Gavin and Stacey

Gavin and Stacey. I won't lie to you, it's one of my favourite TV programmes at the moment. Right up there with The Thick of It, Life and, yes, I'll admit it, the supremely trashy Gossip Girl. Another confession. I've been to Barry Island - I didn't mean to, promise, but suddenly we seemed to be taking a diversion on the way to Cardiff. And then there it was, Barry Island. With the amusement arcade, the Ship Inn, and, although we didn't see it, the street where Bryn and Gwen live. But as we missed out on some of the sights, a return trip's needed. And, don't worry, we've got a web guide for next time. Heading to Barry, however, is not the true height of being a G&S fan. That occurred last Monday when a work colleague and I decided to spice up the normal tea round by making a half tea, half coffee. Just to try, you understand. (For the record it's not horrible, not exactly pleasant, but not as bad as it sounds.) And what did this week's episode feature? A toffee, or a cea. That's half coffee, half tea to you or me.

Christmas lights

Now bathed in blue light, Bristol has welcomed in Christmas. Tree branches light up College Green, waving in the wind like dancers' legs encased in sparkly fishnets. Tent roofs fashioned from glimmering tendrils hang between shops in Broadmead, and in Clifton Village a large tree has been draped in luminescent pearls.

The wrongs of spring

Sorry Stravinsky. Sorry that your iconic masterpiece The Rite of Spring is being subject to this. That while the ENO orchestra in the pit doesn't put a foot wrong in all those complex rhythms and wild accents, unleashing your score's visceral power, there's a company of dancers on stage not putting a foot right. Sorry that you have to write one of the best ballet scores out there, and the choreography of this ENO production has to be so disappointing. A mass orgy followed by cigarettes? Tens of naked mens putting on flowery dresses to symbolise - I'm told - femininity? Not radical. Ridiculous.

Background music

Sorry Adolphe Adam. Giselle might be the quintessential Romantic ballet, with lots of suffering for love, otherworldly spirits and featherweight long tutus, but - to be frank - your music's a bit dull. Yes, you might have written one of the first purpose-composed ballet scores, rather than tacking together lots of catchy melodies to make a patchwork ballet, but where's the sparkle, the drama, the melodies? Giselle dies of a broken heart, comes back as a slightly creepy being called a Wili, and then saves someone else from death through her love. Surely that deserves some musical tugging at the heartstrings? Beautiful ballet, shame about the magnolia music. (Though, as a viola player, thumbs up for the long viola solo in Act II.)

Pacific sky

Scenes from Highway 1

Forget for a moment the blue of the Pacific, the crash of the waves, the endless sky and the wheeling birds. Forget the lure of the open highway, the American dream, the thrill of driving alone, of surviving on the right-hand side of road. Forget seeing the bridges that have withstood salty seas since 1932. Forget the waterfall that empties itself on to a sandy beach, and the elephant seals lounging in the sun. I've got to forget all that. You see, I’ve just caught sight of the car clock: 2pm. So since I left my youth hostel at 10am, I’ve driven, erm, 34 miles. Leaving 232 miles before nightfall. 232 miles?! Gulp. Along twisty roads. Double gulp. With speed limits of 35mph. Have just swallowed my tongue. Right. No more getting carried away by nature’s beauty, or stopping for just one more I-might-never-see-this-again photo. Time for foot on the gas.

Losing its direction

For six months or so I've been volunteering at a homeless shelter in Bristol. The £1.6million Compass Centre is pretty much brand new, opened last May with a flourish from the local council. But now it's closing. Despite the fact that more than 20 and up to 30 people sleep there every night.Officially, there are only two rough sleepers in Bristol, but I, and all the other volunteers, know that this simply isn't true. Any council member who bothered to visit and talk to the people it helps, the staff or the volunteers would have to agree. This isn't going to be an irate post - the takeover of the centre is a done deal - but why close a well-run, busy night shelter? Why close a shelter that people feel safe in, and instead consign them to the streets or a scramble for beds in the city's only other shelter? Is money that important?

