Howards End: long spoiler

So if you have no idea what happens in Howards End you shouldn't read this.

I wrote this after reading the book, not watching the programme.

I am completely mystified by how Helen Schlegel and Leonard Bast had sex. One tries to figure out his attitude - did he seduce her to punish her because she had ruined his chances in life and made him look foolish? And did she go along with this because she felt guilty and wanted to give him what he wanted?

Did she take the initiative because she had always found him attractive and wanted to show him that he still had value? Did neither of them, at any point say, "hang on, this isn't a good idea."? I think she was an impulsive person, and inexperienced, but he was an experienced man and could have used caution.

Was it a rape? But if it was a rape why didn't she say so?

Anyway, in the introduction to this old Penguin edition I find that I am by no means the first in finding this very unbelievable.  The first reader was the publisher (or the publisher's reader) who said that this "episode" was "unconvincing". Forster said, "I agree with you about Helen...I hope however the public may find the book convincing on other counts."

From the intro to the Penguin: "Reader after reader, however, has expressed plain incredulity." In a long-ago Spectator review it was referred to as "Helen's extraordinary act of self-sacrifice". Percy Lubbock [who he?] thought it "rather steep". Katherine Mansfield was uncertain "whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella".

Forster said: "I did it like that out of a wish to have surprises. It has to be a surprise for Margaret, and this was best done by making it a surprise for the reader too. Too much may have been sacrificed to this."

So he could have told us that the two were attracted to each other and a romantic affair became possible (but how, really, in two people so separated by fortune and class?) but he didn't because he wanted it to be a surprise.

This seems to me to ruin the book and so I wouldn't have given it a place in the canon.  I remember thinking "The Longest Journey" was a very good book. Forster himself wrote in later life that he didn't actually care for Howards End; "not a single character in it for whom I care ... I feel pride in the achievement but cannot love it..."

He didn't enjoy writing novels: " am grinding out my novel into a contrast between money and death - the latter is truly an ally of the personal against the mechanical."
"Thought my novel very bad, but though it is pumped [sic] it's not quite as bad as I thought for the characters are conceived sincerely. Will it ever be done? A fortnight ago I should have said not, but am hopeful now... But take it all round, I've lost inspiration, and not adequately replaced it by solidity. Words are more in the foreground than they were: even these I seem writing for an audience".

The TV programme ended on a note I missed in the book. A kind of triumphant feminism - "we women are so nice; we have fixed our lives so it's all pretty and fertile and looking to the future..."  Helen wearing her hair down. Looking thrilled to have got rid of Bast (dead) and Charles (prison) so they could have a lovely time at "Howards End" rejoicing about the greenness of the hay.

The robin and the pigeons

Today I went upstairs to get dressed after a lazy start, and found a robin in my bedroom. It was plainly scared, and kept beating its wings against the big window pane, but couldn't find the opening. So I went and opened the window as wide as it would go and left it to find its way out. However, fifteen minutes later it was still there, and I decided I had better give it a gentle prod in the right direction with a newspaper.

While I was by the window I heard the strangest noise from outside - a rhythmic crunching, as though an army was approaching down the path. No sign of any such thing outside - but a few pigeons. Then I realised that the noise was coming from the pigeons as they were trampling on the dry oak leaves that surround the house. I made some scary gesture at the pigeons and about twelve of them went flying up. They had got into a real feeding frenzy because they could hear the beating of the wings of the trapped robin and knew it would die soon, and in their excitement they were going crunch, crunch with their feet on the leaves, in a yum, yum sort of rhythm.

So the coast was clear for it when I got the robin out, and I hope it survived its ordeal. Haven't had a robin in the house for years.

Bethnal Green

Yesterday I went to another comedy recording; and although it will be broadcast on Radio 4 I think it was not an "in house" production because it was recorded in a comedy club in Bethnal Green. Bethnal Green is in the East End of London, at one time it was a Jewish area and as I have never been there I though I would go early and see what it is like.

I think I was expecting towering council flats, and I didn't see them although they may be there. I saw streets of shops and small businesses, some buildings and pubs unimproved since Victorian times. I saw a high street of betting shops and pawn shops and the shops that unlock mobile phones and sell the accessories for them, and I went to Macdonald's. In Macdonald's I saw black schoolboys and girls in their early teens hanging out after school, dressed in blazers and school uniforms, speaking in English. Their parents may have come from many different places (Bangladesh and Somalia, among the mix) and English may be their second language, but altogether they speak English and they are not unmannerly. Seeing me waiting for the counter they moved out of my way, and I am sure if I had asked any of them for help with the self-service screen they would have helped. There were also mums of small children in MacD's; their toddlers in push-chairs and their older ones tearing around banging on the seats. Probably this is somewhere cheap where they can come and be warm and safe and well-lit for the price of a cup of tea. I imagine that most of these families are in pretty poor housing. There were also grandparents (white) minding grandchildren with a bit of "effing and blinding". There were also students coming in - very obviously students and not just people of the area. They were white, mainly, long-haired, in pairs. I found a few agencies for student rooms and a block of bedsits purpose-built for students. It reminded me of Selly Oak when I was a student. The trouble is that there is money in building student rooms and none in building good housing for immigrant families. But the immigrant families want to be there. A bad area of London is full of possibility for new immigrants to find work. Historically, this is the place. These children in their school uniforms and hefty shoes are the reason that the parents came to this country. I give credit to the teachers of Bethnal Green - they are doing a hard job, and not badly, I think. I also thought it was good for the students to live there amongst the poor. They need to know.

At my comedy show the audience was largely middle-aged, middle class and white, but not entirely. There were some quite eccentric looking people and some who looked as though they didn't get out much, as well as some worldly types showing off a bit. We enjoyed the show with John Finnemore's Teenage Diary although the humour felt a bit "bolted on" (a spy theme) which might be straightened out in the editing. He talked about going to work in Krakow as a teacher of English before he had even been to university - in short, he had nothing except intelligence on his side, and lacked a lot of training and subject knowledge.  But hey! this doesn't always hamper progress! It felt right to give John Finnemore a good big round of applause because his writing has given me so much delight and is always fun and good-humoured.

And look, he's got excellent teeth, too!

