London 13 - Prom 62

The Beet Goes On.....

In my teens we had a club called The Festival Hole, in Joe's cellar.  We would listen to John Hammond Junior, play nine card brag or Hearts (though we didn't call it that) and smoke John Player cigarettes in various varieties and large quantities.  We didn't go to The [real] Festival Hall, but somehow must have been taken with the idea to have named our hideout after such a grand location. 

And we didn't go to The Albert Hall either, but could just have easily have named our Hole after Albert - though I guess the Festival bit was important.

I did actually go to the Albert Hall twice.  Once my parents took me to a Prom.  Though all I can remember was that we sat somewhere near the organ.  Another time I got my parents to take me to see Manitas de Plata (uncle of the Gipsy Kings) and I can remember a lot of strumming and stamping, and flashing teeth.

So it was time I went back.............

I reached Kensington Gore just after six, and the place was littered with people.  A false start had me at the back of the queue for the Arena, but then I found where to go for the Gallery...  a disjointed snake of people reading, chatting, enjoying the evening.  A young steward gave me a raffle ticket (#483) and said I could come back in twenty minutes.  The girl behind me was an aficionado of the gods, and reckoned she could always get in.  An older man approached with a music manuscript under his arm, claiming that contrary to popular belief it was he who wrote Dvořák's New World Symphony, seventy years ago.....  The girl behind me said he was always there.

We shuffle forward, reminded by the steward to keep our raffle ticket and to remain in order.  The frieze across the dome of the hall reminds me that this has been going on pretty well since the Great Exhibition of 1851. 

Eventually, I swap my number and a fiver for a real ticket and start for the stairs, pausing for a moment half way up to look back at the queue that still winds down the hill.

At the top, a little out of breath, I find myself in a huge gallery, strewn with people picnicking, chatting, reading, or checking their mobiles.  The weird lighting reflected off the sound baffles creates an unusual, sci-fi sense of space, but this is real bubble of London life, a cosmopolitan mix of gentle folk here to enjoy music and to take refuge, perhaps, from a busy life.

I am allowed to photograph, on the strict understanding that no pictures are taken once the conductor enters the stage.  The promenade arena fills; those with more expensive tickets settle in and fill the rows of red plush seats.  The orchestra files in, the lights dim, and then, as my camera is put away, eighty year old Sir Roger Norrington takes the podium, looking at this distance a little reminiscent of Mr Pastry.

He turns his back, waves his wand, and the magic begins.  First Beethoven's 8th Symphony, full of jokes (apparently) which was written in 1812, mainly while he was staying in Bohemian spas.  It is thought, by some, that the light hearted mood of the symphony derives from a passionate liaison the composer may have had with an unknown lady that year, though my preferred theory is that it is because he was hanging out with that other bundle of teutonic laughs, the poet Goethe at the time.  But, hey, I am just an amateur. 

Sir Roger turns his back on us and flaps his arms like a chicken, stirring the orchestra to flutter and squawk through the four movements, interrupted by smatterings of clapping, which in my book should be reserved for the end.....  (but then I didn't vote Lib Dem).  Anyway, Sir Roger smiles benignly, showing the confidence that comes from a Westminster and Cambridge education, and then dives back in to the Allegretto Scherzando, or whips up the octave leaps in the finale, which (I am told) adds to the humour.....  I note that the conductor's jerky semaphore seems ahead of the beat, but realise that the sound take time to travel up to us, as we peer down into the abyss.

Then we have Berlioz, with Romeo Alone.  I sit and watch the young go by, visualising Romeo wandering the Capulet Mansion.  The instruments filter up to the gallery, only slightly affected by Paganini's 20,000 franc commission, but more evocative of Harriet Smithson who led Hector something of a difficult dance.

In the interval I finally risk the rustle of cellophane and enjoy the roll I brought, and explore the public spaces on the floor below.  I am struck by the relaxed and courteous atmosphere.  No one jostles.  No one flaunts their finery.  With no disrespect, this is no Covent Garden.

