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2014

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Sagrada Familia

April 13, 2014 in Life as we know it, Photos | Permalink

Those readers who are ‘au fait’ with the glorious city of Barcelona will doubtless – at some point or another – have visited Gaudi’s yet to be completed masterpiece – the Sagrada Familia. Regardless of one’s spiritual persuasion (or indeed one’s lack of such) it is surely impossible not to discern in this extraordinary endeavour substantiation that man can indeed on occasion rise above his baser nature to create something which touches upon the numinous.

With its foundation stone laid in 1882 and the project handed to Gaudi a year later, this expiatory church was little more than 15% complete at the point of the architect’s death in 1926. Funded entirely by donations and hampered by the Spanish Civil War – during which the workshops containing many of Gaudi’s plans and models for the cathedral were destroyed by fire – it is estimated that the halfway point in construction was only acheived as recently as 2010. Modern building techniques and an influx of funding following the Barcelona Olympics have – however – enbled the setting of a hopeful target completion date of 2028.

It is simply not possible to walk around this singular monument without wanting to take photographs of it. It is equally impossible (for me at least!) to do the edifice justice. The exterior is probably well know by all. These shots are of the interior:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid…and just a couple of the exterior:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

 

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Vorsprung durch Technik

April 10, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

The building that houses the Institute of the Arts, Barcelona (which is actually a short journey down the coast in Sitges) was in a former life an Audi design centre.

It shows…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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All change

April 5, 2014 in Life in England | Permalink

Photo by Ian Britton at www.freefoto.comThe rule of thumb regarding survival of the first three bitter months of the year is to ensure that the Christmas/New Year spirit lasts as long as possible, before hunkering down and digging in for the long haul through to spring – pausing only to offer a grateful prayer of thanks that – as winter months go – irksome February is at least numerically challenged!

And then – all of a sudden – everything changes!

These are amongst the happenings that occur over a relatively short interval:

  • March finally limps to a close and we find ourselves on the threshold of the spring.
  • In the UK the clocks go forward to British Summer Time, thus ensuring that – for the first time in the year – my journeys both to and from work are accomplished in daylight.
  • The spring term at the School comes to an end and we are suddenly two thirds of the way through the academic year.
  • The sun puts in a proper appearance and nature starts to awake. Those bright munchy greens presage my favourite time of the year.

Following last year’s ridiculously early Easter, this year’s is nearly as late as it can be. Before that feast is upon us The Girl and I are heading to Barcelona (leaving – in fact – on the morrow) accompanying the A level Theatre Studies boys on their field trip to the Institute of the Arts in Sitges.

The Fuji x10 and the School’s iTablet will – naturally – be accompanying us.

Expect pictures!

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Moving Half the Mountain

April 3, 2014 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from en.wikipedia.orgI watched last night on the BBC a deeply affecting documentary film by Helen Langridge entitled ‘Moving Half the Mountain’. At the centre of the film was the story of the building of what became commonly known as the ‘Death Railway’ in Burma during the Second World War.

Those of us who grew up with Alec Guinness in David Lean’s epic “Bridge on the River Kwai” (based on the eponymous French novel by Pierre Boulle) will be broadly familiar with the subject, should this be only because – having been absorbed by the film – we engaged in further research to establish the real truth behind this regrettable chapter in the history of mans’ inhumanity.

It is not – however – the narrative itself that imbues this impressive new documentary with its power to move. That comes – as it so often does – from the testament of those directly involved –  from the thoughts and memories of the British and Japanese soldiers that survive still – and who agreed to be interviewed for the film.

The British had been caught up in the cataclysmic events that lead to the disastrous fall of Singapore in February 1942 and were subsequently marched up the Malaysian peninsula and into Burma, where they were ill-used by the Japanese as slave labour to build a railway linking Burma and Thailand. Forced to work in appalling conditions it is believed that a total of some 100,000 men – including more than 6,000 British servicemen – perished in pursuance of this objective.

Of those that survived the ordeal many have never spoken in depth about their experiences – even to their loved ones. That these men have chosen to do so now is a result of most of them being in their 90s, some having even achieved their centenaries. It would be a further tragedy were their testaments to be lost without being heard.

Affecting though they may be – however – their stories are not the most telling element of the film. What really moves is the demeanour of the survivors themselves. Almost to a man they demonstrate a degree of forgiveness, of acknowledgement, of coming to terms with their experience – that is humbling in the extreme. These men had come face to face with the very worst of which mankind is capable, and their survival – and subsequently fulfilled lives – leave us a lesson the we would do well to heed.