Clifton Rocks Railway

A secret railway? Hidden in the rock? Abandoned since WWII? Intriguing. So when I heard the Clifton Rocks Railway, billed as the only underground cliff railway in the world, was open for one of only two days this year I decided it was worth a look. Sadly the Banksy effect seemed to have taken hold, and the queue snaked round the corner and down the road. Time to head to front of the queue and peer over the railings instead. Would queuing be worth it? Hard to tell. To one side, a man is talking to a crowd, reeling off slightly too many Rocks Railway facts. To the other, erm, not a lot. The start of a railway? A brick wall? A friend asks one of the enthusiastic volunteers what else there is to see. Yes, the talk. Yes, the start of the railway. Anything else? A display board. We head to a patch of grass to lounge in the sun. Sometimes it's best if secrets stay that way.

Top tips

Eat lots of sweets before you start writing. All that sugar will fill your head of crazy ideas.
Wise words for aspiring young writers in The Times today. Maybe I'll take up this approach...

Bristol versus Lyon

Is British food really that much worse than French food? Two years on from my French sejour, I've returned to a question that I was often asked in Lyon. Well, actually, it was most often less of a question and more of a snigger; I'd be required to defend the food of our little island - our pies, jars of Marmite, bowls of jelly - to sophisticated Frenchies with palates more accustomed to fine foie gras than fish fingers. Oh, and insist that no, we Brits don't eat cooked breakfast every day, or stop to have tea and cake every afternoon. Just the other day I was asked what the food specialities were in Lyon, so I thought I'd write a gastronomic head-to-head for Lyon and Bristol. And seeing as I'm British, the conclusion should have been foregone. It all started well. Lyon's andouillete - a tripe sausage - is a local favourite. But, come on, who actually wants to eat pig's intestines? Which means that the intestine-free sausages served up by the brilliant St Nicholas Market suasage man win hands down.

Bring on the rest of the main courses. In Lyon, a wise diner would choose one of the more generically French dishes but someone hoping to sample everything Lyonnaise might succumb to the lure of the pike quenelle, another much-hyped speciality. Don't be fooled. Creamed fish bound together with egg yolk, boiled, and smothered in cream sauce? I'd take a Bristol Pieminster pie any day.

On to pudding. Ah, here I thought, Lyon would take a leap ahead. Chocolate fondant is hard to beat, although its richness might defeat you. But then I discovered the best chocolate brownies ever in the Lansdown pub which threw this conclusion into doubt. And THEN I discovered large drifts of unpicked blackberries in Ashton Court and on the Avon Gorge riverside path. Stand aside Lyon. Just as paper always beats stone, blackberry and apple always beats chocolate.

With Bristol clearly in the lead, it was time for a moment of reflection. Could little ole Bristol beat the so-called capital of gastronomy? It was then I realised it couldn't. OK, so some of Lyon's signature dishes might not be to my taste, but if you avoid those you'll feast like a king for not much at all. Fondue, foie gras, salade lyonnaise, pain perdu. Cheese, croissants, baguette and coffee. (It's not exactly a healthy diet!) Take your pick. And, best of all, lunch breaks really are breaks, not huddles behind computer screens with sandwiches, and people not only eat, they talk. Ho-hum. Perhaps it's time to move back to France?

A piano with a view

They're here! 16 pianos are now on the streets of Bristol...

The Year of the Flood

If the words 'book signing' say endless queues, a brief, bland encounter with a writer and a hastily scribbled signature to you, here's an event to prove otherwise. Margaret Atwood's current tour for her latest book The Year of the Flood is oh-so-much-more than your bog-standard book signing. The required reading becomes a performance, narrated by the author, starring local actors and musicians and with a specially commissioned score. An interview follows, as do appearances by local green groups - turns out Atwood is pretty keen on her environmental friendliness - and that's before the 70-year-old Canadian even picks up a pen. Phew. Watch this space for more - Atwood's coming to Bristol this Wednesday. Or for a real writer's take on it, Atwood's blog is here.

Bill Bailey in Bristol

Off to see the master of comedy keyboard tonight. Here's a taster.

zzzzzzzz

... still catching up on sleep ...

More sleep, less art please

Far too little sleep in the name of art this week (oh yes, how noble (who am I kidding - how pretentious) it sounds put like that). Philip Glass's Violin Concerto and Bansky vs Bristol Museum owe me a lie-in. More about both to fol... zzzz....

