The Paragon, Bristol

The Swallows of Kabul

Harrowing, thought-provoking, unexpected. Kabul, as conjured up by Yasmina Khadra* is, in the words of JM Coetzee 'hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium and stifling fear.' A slim volume, this book transports you in few, but choice, words to the Afghanistan capital under the regime of the Taliban, where women are stoned to death, hide their faces and bodies under burqhas, and in which no one is allowed to sing, smile or dance. Freedom, responsibility, fate, death and love are a few of the book's themes, explored through the relationships of two couples who lives are crumbling. Day-to-day life in this hopeless place has shrunk their expectations, dimmed an appetite for life. So the choice of a Kabul prison as one of the novel's settings is meaningful. Who are the real prisoners? Those locked up by jailers for crimes real and false, most likely sentenced to death? Or those, nominally free, who are driven to violence, words and acts that would have been anathema to their younger, freer selves? People trapped in a living hell?

*Yasmina Khadra is a pseudonym of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer now living in France. The name is that of his wife's.

Rotterdam

Er, note to self. Make sure to press publish.

These photos are from Rotterdam, back in September. The Do Doelen concert hall, the Erasmus Bridge and the Cube Houses (which, I'm assured, people do actually live in).

Just Another Autumn Day

In Parliament, the Minister for Mists
and Mellow Fruitfulness announces,
that owing to inflation and rising costs
there will be no Autumn next year.
September, October and November
are to be cancelled,
and the Government to bring in
the nine-month year instead.
Thus we will all live longer.

Emergency measures are to be introduced
to combat outbreaks of well-being
and feelings of elation inspired by the season.
Breathtaking sunsets will be restricted
to alternate Fridays, and gentle dusks
prohibited. Fallen leaves will be outlawed,
and persons found in possession of conkers,
imprisoned without trial.
Thus we will all work harder.

The announcement caused little reaction.
People either way don't really care
No time have they to stand and stare
Looking for work or slaving away
Just another Autumn day.

Roger McGough

Take-home message: Make the most of Autumn, kick leaves, splash in puddles, smash conkers, admire trees of every awe-inspiring hue, pause a moment to watch the magical morning mist, savour sunsets – and enjoy huddling in for long evenings, telling stories and reading poems in praise of Autumn.

Unsuitable attachments

I've always had a bit of a problem with books. The best sort of problem, I'd argue. The sort that makes one incapable of walking past a secondhand bookshop without going in, that allows one to justify buying new books with the 'I'm supporting the author' argument, and that makes one borderline obsessive compulsive in the alphabetical organisation of the resulting library. I used to spend many happy hours taking all my books off the shelves, building a fortress piles of pages high, and making sure the order ran Joan Aiken to Sylvia Waugh with no hitches.

Sorting through childhood belongings recently, I discovered some notebooks in which I used to keep lists of all the books I read. I thought I might resurrect this as an occasional thread on this blog. The book, plus a best line and worst line. That sort of thing. I'll give it a whirl and see how it goes.

First up: Barbara Pym's An Unsuitable Attachment.

Set in a North London suburb, this glimpse into the suitable and not-so-suitable attachments formed by the parishioners of St Basil's is gently amusing. Will librarian Ianthe Broom marry John Challow, five years her junior? Or will the eligible anthropologist Rupert Stonebird catch her eye? Or perhaps the catty Mervyn Cantrell is most suitable suitor? It's not vintage Pym though, the characters being a little lacklustre, but well worth a read.

There's lots of lovely observation, but to continue the theme, here's part of a library scene:

Ianthe never knew how to talk to Mervyn when he was in this sort of [sour] mood. She felt she could have done better than she did with her next remark.

'Balham,' she said, thoughtful, yet desperate,' that's on the Northern Line, isn't it.'

'Yes, my dear. It's black on the Underground map, so very suitable, I always think. Picture us arriving there on Boxing Day in time for tea by public transport, of course.'

Encouragement

Success is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm. Winston Churchill

Manifestations

Bristol town centre. This evening, the backdrop to protests against the government spending cuts just announced. Orderly and respectful, these students and workers aired their opinions in a so terribly English manner. Meanwhile, over in France, events are more, erm, active. Lyon, where this blog started, is the scene of riots, violence and fires, making the protests there some of the most violent in the country.

The perils of secondhand books

Autumn

Hot water bottle weather has arrived. Yesterday a thick mist settled over Bristol. Walking in Ashton Court, one could imagine a place far more isolated... All is grey, and there's a fine spritz of rain. Illusory rain. Put out your hand and you can't feel it on your skin. But touch your hair and it's fluffing, curling, fed by a hazy damp. The view of Bristol between the trees is obscured, sound deadened. The only noises are conkers thudding on the grass as they quit the trees, and the brutal unexplained crack of twigs. Birds, all black of course, punctuate the cloud. A cyclist lurches up the hill, his flourescent yellow jacket a sudden jar on the landscape. He pants by and is subsumed by the gloom as soon as he appeared.

Language thoughts

The human mind's a funny old thing. Particularly when it comes to words and language. How can you be a different person in one language than another? I'm not sure, and it's probably overstating the case to say you become completely different, but I think you do find out other parts of yourself in another language. Even if you aren't fluent, you find unexpected turns of phrase that perfectly encapsulate an idea, a word that fascinates. Different parts of your character are drawn out. I read an article recently that suggested not learning another language is denying what it is to be human. Why should your life be defined by the first language you happened to speak? Sadly I've a long way to go before mastering French - ho-hum - and often feel put to shame by the multi-lingual talents of others, but still the sense of finding a part of yourself in another language is tantalising.

I've found a little corner of France in Bristol in the form of a French meet-up group. In the quasi-French surroundings of Café Rouge, sipping admittedly overpriced red wine, we started to chat about who dreams in what language. I remember proudly, and excitedly, noting in my diary the first time I had a dream in French when I was living there - it felt like some kind of milestone to Being French. Of course, English still won out, and once back in the UK all ze lovely French words faded. One French girl at the group, though, said she never had dialogues in her dreams, they were all very visual, so could happen in any language. The human mind - an intriguing thing.

19th-century Facebooks

Facebook's sticky tendrils have extended themselves around the globe in the past five years, enmeshing people in its web of photos, status updates, 'likes' and tags. But behind it all is a human desire to be remembered by others that's nothing new, especially if the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) exhibition of photographer Camille Silvy is any sort of evidence. The 19th-century Frenchman came up with all sorts of technical innovations in the field of photography - exposing several negatives onto one film to get London in twilight, fog and bright sun - but I found his day books most immediately fascinating. The NPG owns twelve of them, chronicling every sitter that came into his Bayswater studio. His subjects who ranged from actors to aristocracy were all caught up in the rage for cartes de visites - small photo calling cards that people handed around, collecting friends. The craze swept the UK. Meet someone? Hand them a card picturing yourself. Sound familiar?







Three cartes de visites of, respectively, Adeline Patti as Lucie from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, fellow Adeline, the actress Adeline Cottrell and fellow opera singer Caroline Marie Carvalho-Miolan.

By night...

... Clifton Suspension Bridge...