Robin Ellis's Blog, page 5
February 20, 2020
Perfect early Spring day…
Noon.
Blue sky and no wind.
Cows in the meadow, finches and tits on the wing, lamb in a paddock.
Parsley and chives showing in a pot.
Almond blossom‘s second day out–not quite full bloom.
Crocus, daffodil and the large rosemary bush in flower.
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Bees at work
Lovely combo of warmth from the sun and a scarf round the neck, for the shadows on my walk.
New Tilley hat comfortably on my head–and not a bus in sight.
Our young neighbour who runs the Mediateque de Lautrec passes in her little red car taking her baby home for lunch. We are in la France Profonde –and there are four rush hours a day! She entrusts him to the village creche in working hours.
The Postman who delivered my new hat yesterday, passes and waves as he nears the end of his rounds.
Perfect, you might say.
Except, as Meredith says, it is all a month too early.
Ten days before the end of February!
Spring is sprung officially on March 20th
Still, gather ye rose buds, carpe diem and quand même–eh?!
February 19, 2020
Losing my hat(s)…
In Oscar Wilde’s incomparable comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest, John Worthing’s prospective mother-in-law takes him to task for truthfully admitting that he has lost his parents.
“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
Lady Bracknell would certainly apply the same ruthless judgment to my losing two Tilley hats in the space of 14 months–both losses confirming in her mind that society was about to break down and…
“…reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”
It’s appropriate then, that my latest display of carelessness should have occurred in Paris.
When I realised three minutes after getting off the 69 bus at St Gervais Church in the Marais district on Saturday afternoon that I didn’t have my Tilley with me–and must have left it on the bus–I felt an urge to break down myself.
What made it doubly frustrating was that I knew exactly where the hat was. My seven-and-three-eighths broad-brimmed Tilley–faithful protector against the harmful ultra-violet rays of the sun–was still there on the seat where I’d been sitting. (I put it there to make the hard seat more comfortable.) But the bus was gone on its unstoppable way, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. 
February 14, 2020
Young Charles Dickens, “Boz”, of 48 Doughty Street
The Dickens Museum has recently acquired some fascinating Dickens memorabilia; reading about it reminded me of my TV debut in 1967.
Mr. Dickens of London was a part-dramatised tour of the great writer’s big city haunts.
The conceit would have appealed to Dickens’s instinct for self-promotion .
It starred Sir Michael Redgrave as Charles Dickens and Juliet Mills as a tour guide whom Dickens befriends and offers to show her his London.
The first stop on the tour was 48 Doughty Street–the family’s home for two years from 1837–when he was 25 and where he wrote The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nickolas Nickleby .
“And this is Boz, young me, hard at work writing,” says Sir Michael/Charles Dickens, pointing at me!
And there I was–sitting at Dickens’ real desk, twiddling a quill and spilling the ink, no doubt. It was directed by actor Barry Morse–who was big presence at the time on ITV as the detective pursuing David Jannsen as The Fugitive in weekly episodes. The Daily Mirror had opened a book, taking daily bets, on when Morse would track him down.
We were filming in Covent Garden–still operating as a fruit and vegetable market and an authentic Dickens location (he’d had an office in Wellington Street nearby). The porters were about to knock off work after a hard day’s night and were standing round watching the action. One of them spotted Barry giving me directions and quick as a flash shouted at him:
“You won’t find ‘im ‘ere mate–long gone!!”
The job was well timed for me. I’d been out of work for some weeks after sharing the stage for six months with another star-studded cast in a production of Sheridan’s The Rivals at the Haymarket Theatre.
A baptism of fire–straight from playing Idle Jack in Cheltenham Theatre’s Christmas pantomime.
I took over the leading part, Captain Jack Absolute, from Dan Massey.
Ralph Richardson played my father, Sir Anthony and Margaret Rutherford, Mrs Malaprop.
I was paid £35 a week and by the end I was hard up!
So this Dickens job was a gift and then more….
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson chose the night of transmission to give a major TV address to the nation. Our show went out–but the ratings persuaded the network to show it a second time.
Thus I got paid a repeat fee–which paid the rent for a few more weeks!
There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick’s hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide.
from The Pickwick Papers by Boz (young Charles Dickens)
February 9, 2020
Losing the vote…
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It informs me that because I am longer a European citizen, I am not entitled to vote in either the Municipal (local) elections in March or the European elections.
