A distraction in an almost-cathedral

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When I attended the concert at St Thomas's, St Helier, this week, I was slightly shall we say 'taken aback' by the building's decorations. I am told that it has recently had a major refurbishment, and there were some very colourful statues poised over my head which clearly didn't date from antiquity. Likewise the main window, which was attractive but distinctly new.
However, what made my eyes pop was a painting which stared at me as I sat in my aisle pew. I am sure it is supposed to be Mr Christ ... but, goodness me, the painter seems to have gone to Raging Stallion for his model ... and Boot's, the chemist, for his style ... what do you think?

"The Festival is over..", or "Will ye no come back again"

The festival is over. Well, nearly. It’s over for me, because of a couple of physically challenging events – climbing Gorey Castle for a concert and sitting on a lawn at Hamptonne for jazz – aren’t quite in my repertoire these days. And the ‘Night with Anton and Erin’ (not just them) which ends affairs is stone cold sold out, so they don’t need me! Things festivalish rose to a furious peak on Friday and Saturday – concerts in the bunker and the church Friday, and at the Opera House (and Gorey) on Saturday. Friday’s concert was the one I was really looking forward to, because it was a largely vocal one, and included a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, about which I have written frequently, but which I had never heard performed. Why had I written about it? Because my current opus in progress, Victorian Vocalists, deals largely with the Sacred Harmonic Society, the greatest of all sacred music choirs in English history, and they included, in the 1850s and 1860s, in their fairly restricted repertoire – alongside The Messiah, Elijah, Israel in Egypt et al -- one Mozart work: this Requiem. Performed often with Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang as a first half. Some of the great singers of the age – Pyne, Sherrington, Birch et al – sang the soprano role, but I noticed, too, that sometimes the ‘B team’ were given the parts when the Requiem was on the programme. I wondered why. Well, tonight I found out. It was certainly because the soloists have, in this piece, comparatively little to sing, solo. Some lovely concerted music, but scarcely a proper aria. The star of the piece is really the choir, who have nearly all the ‘best bits’ of the liturgy. The City Consort of Voices (with local additions, including some of the festival committee), under Daniel Cohen, gave a lusty and loving rendition of the Mass, for which much thanks. The soloists made a grand job of their quartet ‘Benedictus’, and it’s my personal taste only that I like my basses rumbly at the bottom. Mark Stone is more of a baritone. Victoria Simmonds, similarly, was a warm mezzo rather than a kosher contralto. But the sound the four made together was truly .. umm .. English. The Sac Har Soc would have approved! The other two singers gave us more extensive solos in the first half of the programme. James Oxley (tenor) gave the bon-bon ‘Deeper and deeper still’/’Waft her angels’ from Jephtha in an incisive tenor, making the recit grandly dramatic and the aria smooth and sing-y. And then there was the soprano. After the semi-soprano singing that we heard at the opening concert, what a forty-carat joy to hear a voice like that of Sophie Bevan. She favoured us with a solo ‘Gloria’, which may or may not be by Handel, but which gave her every chance to show off the beauty of her rich, glowing soprano in the very grateful accoustic of St Thomas’s church. Her ornamentation was deliciously not ‘in your face’, her execution impeccable, and she both looked and sounded so relaxed ... how can anyone so petite sing such long phrases in one breath? When she finished Handel(?)’s series of roulades and trills, I thought ‘don’t finish yet!’ and my friend Katie confirmed ‘I wanted it to go on for ever’. So, I came to hear a Requiem, and got carried away by a superb soprano singing a bit of dubious Handel! Rather oddly, this oratorical programme was completed by an orchestral adaptation of a piano piece by Szymanowski (I don’t suppose there was a Polish oratorio), but as an extra we got an unannounced interval performance of what I suppose – coming back in when it was half done – was an ‘Ave Maria’ by Gorecki, sung by the Chorale. I base the supposition on the fact that they sang (I think) ‘Maria’ about 150 times. But it was quite pretty.

