Paddington Bear is from Wales

I can be quite careless in giving and receiving gifts. When my daughter asked some time ago what I wanted for my birthday, I suggested a CD or maybe a book. She is a jobbing actor, and money is tight. She shook her head but said nothing more. A week or two later she told me my gift was arranged, an all-expenses-paid trip to London culminating in a meal in Notting Hill.

You don’t argue with my daughter—I did win the occasional argument when she was a toddler—but I tried to defray the expense. Kind friends visiting a relative in Hammersmith gave me a lift as near to Notting Hill as possible. Enroute they ascertained what kind of pub I enjoyed, and I trotted out the usual things: good ale, a fire . . . some books, the last a throwaway remark.

My friend with the smart phone was busy for a time and then exclaimed in triumph: ‘The Eagle, Ladbroke Grove. It has everything.’

And so I arranged to meet my daughter there via text.

They dropped me off about a mile away and pointed to the road I needed to follow. I was glad of the exercise and walked briskly, swinging my canvas bag—eager to see my daughter, eager, too, for the beer and the fire.  Twenty minutes later, with no sign of the pub, the first doubts emerged. I blocked a guy, who otherwise wouldn't have seen me, and enquired about an Eagle pub. He hadn’t heard of it, but whipped out his phone and checked google maps. It took less than a minute and when he looked up there was respect in his eyes. ‘Just up the road, mate. Quarter of a mile turn right.’

Vindicated.

Relieved, I set off swinging my canvas bag more jauntily. And sure enough, there was the pub – the beer – the fire to the right, and a wall lined with books.

No daughter.

Thirty minutes later a phone call.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the Eagle pub,” I said.

“I’m at the Eagle pub.”

“You can’t be, I said

“I am. Fire to the right, like you said. Book cases. An old geezer sitting near the fire. Thought it was you at first. Tried to convince myself it was.”

Thanks. “We must be in some parallel universe.”

“Not funny. Go ask the bar where you are. Post code.”

To cut the story short I was in The Eagle in Shepherd’s Bush. 

She of course was in the right pub, the Eagle in Ladbroke Grove.

“I’ll come find you,” I said.

“No.” Controlled panic. “Just wait.”

Twenty-five minutes later my out-of-breath daughter arrived and the evening began. I tried to pay for the drinks, London pubs are expensive, and we agreed on sharing, though she triumphantly presented me with a double Talisker just before the final pub closed. The food, Greek, was magnificent and there was still tomorrow to come. ‘A surprise,’ she said.

The surprise was a guided tour of Al Jazeera newsroom halfway up the Shard building. Thank you, Oliver Varney. She knew of my obsession with news and how I flitted between news channels, an addict in between fixes. After that it was pleasantly anticlimactic as we made our way to Victoria station for my coach back to Wales. I felt like Paddington Bear on my way home to Peru. We rambled through Borough Market, (bit smelly)  explored the wonderful St Magnus Church*, and enjoyed a final pint at the Shakespeare pub just a stroll away from the bus.

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On the way home I pondered on what my daughter had given me—more than a gift—an experience. You rarely remember who gives you a book or a CD. You never forget an experience or the generosity from one who has very little. She had given me something else too – an insight into what she considered to be a growing weakness on my part. I was losing my sense of adventure, she said, far too comfortable in front of a keyboard or screen—but always the right one unlike London pubs

*St Magnus was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, though its foundations date as far back as the C12th. It’s also the guild church of ‘The worshipful Company of Fishmongers and the Worshipful Company of Plumbers. It’s been name checked by Dickens in Oliver Twist, and by T S Eliot in The Wasteland”

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‘The walls of Magnus Martyr hold

Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.’

And now it’s been name checked by Baffled Spirit

Message in a bottle

I imagine art was once an intuitive melding of vision and craft and judged on those terms, albeit with a nod to the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Conceptual art has elevated the ‘nod,' making it part of the ‘art’ itself.

For the conceptual artist, the idea or concept behind the art is apparently more important than the finished work.  A conceptual artist may use whatever materials and whatever form is most appropriate to putting their ideas across. It is the thought processes and methods of production that create the value of the work.

Another authority claims that ‘it raises the issue of authorship, time, space, and even ownership.’

Hence, I present to you:

The bottle.

It was given to me some years ago by friends who’d discovered the joys of deep sea diving. They found it embedded in mud at Scapa Flow where, on the 21^st June 1919, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter  scuttled the German fleet rather than allow it  fall into Allied hands.

Between 10am and 1700 pm  on that day, 52 German warships were deliberately sunk much to the displeasure of the British who got there too late to stop it.

