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| The Roman bridge, Chambon-sur-Voueize, Creuse, France (see below). |
April 2025
Moving on from my brief blog dwelling on the extraordinary
exhalations from the White House, a friend messaged us on April 1st
stating that there was no point in trying to hoodwink anybody with an April
Fool joke – whatever you said would be believed. Try these for size:
America is friends with Russia
America is going to take over Greenland
America is going to make Canada the 51st State
America is going to take over the Gaza strip as a piece of
real estate.
I’m sure you see what I mean…
The United Kingdom has had a remarkable spell of good
weather. Driest March for many many
years, and high-pressure sitting centred over Scotland. A friend lives near Aboyne (inland from
Aberdeen) which was the centre of the sunshine and high temperatures, with
light winds. Further south we had
easterly winds which cooled us down but the sunshine was unbroken. In the middle of this, we departed for
Andalucia, where the weather, though warmer, was not as settled.
Travel teaches us to see the world anew. Fortunate we are to live in Dorset, within a
stone’s throw of the sea. Yet, we seek
the new, the unknown.
‘For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the
needs and hitches of our life more clearly; to come down off this feather-bed
of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting
flints.’ (Robert Louis Stevenson. Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes,
1879.)
In my younger days, many of the paths were strewn with
cutting flints, but I eschew them now.
We have all tasted sherry, but to sit outside a bar in
the middle of Jerez with a glass of fino and a tapa of red tuna tartare is to
know sherry for the first time (pace T
S Eliot). Similarly, to experience true
Flamenco in a tiny bar filled with old posters of bullfights is a grand
experience. We only found the ‘globe
granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints’ on struggling through the
sand dunes to reach the lighthouse at Cape Trafalgar. Unsurprisingly the Spanish do not make much
of this landmark, and it is not well signposted or particularly easy to reach. Another remote spot, the lighthouse at the
Punta del Carnero has a fine view of Algeciras Bay and Gibraltar. I had to recite Charles Causley’s ‘A Ballad
for Katharine of Aragon’ for Lindsay (it mentions Algeciras Bay, and is one of
my favourite poems). Pedants please
note: the usual spelling for Katharine is Catherine, but others abound in the
literature. Causley definitely spelled
it Katharine.
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| True Flamenco at bar El Pasaje |
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| Fino and a 'Croft Twist'. Tapa of red tuna. |
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| Jean Cocteau's personal sherry barrel, Bodega Gonzales Byass |
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| Old street; inside the Gonzalez Byass premises. |
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| Sunset from Castillo de San Sebastian, Cadiz |
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| Modern bridge, Cadiz |
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| Sancti Petri, a fishing village on the coast, near Sanlucar de Barrameda - home of manzanilla sherry |
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| Painted ceiling, fish market, Zahara de los Atunes (the clue is in the name). |
On St George’s Day, it was felt by the members of our little swimming group that we should bathe at Branksome Chine, as we were wont to do when led, or even dragooned, by our friend Morag, who died a year ago on 23rd April. The sea temperature was between 10 and 11 Celsius. There was no wind but a storm front in the night had left a legacy of large breakers. Immersion was generally brief though some tarried – but not long.
Branksome Chine beach, early morning, April 23rd.
For reasons I need not dwell on, I recently spent an unconscionably long time sitting in a garage in Yeovil. Fortunately I anticipated this to some extent and was well supplied with magazines and a book. But the countrymen smiling at me from the front cover of the ‘Mendip Times’, all clutching trophies, caught my attention. Of course, I should have guessed. They were the various division winners in the Wrington & Burrington hedging competition. Good sturdy folk all. The picture of the judges did somewhat recall shades of Monty Python.
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| Champions of Hedging |
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| The Hedging Judges |
After a while, a friend picked me up and we visited Montacute House, which I have always wanted to see.
Montacute House, a late Elizabethan masterpiece in Ham Hill stone
Returning home, the news was filled with the death and subsequent
transfer of Pope Francis’s corpse to St Peter’s Basilica for general mourning. He died suddenly the morning after a taxing
Easter Day, when he appeared to give the traditional blessing and to be wheeled
around St Peter’s Square. The choral
activity included the ‘Litany of Saints’, a very long list indeed, with the
words ‘Ora Pro Eum’ intoned after every name.