  The Saturday night found us back with the strings. The first half was the ‘Sacha and Qian show’. Which, as you know, I will go a long way to see. We had the Saint-Saens Rondo Capriccioso from Mr S, and the Chopin no2 Piano Concerto from Mrs S. Two pieces I actually know, two pieces written in the era when composers for piano and violin seemed to vie with each other to see who could put the most part-notes into a bar. They are nothing if not pieces of music for virtuoso performers, and tonight that was certainly what we had. The Saint-Saens skitters and trips through its tuneful measures in a shower of tiny notes, and watching the violinist’s fingers and bow dance around the instrument is quite a task. It was wholly and frothily melodious and enjoyable. The Chopin is a rather stronger work. I wrote last time round about Qian’s ‘gentle’ playing. Well, that adjective wasn’t suitable tonight. Once the pianist starts on this concerto, she is full on for nearly the entire work, and some of it is distinctly well-muscled. Our pianist encompassed the strong and sinewy portions with as much élan and success as the rollingly lyrical pieces, again, amid a positive battery of what I assume were semi- or demi-semi-quavers. The orchestra sort of faded into the background, as she accomplished her very starry performance. Another winner. Part two was Tschaikowsky. A piece I didn’t know called ‘Souvenir de Florence’. But I always like Tschaikowsky. The string group of 15 players were attractively arranged, standing, except for celli and bass, and Matthias Wollong, who did duty as lead violin and conductor when needed, led the group from the front. You know, I can only wonder what Tschaikowsky was remembering about Florence. Apart from a bit that sounded like Respighi, I didn’t hear much that was traditionally Italianate. There was one bit that even sounded like a reminiscence of ‘Swan Lake’. And the work didn’t hold me. I found myself losing concentration and thinking ‘why does the cellist always have the best-looking dress’, ‘the bassist is cute’ or ‘the first violin looks like my niece’. It was all charming, all pretty, all unobjectionable, but it just didn’t grab me. Maybe I was just a bit stringed-out. I needed some wind and brass to vary my diet. To end the Festival with a big flourish. Or ‘God Save ..’ whoever they save in Jersey, sung by Miss Bevan. But the whole festival has been a joy. I knew it would be, which is why I came. And why I will come back (please, fate) next year. My abiding memories? The Sacha and Qian show, in all its manifestations, Miss Bevan and her ‘Gloria’, and guess what … the Gorecki. I don’t pretend to be able to hum it, but that performance will definitely stay with me for a long time. Thank you Liberation Festival, it’s been huge fun listening to your music and meeting old musical friends and a whole lot of new ones. Now, A few days R&R, and then I’ll swap hats and turn back to writing about, guess what? Horse-racing! Postscript: The choir tells me that the unexpected Gorecki is called 'Totus tuus'. Unfortunately they didn't leave an email (mine is ganzl@xtra.co.nz) so I could write back and says 'thanks'.

Fanfare!

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Two years ago, when the Jersey Liberation Festival opened with a splendid new brass fanfare, based on the Chanson de Peirson, written for the occasion by Jon Lord, I jubilated that this would undoubtedly become a Jersey classic, repeated each year thereafter. So I was rather surprised, when I arrived this year, to find same band, same occasion … different fanfare. Again, written for the occasion, this time by Surrey composer James Francis Brown, and with reference to this year’s Festival theme, Poland.



Well, I needn’t have worried. The rain ceased just in time, Jersey Premier Brass took their habitual place on the balcony above the Royal Square and, after a warm-up of several brass band classics, we got the new Fanfare and Chorale. And it was a splendid piece. The clarion cries of the opening, in what we traditionally know as a ‘fanfare’, moving into moodier and more solemn tones in the body of the work, and winding up to a triumphant return to the ultimate cries of victory. The whole written in a sufficiently ‘modern’ style to be enjoyable (I hear that academic plink-plonks are doomed anyhow) and really effective. The local lady who was sitting next to me didn’t know whether to be moved or flag-waving.



As before, Premier Brass gave their all, and if a few notes fell under the music-stands or vanished into the damp air, it was still an excellent effort for an amateur group faced with a brand new work.

If this carries on, I can see in a few years a recording of ‘Liberation Festival Fanfares’ hitting the market.

Jersey Remembers

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Liberation day 2012 dawned grey and threateningly drizzly in St Helier, but the festivities of the occasion carried enthusiastically on.
I made my way down to the Weighbridge in the main square, mid-morning, to find the place thronged with people, food-stalls, loud-speakers and giant screens, the ‘Beverley sisters’ singing ‘We’ll meet again’ and a colourful marching band, of course, leading a crocodile of what I guess were local dignitaries.



When the Beverley sisters and ‘The Blue of the Night’ were done, what seemed to be a sermon started up. I finally tracked it (as opposed to its broadcast) down by climbing a stand. Well, I guess Thanksgiving is in order on Liberation Day, but I do feel that Religion sometimes gets a bit intrusive.



More to the point were the military men and women, old style and new, who enlivened the feast. I met the newest generation, three fifteen year-old cadets from St David's. All I can say is, if I have to be defended by someone, those lads would be my pick. Real gentlemen!



So on to the Event of the day: the first Festival concert. Sustained by a fish dinner at – of course – the Dockyard, I wobbled through the rain up to the Opera House, for the pre-concert chat at 7pm. Clarinettist Michael Collins and ‘cellist Guy Johnston entertained us for half an hour: if Mr Collins’ embouchure (do clarinettists have those) ever lets him down he undoubtedly has a career on radio and TV as a chatman. Perhaps he already has. He is a born and very amusing raconteur.