All very Scilly

Just spotted a few thoughts by Matthew Parris of The Times on the Isles of Scilly. Bryher, the island on which I spent ten summers, is no bigger than a mile one way, a mile and a half the other, with a population of less than 100, but that little piece of Atlantic-beaten land, with its hidden beaches, expansive views and rocky outcrops, from the soft sands of Rushy Bay to steep drops of Hell Bay, is like nowhere else I've been. I haven't returned for nearly another ten summers, afraid the age of tourism might have spoilt its wildness, but perhaps it's weathered the storm...

'When first I visited, some years ago, the Isles of Scilly were, for me, the most unexpected place. I had thought “tame”. They are wild. I’d thought “manicured”. They are unkempt. I’d thought “herbaceous borders”. They are rock-strewn moor and grassland. I’d thought “cream teas and sightseeing tours on the hour”. Instead, heaving seas and occasional inter-island ferries with wooden seats.

This August, on a two-day break for my 60th birthday, I had thought “crowded beaches in August”. But the empty white sand beaches and clear water bays were almost lonely: a magical sojourn on the island of Bryher, cut off from transport and the holiday crowds, and with a desperate scramble to find a boat to the next island on the morning we had to leave.

Little more, really, than a slew of ragged granite outcroppings flung out into the ocean off the end of Cornwall; the fingers of rock and steep little fields didn’t swim into view from the haze on the Atlantic horizon until just after we’d lost sight of Land’s End. Somehow that matters.'

From London to Bristol

When you're walking the streets of Bristol this September, don't be surprised if you happen across a piano. And if, after looking over your shoulder to see who's watching, you feel tempted to sit down and, haltingly, attempt to pick out a tune or tiptoe up a scale that echoed in your childhood, or even launch into some Rachmaninov or improvise like Art Tatum, feel free. These pianos are ours.

Balloon crazy

At this weekend's annual hot air balloon fiesta in Bristol, I may have taken one too many photos... don't worry though, I'll spare you the many and just share one.

Thought

There was a parchment moon last night, its yellow surface written on in ink. Ink that's now faded, gradually pushing the story it enshrined into silence.

Stars in stripes

All those stripey tops in the film Coco avant Chanel reminded me of a picture that always makes me smile - Le Pains de Picasso Enjoy.

At night

The students have gone. Outside sounds like a different place. For two weeks, ever since pens were laid down, the last words scribbled on exam papers and the final timed seconds written off, the nights have been filled with shouts and laughs, with whimsical discussions. The sounds of ‘I can’t believe it’s over’, and ‘it’ll never be the same again’ tinged the air like smoke. Now the students' innuendo-, in-joke-laden chatter has been replaced by the whispers of trees. Only the urban fox loiters in the square, there’s not even any need for the self-appointed square-keeper to rid the grass of wrappers, barbecue leftovers and rogue bottles. There is a natural quiet.

From Pole to Pole

Sibelius was once described as a composer with 'the spirit of a Polar explorer'; a theme from his preternaturally - or should that be naturally? - beautiful Violin Concerto as 'a polonaise for polar bears'. So it seems apt that a day that began listening to Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili's impassioned performance of this piece ended with the final instalment of On Thin Ice, the race by James Cracknell, Ben Fogle and Ed Coates to the South Pole. Not that there are really any other parallels between these two events, but sometimes it's just nice for there to be a relaxed symmetry to the day.

A poem for Simon Armitage

Simon, I work at Anglia Windows
and no-one there has heard of you,
you were not on the GCSE syllabus when we were at school.
That is why I am hiding bits of your poems around the office

like treasure hunt clues.
Now people find you in filing cabinets
couplets scribbled in the margins
of company reports
symbolism on spreadsheets
half rhymes in ring binders.

I quote lines of your best poems
when I’m replying to group emails
It makes it much less tedious,
I saw the girl I sit next to
appreciating a well crafted simile
I had set on her computer as a screensaver
when she had gone to the toilet.

