Wandering 2

And so for the second half of my wander, I headed for the beating concrete heart of Durham student life - Dunelm House and Kingsgate Bridge.  Very concretey...

Mind you, the view from the bridge is quite pleasant...

... and we discovered later that there was a punk concert in Dunelm that night, which explained the large numbers of Mohicans and pierced noses roaming the city.

Anyway I went on to the real heart of Durham, the peninsula, with its long...

So these next few offer a far more traditional view.

I only ever climbed the cathedral tower once.  The view was of course stunning (from what I can recall), but I was terrified and never went up it again.

Leaving the Cathedral, I strolled down Saddler St.  Some places seemed wholly unchanged since the '70s.  Certainly Mugwump was - by memory - just as annoying a shop then as it seemed to be now.  Full of new age crystals  - I was incensed (joke). 

And I was never really a fan of the Shakespeare - too much Northumbrian fiddle for my taste.

Other places on Saddler were newer, if equally unpreposessing to my taste:

...but I always loved this view down Elvet Bridge...

... and this restaurant also seems to have been there for ever... although it may have had another name then?

And finally the view from Framwellgate Bridge

So the only one of the old bridges I missed was Prebends.  Never mind, maybe next time...

Wandering 1

And so as I explained earlier, a few weeks ago I wandered, reminiscing with permission, around the city of Durham.

There are three stags on Collingwood's crest, so there seemingly has to be a sculpture of a stag by the car park.  Who'd have thought it? 

This is just to make sure we keep to some of our brief here at TANH - a tree.

A view of the cathedral from between Collingwood & Grey

An old question I know but why is Grey so brown?

Here is the Grey hill, where the infamous Marching Song of the Fighting Uruk-Hai was first sung.  Well, I say sung...

At some point, when sufficiently inebriated, I may post it.

The path behind the tennis courts that leads down to the Science site avoiding South Road.  I remember this only too well...

But I don't remember this, the Ogden Centre for research into theoretical physics.  Built after my time. 

Although I seem to know quite a lot about it, as they regularly write to me (as a Physics alumnus) and ask for dosh...

Here are some parts of the old Science site I do remember.

... although the Library now has a new name...

Bryson is very kind to Durham in 'Notes from a Small Island' - and was also a very effective Chancellor (2005-2011).  On the University Web site he says:

I am struck by how expertly well you have a good time here. Durham students always seem to doing about a million things that have nothing to do with academic life and they are always doing them incredibly well. I cannot imagine there's any place in the world where fun is done more skilfully and well to a higher level than at Durham and often while you are having fun you do a lot of good.

So, fair enough. Why not  name a library after him?

Another tree...

The building below is also after my time - but some of the rooms inside it are named after people who were teaching way back then, such as professors Rosemary Cramp (History) and Arnold Wolfendale. 

The latter was Astronomer Royal for four years in the '90s.  I certainly sat in some of his lectures but I'm not sure how much he taught me. 

And he also features in the letters from the Ogden Centre...

More tree:

The Science site is undergoing development and expansion, as some departments move there from Palace Green.  I haven't really got my head around it...

Anyway, I left the Science site and headed into town past some of Durham's well-known sights...

...such as South Road...

... and the New Inn.

More reminiscent, meandering wanderings will follow.... (you have been warned).

Walter and Water

With a couple of hours free to meander in London last week, I popped in to the Courtauld Gallery.  I haven't been there much, but it has several paintings I really like, and it is small and easy to get around when you don't have much time.  (For those who don't know, it is on the Strand, at the entrance to Somerset House).

A new painting was on show, by Walter Dobson.  The Courtauld Web site has more about this, which is part of a series of displays and films instigated by Waldemar Januszczak, as part of the anniversary of his birth 400 years ago.

This is part of what the Courtauld Web site says:

The Courtauld possesses one of Dobson’s most accomplished and intriguing pictures, Portrait of an Old and a Younger Man. The two richly dressed gentlemen have generally been recognised as a father and son lost in private grief, perhaps at the death of a wife or mother. However, recent research by Januszczak has identified them as two poets exiled in Oxford with Charles I during the English Civil War.  The older man is John Taylor (1578-1653), a notorious London figure, nicknamed the Water-Poet.  Before developing his literary ambitions, Taylor began his career ferrying people across the Thames at Southwark, and during the English Civil War, as an ardent Royalist he joined the King in Oxford where he was made the official Water Bailiff. The younger man is Sir John Denham (1614/5-1669), a more typical gentleman poet of the times, and author of the first great topographic poem in the English language, Cooper’s Hill.  Centred on a description of the Thames, Cooper’s Hill is actually a poetic rumination upon British history from a Royalist perspective.  Having been governor of Farnham Castle, Denham also joined the King in Oxford in 1643. 

 And there is a dedicated Web Site set up for the anniversary.

So anyway, here we are again with John Taylor, who I bumped into on a previous occasion when I had a meander around London and ended up in the pub named after him.

