News – Page 2

Tourist or traveller?

Excuse the philosophical start to my Barcelona trip but my friend Frances has just come back from a guided tour in Vietnam and Cambodia which she thoroughly enjoyed. Over a few beers with Graham in Liverpool last weekend we talked about the difference between travelling and touring. As my family and late wife will attest Raggett holidays were always travelling. Planned by me, booked by me and executed, however badly, by me. But as age creeps on it made us all wonder the time for a bit of organisation by others might be timely. Graham’s fear was that he’d find himself in a group of Daily Mail reading Brexiters and be most uncomfortable. Fran’s tour was happily free of such companions and Graham was a little reassured.

But as I set off for Stansted to begin this latest venture I had a rare sense of unease. Could I still do it? Should I be with Tui rather than intuition? Hey I’ve done Rome, Lisbon, Malaga and Cadiz and Mallorca – with Covid tests – so why the worry? I’ve had real, not man flu for a week – three lots of Benyllin at home and a trip to the pharmacy for Mucosan (better I would say after two doses) and cancelled a Barbican concert on Sunday because I didn’t want Rattle’s baton picking out the cougher in the stalls. So maybe confidence is down a bit through illness. There was a moment during the miles of steps through Stansted that I thought there must be a better way to do this. But hey, if you buy and fly Ryanair you know what to expect. Everybody chooses Priority so that queue is longer the the Other Q, but at lest you do get on first.

Flight was fine, great snow over the Pyrenees and a wonderful descent into Barcelona along the coast. Then the traveller took over. I’d booked a Barcelona 5 day card for unlimited travel and free entry to 20-30 museums several of which I intended to visit. However Terminal 2 is huge and the Tourist Office is at the other end, the best part of a kilometre away. I get my card and set off back to where I started to get the train into town when I realise I’ve left my second bag on the floor while sorting out the card. So steps are retraced, bag retrieved and the trudge to the train is on again.

It’s a nice train, with diverting behaviour from two young ladies, whose black suitcase rolled towards me as the train pulled out. I rescued and returned it amid great giggling. The journey was initially through industrial suburbs and just as it got interesting it went underground, But it delivers me to Passeig de Gracia station five minutes from the hotel – if you come out the correct entrance. So fifteen minutes later I rock up at the hotel where they let me check in early which is a relief as I need to sit down for a bit. It is an OK hotel in a modernisme building but sadly my room does not have one of those nice balconies overlooking the street. There is a swimming pool on the roof but not open in December. Great views over the city though.

Refreshed, I was soon in proper holiday mode with a beer and tapas in a local bar on the Rambla de Catalunya. The eagle has landed!

The evening’s plan, cough permitting, is to go to the Palau de la Musica Catalana to hear Philippe Herreweghe, the Belgian conductor doing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. I knew vaguely where it was – no Google maps with roaming charges back – and I was on the verge of asking a waiting taxi driver for directions when I spied the exterior. Almost as embarrassing as one day in a market when I pointed to a cauliflower and asked ‘come se llama?’ To be told with an uproarious laugh ‘coliflor’. I’d booked my ticket online and was shown to my seat in the magnificent auditorium – the absolute epitome of modernisme design and execution.

Soon after I was seated I was hissed at by a lady of some few years younger than me I would estimate, indicating that I was occupying her seat. My neighbour explained that a group of them usually sat together but there had clearly been an “error” at the box office. She didn’t seem that bothered and despite my offer to swap several times I was told ‘no pasa nada’ – it doesn’t matter. Maybe my limited Spanish kept her from an earbashing.

The orchestra, choir and soloists arrived followed by the rather ancient-looking conductor – he’s four years younger than me but you wouldn’t guess it. He also had to take a couple of comfort breaks between segments – unusual in this work – but pee breaks are something I sympathise with for anyone. I love the Missa and this was an enthusiatic rendition but not the best I’ve heard although the soloists were outstanding.

It was exceptional to hear a great piece of music on my first night in town and my companion recommended a guided tour and the cafeteria in the basement. ‘Cafeteria si,’ she said ‘restaurante no – es muy caro!’.

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Chopin/Graves Take 2

First things first – a trip at 10:00 to Clinica Belice for my two days before PCR test. Take 2 on that too as they needed to see my passport which was in the hotel – I’m really rubbish at this travelling lark. They were very efficient and friendly and I’m promised results tomorrow evening, [received Negativo at time of writing so if they have crew I might get home!].

