wet wind anecdotes

A leaf and a twig on wet pavement bricks in Tunbridge Wells.

Today the wind is showing off everywhere: above the roofs a flock of crows wheels  in the sun against flying clouds; in the tree tops it makes roaring noises and whips the branches as though trying to snap them off; and over the paths in The Grove dead leaves race like wild children, skip and jump and hurtle round corners.

If you like anecdotes you will find plenty of them in Craig Bown's entertaining One on One about unlikely meetings between famous people (Marlyn Monroe and Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley, Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin for example). Today I read of the notorious but well documented dinner party attended by, among others, Stravinsky and Marcel Proust on May 19 1922 at the Hôtel Majestic in Paris.  It was notorious because the guests, which also numbered James Joyce and Picasso, did not apparently get on as well as might have been hoped. Proust, placed next to Stravinsky, hoping to flatter, apparently tried to compare the composer to Beethoven, adding, " doubtless you admire Beethoven".
                                "I detest Beethoven".
                                "But chere maître, surely those late sonatas and quartets..."
                                "Worse than the others."
A full account of the dinner is given in the book, A Night at the Majestic by Richard Davenport Hines devoted entirely to it .

twilight thieves Booz

 The Grove at twilight.

A  sinister police notice is posted in The Grove. "Cat thieves," it warns, "are working in the area. " There are a number of cats I know around here. Every time I meet one I feel that I  need to advise it to beware of strangers. But we speak different languages.

Such are wonders of You Tube and Google. The other day I draw the attention of a friend who lives in Paris  to a poem by Victor Hugo. It is well enough known in French apparently. It is based on the Bible story of Boaz and Ruth, who gleaned ears of corn in his fields. Hugo's poem is confusing to a newcomer unused to the French spelling of Boaz, which is Booz. I ask her how the name is pronounced in French. Today she emails to tell me of a video on You Tube where the poem is read by the actor Gerard Philippe. To my relief it is pronounced in two equally stressed syllables, removing once and for all the intrusive and inappropriate association with booze.

roof Wittgenstein sea

 Four pigeons and two weeds on a roof.
Every now and then I have a go at reading Wittgenstein especially when I
hear somewhere what an important and influential philosopher he is.  His claim to fame is that he set out to prove by a remorseless logical process that most philosophical speculation is nonsense. I have tried to follow in detail the argument of  his chief work Logico Philosophicus but my mind simply isn't up to it. I do understand however his preface, and like it  the more I read it. I like it because it is pleasingly simple and  yet touches  on the profound. In it he sums up the sense of his  book in these often quoted words: "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what cannot be said we must pass over in silence. ...the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts... It will only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense".
I  would have one question for Mr W if he were alive today: are the limits adjustable? My purpose in asking it is because I have wondered where, in the spectrum of sense and nonsense, poetry resides? And I now wonder whether the philosopher's withering logic which touches on the limits of sense - what can be spoken of, and nonsense- what cannot.be spoken of-,  allows a place for poets to attempt to push back the borders of what cannot (elsewhere) be said?

In the pub I ask an old sea captain whether he has read the maritime novels of Patrick O'Brien set in the Napoleonic Wars. "I don't need to read about sea fairing," he says. "I did it. The sea is is in my veins."

crow grass fart

 That crow again. I photograph him whenever the opportunity arises.

Stories reside in small and unimportant things. Round the denuded bollard where unofficial grass had begun to sprout, a few blades have reappeared  only a few days after it was scrapped away (see a recent post) by council workers. Nature always fights back.

 Albert Camus' posthumously published, unfinished novel Le Premier Homme draws to a large extent on the author's impoverished childhood in Algeria. His grandmother, strong willed, dominating, every vestige of sentimentality driven from her character by loss and hardship is unforgetable. "Quand on disait de quelqu'un, devant la grand-mère, qu'il est mort. "Bon, disait-elle, il ne pétera plus."  When it was said of  someone in front of his grandmother  that he had died, "Good," she would say, "he won't fart any more."

dove grass doing

 One of the collared doves that live in The Grove. It is spotlit here by the low afternoon sun.  It is interesting that they always show up on the same side of the little park, to the west above The High Street. Their territory seems more restricted than their rougher pigeon cousins.

Grass grows round the base of some of the bollards in Mount Sion. One morning there are sounds of  scraping metal on the other side of our hedge. Inspection a few minutes later reveals that the grass has gone. There is a neighbour who can't abide grass growing out of the pavement. It seems that he has prevailed on the  Council to remove this particular patch, more or less opposite his front door. Other bollards further down the street have retained their sparse skirting of grass.