Sad about Brexit

I am still very sad about Brexit and I am worried about our economic future as an isolated country led by bullish but unreasonable men. I do mean men, because although Theresa May is a woman I feel she is not so much a leader as "oil and grease" between factions who can't bear each other. It is a great shame they are all Conservatives as they have a group mindset of being "winners" (like Donald Trump, their worst word is "loser") and they are too arrogant to listen to each others' bluster, let alone other points of view. Theresa May cares more about the Conservative party than she does about the U.K. She has been focused on that party for so long she simply can't see beyond it; which is why Brexit is being done badly. She can only see that her own party has Big Players (like Davis and Johnson and Gove) and that they must be involved in Brexit for her own security, but the fact that they might be the very worst team she can field internationally doesn't cloud her mind.

I am very disappointed in the Labour Party, who do want to present an alternative but have got it in their heads that European Union = Capitalism = bad. The European government is very strong in mitigating the effects of capitalism, with all its wonderful employment legislation and regulations about medications and foodstuffs and pollution and all kinds of things. That's how it has been good for us.

I believe many jobs will leave the country from the City and from European traders and we shall be much worse off. The rich will not feel the impact at all because their wealth can be stored anywhere, in any country's business, and so they will always be safe. I wish the Labour Party understood a great deal about wealth creation. I wish they would take lessons in economics. I am afraid they are a bunch of dreamers.

I might add things I'm reading online to this post. Here's one from Twitter:

The issue is that, to many who voted for #Trump or #Brexit, it feels like the first time they ever won. Many now see that the prize was a pie made of shit, but it's still the only thing they ever won. So they're determined to eat it, make yummy noises and insist we all have some.

     Alex Andreou‏Verified account @sturdyAlex                   

 

Reading to an audience - being a show-off

Today I took the book (my 2nd story book, it says on the front) in which I wrote when I was six and seven, and read from it to my fellow skiffers. I think it might have been an experiment. Why did I want my fellow skiffers to hear an account of a visit to Madame Tussaud's that my family made when I was six? Here and there I stopped and asked them if they remembered Mme Tussaud's when it had the Chamber of Horrors downstairs. It did generate some conversation.

What I am sorry about is that I clearly have a need to be a show-off. This is pretty annoying for everyone. A. says this: "Sometimes you're a bit showy." I don't like showy people myself. So why can I not hold this back?

When I was a teacher, I realised that I found teaching "a safe space" because my role was to hold the stage and communicate, and theirs was to communicate back within certain boundaries, and therefore I was in some way in control of the exchanges. So my problem is wanting to have control of a social situation, in which I possibly don't trust everyone, but I am also laying myself open. I am in some way being embarrassing, but I can't see how.

I must try to curtail this performing streak in myself.

But today I am also thinking that I need to get some form of therapy for my lack of emotion. I envy those who say that they feel some emotion about someone who died, as on the Marks and Spencer Twitter thread, where a woman writes that looking at the jumpers in M&S at Christmas reminds her so much of her lately deceased Dad, and it chokes her up. So many responses from people who miss their parents.

Problems of screenwriting

One of the problems of screenwriting is that it is useless, as far as I know, to write what one wants. A screenwriter who wants to make money has to say, "What does the market want?" and the market might say: we want thrillers, we want police procedurals featuring these characters (who have already been created), or we want dramas featuring strong women from the North. What some corporations want is a film like Made in Dagenham, which seemed a little formulaic to me (two of the Strong working class women must be estranged before the end, and then reconciled in the Grande Finale), but set in various different places and times, just that same story of lively working class women fighting for their rights, over and over again.

This is pretty much what I learned from Abi Morgan, speaking at the BFI last night. She does a great job of delivering drama to order.

What about dramas about men? Not popular. Not unless they are cracking up under the strain of being Strong Men. If there is a man in a leading role his boss must be a woman. Ideally, a black woman.

But it seems that screenwriters can write to please themselves, but these scripts are not likely to ever be made. I have read that you can publicise them to interest people in your talent as a writer (and your commitment in getting your story finished) but producers don't want them. They want what they have decided the public wants, and nothing else. It is a sad day for me because I realise that writing what I want to write may be an end in itself. How long will I have the heart to keep doing it?

The Russians are trolls

I am informed by "The Week" that the Russians are responsible for fomenting fear and anger on the Twittersphere by infiltrating Western Tweet networks with non-existent, but influential tweeters and producing hate tweets against those who voted Remain, for example, and I think they were pro-Trump too. I can see the point of this. It makes everyone feel sad and upset when they find so many of their fellow countrymen, who had seemed quite harmless or generally quite pleasant, were actually bigoted and sociopathic. It dilutes feelings of community and trust. It's effective, but it gains them nothing and it is wrong, in the same way that killing all the tigers is wrong, and deep sea fishing is wrong. It erodes the world's good nature, which took a very long time to develop, and will not be easily replaced.

Down in the dumps: Bye to my screenplay: achievements

Finished the eventful and gripping screenplay about these people: what a great story.

H.G.Wells, a charming man

Bland, a charming man.

Bland was also a quite frightening man.

The daughter who was caught between the two.

Shaw, who comes into the story because it is also a political story.

Yesterday I went on a cycle ride to Kingston, making the most of the fine autumnal weather (the trees are mainly green and only a few have shed their leaves) but it didn't make me feel better. Except when we rode around Bushy Park, that was fun, but I felt like a child. It made me feel as though I was wasting my time. Is this because I have finished the screenplay and feel bad about it? Worried that it won't interest anyone? I have to remember it was a first draft.

My blue bike with Karen's outside Hampton Court Palace.

I am now going to write another screenplay, but I first have my mother's photos to dispose of . And my superficial letters from years ago. I don't live in the past and I can't think why she kept all this wretched stuff, except that she thought I was having a really interesting life, maybe? I don't have much of a memory - I lived, I wrote it down, I moved on and forgot. Some people have amazing memories.  I guess my mother thought I would do amazing things, so she kept these letters in the expectation that someone would be interested in my biography. I have mixed feelings about this. I have always felt that my mother should achieve her own things, and I should achieve (or not achieve) mine, and the two are separate. Same with my father. I hope my daughter thinks the same - that her life will be about her own achievements, not mine or any other member of her family.

Cycle ride, Richmond Park

Today, I went on a 30-mile bike ride to the middle of Richmond Park. I couldn't believe how quickly we got there and back. We rode along the towpath most of the way - at Ham we went through a housing estate and entered the park at the Ham Gate. At the top of the hill there was a mobile café, and I had a bacon buttie (so much for my vegetarianism). I didn't hurt much when I finished - bum a bit sore - but now I do feel my thighs seizing up.

My bike at Walton Bridge - no suspension sadly

We rode along that good path in front of Hampton Court Palace.

THIS IS NOT US, THIS IS NOT TODAY.
I forgot to take any photos. But it was like this. Blue sky.

