. You know that ages old trick? When you want to be invited back somewhere, you ‘accidentally’ leave your gloves. Was my subconscious at work?
I mailed the Royal. Please would someone rescue my (blush) abandoned clothing. Certainly, and had I enjoyed my ‘soufflé and music’?, inquired the management. ‘Soufflé was off’, I groaned.
The response came swiftly back: ‘Anytime you want to come for the soufflé, just let us know, and Alan Staley will make sure you have one’. Well! That’s some sort of service!
My morning’s duties done, I duly popped into Red Fred and headed for Ventnor. ‘May I have my jacket, please, and would it be possible to say hello to Mr Staley?’. Chef Alan emerged from the kitchen. ‘I’m Kurt, the soufflé man’. ‘Any time’ he smiled. It was 12.30pm, and fate had opened its arms. ‘Er … such as, now?’ I ventured. ‘Why not’.
So there I was, once again, back at my table in the corner, tio pepe in hand … it was ‘take two’! … only the music was missing. And, naturally, the red wine. And here came my Gallybagger soufflé. Ahhhhhhhhh.
I’ll swear it was even better than it had been the first time.
And now I can truthfully report that this is Gänzl’s Gold Medal Lunch of the Isle of Wight.
Unless, of course, you can find me something better.

I VentnorBlog some more

2010-07-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

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LIVING AND LEARNING
Kurt finds that Life (and Wight) are full of surprises

When VB’s editors launched the call for lunching suggestions that put me on the happy track of the Bay Grill, the resulting post-bag also included a suggestion that I get in touch with Matt and Cat, the island’s resident food writers. Do I or don’t I?, I wondered, remembering days when one used to see musical-theatre critics Jack Tinker and John Barber seemingly ‘colluding’ in a corner in the interval at first nights.
But, hey, I’m gone in three more weeks, so where’s the harm?
Since the Chatfields can only get away from business briefly at lunchtime, and since I am true to my vow never to pay for parking while I am on the island, Matt nominated the Dairyman’s Daughter at Arreton Barns for our snack rendez-vous.
I frowned. My experience of Arreton to date had not been good. I had previously wasted good money visiting Arreton Manor (Manor?) on one of the most ghastly, rip-off ‘guided tours’ I can ever remember, and had avoided the Barns as ‘a collection of tourist shops’. As for the pub, it was – I was told – under the same management as the Spyglass Inn, which it is about time I admitted as being – along with Bembridge’s Crab and Lobster – one of the two top Horrible Megapub Experiences in all my Wightish eating-out. But I went. With just a little time to look around before our meeting.
As I turned into the Barns ‘complex’ the sign ‘coaches only’ flashed before my eyes and I quailed. What was I doing here? Surely this was about as un-me as could be imagined. Maybe Matt and Cat haven’t read my stuff, just as I haven’t read theirs.
I parked in a paddock (free!) and counted. There were no coaches, but there were seventy-seven cars. The place was surely buzzing. Tentatively, I peeked inside the first building. Hang on! This was no ‘tourist shop’. Brightly coloured fresh veg. Shelves of interesting bottles and jars. A splendid cheese counter with Gallybagger and Isle of Wight Blue.

A butchery, even! What was this? ‘Farmer Jack’s’? I’ll tell you what it is? It is a find! For me, anyway. I’m sure everyone on the island already knows that it’s a Food Store of One’s Dreams.
I longed to linger, but I needed to hurry on to take in the rest of the Barns. What else would I find? Well, there is nothing to top Farmer Jack’s, but there are some little craft places and a couple of shops full of Stuff That Nobody Needs (But Buys When on Holiday), and the pub isn’t even a megapub! It’s a thoroughly jolly, pleasing-kind-of-old hostelry, chockfull of ‘ancient’ decoration, with a cheerful barman and a nice big square with heaps of plastic (dammit) chairs and tables and big bright blue (argh! Foster’s!) brellas

I hastened on, through a dazzling and curiosity-arousing array of old artefacts and machines, piled fascinatingly, everywhere you look, to a ‘Shipwreck Museum’. I didn’t investigate the Ships, though, because I was struck absolutely dumb by the most amazing collection of Victorian slot-machines I have ever seen. I adore Victoriana, automata, and end-of-the-pier machinery. This I will go back for. This I have to see properly. What a gem! Where did it come from? Bembridge? Why in the hell did Bembridge let it go?

The Church. I must see the church. And above all, I must see the grave of Elizabeth Wallbridge, the ‘dairyman’s daughter’ of history, whom I have encountered in my writings on the 19th century. There it was, carefully restored and well cared-for… My Fuji flashed happily.