And then Sir Roger returns to take us to America, conjuring Dvořák's arrival in New York in September 1892.  It's a piece I am a little familiar with; it was one of the first LPs my brother acquired, and the melodies have stayed with me, occasionally resurfacing at times of surprise at landscape.  Now the large orchestra swells the sound (without vibrato!) and the slow opening reaches back to his childhood in mid-nineteenth century Bohemia while the Scherzo looks forward to the excitement and expectation of the opportunities of the twentieth century.  (Or perhaps not?)

Outside the moon is rising.  I have a heart full of music.  Across the road a lonely figure broods in golden splendour.  It's strange how Albert and his hall take me back to my teens, and our dissolute hours in The Festival Hole.  Music is part of our lives.  The Beet goes on.  

Postcards from Italy

Shine On......

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.

Caro amico ti scrivo.....

Just a line or two from Italy.  We are staying more or less where we used to live, on the lip of a volcanic caldera, some fifty kilometres north of Rome.  The light is diamond cool, and only the chattering of magpies and baying of hounds disturbs the morning.

Occhiali da sole - reflecting the day

Later we may need sunglasses, though the weather is variable.  We may swim with the swans in Lake Bracciano......

Or drive over to the sea at Santa Severa, where plastic dolphins frolic close by the castle.....

We check out the latest in fringed bikinis....

We've been here a few days, mixing sun with wine, pasta with perch, peaches with figs..... One day we made a trip to some of the Etruscan sites near here (there are plenty of them!) At Tarquinia Hannah posed as the missing head on a sarcophagus (so immature!)

And we visited painted tombs.  This one portrays entertainment (juggling, music) for the deceased (who is seated) while over his head a lion and a panther face each other.  This chamber was discovered in 1961, and these pictures had not seen the light of day for almost 2,500 years - in fact, they have never seen the light of day, as they were painted by lamplight and are now illuminated on demand behind a thick glass door.  The red here is exaggerated to clarify the images - in reality it is a much subtler hue.

Tarquinia, Tomba dei Giocolieri (550 - 500 BC)

Then we went to Cerveteri, where the tombs are open, but generally empty (though in this one I found Sarah posing as an enchanted priestess, framed by the tufo door).....

In this area it is hard to avoid the Etruscans.  At Veio (only twenty kilometres from Rome, once the greatest of Etruscan cities) one of the tombs is now a hang out for the local youth......

Invited for a drink with friends, we are shown a piece of bucchero, pottery from five, six or even seven centuries BC, made when earthenware was fired in a closed kiln (which apparently caused carbon monoxide to blacken the red iron oxides in the clay). Artefacts like these were so common when the Prince of Canino, Lucien Bonaparte, who owned the land around Vulci, started excavating tombs in 1828, that when George Dennis was there some twenty years later, the labourers were under orders to destroy such pieces to maintain the value of finer ware.  Nowadays they are priceless, rather than worthless, and it is extraordinary to handle something thrown and fired by human hands so many centuries ago.....

When it is hot, it really is hot here, and you need to rest in the shade, like these two decorators in Tarquinia.....

But, as I said, the weather has been changeable, and on some days the clouds build up.....

And it goes dark, and the water seems to be beaten pewter as rain drops the size of broad beans pelt down.....

Monte Venere and Lago di Vico

Then it cools, and we visit Bracciano to shop, and to admire the castle as it towers above the houses of the humble clustering round its skirts.  This fifteenth century fortress was once the home of the Orsini family (and featured in Webster's play The White Devil) though now it belongs to the Odescalchi family (and featured in tragedies such as Tom Cruise's marriage to Katie Holmes).

And then it warms again, and we drive on round the lake to the village of Anguillara Sabazia, where the evening sun warms the roof tiles and exaggerates the auburn (and violet) tints of the beauty on the beach....

