Gentle June

After the madness of May the new month starts at a somewhat gentler pace. First up on 2 June is a trip to Glyndebourne to see the Festival’s first ever production of Wagner’s last opera Parsifal. Having just driven to Stratford and back, I decided to do this one by train and the excellent £10 return Glyndebourne bus service from Lewes Station. It worked really well and I arrived on the most beautiful sunny day, took a walk around the lake, had a glass of wine and watched all the lovely people. I decided on a dark suit rather than the full DJ and it’s becoming clear that the dress code is much more relaxed than it used to be – there were even men in shorts! Oh and had a preview of dinner!

So, into the auditorium and during the wonderfully atmospheric overture a caption appears on the curtain referencing Cain and Abel. Now Wagner had already mashed up Arthurian legend with strict Roman Catholic Good Friday rituals. Could the story take another level of myth? Well in my opinion, no. The main charaters’ alter egos or older doppelgänger mooching around at the back of the set didn’t do it for me and the construct that Klingsor and Amfortas had been quarreling brothers also didn’t wash. All that said it was magnificently sung and the orchestra under Robin Ticciati was just sublime. And there were some great moments of theatre in Jetske Mijnssen’s production too. I loved the gang of Kundry clones whooshing down on poor Parsifal and I liked the procession of Titurel’s coffin round and round the altar before laying him to rest. On the coach back to Lewes one visitor complained that this went on a bit too long to which I replied “Well, there is a lot of music to get through before the next aria and at least there was some action.” Despite some reservations about the over-concepty production it was a great evening and I’m very glad I saw, but especially, heard it.

The next evening (Tuesday) saw me join a friend from 50 years ago, Alison Dunn, at her retirement party in the splendid Humble Grape wine bar off Fleet Street – a great choice as that’s where we first knew each other when she worked on Education and Training magazine with Barry Turner a long-standing writer and editor friend who did some consultancy work for me in my guise as an educational publisher back in the 70s. Tasked with speaking to everyone in the room – I only knew Ali – I did about 70% and what some fine famaily, friends and former colleagues she has.

Each year in November the British Bilingual Poetry Collective, of which I’m a trustee, runs an interactive poetry event as part of Tower Hamlets’ Season of Bangla Drama. So on Wednesday Shamim Azad, the founder, and I head off to see the coordinator of the festival Kazi Ruksana Begum to discuss plans schedules and the broad outline of this year’s event. The theme for 2025 is ‘Kindness’ and we’ll be switching our focus from Rabindranath Tagore to the national poet of Bangladesh Kazi Nazrul Islam in a session with the title Kindness with Kazi.

< Last years’ poster

The evening brings the last concert I’ll see in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Southbank season. It’s an old favourite but like you’ve never heard it before. Elgar’s Enigma Variations must be one of the most played pieces in the repertoire with ‘Nimrod’ known in many different forms. However, the OAE presents ‘ historically informed’ performances so to hear the music played on gut strings, wooden not metal flutes, French not German bassoons made it sound completely fresh. Quite possibly how Elgar himself would have heard it. The variations formed the second half of the concert. Before the interval we heard his lively concert overture In the South written while he was in southern Italy and reflecting the sounds and landscape of the country. The mezzo Frances Gregory then performed five of Elgar’s Sea Pictures with great sensitivity and bursts of power to soar above the rich orchestral tones. the Portuguese conducter Dinis Sousa made his debut with the OAE and clearly developed a great rapport with them. He’s the principal conducter of the Royal Northern Sinfonia based a the Glasshouse in Gateshead and looks a fine prospect.

I remember a lot of excitement around Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice back in 1997 in the confines of the Cottesloe theatre at the National and I enjoyed it very much at the time. I was looking forward to this revival in the similarly contrained arena of the Donmar and it didn’t disappoint, mainly thanks to a brilliant performance from Hammed Animashaun as Mugsy. The banter between the boys, the knowledge that he’s going to lose and his dream of opening a restaurant in a disused toilet in Bow infuse the whole play which has a spectacular set transformation that’s worth the ticket alone. As with House of Games, I’m more than ever convinced I’m not cut out to be a gambler.