Almost time to get back for my rendez-vous. I looked around. There was the manor. Looking wan. But, next-door, was that a working farm? Surely not. And a cottage (ah, its ‘for sale’) ... but do real people live here? Goodness, there is much more to Arreton than I could ever have guessed. ‘Bunch of tourist shops, indeed!’.

I chickened out of food when I saw the menu (chips with everything, salad with everything) and settled on my ginger-beer shandy (Goodman’s and Britvic) and ‘home-made soup’. I’m not going to ask whose home. If all the soups that are ‘home-made’ on the island really are, and all the ‘fresh’ sea-food really is ‘of the day’, you will have no unemployment problem. Everyone over the age of 10 will be soup-making and fishing 24 hours a day.
Matt and Cat were more adventurous. Matt’s prawn bap simple bulged with seafood (alas, for me, bathed in a viscous mayonnaisey stuff) and I filched – just for reference’s sake -- one of Cat’s not too huge heap of chips. No sissy French fry, a nice butch, hot, English chip. Full marks.
Maybe, next time, I might try a chip or two. Because – surprise of my century – I’m coming back. I’m coming back mainly to spend more time in the museum, but I’ll undoubtedly stock my picnic cupboard at Farmer Jack, and I wouldn’t mind a cheerful pint and a chip or two (home-made?) at the Daughter, either.

Some days are full of surprises.

All the Threes... thirty three!

2010-07-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

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They say that troubles come in gaggles. But I’ve found, in horse-racing, that so do triumphs. Twice, during my dozen years in the game, my tiny team has burst into multiple winning action – that amazing fortnight in February 2000 when Davey Crockett won thrice, and Gwen once – and, later, when Rosmarino in Australia and Il Campione and Master Ado in New Zealand all hit winning form at once, adding largely to my Triumph Total, which at the beginning of this year stood, somewhat blocked, at twenty-nine victories.
But 2010 saw me past the thirty mark, as first Elena in New Zealand, and then Tenor in France, got me back on track. And then came little homebred Seppl’s victory last week. Three wins: already, half-way into the year, an above-average season. But there was more to come, and this morning, at 7am Wightish time, all the threes came up: win number thirty-three!
Even watching from the other side of the world, on a tiny video screen, I could see that Seppl’s victory at Ashburton-upon-Addington had been what might be termed ‘comfortable’ and, although the step up from maidens to one-win class is often a pretty big one for a young horse, I was fairly confident that he would be competitive ‘up a grade’. So his run for 6th at Rangiora last week was a little less than I’d hoped for.
Today he was back at Addington. Mr Trottech the Tipster retained his confidence in the wee boy and made him second pick, but the public was less sanguine. The bookies had him at 13-1, and the tote fifth favourite at 10s. The hotpot was a frustrating beast named Maysoon, which has been belying its name on Canterbury tracks for a couple of seasons, doing more galloping than trotting, but which had recently run an impressive trial.
Once again, with no live link, I could only wait for the result: urgently wanting him to confirm his quality by coming somewhere, anywhere, and, deep inside me, just a little prepared for him to win. And win he did.

Just how comfortably he did it, in what was clearly his best run to date, I couldn’t know until the video went up on the HRNZ website, amazingly quickly after the finish.
Once again, he made his ‘trademark’ (long may it last!) fast-acceleration beginning, and he rolled straight to the front, where it is becoming obvious that he loves to be. Behind there was a certain amount of carnage in the large field, but Maysoon got away and, once things were settled, rattled round the field at -- given the falling rain and the slushy track -- a decidedly quick rate. Behind Seppl, Stephen (McNally) simply had to let her past. But if Maysoon has speed, she also (like Seppl’s mum) seems to have an aversion to corners, and when one of those came up she simply blew out of her gear and the race. Once again, Seppl was in front. And there he stayed. Round the final bend, he skipped several lengths clear of the field and he cruised to the line without Stephen having to worry him unduly. The statistics may say that he won by a neck from the strongly finishing runner-up (with 3 ¼ lengths to third), but it could undoubtedly have been more.
If I sound less thrilled and excited about this win than the little feller’s first, it actually isn’t so. But, now that we know that our Seppl is ‘up to scratch’ as a competitor in the intermediate trotting class, his successes, when they come (and I’m sure there will be more), will have less of that element of joyous and incredulous surprise that have accompanied some of my other wins. But I promise, they will be none the less welcome for all that! Just let them come! Go, go, little Seppl!