We meet up with old friends, novelist Simon Mawer and his wife Connie, and dine at Harvey's, a Pizzeria below the old town.  Amanda chooses pizza with apple and gorgonzola; mine is more robust with chunks of sausage and strands of cicoria (bitter wild greens).  Simon has the proofs of his new novel, Tightrope, sequel to The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, to deal with and is enthusiastic about next year's production of his Booker shortlisted The Glass Room (in Czech) in Brno, but he is also anxious about an operation he is about to undergo. So fingers are crossed, and glasses are raised.....

On another evening we meet up with an even older friend....  Truman Peebles, 102 today, joins us for a pre-prandial shot of Jack Daniel's at Ermete's Bar before we eat at La Grotta Azzurra, one of the oldest (and the best) restaurants in Trevignano Romano.  Truman has known Nazzareno, the proprietor (who grew up on the premises when he could fish from his bedroom window), for many years, and we are treated regally. At his age a lot of people are recumbent in their tombs, but Truman is no Etruscan, and he converses with diamond precision (though I wonder if Red Bull is sponsoring him for infinity?)

May I take your picture?
You can if you give me five bucks!

Evenings are wind-down time. The sun draws energy from the earth and quiet descends.

But then, sparkling with prosecco.....

The girls dance with their mother in an impromptu disco, with Cameron and me as sparring smart-phone DJs.....

Vedi caro amico cosa ti scrivo e ti dico,

And the time comes to take our leave (again).  There is too little time; the holiday begins to end.....  We slip into the village to salute our friends, though mancano alcuni (Loreta, Mimmo, Pietro, Vi saluto....)

Here is Alberto, my annual hairdresser.....

And here are Amanda and the girls with Sandro, whose ice creams contributed so much to what they are today (?)

e come sono contento

di essere qui in questo momento,

vedi, vedi, vedi, vedi,

vedi caro amico cosa si deve inventare

per poterci ridere sopra,

per continuare a sperare

And we drive to Fiumicino, my Ford C Max almost parched after 713 kilometres on one tank (thank you Avis, your deal of €89 if I brought the car back empty tempted me to risk it!) and wait for the flight, silhouetted against the window.....

And soon we are on our way home, gazing through the thick glass at a dreamworks fragment of our lives....

Pianosa - fictional base for Catch-22, and until 1998 maximum security prison for mafiosi

Shine on you crazy diamond.

L'anno che sta arrivando tra un anno passerà

io mi sto preparando è questa la novità

London 12 - Hampstead Village

The Veil of Health

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Although Hampstead Village is little more than three miles from King's Cross, it's another world.  London has spread itself across the land, but surfacing from the 181 foot deep lift shaft (the deepest on the tube network - as deep as the Stone Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral is high) into the centre of Hampstead, you could be forgiven for thinking you had landed on another continent.  For a start, compared with the 84.87 million exits and entrances recorded for the King's Cross St Pancras International tube station in 2013, a mere 4.9 million passed through the turnstiles at Hampstead in the same year.

A lesson in apostrophising!

Property prices may have something to do with this, (a two bedroom terraced house will cost you over a million; a three bedroom flat in Mount Vernon recently sold for £2.5m).  

A snip.....

Supposedly Hampstead has more millionaires per square foot than anywhere else in the UK, though, that said, there is a pleasantly normal feel to crossing the road, or extracting £50 from a cash machine.

In the shadow of The Express Dairy - ordinary people, ordinary lives

The reason Hampstead is Hampstead, however, is quite simple, and quite recent.  Apart from the Heath (which you can read about at http://www.richardpgibbs.org/2011/08/hampstead-heath.html) the opening of a well of chalybeate (spring water rich in iron salts) water in the seventeenth century brought the Londoners out in their droves.  

View from Holly Mount - miles from anywhere!

People had moved here to escape the plague, and on December 20th 1698 the 3rd Earl of Gainsborough and his mother, the Honourable Susanna Noel, donated a well and six acres of swampy land for the use and benefit of the poor of Hampstead.  Soon a Spa, with pump house and assembly room was opened to rival those of Tonbridge Wells, and other fashionable resorts.