In Sainsbury's this morning a cheerful man ahead of me in  the queue at the newspaper counter asks me: "How are you doing?"  I have never met him before.  I tell him, "fine", and enquire how he is doing? A minute later he asks the benign assistant in charge  of the counter how he is doing? He in turn indicates that he doing OK. "How are you doing?" he says to me, when I come to make my purchases. "Fine," I say and to break the chain of repetition, wish him a happy new year. It strikes me that the murmur of such greetings across the country this morning could, if concentrated, amount to a mighty roar. A roar of good will and friendliness. Nothing wrong with that.

December holding feathers

The Grove in December,  contre jour.


In the convenience store in Grosvenor Road, the owner lays the telephone on the counter. It is emitting  continuous, nagging,  tinny sounds. "I am trying to sort something out," he says. "I'm holding on. They keep playing music. I hate it."

On the TV last night are Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers  in the "dancing cheek to cheek" episode of Top Hat and Tails -  that surpassing moment of movie elegance. Among the commentators in the documentary of which this clip is a part is Astaire's, daughter Ava. "It is not true," she says that Ginger Rogers and her Father quarrelled.  In fact they were always good friends. Though it is true that Astaire did lose his temper on the occasion of the "cheek to cheek" scene because the feathers came off her flowing, white dress. Though the dress filmed so well, following the couple's movements, the feathers flew into  the air and got into Astaire's eyes and nostrils. Of such detail is history made.

incident starlings abandoned

 In my archive today I come across this photograph of a painting which I did some years ago. It is one of a few pictures of which I am reasonably proud. It is called Incident on the Beach. Looking back on it I realise that it focuses, on my relationship with women and with beaches, both of which are important to me.  Perhaps that is obvious. I rather miss having it around.

Starlings in The Grove again. Today they occupy a different tree. Before seeing them I hear the gentle whistles and fluting sounds which so appeal. There are only a few today. Larger groups make more of  a din. I remember when  they used to take  over Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Nelson's Column and the trees in St James Park. I remember in particular meeting my friend Anna  by appointment on the steps of the National Gallery on one such day when the starlings were in charge. "They are making  a noise like breaking glass," she said.

On a pillar in front of a house in Mount Sion someone has abandoned a paperback. It is called Double Decker. It is by Jacqueline Wilson whom I know of  as a best-selling author of children's books. I pass it twice. On the first occasion it is closed. On the second I note that someone, or maybe the wind, has opened it exposing the title page. It is raining  and the paper is sodden.

bread medical dunandunate

  At the Pantiles Farmers Market.

Because someone very close to me requires a hip operation I ask a neighbour about a similar operation he has undergone. It is dangerous territory because it means that I will receive a full account of his medical history. He does however let drop the name of a surgeon which I am looking for. A few minutes later I escape with a smile and a cheery "happy new year". The art of ending a conversation is sometimes harder than that of beginning one. Both need to be cultivated.

A word floating around at the moment is dunandunate.  It means to over use a word that has recently been added to your vocabulary It is apparently at present a failed candidate for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. But how long will that last? A Google search reveals its growing popularity.

roof response action

Crow on finial communes with chimney stack.

Reflecting as one does at this time of year on people you have known and their behaviour, I recall a certain sort of person, who makes a study of how to unnerve people by not responding to them. I am thinking in particular  of someone I knew  years ago who used  simply to  stare back, keeping his face as expressionless as possible when you made a point. You did not know what he was thinking, whether he disagreed or agreed or thought your opinion not worthy of his consideration.  When you are young and unused to such treatment it is extremely unpleasant. Nowadays it is identified as "passive aggression" or something of the sort, and a proper response might be a punch on the nose or better a lengthy quotation from Finnegans Wake.

As another year heaves into view I am nudged by the thought, driven by a sense of urgency, that there are still things  to do and places to visit. 

friends sticks shrubs



 The  friends whom I described a few weeks ago.

Some of the people I see most days round here, I stop to speak to. But some I see in the distance, when you can't easily greet them. Today on the other side of The Grove I catch sight of the man who used to walk with two sticks.  About three years ago he  had slipped and broke his hip severely. For a long time he barely ventured out, and when he did, he moved very slowly helped by the two walking sticks. Later he graduated to one stick, a great mark of progress. Today I note with pleasure that he is walking without the aid of  any stick. His  walking stick is  held parallel to the ground,  and rather than lent upon, it  seems to be, a token  or charm carried against chance.

Two new shrubs appear in The Grove. A passer by who lives opposite the location of the new shrubs, says that he asked the young man, who was planting them what variety of shrub they were. He didn't know. I remember that a few years ago I had a similar experience with a tree-planter, engaged in giving a permanent home to a number of saplings.  "What are they?" "No idea," he replied. "I just do what I am told."

