Random Jottings

Shattered

Well back to work today and, as usual, nightmare journey home.  Freight train broken down at Stratford, signaling problems at Ilford, the usual litany of failure.  Had to stand most of the way, sweat trickling down my back but managed to read the Death of Faith by Donna Leon as I lurched backwards and forwards trying to keep my balance.

I have now read ALL FIFTEEN of Donna Leon's books (including the latest one) so what am I going to do????  How can I wait until the next one? Well, back to The Robber Bride which I started over the weekend and it is already clear nasty things are in the woodshed.

Boring blog, but boring day really.

Sigh

English Countryside

When the sun is shining and the sky is blue there is really nothing to beat the English countryside.  The picture above is an illustration of this.  All we need is a few larks on the sky line and we have a Van Gogh.

Last week I visited Bath with my sister and mother and when we drove back to my sister's house in Quorn, Leicestershire, we travelled through some of the most glorious countryside.  We took the Fosse Way, an old Roman route, which wends its way through the Cotswolds and every village we went through looked as if it had walked off a chocolate box lid, they were all picture perfect.  Even the new housing estates (and can we ever get away from Barratt Homes I ask myself) had obviously only been allowed if the same Cotswold stone was used to build them and they blended very well.  In a few years time when they have weathered they will look even better.

We stopped at Northleach, a village in Gloucestershire, to visit the World of Mechanical Music. According to the leaflet this is "a living museum of the various kinds of self playing musical instruments which were the pride and joy of our grandparents" and the collection ranged from musical boxes of all shapes and sizes to barrel organs and pianolas with piano rolls. 

We listened to old 78 rpm records (Bing Crosby singing Would you like to swing on a star) and heard a demented sounding chorus of Champagne Charlie on an old wax cylinder.  It was a totally fascinating place to visit (www.mechanicalmusic.co.uk).

After a obligatory cream tea at a local Tea Shoppe we took to the road again and later on in the evening when we were almost at our destination, we stopped in at a farm shop to buy fruit and veg and found a simply stunning view from the top of the hill where it was located.  Of course, we had to sit down and have yet another pot of tea (sans scones this time) and just enjoyed sitting and looking at the cornfields and the surrounding trees and fields. 

When I see landscapes like this, I do wish I could paint....

Return of the Native

I have been away for a week visiting Bath and have taken so many pictures I am going to need to do some serious editing.  It is hot and I have been travelling all day so will hie me off to bed, but some hard blogging will be done this weekend.  In the meantime, here is a picture of Bath to keep any visitors going....

Donna Leon

Well, I now have a problem.  I picked up Death at La Fenice by this author, which I have already mentioned on this blog, and since then a further eight books have been devoured.  I have been on Amazon this morning and was delighted to find that some very clever person had listed all of the Guido Brunetti books in their correct order, and from this was able to find that I have another seven to go. But what then?  As always, when I splurge, I splurge with a vengeance and then am left bereft waiting for the next book to be written.  Moderation is something I have never learned to practice.

These books are seriously addictive and, more so, if you love Venice.  Donna Leon lives there and knows the city intimately. I wonder if her main character, Commisario Guido Brunetti, is herself in disguise, voicing her love of the city.  All the restaurants and little coffee shops that Guido visits in his investigations, the loving descriptions of the meals he eats and, particularly those cooked by his wife Paola (an academic and teacher of English literature as is Donna Leon), are given in loving detail so that you can feel your taste buds tingling as you read.

Venice is portrayed as an old woman with her youthful past well behind her, even as an prostitute who can still beguile you with its charm and faded grandeur.  Behind all this beauty is the ever present threat to Venice of its decay and uncertain future, not just from the elements, but from the corruption of its local government and officials and, in the person of Vice-Questore Panatta, the failings of the police.

Whenever I read a book, or series of books, with characters common to all I always try to cast actors to fulfill the roles.  I have done this all my life though sometimes I find I get irritated with myself at my inability to break this habit.  When reading these books the first person who leapt into my mind immediately to play Panatta (and as this actor is long dead a more futile exercise never existed) was Rossano Brazzi.  Panatta is a patrician, elegant and handsome Italian in his forties, and possessed of a tiny mind totally occuped with status and money.  Rossan Brazzi was a pin up in the 1950's, very handsome and possessed of enormous charm and this part would have fitted him like a glove. So now I have to think of a contemporary actor.  Hmm.