Now we await the excitement of the Conclave of Cardinals, and the black
or white smoke issuing from the Sistine Chapel.
I am sure I have read somewhere that the vast number of saints
worshipped in the Catholic Church was substantially inflated in the early and
later mediaeval period in order to generate income, but was interested to read
on Google that AI rejects that assertion.
The assertion which AI is so anxious to deny, appeared, I think, in
Barbara Tuchman’s book, ‘The March of Folly’ in her chapter on the Renaissance
popes. (I gave my copy away – please
tell me if I am wrong).
One of the jewels in the crown of sporting commentary is, or
was, the Test Match Special programme.
After WWII the BBC decided that a little known poetry producer, John
Arlott, should join the famous journalist Howard Marshall, in the commentary
box. Arlott’s Hampshire burr became the
voice of cricket. At that time, before
the new media centre at Lord’s, they were ensconced in a tiny space high up in
the pavilion. In an aside, one day in
the late 1970s, probably linked to the excitement of the two closely linked
conclaves of the John Pauls, some white smoke was seen billowing over the
London skyline. ‘I see Jim Swanton has
been elected Pope’ was Arlott’s immediate response.
Swanton was a distinguished, though somewhat egotistical
cricket commentator. Ray Illingworth’s
remark that he was such a snob he didn’t even travel in the same car as his
chauffeur is probably fairly near the mark.
John Arlott (in private, though the quote has come down to us) said of
him, ‘Can you imagine what it must be like to write as much as Swanton did over
so many years without leaving one memorable sentence?’ And John Warr, cricketer of the post war era,
described his writing style as ‘Somewhere between the Ten Commandments and Enid
Blyton’.*
* See the book; ‘Arlott, Swanton and the soul of English
cricket’, by Stephen Fay and David Kynaston.
Invited to friends for coffee in their wonderful garden,
here is just one of its beauties, a honeysuckle which is thought to be over a
hundred years old:
Honeysuckle 'tree', Hampreston, Dorset.
Then to walk along their sunken lane which is one of
Dorset’s forgotten drove roads is also a pleasure; to admire a hedge which may
be more than a thousand years old; to watch the mayflies crowding the air over
the river Stour is a special and sobering delight. Curiously, we also admire a novel use of
discarded astroturf – when the cows come home from pasture they prefer to walk
along it placed at the edge of the field rather than the drove road, with its
sharp flints which stick in their hooves.
Cows, it seems, unlike Robert Louis Stevenson, do not like ‘the globe
granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.’
Today I decided to catch up on my CAM magazine (Cambridge
Alumni Magazine). When reading of the
many brilliant people who are at, or were at, the University, I experience a
severe case of impostor syndrome, but I also learn things. A Professor at the Scott-Polar Research
Institute, in collaboration with a Danish group at University of Aarhus, has
shown that planting extra trees in high latitudes is actually counterproductive,
and of no help in reducing global warming.
This relates to the ‘albedo’, a word I had never heard before. The albedo is the amount of energy from the
sun that is immediately reflected back into space. High latitudes, with an abundance of snow,
reflect more than 90% of the sun’s rays away from the earth. The carbon capture by trees, which can now
survive in the tundra regions, is minimal compared to the increased absorption
of solar energy that the trees will generate by displacing snow or ice.
Thursday May 29th
There is much to capture in the interim but I hasten to
record a memory, which was engendered by being dragged into the garden to play
football (soccer) against grandson Louis, aged 7. The curious link takes in football in the
playground at the old Broad Street school of King Edward’s in Bath, and is
juxtaposed with my much older self, sitting in the boardroom of St Mary’s
Hospital in London hearing the deliberations of the CQC – the frightful Care
Quality Commission – of which I was for a short period of time, a member.
Seventy years younger than I, Louis is, as you can imagine,
somewhat more nimble. My mind went back
to informal games in the school playground, when Alan Williamson, a lithe and
quicksilver schoolmate, always had the ball at his feet, as though it had been
tied there with string.
After this many years, I do not think I can offend anyone in
saying that Alan’s family was poor.