And very best wishes for the New Year to everyone.
All summer long we watched while we sat in the garden in the evening, three pigeons - a couple and a hanger on - on the roof of the house opposite. This morning, as on previous mornings recently,  the three are still in there, performing some sort of territorial routine. The couple sit close together on the parapet looking down on the street below.  The hanger on is on the chimney.  They could of course be different pigeons behaving in a similar way, but I like to  think that they are the same ones.

In the convenience store this morning a woman is shopping with a  small white dog on her shoulder. It is, she says, a cross between Yorkshire terrier and something which I didn't catch, but which sounds oriental.  "She likes sitting there," says the woman. And I can see that it one of those treats that this little dog cannot do without.

tough cats pies

True grit. So far it hasn't been needed to spread over the roads and pavements in these parts.

I like cats, even love them, but sometimes cat- love can seem to go too far. This is the last paragraph (names, cat, human and geographical have been changed to avoid possible embarrassment) of one of those round-robins full of news, good and bad, which sometimes  accompanies Christmas cards. It strikes me as being rather well written:
 "Our seven cats became 8 in May, when we adopted Marianne, a poor stray who turned out to have bone cancer. The vet amputated the affected  back leg and gave her six months  to live, but she seems to be doing well and is very happy. George, one of our long standing cats, was diagnosed with pancreatitis in April and underwent extensive tests. Although he was also given a grim prognosis, we put him on a special diet immediately, removed everything possibly in the garden and he is still going strong. I always take any ill cat to our wonderful homoeopathic and conventional vet outside Cambridge for a second opinion, Even Joan has benefited from his expertise, and, like  the cats, takes her pills every evening too."
I am not sure that the nearest and dearest who are staying with us this Christmas like mince pies very much. But I have nevertheless made a dozen and half and dusted them with icing sugar, because it is something I like doing. If they are not eaten at home they will make nice presents for neighbours.

bridge sleep volubility



Two pigeons on the bridge above Tunbridge Wells station.

Yesterday I referred to a book of classical Persian folk tales told by Shusha Guppy. I bought it on impulse from Hall's bookshop two days ago and it is proving, like much else of my reading at this time, greatly rewarding. In particular I love this traditional way of ending Persian stories:

Our story is told and you must rest

Though the crow has not yet reached its nest.

There could, surely, be no lovelier or more peaceful thought on which to drift off to sleep.

As a voluble person I increasingly love silence. I am reminded of the Victorian  cleric and wit, Sydney Smith, who remarked of Macaulay's conversation that it was enlivened by brilliant flashes of silence.

river sleep clash

 Thames scape. St Paul's, unusually in a photograph taken from this viewpoint, is  tucked away on the left. On the extreme right is the unfinished Shard. Click for full picture.

"'Close your eyes so that sleep doesn't get into them,"' said Zahra, as she gently closed my eyes and continued with the story." So begins the introduction to Sasha Guppy's The Secret of Laughter, subtitled "Magical Tales from Classical Persia. How better to invoke the atmosphere of the bedtime story, and to whet  the appetite for mystery and excitement, and to recall childhood contentment and ensuing drowsiness!

Talking of Jack Russells, among the bizarre news stories of the year, I read of a woman who returned her Jack Russell to a rescue centre in Kent, because it clashed with her curtains. The woman told the staff that she had "spent a lot of money on the curtain". (From the current issue of The Week). Lucky Jack Russell.

saucer thinking anticipation

 This flying saucer is hovering just over the fence beside the pub. I have not tinkered with the photograph, but I had drunk  a couple of pints before taking it.

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman illustrates the difference between the two modes of thinking in which we engage, with the following: "Do not, " he says, "try to solve it but listen to your intuition".
   A bat and ball costs $1.10.
   The bat costs one dollar more than the ball.
   How much does the ball cost?
"A number came to your mind," he writes. The number is of course 10: 10c. The distinctive mark of  this easy puzzle is that it is intuitive, appealing and wrong.  Do the math and you will see. If the ball costs 10c then the total cost will be $1.20 c. (10 c for the ball and $1. 10 for the bat). The correct answer is 5 c." I confess I puzzled over this longer than I should have done.
This is just a taste of an intriguing book which is far from being one of those cure-all recipes for how to live. Rather it is serious science presented in a way which we can all understand, and which explains much about our thought processes, decision-making and how we often manage  I speak for myself) to be wrong as often as I am right, if not more often.
I have often thought that I am not very intelligent, yet intelligent enough to know the limits of my intelligence. This book helps me here.

This afternoon I pass a Jack Russell on its way to The Grove. It trots eagerly ahead of its man. In its mouth is a tennis ball. I know Jack Russells' amazing capacity to catch balls in the air on the first or second bounce, and admire them for their speed and enthusiasm. This one reminds me of  how I used to feel when on my way, racket in hand, to the tennis courts, hardly able wait for the feel of the grass or tarmac beneath my feet, and the the thought of a backhand drive or low volley in the game to come.

cranes brute my lady

 Cranes above London in  the declining sun.