Doubles Marathon and Red Sky Day

Here are some pics of the Doubles marathon. (not very clear, I am not the photographer!)

Today, after skiffing,  we went on a bike ride to Molesey but the weather turned windy and then very still, with a red sun, and then the sky turned yellow - there is a hurricane in Ireland. The wind picked up dust from the Sahara, apparently, that is what made the light here turn yellow with huge dark clouds. A very odd day. I was glad to get home as I thought a huge storm must be coming.

Allotment year 2, post 5 ish

So this year I planted 9 courgettes because I wanted to see if they would survive from such small and measly seedlings and that was 4 too many. Five is the correct number of courgette plants and if one of them dies you still get plenty of courgettes. I took a good many large courgettes to my club. I didn't waste any. I made soup, and I made marrow and ginger jam. A. made chutney. I made courgette cake.

I was completely bullied by the huge number of beans. I planted about 18 plants and one died. That is about twice as many as I needed. I cut up and froze the beans in small portions. If you freeze them in large bags you never use them. I also gave them away by putting a bag of them on the green with a "help yourself" sign.

I planted three types of potatoes and this time I didn't mix them up. I planted one row of Charlottes and harvested them as soon as they flowered; they were nice, apart from the ones that were a bit scabby. But we ate them all while they were young, but most of them had to be peeled.
One row of Desiree was enough, they have done well apart from some scabby ones, and they should mash well.  I also planted some Roosters because the packet of seed potatoes was reduced (roots growing through the mesh. These are lovely round potatoes which hold their shape well when you boil them. They were lates because I planted them as an afterthought.
So apart from the potatoes, courgettes and the beans things didn't go too well. The mange tout did nothing (soil too poor?) So I just pulled them up and eventually I planted leeks in that place. These are growing quite well. When I planted the leeks I also planted two rows of beets. We ate a lot of the young leaves as salad. I eventually pulled up some - they didn't take long to grow. I have never cooked these before but today I roasted some and they were nice. We also had home-grown potatoes and beans (from the freezer).

The raspberry canes produced a decent number of berries but we need a few more so we can collect a couple of bowls full at a time. At present, I am still eating them on the hoof (and very nice they are!)

The strawberries gave us one crop (about 10 bowls) and then put out loads of runners. I have been planting up new plants from the runners but they aren't taking very well.  I need to dig out the whole bed and get rid of the original plants, which are getting too old. That bed is very weedy too and needs feeding which I am going to do.

The rhubarb plants went completely mad and after the thirsty spell, which tested them severely in June, they grew incredibly. We should have a good lot next spring. You shouldn't eat the stems after July because they contain chemicals which give you arthritis and gout!

The other thing that needs doing is the construction of a compost bin, from pallets. A. has collected two good corner posts and some pallets and dumped them behind the shed. He is too busy to do any more. The rubbish heap may have some good stuff in it but I am going to have to burn a lot of it because I haven't the container for making compost.

(Home compost is going well - lots of thin pink worms - if it was a nicer day today I would be out putting the compost around the shrubs.)

The old boys' marathon

The sad thing about the Old Boys' marathon is that the Old Boys are now coming up for retirement age, and some are retired already. So there are no young Old Boys, and this is something we should redress, perhaps by trying to teach the older school boys how to scull in a skiff.

Why is it that when we were young a skiff represented its own challenges - it's heavy so you need to use a different technique to move it - and now the young don't like challenges at all. They say things like "it's like rowing a bath-tub". Aha - well, see how well you can row a bath-tub!

Skiffing used to give an oarsman who had rowed at school or at his (men's) college, a chance to row with girls. Some events are mixed. Nowadays there are events for mixed eights but it used to be the only chance for a young man to get into a boat with a young woman.

But I think anyone who skiffs finds themselves loving the boats. The design, the materials, and the practise of rowing a skiff, are the source of happiness. I used to scull along thinking of all the men and women - like my grandparents and their parents - who had skiffed along my reaches before me, and I would hope that, from the other side they could see me and they thought I was pretty damn capable at skiffing. I always imagine that years ago, say before the 1950's, women just dabbled at strenuous sports and didn't like to get hot and sweaty, but how do we know really? Maybe there were rebellious women in the Edwardian era who'd get down the backwaters where no-one could see, and really use their muscles.

But anyway, young people don't see that the skiffs are beautiful and they don't want to race in them. But we folk from the very tail of the Baby Boom, we still love them, and the Old Boys managed to summon up six men who could skiff and put three crews together.

After this event I had a nice beer and I finally told the man who had been my "crush" that I had first seen him when I was thirteen. I was a cox, a somewhat reluctant, an extremely shy and nervous cox, and he was a twenty year old student who was winning every event for a rival club. My club captain described him to me as a "long-haired hooligan" who won everything, and he added the crushing detail "he throws the blades" (the sculls). We wouldn't do that; we would treat the equipment with care. He sounded awful. Like a wild man.

I knew him as soon as I saw him at the regatta; he had so much energy, he drew the eye, he enjoyed being the best at skiffing and he enjoyed being alive. He rushed everywhere. He was in the beer tent on that sunny day, and every so often he would come out and get the blades and go and race, or there would be a bit of a hullaballoo and he would come out carrying a girl - a pretty girl with long hair - and threaten to throw her in the river. "Skweeeee, skweee" the girls screamed ( I think there were two of them). While I watched he repeated this routine about three times and I was hoping he would, eventually, throw one in the river.

I was by myself under the tree, my parents were not there and the other members of the club were much older than me and I felt bad about sitting with them in case they couldn't say what they wanted to say in front of me. While I sat there this person became my crush, because he was good at "playing". It seemed strange to me that he was a grown-up, and was good at playing, and I was a child and I was absolutely useless at it. I wondered if I would get better at it? Would he ever "play" with me? I then realised that I was too young to have fun with. He would only have fun with grown-up girls. By then, I was already menstruating, but I didn't have any of the self-assurance that a woman has. I dressed in my brother's clothes because I was so uncertain of my feminine value.

So I realised that I wasn't about to have fun like this young man and the long-haired girls, and when I got home I told my parents - my mother, actually - that I wouldn't go coxing again, as I was at an embarrassing age, and that other people had fun, but I had no fun at all. And I didn't! I got a Saturday job at a sweet shop next, and then I got a Saturday job at British Home Stores. I was good at getting jobs. I was pretty clever. But I never forgot that young man.