Then later than usual to retrieve the car and set off. Well at least I know the way to Valldemossa and with the cloud much higher over the mountains I can appreciate the gorge that leads through the Sierra Tramuntana up to the town.

I know where to park so am soon in the Chopin/Sand cells inside the monastery. It is fascinating and reading George Sand’s disgust for the locals probably explains why they didn’t have a good time here. Her Un hiver en Majorque has some joyous descriptions of the landscape among the groaning about conditions and the impounding of a Pleyel piano for weeks by evil Spanish customs. When you read the copy you realise that they were only here for eight weeks and you wonder why all the fuss? She wrote about it and he composed some of his most famous works. Guess that worth some fuss – 24 Preludes Op28 are very highly regarded by Chopinistas.

The Cartuja cloister, entrance to Cell 4 and an interior view of the two rooms.

What is fascinating is to see the wall displays of facsimiles of his manuscripts with furious revisions. He hit the paper hard as well as the keys. And it is good to see his bust keeping a watchful eye on the piano they’d paid Pleyel 1200 francs for and from which he’d had so little use thanks to customs difficulties

To talk of them living in a monastery cell sounds like real deprivation and there were three adults (FC, GS and maid) and two children living there but they did have a garden of their own which Mme really enjoyed with its stunning views.

I’m not sure whether the trees had formed this circular shape in their day but the view this way hasn’t changed much.

There’s not a huge amount to see and an hour and a bit sufficed. Valldemossa itself is too touristy for my taste, highly groomed streets, some interesting art but a whole lot of craftish tat. So i have a peremptory stroll, stopping of course to snap Chopin Street and WhatsApp it to my friend Jadwiga who is Polish and a Chopin groupie!

As I left the town I was struck by the large number of plane tree avenues leading to and from Mallorcan towns – there are some on the mainland but it feels rather French midi to me. I love them. Good now, but must be great in summer.

Having not eaten until four yesterday I thought ‘wouldn’t it be good if there’s a restaurant between here and Deia.’ There was and it is clearly very popular because while there were only a few diners when I arrived just before two, by the time I left it was full. I had some great sepia in a spicy pica-pica sauce and habanitas con baicon – an old favourite but here the very small broad beans had leeks, onions and peppers as well as bacon. Very tasty and timely – I thought.

The short drive to Robert Graves’ house was familiar too and I much prefer the town to Valldemossa – sorry if that makes me a tasteless Brit. There was a convenient parking spot right opposite the house so I crossed the road full of hope.

The nicest ‘P off we’re closed’ sign ever!

Once again the lack of a planning companion struck – they close at 13:00 so I should have come here first. Doh! However the gate was not locked and I crept in to have a look at the garden at least. I was caught by the very friendly and fluent English speaking gardener who said he would have shown me round the house but had to leave at three-thirty. We chatted about the problems of gardening – it rained for the whole of November and everything is behind – but he’s doing his best, upon which I complemented him, explained I couldn’t come back again this trip but be sure not to miss it next time. He allowed me to take some photos and rewarded me with a couple of incredibly juicy tangerines.

Graves’-house, bust (by Epstein?) studio and tangerines.

With little encouragement, I decided to carry on round the Ma10 to Soller and then head inland and back to Palma through the middle. With today’s better weather in the mountains their scale, variety and colours were amazing – just not enough safe stopping places for photography but I managed a few.

I passed through some interesting towns that would repay a visit: the Botanic Gardens at Alfaibia are closed until March, but look fun; Bunyola had some interesting buildings; and as I came to the end of the Ma2040 I found myself at the Mallorca Fashion Outlet – no point me stopping there! This is on the outskirts of the town of Inca which is linked to Palma by a near-motorway standard Ma13 so I headed on home or back to the hotel at least.

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Christmas Day and a day in a box

Imagine my delight when drawing the curtains to see the bright green shutters on the building opposite bathed in glowing morning sunlight and framed above by bright blue sky – yes this is Christmas! So I have a light breakfast and set off to the airport to pick up a car to go and visit Rosa and her mother and join them for Christmas lunch. Rosa had rented a villa through AirBnB in the middle of nowhere – in fact the guy who opened up for them said they were in the exact centre of the island – a claim I suspect is shared by several locations. But for any geolocators out there it’s between Sencelles and Inca, Benigali and Costitx. It’s in a part of Mallorca renowned for early settlements and since I’d never encountered the term Talayotic Period (1200-123BC) we decided to go and explore a couple on our way to lunch. Before we set off Rosa, Pepita and I had a ‘conversation’ about our very different experiences and lifestyles and with a few gaps where expressions failed us we got on very well I thought, there were a few smiles and chuckles at least.