I've even been outside
I chalked entire stanzas
out in the car park
I hope this does not infringe
on copyright.
I hacked into the Anglia Intranet
people from the Technical Department
now find samples of your new collection
where Installation Procedures used to be
Alan Medlicott is going to be furious.

And I know people here aren’t going to bleed Waterstones dry
of the works of Simon Armitage
but there might be something for someone to think about
when they’re at home, at night, making tomorrow’s sandwiches.

By poet John Osborne, who I heard speaking at Latitude Festival in Suffolk this weekend just gone. I didn't hear this poem - I wanted to post 'I think Pat Sharp is Lonely' but I can't find a copy of the version I heard. So I've gone with Simon Armitage instead. Enjoy.

Huh?

On a mission to find out how much poorer I'll be after parking in an NCP car park, I came across one of the oddest campaigns I've seen in a while. Are they serious? Take a look.

Classic walks

Classical music and fell walking collide in Tony Greenbank's Country Diary in The Guardian:

It was on the sharp, conical summit of Stickle Pike that I saw someone I thought I knew leaning against the cairn, with its incomparable view of Caw and Corney Fell. He was reading a book and eating a sandwich and seemed oblivious to my somewhat clumsy approach. "Now then, Martin," I said. "Getting ready for this month's Brewery concert?" But I realised when he glanced up through his wire-rimmed glasses that, rather than Martin Roscoe, who lives nearby, it was someone who looked similar. After my stuttered apologies, this fell walker said he was certainly not a concert pianist, nor even a classical music fan. Few climbers I have met like this particular kind of music, and I have always kept my taste for it to myself.

Harry Griffin, who wrote this column for 53 years, was not one of those who detested such music, however. Each time I visited his fellside flat in Kendal, he would address the keyboard of his upright piano and play a request - say, the Organ Grinder from Die Winterreise, or Haydn's Variations in F minor. Martin Roscoe, who arrived at fell walking relatively late in life, finding a new world to take him out from his universe of music, would have enjoyed his company.

I once clambered to the top of Stickle Pike with this favourite of the concert halls, and he mentioned an impressive list of Lakeland summits ticked, including scrambles on Jack's Rake, Lord's Rake and Sharp Edge, when mist once lured him down from the top of Blencathra on to its intimidating, slippery crest. Such an experience he would rather have done without, he said, admitting to being moderately cautious on mountains. Had a rock rolling down a fellside ever damaged his hand while he was reaching for a handhold? No, he said, nor were his hands at that time insured.

My life in verse

If you get a chance, watch Robert Webb's exploration of TS Eliot's poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. Webb - of Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb fame - takes a tour round the poem, Eliot's story intertwined with Webb's own relationship with this wonderfully restless and evocative work. It's the wrong end of the day but here are the opening lines:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make our visit.

B is for...

Bristol's gone Banksy mad. Queues tumble down the hill that the city gallery is perched on; the enigmatic artist's unexpected exhibition has got write-ups in all the national paper; pubs and cafes are filled with chatter about our local celeb. I haven't been yet, but don't worry. Becca's Blog will be Banksy-ed.

The power of Facebook

On Wednesday I went to see A Hawk and a Hacksaw - that's a band not a pub. Hailing from New Mexico, they played Eastern-European-inspired folk on violin, accordion, tuba, guitar, and... one second... what is that? A violin? A trumpet? A horn? More penetrating in tone, coarser in sound, more intriguing in design than your regular violin with a wooden body, this odd instrument had everyone in the audience guessing. I put out a Facebook plea: does anyone know what you call a violin crossed with a trumpet? The replies came flooding in: a violet; a trumpolin. Then a YouTube link to a man playing one on a Belgian street. I was getting somewhere. Accounts of people seeing them in Venice and Paris followed. Then the genuine name: the stroh violin. And an offer to buy one and bring it back to Bristol. Watch this space. I might have a new hobby.

ps For the curious: the stroh violin was designed in 1889 by one Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh. In place of the wooden body of the violin, which resonates to produce the sound,there's a metal resonator and amplifier - the trumpet or horn part of the violin - to do this job.

Behind closed doors...