I started back at the skiff club when I came back from University. (This time I wasn't just coxing; this time I learned to scull.) I wondered if he would still be skiffing and I was glad that he still was. He didn't win any more. There was a guy called Andy who was winning every week. I kept thinking I would talk to this person (chat him up) after a regatta but by that time he was quite seasoned, as it were, with women, and I knew I was still too young for him. But there were times, in the evenings, when the men had lots of beer inside them and they sang. "Can you hear Molesey sing? Doodah, doodah? Can you hear Molesey sing? I can't hear a FUCKING THING." And then the two groups of rowing club men sang dirty songs together, and it really was quite a good time. They were full of testosterone. I think I was watching, just watching to see if any of them would notice me.

Then once my brother and I after a beery evening, decided to go for a pizza, and we found this person in the restaurant with a lady we knew called Mary. Mary was a grown-up enough woman, possibly too grown up, and she was talking strongly to him, while he was drunker than I have ever seen anyone. He was green and swaying and his eyes were closing. I wondered if he was putting it on because he didn't want to go to bed with Mary. Mary looked pretty determined.

I was worried that he got so drunk. Every time I saw him he got so drunk. Was he bored, or disillusioned, or damaged? (broken-hearted). A lot of men had a bit of history with women and felt damaged. But anyway, I was damaged myself, and was in no fit state to cope with him. And I never talked to him at all until I was 55 years old.

We talked about the deer in Bushy Park, and how they eat conkers.

Brunel's Tunnel, Rotherhithe to Wapping

The Thames at London was extremely congested. Up until the beginning of the nineteenth century, merchant ships coming into London could only be unloaded between the Tower of London and London Bridge. Sometimes ships were moored for three months on the river waiting for their cargoes to be unloaded. They were easy prey for gangs who cut them adrift and looted them when they ran aground.

Enclosed docks were needed. The first was opened in 1802 by the West India merchants at the northern end of the Isle of Dogs. Other enclosed docks soon followed: the London Docks at Wapping, the East India Docks at Blackwall and the Surrey Docks, all built in the first years of the nineteenth century.

But the nearest river crossing was London Bridge, by now very old and a few miles away from the new docks. An estimated 4,000 vehicles crossed the bridge every day, and 350 Thames watermen also took passengers across the river. Building a bridge this far to the East presented problems - the height of ships' masts meant that the bridge would have had to be very high and the approach roads very long.

The alternative was a tunnel, but the ground under the Thames was soft - gravel, sand and mud. It would not support a tunnel, especially with the weight of the water above. Robert Vazie first tried to build a tunnel in 1807, and the work was carried on by Richard Trevithick, a very capable engineer from Cornish tin mines, but it was flooded just less that 200 foot short of completion. Trevithick proposed a new method: putting cast iron sections into the tunnel excavated from above. This would have worked but it did not attract financial support. The tunnel was abandoned.

A new method was proposed by Brunel pere. His name was Marc Brunel, originally a French naval officer, he came to England to escape the French Revolution.  He went to America where he built a very impressive canal linking the Hudson River with Lake Champlain, so linking New York with the St. Lawrence River.

But in 1818 Marc Brunel patented a device for "forming drifts and tunnels underground". His inspiration was the shipworm, Teredo navalis, which bores into ships' timbers. Digging with the shell-like protrusions on either side of its head, the shipworm excretes the excavated wood out of its body, using it to line and reinforce the tunnel as it moves along.

 

 

 

They started with a shaft at the Rotherhithe end. Marc's new method was to build a brick tower and then simply allow it to sink into the soft riverbank through the downward force of its own weight. At first it appeared to be a tower - an inner and an outer surface of bricks a yard apart, the cavity between them filled with cement and rubble. A superstructure was then set on top of the tower on which a steam engine was assembled to pump away the water which the shaft encountered as it sank and to bring up buckets of earth from the bottom.

The structure weighed nearly 1,000 tons and sank into the ground at a rate of a few inches per day. The downwards progress of the shaft at Rotherhithe became one of the most popular and fashionable sights of London. After it was fully sunk diggers had to go down and give it a foundation and leave an opening for the tunnelling shield, and also dig a reservoir for water drained from the tunnel workings. Marc designed his own steam engine, installed above the shaft to drive the tunnel pumps and bring up the earth in buckets.

 

The shield was an iron frame facing the direction of the tunnel, rectangular. The miners worked in independent cells digging out a small patch at a time, while the frame was braced against the bricks the bricklayers had just finished laying, 6 deep lining the tunnel. Below you can see the miners working in the frame on the right and spoil being removed and bricks brought.

Finally the great shield was lowered into place 63 feet below the ground and the boring of the tunnel began. When fully manned, thirty six miners excavated a tunnel face of approx. 800 square foot. There were two eight hour shifts.

Marc had been taken ill even before the tunnelling got under way, and in 1826 the resident engineer also became ill and resigned. Isambard, Marc's son, had been involved in the work from the beginning. He often stayed below ground supervising the progress of the great shields for up to 36 hours at a time. In January 1827 his appointment as resident engineer was made official. He was only twenty years old.

Isambard was given three assistants, but all were prey to diseases because the river bed was composed of toxic substances, methane gas and foul water. One of the assistants died almost immediately. Workmen and overseers also fell ill. In February 1827, with 300 feet of the archway completed, the directors of the tunnel decided to allow the public to visit the work. Marc protested as the earth was inconsistent and gravel layers threatened the works with flooding. At the end of April up to 700 visitors were coming each day, for the charge of one shilling. The directors cut the workmen's wages which resulted in a strike.

Then there was a flood...
Marc had a stroke...
Another flood...
The tunnel was bricked up...

Today you can see the tunnel at Wapping station on the East London Railway, part of the Overground. You can't see any more of it because it is in use by trains. It is an International Landmark Site, one of only four in the country (and only 250 in the world). Here the Brunels pioneered a method of tunnelling used in every tube system all over the world ever since.

The museum at Rotherhithe tells all the story and you can go into the shaft, but they haven't much money with which to buy exhibits and they need funds to buy items like Brunel's drawings. Please visit and buy books and souvenirs.

London Open House - celebrating architecture, buildings

I decided to volunteer for this as I haven't volunteered for anything recently. You volunteer online and then they send you the Open House "catalogue" of places open to the public for free on that weekend. I decided to volunteer at the Brunel Museum in Rotherhythe on Saturday afternoon as I am interested in Brunel; and the Herbarium at Kew Gardens sounded really great too, (and I read about it in my "Plants from Roots to Riches" book) so signed up for Sunday morning. It was quite easy to get to the Brunel Museum on the Jubilee Line, (and you can also go on the East London line), and the Museum director, Robert, was glad to see us as he really needed the help of volunteers to man the shop/café, buy milk, take money, put the rubbish out and generally be there to talk to people. I went to Robert's talk in the morning and read all the signs and then I was pretty well-prepared to answer questions. My fellow volunteer was an interesting American who had moved from California to the locality (why?) and was looking for something to do since she had retired from research into ?finance/ markets???