At the Santuari Talayotic de Son Corro, supposedly columns built without mortar but showing signs of steel rods and cement.

We were, it must be said, slightly underwhelmed and the visit did not take too long so we set off for another which Google maps said was nearby. We found the hamlet of Binifat quite easily but found no sign of its talayot. Fortunately, a group of people were arriving for a family lunch and with the benefit of my two fluent Catalan speakers, a brother-in-law was fetched who give detailed instructions. Pepita decided it might be a few steps too far for her ailing knees (she is a little older even than me – I was told; I did not ask!) so we left her with the car looking for wild asparagus in the hedgerows and Rosa and I strode off down a lane and as instructed found a very small gate that involved clambering over a low stone wall and the along a fenced path beside a farm pasture. It was a slightly more impressive find with a circular shape and massively thick walls. I did not enter as it would have involved a crawl and I had posh trousers for Christmas lunch not my old jeans, but the nimble Rosa made it through and reported an interior circle looking very similar to the exterior. It would once have had a roof but that is long gone. The signboard at Son Corro said Talayotic sites were used for animal sacrifice and wine drinking and I think there were devilish cults and witchcraft involved too.

We rejoined Pepita at the car, asparagus-free alas, but glad she didn’t make the walk when we showed her the photos. We then went to a village called Costitx where there’s a restaurant inside the Casa Cultural building that also houses the library and the town hall. There were many families at tables enjoying the Christmas lunch – as did we. It was clear that apart from us the two extremely tall and thin maitres d’ (don’t they eat their own delicious food?) knew everybody and teenagers were subjected to lengthy hugs, cheek pinching and sundry other embarrassments. The restaurant could be quite hard to find as it’s called Notenom which means I have no name In Catalan. Two dishes were placed in front of us with the note that these were just nibbles and not the real thing. Whoa! Twelve beautifully crisp calamari rings and a plate of mussels in a fabulous onion, garlic and tomato sofrito. They were excellent but we decided to hold back for the real thing and half the mussels came home with us in a takeaway container. Next up was traditional Mallorcan sopa de Nadal which is filling chicken broth into which are placed pasta shells stuffed with spicy minced beef. I had to apologise for leaving a couple of the pasta shells with my regular excuse “Mas anos pero menor appetito” which usually garners a sympathetic smile. Next up was a huge chunk of Corvina served on a bed of potatoes. We had a) to enquire and b) Google to discover that what is often claimed as the tastiest fish in the Med is ‘brown meagre’ in English should it ever occur. It was quite meaty, very flavoursome and not too strong and I was glad I’d held back – at last a plate to be proud of. I declined the good looking almond cake with ice cream but one of us has a sweet tooth and a slice of that found its way (sin helado) into the homebound bag. No cooking for the Pascuals for the rest of their trip. Since picking up the car I have been most abstemious as even my Catalan understands “Al Volant Zero Alcohol” and I don’t intend to find out how strict they are. However a glass of crisp white with the fish and a copa de cava to celebrate Nadal were essential. It was an unusual but most enjoyable afternoon and was rounded off by chanting youth in hats and horns singing their way through the restaurant to the astonishment even of the owners.

I drove Pepita and Rosa back to their place and had a further coffee and chat before setting off back to Palma. I needed no more food but a few glasses in the hotel’s Sky Bar with views over Palma at night made for a memorable day.

Boxing Day dawned sunny again and I had decided to set off for Valldemossa to visit the Chopin George Sand museum and Deia to see Robert Graves-house. Oh where’s the trip planning suprema when you need her? I drove out of Palma admiring the mountains, arrived, parked, made my well-signed way to the Cartuja, the monastery where they lived and found this.

Right place wrong time – for those without Spanish Domingo cerrado means closed on Sundays and what day was Boxing Day 2021?