At 8pm the music started. The menu for the evening was quintets by Mozart and Dvorak. Both well-known pieces, but not to me.
The Mozart clarinet quintet is a poised and poetic piece. A rather unshowy dialogue between the first fiddle (Alexandra Soumms) and the clarinet, with supporting cast. It was a little bit of a revelation to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard a clarinet – live – sound quite so lovely. At some stages, in the legato bits, the instrument had the tones of a deep-voiced flute, and then, in the occasional quick runs, it rippled up the scale like a very French baritone. You felt as if someone were giving you a bath in warm cream. Unusual, but nice.

The Dvorak piano quintet is an entirely different style of piece. Obviously, no clarinet, but that’s not what I mean. Whereas the Mozart glides on its way, this one is all fireworks and jaunty tunes. So much so, that the audience applauded several times in mid-piece. The BBC, who were broadcasting the show, will have to cut that out! It also gives all the instruments nice little showcase moments, so the ‘cello, viola (Phillip Dukes) and piano (Wu Qian) were all featured. However, as much as one can or ought in an ensemble, even an ad hoc one, it was the lead violin which shone. When I saw and heard Sacha Sitkovetsky play in this Festival two years ago, I was hugely taken. All I can say after the repeat dose, last night, is: he is still my favourite among violinists. He makes you feel as if you are taking part in the music, and he makes the fiddle ‘smile’.

Between the two quintets we had a vocal interlude. Arrangements (nice ones) of Irish (‘The Last Rose of summer’, ‘O waly waly) and Welsh (‘Nant gwynant’) songs, sung by soprano Laura Wright, a tall pretty lass in a tall pretty (but rather depressing) grey gown. Miss Wright has had much success (as she unfortunately told us, twice) with a recording of this much-sung material. Alas, either tonight she was singing to the BBC microphone, or she misjudged the house. Her straight, pure tones were mostly so pianissimo as to make no effect, and nary a word could I understand from row K. If Miss Wright is to be the next Moira Anderson, a lot more animation will be needed.

The night ended with a pleasing arrangement of ‘We’ll meet again’. But it went the way of the other songs. A sweet stream of vocal sound which made Vera’s optimistic old song sound like a requiem. I’d liked it a lot better in the square in the morning.

But, hey, its not a perfect world. I had an enjoyable evening, a bath in warm cream (and another in rain), and a fine, lively time – as did everyone else in the house – with Messrs Dvorak, Sitkovetsky and friends. Looking forward to the next helping

Dining at the Dockyard

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Some two or three years ago, quite by accident, I started writing about food and restaurants. Well, I enjoy good food, well-made food, very much indeed, and it is enjoyable to relive a fine meal in writing about it. Which is what I do. Write. My enforced layoff of over a year has sadly meant no restaurants … until now, when I’m back, solo, on European soil and living in the kind of flatlets which mean I’ll be eating out most days or nights.
Starting the day before yesterday. And carrying on last night. At the same restaurant. For I seem to have started off my new ‘tour des restos’ with a surprising bang.



The Dockyard Restaurant, Havre du Pas, St Helier, has been open for … four days. Three, on my first visit. It’s right across the road from my lodgings, and hasn’t yet even got a sign outside telling you it is a restaurant. It’s clean-lined, unfussy, modern, comfortable, unpretentious, with an atmospheric view over the narrow promenade to the sea (if you sit with your back to the incinerator), and, best of all, it serves wholly delicious food.



My kind of food. Edibly-sized helpings of bright, clean-looking food, tastily and not eccentrically conceived, attractively presented without being fussily decorated (you eat everything), and cooked just perfectly. Remember, I’m the no lettuce, no chips man. Not that this chef would ever stoop to those. But it’s amazing how many do.
Now I’m going to relive my meals. Normally I’d have taken pictures, as I did during my last triumphant Jersey meal two years ago, at ‘Bohemia’ (my top favourite meal of the last five years), but this was so tasty that I just bowled in and ate it, while the camera sat on my hip. Next time.
Meal one, in brief. The qualifying round, so to speak. Starter: salt and pepper squid. Crisp and tasty, not rubbery and not piled high. Accompaniment a nice wee rocket heap. Not lettuce. Yum. A good preparation for my main event: seared fillet of sea bass. Yes, that’s how it’s described in the menu. No resturantese, no silly adjectives. Straightforward English. Gold star. The accompaniments: celeriac, tomato, and a good grain mustard dressing. By now, I realised I’d fallen into something really good. Pint of Guinness please, because I’m not a desserts man and I’m having cheese. No, not a Simpsons in the Strand-sized trolley-load, but chef’s selection (so much more sensible) a complementary trio of room-temperature pieces: blue, soft and hard, with a very nice spoon of chutney. It appears the English expect biscuits with their cheese. I don’t. Horrid habit. But that’s just me.