When it comes to Brunetti, the person who keeps popping into my mind is Count Francesco da Mosto who I have already raved about on this blog, the presenter and producer of Francesco's Venice who is a native Venetian.  He is not an actor, well perhaps he is after his two TV series, but he keeps intruding and I cannot keep him away.

As Waterstone's has all these books on their 3 for the price of 2 I feel a visit coming on later today. However, as there are only 7 left that means I will have to pay full price for one - unless of course I can find another two books I want so that I get the last Donna Leon free.

You can see that economics was never my best subject at school.....

Hot, Hot, Hot

It was the hottest July day EVER today with Sahara like temperatures.In London at lunchtime 100F was recorded.  Thank goodness my offices have beeen refurbished and that we have a brand new air conditioning system that is actually working.  I have not moved out of the building since 9 am this morning and reeled back from the wall of heat I met when I finally left this evening and headed for the station. 

Descending into Liverpool Street station was like going down into an inferno, the heat was simply appalling.  When the concourse is a heaving mass of bodies you know you are in for trouble and so it proved.  Signal failures, tracks buckling in the heat, you name it, there it was.  Managed to squeeze on the train and get a seat next to a heavily pregnant woman who I was most worried about.  Spots of rain on arrival at Colchester but nothing yet so am awaiting thunderstorms.

Have just listened to the Prom on Radio 3 - Mozart Clarinet Concerto followed by Dvorak's New World Symphony.  Lovely way to end a pretty dreadful day.

Linda Gillard - A Lifetime Burning

Transita publishes books for, and written by, the 45+ woman, a market that has been sadly neglected up to now.  Despite the fact that Mariella Frostrup was so superior and dismissive when discussing this new venture on her book programme, Transita is doing nicely, thank you, and is now building up a very interesting catalogue.

One of their authors is Linda Gillard, who I remember reading years ago when she had a regular column in Ideal Home, portraying the ups and downs of family life, a page to which I turned as soon as I had the latest edition. 

I have just finished reading the above book and am still trying to come to terms with it.  My first thoughts are is that it is a huge leap forward in terms of writing and flow of language from her first Transita novel Emotional Geology, which I did not much care for.  I found the heroine unsympathetic and the style of writing turgid and predictable with the odd four letter word slung in here and there, more out of duty it seemed to me than for any other good reason.

I wonder if that book was used as a practice run, one that Linda Gillard had had gestating for a long time and was just eager to get published and out of her system?  This latest book is much more mature and so much better written.  It is almost as if Emotional Geology had given her confidence in her abilities and enabled her to write such a good second novel.

BUT, and there is a but in all this - I found the subject matter disturbing.  There is no attempt to gloss over the incestuous love between Flora and Rory and portray it as making them happy in any way, indeed it is made clear that this love brings nothing but sorrow. A reader coming to this book with no knowledge of its subject matter could read for quite a while before it is clear where the story is leading.  Once you reach the point of realisation it will not matter, you will read on as by then Flora and Rory have a hold on the reader and you will want to find out what happens to them both.

I think this is an excellent book and one that has stayed with me and made me ponder and think.  However, I found the ending morally ambiguous. Without wishing to give the plot away, it seemed to me that the conclusion was reached that love was all that matters, and the fact that one of the main characters who had been portrayed as a man of integrity, seemed to collude in this incestuous love continuing down the next generation, made me feel very very uneasy.

Wool Churches of Suffolk

Flemish wool craftsmen, giving up on floods and war in their homeland, crossed the North Sea, encouraged by Edward III who was married to a Flemish princess. They went to Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich, spreading out to Hadleigh, Sudbury and Lavenham in Suffolk, and Coggeshall, Braintree, Dedham and Halstead in Essex.  Here the wool industry flourished and churches funded and paid for by the wool merchants stand as a reminder of the importance of this trade. 

The Suffolk Villages Festival, of which I was chairman for some eight years, is a festival of early music played on original instruments and during my tenure the wool churches of Boxford, Stoke by Nayland and Hadleigh were used as venues for concerts.  To be in one of these villages on a summer's evening when the music making had been wonderful and the sun was going down, was one of life's perfect pleasures.