I should have gone to Garsington to see Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades on Friday. However my frequent opera comapnion Jadwiga was unwell and I couldn’t find a replacement at short notice. The brilliant box office have moved my booking to 21 June and we’ll be seeing Handel’s Rodelinda instead.

My next musical outing was on Sunday 8 June when I went to a new venue for me – Charterhouse. It was a concert organised by the Barbican as part of the European Concert Hall Organisation’s (ECHO) rising stars programme. It was a recital for trumpet and piano and featured a premiere piece Continuum by my friend Dani Howard. Dani had worked with the trumpet player Matilda Lloyd to create the piece. As Matilda said in her intro “It started with an icecream on the beach”. Knowing Dani’s large orchestral works, her opera and hearing her percussion composition for Colin Currie last month, it confirmed – if it needed it – her versatility and gift for melody and creating atmospheres. Matilda and her pianist Jonathan Ware had played this piece 18 times as they toured the European concert halls who form the ECHO with this one being the last. They all kindly invited me to join them for tea and cake or a beer after the concert so it was altogether a super Sunday afternoon.

As a special offer if you’d booked a Barbican ticket you could see the Encounters exhibition for a fiver, so I did. This was in a small gallery on floor 2 and featured the contrasting works of Giacometti, with whom I was familiar, and Huma Bhabha who I didn’t know at all. Huma was born in Pakaistan but is now based in upstate New York. Her monumental works which incorporate found materials contrast with the elegant skinny figures of Giacometti. I know which ones i’d like to own but it was an interesting hour contemplating differeing approaches to making sculptures.

Continuing with our catholic cultural chase, my next visit was to Sadler’s Wells with my daughter Jo to see Mathew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell . This was a belated birthday outing for Jo and we had a fine early supper in Moro before making our way through the heaving Exmouth Market up Rosebery Avenue. What are all these people doing out on a Tuesday? The ballet is set in sleazy Soho in the 30 where the eponymus pub is host to prostitutes, closeted illegal gays, a lovestruck barman and various other denizens of nighttime London. There were duets, larger ensemble pieces, the most amazing and fluent set changes and original music blended with ballads from the era sung with original vinyl hiss and crackle, endless style and commitment by booming baritones. We both enjoyed it a lot and chatted about it as we made our way back to Farringdon for trains back home. It’s good to enjoy your daughter’s birthday treat too!

Yoshitomo Nara is an artist I’d seen a little of and so off I went to the Hayward Gallery to see what must be one of his biggest ever shows outside Japan with over 150 works displayed. He’s the epitome of Japanese kawaii kitsch but with a twist – those sweet faced Hello Kitty style children’s faces contain messages of disquiet, protest and fear. Nara is very political in his work and repeats themes throughout his long career which the exhibition spans. There are installation – a ramshackle shed, a teacup fountain, paintings, drawings and sculptures spread over the whole expanse of the Hayward. It was fascinating to start with but there’s just too much to see and too much repetition of the themes that are dear to him. I’m glad I went however and got to have a chat with a film crew shooting it for The Sunday Times.

There was a double challenge getting from the gallery to my dinner with friends in Soho. First I had to navigate the waterfall and fountains on the walkway. They were fun – a cascade from the level above, water pouring from a waist and a green figure with a fountain for a head. Then I had to make my way across the Hungerford footbridge the scene of my disastrous fall last May. I managed both and had a great evening. I’ve been a fan of Nubya Garcia the young British saxophonist for a long time and managed to pop into the Queen Elizabeth Hall to get one of the last few tickets for her gig there next Thursday. It’s part of Little Simz’ Meltdown Festival which sounded a bit youth for me but I do like Nubya’s music so I bought one

The warm up band, Oreglo were a quartet of keyboard, drums, guitar and tuba – the latter becoming an instrument of choice it seems since Theon Cross in Sons of Kemet and other of the new groups that have arisen from Tomorrow’s Warriors – also a training ground for Nubya which she graciously acknowledged in her concert introductions. Oreglo were full of life and energy in a field that spanned jazz and prog rock and were an adequate preparation for the main event.