It was the devil of a job to get to  Kew Gardens on Sunday morning, I went all the wrong way. There was a choice of jobs. I stood in front of the Open Weekend sign for the Tropical Nursery and tried to entice visitors to it. This is where propagation and care of the Tropical plants takes place, and of course the staff can nurse plants up to be looking fabulous and then pop them into the display in the public greenhouses. Unfortunately it is placed right in front of the small children's play area so most of the people there were concerned with toilets/nappy change and the café rather than seeing the botanical care going on. I was lucky to be standing with a horticulturalist called Lorraine who worked in the Tropical Nursery and specialised in cacti and succulents. I asked her all sorts of questions about the plants and what she does all day! It was lucky she was so nice because I was standing there for a long time. In the end I didn't get to see the herbarium at all, and it is only open once a year. I hope it is open next year, and I will definitely go. I did walk around Kew in the afternoon, (free entry for volunteers) and I will post about what I saw.

There are quite a few attractions at Kew for children; it has changed in that respect. There is a sculpture exhibition at the moment - brilliant for the older ones.

Today's news - Climate change

It's not exactly new news. From the Independent, re: Hurricane Irma.

Jeffrey Kargel, from the Department of Hydrology & Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona, urged governments to question their denial of climate change and get to work making their countries resilient enough to be able to deal with such extreme weather events.
“I have one thing to ask the American government and all other climate change denying politicians around the world: have you wondered at all about climate change, hurricanes, glacier melting, ocean warming and sea level rise in connection with the safety of places near and dear to you, such as the Mar-a-Lago Resort? It is time that you start worrying about that," he said. "And while you are at it, please have some concern about the rest of the U.S. and the world.
“Put most simply, Planet Earth's climate is in upheaval and we know exactly what is causing it: right now, the rapid pace of climate change is set by government policies in the U.S. and many other countries. We cannot turn it around in a few years or even in a decade.  But we can worsen it in a few years or a decade.”

Some of that preparation must be about asking the companies that can be blamed for the events to pay for them, according to Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford.

“As yet another hurricane barrels into the Caribbean, with extreme precipitation and the impacts of storm surges both exacerbated by past greenhouse gas emissions, we must begin to ask ‘how long can we expect taxpayers and those in the path of the storms to foot the entire bill for the impacts of climate change?'," Professor Allen said.

“In a paper published today in the journal Climatic Change, we show that nearly 30% of global sea level rise from 1880 to 2010 can be traced to products sold by just 90 large corporations. We need to start a conversation about whether it makes sense to exempt companies selling products that cause greenhouse gas emissions from all liability for the consequences of their use. As we found in 2008, giving companies unlimited license to make private profits while society underwrites the risk ends badly for everyone.”

Gig - Simon Armitage - describing Morrissey

I have never been a Morrissey fan, but I respect people who are. I like the songs that everyone likes - This Charming Man - for example. I have never sought out more songs until last year when after listing to an edition of Desert Island Discs and listening to someone - I forget who - try to describe how wonderful he found Morrissey, I decided to give it a go. And I gave it a couple of listens and I liked it a bit, i.e. not much.

Now I am reading "Gig" by Simon Armitage, the poet. I loved Simon Armitage's book about the North. I loved the sly humour. The funny thing is, when we lived in Yorkshire I went to a Simon Armitage reading and I thought it the dullest evening I had ever had. I couldn't connect to any of his poems. I felt rather sorry for my children because his poems were on their English exam syllabus. The person who wrote the prose seemed entirely different -

Like Stuart Maconie, who has some sort of weird emotional connection with Morrissey, Simon Armitage is absolutely fascinated by him.  He does him the great service of trying to describe the emotion of what he can see - the meaning of M's stomach for example ("real, proud, serious") M. does have a fantastic voice and (I'm told) a great stage presence. It seems, from what Simon (sorry mate I am going to call you Simon) writes, that Morrissey projects a seriousness that they crave. Apart from Morrissey's sad rhetoric, people find this release into emotion only at football matches, I suppose, or in fights. In the past, men were more emotionally outspoken than women. Think of Beethoven, all those crashes and bangs, like a man losing his temper and slamming a good few doors, and the melodic passages like a man basking in the sunshine of God's approval. Women, at some point, claimed the ability to voice emotion but I sometimes wonder. When they create art it isn't emotion, it's often about sex, as though their ability to desire and be desired, or their ability to climax and produce a climax in another person, were all there was to them. And of course, that can't be true. I don't know about women who are creating art with thoughts life and death - but there must be some. This is my pre-occupation at the moment - it turned out to be the summary of the talk on films by David Thompson (previous post) and it is the theme of the book of the week, by Robert McCrum, who isn't much older than me. And I find myself glued to the series "Ambulance" which sometimes shows people near death - and even in their last moments. It shows you how marvellous things can be - like the woman giving telephone instructions that save a baby's life, and how a man can face death with equanimity knowing that he has provided for the people he loved.

My friend's husband died suddenly this summer, an acquaintance died of cancer, my parents died last winter. The entire cast of our lives will die even though we don't seem to be perceptibly aging. (See post: We are old, but we boogie)

This is what Morrissey is singing about - a doomed celebration of the fleeting emotions - a longing for salvation in Love always mixed up with the feeling of falling into a lonely grave. "Life has killed me" - that's serious. And all this in songs shorter than 4 minutes. I am trying to understand the music as I write, but I find it very busy music, difficult to like.

Conversation between Jarvis Cocker and David Thompson - on Youtube - effect of movies on us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCxEG2NQv7c&t=3942s


What did Hollywood do to us? It turned us into spectators. And the TV made it worse as people spent hours a day watching it. It made us feel that participation in politics is futile. People in the sixties took to the streets and marched against nuclear weapons - they don't do that anymore. TV has an enormous appetite for disaster and crisis and we will watch the end of the world on TV.

The entertainment that came from the movies was fantastic, inspirational. Now movies come to us, closer and closer (beamed into our heads?) As children we think - "that's what it will be like when I grow up". Movies are always for young people. They teach you, when you are young, how to look, how to walk across a room, how to look at someone of the opposite sex.