First fall-out from the Brexit vote.
You must be a citizen of La France to vote in the national elections–but at least these other elections offered foreign residents an opportunity to show solidarity and involvement with their community.
It’s also fun to be part of a small town elections–the visit to the Mairie to cast our votes, joining the steady stream of familiar faces.
The relief when you show your registration card and it’s confirmed you are indeed on the register–yes, you belong here (and we have been here full-time for 20 years–30 in all).
A sense of pride when you are given an envelope and the ballot papers of all the lists–and pointed towards the voting booths.
Doing your best to remember for whom you’ve decided to vote!
Placing chosen ballot paper in the envelope, signing the register of voters, putting the envelope in the transparent ballot box–glowing with a sense of duty done.
No longer!
It is doubly sad for Meredith, who had been invited to join one of the lists and had already attended a couple of meetings.
It’s apparently hard to find people willing to stand in the countryside–here’s someone who is by nature public-spirited and willing to do the work–and is now excluded.
Seems crazy.
But we are trusting that by the next set of elections 2026 (My! Seems a lifetime!) we will add French citizenship to our tally—thus qualifying to vote in the national, local and European elections.
Allons enfants de la Patrie!
Allez les Bleus!
January 31, 2020
I remember it well…and I’m sad
Europe becomes ELSEWHERE–“over there” again, at midnight, as the UK ups anchor and sails away (or free falls from a ship in the sky!)
[image error]I was born in January 1942, so for two and half years I lived in a Europe torn apart by war, blissfully unaware of the horrors that were happening.
I was lucky. “Elsewhere” featured strongly in my life in the 1950s. My parents were outward-looking and liked to travel, using Dad’s concessionary travel permits (a perk as an employee of British Rail). I took it in my stride; never felt scared of the idea.
My first trip in 1951 was to Paris with a school party.
We traipsed through the streets in crocodile file–two abreast.
Blissfully ignorant of what being occupied had meant for people we were passing on the pavements.
My recall is minimal but I do remember the hot chocolate in cafés and the scary view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Two years later (summer of 1953), on our way to a beach holiday in Lloret del Mar on the Costa Brava, I remember feeling shocked seeing young boys begging on the street in Barcelona, just fourteen years after the end of the Spanish Civil War,
I remember Franco’s sinister police with their winged black helmets and machine guns keeping the beach “decent”.
I discovered the taste of an egg fried in olive oil, too.
I remember my first trip to Germany–1957–twelve years after the end of the war. I took the train to Flensburg near the Danish border and had my wallet stolen.
I remember the generosity of my German host family, who replaced the precious money I’d lost.
I remember in Spring 1961, on a nine-week tour of Europe before University, bashing steel for a week in a factory in Dusseldorf to make connecting rings for pipes and being astonished how quickly the city had risen from the ashes–just sixteen years after the end of the war.
I remember in 1961--(twelve years after the end of the Greek Civil War)–picking mulberries from the tree at a corner of the road leading into Delphi and feeling guilty, trying to wipe the purple stain of mulberry juice from my arms.
That same year, The National Youth Theatre toured Genoa, Florence, Perugia and Rome with a modern-dress production of Julius Caesar (I played a shouty First Citizen). In Rome, Caesar dressed in a garish uniform may have been an uncomfortable sight for some in the audience. One performance finished at 2am. The producer had run out of money and refused to pay the electricians, who went on strike in the interval. None of the audience left. This was definitely “elsewhere,” we learned that night.
I remember my mother beside herself with worry that brother Jack (six-years-old) was drowning on the beach at Marina di Campo on Elba in summer 1961–146 years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars!!
“There is a world elsewhere”, I pronounced as a defiant Coriolanus–banished from Rome. A college production this time on a tour of Norway, Denmark and Germany.
By now I knew there was and I thrived on exploring it.
I was lucky.
All these early remembrances of times past and many more in the years that followed –experienced in the war-free zone of newly uniting/united Western Europe.
Increasingly and quickly, war became inconceivable within the EU–and has remained so.
Unlike the twenty years after the end of the Great War, a stabilising and unifying organisation had emerged from the rubble.
And let’s not forget what erupted on the doorstep of the European Union in former Yugoslavia in the mid-nineties.
It was brutal, it was tribal. Neighbour killing neighbour.