The Chalybeate Well, all that remains of the Spa (demolished 1882)

Drink Traveller and with strength renewed

Let a kind thought be given

To Her [Susanna Noel] who has thy thirst subdued

The render thanks to Heaven

These waters, combined with the open spaces of the Heath, and the raised elevation of the village (Holly Mount is over 300 feet above sea level) brought the wealthy out from the city.  Also in this mix were two other factors - the lack of landed aristocracy favoured the nouveau riche; protestant dissenters had moved here when they were forbidden to preach within five miles of Charing Cross.  Hampstead as a haven for free thinkers was born.

One of your five-a-day - American Cherrys!  -  Not even an apostrophe!

Health was at the heart of Hampstead; health which goes hand in hand with wealth.  It is one of the ambiguities of the Welfare State that if you live in Tower Hamlets, or Hull, or some parts of Glasgow, you are likely to live less well, and for fewer years than if you reside in Fitzrovia, Rickmansworth, or Cheadle Hulme.  But then another irony is that the Royal Free Hospital (the combination of Royal and Free being a nice touch) is not only the biggest employer in Hampstead, but a slice of that welfare state that we all can benefit from.  As I noted before, my mother was once hospitalised in the Royal Free (following a nasty fall and a serious loss of blood) and it was to spend a few hours with a specialist the other day that I returned to sample the healthy delights of the Village.

Smoking can seriously damage your health......

So I appreciate the salubrious environs, the quiet shambles, the fresh(ish) airs, and the views.  I appreciate the fact that the state makes provision to examine, and treat, those who may not be 100% fit and well, and long may it continue.

Spiritual Health - The Parish Church of Saint John-at-Hampstead

But I am also struck by how many plaques, from various organisations, there are on the walls, fixing where the well-to-do made their marks:  George Romney, R L Stevenson, 

Marie Stopes, John Galsworthy, 

Nice one, John

Arthur Bliss, Ian Fleming, William Empson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Walter Gropius, Chris Bonington and Thierry Henri, amongst a number of other celebrities, lived, shopped and aired their views here. Though not all at the same time.  Wikipedia has an entry entitled: List of People from Hampstead, which is a slightly coy way of indicating the 250 people it reckons are famous enough to elicit some interest.  It stars those who were born there, though they are few, and does not state which of them lie buried in the parish graveyard, of whom John Constable, 

John and Wain.

John Harrison (longitude),

You can't turn the clock back, John

and Hugh Gaitskell are probably the most notable.....

What Wikipedia does not tell us is who has lived longer here because they were here.  The Vale of Health, where the Village meets the Heath, was probably so named to disguise its unhealthy origins, but became fashionable after Leigh Hunt lived there (until 1819) entertaining the likes of Byron and Shelley, neither of whom grew to old age.  Roughly a hundred years later D H Lawrence, possibly in the company of John Middleton Murry and the also tubercular Katherine Mansfield, coughed a little here, before taking off for sunnier climes.

Personally I wouldn't mind a pied a terre nearby.  Handy for the Heath and its convivial bathing (so long as you get the right pond); easy for a wander up to The Holly Bush for a sausage roll, 

or down to The Flask for a pint; 

One of the more particular barmaids at The Flask

within reach of the Royal Free for a defibrillator, and only 181 feet down to the Northern Line and access to Soho and beyond.  I could spend my days listening to harpsichords in the gardens of Fenton House, 

Fenton House, now owned by the National Trust

or spill coffee downstairs in Burgh House; 

Burgh House (1704) - once home to Rudyard Kipling's daughter, but now seat of the Hampstead Museum

celebrate psychology at the Freud Museum or watch an art film at the Everyman.  If all else seemed dull I could even sit under a plum tree in the garden of the Keats House and wait for a nightingale to fall on me....

Quaint - or so they say....

It's the health of my wallet that grieves me.  Nothing short of a pair of millions would make this accessible, so, purtroppo, it ain't going to happen.  We will draw a veil over this.....

Nightmare on Elm Row

As signor Keats once wrote:

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

(Though to tell the truth he wasn't very well at the time.....)

Is there a Bishop of Wells and Baths?

Doctor doctor tell me the time of day....

Roll on John!