I decided to use the rest of the day as a recce and sightseeing day and after a coffee, I set off on the Ma10 up the west coast. Now loyal and regular readers of these scribblings will know that I can get close to ecstatic about twisty mountain roads with sheer drops, sea vistas and hairpin bends with rock fall warnings. You’ll be pleased to hear the Ma10 has been added to the list – it’s a beauty. And I had no one to scare! It does have a few miradors along the way so here was my first pause at San Marroig (from Cap Roig near where I used to have a house in Begur I know that roig is red and you can see why.

Fun cloud formation to the south and the red cape winking at us. and fabulously clear water in the cove below me – nearly tempted me but it’s a long way back up!

Next was Deia home to poet Robert Graves-for so long. His house will have to wait till tomorrow too. But the town perched on its hill is lovely. After a lot of trips to Andalusia it should really all be painted white but the ochres and browns suit the landscape.

I stopped by a large reservoir the Garg Blau – it was very blue – and was very impressed that they’d rescued a sixth century column from being flooded and given it pride of place and a plaque in a pull off on the Ma10.

I carried on with a brief stop in Soller which has a famous tourist train ride down to its port – not today’s though. Some interesting architecture and a quick coffee sufficed. The Ma!0 gets really hairy after Soller as I headed for Pollença where I thought I might get lunch.. Real hairpins, narrow stretches and brilliant views of proper mountains – the Soller Pass is at nearly 500 metres -and then down into a fertile plain behind Pollença. It’s a great old town and had a couple of open restaurants but with wing mirrors at risk in some streets and no obvious parking I decided to head for its port where surely there would be restaurants – it’s a resort after all. And there were. It’s by now gone four o’clock and I’m peckish so olives and bread with allioli keep me going as I order a frito misto which the menu said had a variety of fried seafood but when it came it was distinctly non-fishy. I enquired and was told I’d ordered Frito Mallorquin. It was very tasty but one guide book says it is not for the faint hearted – main ingredients: cubed potatoes, red peppers, onion, garlic, artichoke, black pudding, lamb and chicken livers all fried up in olive oil. I’m OK with offal but I could appreciate the guide book warning which I found back at the hotel for many others. The best thing was watching the evening sun fall on the lovely bay at Port de Pollença.

By the time I’d polished that off and found a less tortuous route back to Palma it felt like most of my Boxing Day had been spent with me at the wheel of my tin box – no complaints from me though – I always did like a location recce!

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World of wonder

Christmas Eve has a special meal planned at the hotel but first there’s some boring admin to deal with. So after breakfast: Book a PCR test for Monday two days before flying home. Check 7 minutes walk from hotel, walk in service no appointment needed. Brilliant.

Christmas Day visit to Rosa and lunch out in the country will need a car. None available in the city but I can pick one up at the airport tomorrow and it’s on the way anyway. Check. So now to the real business of the day – a trip to the Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro.

The location is out in the western suburbs of Palma in an area called Cala Major and it takes about fifteen minutes in a taxi from the hotel. One of the things I wanted after the grey of London was some blue sky. Not yet in Palma but today as I walk towards the entrance the cloud lifts and there is a good-sized patch of blue. And of course with Miro there will be more sun inside.

My visit was a little truncated as a large part of the building was closed for repairs and remodelling but both in the extensive gardens where big sculptures were displayed and in the studio where the stacked canvases there were ample testaments to the genius and prolixity of Joan Miro. He and his Mallorca wife Pilar, lived on Mallorca from 1956 until his death in 1983. He used a small building Finca San Boter while his friend Josep Sert was designing and building a purpose built studio, now known as the Sert Studio. Up in Boter it’s fun to see the remains of Miro’s sketching in charcoal directly onto the whitewashed walls and also to note the eclectic collection of everyday objects he took inspiration from.

Graffiti and inspiring trivia at Son Boter

The Sert Studio is a fine building from the outside with a fluted roof either echoing waves or clouds and slanted tiles to allow filtered light and air into the capacious balconied studio. I was utterly gobsmacked by the sheer number of canvases leaning against each other and the walls. While there are strong similarities in Miro’s basic mark selection and palette, each canvas has a different atmosphere and you wonder what the finished articles would have looked like. It’s always fascinating to see artists’ work in progress and there’s plenty of it here.