In the light of some of the more unpleasantly revisionist thinking that seems to be prevalent in this centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War, I would strongly recommend the viewing of this excellent film to any tempted to make glib judgements as to the expediency of warfare.

 

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What you can carry

March 29, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Own only what you can carry with you”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Readers with long memories (and, of course, all who know me personally) will be aware that I carry at all times what is usually described – with more than a whiff of condescension – as a ‘manbag’. The much loved specimen of the genus that is currently my constant (inanimate) companion was purchased in Paris (pretentious – moi?) back in the summer of 2007. Though it has since required the repair that was the subject of this previous post, it really has done very well given the rigours to which it has been subjected.

As detailed in that aforementioned post this invaluable receptacle contains just about everything that I could possibly need to carry with me on a day to day basis – thus ensuring that I avoid the usual bulging pockets, broken gadgets (from having sat carelessly upon something delicate) or indeed that frenzied last minute search for keys, phones, credit cards etc – that seems to accompany some others’ less – um – organised egress into the world of a morning.

I say that the bag holds everything. Actually – that turns out no longer to be true…

Life changes. Things become more complex. I now find myself routinely toting around things that I would not previously have carried. I am sure that I could simplify things – strip them back – but at the moment, given the amount of traveling that I do daily, I would rather feel confident that I have all that I require to hand at all times.

I have for a long time now carried with me everywhere a spiral bound A4 notebook (for Canadians and other North Americans this equates roughly to Letter size). This is an essential for nurturing the creative impulse – for the harnessing of that lightening bolt of inspiration wherever and whenever it might strike (the spiral bound nature of the pad enables one to tear off and dispose of the evidence should one’s notion prove not to have been quite so inspirational after all!).

As of two years ago now I also have with me at all times the trusty Fuji x10, without which I would not be. Taking my first tentative steps into the world of photography has been a literally eye-opening experience – helping me to see this wonderful world in a whole new light.

Age dictates that I must now travel encumbered by a selection of optical devices. If I wear my contact lenses I must needs have with me reading glasses for computer work and for reading, and sunglasses should the weather be fine. If I leave the lenses at home I must carry glasses – reactive or lightweight (or both!) – to enable me to drive safely.

Finally I now also find myself carrying around an iThing of the ‘Pad’ variety. Yes – I know! I have not previously restrained myself from expressing staunchly my views on the evil-empire that is Apple (they are not actually any more evil than the other corporate IT behemoths, of course, merely richer!). The fact is that the School is meandering uncertainly in the direction of adopting a one-to-one tablet policy, and as head honcho in the world of things digital I feel it incumbent upon me to try to keep pace with the bright young things.

All these additional burdens seem now to accompany me everywhere – and I have thus felt it necessary to add to my impedimentiary armoury the new item to which I refered in this recent post – a rather splendid leather messenger bag (which is – in fact – actually a reporter bag – being in orientation portrait rather than landscape).

Either way – should this trend continue I will eventually find myself –  like the terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc – carrying my entire estate on my back whenever I venture forth!

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Information Superhighway!

March 24, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid “The whole digital enchilada – interactive, cable, broadband, 500-channel…”

Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age

One for the nostalgia buffs! I bet that you never thought you’d find yourself face to face with that particular rubric again…

The ever-procacious Urban Dictionary curls its lip at the moniker thus:

“Laughably outdated term for the Internet. Mostly used during the 90s by yuppies who made their own awful-looking web pages.”

…and again:

“A cheesy, ebullient, woefully outdated term from the 90’s, which means ‘Internet’. Coined when all the people were massively wowed by the sheer awesomeness of the Intertubes. Nowadays in disuse unless you use it for comedy.”

Yup – comedy! That’s the effect I was going for… How am I doin’? How ’bout now? etc, etc…

‘Holy moly!’ – you’re thinking – ‘what in the name of Al Gore is he doing raking up this sort of muck in 2014?’

Well – back in the day when it was the Information Superhighway I ordered an upgrade for our broadband connection (yes – the very same that was dead as a dodo for six weeks over Christmas!) to an all-new super-fast fibre (or fiber, as our trans-Atlantic cousins would have it) broadband circuit! And – guess what? It finally came!!!

Ok – I exaggerate the timescale slightly – for effect, you know! But by the time that we actually got to order the thing last October we had already been a target for generic flyers from the mephitic British Telecom – advertising their new fibre service – for at least a couple of years… long before it was actually available anywhere in the surrounding neighbourhood.

When our ISP eventually informed us that fibre was finally available at our local exchange I was, naturally, on the phone immediately – placing an order. The niceties observed, a date was fixed for an engineer to pay us a visit to do the necessary. Splendid!