A genocide in Srebrenica–8000 men and boys, massacred.
Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley last Sunday:
There was something precious about the ideal, however imperfectly practised, of the countries of what had been the world’s most murderous continent working together across borders for the prosperity and security of their peoples.
Now Foolish Albion is sailing away, jumping out.
That is why I’m sad or if I’m honest–mad as hell.
January 30, 2020
Bonne Anniversaire, Gene Hackman–85 films and 90 years old!
A personal anecdote about a favourite actor–Gene Hackman–who is 90 today.
The plan was to meet in Manhattan.
I was flying from London and Meredith from Snowmass where she was doing a few downhills with the family.
I arrived first on a beautiful early Spring afternoon and checked into the hotel on the south side of 58th street between 5th and 6th Avenues. I’ve forgotten the name but it was known as an actor’s hotel because of the location and the reasonable rates; no room service though!
[It’s no longer there.]
After parking my stuff I strolled out into the sunshine and had my shoes shined on the corner of 6th Avenue and 57th Street. As I sat sunning myself looking forward to Meredith’s imminent arrival, I remember thinking the cherry on the cake would be to take in a new Gene Hackman film that evening.
Shoes gleaming, I twinkled–toed back to the hotel to wait for Meredith.
From my room I spotted a coffee shop directly opposite the entrance to the hotel and decided to pop over, get a coffee and bring it back to the room.
As I was crossing back, coffee and a sandwich in hand, out of the hotel heading for the cafe, wearing a beautiful Hawaiian shirt and looking like he hadn’t a care in the world, to my utter amazement, came–Gene Hackman.
I managed not to drop my comestibles and continued into the lobby of the hotel.
End of anecdote, sadly.
I should be able to recount how I sat in reception and waited for the return of my hero and how I went up to him and told him how much I had enjoyed his performances over the years since Bonnie and Clyde.
No, sadly, I took the lift to my floor and sat rather dazed and ate my sandwich and drank my coffee like a gobsmacked idiot.
I had form in this regard–and Meredith just can’t understand my reticence–so un-American!
I’ll put it down to shock and shyness–but it’s silly.
He is one of the big beasts of cinema–actors you can’t take your eyes off.
Ineffable presences: Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, my Mother’s pin-up–Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Jimmy Cagney, Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery….
Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Ginger Rogers (I’m surprised each time I catch the breathtaking brilliance of Fred and Ginger–how drawn I am to her effortless concentration), Katherine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman….
Name your own!
But Gene Hackman is also an imposing character actor.
Contrast Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection and French Connection 2:
with The Conversation.
So–from across the pond and about thirty years late–THANK YOU, Gene Hackman and MANY HAPPY RETURNS!!
January 27, 2020
WHERE is he…?
Cats are like kids in the 1940s and ’50s.
Out to play after breakfast–not seen again ’til tummies rumble, early evening.
It’s what our tribe are like–not sure kids can do that these days.
A couple of days ago young Shadow came into the kitchen all–
“Hey fiddly dee, a kitty’s life for me! Just stopping by for a couple of spoonfuls, before hopping out.
“Uh-uh!–why no food bowls?”
Instead, the trusting little guy faced one of the less pleasant experiences of a young cat’s life.
Being neutered.
We reckon he’s about six-months-old–and it’s time.
Heartbreaking moment to see him jauntily enter the kitchen, ready for another day in Paradise, only to find no food and a strange looking container with a grill door sitting on the kitchen table.
“HELP! this isn’t how it should be, how it normally is.”
Driving to the vet, I felt recurring surges of emotional upset at what we were putting the poor mite through.
That old schoolmaster’s lie as he beats his pupil: “This is hurting me more than it hurts you!” came to mind.
A few hours later, after the simple procedure, Meredith picked him up and drove him home.
Not visibly distressed–simply exhausted and still drowsy from the anaesthetic, he slept through the night–but slipped out of the house in the early morning.
As the day developed, we realised he was not around.
He didn’t react to our calls. We started to worry.
He’s gregarious by nature and is always trying to engage the others in “conversation” and play–victim of the “third child syndrome”(Meredith knows about this; Jack too)–where the “others” are too busy to bother with “junior”.
High and low–house, cemetery, field, hedgerow–we searched; no Shadow.
The church was locked and windows newly-mended but then Meredith remembered that years ago one of our other cats, Peanut, when still semi-feral, found shelter in the church, beneath the wooden floors of the vestry, through a ventilation conduit.