There was also a rather good fifteen minute video about his life and work on Mallorca which after climbing and descending the many steps to Boter studio I was happy to sit for a while and watch. I was very pleased I’d made the trip out here and as I left wondering where I’d get a taxi, I came upon a bus stop that said Route 46 went up the Passeig de Mallorca which is very close to the hotel. It also had a QR code that informed me that a bus was due in ten minutes so I decided to wait. Well worth it! It headed off in totally the wrong direction according to my understanding of where Palma lay, but eventually came to a terminus in Genova, waited for a while and then returned me through bustling suburbs including one that must have been close to the more infamous areas of Mallorca as there were adult only entertainment bars, sex shops which I found a bit surprising next to supermarkets and pharmacies. However it did pitch up where I wanted and I had a stroll back to the hotel with a few stops for liquid, but little food refreshment as a six course meal was planned for nochebuena in the hotel. This began at nine o’clock began with cava, a delicious fish soup, crispy octopus and fillet of sea bass accompanied by frequently poured Verdejo and after a short pause and change of glass, a Rioja went nicely with the lamb stuffed with foie gras (apologies vegans!). I declined the tiramisu with red fruits but did have some home made turron (nougat) with my coffee. By now I was chatting to my neighbours Carl and Cristina, Swedish fiancés who were here for Christmas before heading to Andorra for skiing where they had become engaged this time last year. Sampling a copa or two of Mallorcan brandy, we got on well and I have an invitation to their wedding in Stockholm in August. I may just be too busy with centenary celebrations at Watford to attend however. But what a lovely Christmas Eve and one that didn’t end up in hospital!

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Palma Art trail

Well, I got a music fix on Day 1 and have the delights of Radio National Classica on the TV in my room. It’s a cross between Radio 3 and Classic FM and plays an interesting mix of material. So Palma Day 2 today is devoted to the visual arts alongside coffee, beer, wine and other tourist activities. The hotel is very close to one of the island’s most important museums of contemporary so I headed there first after my surprisingly included breakfast. So long since I booked I’d forgotten it was a B&B deal. The joys of a Spanish hotel buffet again -with so much to choose from!

The Esbaluard Museu has a series of terraces with sculptures displayed and then inside has four distinct exhibitions on at the moment.

The entrance and sculpture terrace with the cathedral.

One by a Mexican artist Elena Del Rivero was very impressive with a variety of installations and community project artworkS which the museum’s photos convey better than I can.

An Elena del Rivero piece ‘Chant’ in which she sews found letters onto a gauze drape.

There was a rather overly political photo collage project by Rogelio Lopez Cuenca and Elo Vega about the despoiling of the island by tourism – maybe I just felt guilty! I did like one room though with twelve male mannequins in Hawaiian shirts watching touristy footage. They just missed having towels on loungers.

I was much taken by glass sculptures by the aptly named Lara Fluxa given the fluidity of the pieces highlighting how glass is flowing until it settles into a form. I found the variety of her work from thin and flighty to more solid and serious quite affecting.

A couple of Laura Fluxa’s fun glass sculptures.

The fourth exibit was called Masks against Barbarism and had as a central focus a sound piece of scenes from Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi alongside a series of other images from many different artists. The Jarry piece was especially interesting for me as my directorial debut was in 1964 when I produced a version of an earlier Jarry play Ubu sur la Butte as University College French Department’s entry in the annual Lycée Français intercollegiate competition. It won best actor but not best director (sad face) but gave me a lifelong interest in surrealism and the poetry of protest.

All in all a very enjoyable and stimulating couple of hours after which I set off towards the cathedral which dominates the city from every angle. It is a very impressive edifice but is closed for public visits until the New Year so I didn’t get to go inside – I guess I could go to mass on Christmas Day, after all I did go see the pope’s Christmas Day address in Rome a few years back.

You just can’t miss the cathedral. On the left it beckons from the walls of the Esbaluard Meseum and is impressive up close but only from outside.

But right beside it is the Almudaina Palace and since that’s the name of my hotel it would be wrong not to wouldn’t it? I’ve been struck by how there are far fewer examples of Spain’s moorish heritage here than in most other cities. However the name and the fact that it has Arab Baths makes it plain that they did get here. The original Arab fortress was seized after the expulsion as a Royal Palace for the kings of Mallorca and is full of massive rooms with various functions over the years. It also has great vaulted ceilings, faded tapestries and outside an impressive cactus garden.

I had high hopes of my next art stop and so paused for a beer outside one of the most photographed facades in Palma. You see it on postcards and publicity for the city and is is a fine example of decorative retail art. They have great bread and cakes too.

The famous Forn del Teatro and Plaza Frederic Chopin.

