Snow, ice and Shakespeare

I’ve been very much influenced by a book by Jared Diamond, called “Collapse”. In it he discusses the reasons for the complete collapse of some societies (for example, the Mayans, and of course, Easter Island) and the reasons for the survival of others.

One of the things he discusses is the question of what went through the head of the Easter Islander who chopped down the very last tree. Of course, Diamond says, he would not think much about it – he wouldn’t know that the island had been forested, or realise that forest might be important for things other than the supply of wood. Chopping down the last tree – which by that time, probably wouldn’t have been much of a tree anyway - wouldn’t have seemed a big deal at all.

Well, this is what worries me. People of my generation know that there’s something gone badly wrong with the climate, because we can remember what it used to like, and are aware, not just of the degree of change, but of the speed with which it has occurred.  People who deny climate change tend to argue that the earth’s climate varies and changes naturally. Well, of course they are right in that – but can they quote any other time in the earth’s history where the change has been so fast?  I’m quite sure they can’t.

On top of that, we keep being told that the way to economic  recovery  is for us all to go out and spend money (“consumer confidence”) and then we’ll return to growth. Has any one at all thought that we can’t go on growing ad infinitum? We’ll need several more planets to exploit for that to be possible. And has anyone pointed out that spending money, on things we don’t really need – sometimes don’t even want that much – does not make people happy or fulfilled? It depresses the life out of me already, that when we get up early on a Sunday morning to go walking in Derbyshire, which is good for body and soul and costs next to nothing, the only busy spot is the car boot sale as you go into Derby. People can’t get up to take exercise and enjoy peace and beauty, but they damn well can get up to spend money on stuff they don’t need.

That’s my rant over, so now I can tell you about two more Shakespeare plays to tick off. We saw The Winter’s Tale, which actually we’d seen before, but this production included Morris dancing, which we certainly enjoyed. And we saw Hamlet, at Stratford. I’ve seen it twice before, but Phil hadn’t. It was very good – we were both absolutely gripped for the whole three and a half hours. Greg Hicks as Claudius, was wonderful. Slightly less sure about Hamlet, but I always think they choose too old an actor. I can see why, given the demands of the part and the verse speaking alone – but I do think that Hamlet’s predicament is more believable for a young man who doesn’t know himself yet, and whose relationships are still rather immature. He grows up during the play too, and that’s more believable if he’s a young man to start with. Still, a super afternoon.

And to return to my original point, there was ice on the Avon, on March 30^th, and it snowed a little.  

The Atomium

The next day was our last full day in Brussels, and we slept in, because it was so quiet outside. On waking, we looked out of the window and realised why it was quiet – at least five inches of snow had fallen overnight. Nothing was moving, and it wasn’t surprising, because I’ve never seen such deep snow in a city. The trams had seized up – the rails were jammed with snow and the points seemed to be frozen.

 We tried one hotel breakfast, and then started walking a few yards to a very nice café, where the food is better and it’s a third of the price, and the staff were  sweeping  gallons of water, from the customers’ feet and clothes, out of the door with a giant squeegee.

Luckily the metro seemed pretty much unaffected, so we stuck to the plan and went out to the Atomium. It was built for a World Fair in 1958, but it still looks very modern and was great fun to visit, although there’s not much in it. Apparently the views from the top are great, but really all we could see today was snow. I think the whole area would be fun in summer, especially if you had children in tow. There’s an attraction called Mini Europe, which seemed good silly fun, but not with snow falling heavily.

Inside one of the "tubes".

The best thing in the Atomium was contemporary film of it being constructed. While the building itself still looks modern, the difference in working methods from 1958 to 2013 was massive. The workers wore berets rather than hard hats, and clogs rather than safety boots; they climbed around on the outside without safety ropes; everything was by hand, so nuts were tightened with enormous spanners and brute force; and bits were forced together by hand, so that Phil could hardly bear to watch in case someone had a hand taken off.  It’s odd to have it brought home so forcefully how different life is from when we were young.

After a coffee and a warm we got the metro back. We visited the Cathedral, which is a good Gothic building, but somewhat spoiled by large clumsy statues of the apostles. It has a terrific Art Deco organ, though. 