The Easton Arts Trail offers a compelling mixture: art by local Bristol artists and a chance to nose around other people's houses. It's a natural human impulse, after all. Just what does go on behind the net curtains? Well, on the evidence of this trail, quite a lot. I saw hugely detailed line drawings of Bristol scenes, Eastern-inspired wood cuts, colourful pottery and characterful photo portraits. Creative could be Bristol's middle name. And there were suprises aplenty beyond the front door. The biggest wasn't the politically-motivated painting in which a cow had its patches turned into a map of the world, with Israel a blood-spattered bulletwound, nor the bleak stories by former drug addicts that accompanied a poignant set of black and white photos exhibited in the community centre. (Isn't Bristol a cheery place?) No, it was a coincidence that stopped me in my tracks. I've only been to Easton once before, for a French conversation evening that bordered on the surreal - anyone for a discussion of the pros and cons of post-capitalism in French?. As we sauntered down a road of terraced houses, I told my trailing friend about the odd evening and the people I'd met there.But even though I'd just been talking about it, I was taken aback to be faced with a larger-than-life portrait of one of the French post-capitalists in the very next front room we entered. It was as if my words had conjured him out of thin air and translated them into bold brush strokes. As if some unknown force had sussed out the fact I was looking in on other people's lives and turned it on its head. A forgotten fragment of my life enlarged and put on display.Not to get too philosophical, this odd little coincidence made me think of that often repeated question. Does art reflect life, or life reflect art?

You know you've made it when...

... your birthday is celebrated on Google, and seen by billions of Googlers the world over. So many happy returns Mr Igor Stravinsky. You may be long gone, but Google has done you proud. Three cheers for The Firebird and The Rite of Spring!

Wheel good

A while back, I wrote about Bristol being named the UK's first cycling city. And I wasn't happy. 'The hills,' I cried, 'The hills. ... Bristol: the cycling city. An oxymoronic concept if there ever was one.' Well, as is every girl's (though not always the law-abiding cyclist's) right, I've done a u-turn. Bristol: the cycling city is actually a pretty darn good idea. Yes you have to deal with a few hills, but as long as you've got gears, you'll probably get there in the end, and most likely be rewarded with a spectacular view. And really, when you're puffing and panting your way up the testing slopes of Park Street, no one's going to shake their head at you if you just get off and push. So here are five reasons to ride your bike in Bristol:
1. Bristol obeys the 30-minute rule (which I've just invented). Just the right size for zipping around by bike, I'd bet that you can get anywhere you like in the city within half an hour. So that's far enough that you'd think walking would wear out your shoes so instead you'd fork out hard-earned pennies for the bus, or drive (and waste the next half an hour hunting for a parking space), but not too far that you feel like you should have put in some training before you set off.
2. The three Fs of cycling: it's fun, it's fast and it's practially free. Could also add in 'it's the future' but the hackneyed nature of the phrase might make you gag.
2. One of Brizzle's most popular waterside venues is Mud Dock - cafe and bar by night, bike workshop by day. QED.
3. Venue magazine - a local mag and proud of it - devoted a whole issue to the cycling cause. What Venue says, goes.
4. Taking to the roads by bike is the only way to make continental Europe jealous of England. Paris, Lyon, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, to name a few enlightened cities, are all cycling mad with a network of cycle lanes rivalling the human circulatory system. And they have free bikes. Well, we can show them that Britain's not so traffic-filled and polluted. As the UK's first cycling city, with £22.8million of funding, a new 'Hourbike' scheme (that's pay-as-you-go, free-for-the-first-half-hour), and as home to edgy dressing, Bristol has got a chance to be the two-wheeled envy of fashion-conscious Europe.
5. And then there's the environment. Or should that be then there's the economy? Either way, cycling is good for the environment and good for the economy (at the very least your own economy - cycling should save a few pennies).

On your bike!

Russian Fairy Tale (A short prelude to Petrushka)

'Why are you a-bowing, slender mountain ash? Bending your head down to the very ground?'
Across the wide river, standing just as lonely, a tall oak waits for her.
'How can I, a rowan, reach that great oak tree? With my slender branches, I would press him tightly
And with our leaves twining, whisper daily, nightly.
Oh you dark autumn moon.
I have no father, I have no mother
No one to call my own.'
The little rowan cannot cross the river. It seems her fate is sealed:
Sway alone forever.
The moon listens and fills the night sky; her beams fall like snow.
The little rowan slowly, very slowly, floats across the water.

