A brief memory of Patrick Moore

Mention the name Patrick Moore, and most people probably think of astronomy, or, perhaps, monocles.  I think of both of these, but I also immediately think 'fax machine'. An odd association, I grant you. Let me explain. One of the magazines published by the company I work for is Sky at Night. When I started working  there the star-gazers were situated just round the corner from my desk. Right next to me was the fax machine. It was a rather ancient thing, temperamental and tetchy, prone to giving up halfway through sending, and it never provided any assurance that the fax had ever sent. Sometimes it would ring, as if the caller had expected it to be a phone number. By 2007 most magazine contributors were up to speed with using email to send in their words. Not Moore. He insisted on using the fax machine. Which is how, in my first few months of working there, I had on several occasions the rather surreal and gently amusing experience of hearing Patrick Moore's familiar, diesmbodied voice addressing the office as if he were putting a call out into space to find out if there was life beyond our planet: 'Hello. Hello? Is there anyone there?'

The sky ablaze

The sky was ablaze on Saturday. Luckily I had my camera to my hand and snapped this photo from the train carriage as I hurtled from Bristol to London.

Photo: Rebecca Franks

This is Life

Every so often you need to read a cheer-me up kind of book. It’s generally to help escape those moments when life isn’t quite doing what you hoped it might, and all you feel like doing is curling up under a duvet. These kind of books are hard to find though, at least it seems that way to me. I don’t just want the instant sugar-rush of chick-lit happy-ever-after inevitability, but neither do I want profound complexity that’s going to leave my mind feeling more stretched than after listening to In Our Time or the Moral Maze. Striking that balance is no mean feat. But the other day, when I was (physically) in the Bristol Foyles and (emotionally) under the duvet, I found the perfect book for this task: This is Life, by Dan Rhodes. No, I’d not heard of him either. But this book had a cheerful picture of Paris on the front, a splendid fold-out street-scene cover, and lots of chirpy quotes, including one from Hilary Mantel: ‘Dan Rhodes is a true original, with a fresh, funny, quirky style’. Given that I’d just put Wolf Hall aside on the grounds it might be moving away from cheer-me up territory, Mantel's quote was the clincher. Sold.

Well, it was money well spent. This is Life is a charming, superbly constructed novel, in which characters do the strangest things but are wonderfully engaging. Over one week we follow the improbable adventures of art student Aurélie Renard when a stone’s throw, quite literally, leads her life to turn topsy-turvy and she ends up looking after a stranger’s baby. Meanwhile, Paris is about to host the controversial Life, an exhibition in which Le machine, a contemporary artist, lives on stage for three months, collecting all of his bodily excrements in expensive glass jars. The host of colourful personalities we encounter include Aurélie’s stunning best friend Sylvie Dupont, who’s looking for her ideal husband by working in seven different jobs, and leaves hordes of heartbroken hommes in her wake. Professor Papavoine is Aurélie’s day-dreaming professor; Jean-Didier Delacroix is a brilliant but insufferably smug art critic who was trained to be expressionless from childhood; and Monsieur Rousset is the owner of the Le charmant cinema erotique, now past its glory days. And let's not forget the French-Japanese translator Lucien who helps tourists around Paris, and falls in love with a photo of his latest clients' daughter. Add to that countless cameo roles, and you’ll have an idea of the bubbly world Rhodes has created. Funny then, that when I googled him to find out more, it seems that his previous novels have been dark, twisted. In this one there are dark undertones and goings-on, but Rhodes's light touch and deft exploration of what may or may not be the meaning of life, makes it a truly pleasurable read. This is Life made me smile, it made me think. And it had a well-earned happy ending. What more could you want from a cheer-me up book?

Bristol hustings: a 10-minute sketch

Trinity Church, Hotwells. 7pm. Monday 29 October 2012. Time for a mayoral election hustings. Packed church. One woman has even nabbed the beanbag in the children’s play area. A human-sized teddy bear sits next to another couple. It all feels a bit the Thick of It here at the back of the room. 11 of the 15 candidates hoping to be Bristol’s first elected mayor are at the front. Only one woman is standing for mayor. Just one.

First the wannabee mayors are given one minute each to introduce themselves to the voters, and say what they stand for. Unless, of course, they ignore the stopwatch alarm and have two minutes. Political tricks are alive and kicking, it’s clear. Every question is, for the most part, answered by every candidate, which is a time-consuming affair. What will a mayor actually do? Should we worry that they’ve snaffled all our power, or that in fact they’ll just be a ‘fig-leaf’ for power? It makes me wonder, does Bristol really need its own Boris?

There are personalities aplenty here. George Ferguson, independent/Bristol First: red trousers (always worn), persuasive speaker, wants to make Bristol England’s second city; Marvin Rees, Labour: smart-suited, clear-talking Bristol born former BBC reporter and NHS manager; Neil Maggs, Respect: doesn’t need a microphone to be heard; Dave Dobbs, Birthday Party (really): describes himself as: ‘political activist, puppeteer and writer’. Puppets and politics seems like a telling juxtaposition.