I was very surprised to see the band walk on stage Sam Jones headed for the drum kit but that doesn’t look like Daniel Casimir and that is certainly not Joe Armon jones at the keyboards. Nubya then followed in a huge-skirted off the shoulder gown and later introduced Lyle Barton at the keys and Max Luthert on bass. It’s a tribute to the quality of musicianship that you didn’t notice the personnel changes – yes the solos might have been a bit different but they fitted the music, mostly from the latest album Odyssey. She proudly announced that she had done all the arrangements for the strings that are on the album herself – taking her out of her comfort zone to make the sounds she wanted to hear. She also apologized for the lack of a string section tonight but had rearranged the songs for this concert. I am so glad I bought that ticket. The album is great and different but her live performances and those of these superb players were electrifying. She even did a walkabout through the audience with the final song from the album ‘Triumphance’ with its spoken word lyrics of life enhancing advice about resilience, tolerance and collective power. Nubya is true talent at the height of her own powers who received a standing ovation from the packed QEH audience which did include a few other people of my generation as well as all the meltdown youth.

After another visit to the Union Club, this time for lunch with a friend, we set off in the evening to enjoy The Taming of the Shrew in Tredegar Square in Mile End performed by a group called Shakespeare in the Squares. They perform an adapted version of one of the bard’s plays – different each year – in squares across London. I think it was 18 this year. The production includes songs for the audience to sing along with, some high quality acting and projection against traffic and aircraft and other ambient noise. And not only do they speak Shakespeare’s words eloquently they also play instruments and sing. We were lucky that it was a beautiful sunny pre-solstice evening and it was hugely enjoyable. I’ll try another venue next year.

The Taming of the Shrew in Tredegar Square

More music on Sunday when my son was singing with the choir Pegasus and the Outcry Ensemble at St John’s Smith Square. Two fanfares opened the evening the familiar Copland’s Common Man and Joan Tower’s Uncommon Woman which I didn’t know and then a Britten choral work which I’d never heard ‘Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam’ which was, I’m told, very hard to sing but was a great listen with six differently styled sections setting the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins for unaccompanied voices. I had a good catch up with Tom in the interval and then enjoyed Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms where the countertenor soloist was none other than Hugh Cutting who had been at Garsington the night before. I was able to tell him how much we’d enjoyed Rodelinda and his performance tonight. He too enjoyed the production at Garsington and thought it worked well, especially the dancers.

The Outcry Ensemble and Pegasus Choir at St John’s Smith Square

Carry on culture back home

SUNDAY 9 JUNE

Back in UK on Friday evening, Saturday shopping and multiple laundry sessions and Sunday it’s off to the Tate Modern with neighbours Sean and Maria and my friend Rosa who last saw me on crutches for Pina Bausch’s Nelken at Sadler’s Wells at the end of january. We four went to see the exhibition Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind. It was back in the sixties when I first heard about her when her film Bottoms caused a great media storm. I’d then obviously been aware of the John Lennon connection but had not really thought about her as a serious artist. But my goodness she is – yes there are some stunts that may be a bit gratuitous, but taken as a body of work this exhibition shows her to be a serious, thought-provoking artist – and very Japanese in her mental processes.

Her earliest works were immaculately typed and calligraphed utterly surrealist notions in her Action Poems with a wide variety of ideas that make you think about dreams, reality and which you’d prefer to be in. So many of these contain messages like the Painting for the Wind where you think how wonderful it would be if new seeds were spread by the wind allowing new life to grow, This idea recurred many years later when she and John sent acorns to world leaders to plant trees for peace. Some of the responses they received are displayed too. It is quite shocking to realise that Yoko was doing things 60 years ago that are considered edgy today. There are far too many to comment on all of them and to read all the works in the show you’d need to be there for days not hours. I might go gain.

Then there’s the mesmeric striking and burning of a match filmed at 2000 frames a second and replayed in ultra slow motion. You can’t take your eyes off it. Throughout the exhibition there is a constant exhortation to get involved to become art yourself – one of us did..