As I savoured, I bethought me of another seaside restaurant where, last time round, I struck a similarly delicious ‘me’ meal: the Bay Grill in the Isle of Wight with its young chef, Ryan Burr. Love you, Ryan. Your food, that is. Well, there is evidently something in youth: the Dockyard’s rising star chef is called Chris Matthews. He’s from Newcastle (and sounds like it ☺) and he’s even younger … here he is with his team …



24 hours later I returned, determined to put Chris to a tougher test. Not the table d’hôte (17.50 for 3 courses) tonight, but a la carte. First course – cruelly – a ‘home-made twice-baked cheese soufflé with soft herb cream’. Cruelly? Oh yes: if you go back in this blog, you’ll see the tale of my worldwide star dish of 2010 ... the famous Isle of Wight gallybagger soufflé. Main course? Chris incautiously mentioned bouillabaisse, which was not on the menu. I leaped.
Well, I can only say the ‘test’ was passed summa cum laude. The soufflé was light, without being insubstantial, and thoroughly cheesy, the cream quite superior; the bouillabaisse ... well, it wasn’t one, and he knew that, it was a simply delicious fish stew, rich and light, full of fishy things and prawns and, to my surprise, tomato-ed. Which, in spite of not being a tomato fan, I liked a lot. Guinness, cheese … and, goodness, two sybaritic hours had just slid away … and my beautiful a la carte meal, with 2 aperos, and two Guinnesses, had cost me less than 40 quid.

The Dockyard has the potential to become very, very popular. Especially with good food lovers. I’m going to try to bring all my pals along during the Festival. Oh, sure, on day four there are still things – little things -- to get right. New staff (all five star charming) to hone. Butter dishes. Extra dry sherry at the bar. Maybe, eventually, fabric napkins. Well, these things do make a strange difference. But so, so much is so very right.
Thank you, Rogerio, Chris and all the staff for two grand meals. And I’ll see you tonight, about 6. There are still 8 mains and 7 starters I have to sample…

Liberating Jersey (again) to music...

When I decided I was fit to travel again, and started looking at possible, and neccessarily comfortable, itineraries, one of my first actions was to email Messrs Mews and Hopkin in St Helier and ask … when is the Jersey Festival this year?
Stupid Question. It always starts on Liberation Day. May 9. So May 9-13 became the first fixed date in my European season’s calendar. John booked my BMI Baby ticket and … well to cut a short story even shorter, here I am.
Parenthesis to say, I have had my battles and pouts with BMI Baby in the past, but this time they took the most perfect care of me (and my walking stick). Thank you, above all, Steve, who escorted me across the tarmac.
End of parenthesis.

I arrived here yesterday afternoon, and things (apart from the weather) went on going right! Signature buses (recommended) picked me up punctually at the airport and delivered me neatly to ... where? Of course, to my Jersey ‘home from home’, the Bayview Guest House, Havre du Pas, where Geoff and Carolyn were waiting to greet me with my usual pint of Guinness.
More! this year they have lodged me in the garden room. Well, I’d call it a flat. Last time my room was above it, and I looked enviously down over Jean-Pierre lolling in the garden. Well, this time I’m going to loll. This placing has had one effect though: if I had a wee flat like this, I could happily stay here in Jersey for much of the summer. Hmmmm.



Next, then they took me to their new restaurant for a welcome lunch. Well! Its been open all of three days … I have found a new local. Kurt review after tonight when I try to see if it can possibly be that good two days in a row.

So, it’s 36 hours to go before the Festival starts. It’s a lipsmacking programme: from the well-known (to me) to the unknown (to me, which means most things) … from the Mozart Requiem which I write about, but have never heard, to music by Gorecki (whom I know John likes) and more conventionally, Chopin and Saint-Saens. Sadly, there are only folksongs from the English repertoire, because this year is Poland year. Oh, and there’s another new fanfare. It had better be good: I loved the Jon Lord one. Anyway, I’ll be at every event except a handful: I’m skipping the film The Pianist because I’m not here to see movies and Wu Qian is playing Chopin in the concerts, I’m probably going to have to forego Gorey, because of the climbing, and well we’ll see how things go, but Strictly Come Dancing stars (even though we watch the show) aren’t really my thing. Oh, hang on, is Anton the Kiwi guy? He’s the one who plays ‘sulky’ (so boring) … well, we’ll see..

Today I ventured out to the boat show. Does it sell any boats? Last time, I discovered the Festival by visiting it, this time … well, I was reminded (if I needed reminding) why I love Jersey. They had a group playing Beach Boys music in a tent. Was it a brass band? ... why no. It was a string quartet!! Yay! I’m going to love it here all over again!

Lichfield, why didn't I know about it?

