"Snow in my kingdom..."

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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

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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

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!

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

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

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 ..

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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 ...

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'? -- ah! Maybe Bernard Brothers?

 

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 ...! 

  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

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 ...

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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!

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.

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.

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

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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'

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

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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!

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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...

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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 ...

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 ...

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!