The joint projects with Lennon like the Bed In for Peace were shown in films you could watch from benches or bean bags and for many younger visitors these were probably news – I’m old enough to remember them vividly from media coverage at the time. Another of their films Film number 11: Fly was truly disturbing as a number of flies crawled over the naked body of the wonderfully named Virginia Lust accompanied by a very experimental audio track with Yoko’s vocals, John’s guitar and various tape recorder reverse effects. As a producer I hope they paid Ms Lust a substantial fee for her ordeal – she hardly flinched under all those tickly flies’ feet.

I had vaguely heard of the Half a Room project that Yoko first showed at MoMA in 1967. It does make you think about completeness, wholeness and things you are missing in life and trains the eye to see things differently.

As indeed does the bullet hole in a pane of glass where she encourages us to go and look from the other side. When first shown in Germany it was punningly entitled Das Gift with its pleasant English comnnotation but in German gift means poison. It reminds us that John Lennon was tragically shot by a bullet and there are far too many still being fired in conflicts all over the world. She and John were always very politically engaged. Their famous poster WAR IS OVER if you want it can be seen in the background and in many other areas of the exhibition

Getting involved is always on offer – playing chess on all-white boards, climing a step ladder to look at the sky, watching the sky above the Tate on an old B&W TV in real time – they are all asking us to think about art and artificality, imagination and reality and it certainly gave me a great deal of food for thought and arguments to counter those who dismniss this as gimmicks not art. Politics and collaboration are featured in the last two major exhibits. One started as a completely white painted room with a refugee boat as its centerpiece. During the course of the exhibition people have been invited to write messages in varying colours of blue felt pen so that the boat itself and the walls are covered in messages – some highly legible and frequent like FREE PALESTINE, others more intimate expressions of love. And the final room asks visitors to write messages of love for their mothers and pin them to a wall that is growing ever thicker as post-it notes are superimposed on one another.

Add Colour: Refugee Boat at the tate modern makes us all think about the worldwide refugee crisis.

MONDAY 10 JUNE

Then on Monday it’s off to Garsington Opera for a performance of Platée, an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau I’d never seen and only ever heard extracts from. I’m quite a fan of the Baroque and even managed once to use a piece from his opera-ballet Les Indes Galantes as the soundtrack for a infant formula corporate video I made back in the 80s. I’ve been a friend of Garsington for many years now since beinhg introduced to it by my friend Susie Stranders (now at the Royal Opera House) who was music director for several years. I love the brilliantly maintained cricket pitch and the vintage coach ride to the walled garden and especially the glass box opera pavilion all among the lush Chiltern Hills. It helps that they mount outstanding productions with world-class musicians, singers and directors.

So now to Platée with my friend Jadwiga and I keen to explore new adventures knowing little of the story except that it was the familiar theme of the Gods interfering with mortals for their own nefarious purposes. On entering the pavilion we are surprised and delighted by the set which takes the form of Studio 3 at Olympus TV – a particular delight for me having spent a lot of my professional life in such places. During the lengthy and very lovely overture a script conference is taking place where execs demand creatives find ways to boost the falling ratings of the hit show Jupiter and Juno – or should that be Juno and Jupiter as egos are involved here. There are tacky (deliberately) animations on the big screen, the occasional countdown clock that we used to hope the public would never see. There is some brilliant choreography with the meeting room tables swinging around while the creatives search for a solution and for Thespis, Momus and Thalie (Holly Brown a very convincing stomping about the set frustrated producer) as they sort out the new scenario. Now there’s, rightly, no photography allowed during the production and I’m extremely grateful to Garsington for sending me some images to illustrate this blog. Sadly none of them show the entire set in all its glory – plunge pool, colonnade, cocktail bar, fire pit and so on – so hurry and bag a ticket if you can and go and see it for yourself.