Except – you’ll be unsurprised to hear – that it didn’t happen. It turned out that though the fibre service had been installed at the exchange it had not actually got as far as the cabinet in the street outside our domicile.

A new date for installation was set… and missed! Then another… and another…

At one point our ISP cruelly raised hopes that something was about to happen by sending us our new high-speed router. When – however – I called excitedly to check, they admitted that they had made a mistake. Bah!

In the end it was five increasingly resigned months before finally – and quite suddenly – an appointment was made and not broken… and we found ourselves on the end of an InterWebNet pipe that is actually fat enough to carry the traffic that the Kickass Canada Girl requires. For now – anyway…

This does all make me realise that we need to start checking now regarding the broadband situation on the Saanich peninsular. Having experienced a whiff of bandwidth freedom I can’t see The Girl settling in future for anything less…

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Baby steps

March 21, 2014 in Life in England, Moving to Canada | 2 comments

Baby_feetBob:    I can’t do that. It’s too big!
Dr. Leo:    Baby steps Bob. Baby steps.

From the movie: “What about Bob?”
Written by Tom Shulman
Directed by Frank Oz

The illation of this post from January of this year – wherein I pondered the next steps in our glacially slow progress towards a new life in British Columbia – was that all depended on our being able to sell our property in Buckinghamshire… which objective would – in consequence – be our main focus over the coming months. The first landmark along this route was to be the date in March on which the tenants currently occupying our apartment could be given notice to quit –  after which we could move to bring the property once again to market.

On Wednesday this week such notice was duly served.

We are currently in discussion with several local estate agents with a view to establishing a fair and reasonable price for the property – subsequent to which we will stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, take a deep breath and return to the affray! Fingers – and much else – firmly crossed…

Now – because selling a property in the UK is such a big, grown-up, scary prospect we have decided – instead of taking the risk of biting off more than we can reasonably chew – to sell the apartment bit by bit!

Well – no… of course we haven’t really – though just at the moment that might appear to be the case!

I’m being cryptic! I will stop at once…

We are in the final stages of selling a brick built bin store that is located behind the main house. There are four such stores – assigned to four of the seven apartments into which the original residence was divided – in a row abutting the rear wall of the estate. The roofs of these stores had – of late – fallen into such a state of disrepair that urgent remedial works were required. Naturally the Kickass Canada Girl and I were reluctant to invest further monies into a feature of the property that adds little or no financial value to the apartment as a whole, so a deal was done with one of our neighbours. She will pay the costs of the roof repairs in return for the transfer into her name of the store itself. She can use the space – we can do without the expense!

It would – of course – be really good if the rest of the sale were to proceed as expeditiously and smoothly as this. Let us be optimistic and assume that this will indeed be so.

 

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Renaissance

March 17, 2014 in Life in England, Photos | 2 comments

Each year there is one early weekend – one glorious (if brief!) window – the effect of which is to renew afresh our faith in the continuing cycle of the seasons. However hard the winter may have been (and in terms of storm and deluge this one has been tough indeed) we can once again see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are alerted by the cry of the distant harbinger… “Spring is coming”!!

This was such a weekend…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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A perfect palimpsest

March 12, 2014 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
“See me, feel me, touch me, heal me”

Pete Townshend

I suppose it is symptomatic of encroaching old-age that I am unable now to recall exactly why I found myself sitting at my computer last week, searching the InterWebNet for recorded versions of The Who’s “See Me, Feel Me“. I know that this was not what I started out looking for (though of course I can’t remember what that was either!) – neither can I now call to mind the supervenient sequence that ultimately led me to Acton’s finest.

It is a sorry business – this aging!

Though I had, naturally, been well aware of The Who throughout the late 60s I did not truly become a fan until 1971 – when I heard for the first time the mighty sound that is “Won’t Get Fooled Again“. The effect that this had on me was not dissimilar to that which I experienced on hearing – for the first time – “A Day in the Life“, “Eleanor Rigby” or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“. I had no idea that music could be like this. In the case of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” I was astonished that a ‘pop’ song could not only have something reasonable to say, but that it could do so with such power, such brio, such… passion! “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is one of those rare tracks that sounds exactly as fresh, meaningful and powerful today as it did when heard first.