The Cathedral Organ

 Then we went to the museum of comic strips (Bandes Dessine). Like the musical instruments, it was in a wonderful Art Nouveau store, well worth seeing in itself, but the museum itself was rather parochial. I’m sure if you were Belgian, it was wonderful. But I’ve never been that keen on Tintin, or Lucky Luke, and there were loads of others which I am sure were gloriously nostalgic if you were a Belgian of our age, but we’d never heard of them. Even  Asterix didn’t get a mention, though the books were on sale in the shop. There was no mention at all of Marvel, and though that might have been a copyright issue, you would have expected Neil Gaiman, Manga and Raymond Briggs, to mention a few.

So not entirely a success, and I don’t want to take anything home. We did see some wonderful Art Deco government buildings, though.

Greek restaurant tonight – it was OK but the proprietor was properly dodgy – he was showing off his body in a tight tee shirt, and had pictures of nude women in Lesbian clinches round the place. It was quite busy, otherwise we might have made an excuse and left.

The return journey.

All Eurostar  trains were cancelled yesterday, so we were a bit concerned but set off for the Gare Du Midi, and the train before ours had been cancelled, but ours was OK. It was slow, so we didn’t have time for lunch at St Pancras as planned but at least we caught the Nottingham train OK. 

The only issue was an American family seated near us – the mother (I assume she was the mother, but perhaps she was dad’s girlfriend, which would make her behaviour more understandable) put on headphones, and paid the children not a blind bit of notice for the whole trip. Dad kept doing that very American parent thing of making threats which he failed to follow up. “Right I’ll give you five minutes! That’s four! That’s three!, That’s two! That’s one! OK, I’ll give you five more minutes!”

The only thing they seemed to have brought for the children to do was one Ipad between them. Well, you just know  what’s going to happen.  In the end Phil said loudly, “Why don’t they split them up?” and the father took the hint (although hint probably isn’t the right word) and moved seats, and peace reigned at last. 

Waterloo

Today was the reason we decided to go to Brussels rather than Paris. We went out to Waterloo. We have been before, but I suppose it might be forty years ago. It’s changed quite a lot – Waterloo is a suburb of Brussels now, where it was really quite a country village, and the battlefield is intensively farmed – with the result that the sunken lane, which was quite clear forty years ago, has lost its hedges and in fact, isn’t sunken any longer. Kincaid says that the road was about twenty feet deep where he was stationed, close to La Haye Sainte, but it’s just flat now. I’m pretty sure the low ridge has been flattened off, too.

The two farms, La Haye Sainte and Hougumont, seem just the same. It must be very odd living in a farm which saw such slaughter. La Haye Sainte was defended by 376 men of the King’s German Legion, and only 41 survived. The defenders were armed with Baker rifles and ran out of cartridges, and then defended the farm with bayonets. The French were able to get over the wall by climbing on the pile of corpses of their compatriots, so goodness knows how many of them died. Also, an attempt by the rest of the K.G.L. to relieve the defenders ended in disaster as they were completely exposed to French cavalry. La Haye Sainte fell about 6.30 p.m.

Hougumont

The no-longer sunken road - the Allied position

La Haye Sainte

Looking towards the French position

Hougumont was held the whole day, by various units of Guards, but was set on fire with the result that the wounded were roasted to death. The French would not give up the attempt to capture it, even when the events of the rest of the battle made it pointless, and the casualties were enormous.

Obviously one would still want to farm one’s land, but living in the very house – one wonders how they stand it. Like the farms around Paschendael, which were clearly used as dressing stations in the first world war, and each had  their own graveyard behind. 

   

We saw the memorial to Sir Thomas Picton. Poor Picton seems to have been suffering from what we would now call post traumatic stress, but still took a command and died from a shot through the head. His top hat, with bullet hole, is in the National Army Museum. Wellington was very relaxed about matters such as uniform – at one stage he forbade umbrellas on the battlefield, which I think is quite telling. He himself wore plain grey civilian dress during the battle.

There’s also a monument to the 27^th Foot (Inniskillings) who, at the end of the battle, were lying dead, in square. Out of 747, 463 were killed or wounded. Kincaid wondered if this was the battle in which everyone would be killed.

The monument to the Inniskillings.

I ought to mention that it was bitterly cold, windy, and snowing slightly, and we did have a bit of a laugh, picturing the expressions on our friends’ faces if they could see us.

Wellington's H.Q.