The opening production meeting in the ‘studio’ Photo: Julian Guidera

The plot is convoluted but what matters is the music. First heard in 1745 at the wedding of  the son of Louis XV of France to Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, the main character is a none too attractive nymph with whom the team persuade Jupiter to fall in love. Given that Maria Teresa was said to be no beauty, I wonder if there were a few sniggers among the wedding guests. The tradition at the time as we know from Handel was to combine dance with the singing bits to keep the audience happy and there are long passages where you just revel in the melodies, the unusual inventions Rameau introduced in both time and instrumental effects – a timekeeping tambourine was a lovely surprise. I was also struck by his brilliant writing for voices – the trio for the three seen above was ravishing and the choral pieces were beautifully sung by the Garsington Chorus. In the pit was the English Concert under the baton of Paul Agnew who knows this piece really well having sung the role of Platée several times. They were lively and committed throughout. It is a comic opera and the music included some funny elements that were presented skilfully. So yes, Platée is a role for a high tenor making the ingongruity of Jupiter falling for ‘them’ (in modern day wokery I guess) all the more absurd.

Jupiter enters in a glitzy gold golf buggy and after a beauty parade in Love Island style chooses the dowdy nymph rather than the very pissed off supermodels who were gracing the stage with their colour coordinated wheelie luggage.

Photo: Clive Barda

Platée’s competitors parade each with accompanying on-screen graphics. Photo: Clive Barda

Special mention has to be made of the dancers who produced some spectacular displays. My eyeballs will never lose the image of them lying in rubber swim rings performing synchronised swimming moves. Nor will I forget the whole casts’ falling repeatedly asleep while waiting for Jupiter to come to the wedding and equally the brilliant staccato movement of their chairs across the set in another scene. As Platée becomes more excited about the impending wedding we have an interlude from a sparkling La Folie whose sheen and style are a contrast to poor Platée’s OTT wedding outfit.

As we drove home Jadwiga exclaimed that she’d never seen anything like it. I have to agree that Luisa Muller’s production – so different in tone from the last of her productions we’d seen here Britten’s Turn of the Screw – but so admirably suited to the harum scarum, off the wall plot and the musical twists and turns. The TV execs got what they wanted – Juno stormed in full of jealously but then saw Platée and realised that she’s been gulled and all ended happily ever after for Juno and Jupiter.

Juno reclaims Jupiter Photo: Julian Guidera

As I said in another post last week when gods and mortals mingle it always ends in tears for the earthlings. It was a cruel end for Platée ridiculed for her pretension and slinking off back to her swamp. But then life ain’t fair is it? What is fair is that, despite everything, Garsington Opera can still put on evenings like this despite the draconian cut backs to the arts. In fact they’ve just opened a wonderful facility on the site Garsington Studios so that rehearsals can take place simultaneously for different productions and sets can be contructed, wardrobe and props made, making the whole production process so much smoother for all concerned. And when not used for the company, the studios can be hired out to produce income. Thank you Garsington for another superb evening at the opera, I can’t wait to come back for Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 19 July.

Early weekend

Three days of writing as planned – it’s harder than I expected and quite tiring. Also characters went off-plan and started introducing new plot lines and new characters which weren’t in my outline at all. Whether any of it works remains to be seen. I had arranged to meet Natalie and Graham, who have a house in Antequera, in Cordoba on Friday. They would take the train and I’d meet them at the station.

20170511_171018Thursday brought an absolute downpour and the forecast for Friday was dodgy so I sent a message asking if they want to postpone but we decided to risk it anyway. So I set off in blinding rain with the wipers the only things going fast along the windy road through Villanueva de Algaidas to reach the A45 autovia to Cordoba. All was well and I made it to the very modern station with a huge plaza in front of it in good time. But it seems there’s no short-stay, pick up and drop off parking. However two cars were waiting in a slip road in front of the station which had bollards to stop you entering from the obvious direction. No one seemed to be about so I failed to see a No Entry sign, went in did a three-point turn and was ready to receive Natalie and Graham when their train arrived just five minutes late.