This fairytale accompanied an improvisation by pianist Joanna MacGregor at this year's Bath Music Festival.

Ah, the Bridge...

 

Phew!

Picasso and Kaufmann

But perhaps don't rush to fill a seat at the new Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche. Meaning 'simultaneous understanding', the film hinges around a search for - er, well I'm not entirely sure. The meaning of life? Escape from loneliness? I'm not even sure what questions were being asked. We're all actors in our own lives? What's true and what's false? Everyone is the same as everyone else? We can see everything at once? After 2 hours and 4 minutes I was left confused. I prefer Picasso's take on simultaneous understanding: cubism. Ok so it's not always easy to see what you're looking at, but I think the idea of looking at everything at once works better on a canvas than on screen.

Picasso's Variations

Down the stairs in the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing, in the rectangular middle room, hangs this painting. There's probably someone sitting on the low wooden bench in the centre of the room looking at it right this second, mesmerised by the wonderful organised muddle of colours and angles. Make sure at some point before the exhibition closes on 7 June that that person is you.

Sublime Schumann

Just heard the Takacs Quartet and Marc-Andre Hamelin perform Schumann's Piano Quintet at Bristol, St George's. One of those performances written on the memory in indelible ink. From the striding opening chords to the sorrowful sighs and hypnotic triplets of the second movement, from the outpouring of scales in the third to the final flourishes of the finale - not a foot, finger or pizzicato wrong.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Last November I wrote about Bristol's urban foxes. Now here's the photo evidence.

Animal Farm

Just watching Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. Saint-Saens's The Swan from Carnival of the Animals on cow bells. The man's a genius!

Run Bristol

Tomorrow is 10k day. Suddenly this sounds like a Very Long Way. Yes, the two friends who I'm running with and I have run the full distance before but that was when no one was watching. When we didn't have 'Champion Chips' clamped to our trainers to time to the second, nay the millisecond, how long the torture lasts, rather than estimating - generously - from an unreliable clock. When we didn't have to be ready and raring to go at 8.30am (OK - I'm stretching the truth here. The race doesn't start until 9.30, but runners are meant to be hanging round doing impossible stretches from this ungodly hour) and when we weren't branded with race numbers, like cattle going to slaughter. 10k. 10k? 10k! 10k... However you say it, from the start that finish line looks far away.

Down in the woods...

Uncle Bulgaria

At St George's, Bristol, last night. Included hats with red flowers, clapping, stamping and dancing in the aisles.

Power of Three

Just been to see Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (haunting, surreal, telling); now listening to Ravel's Piano Trio (fragile but strong) and reading Julia Leight's Disquiet (cool and mesmerising). All so different; all so brilliant.

Chinese whispers

Wikipedia: stumped; Google: Stumped. I've found the question that cannot be answered. Why is the Chinese burn so-callled? The nearest I've got is this evasive answer from the normally helpful AQA Ask Any Question text service:

A Chinese burn is so called because its perpetrators want it to sound scary and mysterious at the same time. In the US it is called an Indian burn.

Scary and mysterious? Surely that isn't the only reason it's called a Chinese burn. I questioned some more...

There is no record of the first use of 'Chinese burn' as it was mainly said, not written. The perpetrators were just children teasing each other.

Can anyone help?

Inside the Abbey

I stand on a green carpet, the grass soft beneath my feet. Above the stones loom in pointed arches. The Abbey roofs have long fallen in and the outside air is cool on my cheek. Underneath a bare sky, looking at the trees through glassless windows, it is easy to forget the tourists filling the adjacent car park, coach parties from Peterborough who will later fill the local tea shops with umbrellas and ceaseless chatter. Lives of quiet reflection and daily prayer were lived out between these walls for over 400 years; the Abbey has been abandoned for nearly the same time again. But could it still bear an imprint of such devotion? Do the stones still offer the ‘deep seclusion’ that Wordsworth sensed when he composed his lines above Tintern Abbey? I look up at the yawning sky and wonder.