On my way I was able to pass through Plaza Frederic Chopin and think of my Polish friend Jadwiga Adey at home alone as her family based in Paris and LA are not allowed to join her. When I rent a car I’ll go to Valldemossa where Chopin lived with George Sand for a year. He was in poor health but managed a burst of great creativity.

When I got there, the Fundacio March (big Mallorca banking family) was something of a disappointment. Among some workmanlike but uninspiring abstracts, paintings by Dali, Juan Gris and Picasso just emphasised the gulf between OK art and great art. So I left there and had a further wander through the streets of the old town with a few refreshment stops enjoying people watching frantic last minute Christmas shoppers in the trendy thoroughfare that must have been named for me – Carrer San Miguel.

It was announced on the news that from tomorrow (24th) masks are compulsory in the streets again.

So it’s off to he city’s other trendy thoroughfare, the Passeig de Born to eat this evening amid the Christmas decorations and noisy revellers. it’s such fun to be elsewhere! And it’s 16-17 degrees. Sorry!

We discovered once before that most restaurants close on Christmas Eve – Nochebuena – so I was glad that the hotel offered me a special menu de nochebuena in an email a couple of weeks ago. I’m due to eat at 21:00 so having got back from today’s further art excursion, I thought I’d get another blog down. What with tonight’s dinner and Christmas lunch out in the country tomorrow, it may be a while before the next one. The wonderful world of Joan Miro is next.

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Christmas came early this year …

As many of you know, and the name of my blog probably gives away, I’m a big fan of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. He’s just published a new non-fiction book about his extensive collection of T shirts. The publishers Vintage – part of Penguin Random House – ran a competition for a signed copy of the book and a unique T shirt commemorating the title. You had to submit your favourite Murakami-related T shirt photograph and explain why.

So I’m in Tokyo in 2013 buying the first copy of his then latest novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage in Japanese on launch day at Kinokunia Bookstore in Shinjuku, wearing an 1Q84 T shirt I’d obtained by queuing outside Foyles in London for the midnight release of the trilogy 1Q84 in 2011. Dee and I even appeared in an Evening Standard feature about the launch. Well it demonstrated my Murakami credentials and I won a prize! I never win prizes.

The T itself and the T shaped signature bookplate

And then it had to be added to the extensive collection of Murakami titles which are fully referenced in the Our Murakami library section of this blog.

The book itself is a marvellous revelation of some personal aspects of Murakami’s life which he seldom reveals. It’s generally known that he has a massive collection of vinyl albums – estimated at 10,000, but who knew he also gets T shirts wherever he goes. There is a chapter on record shop T shirts of course but also on surfing shirts. In one great anecdote he tells of his delight but also shyness at meeting a famous surfboard designer Dick Brewer whose boards he’d used for a long time. Richard Brewer was now working as an estate agent showing Murakami round a property in Hawaii. “So you have the same name as the surfboard designer,” Murakami observes. “I am Dick Brewer but my wife said I’d never get anywhere surfing all day, so I had to get a proper job.” There’s a good plug for Guinness too alongside a T with the famous badge:

Travelling in Ireland I’d stop at local pubs and be amazed that the temperature and amount of foam in the glass would vary and the taste would be different too. I continue to order Guinness in all sorts of towns – in fact I could down a Guinness right now – but I’d better finish writing this first.

Well Cheers Vintage and Cheers Haruki. I finally won something and something I’m very pleased to add to my (comparatively) tiny T shirt collection. And if you’d like to know more about this fascinating book go here.

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What a week!

I normally only write this blog when travelling and usually when travelling abroad. But I haven’t done that since Christmas in Cadiz in 2019 so it’s been a while. However the last week has involved travel and events that hint at some sort of normal life again. The week began with me getting unexpected praise for writing something completely outside my comfort zone so I posted it on my Verbalists blog. It was a piece of music criticism as homework for a short series of webinars from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

So last Saturday I ventured to the wilds of east London (Gants Hill) for a delicious lunch and stimulating discussion with one member of the group BBPC (British Bangladeshi Poetry Collective) of which I am honoured to be a trustee. I was invited by Shamim and Eeshita Azad who I worked with in Bangladesh way back in 2009. My poet and artist friend and I are working on a translation project where she finds my editing experience a help. As I told her she mines the jewels; I just give them a bit of a polish. We made good progress and had a fun time. So why was the day spoiled by taking me nearly an hour to get back through the Blackwall Tunnel? What were all these people doing on a Saturday evening?