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As I write (as I do) my thousands of pages about British music in the nineteenth century, I glibly roll out the names of the cities of England (and sometimes Scotland, Wales and half of Ireland) and their cathedrals, which housed such an important part of professional music-making in those times. But they are just academic words … I , alas, have never been inside most of England’s great cathedrals.
So when brother John suggested, for my pro tem last day at Coalville, that we take a daytrip to Lichfield and its cathedral, I was most enthusiastic. By the time we returned, I was even more enthusiastic. What a lovely town/city is Lichfield. And what a history! It drips with celebs – REAL celebs, not the Poorla Abdul, Princess Matchinsky and Paris Hilton type – at every corner…

Even the drive there, across Leics and Staffs was lovely, and though I got the momentary hump from a very un-user-friendly car-park, overpriced and with machines that charge you 2.70 .. and don’t take notes or cards or give change, as we dove into the streets of old Lichfield I was immediately captured. It’s a very bright and alive town of today – and this was market day too – but at every turn you find beautifully kept or restored ancient buildings, like this one, built in 1510 and refurbished in 1975



I don’t know why the world feels so in awe and enamoured of old buildings. I don’t know why I do. But I certainly do. A 17th century cathedral – and I’m not even a christian – can inspire me to very pleasant emotions, and elderly house with narrow stairs and uneven floors is (as long as one doesn’t have to live in it) is much more attractive than anything 20th century. It just is.
In the main square – where Lichfield’s Dr Johnson watched a heretic or was it a murderer, being burned at the stake – I snapped my first celeb. Who else but Boswell, watching over his friend. And no, that’s not the cathedral behind. That’s St Mary’s, the vast Guild Church.



The Cathedral is few hundred metres away, its triple spire looming as the feature of the city …



Many cathedrals are Just Too Much. Too lush, too decorated, one nobleman or churchman vying with another in buying God’s favour or Man’s remembrance with a monument or gift in a mass of gilded chapels and scrolly tablets and statues, too many garish stained windows, too much of everything. Not this one. It was destroyed by Cromwell’s gang in the C17th, and rebuilt by Charles II (not personally) with the most glorious tact. Pieces of the original mediaeval fabric intertwine with restoration in a fashion that Lichfield seems particularly good at. John had fun spotting the mediaeval bits, I being less knowledgeable, just looked. Our favourite spot was a little chapel which you had to climb many wooden steps to get to …



I came in to my own, however, when we reached what seemed to be ‘Celebs Corner’. I didn’t know that David Garrick was brought up in Lichfield! But there he is, in effigy, donated by his wife.



Lady Mary Wortley is there, not in ashes (she died in London) but in a votive plaque, donated in 1789 by one Henrietta Ince, concerning her promotion of innoculation against small pox



And at last I came upon a pair of stones relevant to my writings. Alas, not one celebrating Samuel Pearsall or other stalwarts of the Lichfield choir in the 19th century, but two slightly earlier vicars choral. I will investigate them immediately. They must have been real long-servers to be commemorated there alongside Garrick and all those military heros and slain aristocratic soldier boys of bygone ages.



It was a lovely cathedral. One of my favourites ever. But one thing nearly spoiled it for me. As we entered, and dropped our mite in the visitors’ box, we were literally leaped upon by a middle-aged lady or three, hectoringly offering us tax advantages in exchange for donations. I was wearing damp turkish baggies and a duffel coat. Did I look like a millionaire in disguise? The bad taste left by this horrid harpy encounter (in a church!) was only wiped away by the sweetness of the elderly volunteer gent overseeing the Treasure, who tried to help me set my camera to ‘no flash’. We did it, and consequently my picture of the Lichfield Angel, the most lovely artefact in the cathedral, didn’t come out.
I had to make do with a picture of my favourite artefact outside: this votive statue to Charles II saying ‘thank you for the restoration’. I’m pretty sure he didn’t look quite as neolithic as this, but it was a nice gesture.



Our biggest Celeb we saved till last. Dr Johnson was born in Lichfield, and lived in a four-storied house on the corner of the main square. The house has been beautifully cared for, and/or restored, tactfully not-too-filled with memorabilia relating to him – oh, to actually be able to hold in one’s hands a volume of the famous dictionary! – the whole thing was splendidly unpretentious and ‘real’. And entered by way of a delicious bookshop which made me wish I still collected Victorian books.
I photographed the not exactly physically attractive Doctor ..



and, on the top floor, I photographed John, in a wig and tricorne, kept I feel for rather younger visitors than us! Didn’t have to be snobby … we were plain enjoying ourselves!



But it was time to leave lovely Lichfield, and hurry home for the FA cup final. Even more fun than a burning heretic. Sometimes. So after a quick visit to the local Bakery for some travelling sustenance, we bade farewell to Dr Johnson and his Boswell, to Garrick, Mary Wortley, Mrs Ince, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of), Samuel Pearsall (he’s there somewhere), King Charles the neolithic and the Lichfield Angel, and headed back through the green green lanes and pretty villages of Staffs and Leics to Wembley-sur-Television …
A grand day out, and I will never write “Lincoln Cathedral” again without remembering it.

Twycross Zoo Story

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After two days of much travelling, we decided on a smaller jaunt for the first almost sunny day of my time in Coalville: a trip to the zoo! It turned out, in the end, to be our most exercisey day of all: we strolled for two and a half hours amongst the animals (and the empty cages and food outlets) of Twycross Zoo, and I was so enrapt by the creatures that I didn’t even realise I’d left my stick in the small monkey house until ten minutes (and many monkeys) had passed.