Hollywood films were like advertisements for life. From the beginning people in high places were alarmed about the movies. They were feeding poor people dreams that cannot be realised. That's dangerous, politically, and those in authority are still afraid of the movies.

They were made by people who had shaky backgrounds and made fortunes [like Charlie Chaplin] giving themselves the means to behave badly, which behaviour attracted a lot of publicity. The Code came into effect to stop films showing moral lapses so that Hollywood, by policing itself, could avoid being censored by the state. But in the long term it didn't really matter. In the 1960s the code broke down. Crime was shown as well as sex - censorship was abandoned.

For a long time America was the model for movies. Films expressed the belief that if you came to America everything will be alright. You will be fulfilled and happy. This cannot be possible, mathematically. People went to the movies to see futures for themselves. These futures were realised by very few ordinary people - but in Hollywood dreams were made possible - Louis Meyer, Clarke Cable were two examples. This mass medium ensured a certain kind of order and aspiration.

Buster Keaton made a film called "Sherlock Junior" where he is a projectionist and he enters into the screen. It tells the audience that it knows that's what they want to do - be up there in the film. Purple Rose of Cairo, too, is a very interesting film showing how people's lives interact with film.

But now people are having to face the fact that their desires are not going to be fulfilled. Were they idiots ever to think it? People have distanced reality through the screen. The reason we go to the movies is to see wonderful people and imagine you are them. The kitchens in movies (and on TV in America)  are large, the clothes are smart, the people are good-looking.

 Religious faiths had said to people: "God is watching and at the end of your life of mundanity and suffering you will get what you truly deserve." While this view of the world was fading away movies came along as a popular fiction that everyone could relate to. Everyone in the world. It was in the medium. It was a myth that replaced religious faith. But now the myths have been blown apart. What happens next?

Some people believe that now the world will end. We have so many problems that it's difficult to believe that we can solve them.

The way the vocabulary of film developed - the techniques - happened very quickly. Close ups - all over the world people learned that you can vary the position of the camera. Then you are into two cameras and editing the film. In Russia there was great experimentation to see how meaning was effected by making different shots. People discovered that you can play with the order of the stories - and the audience makes the meaning. When the film is finally shown to the audience is when you know whether your film is any good. Film is an interactive medium.

In the early days of the 20th century the Nickleodeon showed U.S. audiences things they didn't know about - like the pyramids in Egypt, a tiger walking through a jungle. A flood, a disaster. The basic visual information was wonderful for people. But now people are blasé, and take the motion they can see for granted.

If you show people wilder and wilder things - faster and greater than life  - through CGI - and other special effects people will perhaps attend less to the human face, although this is still the most powerful communicator.

Film is in our blood but TV is more so.  We absorb what we watch and how it is constructed. TV may give us 5 hours a day to absorb. Using the remote gives us something like jazz - as we move from one programme to another. TV is anti-concentration. But TV is over - as it was. Using the internet is not as passive as TV.

As TV develops there are more and more invitations to people to come on down, or participate in shows. Young people film themselves and each other all the time. They want to be in films. Some achieve fame by making suicide films.

When you go to the cinema, there in the dark, you don't know what horror you are going to be shown. Kids love to be frightened. You can't forget some of the frightening moments you see on screen - such as the scene in Alien when the creature bursts out of John Hurt's chest.

When a character in Hitchcock climbs a staircase - they're vulnerable. Playing with fear is a part of the nature of movies. The audience is helpless. Films are like dreams, at a different level. Dreams are also out of our control.

Now people are watching movies or TV content more and more on their own - something which Edison foresaw. This changes society. At rock festivals people do things in crowds - this is now a rare experience.

Jean Harlow - seemed trashy, sexually ready, didn't seem to be wearing underwear. In the thirties she seemed to be the rawest star in Hollywood, and she often appeared with Clark Gable. She lived dangerously, recklessly, and she didn't take care of herself. Health had little place in the culture. Now movie stars try to preserve their health and their youth - they didn't used to.

Howard Hughes - he is an example of the rich kid who wanted to get into the moves, screw movie stars. His father made a fortune out of inventing a drilling head for the oil industry. As a young man he was charming and personable, but he went crazy. He had everything he could possibly want, and he lived and died alone.

David Thompson sums up: We know we need to dream - it's vital to sleep. Sometimes people are disturbed by their dreams. Freud could tell people what their dreams meant but he didn't say he could make them change or stop. We dream helplessly, randomly. Don't worry about casting the dream out. Probably the truth is that you're going to die and you want to be alive, and you live with an intellectual struggle between those things. For 100 years moving film has had a profound effect on that conflict, sometimes terrifying, sometimes like heaven. You probably can't have one without the other.

Trip to Edinburgh for the Festival

My neighbour Amanda and I spent one evening and two days at the Edinburgh Festival, staying in a Budget Backpackers and seeing mainly Fringe shows. We had a private room at the Backpackers and it was very decent - well decorated inside - modern bathrooms, clean. Good communal areas, services and very kind staff. A brief resume of our trip follows:-

Free show - 4 comedians taking turns at poking their heads through a sheet and going into their spiels  to make us laugh - 2 stars.

Day One
Free show in Royal Mile - Knife Juggler up a ladder - he was quite clever and amusing as well as good at balancing and juggling, but these guys spin out their shows for too long - 3 stars
Scottish National Gallery. Lovely: to see the paintings I am familiar with - like members of your family that I don't often see. - 5 stars
Drag Act with miming - downstairs in a pub - very interesting as the face had lots of black plastic needles sticking out of a stockingnette cover, while the hair part of the head was covered in plain stockingnette. I think needles all over the head would look better. Fun. - 2 stars
Nina Conti - Ventriloquism - big theatre at the Edinburgh Conference Centre - I don't know why she does her act with the monkey, as the act with the people from the audience is so much funnier. - 5 stars
Free show - 3 magicians in a downstairs room - all good. 4 stars
Paid for show at the Underbelly  - Your Ever Loving by Martin McNamara - this was on during the day and did well, but the cast hung on for another week and did a midnight show for tiny audiences - It was about Paul Hill whose "confession" got the Guildford Four and the Maguire family banged up. Poor bloke. He speaks aloud the letters he wrote to his mum from prison as well as telling his whole story. This play is fast and furious and the two actors (Stefan McCusker and James Elmes) were excellent. and the Director had done a great job. (Sarah Chapleo).- 5 stars -

Your Ever Loving uses Paul Hill’s letters, mostly sent to his mother from prisons up and down the country. They’re brought simply and charmingly to life by Stefan McCusker. He is a man enduring crippling restriction and loneliness and yet we see him for the most part in his element, attempting to keep his mother’s spirits up and arranging presents for a daughter he has never met. His situation is rendered sympathetically, but McNamara’s play doesn’t gloss over the faults of the man himself, made violent, taut and spiky by years in prison.   https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2016/your-ever-loving-review-at-theatre-n16-london/

Day Two
Climbed Arthur's seat. 5 stars for the view.