Earlier this year, only 24 per cent of Bristolians turned out to vote on whether they wanted a mayor. Only 53.3 per cent of that 24 per cent voted for one. With those kinds of figures, it looks like Bristol's sleep-walking to its first mayor rather than being engaged with the changes going on. On 15 November, I suppose we’ll find out just who really cares. 

Striking stairs

Down the stone steps, past the bus stop to nowhere, before idyllic peace is shattered by traffic – heralded by passing through a gloomy passage in an unprepossessing block of flats – there are two striking staircases that I'd like to know more about. They are both, I believe, fire escapes for the St Peter's House flats. And while the flats themselves are nothing special to look at, I love the clean lines, bold design and chunky proportions of the stairs. Here's a picture taken on my phone, and a link to a rather better, dramatic photo by Derek Rigg.

Sunday snippets

Good evening all, on this rainy Sunday evening. I've lots to update my blog with – trips to France and Switzerland, thoughts on some films, exhibitions and concerts, even some photos. But for now some superb and strange assorted facts to amuse you:

Did you know?

1. Beijing is the same size as Belgium in terms of area. 

2. When Bristol's iconic Clifton suspension bridge was built, it was going to be Egyptian themed. One suggestion to help complete the look was to transform the Avon Gorge into the Nile by hanging a painted curtain from the bridge. (Thanks to Shipshape magazine for this gem.)

3. There are only four bridges in the world fully lined with shops on both sides. (I'm not sure I believe this fact myself.) They are: Pulteney Bridge, Bath; the Ponte Vecchio, Florence; the Rialto Bridge, Venice and the Covered Bridge, Lovech in Bulgaria.

House guest

Meet the latest resident in my house: Makin the penguin. I've always had a soft spot for these often comically cute creatures. Perhaps one day I'll get to go to Antarctica to see the Emperors in their icy home.

Rainshine

... and so the rain continues. Grey skies, a clinging drizzle, a constant drip from a gutter. It can feel like a sort of drudgery. But it looks like the rain is here to stay for a while, so I've made a Pollyanna-like decision to look for the good in the rain. I'll be doing that by posting poems, pictures and bits of music that might offer a glimmer of rainshine.

Here's the first, a poem I've just read for the first time, by Langston Hughes. He's an American poet who was big in the 1920s. This poem, April Rain Song, is direct and can almost be a mantra for these waterlogged days:

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

Jubilee snapshots

Two views of the Jubilee from my road, encompassing the royalist and the republican. A welcome sentiment on the banner, shame about the spelling...

Creative links

Evening all. As a post-Jubilee weekend treat, here's a quartet of fantastic creative people whose work I've recently discovered, which you might want to investigate. They are all friends and acquaintances; I love it when you find out people's hidden talents. Here they are, in no particular order.

First up is Alice Brazier, a Bristol-based artist and illustrator whose lively, deft pen captures everything from people and pets to boats and buildings. I love her sketchy, easy and warm style. Here's her website, and here's her blog.

Next is Jenny Price, founder of Dandylion Jack design. If you're after a bright and beautiful nature-inspired greetings card, this is the place to go. Jenny's cards are currently on sale in the pop-up shop in Cabot Circus.

Third in line is Leopold Tobisch, a musicology student, and, judging from his blog, a photographer with a strongly artistic, sharp eye. What a great range of moods and lighting.

And last, but not least, here's a writer I enjoy reading: Little Girl Lost in London: Trials and Tribulations of a Northern Journo in the Big Smoke. I think I'm right in saying her real name doesn't appear on her blog, so I won't give it away, but head here for writing that's both wry and poetic.

Unexpected finds

Cliftonwood is a hillside in Bristol that’s packed with multicoloured painted houses, hidden steps and winding alleyways. All these treasures make up for the fact that, whichever way you go, you’re faced with Everest-like slopes. Going out inevitably involves an up-hill. After a year living here, I’m pretty much reconciled to this. I know the shortcuts. Or, so I thought. Until about a month ago, when I found a new one. Tucked away on a hairpin bend, the top end starts at the profoundly named ‘Worlds End Lane’; the bottom begins in a block of flats on Jacob's Well roundabout, mosaic tiled hot air balloons the only sign that this is something more than a private entrance. The wending pathway turns into the ‘White Hart Steps’, passing ‘Worlds End House’ (built in 1650, and thought to be the oldest house in Clifton), the small ‘Cherry Garden’, and, rather strangely, a bus stop. Halfway up a hill, and nowhere near a road. That’d have to be quite a bendy, narrow bus to get up there. Does anyone know how this sign ended up perched in this odd location?

Beautiful thought

This engraved panel is in the gardens of St George's Bristol. I've been going there for the best part of four years, but only just noticed this beautiful quote, by the Czech composer Janácek. It comes from one of the love letters he wrote to Kamila Stösslová, the younger woman with whom he became besotted after years of marriage, and who inspired many of his greatest musical works.