Sunday and Monday were consumed by domestic and gardening duties which proved fun in the sun and both flowers, fruit and vegetables are coming on nicely and I have a neat front hedge.

On Tuesday morning the four of us who are the executives and trustees of BBPC were subjected to a 90 minute grilling – not she wasn’t that fierce, a gentle toasting – by a bank manager, making sure we were who we said we were, what we planned to do and I suppose to make sure that we weren’t a front for a money-laundering operation. We survived and hope to have a bank account to go with our newly acquired status as a Community Interest Company. We had a splendid picnic that evening to celebrate becoming a real company. More excellent Bangladeshi food and the company of friends, oh how we’ve missed that!

On Wednesday Eeshita and I attended an excellent British Library streamed lecture by Jhumpa Lahiri about the art of translation something we will be featuring in BBPC workshops. She is Bangladeshi but now an American citizen teaching at Princeton and has just published Thresholds in English which is a translation she made herself from the novel she originally wrote in Italian after moving to Rome a decade ago to steep herself in Italian language and culture. Thought-provoking, informative and stimulating words from a fierce intellect who shared her thoughts with great clarity.

And as that wasn’t enough excitement, in the evening I conducted a Zoom interview for The Watford Treasury a magazine I help to edit. Talking to a Watford striker hero always gives me a buzz but Tom Smith as he is now, Tommy when playing, was charming, thoughtful, generous of time and gave me just what I required for an article I’m writing.

Then the real fun started on Thursday. I actually drove to Putney to pick up my friend Jadwiga and headed off for Glyndebourne to see Janacek’s Kat’a Kabanova. It’s the first time since 2019 and we were blessed with a glorious sunny day and had booked a hotel in Lewes so as not to have to rush back to London after the performance. We arrive in time to change and book a cab. Mad Mike panic – I normally keep cufflinks in the pocket of my DJ jacket, but after its last use it went to the dry cleaners. Taxi imminent, no time to go shopping so quick improvisation required. Has reception got a stapler? Of course and duly sterilised it provided a new way with shirt cuffs as we made our way the Glyndebourne, passed through the temperature checks and venue log in and went to pick up our picnic which we’d booked in the marquee for the interval. Glyndebourne is doing a big thing with local winery Nytimber and, well local businesses need support so drink was taken.

The opera was beautifully sung and played and is a heartening tale of disastrous marital infidelity leading to death – well it is opera. The score is dynamic and exciting and made for a fabulous evening and if you would like to you can read my review here.

It had been such a delight that on returning to the hotel in Lewes we decided a glass of wine would be a suitable accompaniment to discussing our views of the production. So we did that for a while and both agreed that while visual and direction aspects of the production were naff, the music and the experience were wonderful. As we were thinking about retiring two young ladies entered the bar, got themselves a drink and asked if they could join us. They were police officers due to give evidence in court on Friday and proved chatty and delightful companions as bottles rather than glasses were consumed and four people who should have known better struggled off to bed around 1.30 am.

The last time we visited Glyndebourne together it was glorious weather for the opera and biblical, monsoon rain next day, I might have been back in Dhaka. History repeated itself with one significant difference. Last time I’d left my car’s lights on by accident all night and had to call the AA who, after getting it started, advised driving solidly for two hours to recharge the battery. We zigzagged across Sussex and Kent before deciding it was safe to stop for lunch in Penshurst. The car was fine this year and took us through the deluge to Chichester where we had tickets at the Pallant House Gallery to see an exhibition From Degas to Picasso which was very impressive. But it did raise a question of access to art. All the paintings and prints were from the gallery’s own collection and was the exhibit was put together rather hastily once opening dates were known. There were more etchings, lithographs and screen prints than oils, but also a healthy selection of watercolours. We feasted our eyes but were saddened that all these images are normally hidden from view in a vault or storeroom. Here are two lithographs by Salvador Dali that showed a different side of his work – albeit with a few characteristics tics here and there.

Lunch in the café was pleasant and we were ready for a mercifully rain-free drive through the fabulously varied scenery of Sussex and Surrey via Midhurst and Haslemere marvelling that we were out of our homes and having a fine time with a friend. What a great end to a busy week!

Thanks to Farah Naz and Jadwiga Adey for some of the photographs.