Tintern Abbey

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. -- Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Opening of Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

Hope

Lord, make me the person my dog thought I was.
- Refrigerator Magnet

Spring sounds

Party pieces

As 80th birthdays go, an afternoon concert given by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, pianist Murray Perahia and conductor Bernard Haitink must be one of the more memorable ways of celebrating. Of course, when the person who's reached the big eight-zero is Haitink himself, the concert becomes something of a landmark. Schumann's only concerto, completed in 1854, was first up. Perahia brought his usual consummate musicianship to the music; his Schumann glowed, with the Concertgebouw's warm string sound absorbed by the piano. For all its virtuosity, mischevous glee and dancing rythms, this concerto is filled with moments of reflection and introspection; in Perahia's hands hearing it became like listening to someone reading you a favourite poem.
On to Bruckner's Ninth, at three movements technically an unfinished work, but somehow, after a solemn first movement, wrought out of Beethovenian material; an unsettling middle movement which juxtaposes the incisive - almost obsessive - jabbing strings in the scherzo with a trio of -unatural? - sweetness and light, the third movement Adagio, culminating in a huge dissonant chord and a pause that takes the listener to the edge of a void, and ends in acceptance rather than jubilation, seems to be the only ending.

Picture Window

I write this sitting in the kitchen, perched on a high stool that’s just the right height for looking out the window. The window is one of those Georgian sash ones, with small glass panels that turn the view into nine wood-framed pictures. The sky occupies six of them – today it’s a faded blue, the colour of an old bed sheet washed once too often. In the bottom left panel, there’s a whisper of tree and a flat roof that finishes off a block of flats. Move along to the right and there’s a tall building in bright stone – a paler, twentieth-century version of the local Bath stone perhaps. Behind this unprepossessing construction begins a row of houses, marked by chimney pots. The row of russet and sand-coloured pots curves away, leading the eye across to the edge of the window and the start of the mint-green kitchen wall.

Chilly thoughts

At a talk by the Polar adventurer Ben Saunders I gleaned the following fact. Polar bears don't drink water. Instead these wooly white masterpieces have an enzyme that allows them to use the water produced when the fat from the animals they eat is broken down. A sort of internal water fountain. Cool. File this fact under 'miscellaneous', 'useless', or 'wonderful'.

March flowers

In my kitchen, in a chunky vase made of glass that glows a soft blue, the daffodils have bloomed. Fresh from the shop on Saturday – the one that’s not much more than a doorway from which spills a multi-coloured cascade of flowers – the slim stalks of green were then promises of daffodils. Soon a scrap of yellow could be seen as a single flower began to open. Stem by stem, the pale green leaves swelled, slowly revealing the rich yellow previously hidden. Layers of petals followed, opening outwards until the daffodil heads took recognisable shape, trumpets set in rings of petals. Like the sun, this bursting bouquet lit up the room.

Smile in the morning

Les hallalis

Sur l'onde calme et noire ou dorment les etoiles
La blonde Ophelia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte tres lentement, couchee en ses longues voiles...
On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.

On the tranquil dark water, where the stars drown,
Ophelia floats white as a lily
Floats gently, slowly, in her long gown...
From the distant woods you hear the sound of 'les hallalis'.

Rimbaud, translated by Melvyn Bragg - it seems - in his latest, incredibly moving novel Remember Me.

Sunday saunter

Greenbank Cemetery is one of Bristol's quirkier sights to see. On an urban walk published by Bristol's best what-to-do magazine Venue, a friend and I happened across this patch of green speckled with ramschackle graves. Tombstones have fallen, the stone figure of Dawn stares eternally upwards to the sky, and fallen angels lie in their resting places. In the centre, a chapel has been hollowed out by time so, standing on one side, you can see all the way through to the tree-lined avenue on the other. One headstone brings a smile - a Mr Stone married to a Gwendolen Wall.

Brizzle's musical moments

Watch out for the Solstice Quartet - their Bartok and Beethoven in Bristol set the scene for a Wigmore Hall debut last week - definitely a quartet to hear; last Thursday hot-shot Venezualan conductor Gustavo Dudamel came to Cardiff (still getting used to the fact Bristol is a small hop from Wales) and electrified in Prokofiev (though wasn't sure about his Mozart, despite the refined, playful and beautifully judged playing of pianist Emanuel Ax) ; I rounded off this week of musical treats with a trip to the, er, Tantric Jazz Cafe. Not sure about the name, but the jazz was fantastic.