All aboard we headed off for the recently opened Gourmet Food Mercado de la Victoria which I’d not visited before. There was one further tour past the station before we found the correct route to the market, parked easily and bought a ticket for €1.70 for the maximum stay of two hours. We walked across to the market but it was only just getting under way so we walked down a little further to a café that offered breakfasts. We asked the waitress if we could have a cloth to wipe our pavement table and chairs before sitting down. She came herself and gave us a dry base but warned us it wouldn’t be for long – rain was coming. And it did before she was even able to bring us our first coffee. So we scuttled inside while the rain lashed down on Cordoba. Natalie had thoughtfully provided two umbrellas so we only got mildly damp as we moved from café to the market. It’s a fun destination in a wrought iron pavilion with lots of small outlets for a wide variety of food and drink inside. It’s modelled on the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid which Dee and I had discovered by happy accident several years ago. It was by now past midday so time for a beer to dry off, explore the market and then move the car. When I got my next ticket it’s expiry time was 18:02 which came as a surprise until I remembered that they don’t charge during siesta from two o’clock till five-thirty. Plenty of time to explore the old town and the famous mezquita

May is the time for the Festival of the Patios in Cordoba and the first corner we turned led us into one. Spectacular arrays of geraniums in pots rising to the sky through a three-storey courtyard with excellent ground level planting too. The lady standing looking proudly on told me that she looks after the whole thing on her own. We didn’t do the right thing and pick up a plan, visit all 60 of them and vote for the one we liked best. This one if you scroll down the list in the Juderia section was Judios, 6.

After admiring the patio Natalie and Graham led me to one of Cordoba’s most famous bodegas Guzman a proper Spanish place that doesn’t have a website for me to send you to. Three vast barrels dispense Montilla-Moriles – we are in Cordoba not Jerez after all – but the fine dry cold wine accompanied by some excellent goat’s cheese in olive oil made for a pleasant moment or three watching established locals and whizz-in-and-out-tourists explore this iconic bar. A very atmospheric, authentic corner of Cordoba.

Mezquita
When I went in 2010

We then moved on past the queues waiting to enter the main attraction which we had all visited before but were impressed by the cleaning that has been going on revealing colourful Arabic designs on the exterior walls of the building which was started in the 700s and as with so many buildings has changed religions and had bits added over the years.

 

8A15BAFC-0974-464C-AFC8-CCC380842190To the south, the banks of the Quadalquivir have been opened up and developed and we took the opportunity of a sunny spell to walk across the Roman bridge, even earlier than the mosque dating from the first century BC and rather spoilt by some later concrete balustrades. Time for a visit to a favourite which Natalie had recommended to Dee and me on our visit in 2010 El Churrasco. We just had a drink on this occasion but it is famed – rightly I remember – for the size and quality of the meat it grills. (photos thanks to Natalie, I’m rubbish with phone photos and didn’t have a camera with me).

The place was occupied by a constant stream of diners, often queuing for some time to get a table. We supped up and walked on through the old quarter in which Graham and I looked round at one point to find no sign of Natalie. She had vanished into a favourite jewellery shop, purchased a bracelet and left the umbrellas behind. We decided to wait for her to catch up with us in a bar situated on a corner she would have to pass so we would spot her. They had a delicious looking tapa of chicken liver with a mushroom sauce, which sounded appetising and just had to be tried. And then another had to be ordered once Natalie rejoined us. Then it was time to head back to Mercado Victoria for lunch – a parillada (mixed grill) of steak, sausages, morcilla and chorizo with chips and those delicious pimientos de padron small green peppers blistered in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. Back to the car for an easy exit from Cordoba and back to La Parilla.

The hamlet where I’m staying has two bars and of course we had to pay them both a visit. I deposited my guests in the first and took the car back to the villa, just in case. We met up here with Paul and Tamsin who look after the house for its owners and live here all the time. They had to leave, so we walked up to the other bar where a little hunger was returning and tapas were available. Excellent morcilla de Burgos, which is black pudding with added rice, topped by a quail’s egg at Graham’s special request – he is extremely fond, some might say excessively fond, of fried eggs in all sizes. I’m going to fry him an ostrich egg one of these days! Also there were some very good homemade ham croquetas – a staple of Spanish tapas which can often disappoint. These were crunchy outside and creamy and tasty within. The bar is run by a charming young couple who have a six month old baby whom we could see and hear on the baby monitor sitting on the bar. Lucia is lovely. He’s from Catalunya, came for a holiday, met, married and stayed.