There were three boys of which he was the eldest. Poor nutrition had made him thin, and had he
been fully developed I feel sure that he would have been an outstanding
athlete. As it was, his quickness, ball
skills, and light frame did not debar him from playing scrum half for the first
fifteen, where he usually managed to elude the attention of giant opposing wing
forwards. I once witnessed him taking a
remarkable one-handed catch in the outfield at cricket, running backwards and
facing the wrong way. I thought of it in
2019 when Nasser Hussain who was commentating, said; ‘No way, no, no way, you cannot do that, Ben Stokes. That is remarkable, that is one of the
greatest catches of all time. You cannot
do that.’ It was a similar catch.
Another memory is of our visit to Greece in 1965. This was for those of us who studied ‘O’
level Greek and was masterminded by an eccentric classics master. We travelled overland in the school minibus,
which should have been condemned. It
almost killed us on one occasion but that is another story. On reaching, against the odds, the old site
of Olympia, where the ancient games were held, Alan and I jogged around the
stadium, or what was left of it. It was
the middle of the day and the silence was profound, except for the
cicadas. The temperature was absurdly
high. Yes, we were stupid; but yes, we
were young.
Alan wanted to go into medicine, and in view of the family
finances, he went straight to St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in Paddington
and qualified quickly. He became
interested in tropical medicine and worked in risky and poorly developed
countries for the Medical Research Council.
During one of my junior appointments, when I returned to London, I met
Alan for a drink. Working in rural India,
he had suffered multiple tropical illnesses including malaria and amoebic
dysentery. He looked even thinner, but
was his usual calm and composed self. He
had been sent home to recover. He
volunteered to continue to work for the MRC and went out to Nigeria. While working there he contracted what was
probably viral hepatitis, but may have been Lassa fever, and died.
So, sitting in the St Mary’s Hospital board room, listening
to the platitudes from the CQC, surrounded by portraits of the supposed great
and good, I could not help wondering if my friend, Alan Williamson, who truly
gave his life for medical research, should surely be there commemorated…
Later Spring and early Summer.
By the beginning of June, we have already had more sunshine
than in the whole of last year. Of
course it has been dry too. I cycled
past some fields near Milton Abbas on the first of June where the corn (maize)
was alive but pitifully small.
To compensate for lack of golf or other reasons to venture
away from home, we booked a week in Cyprus in mid-May, for warmth and swimming,
with swimming pool or sea based exercises for my mangled shoulder. A five star hotel for one week is not our
usual milieu. It is a truism to say that
a very luxurious/expensive hotel does not guarantee a better quality of guest;
only a guest who can afford to stay there.
The sea was fine – warmer than Sandbanks ever gets, anyway, and the
pools were warmer. There was an adults
only pool, which was unfrequented. There
is a lot of money in Cyprus, much of dubious origin. There were a number of exquisitely beautiful
girls in exquisitely beautiful, exquisitely small, and no doubt exquisitely
expensive, bikinis. I was reluctant to
look in case the Eastern European looking beau by their side was a Russian
mobster who took a dislike to me.
Although our room was only on the second floor it was quite high enough
not to want to fall out of. The shops in
the hotel contained items such as jewellery worth the price of a house. The shop assistants appeared to speak Russian.
One of the shops at The Four Seasons
Much of our time was spent away from the hotel however. Cyprus has been a melting pot of
civilizations since the Myceneans came to it around 1000 BCE. A stopping place for crusaders, the Knights
of St John, the Knights Templar, etc. A
strange fragment of history is that Richard the Lionheart got married there –
to Princess Berengaria of Navarre en route to the third crusade in 1191. Poor Berengaria then had to spend two years
as a camp follower in the Holy Land.
When Richard died in 1199 she retired to Le Mans and is thought to be
buried in L’Epau Abbey, which she founded.
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| Statue of Michael Cacoyannis, film director, near Limassol |
There are Greek (Hellenistic period) and Roman (pre and post
Christian) edifices on Cyprus too.
