Good news from Aix....

Last tango in Aachen

History does not record whether Charlemagne (aka Karl der Große, Karel de Grote, Carolus magnus rex, et al) was a Hoofer, nor whether he spent his weekends Jack Palancing, but, 1212 years after his death (at the age of 66), his capital city is alive with the shuffle of kicking and prancing.....

As you can see, I am a little clunky....

But after a few partners, I begin to get the hang of it, and almost only one of my feet is left....

But that's a digression.... Here I was in Aachen, whose name, according to Wiki, is a modern descendant, like southern German Ach(e), German: Aach, meaning river or stream, from Old High German ahha, [Pace, Alan Partridge - Ed.] meaning water or stream, which directly translates (and etymologically corresponds) to Latin Aquae, referring to the local mineral springs, which figures in Aachen's Roman name Aquae granni, which meant waters of Grannus, referring to the Celtic god of healing who was worshipped at the springs. This word became Åxhe in Walloon and Aix in French, and subsequently Aix-la-Chapelle to distinguish it from Aix-en-Provence after Charlemagne had his palatine chapel built there in the late 8th century and then made the city his empire's capital.

[So now you know - Ed.]

Robert Browning had a thing or two to say (about this and that....):

How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

But, like the decorations in the Palatine Chapel, all this is phoney.  

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.....

Robert Browning

He made it all up..... There was no news - there were no riders - and the mosaics and decorations are 19th and early 20th century (the stained glass is post WWII). Pshaw! 

Aachen Cathedral is Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage site and received about 1.25 million visitors in 2025, with over 5,300 guided tours.

And so why the flocking hordes of foreign bodies? Is it the cult of the man?

Or his legacy?

Europe - Cornerstone of Peace

Don't get me started.  As Tony Hancock once said, Did Magna Carta die in vain?

Forgive me whilst I slake my Wurst.....

So.  What is Aachen, and why was I here?

Aachen was Charlemagne's capital and subsequently the coronation site for 30 Holy Roman Emperors.  It is a city with a population of about 250,000 (roughly the same as Southampton or Derby), the 27th largest city in Germany, but it is the westernmost, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.  It was the first city to fall to Western Allies in 1944, but was very badly damaged - though the Cathedral and the Rathaus were not destroyed.

It is a busy, friendly place.  I found that almost everyone spoke better English than me (my Deutsch is dastardly) and the atmosphere was calm and disciplined - for example, everyone waits for the green man when crossing roads, even if there is no traffic at all.....  It is also noticeable that cyclists, perhaps misguidedly eschewing helmets and lycra, adhere religiously to cycle paths instead of careering along footpaths and jumping red lights..... What is wrong with these people?

 

The Sunday morning flea market in the Katschof is a popular teeming event, though I notice a distinct absence of dogs....  Again, what are these people thinking?  

It's the same in restaurants: nowhere are their bowls of water on the floor to trip over, pots of biscuits on the counter, nor paw prints on the seats..... How can folk live like this?

Even outside the restaurants.....  Is there some kind of extreme regulation (draconian law) that has taken over the minds of ordinary citizens?  Is this what the AfD really stands for?

We are, after all, only 61 kms from Cologne, where the Odour is strictly Colonial:

Anyway, you may construdel this in your own way.....

To be honest [?? Ed.] I am here for two things.  One is arrrrt....  And in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum the only thing that disappoints is that the top floor is currently off limits, so I am deprived of Otto Dix and Max Liebermann et al. But alongside pictures by Cranach, Rembrandt and Zurbarán.... 

There is a wonderful collection of medieval sculpture.....

Most extraordinary, in a way, is that, while the Germans may not be best known for their sense of humour, I cannot help but be arrested by certain works on display in this otherwise sedate (and under-visited) collection. Here is Michael Triegel (born Erfurt, 1968)'s 2008 painting, Verkündigung (Annunciation)....

Perhaps I should not suggest that there is humour here, but then consider this:

The picture on the left, Portrait of a Man, 1660, by Johann Wilhelm Pottgießer:

Is a serious, traditional portrait, whereas the one on the right....

Is a 2024 photo collage, one of a series of Hidden Portraits, in which Volker Hermes (born 1972) reinterprets historical paintings through a modern lens. Using only elements from the original work, Volker visually manipulates famous Old Masters portraits, exploring expression when the face is obscured. The “Hidden Portraits” series examines the context of art as a means of representation and the relationship between image and individual.

Across town, in the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, light streams in through the windows of what was once an umbrella factory, built in 1928:

It is a marvellous space, and it houses a collection of some 3,000 artworks from the last sixty years or so, including pieces by Jeff Koons:

Jean-Michel Basquiat

And Andy Warhol and Duane Hanson:

But for me a second major attraction to Aachen lies within the Carolus Thermen complex:

Where you can swim in warm mineral waters, or relax in any of fifteen saunas and steam baths, literally stripping away all the trappings of daily life, enjoying the well-being of typical German nudity.... [No photos please....Ed.]

And then, suitably purified, I walk back through the Stadtgarten,

Sprinkle myself with Cologne:

And get back on the dance floor in the Neo-classical Elisenbrunnen pavilion (originally built in 1827 but reconstructed after WWII) where I now feel completely at home.....