Dedham, Suffolk

It was such a lovely day today that I decided to drive to Dedham which is just over the Essex/Suffolk border and not far from me.  I decided to leave the A12 as soon as possible and take the scenic route which I certainly did with a vengeance as I got totally lost and found myself driving along a very narrow, twisting road with high hedgerows on either side of me.  I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was heading but as the sun was shining and the birds were singing, I decided not to worry and see what happened.  What did happen was that I came face to face with a Landrover whose driver, most courteously and efficiently, immediately backed up some 100 yards and slid gracefully into a shallow ditch on the side of the road to let me pass.  I was most grateful to him and said so, but I daresay he took one look at me in my Nissan Micra and knew full well that this was the safest course of action for him to take….

Dedham is one of the most popular place for tourists as it is in the middle of Constable Country and Flatford Mill, immortalised for ever by this painter, is not far away.  It has hardly changed at all since being portrayed by Constable but in the summer is so packed with visitors, all eating ice creams and taking boats out on the river, that it is difficult to enjoy it.  The visitors were starting to stream in as I left, all heading for the craft centre and the Essex Rose tea shop, so I decided to leave having enjoyed my brief wander.

When driving back along the same winding road, which I deliberately chose this time, with the windows open, the sun warm on my face and Chopin on the radio, I thought to myself that life was pretty good on the whole.

The Three Tenors

The original three tenors who caused an explosion of interest in classical music and opera several World Cups ago are now reaching the twilight of their careers (though you would not believe it of Placido Domingo) and thinking about them the other night I felt a pang of nostalgia for those heady days when they were all singing Con Belto.

Luciano Pavarotti (or Fat Lucy as he was sometimes called...) was never my favourite.  He always struck me as being a lazy singer, more intent on presentation and flourish, rather than any deep portrayal of the character he was playing.  Lots of scoopy notes and sliding over runs, and while the pinging crystal clear sound of his tenor was loved by many, I found it had limited appeal.

Jose Carreras I adored.  I first came across him in the early 1970's when my then husband, a singer, was boosting the chorus at Covent Garden in a borrowed production of a early Verdi opera, I Lombardi, very rarely performed, but full of the most glorious music.  Jose Carreras was making an early appearance at the Royal Opera House in the tenor hero role and I have to say that when I first heard his voice I was simply pole axed.  It was the most glorious full bodied, golden sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.  When listening to him I was struck by how much he sounded like an early tenor favourite of mine, Guiseppe di Stefano (who used to sing a lot with Maria Callas), with similar phrasing and generous tone.  Perhaps too generous at times.  Later on in an interview, Jose said that one of his earlier heroes and one on whom he had based his singing style was, yes, Di Stefano...

I attended a dress rehearsal of this production and sat in the stalls, not something I did very often and afterwards when backstage having lunch in the Covent Garden canteen found I was standing next to Jose in the queue for egg and chips.  I was struck all of a heap and so by the look on her face, was the lady ladling out the food...

Glorious singer, but never the same after his brush with leukemia.  How could he be?

And then of course, there is Placido.  What can one say?  Not a lot without writing reams so I am going to save him up for a blog entry all on his own.  My admiration for this great artist knows no bounds, particularly after hearing him as Siegmund in Die Walkure last year at Covent Garden.  Impossible to believe after watching this performance that this man was in his mid-60s.  Simply sensational.

I remember idly thinking one day that these three Superstars were like wines:  Pavarotti, a Lambrusco, light, sparkling but with no flavour or depth; Carreras, a Rioja, dark and full of heart and Domingo, well, to me, he was a full bodied, warm claret.

A conceit I know...

I STILL love Lucy

Three Lucy Maud Montgomery books have landed on my desk this week courtesy of Alibris online booksellers. LMM wrote hundreds of short stories for magazines and newspapers which disappeared from view, but have now been rediscovered, edited and grouped together under different collective titles by an indefatigable lady called Rea Wilmshurst. I am trying to collect them all.

First one up was Among the Shadows - billed as tales from the darker side of L M Montgomery featuring drunkards, thieves and murderers plus some supernatural tales. Can't wait!

Next one Against the Odds - Tales of achievement. Set in Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan these are stories about  'orphans, teachers, actors, struggling single parent families and intransigent relatives'. Sounds like Eastenders to me....

These two are in paperback but the third book,  Across the Miles -  Tales of correspondence is a gorgeous hardback and in beautiful condition so am thrilled to bits with it.

These three will adorn my Lucy Maud Montgomery shelves and I am saving them up to read when it is autumn and nights are drawing in and they will be perfect sofa, tea and choccy biscuit reading. I am sure all fellow readers will know what I mean.