It was just as well we’d been eating steadily all day because despite inviting them to stay the night I hadn’t really thought about food to offer them. As it happened all we needed was a bottle or two of a stupidly good for its €2.75 price Ribera de Duero and then to bed around 2 am in proper Spanish style. And I didn’t have to listen to or watch our plucky defeat at Everton or Hampshire contrive to lose to Glamorgan after scoring 330+.

On Saturday I did provide homemade tostadas con tomate y ajo and coffee out on the terrace where we are promised another changeable day before it brightens up on Sunday and soars to 30 degrees all week next week. We then set off to return Natalie and Graham to Antequera where I can’t leave without a visit to their local – and oft-visited by us too – La Socorilla.

On several previous visits we had been promised a trip to the rabbit restaurant – Venta El Conejo on the outskirts of Antequera. It’s a bit erratic serving only rabbit and opening when they are available. So we’d never made it together. We walked through the former textile factory district of Antequera of which I was completely ignorant but there’s a river valley with lots of buildings of increasing dereliction which were once a thriving industrial hub with 13 factories making woollen goods and blankets along the course of the Villa river, now dammed and diverted so it’s a trickle until it dries up completely in July. It seems they developed from the mid-1800s  and died out early in the twentieth century. We reached the rabbit restaurant and ordered a plate and a half of rabbit and a platter of chips with a side salad of tomato, onions and garlic. All were huge, all were delicious. Following yesterday’s offal tapas I enjoyed rabbit liver and kidneys but drew the line at its tongue which may have been a mistake given how tasty all the rest was. Oh and of course there was a perfectly fried trio of eggs to round it all off. Then back through the town and a small shower for a final coffee at La Socorilla before driving back to La Parilla. On Sunday true to promise the skies are blue the temperature is rising and the week ahead looks good. Washing’s on the line – dry within an hour – I’ve swept storm debris off the patio and am listening to a distant hoopoe call – I saw one yesterday with a great flash of pink, black and white – the wonderful odour of ripening figs and these trees with their pretty pinky mauve flowers and yellow seed pods. I’ve never seen them in bloom before. I think they are a kind of acacia but will ask Paul when I see him.

Time to get back to the real work now listening to Semele which I only know from  extracts in preparation for the whole thing in two week’s time at Garsington Opera. It’s great Handel, good tunes, lots of drama and as usual the Gods meddling with mortals. Precursors of politicians, I’d say. Looking forward to it very much.

Anniversary blog and the day that history was rewritten

41 sushi pink  Can it really be 

          a whole year since we boarded

          B A 0 0 5?

I started writing this on 9 April the anniversary of our departure on the trip to Japan last year which has been described in this blog. 
However life, work and extraneous factors intervened. It's now July 3 and we're in Boston, MA about which more a little later.

9 April 2013 was indeed the day we flew from Heathrow for our eventful, amazing and never-to-be-forgotten trip to Japan. How we wish we were going again but the exigencies of budget and work will keep us here this year. My long absence from the blog has been due to a number of circumstances including  limited social life and lots of writing for others rather than me or you.

However with spring in the air at last after the direst start to any year – ultra low return from our solar panels prove how grey it has been – it feels like time to take up my pen again. And then I got another urgent job for which I had to complete the first part of this week. The year has been so strange we’ve hardly been to any Watford matches relying instead on our friend Fran’s excellent blogs to keep us up to date with our team’s progress. No playoff excitement this year but some promising developments.

We did manage to go to our away game in Bournemouth back in January when we were excited by the prospect of the Japanese exhibits in the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. It’s a lovely eclectic collection assembled by one of the last great entrepreneur-travellers who gathered object that took his and his wife’s fancy from wherever the went – mostly in the Far East. The Japanese room had hundreds of objects but contained behind a perspex corridor along which you could inch your way and peer form side to side. Not ideal but with some glimpses of very interesting artefacts and scrolls.