There is no doubt, this is a civilised and attractive place, and I have barely scratched the surface in my furtive weekend.

The news is good here, and I shall, quite possibly, be back....

How I Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent (or Vice Versa)

I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me,

And I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped all three…

Not a word to each other; we kept changing place,

Neck to neck, back to front, ear to ear, face to face;

And we yelled once or twice, when we heard a clock chime,

“Would you kindly oblige us, Is that the right time?”

As I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped, ye galloped, they two shall have galloped; let us trot......

ENVOI

So I sprang to a taxi and shouted “To Aix!”

And he blew on his horn and he threw off his brakes,

And all the way back till my money was spent

We rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled

And rattled and rattled—

And eventually sent a telegram.

W C Sellar and R J Yeatman

All we need is music, sweet music (sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet music)

There'll be music everywhere (everywhere)

There'll be swinging, swaying (swaying)

And records playing (playing)

Dancing in the street, oh

Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson 

and Ivy Jo Hunter

Dancing in the Street

(Mis)Remembrance of Things Past

 The Way of Swanns....

Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people.

Marcel Proust

Swann's Way

Stack, 2022-2024, Nicole Eisenman

I am taking tea in the sumptuous drawing room of Trent Park, where Sir Philip Sassoon, looking relaxed in a blue silk smoking jacket and slippers of zebra hide, offers me a Madeleine with a clipped sibilant lisp [His offer, I assume, not the Madeleine? Ed.]

And with me in this effete temple is Sir Philip's sister, the beautiful Sybil, later to become the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, grandmother of David, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, of Houghton Hall in Norfolk, not far from where I live....  

Small world? 

[Six degrees of separation? Ed.]

What I didn't realise was that we were being overheard. Every utterance of that clipped sibilant lisp was being recorded in the basement:

Where the tea was not being served in madeleine moments:

Rather it was part of a programme of edited involuntary memory - not-so-precious fragments of the essence of the past, though even with the recordings, the chink of a tea cup, the snuffling of a dog, the accuracy of the account could be impaired.  A word mis-heard here, the tone mis-interpreted.  We are such stuff as dreams are made on - nothing is quite what it seems.....

Times change.  The world spins on.  In Trafalgar Square the latest plinth-hopper strides away from the past, into an uncertain future, in search, perhaps, of lost time - time to make reparations, or time to forget.....

Lady in Blue, Tschabalala Self

And now I am in Dulwich, at the Picture Gallery.  Here images of American Cities pose a selection of by-products of other memories.  

It's an inspiring exhibition, 

But the title is misleading: it is neither a portrait of A city, nor is it a comprehensive century of American photography. No mention, for example, of Lee Miller.  Nor Ansel Adams.  Nor Cindy Sherman.  For example.....  Though Garry Winogrand has plenty to say.....

But on the back of this show, I roam the busy streets of London by night, looking for images, taking photographs, however stupid the term.

Taking photographs....  [You can't give them back.... Ed.]

And then, as if by magic, I find myself enjoying omelette norvégienne (Baked Alaska) with my friend Nicola.....

But don't ask me to explain.... I cannot remember everything....

Ah well.  Nothing is complete.  As Marcel Proust said, Always try to keep a patch of sky above your head.....  Which is what I cannot quite achieve in the Serpentine Pavilion the following morning:

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by LANZA atelier

The shadow of a Praying Mantis.....

Then, last Saturday was my paternal grandfather's birthday.  I share the date with my brothers, for we remember, fondly, the old man at the head of the table, his tongue-twisters, his bald pate a skating rink for flies....  He would have been 141.  He died at the age of 86.  Do the maths (as they say), but we still remember.  We cannot forget.  He died with a piece of German shrapnel lodged in his left humerus (it wasn't funny).  His troop ship had been torpedoed and sunk off Malta.  He had been run over by the British Consul in Alexandria.  He had dysentry in India.  But nobody needs to know this.  It's just involuntary memory - precious fragments - and I will keep them to myself.  It's not for sharing.....

I walk by the Serpentine, lost in my thoughts.

Water here.....

No water here:

But it is still beautiful - peaceful - and is still a part of the collective consciousness.  If you don't recognise it, never mind, it won't make a difference.  The swans on the Serpentine glide by, elegant, temporary but timeless.  No need to explain.  No need to probe their self-identity.

My grandfather was my grandfather.  Had he not married my grandmother - had he married someone else - he would not have been my grandfather, and I would not be me.  The world spins this way, or it spins that way - it just depends on how you look at it, or where you stand.

I have just been to the Coop. I went to get a newspaper, some bananas and some cream. It's a step away. I came back with a newspaper and some bananas. I had misremembered the cream. I can remember my grandfather. I cannot remember the cream. Is my hippocampus just a circus ring? Or am I merely fallible?

Is the past just one person's story?  Or is it the work of many people collectively sharing someone else's story?

Which, inevitably, will never be the whole story......

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

W B Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole

Anna Pavlova was my mother's godmother. She was, in many ways, a swan, though her song was mute....

And then, gradually, the memory of her would fade away, I had forgotten the girl of my dream.

Marcel Proust

Swann's Way