Lindsay insisted on a trip to see ‘Aphrodite’s Rock’. Opinions on Trip Advisor varied. ‘It’s a rock’, one writer declared. True, it was a rock, but which one was a bit
unclear. It did not look anything like
Botticelli’s version of the ‘Birth of Venus’, no giant shells or nymphs telling
her to put some clothes on, but it was scenic, the water was of a turquoise
hue, and there was a good café.
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| Aphrodite and her rock - but which one? |
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| Roman mosaics at Kourion. This site changed hands many times. Mycenean, Alexander the Great, Hellenistic, Roman, and Roman Christian. |
As a child, I remember living in Malta during the Cyprus
emergency, when the British persistently failed to find the self-styled
‘General Grivas’, a guerrilla fighter of the EOKA movement, whose aim was to
pursue Enosis (union with Greece) He hid
in the Troodos mountains, and the British were unable to find him. The result was a stalemate. The Independence of the island in 1960 and
the subsequent internecine activities later resulted in the 1974 demarcation
(after a Turkish invasion) into Greek Cypriot (largely south and west) and
Turkish areas (largely north and east).
There were disturbances and forced removals similar in nature, though
less in scale, to the Partition of India.
Part of the 20th Century history of the island
can be traced back to the fact that it was virtually handed to Britain in the
aftermath of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878.
This is responsible for the curious anomaly of cars driving on the left
hand side of the road. Britain retains
two strategically important bases and areas of land in Cyprus (‘Sovereign Base
Areas’) – at Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
British rule, though benign (Greek and Turk lived in relative harmony in
the same villages), was the key factor in the support that EOKA gained. Yet again, a movement that resulted from
colonial ownership.
There are now some
fine wineries in the mountains, and many chapels, monasteries and churches
called ‘The Chapel of the Holy Cross’, thanks to a visit by Emperor
Constantine’s mother, Helena (250-330 AD).
She is claimed to be the discoverer of the true cross of Jesus, and
brought substantial fragments with her to the island. But if one were to collect together all the
fragments of the ‘true cross’ spread around Greek orthodox and Roman Catholic
churches, they would probably be sufficient to build HMS Victory. The Troodos mountains remain very difficult
to walk through, many of the paths being rocky and steep, and crucially hidden
from overhead view by trees. We hiked
one of them to the picturesque Kalidonia waterfall.
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| Kalidonia waterfall, Troodos mountains. |
With a late flight back at the end of our week, we had the
good fortune, courtesy of the hotel, to be invited on a tour of some of the
areas southeast of Troodos. This was led
by a jolly and well-informed guide, Mr Andreas Alkivides, who carried the designation
‘Guest Relations Manager’. A minibus
with a Romanian driver (“It’s a better job than driving for Yodel in London”)
led a smallish group of us up to the lace-making village of Lefkara, and the
winery of Dafermou. Subsequent to this, a
vast lunch with wine was provided at Maria’s restaurant, high up in the
mountains. The appearance of our largely
elderly party was enhanced by two very pretty young girls from Armenia. They giggled and took selfies and videos, and
looked about 19, but when we stopped for lunch it was clear that they were
older, and the one sitting opposite me told me she was a travel agent. Hence the multiple photo opportunities. They kept themselves to themselves until we
were back on the bus for the trip home.
The driver then put on singalong songs on the HiFi and everybody joined
in. We started with ‘Sweet Caroline’,
progressed to ‘Living next door to Alice’ (the alternative words version), ‘La
Bamba’, ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘Hey Baby’, etc.
But as we rejoined the flat motorway leading west back to the hotel, ‘Dancing
Queen’ and the ‘Macarena’ brought the girls into the aisle and together with
Konstandinos, a rather tubby delightful gay manager from the hotel, the dancing
became frenetic. It was a special day
for Konstandinos, because it was his Saint’s name day, which seems to be rather
more important in Cyprus than one’s actual birthday. Falling out of the bus, we still had time for
a swim in the pool and a last shower, before a departure for Paphos airport and
the melee of the check-in queues. It was
a good week.
Largely dry and sunny weather has remained, at least in
Southern Britain, for around three weeks afterwards. From the house I can watch, somewhat
forlornly, the distant figures on the 15th hole of Parkstone Golf
Course.