I don’t often go to zoos. I’m not fond of animals in cages. But I have to say that the modern generation of ‘zoological parks’ is much more agreeably laid out than the old. I found that out when I visited the delightful Durrell establishment in Jersey a few years ago. Well, Twycross isn’t Durrell, it’s bigger for one thing, but it is built on some of the same lines. And it specialises in primates. A monkey museum. Which unfortunately means that bars and cages have to be well in evidence.

We did over an hour of monkeys. Don’t ask me to remember their names. I wouldn’t know my lemur from my colobus. I can recognise an orang outang, a chimp (thanks to Tetley teabags or was it PG tips?) and a gorilla (thanks to King Kong), but that’s about it. However, they are endearing animals, and you soon get your favourites. Here are mine. Apart from a little golden girl who was behind bars. The lovely ‘old’ feller with his dapper pointed white beard, the bored gorilla and the dazzling little lion monkey. I had to take a dozen snaps of him before he would pose prettily for me: we played chasings for ten minutes, and of course then I left him my walking stick!







There are certain animals which no zoo aiming to attract the public can afford to be without and, in these post-Lion King days, top of the list comes – no, not the lions or the elephants (although four grumpy ones were sulking in a corner) – but the meerkat. Timon and Pumbaa have hoisted the wee animal to the top of nature’s hit parade. A shame they haven’t done the same for the warthog!



Lee Durrell told me that they are the juniors’ top favourite in her zoo, and today you could hear an infant squealing ‘meerkat’ at a display of prairie dogs, before being dragged excitedly to the real thing.

After an hour of primates, it was enjoyable to turn into the ‘open’ exhibits. The usual favourites – the vibrant pink flamingo, the ditsy penguins auditioning for Happy Feet, the sunbathing sea-otters – with the occasional interesting surprise.





I particularly liked the Alice-in-Wonderlandish hornbills, and a pair of tiny tortoises ..



They looked so much more comfortable, natural and attractive than the pair of giant tortoises we had seen earlier. In fact, that comparison went equally for all the creatures. The big fellers looked bored, entrapped, unnatural, whilst their smaller counterparts made much happier visiting and viewing.

The big surprise was our very last creature:



Yes, it looks just like my Minnie de Gerolstein! A little larger, a little more disdainful, but … what is a moggie doing in a zoo? Well, this chap is a special Scottish wild cat, it seems. So maybe Minnie, like me, has a bit of Scotch in her blood!

We couldn’t find our way to the bit labelled ‘Himalaya’. The signs led us to the umpteenth fast-food outlet and yet another children’s playground … one began to have the feeling that, like airports which resemble a shopping mall with incidental airplanes, we were in an amusement-foodpark with incidental animals. But we did find our way to the big new ‘Wetlands’ section. This consists of five or more obviously vastly expensive regulated pools filled with the same sort of reeds we had seen yesterday in Norfolk. I saw three common ducks dipping in one. And that was it. We were told that if you followed the walkway to its end there was a bird-hide, but after 2 ½ hours that wasn’t enough temptation for us. Well, I suppose this curious exhibition is some-rich-body’s heartfelt project: for me, it was boring.

Twycross Zoo clearly attracts many, many people. The car parking and the queue management facilities indicated that usually there are hugely more visitors than there were yesterday (whew!). I found it a bit curate’s eggy. Durrell gives a better appreciation of the world’s nature in a fraction of the space. But the best bits were lovely, and of course one has to remember, it is primarily a primate park. And hey! we spent a whole fast-gone two and a half hours there quite happily. For only 26 pounds (two senior citizen tickets ... and the girl didn’t even ask to see my card! Sob!).

The right side up again!

At last the time has come…
I won’t say I’m ‘cured’ of the effects of that damned stroke and its sequels, for I’m not. I am no longer nimble of foot, and my shoulders and hands now work at 70% agility and 40% power. Typing is still a trial. Speech slurs sometimes for a few sentences. And fatigue is a problem. But I’m alive and kicking, and, I reckoned, fit enough to return to the top of the world for a gentle summer’s activity under the careful eyes of various friends… starting with brother, John, in Leicestershire.

The take-off was difficult. The day after I left Gerolstein and New Zealand, our dear little mother, in dreadful pain with a broken back for weeks past, was rushed to hospital with further problems. She died in the night, days short of her 90th birthday. Her final instructions (and she did love to instruct) were that I should not turn back, but continue on to Britain and John. She wanted us to be together. And here we are. Just we two, for the first time in decades.



The first stage of take-off was ten days in Sydney with veteran friends, Barry and Rosemary. I couldn’t have been in better hands. Alas, the horsey action was rained off – what on earth has become of Sydney’s weather? – but I met up with my partner-in-horses, Jack Dowie, with another veteran (young) theatrical friend, James Thane, and had morning coffee with a very colourful bird...