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The Eternal Search for Lunch

2010-07-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

takes Kurt across to Ryde .. and success!

When I first had a little wail on VB about the difficulty I was having finding my way, each day, to The Kind of Lunch I Like, a good number of folk popped up with suggestions. Some were places I already knew, some were already on my ‘to be repeated’ list, some were a bit exotic for me … and that left just one. A young man by name Ryan Burr who – if his facebook picture was to be believed – looked like a cross between Elvis Presley and the Chocolate Soldier – was recommending a new place called The Bay Grill at Appley Beach. When I answered ‘OK’, it turned out that Ryan Burr (‘chef patron’) was the Bay Grill at Appley Beach. ‘He must be confident’, I thought, and fixed a day.

That was today.
I had done my homework. I had scouted the young resto’s very attractive blue-and-white website (http://www.thebaygrill.co.uk/), and had more or less worked out where Appley was. What I hadn’t worked out was how to get there from my cheese expedition to Queen Bower! Alderstone, Avgerstone.. help! .. and finally the one-way system round the Boating Pond! But I got there, leaped into the big free-parking lot, and climbed the stairs.

Tasty!
The blue and white theme most successfully carried through – I feel like I’m back in Villefranche-sur-mer – especially as I’m shown to a nice table on the balcony, overlooking the beach and the sea. Nice tables, when you are One Person, are not always evident.

My road frazzles are evaporating. Would I like a drink? Well, I shouldn’t but ... OK, let’s start off mean. I ask for a campari. Pretty, new, comfortable, staffed with charming young people, but they can’t possibly have it. My campari turns up, on the rocks, no fruit, and with the soda separate, just as I’d asked. Hmmm.

Menu.
Little work of blue-and-white art. Choice not too big, not too small. I want to try several things, so I opt for two starters: calamari followed by chicken. The people at the next table have had the calamari and are highly pleased.
So am I. It is perfect. The rings and the helping the right size. The batter light, slim, ten-seconds old ... and no oily taste, even when you get to the last slow mouthful and your food is cooling. Well, well.

Next?
Chicken on lemongrass spikes. Will this keep up the smile level? No. It increases it. This I really, really liked. The chicken is soft as a baby’s cheek. The accompaniments – including a chili which rocks your loins and makes you pay thorough attention to your food -- are delicious. I am enjoying myself far too much for this to be decent. I had better top up my campari. And, maybe ... a little something light and cold for dessert.

Kurt, you don’t eat desserts.
But I did. Black and white chocolate whatsit. Sin in a bowl.
Total bill: 19 pounds.

Well, young Mr Burr, I thought, you were right to be confident. You’ve got a thorough little winner here, I reckon.

It’s a beggar that Appley is so far from the Hermitage. Red Fred is going to get hysterical if I drag him across Brading Downs again and again. But I reckon I’m going to have to. Thanks, VB, you really pointed me right with this one.

PS It’s doubtless thoroughly unprofessional, but I stuck my head and my Fuji into the kitchen and snapped Ryan Burr (who isn’t like either Elvis or a soldier) and head chef, James Pearce, for my album. And for VB, too. Lads, I wish you and your (very) young team the greatest of success. More like you the lunching world can definitely do with.

Gallybagger!

2010-07-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

Up until very recently, the word ‘Gallybagger’ wasn’t part of my vocabulary. Asked to guess, I would have plumped for something like an 18th-century smuggler or perhaps a secret trouser-snatcher. But now I know. Gallybagger is ancient Wightish for ‘scarecrow’. And modern Wightish for ‘cheese’.

Cheese is a very personal thing. We all have our favourites, and there are endless varieties to choose from. In recent years, my big favourite has been the soft, French, unpasteurised Époisse[s], but I’m always open to new ideas.
I encountered ‘Gallybagger’ for the first time in the delicious cheese soufflé at Ventnor’s Royal Hotel, so when I afterwards saw it under glass at the deli at Chale Green Stores, I had to buy it. And try it. And I went promptly back and bought the whole piece. I introduced Brother John to it, during his Island stay, and the next day, we went back once more, and split between us all that the Store had to offer. His part headed for Leicestershire, mine .. is no more.
So I thought that, while I am here, I really should go and see where this rather remarkable cheese came from.
I know I don’t have to tell anyone on the Island about the ‘Isle of Wight Cheese Company’, and about its lightning rise to international success with, initially, their Isle of Wight blue cheese and now with others, including my pet ‘scarecrow’. The whole story is told at www.isleofwightcheese.co.uk/, one of the young company’s 19,300 hits on Google, it has been on television and can be seen on video ...