Private Eye magazine has been commemorating the career of
Barry Fantoni (1940-2025), who first joined the magazine as a cartoonist, but
was later recognised to have the required satirical streak. He it was, for example, who first started the
‘Colemanballs’ section. David Coleman
was a BBC sports presenter and commentator, ubiquitous during the 1960s, whose
habit of making gaffes and using clichés led to coining of the verb
Colemantating (Clive James). At the 1976
Olympics, the 800m was won by the Cuban athlete Alberto Juantorena. The fashion at the time was for extremely
small running shorts. His burst of speed
in the final straight led Coleman to say, as he outdistanced the field; ‘He
opened his legs and showed his class.’
Another Coleman statement which Fantoni picked up on for his pieces was;
‘…and that bronze medal is worth its weight in gold.’ The section continues to this day in Private Eye. Other terrific Fantoni spots were: the former
fast bowler and commentator Fred Trueman, who perhaps originated the original
persona of grumpy Yorkshireman, a crown since handed to Geoffrey Boycott; ‘We
didn’t have metaphors in my day. We
didn’t beat about the bush.’ And
horrifically inappropriate, Anna Ford, newsreader, in 1997; ‘And let’s not
forget the other people in this tragedy – such as Dodi, whose death seems to
have taken a back seat this week.’
News this week in mid-June that GPs will be allowed to
prescribe tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight reduction. A friend, who is about five foot tall and
seems almost as wide decided to apply.
To make sure he put lead weights into his trouser pockets (the criterion
is a BMI of 40 or more). Unfortunately
while being weighed his trousers fell down.
I haven’t heard yet whether his subterfuge was discovered.
Sunday, June 15th
Cycling in France.
The ‘Tour de La Creuse’.
La Souterraine.
He is short and stout and his eyes are rheumy. His hair is long, uncombed, greasy, and was
possibly once ginger. Or perhaps he
forgot to dye it this month. He wears a
dark green jacket, which has seen better days.
His open-necked shirt was once upon a time, unstained. Unlike most of the inhabitants of this town,
he is not in Sunday mass at 1030am.
Almost as soon as I gratefully ease my legs off my bicycle in the town
square of La Souterraine, in Creuse, central France, he waddles over. My French is imperfect, and I am about to ask
him what the medal is that he is wearing, when Lindsay points out that it is
the scallop shell bronze brooch of a pilgrim of the Route de Compostelle, or
Camino de Santiago, which, if he ever walked it, must have been many years ago. ‘Toutes sont fermées’, he says – or at least
something like that. He gestures
hopelessly around. Then points to a
small café
in the corner of the square, which I had overlooked. ‘Don’t do a ……’; Lindsay hisses, reminding me
of a friend who is apt to gather hangers on wherever he goes, simply because he
is too polite to dismiss them.’ So, I
politely thank him and wheel the bike over to the café. Nervously I watch as in an unhurried way he
follows. Fortunately, he does not
accompany me to the bar, where I order coffees, but makes his way to another
table and demands a glass of rosé, which could well be the first of
several. He sits gazing into the middle
distance.
It is our last day of cycling the Tour, and we have many
miles to go. We started early and need
to rest, take coffee, and recharge our e-bike batteries for the next
phase. I have a tendency to visit places
on a whim; for example, I once signed on to sail around the Lofoten Islands
because I saw a dramatic black and white picture of them in a Geography book at
school some thirty years before. When
searching for an area of France which we have not explored before, my daughter
mentioned camping by the side of the river Creuse at La-Celle-Dunoise. ‘It was beautiful’, she said. We decided to try it.
The Creuse département lies in the middle of the
foothills to the west of the Massif Central.
It is an upland area between the mountains and the more gentle slopes of
Limousin, as it gently descends towards Limoges. It has almost no vineyards, which must be
nearly unique in France. It is intensely
rural, with many Limousin cattle and some Charolais. It is characterised by soaring, dense stands
of trees; oak, ash, beech, and the pervasive châtaignier (sweet
chestnut). The population is sparse –
the entire département
has a population of just over 110,000.
This in itself makes cycling challenging – there are almost no cars
(good) but there are almost no villages or places to stop for a drink or a meal
(bad). The occasional giant lorry is
almost certain to be hauling vast tree trunks, which makes one think of those
desirable French oak wine barrels.