Thought of the night

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare

Good trees

In Queen's Square, Bristol

Shopping with computers

In Sainsbury's with five items to buy. I know, to save time I'll go and use the new self-service checkout machines. Item 1: Swipe - 'Please place item in bagging area'. Item 2: Swipe - 'Please place item in bagging area'. Fine. Right, wait a minute, before things get out of hand let me just get my re-usable bag out (earning green brownie points, or should that be greenie points?) for my five items. I put said bag in bagging area. 'Unexpected item in bagging area'. Unexpected? Unexpected I ask? How can a bag be unexpected in a bagging area? Someone hasn't thought this through...

Bristol snow scenes

Outside

snow. n. 1 atmospheric water vapour frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer

Des pas sur la neige

So silent, so soft. Tiptoeing through the snow. A magical Debussyian landscape right before your ears.

Same place, different world

Rydal Water in the Lake District

Spam, spam, spam

You've got to love 'intelligent' google ads which analyse your emails so they can target you with things you really want to buy, but just don't know it. I went into my spam folder today to delete a few rogue emails and was offered spam fritters at a bargain price. No comment.

South Wales

Living the dream

One of the highlights of living in Bristol is spending your days in a permanet TV set. Not only is the BBC's Casualty filmed here (yes, I've been in the same pub as a Casualty star. This would have been a dream when I was about 14, less so now), the E4 over-the-top teen series Skins (which is about what I should have been like if I had been a coolkat kid at 14 rather than watching Casualty) also features the hilly streets of Bristol. But for true got- the- t-shirt, seen- the-location satisfaction, you need to pop over the Severn Bridge to the land of Gavin and Stacey. Oh yes, today I fulfilled that lifetime ambition to visit Barry Island. Home to Nessa's amusement arcade, Dave's coaches and many near-vertical streets of terraced houses. Better than TV anyday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites/barry/pages/gavinandstacey.shtml?2

20 January 2009

I remember where I was: on the 14th floor of an office block, clustered with three others around a Mac computer. That's where, on the BBC website, I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America. Nowhere remarkable, but the remarkable nature of this event was everywhere. History. With a capital H.

2008 is now over

16 January. A day to celebrate. I have finally finished Christmas turkey leftovers!

Preludes IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies

That fade behind a city block,

Or trampled by insistent feet

At four and five and six o’clock;

And short square fingers stuffing pipes,

And evening newspapers, and eyes

Assured of certain certainties,

The conscience of a blackened street

Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;

The worlds revolve like ancient women

Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

From Preludes by TS Eliot

Running away with it...

This week has been one of - groan - self-discovery, and - double groan - New Year's resolutions. I've already broken one hastily made goal, or at least have the intention to do so on March 15th when I don't run the half-marathon in Bath. Yes, 13 miles of pavements I will not be gracing with my - ehem - fast-footed, finely-honed running. Having made this solemn confession, I can add that my head is not hanging in complete shame, as I have every intention of trying to do the Bristol half-marathon instead, in the more realistic month of September. And I've even taken the first step of joining a beginners' running group to up my rather pathetic 25 minutes slow jog to something a little more half-marathon-worthy. However - here's the self-discovery bit - I've realised much as I quite enjoyed the run, I can't think of anything worse than wanting to be Paula Radcliffe. (Note to all - this was never likely, but play along.) Imagine it. One foot after the other for hours and hours, miles and miles each week. (According to her training diary, published in The Guardian's cannily-timed 'Get Fit' supplement yesterday, a daily 'warm-down' run lasts 35-40 minutes. I rest my case.) Imagine the daily mental battles - just to that tree, that lamppost, count to 100 three times, don't stop, don't stop, don't stop. Worst of all, a relaxing part of the training appears to be an ice bath. An ice bath? Relaxing? No siree. Proper runners can keep their ice baths and warm-down runs to themselves. Give me a bit of running and a warm bath filled with bubbles anyday.

Greetings!

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2009!