Bollards in Mount Sion are designed to deter motorists from parking on the pavement. They often also provide target practise for motorists attempting to reverse.  Evidence of brute force carelessly applied is seldom absent in the shape of a leaning bollard and up-ended bricks in the surrounding footpath.

 For too long now my interest in the written and spoken word has distracted me from listening to music as much as I would have like to. Lorenzo da Ponte  with his new blog Tone Deaf has ended all that. My head is full of music, my ears are ringing with it. For the sixth time to day I am back with "Did you not hear my lady, go down to the garden singing ..?."   Not for a long time had I heard her. But now all that is changed. I hear her all the time. Thank you Lorenzo.

roots language resolved

 Among the roots. Oh those little claws. So useful.

A blond woman whom I often see in The Grove walks a snow white Pomeranian on a lead. She has an accent which I take to be Polish and I have heard her talking fluently in a language which I think is Polish. This afternoon I see her with her dog. And note that she addresses it  in  English. "Come on," she says, " as it sniffs and shuffles among some leaves at the end of the lead. "We're going home."
 I ask Heidi  who speaks fluent English to me all the time, in what language she would talk to a  dog if she had one. "German, " she says, "of course."

Problems resolved are cheering  and welcome at Christmastide.   Friends who have had a disagreement with someone close to them, and have barely been on speaking terms, are to have a Christmas meal together, and the news now percolates that yesterday a case of drink  has been delivered by one to the other. I ask no questions but feel a warm sense of satisfaction.

chanterelles dream Christmases

 Poached duck egg and chanterelle  mushrooms on toast at Brawn restaurant  last week. The impression still resonates.

The last dreams you have during the night are the ones you tend to remember. I wake convinced that I have lost the top of  a Waterman ball point pen, which I have become fond of as one becomes fond of frequently used tools. I am in Piccadilly but  the shops are shabby and there are worrying things going on. The top drops off the pen and neatly falls down a drain. I wake up saying " oh dear, oh dear" to myself. I am  regretful rather than  distressed. It is cheering however to wake up properly and to find the black, gold-trimmed pen intact on my writing desk.

Like Christmas, Father Christmas tends to be in the singular; you think each  of them as separate from others of their kind, belonging to a particular time and place. The old man is usually of ample proportions, rosy cheeked and a little ponderous. But this afternoon the sight of two father Christmases striding across The Grove side by side, with their bright red garb fringed with white,  brings a note of cheer to the darkening scene.  They are young, lithe and brisk and their beards and moustaches are all over the place.

shard wrong pronunciation

 The new sky-scraper near London Bridge Station slices into the sky beneath a crane which dwarfs other cranes at work nearby.

At Charing Cross  without realising it I insert my return ticket into the automatic exit barrier instead my "out" ticket. The machine seems to  swallow the ticket without raising the barrier. I explain to an railway official and she lets me through. Only when through do I think of looking to see if  I  used the wrong ticket , which of course I had done. Back I go. "See if it's still there," says the young woman. It is lying there in all innocence spat out by the machine and I feel relieved out of all proportion  to the importance of the incident.

Twice in the last two days I am corrected in my pronunciation ( this is nothing to do with accent) of  the names of products. In the first instance without telling me that  I am wrong, a young relative twice says Riesling as though it were Reisling ( the first syllable rhyming with lies) after I have just used the accepted pronunication twice. And this afternoon, a salesman who says that he works for the company, pronounces Braun as though it rhymes with Brawn, after I pronounce it to rhyme with Brown.  I suspect that in this instance he is half right because almost certainly in English speaking countries, the German company accepts that it is unlikely that Braun would be pronounced as it is in Germany. Well I try.

clams inspiration holly

 A dish of clams at the restaurant called Brawn  in London where we meet for a family lunch.  The restaurant, on the corner of a street in Bethnal Green is full of sunlight.  We drink Sauvignon de Touraine.

A neighbour rather apologetically offers me a book in a blue cardboard box.  It is a gift from shop in the town of whom he is a customer. "It's of no use to me," he says. It is bound in leather and has a tongue which feeds in to a loop to close it. The leaves are gilt edged.  Is it a diary? Or a bible? It is just a book with plain leaves, no lines, no squares, just blank pages. I gladly accept. I find it hard to resist such things. Blank pages call out for words to make them happy.

The holly trees round here are laden with berries. Such displays ares supposed to promise a cold winter. But perhaps they just  mean that it  is a good year for holly, as one might say in June, it's a good year for roses.