We dined at a splendid pizzeria, Via Napolitana, in Lane Cove, and on my last night in town we feted the second birthday of Harry, Barry and Rosemary’s gorgeous grandson. Harry is something else! and with showbiz parents and grandparents, naturally already developing (among others!) terpsichorean talents. Shimmy-shake, Harry!



The Emirates flight from Sydney was the best inter-hemispherical trip I have ever had. The airline staff looked after me wonderfully (thank you for seat 21D … even a place for my walking stick), I had splendid co-travellers – Craig the oil-rigger, heading for Brazil, and charming, handsome 82 year-old David from Wales – a lot of whiskey, slept six whole hours, and arrived at Birmingham airport in amazingly sprightly state.

Of course, I paid for it in the following days with my worst attack of jetlag (with a touch of hangover?) ever.

But those days were to be eventful. John had decided, now that he is a widower, to downsize his living quarters. Unlike me, who has still not found a new home in the five searching years of my re-singled state, he lighted on precisely the right place almost immediately. A tiny, end of terrace cottage in the delightfully rural Billa Barra Lane. It is now his, and by the time I return at the end of the summer he will hopefully have moved in.



Come the weekend, we hit the roads of the mass of counties which crowd this area. Through Rutland, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire (in one order or another) to Market Deeping, Lincolnshire where John keeps a tiny Puck caravan with which, transporting his bicycle, he investigates the intimate corners of the Norfolk countryside. It is the cosiest wee ‘home’ and writer’s hideaway imaginable. Friend Liz had sewed some new curtains for the mobile palace’s windows, and we happily installed them.



Nearby Crowland is the place which Greg chose for his ashes, so we drove by the spot for me to pay my silent loving respects to my late brother-in-law, and continued to the town to see the sights: a remarkable three-sided 14th century bridge and a nicely battered abbey. And all the way, we passed through lovely green, English countryside, and charming villages where 20th century builders have barely laid a spoiling hand…





The next day, in heavy rain, we headed for the Norfolk coast. I have never been north of Great Yarmouth, so the part of the coastline from Hunstanton to Wells-near-the-sea was all new for me. Hunstanton is a typical English C19th working-class holiday resort. Sadly, the pier is gone, but the bingo halls flash their lights, the little bandstand watches over the waves, the ‘biggest joke shop in Britain’ sells fart-cushions and other similar delicacies … only the inroad of tandoori bars and the like tells us this is the 21st century. We chose the Hunstanton Bakery and Cornerhouse for a pot of tea for two, and a toasted sarnie. Brilliant choice. Thick white cups, strong tea, generous straightforward sandwiches with no poofy lettuce, cress, potato crisps or other clichéd ‘garnish’. Union Jack mats, lacy not-quite-unspotted tabecloths, old photos and endless instructive notices n the walls …



Outside, the rain dribbled down, the grey sea threw out its curly white bad-temper … ah! it does one good to see that places like Hunstanton still exist. Even with tandoori.



The coast, going eastwards along the Wash, gets progressively more picturesque. Arrived at Brancaster, we decided to essay a walk to the Coastal Path and the beach which John has oft tramped. The walk proved a tiny bit longer than intended. The wind had brought down an elderly tree on top of the electric wires and into the road. But we were not deterred! We pressed on, on foot, through the grey and damp fenland, the towering thatch-makers rushes, till we reached the seaside, where John took my picture in proof of the exploit accomplished. I had walked a staunch mile and a half, at my old pace … no stick needed! And I even remained (just) untoppled by the North Sea wind!



Onwards. through the endless number of villages named Burnham something – a peep inside a particularly fine church, St Mary’s, with some jolly windows and a beautiful 11th century font …



to the pretty port of Wells, where we sat by the drizzly estuary-side and scoffed our Sainsbury’s afternoon-tea, until it was time to turn back through the five counties (‘I hate crowds’) to Coalville, a warm ‘fire’, fish stew, red wine, a jigsaw puzzle, Match of the Day and the queen of the place, Tunis…



My northern summer has begun well. And now, Monday morning, the first sun I have seen in a fortnight has crept forth …
Let’s hope it continues this way ... life owes me a little kindness after the events of the last year and a bit...

Side by Side by Christchurch, NZ

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All sorts of hats are coming out of my cupboard. Last night, it was the theatre critic’s one, as – with a little help from my NASDAlek friends – I headed for Christchurch to see the new, post-earthquake, Court Theatre and its production of Side by Side by Sondheim.