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Beau rues the fact that this conduit is too small for him now!
She located the opening and called. No reaction.
She bent down low–Ben was with her–and peered into the black hole.
There, peering back dubiously at her, were a pair of green eyes.
She managed to coax him out (perhaps reassured by Ben’s presence) and together, the newly formed trio set off on a tour ’round the church.
His confidence and trust in us were shaken by this traumatic experience–and it has taken a few days to win him back.
Last night he snuggled up to Meredith on the couch to watch a bit of “Scandi noir” on TV (the denouement of a Norwegian series)–followed every word, he did!!
Then he scared the daylights out of me by chasing a small ball across the floor exactly as he would a mouse.
“It’s a BALL for heavens sakes,” shouts an unsympathetic Meredith.
(I take care of the spiders, she takes care of the mice.)
Feels like he’s fully back in the family now.
January 20, 2020
A piano for the church
This elegant creature arrived last Monday on the dot of 10am, as promised by the delivery company.
Pianos are heavy and I expected at least four sturdy removers.
Two sufficed–with barely a puff or red face.
They installed it in ten minutes and even fingered a little tune–taught to the removal man by his granddaughter, he said.
It’s a demi-grand Erard, made in 1914.
The church–constructed fifty years before the piano–exulted in the vibrations.
Sebastien Erard (1752-1831} built his first piano in Paris in 1777. He went on to build them for Kings and Queens and a impressive list of famous composers: Beethoven, Chopin, Fauré, Haydn, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Verdi, Ravel, among them.
His invention of the “double escapement” action–allowing notes to be repeated more easily–enabled these ambitious composers to challenge performers to astonishing heights of virtuosity.
Here is an (overlong) explanation of how this works on a piano made for a Queen and her Consort…
Ours is a considerably less ornate version–in beautiful light brown walnut wood.
We are its guardians, not its owners.
Brother Jack’s partner, Claire Béjanin, is the proud owner, inheriting the piano from her grandmother, who used to play duets with her husband on cello.
We must wait for the moment when Claire, a talented performer, teases the ivories and baptises it with a sweet air.
Until then, it will be covered in cotton sheets and wool blankets–no plastic–against the damp.
We need violins, violas and cellos; flutes and clarinets, and my favourites–oboes and bassoons, to make up a chamber orchestra.
Sopranos and contraltos, tenors and basses–baritones too.
Hold, hold, my heart–’twill come–all in good time.
January 6, 2020
Whoops!!
A pair of sharp eyes from Bristol points out that:
It’s not “4 score years and 20″!
That would make Keith an impressive but unlikely 100!
Rather…
“3 score years and 20″.
Maths never a strength chez moi!
Thank you, Deming!
Monday, Monday…
[image error]A Monday morning to cherish–for once–a beautiful blue sky and a crisp white frost covers the back meadow.
It’s the first Monday of the new decade and Twelfth Night to boot.
“If music be the food of love play on–give me excess of it.”
We are in need of some good news; so “an excess of love” in these troublingly, divided times would be good news.
So.
Our friend, Keith Richmond on whose olive farm south-east of Florence we have “laboured” at harvest time, is 80 today.
Three-score years and twenty–as a friend of his observed this morning.
Ten more than the traditional span.
Good news!
Buon Auguri, Keith!!
May you and your olives trees continue to prosper for many years to come!
(The olive oil from Boggioli is gorgeous, by the way, and Keith is an expert at export!)
The second piece of good news we awoke to this morning:
Our friend, Brian Cox, won the Golden Globe last night for Best Actor in a TV Drama Series for his role in Succession.
He’d told us a couple of weeks back that he didn’t fancy his chances. That Tobias Menzies, as the Duke of Edinburgh, opposite GG winner Olivia Coleman’s Queen Elizabeth, would be a worthier winner.
Separating two such stunning performances is invidious but hey! This is showbiz and we are rejoicing at Brian’s deserved triumph. His portrait of the media mogul monster–Logan Roy–has delighted and disgusted us in equal measure and left us panting for the third series, which he says starts shooting late Spring.
Good news!
Just for a moment I’ve been able to park The News–from the Middle East, Australia, No 10 and Mar-a-Largo.
And like the besotted Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night believe that love “can purge the air of pestilence!”