“See Me, Feel Me” is – of course – a couple of years older, originating as it does in The Who’s ground-breaking rock opera – “Tommy” (the first of a mercifully modest canon!). Through the decades since the album was released in 1969 I have endured a number of different stage productions, as well as gazing slack-jawed at Ken Russell’s flamboyantly eccentric movie version. I have to say that I find the piece as a whole to be somewhat… patchy! There are – of course – familiar highlights such as “Pinball Wizard” and the finale – “Listening to You” – which apparently later found its true niche in The Who’s live set as an act of communion between band and audience.

The opera’s one moment of genius, however, is its penultimate fragment – the aforementioned “See Me, Feel Me” – a fleetingly transcendent distillation of pure longing, which hangs upon the sudden breathless air a still small voice in the eye of the hurricane. This palimpsest crystallises somewhat unexpectedly out of the preceding number – “We’re Not Gonna Take It” – and once it’s brief existence is done bunny-hops through a crunching gear-change into “Listening to You“.

The lyric comprises but one repeated line:

“See me, feel me, touch me, heal me”

There is no more because at this point there is nothing more to be said.

Harmonically, “See Me, Feel Me” is also stripped back as far as is feasible – comprising what is essentially a repeated three chord pattern…

|Ebmaj7 |Fsus4  F|Fsus4   F|G

…which forms (apparently!) an Aeolian progression. The suspensions that initially render the phrase tonally ambiguous resolve at the end of each line in a manner that contrives to be at once final and infinite. This is one of those rare musical phrases that is so complete in and of itself that no development is possible. I imagine that Pete Townshend must have tried pretty hard to come up with a way of so doing before giving up and accepting this gift from the gods for what it was – a perfect representation of imperfection! Trapped within itself like a bug in amber this tiny fragment manages thus to express eternal longing. We might wish that it went on for ever. It cannot do so.

You may not be familiar with this orchestral version – featuring Townshend himself on vocals rather than the familiar tones of Roger Daltrey.

See Me, Feel Me: See Me, Feel Me

There are some pieces of music – just as there are some poems, some prose passages – that are so immaculate that one wonders how the author – having achieved this proximity to perfection – could face writing again, for fear of never being able to top – or even match – what had already been accomplished.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be in that position!

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The music of time

March 7, 2014 in Life as we know it | Permalink

758px-The_dance_to_the_music_of_time_c._1640For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected, so that, before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity.

Anthony Powell – A Dance To The Music Of Time 

The weekend recently past found the Kickass Canada Girl and I (‘me’ for the purists – though that sounds wrong, wrong, wrong!) engaged at two very different events (home and away – one might say) which – between them – gave considerable pause for thought. It does no harm at all on occasion to step back from the hurly-burly to contemplate what this existence might truly mean and how all is ultimately connected.

This post might as easily have been entitled ‘The Circle of Life’ but the chance to reference Poussin’s wonderful painting (“A Dance to the Music of Time” – a particular favourite of mine) was too good to pass up. The statue therein of the double-headed god Janus is particularly pertinent in this instance.

The first of the weekend’s events was the memorial service for a very long-standing acquaintance – my oldest-friend’s wife’s father – whom I have known for more than four decades. He was, of course, of my parents’ generation – of whom in our circle only a very few now remain. He enjoyed a good life and the occasion was very much a celebration thereof rather than being overly solemn. None the less, such acts of remembrance always invite a degree of introspection regarding the transience of our existence – this one being no exception.

The occasion was also – however – a rather lovely gathering of family and friends ordinarily these days spread far and wide. It was a great pleasure to meet again so many good acquaintances with whom we only seem to coincide nowadays on feast days such as this.

The following day we ourselves hosted a long planned gathering of friends, some of whom had also been present the day before. This convocation had a considerably lighter tone and was – as far as could be discerned – greatly enjoyed by all those in attendance (thanks in no small part to Lidgates of Notting Hill and their wonderful pies!). Amongst those present was the lovely friend at whose wedding in Hong Kong the November before last we had been guests. The couple have recently added a brand new member to our extended circle; the devastatingly cute four-month-old inevitably being the centre of attention throughout the evening.

Between them these two events pretty much epitomised the aforesaid circle of life. The passage of old life passing as the tender buds of the new start to unfurl; connections re-kindled in friendships established over the decades; new faces welcomed and – mayhap – new affinities inaugurated; acquaintanceship initiated between companions previously unmet. We rejoice in the sharing of reminiscence. We celebrate the discovery of ‘ontologia exotica‘. We revel in our anecdotage. Life is affirmed. All is as it should be…

Such gatherings have a tendancy to foment the philosophical. I watched as the Kickass Canada Girl headed for the buffet deep in conversation with my ex-wife! Oldest Friend leant over to me:

“You’re in trouble!”, he opined trenchantly…

Well – I probably am now!

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