Amanda

Free Show - Joe Wells, stand up comedian. He is really good and I predict he will be well-known one day. He did a routine about someone's attitudes changing with the passing of time. He took the audience into his world and took us on a journey. We were in a safe pair of hands. He also wore a T-shirt that said YOKO WAS THE BEST BEATLE. You gotta respect that. - 5 stars.
Expensive ventriloquism show at the Pleasance - Nina Conti supposedly talking to a psychiatrist. Very disappointing as the ideas led nowhere. Dull. - 2 stars
Free show at the Cowshed on Cowgate - Scottish Blues band - these old boys (and one of them, who played guitar and harmonica, was really old) knew their stuff and they were amazing. Enjoyed it so much. - 5 stars
Free show comedians - somewhere on Cowgate - forgettable. 2 stars

Expensive show - Room 29 - Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales at the Proper Festival, King's Theatre. We got the tickets at the last minute so the seats were awful - we were actually higher than the ceiling and I could only feel "connected" to the show by leaning very far forward - the music was lovely - piano music written by Chilly, and lyrics by Jarvis. It would work better in a cabaret venue than in a practically vertical theatre. The idea is that we are entertained by Jarvis in his Hotel Room. "Help yourself to pretzels" he says, in his dark and intimate voice. "Room 29 is where I'll face myself alone", he sings, in a croaky but affecting voice. You can hear this track on Youtube  It is a very confessional piece. He castigates himself for not being able to hold down a real relationship with a girlfriend, preferring something less personal. (Tearjerker.) It looks at the allure of Hollywood, and it considers what the habit of staring of screens has had on us. It considers Hollywood's preoccupation with sex and what effect that might have had on Jean Harlow and Howard Hughes. There is a strange song about Mark Twain's daughter - mocking her because she became an alcoholic. (Why mock her? She was not a talented writer or player but - is that a reason to mock someone?) Jarvis considers the wonderful allure of film and latterly, TV, and how it turns out to be a sham god, an illusion. One song about this disillusion with TV is called "The Other Side". (Unfortunately he went off stage for this bit and appeared in a telly on stage - which was not original and was too static to hold the attention.)

Then he becomes quite distressed with a song called "Trick of the Light" how he fell in love with "life with the boring bits taken out" -  "I wasted my life on a trick of the light" - Then there was a dancer in red who twirled around to a strobe light - this was simply beautiful and we were in the best place to see it - from way up high. There was a string quartet to fill out the music - whirling around to fade out in sadness.

I thought - "Oh this is a work of art" - because it was a considered work that didn't hang together quite right, but it united a number of elements - music, dancing, speech, a screen with pictures and some film, even some audience participation - this wasn't very good either -  in a way that hasn't been done before. I was very glad I was there.

Then another song about how the stars of the thirties were genuinely cool and how the people of today don't compare - no class. The stars of the thirties mixed with genuinely cultured people - refugees from Europe. This is called "Ice Cream as Main Course" and was more resolved - a salute to the past.

After this Jarvis and co did an encore - a Leonard Cohen song called "Paper Thin Hotel" which was very affecting and a high point of the evening.

A Guardian review is here and the album review is here
And that was Edinburgh, which was looking lovely.

Berlin, Warsaw, and Krakow, part 4 - the Jewish quarter

The Jews had a long history in Krakow. They came in 1380-ish and through the early modern period they had a small area with a synagogue and a wall around it. After a couple of hundred years the wall came down and they were allowed to expand their area. Gradually they acquired more synagogues and more businesses and graveyards.

Then the Nazis... In Krakow the Jews amounted to up to 25% of the citizens! according to the museum in one of the old synagogues. This means that they had deep roots here and considered themselves Polish, and contributed to political and military life. They weren't in danger until the Nazis occupied ... and then the Poles seemed to have been "enforcers" of the Nazi rules... You need to come and see the old pictures and photographs to see how strange it was. It was the same in the Czech Republic. For example, Franz Kafka was a Jew and he lived a very integrated life in Prague, utterly unremarkable. Had he lived any longer, the Nazis would have murdered him and his family nevertheless.

When Spielberg wanted to film the story that became Schindler's List, he came to the original Jewish quarter, which was run down. Well, it isn't now. After the famous film, with its final captions saying that fewer than 400 Jews live in Poland today, Jews came back to Krakow, to start again in the Jewish Quarter. Some came from Israel. Hebrew is spoken here (I heard a waiter). I don't know what the Poles think about the Jews coming back. It is bizarre that this tragic area should be a magnet to tourists. But in the evenings the restaurants put on Klezmer bands,  and the music gives the place atmosphere. They do great trade. Our room is three floors up from a restaurant in this quarter. The tree outside our room is a willow, blowing in the breeze. Cars and mini-buses are parked down there on the cobbles. Tours come to visit the memorial to the Jewish community. Tourists come in little private taxis, like milk floats.

Outside the violinist and a cellist are playing "if I were a rich man". They vary the speed of the verses. I can hear the sound of cutlery on plates. A little tiny bit of applause for the musicians. Earlier they played the theme from "Schindler" and it was beautiful, but got no applause. None for "Air on a G string" either. The musicians have a very large repertoire and are very talented - I hope the restaurant owners pay them well.

One night we heard the theme from Schindler's List 4 times.

Schindler's factory building survives, and is a tourist attraction - a long queue for it. We nearly went  - then decided to go to the art gallery next door, because it is weird to go on holiday and visit a site of mass murder as though it was just another thing. "So! That was Auschwitz? Bad! Let's have lunch!" No. These places need more thought, formal clothing, special trips as pilgrims, more respect.

Synagogue

Jewish quarter, morning, synagogue at the end.

Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow - part 3, Krakow - folk dancing

We felt more at home in Krakow straight away. This is because most of the city stayed intact in the war, and it feels right; it feels like a liveable, cultured, parks-and-libraries kind of environment. For example, all around the old town, the walled city, there is a park. We had a picnic lunch there one day and then stayed for a beer. There are so many people about! Mums' groups with toddlers and pushchairs, old ladies walking and chatting, people reading books and magazines, young people texting away and meeting their friends - it seems to be a happy city. In the park there are statues and flowers and fountains and loads of benches. There is a big display about Pope Francis' visit to Poland.