Its more than thirty-five years since I toddled down to Puddle Dock to see the latest in the run of composer-compilation shows (Cole, Cowardy Custard) being given to us in the guise of musicals. This one was a selection of dismembered bits, put together by vocalist David Kernan, from the shows of one S Sondheim, who was then little known in Britain save to a very vocal musical-theatre coterie. Well, it was an intermittently pleasant evening. Ned Sherrin did what Ned always did best, unobtrusively and wittily compering events from a seat at the front of the stage, and the three singers: Kernan, competent and cardboard as ever, deliciously maturing soubrette Millie Martin, and megastar-in-the-making Julia Mackenzie, shared their obvious enjoyment in their material. And some of it was splendid. The highlight and hit of the evening was Julia’s pianissimo ‘Broadway Baby’. The dead weight was (and still is) an irritating ‘Conversation piece’ made up of fragments and lines from here and there, and intended to be amusing. It wasn’t (and still isn’t). But the good bits were worth the others.

Side by Side by Sondheim 35 years later? A revue of just the early works of a man who has since become an adored icon of the American musical theatre? I have to say I was dubious, before last night, as to its effect in 2012. Was I right? Well, yes and no.

The piece was given almost every chance. The comfortable, modern theatre-in-a-warehouse is a grand place to watch a concert/compilation show of this type. The accompaniment (one visible pianist with a little assistance off-stage) was immaculate. The costumes were suitable, the part 2 set delightful (couldn’t we have had it for Part 1 as well, instead of nothing?), the direction and choreography just what they should be, effective because unobtrusive. Rightly, all the limelight was focused on the three performers. Well, three and a half.



Come back Ned! The personality (?) who compered the piece (I don’t know his name) was frankly appalling. Indistinct to inaudible in speech, out of sympathy with the style of the thing, and intruding on to the stage, rather than commenting apart, with ghastly joey-joeys and end-of-the-pier monologue (who wrote those camperies?) … He would be better suited as the narrator of Rocky Horror, who at least gets zapped. Zap him is what I would have like to do for his almost ruining my evening.

And then there were three. And here is where Side by Side Christchurch simply triumphed. And I mean triumphed. All three performers – Ali Harper, Juliet Midgley and Michael Lee Porter – were excellent. First class. And I don’t mean a parochial ‘excellent for Christchurch’, I mean ‘excellent for anywhere in the world’.

Porter has the toughest job. He has to be tenor, bass, dancer, pianist, actor, and pull off all the bits that David K put into the show for himself to perform, and which won him a Tony Award. That means he has to tackle that anthem of awfulness ‘Being Alive’, sung in my auditions by half the gay chorus men in London, till I banned it, and he has to deliver the cross-sex version of Follies ‘Leave You?’, which was a little saucy joke in 1976, but now is just a dimunition of a fine song. It’s not the least thing to his credit that he almost brought both these monsters off. And he succeeded utterly in everything else he did. A pleasing voice of wide range, an engaging personality – no cardboard here – and that priceless ability to meld into a duet or a trio as only a consummate musician can. Gold star.

I’ve heard about Juliet Midgley since before she was born. Last night was the first time I had heard and seen her perform. Wow! Talking of consummate musicians, here is another with bells on. I mean, I always admire a singer who can hit the high ‘doo’ in ‘Drive a Person Crazy’ bullseye every time (and boy Ive heard too many who can’t). But that is just the beginning with this young lady. One minute she powers out the church singer’s sopranoisms in ‘Not Getting Married’, the next is Maria in West Side Story and the next she has switched to the bottom line and is giving a rich chest voice to comic lines or to that blowtorch song ‘Losing my Mind’. Maybe there is something she can’t do: it certainly didn’t seem like it last night! Gold star.

And Ali Harper. Well, I have to admit I have heard Ali sing before. First as a student, and later in Tell me on a Sunday on my only visit to the quakened Court Theatre. I admired her talents then: boy, have they matured sensationally since. It is not in any way diminishing the other performers to say that she gave me my two ‘on my feet’ moments of the night. The first came in a desopilant version of that cabaret-queen number ‘I never do anything twice’. This number gets regularly overdone, and camped to death by ‘personality performers’: here, it was delivered with a mostly subtler humour and oh my goodness: sung! The second stand-up moment surprised me. A Little Night Music is my favourite Sondheim show. Bar none. But I’ve never really understood all the fuss about ‘Send in the Clowns’, especially out of context. Blame it on Frank Sinatra. And do YOU know what the words mean? I never have. Until last night. My abiding memory of last night’s show is Miss Harper, looking uncannily like Ingrid Bergman, lounging on her plush couch singing – yes, SINGING – that song in a beautiful soprano voice, and making its meaning absolutely clear. Actress, vocalist and, well, in never hurts to look like Ingrid Bergman, does it. Gold star.

So. Sum up. The show is, I think, ready to go into retirement. Too much has happened in the world of Sondheim and his music and lyrics in 35 years to make it relevant today. (Do Passion instead.) And the Conversation Piece is a pterodactyl. But with a trio of performers like this on hand, they could have sung the phonebook and I would have cheered.
Which I did.
Lustily and sincerely.

A Night at the Addington races … eating

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

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…