Our taste for things Japanese was also fuelled by the mention of a Japanese garden on Margaret Island in Budapest where we went for a three night break on a very good deal from Groupon. The garden itself was a disappointment but not so Budapest although we did find cherry blossom. After an unpromising start with the first sign we saw emerging from the airport being a Tesco hypermarket,

Entrance to the Museum of Applied Arts
Entrance to the Museum of Applied Arts

Budapest proved to be a delightful place to spend a few days. We made a concert with the Hilliard ensemble still in good voice all those years after their chart appearance with Jan Garbarek’s saxophone accompaniment in the incredible Vigado Concert Hall which re-opened two days before we arrived. It’s all gilt and marble and pillars and a total contrast to the Erkel theatre where we caught an excellent ballet programme the next night. Built as the People’s Opera during the communist era its clean lines and lack of adornment made it a very pleasant place to watch great performances of three Jiri Kylian works.

The highspot was a visit to the Szechenyi Baths a massive complex of thermal baths where we sat in a grand open air pool with water temperatures of 35 degrees and the air at 24 – fabulous.

Dee about to enter Szechenyi Baths
Dee about to enter Szechenyi Baths

By the Chain Bridge
By the Chain Bridge

Architectural and culinary treasures abound and it’s definitely on the list for a return visit. Any of you who watch Drama on ITV sponsored by Viking River Cruises have seen the spotlit Chain Bridge, Buda Castle and Parliament Building modelled on the HP in London but with even more filigree.

Parliament from bus

We’ve been to more discussions and book launches at the Japan Foundation, entered a competition to win flights to Japan at the Japan Centre and discovered the joys – shared by grandchildren – of curry flavoured rice crackers.

Dee in the Garsington Garden
Dee in the Garsington Garden

I’d heard of an opera in a country house in Oxfordshire some years ago but when a friend of ours Susanna told us she was its musical director we just had to go. Garsington Opera is very much Glyndebourne for the northern home counties but more bohemian in approach and audience. It’s now based on the Getty family’s Wormsley Estate just off the M40 past High Wycombe. The estate is also home to a fabulous cricket oval on which England women beat Australia last year in the first match of the Ashes. The extensive grounds are lined with picnic spots and restaurant marquees bringing a medieval feel to the whole thing. We were blessed with a fine day although it did get a bit breezy so we were glad we’d opted for in-marquee dining at the interval.The opera takes place in a glass pavilion which makes for a unique viewing experience in that performances start in broad daylight and then it gradually gets darker as the evening progresses. We saw Fidelio and in a great piece of theatre the released prisoners in Act 1 actually walk straight out of the auditorium and lounge about in the garden outside. Susanna was able to join us for dinner after warming up the chorus at the start of the interval so we had a great opportunity to catch up with her.

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Mike by the cricket ground

The Opera Pavilion
The Opera Pavilion

Field of feasting tents
Field of feasting tents

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work for a Dutch publishing agency so took a day trip to Utrecht to meet them and an end-client. I flew from Southend airport which I scarcely knew existed but which was obviously very popular with a certain set. My thinking that there would be nobody there and I’d whizz through security after the hour’s drive from home was abruptly punctured by the sight of a bride and a retinue of bridesmaids; eight men in tiger onesies and a gaggle of guys with cork-trimmed hats. Then a look at the departure board for the three morning flights – Amsterdam, Krakow and Mallorca – and I knew I was in the stag and hen departure capital of Essex.

The flight was quick and the train connection from Schipol to Utrecht couldn’t have been easier. Clean, smooth and on time, I thought I was back in Japan. I had a few moments to stroll with my agency contact through the streets of Utrecht which is a cobbled, canal-threaded city with a vibrant street life. Tekst 2000 enjoy canalside offices in a vaulted cellar with a long hot desk for their colleagues and people like me. We went off to visit the client in Culemborg via a chain ferry so it was a day of just about every mode of transport.

20 years ago I was derided by newly made US friends for flying back to the UK on July 4 after my preliminary recce visit for what was to become Direct English. “Don’t you know we have the best fireworks show in the world on July 4?” Oops. So deciding to celebrate the Fourth of July properly this year we arrived in Boston as planned only to find that the firework display has been moved to July 3 to avoid being washed out by Hurricane Arthur. So history is rewritten and the War of Independence ended a day early – at least this year in Boston.

More about the trip to follow.