Paris 6: Montmartre, Sacre Couer

So that evening we went to Pigalle (fleshpots, basically - think Soho) and caught the joyous little MontMartrobus (think P12) up the hill.  We missed the stop the first time around and ended up on the other side (Mairie du 18e – Jules Joffrin). 

So we had to change busses, but luckily the tickets were still valid so we raced up the other way. This explains.

Anyway, whether you walk, bus or travel by funiculaire (or cycle - we saw some of those too), at the top of the butte is Sacre Couer:

- which is pretty fantastic (if incredibly touristy).

And this view:

The one thing that surprised us was that we couldn't see the Eiffel Tower from where we stood - the angle is probably all wrong.

Then we wandered down past artists, restaurants and twee shops. 

If the top is touristy, this was the same, many times over.  For a while we sat outside a little bistro (La Boheme), on Rue de Mont Cenis and watched street theatre - in the widest sense.   I like all this; the rest of the family perhaps less so. 

We wandered amongst the artists in the Place du Tertre (lots of easels; offering to paint/draw/caricature anyone that moves - for the right fee). 

Then we stopped for a meal in a terriffic pizza / French restaurant with a live piano player (who included some fun stuff in his repertoire and turned out to be English), on the corner of Rue Norvins and Rue Poulbot (La Petaudiere).

We finally descended precipitously to the nearest Metro, before heading back to Wagram...

Arucaria's Party - Meandering - Variants

So it seems Arucaria had a party in the Guardian offices, with guests including Prunella Scales and Simon Hoggart, who are both fans.  And lots of other compilers.  SH had a piece in the paper praising him mid-week, where we also found out that John Graham is an old left-winger who would never work for Murdoch (Yay!).  See Fifteen Squared for party photos.

At one point earlier in the week, I had thought his birthday was St Valentine's Day.  So I started to think about appropriate presents; I remembered the theory that St Valentine's Day was instigated by Chaucer - as the first mention of the 14th of February as a special day for wooing seems to be in The Parlement of Foules.

So I went looking for the text for a POTW, and instead found sites of textual criticism.  It seems that there are two variant readings, which different editors have championed over the years.

Here are the first few lines in each variant:

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Thassay so hard, so sharp the conquering,
The dredful Ioy, that alwey slit so yerne,
Al this mene I by love, that my feling
Astonyeth with his wonderful worching
So sore y-wis, that whan I on him thinke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I wake or winke.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Th'assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge,
The dredful joye alwey that slit so yerne,
Al this mene I by Love, that my felynge
Astonyeth with his wonderful workynge
So sore, iwis, that whan I on hym thynke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I flete or synke.

I got completely sidetracked by this.  Then I realised that the 14th wasn't Arucaria's birthday after all.

Anyway, which text do you prefer?

Brollies

I remember how Nick Lowe, in his great and witty talk Black Wine of Thentis, told us that creative writers - and especially the typical authors of science fiction and fantasy - would sometimes find that their muse had failed and as a result they would frantically look around their horrible writer's den seeking inspiration. 

The author's eyes would light upon that constant to almost all writers: a cup of a warm, mildly stimulating beverage, usually coffee, and they would use this desperately, somehow, anyhow, to pad out the text and prod their narratives back into life.

Klatchian coffee.  Black wine.

In a more mundane vein, I do the same when I'm attempting to solve the crossword and I'm lost for inspiration.  I look around, seeking help anywhere.  Thankfully, the Guardian helps with short articles of interest, appropriate to the back page, alongside the grid.  Weatherwatch, Starwatch, Spacewatch.  Rarely dull. 

And, to be scrupulously honest, they rarely help directly with the crossword.

A week ago on Friday, Kate Ravilious wrote in Weatherwatch:

Umbrellas first emerged in dry, hot places, to provide protection from the hot sun. The word umbrella comes from the Latin word "umbra", meaning shade or shadow. It isn't clear where and when the very first umbrella was made, but evidence from India, China and Egypt indicate that umbrellas have been around for more than 4,000 years. The Chinese were the first people to make waterproof umbrellas, by waxing and lacquering the paper parasol cover. Eventually umbrellas caught on in the west, especially northern Europe, during the 16th century. Many of these umbrellas were made from wood or whalebone and had oiled canvas parasols.

Amazingly they didn't find favour in soggy Great Britain until the Restoration, in the late 17th century. Rumour has it that the Puritans' disapproved of such frivolous devices, which would prevent Heaven-sent rain from properly wetting a person.

However, when umbrellas did arrive in Great Britain, the unpredictable climate soon made them popular. Coffee houses started the fashion; providing umbrellas to shelter customers as they walked to their carriages. At first they were considered a woman's accessory, but when English traveller and philanthropist Jonas Hanway began to carry one during the mid 18th century, men began to adopt them too. By 1830 the UK had its first dedicated umbrella shop in London, and nowadays every British household usually has at least one umbrella.

Which was a piece I quietly enjoyed (despite the weakness of the last line about 'every British household'), but it put me in mind of a more political take on the brolly by Neil MacGregor, presented to staff at the British Museum a few years ago (I was staff then). 