While we were walking to get to our hotel, we stopped to hear a concert in the park - some sort of competition - and we realised that something Warsaw lacks, in our experience, is music - street music.

We have noticed Poles reading in cafes and pubs. I always notice people reading. It seems to be quite usual to go out and read in public - nobody thinks it is somehow sad - (except A.).

We gate-crashed a folk festival in Krakow - went past a big hall and heard the music, so we went to see what was happening. I took some notes.  - "One act follows another. The current troop is children dressed in shades of beige - girls in dirndl skirts and beige blouses, boys in beige waistcoats and trousers. Lots of twirling and running on the spot. Next lot - girls in red bodices, circlets of flowers and plaits. Pairing off and rushing about in a circle. Clapping in pairs. My ex boyfriend would have called it an "effing FERTILITY rite" in a particularly revolted way. The beige troop is a bit more go-ahead - different music and more original moves. However, it looks a bit bonkers. They are like "little primitives" - imagine the Rite of Spring to bagpipe music.

"Lady in flowered blouse, on stage with a mic, announcing the scores? The next act? lots of applause for the kids and their dancing instructor. A boy on his own! Mad leaping and slapping of legs. Kicking legs up and clapping (men). Looking on (women). Slight twirling of dirndls. Then two young men, leaping and slapping and twisting around like you would NOT BELIEVE. They go past us later, heads dripping with sweat.

"The communists kept all this folk culture alive - made it compulsory, probably, and it is really lovely to see it continue of its own volition. But the audience is not as interested as it might be.

"This must be the way farmers showed they were "fit" for courting purposes. The women have a more passive role in the dances. The female role is - serene. A man would value a correctly twirling, serene woman wearing neat plaits and nicely-made skirts and aprons.

"Flowery lady is making more announcements. We don't know what it's about. It's ten to ten. Is it time to go? No! Here comes a traditional band from another region. Blue and white flag this time. It's Greece! with live music! Accordion and clarinet. Drum. Loads of dancers. Dancers in lines. End dancers twirling hankies. Men wear white trousers with SKIRTS and red cummerbunds - black waistcoats, white shirts, black small hats. Men have some sort of gartered socks. The women wear white petticoats with fancy grey coat dresses. on top. They have gold patterns marking their haunches from behind. They wear white hair-coverings and black hats. They twist gaily and uniformly to and fro. I think this is meant to be a round dance but they have to squash it into a long, thin circle because they are on a long, thin stage. The music is absolutely dreadful. (I have a sound file.) In this dance the man on the end of the line does all the dancing - very complicated steps. Now the girls hold hands in a line and do the same dance - End girls have extra moves - hankie twirling. It reminds me of those flamingos which make lines in which to perform stylised "dances". This group has a few screamy fans.



"Somebody has won a trophy! Much applause. More prizes. More applause! We think EVERYBODY is going to win a prize! The announcer is speaking English - a prize for Estonia! Lithuania has a prize! So has Hungary! All prize winners are now lined up across the stage. Some are in national costume, some are not. It looks like a scene from "Shrek". Or Jack and the Beanstalk. The Greeks are back on stage! The kids are on stage! The Greeks teach everybody their slow "Zorba" dance. Back to the audience. The pace is mounting. boys and girls jostling and not getting the hang of it."

Good fun!

Berlin, Warsaw and Kracow - part 2, Warsaw

 

I think I had trouble coping with Warsaw because we didn't buy tickets for the public transport and we should have done. The distances between the areas you want to see are deceptive and the walking is very uncomfortable. We stayed in a famous Communist-built hotel called the MDM. This is the view from our fifth floor room. Alas, the hotel has swapped its long-standing sign, MDM, for SAMSUNG and stands opposite a building called ZTE.

The hotel inside was modern and very smartly furnished, and the breakfast was wonderful. We could have had breakfast all day. The trouble was that the room was very very hot and I couldn't sleep at all, which made me feel increasingly unhappy. We went to see some old churches in the hotel district, and then we went to see the old town. The Old Town is a marvellous tourist attraction and is only about 20 years old. We were not fooled by the Old Town. It has been built on the footprint of the old town and it may look very similar, the churches and sculptures and quaint old inns are a marvellous piece of work, but we didn't buy it. We didn't visit the castle because it was quaintly new and again, we weren't fooled and felt it was like Epcot, the Disney version of Europe. We went to the new town which was also destroyed in the war and has been recently rebuilt. We enjoyed an ice cream. We were pleased to see where Marie Curie was born, or a reconstruction of the house where she was born.

Churches seem to have survived the war.

This is the square in the new town. Which is quite new.



A square in the "old town" - with carriage ride for the tourists.

As we walked around we did sort-of admire the Soviet style architecture and many sculptures showing the heroic workers.

The People's Palace - town hall with exhibition centre. It
is the most peculiar style.

Soviet -era building alongside modern capitalist buildings in Warsaw. We went to the national museum and admired some art, and found a great place to have coffee - the café even supplied double hammocks for lazing in!  but more popular with the Polish public was the army museum, and the poor Soviet-era Poles had spent a large proportion of their GDP on all this old rubbish.

There were loads of these machines standing around in rows.

The roads were very busy and there seemed to be a lot of work involved in finding underpasses where we could cross. We seemed to walk such a long way. Nothing was as cheap as we had been led to expect. Many Polish people had enough money to splash out in the few interesting venues and there were "butiks" with luxury goods in. I found as we walked around and looked at information boards about the history of Warsaw I just felt incredibly sad. Hitler wanted Poland as Lebensraum for his people. He despised the Poles. He always intended to kill them. After the Warsaw uprising in which only a handful of people, really, rose up against the Germans, Hitler ordered that Warsaw be razed to the ground and that all the people should be killed. The SS were sent in with orders to kill men, women and children. They killed 200,000 and destroyed the whole city. I feel as though no-one has recovered from the shock and the blow, except the very young people who possibly don't know about it or can't relate to it. They are happy dressing up and going out to be seen, and quite right, of course. It's time to get over it. But the current city of Warsaw doesn't work as a city. It hasn't been planned to the right scale. If you look at the top photograph again, and wonder what was that like before WWII, you can see the problem of Warsaw.

But finally, on our last evening in Warsaw, we found one thing that's lovely and has been well-restored. It's a royal park. It was a magical place to spend an evening and we even ate in a café /restaurant there. There were a lot of people there (Poles) enjoying the memorial to Chopin and the lakes and woodland walks.



Memorial to Chopin

 



Evening peace and calm.