The countryside is beautiful, but is most attractive when
the roads run alongside the rivers. The
tourist office have created the Tour de La Creuse, a cycle circuit of over 200
miles, to showcase the variety of the area.
Cultural highlights are largely unexpected. For example, La Souterraine, as mentioned
above, is a gathering town (due to its magnificent cathedral) for the Santiago
de Compostela. On another day we reach a
small hamlet atop a substantial ridge at 750m, Toulx-Saint-Croix (the highest
point on our cycling route). A very old
Romanesque church stands opposite La Tour Martial – which houses Merovingian
sarcophagi. A landscape depicting the
church and tower is prominently displayed in the miniscule, deserted, square –
the poster financed by Crédit Agricole. It is
reminiscent of a Corot, and a nearby plaque tells us that it was painted by a
little known member, perhaps almost the final member, of the Barbizon School –
Emile Guiblain-Coquery (1883-1963), who lived in this tiny village.
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| The poster of the old church, Toulx-Saint-Croix |
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| Was he the last of the Barbizon school? |
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| Another work by Guiblain-Coquery. The village hasn't changed much. We sat beneath that tree. |
The Creuse river runs from the northwestern part of the
central massif of France, eventually joining the Vienne, which itself joins the
Loire. It has many smaller rivers
enlarging it as it runs to the northwest.
All of these, of course, have their own valleys, and require cycling
down into and then up from a bridge, which may vary from tiny to substantial,
sometimes of Roman origin. For example,
the beautiful town of Chambon-sur-Voueize, pictured here.
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| Roman bridge, Chambon-sur-Voueize. |
George Sand, who for a number of years lived not far north
of here, said of Chambon-sur-Voueize;
“Enfin nous y voilà et c’est un paradis terrestre! Le pays est adorable…des rivières de vrai cristal… un continuel
berceau de verdure (cradle of lush vegetation).”
The rivers of true crystal are responsible for the chief
cultural highlight of the département, the tapestry weaving towns
of Felletin and Aubusson. In the 15th
century (though some say well before this), the influx of Flemish weavers and
the availability of clean slightly acidic water to cleanse wool and to fix dyes
resulted in tapestries being woven, both for decorative purposes and for the
practical value of providing domestic insulation. Ultimately the quality of Aubusson tapestry
was recognised by the King as rivalling those of Beauvais and Gobelins. He decreed that the monogram MR (Manufacture
Royale) should be appended, and as a further guarantee of its source and
quality, a genuine Aubusson weave should be surrounded by a thin deep blue
border (see below).
A classic Aubusson tapestry dating from about 1750. Note the Royal imprimatur and the thin dark blue border. The oldest tapestry in the collection dates from 1480.
A huge modern tapestry taken from Tolkien's illustration for The Hobbit
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| Theseus and the Minotaur |
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| This tapestry is behind glass, but has an extraordinary three-dimensional effect |
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| Many of the modern tapestries are woven by Japanese artists, and based on computer or video games, but the tapestries are always hand woven. |
Back in the UK we are assailed by the news which we had
escaped for a few days. Trump
triumphant, the Government in disarray over benefits cuts, and some friendlier
things such as a wonderful first Test Match against India (cricket again). Ascot was a warm weather triumph, Glastonbury
is over (best set Nile Rogers & Chic – but I am biased) and today (June 30th),
Wimbledon fortnight has started. Watch
out for ‘a good day to bury bad news’ from the politicos.
Finally, on return home, I make a journey to Brighton to
attend the funeral of Professor Douglas Chamberlain. At first a senior during his weekly visits to
King’s College Hospital from Brighton; later a teacher and a collaborative
researcher; and finally a supporter, a mentor and a friend. It is largely due to Douglas that we have
trained ambulance staff (paramedics) in the UK.
During the eulogies, the most striking recurrent comment of all the
speakers was the word ‘hero’. He was a
hero to me too. Here is the link to the
Daily Telegraph obituary, to which I am proud to have contributed:
Time to call a halt to these meanderings. What will the later part of summer and the
autumn bring?