He looked at images across cultures and history showing umbrellas and sunshades, and found that in an awful lot of them they were used to show a power relationship.  The servant shades the Lord or Queen,  protecting them from the elements while having no cover themselves.  From overlords in ancient middle-Eastern cultures reviewing grain harvests to 1930s politicians speaking at rallies in wet North-of-England  rain, the brolly shows who is important and who is not.

Now it would, I think, be perfectly possible to construct an argument that the BM, built in part upon the spoils of political power, still can't avoid probing and testing issues of power, morality and hierarchy, like a tongue testing out a rotten tooth.  While the Guardian article by contrast is more free, and about personal use - liberal without even thinking about it.  Aren't stereotypes wonderful?

However, I'm minded instead to think about the UK's "first dedicated umbrella shop" - that Ravilious mentions in her piece.  This is James Smith and Sons, established 1830 and still going strong in New Oxford Street.  An establishment brand, the tiniest of walking distances from the Museum.

And I have to say, at the time a few of us suspected it was the inspiration for the Director's talk. You can see how it might happen, inspiration briefly fails, not even the black wine helps, so you decide to nip out for a walk around the block to clear the mind and get the creative juices flowing again.  And the first thing you spot is...

Brollies.  That will do nicely.

(Of course, I'm writing this after a week off, when I haven't felt minded or inspired to post much at all.  So maybe this whole meander is just my version of Klatchian coffee...)

From a Turkish hillside

Many years ago we stood on a hillside in Turkey, looking at the remains of an ancient Temple (Apollo at Didyma, I think).  We could see across plains towards the distant sea, where a river snaked lazily back and forth, back and forth. 

In fact it snaked back and forth a lot.  Far too much, we thought.  So we looked it up.

The River Maeander - or now Büyük Menderes River - originally Μαίανδρος (Maíandros) - is where the word meander comes from.  And even the ancient Greeks, apparently, used the river's name for a twisting, convoluted thing.

And it certainly showed.

Meandering

For reasons tedious to relate I ended up in Toytown last week.  I had a somewhat complicated, difficult meeting, but when I came out I was - of course - right next to one of the joys of Toytown. 

The trainset. 

Otherwise known as the Toytown Light Railway (TLR).  I was right by South Quay.  So I had to have a go.

The TLR was always a bit of a joke.  Seen as a 1980's Thatcherite dream of what public transport ought to look like, servicing a new land of Yuppies and Fat Cats.  Originally it didn't run on weekends and was often breaking down.

But in the afternoon sunshine last week it seemed far more benign.  It is a strange and beautiful railway.  Mostly built on stilts, it still swoops into tunnels; it rollercoasters around  ridiculously tight curves; and it often ducks and dives for no visible reason.  And the area around Westferry (? - I took no notes) is a topologist's dream.

So I spent an hour or so pootling around and generally enjoying myself on the world's largest and silliest model railway, and then decided to have a go on the East London Line. 

Because everybody's talking about it and I felt somewhat left out.

So I changed at Shadwell (interesting - I took a wrong turn from the TLR station and found myself in an Asian street market before retracing my steps and eventually finding the super-posh new ELL).  And everyone is right - the new line is super - and for me the best bits are the trains themselves, with carriages you can walk between just like the halves of a bendy bus.  I just had to stand at one end and look the entire length of the train as it moved sinuously along.  A thing of beauty and grace.

After a fair bit of this, I was heading south again when I took a quick decision and jumped off.  A few hundred yards walking and I was, really and truly, in Norton Folgate.   Just a little bit of this. 

Just a little distance from the unnecessarily huge station of Shoreditch High Street (which would have been a quarter of the size on the TLR).

More specifically, I found myself in the beautiful Water Poet pub on Folgate St. - recommended in the sleeve notes of the album, and rightly so.  Huge and airy, with an open space at the back (I hesitate to call it a garden).  Stuffed sofas and a pool table.  Smashing. 

The pub is named after John Taylor, a water boatman and poet who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, and who was known as the "Water Poet." 

According to Wikipedia, as I write, he was also at the Siege of Cadiz (1810-1812).  Surely shome mishtake?  I suppose I ought to go in and change it - they mean the capture and sacking of Cadiz by the English in 1596, not the French siege of the then-Spanish capital as part of the Peninsular War - but I probably won't.

Taylor also appears to have been one of those people who invents their own languages.  His was Barmoodan, which he claimed to have translated into Utopian.  From VRZHU:-

And here’s a bit from his Poem in the Utopian Tongue (1613), which I take to be his nonce language, Barmoodan:

Thoytom Asse Coria Tushrump codsheadirustie,
Mungrellimo whish whap ragge dicete tottrie,
Mangelusquem verminets nipsem barelybittimsore,
Culliandolt travellerebumque, graiphone trutchmore.
Pusse per mew (Odcomb) gul abelgik foppery shig shag
Cock a peps Comb sottishamp, Idioshte momulus tag rag.

He also wrote on poetry publishing and the politics of the water boatmen.

And then I went home.