Then we got the bus back to Waterloo village. Wellington spent the night before the battle and what was left of the night after at a substantial coaching inn, which is now a museum. They have one of Congreve’s rockets, which were deeply unreliable and quite likely to turn back on themselves into the British lines. Wellington kept trying to get rid of them. They also have one of the Earl of Uxbridge’s  wooden legs – he of “By God I’ve lost my leg!” to which Wellington replied “Have you, by God!” Uxbridge was the commander of the British Heavy Cavalry, and never forgave himself for failing to keep control. No cavalry had ever before routed so great a body of infantry, but they got carried away, failed to obey the Recall, got cut off, and of the Scots Greys, 279 troopers of 300 failed to return.

In the room next door to the one in which Wellington wrote his Waterloo dispatch, and got an hour or two of sleep, his ADC Alexander Gordon died after having his leg amputated. Wellington’s staff was almost wiped out. On getting the casualty list next morning, Wellington wept, and said, “I do not know what it is to lose a battle, but surely nothing could be more painful than to gain one at such a price.”   

So, back to Brussels, somewhat chastened, and off to a Lebanese restaurant which Phil remembered from business trips. We’re very partial to Middle Eastern food. It’s the antithesis of all that Noma and El Bulli nonsense. It’s real food, carefully but fairly simply cooked.

Eurostar to Brussels

I’ve never been on Eurostar, so my husband decided we should have a short break in Brussels. He knows it as well as he knows Paris, from working there, and it had the advantage of allowing us to pick off Waterloo – not chronological, but then we’ve given up on that.

So one Saturday we got up early and walked to the station to take the train to St Pancras, and then changed to Eurostar. Two international trains were leaving within three minutes of each other, so the queues for security were a bit fraught, but the journey was uneventful and we got to our hotel (off Avenue Louise and rather smartly modern) mid afternoon.

Unfortunately the journey did rather knock Phil for six – we only had small tow along cases, but maybe it was that, I don’t know. He did recover sufficiently to go down to the Grande Place and we found a good place for moules frites - the restorative effect a plate of chips has on him is amazing. The service and food were both really good for somewhere in such a touristy spot, but halfway through it was afflicted by a crowd of very rowdy drunken men. They were placed as far as possible from us, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the waiters, and worried that they might be British. They did sing a couple of pop songs in English, but that doesn’t prove anything.  No wonder so many landlords hate the customers.

So we had an early night and a late morning and eventually Phil was able to set off the Musee de Beaux Arts. Public transport in Brussels isn’t the easiest thing to navigate – although tram and bus stops are named, there are no indicators inside the bus or tram, and no information at the stops as to how long you might have to wait. It’s like going back ten years in time. Luckily the pile of the Beaux Arts is unmistakeable.

The museum is divided into old and modern. It was the old stuff we particularly wanted to see, which was just as well as a lot of the modern art bit was closed due to problems with the roof.  I think, now, that in spite of not being particularly visual and much more language oriented, I’ve looked at enough pictures to instantly perceive the good stuff. (Like wine – I don’t drink much, but you can keep all your boring “drinkable” Australian stuff. Give me a French claret you can practically cut with a knife and fork, or a Gewurztraminer.  If I like it, it’s invariably expensive. It’s just as well I don’t drink a lot!)

Anyway, there were a number of seventeenth century portraits and the three I liked turned out to be two Rubens and a Rembrandt. I don’t normally like Rubens – all that billowing flesh, tree trunk legs and shiny skin – but there was a study of a black man’s head, a preparation for an “Adoration of the Magi”, and a portrait of a woman. It was a pair, her and her husband, and I’m sure getting painted was the husband’s idea, because she looked faintly surly, face closed, determined not to give anything away.  They were wonderful.

But choosing just one picture was exceptionally difficult.

 They have a number of Breughels, including “Landscape with the fall of Icarus”, about which Auden wrote a poem:

http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html

There’s always such a lot going on in a Breughel painting, and Auden is quite right – in the “Arrival at Bethlehem”, you have to look quite hard for Mary and Joseph; they are just part of what’s going on, unimportant to everyone else in the picture. They’re all going about their lives, quite oblivious of the momentous event, or the tragedy of Icarus’ fall. There are no shining lights or haloes. But luckily Phil said he’d definitely choose a Breughel, so that let me off the hook.