I visited Queen Bower Dairy, where the milk is born and the cheese manufactured, this morning. It is decidedly not easy to find (Red Fred did a mile down a track which turned out to be a one-way ‘road’ .. the other way!), but that is probably as well, or Richard and Julie Hodgson would end up spending half their day entertaining fromage fans, instead of spending their entire day creating cheese.
Today, however, was an occasion. The Solihull firm of Jongia Ltd, suppliers of cheese-making equipment to the nation, had brought twenty-seven fromagists – from the seriously celebrated to the debutant -- from England, Ireland, Scotland and even South Africa, on a visit, and I tacked on to the tail of their tour.
Amidst talk of everything from Stilton to Stinking Bishop, and of the vagaries of the price of decent milk, I put just a toe into the arcane world of Cheese. I mean, would you know what this machine is?

It’s not an instrument of mediaeval torture, it’s a compressed-air gadget for piercing cheese which is going to be blue.. I told you this was arcane!
In spite of Mr Jongia’s kind invitation to go on with the brother-and-sisterhood to the Dark Horse, Brading, I turned Red Fred towards Ryde, where lunch awaited me (see tomorrow’s musings), leaving the wonderful world of Gallybagger to the experts.
I will not, however, be leaving the cheese to them. I intend to make the most of it whilst I am here, for I am quite aware that it is a very special rarity: the little ‘factory’ at Queen Bower simply cannot produce enough cheeses to supply all the places where I spend my time.
You lucky people.

VentnorBlog and Island News

2010-07-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

If the Blog has been a bit backward recently, it's not that I have been. On the contrary, I have been busier than ever, supplying a daily piece -- on anything and everything -- to Simon and Sal Perry of the Isle of Wight's award-winning Ventnor Blog and Island News.
No music, no theatre, no horses ... here are my 'reportages' of the last couple of days!

AN AFTERNOON IN FAIRYLAND AT LAS VEGAS-SUR-SOLENT

I said, in my first ‘musings’ on VB, that I was going to have to investigate Niton’s ‘The Enchanted Manor’ and discover just why TripAdvisor rated it Number One amongst the Island’s B&Bs.
Well, I have.
And I have, because owners and hosts extraordinary, Ric and Maggie, were kind enough to invite me, today, to a Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea Party at their fairyland palace.

Where do I start?
The name. I told you, the name kind of gave me the chilly willies. But I was wrong. The name is utterly and totally apt.
The rating? Get this out of the way. The Enchanted Manor may provide beds … four-posters with beautiful caramel hangings… and it may serve breakfast ... in a most glamorous and pleasing verandah … but it is quite simply not what you and I understand as a ‘B&B’. Know what I mean?
TripAdvisor has got to stop comparing such as this with Mary’s 20 quid a night tidy sleepover.

The Enchanted Manor is, quite simply an ‘event’. It is a deliciously over-the-top Las Vegas fairyland, glittering with more special effects than I have ever seen. Nymphs in the garden, sylphs in the bedroom ... .tulle and glitter simply everywhere!
Europeans .. save the fare to the US of A … anything and everything Vegas can offer you is (I imagine, for I’ve never been to Vegas) right here!

All right, I will admit, I’m not a newly-wed (I live in hope) and I won’t be having anymore ‘anniversaries’, and I hugely love my beautiful all-white ‘monastic’ room up on the Downs. So The Enchanted Manor is never going to be my Wightish ‘home’. But if you want a Fairytale weekend, a few days in Wonderland, with or without Alice, but with every seen-on-TV luxury you can think of, Ric and Maggie will, I am sure, make you as happy as all those five-star contented customers who have made them Number One B&B (what!?) on the imponderable Trip Advisor.

A Highwights Tour

2010-07-03T22:52:00.000-07:00

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Brother John with me in Wight for two days!
So Red Fred has been earning his keep, with a tour of my personal Highwights of the Island. Of course, I've written about all these before, so here is just a little selection of happy snaps from out Grand Tour. Starting with the Lady Chapel at Quarr. And, yes, it had me in tears again.. what is it about that place ..

Steephill cove for a meal at The Boathouse, and for John a swim in the Solent

and the family photo, to send home to Mother

John prefers outdoor sleeping, so he has his tent in the paddock above my window, with a morning view up to the Pepperpot!

And, finally, an unexpected meeting in Newtown. A three-quarter standardbred (1/4 cob), being worked as a hackney horse, down the picturesque streets .. but wearing a modified harness-racing sulky! It made me just a little Gerolstein-sick, so I gave him a nice pat and a rub..