 Admiral Freemantle felt obliged – through an interpreter – to give the Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter a public dressing down for behaving ‘dishonourably,’ though privately he admitted ‘I could not resist feeling some sympathy for von Reuter, who had preserved his dignity when placed against his will in a highly unpleasant and invidious position.’

Another British Admiral – Wemyss – even expressed relief:

 ‘I look upon the sinking of the German fleet as a real blessing. It disposes, once and for all, the thorny question of the redistribution of these ships.’ He may have had the French in mind, who’d set their hearts on acquiring at least some of them and perhaps the very bottle I occasionally stroke.

After almost a century beneath rolling seas, scoured by sediment, weed, and small scuttling things, it has the feel of warm silk; it conjures up images of the man that last drank from it, and when you blow over its top, you detect the echo of German Imperial pride—if you’re so minded.

 In the words of Admiral Reinhard Scheer:

‘I rejoice. The stain of surrender has been wiped from the escutcheon of the German Fleet. The sinking of these ships has proved that the spirit of the fleet is not dead.The last act is true to the best traditions of the German Navy.’

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So then, my bottle is a work of art if the idea or concept is more important than the finished work itself. In this case my bottle was conceived and created by man, has been further shaped by oceanic currents and will be forever associated with a specific historic event. As for ‘authorship, time and space,’  thing, when I hold it, I think of the transience of life

A small life on the outside

I remember, as a boy of fourteen or so, standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy road in Liverpool.Traffic thundered by in every direction, the air heavy in petrol fumes, heavy in direction and purpose. I had purpose, too. I wanted to get home but beyond that—nothing. The future was a grey immensity, and I remember standing there, thinking on it and feeling suddenly terrified. What happened to you when you left school at fifteen, unqualified, unskilled and no real purpose in life? I didn’t know, and at that moment, I didn’t want to step off the roundabout.

It’s a feeling I’ve never forgot, and every so often I return to the memory with a sense of great gratitude, the realisation that life is full of strange and unexpected paths, and that I explored as many as I could – not out of courage. I have none; more the fear of missing out.

It's quite a small life in the great scale of things, but hugely enjoyed. And when all's said and done, a life is much like a Tardis.

And in the words of a great sage:

But until then we just carry on

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Food for thought

Josephine Tey wrote a fine book called The Daughter of Time. It focuses on a Scotland Yard Inspector - Alan Grant, injured and bored out of his mind in a hospital bed. Then a friend introduces him to the mystery of Richard III and the disappearance of the ‘two princes in the tower.’ It’s a wonderful historical ‘who-dunnit’ and I’d recommend it to anyone. 

I was put in mind of it halfway through ‘LovingVincent,’ which has had mixed reviews. The story is told through the medium of his paintings and portraits, animated and spoken through actors. Some have found it visually unsettling, others thought it lacked emotional depth in the same way a cartoon might. I thoroughly enjoyed it both as a visual spectacle and for introducing me to the mystery of Vincent van Gogh’s death. It was an adroitly told ‘whodunnit’ which left more questions than answers and, as I said, put me in mind of a now largely forgotten book.  

Before I move on to another event, I’d urge with the zeal of . . . a zealot to google Van Gogh quotes. For me they were an eye-opener – another unexpected bonus of the film. Two in particular apply particularly well to the writer:

"Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all.”
(Letter to Theo van Gogh, October 1884)

And in another letter, another useful tip especially for those who deal in words.

Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague

The second event of an action packed week was a concert in the Newport Centre featuring Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott. I don’t know about a ‘starry starry night’ but this was a bloody freezing night.

 Even before they came on stage I was forcibly reminded of two tips I should never have forgotten. 1) Bring a hip flask with you. The beer was overpriced and the queues immense. 2) The seats are booked so for God’s sake only arrive when the act you’ve paid to see come on to the stage. The support act is usually a waste of time. In this case it was a Philadelphian band called ‘Son Little.’ (the singer) 

They ambled on stage like disconsolate factory hands starting a nightshift. The drummer went bang bang bang. The two guitars went ‘thrum thrum thrum’ and the singer shouted. Pretty basic stuff.

And then Heaton and Abbot took to the stage and the magic began. And I confess now, I wasn’t a particularly devoted fan. That is my wife’s privilege. But the artistry, professionalism and sheer stage presence won me over: sharp lyrics, harmonic chemistry and the ability to work a crowd from years of experience followed by three encores. I remarked afterwards they must have left the stage on a high, buoyed on a wave of gratification. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime.

A selection of videos and some very nice ‘Dad Dancing’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1awwzDmJD8Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igYq3CEaHvU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7vEImmJq8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H61cdk14mNw

So, a book, a film, and Paul Heatonand Jacqui Abbott’s latest album all recommended