I was very tempted by a sensitive portrait by Rogier van Der Weyden, but in the end chose a Cranach, of Venus. She’s very slender and stark naked except for a large feathered hat, and has unfeasibly long legs. She’s not at all voluptuous, but she has sly, knowing cat’s eyes and smile, and she’s clearly trouble. She’s accompanied by a cupid who has stolen a dish of honey and is being attacked by bees, just in case you didn’t get the hint from her expression. It’s just gorgeous.

http://www.opac-fabritius.be/fr/F_database.htm

The museum also possesses David’s painting of “The Death of Marat”, which surprised me because I just assumed it would be in France somewhere. It’s very impressive, but the propaganda is just a bit too blatant.

Museum of Musical Intruments

After lunch we went to the Museum of Musical Instruments. It’s in an old Art Nouveau department store, worth seeing for itself, but the museum is great fun. You are given an audioguide and can listen to all the instruments in the cases. The gamelan cases were fun, and the Ivory Coast case makes it quite clear where jazz originated. They also had the curved trumpets which we had at numbers one son’s wedding in Nepal, which look like the ones you see on pictures of the Roman army, and sound like bagpipes. There were a lot of real bagpipes, too, and innumerable versions of the zither.  So a highly enjoyable afternoon, and I’m having a shawm. It’s a lovely sound, and I could probably manage to play it, at least a bit.  

Suk, Shostakovich, Sainsbury and Richard III

I’ve just borrowed Joseph Suk’s symphony “Asrael”  from the library, and it was much more of a success that the Henze. It’s also about death – it’s a “funeral symphony” written after the early death of Suk’s wife and the death of her father Anton Dvorak, Suk’s teacher as well as father-in-law. It’s tremendous – full of grief and foreboding, and with very little in the way of comfort or redemption. I would absolutely love to hear it at a concert. There’s no doubt that the textures of music are much clearer live than on even the best recording. Probably one concentrates better in the concert hall, too. But I don’t want my own copy of Asrael. I think it’s like Dido’s lament “When I am Laid in Earth”,  which is so harrowing that one can only listen to it maybe once a year at maximum.

Speaking of foreboding, I watched a BBC masterworks programme on Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. It was conducted by Gergiev who claimed that certain passages were indicative of happy memories and were Shostakovich smiling. This left me gazing at the TV with my mouth open – I don’t set myself up as an expert against Gergiev, but this isn’t right. While I was feeling troubled (Gergiev knows much more than me about music but nevertheless I’m sure he’s wrong)  the programme wheeled on Maxim Shostakovich who was quite definite that there is no laughter – the “pretty” violin solo, he thought, was more like a little innocent girl whose face is stamped on by a boot. Exactly as I thought, and Shostakovich junior ought to know.

It’s quite funny, because when I was teaching I regarded it as vital to teach my students to be critical of scientific studies and to look hard for flaws in the methods used and the conclusions drawn. “Just because the researchers  are higher status than you lot doesn’t mean they get it right all the time. Tell me, what’s wrong with this study? Tell me other reasons why they might have got these results.”

And yet, here I am thinking that Gergiev must be right because he’s Gergiev. Well, he’s not. So there.

On impulse I borrowed Lionel Sainsbury's violin concerto from the wonderful Nottingham Central Library. I had no idea what to expect and knew next to nothing about Sainsbury. I still don't know much - not even whether he's related to the supermarkets and the National Gallery - but he was born in 1958, has won various prizes and seems to be involved with the Three Choirs Festival. But the violin concerto is unashamedly romantic and quite conventional, and I did enjoy it. I'll look for more of Sainsbury's music. It's a bit old fashioned, I suppose, more like, say, Barber, than like Part, never mind Berg, but then I can't stand Berg. Also, after a while, it doesn't matter one bit whether music, or probably anything else, is actually up to contemporary ideas. Bach was old fashioned in his day.

It's been half term, too, so we had a trip to the "Looking for Richard" exhibition in Leicester. There were stacks of people and the exhibition wasn't sufficiently geared up for large numbers, so although the information was very interesting, I can't honestly say it was a success.  The way Richard's body was treated made me think of that ghastly film they kept showing on TV of the capture of Colonel Gaddaffi. (As an aside, does not Assad see that film and think of ending up like that?)

As the grandsons get older we have more and more interesting conversations, which is lovely, but there are downsides - I'd just given them a yogurt to eat each, when number one grandson said "What's the date , Granny?" I was too slow to realise why he wanted to know, so I told him the truth, and he then announced that the yogurts were four days out of date. Needless to say, I told him to eat it, it wouldn't kill him. And he did, and it didn't.