Friday Five: York Minster

When I was back in England earlier this year I visited York for the first time. I've been intending to blog about it for a while, and I shall do soon, but meanwhile, here are some photos which I think are fitting for this time of year.

5 Photos of York Minster:

1. It's very grand outside, and we approached it through twisted cobbled streets, so it sort of leaped out at us - part of the city and there when you need it.

2. These are the Sempahore Saints by Terry Hammill - at the west end of the nave there are twelve headless saints spelling out 'Christ is here' with their haloes. These are the first six.

3. Loyalty in stone

4. The rose window in the south transept dates from about 1500 and commemorates the union of the royal houses of York and Lancaster. It combines the red and white roses and has a sunflower in the centre.

5. The choir screen features the kings of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VI. I'm not actually sure who these two are, but I love the grumpy expression of him on our right.

Canberra: An Ideal City?

Commonwealth of Australia Federal Capital Competition - Griffin winning entry

The restored pictures of Marion Mahoney Griffin's artwork for the design of Canberra are on display in the cafe at the National Archives and they make a fabulous backdrop to a chai latte. She and her husband, Walter Burley Griffin, won the design award for Australia's capital and it is thanks to them that Canberra looks largely the way it does.

"I have planned a city not like any other city in the world. I have planned an ideal city - a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future." - Walter Burley Griffin

View from Summit of Mt Ainslie by Marion Mahony Griffin, 1911

The information panels point out that Marion's renderings were infused with sepia and gold and captured the colours of Canberra's landscape. This is all the more remarkable as she had never been to Canberra and instead made the drawings at her home in Chicago in winter 1911. Doubtless she took into account Walter's effusive comments about the light.

"The morning and evening lights at Canberra are wonderful. The shadows of the clouds and the mists as they cross the mountains are very beautiful indeed."

City and Environs - the Griffin plan for Canberra, 1911

Marion Griffin was one of the first licensed female architects in the world and is considered an original member of the Prairie School (of whom Frank Lloyd Wright is the most famous proponent). She and Walter were also greatly influenced by the City Beautiful and Garden City movements. Lacking the cultural history, artefacts and monuments of Old World capitals, the Griffins’ Canberra showcased nature instead. They incorporated the local topography into their triangular design, using the feature hill - Kurrajong Hill (now called Capital Hill) - as a natural apex.

"I think in a new country like Australia, a beautiful architectural type adapted to the needs of the climate, and harmonising with the topography can be evolved. I believe in architecture that is the logical outgrowth of the environment." - Walter Burley Griffin

The Griffins complemented their landscape design with an architectural scheme for the city. Although they worked on the design together, and Marion provided all the artwork, the competition entry featured only Walter's name. Walter negotiated a three-year contract with the Australian government to remain in Australia and oversee the implementation of the plan. He felt, however, that it was compromised and he struggled with political and bureaucratic obstacles. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Griffin was under pressure to reduce the scope and scale of the plans due to the Government diverting funds towards the war effort.

Vision of Parliament House by Marion Mahony Griffin

The pace of building was slower than expected, partly because of a lack of funds and partly because of a dispute between Griffin and Federal government bureaucrats. The design also came under attack from other architects and the press. Rather than just adhering to the plans and the previously-made commitment, a Royal Commission determined that they had undermined Griffin's authority by supplying him with false data which he had used to carry out his work.

There was clearly a lot of rancour and Walter Burley Griffin resigned from the Canberra design project in December 1920. Many parts of his basic design were changed, and none of the buildings he designed for the capital were ever built.

Friday Five: Non-competitive pursuits

I think it's fair to say that I don't like reality TV. I have mentioned this before. One of my least favourite sub-genres is the competition variety. You know the type of thing, where people are pitted against each other to paint a room or build a wall and then someone wins and everyone at home thinks they could have done the same and the real decorators and stonemasons go out of business while general standards plummet.

Although I like the celebrity dancing ones (especially the ice-dancing one), I know I am no expert. This is not true of the people who routinely watch the singing shows and then feel free to critique performances about which they know nothing. It also means that we are left with chanteurs who think that to belt and warble is the epitome of 'singing' and we are left without subtlety, nuance or character. Bob Dylan or Florence Welch wouldn't make it through the first round.

With performance and artistic pursuits, a lot is left to personal preference - A might like sci-fi or farce; B might prefer romance or Jacobean drama; C might swoon at ballet and metaphysical poetry and so on. It doesn't mean any one is 'better' than the other - it just means they shouldn't be judged against each other. In 'pure' sport if you run fastest, jump highest or throw something furthest, you win. You are the best at that particular thing. Don't get me wrong, some things lend themselves to competition and this is a good thing (not keeping the score during football games because 'it's all about participation' is ridiculous!) but when subjectivity creeps in, nothing is so clear.

Acting, comedy and writing awards are often suspect. Yes, they are worth something when awarded by your peers, but often they are voted for by a partisan panel - the more friends you have in the audience; the more likely you are to win. These tributes might provide a feel-good factor, but they are relatively worthless. Entertainment is not a science; nor should it be a competition.

5 Things that should never be a competition:

1. Cooking - as far as I am concerned you either cook because it is your job and you are paid, or because it is a way of expressing love and friendship to those around you. Eat with me and know you are welcome. Do not judge the temperature of the soup or the slicing of the vegetables. I have prepared this gift for you in my own way.
2. Surgery - there will come a day when cameras go into operating theatres and viewers vote on who best wields the scalpel. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. Health is personal, although you wouldn't know it from those shows which 'expose' physical deformities and laugh at fat people. Some things should be conducted behind the curtained cubicle - pull yourself together.
3. Sex - it's personal and not up for discussion apart from between the relevant parties. According to late-night phone-ins (you hear a lot driving home from rehearsals) many people seem to be concerned about whether or not their sex-life is 'normal'. As long as you and your partner are happy with it, whatever you're doing, or not doing, is fine.
4. Raising children - I hate the use of nouns as verbs, so have resisted the urge to call it parenting. I'm sure it's pretty difficult to raise a child to be a reasonable and responsible human being. Just do your job and stop comparing yourself and your child to others. In some respects they're all the same; in others they're all different - don't bother worrying or boasting, and if you must do either, do it to yourself as no one else cares. Really.
5. Friendship/love - when I was little I used to refer to 'best friends'. Now I know that best is a superlative meaning 'of the most excellent or outstanding or desirable kind' there can only be one, by definition. I would now say I have many good or close friends - all of them special to me in individual ways and I love and admire them for their specific qualities. I would never try to rank one above the other. That's not how this love thing works.

Quote for Today: Fear

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Apart from pain. And maybe humiliation and obviously death. And failure. But apart from fear, pain and humiliation, failure and the unknown and death we have nothing to fear but fear itself." - Rimmer, Red Dwarf (Series X)

Friday Five: Strawberries

I made the discovery that our garden grows strawberries - it does it by itself, you understand, as I don't garden. If things thrive it's a lucky accident. This discovery has made me very happy, however, as they are my favourite fruit, and I have been thinking of ways to eat them.

5 Best Ways to Eat Strawberries:

1. As they are, washed with maybe a dusting of icing sugar and a dollop of cream
2. In summer pudding - the food of the gods and the ultimate dessert
3. Rhubarb and strawberry fool - a delicious fruit compote whipped with cream to make the fluffliest pink confection
4. Sorbet - the zing and tartness of the fruit with the ice-cold sweetness of the sorbet is the perfect blend
5. With waffles - ideal breakfast

I have not yet made these strawberry santas, but I'm so looking forward to doing so!

Books read in April 2012

The following are short reviews of the books that I read in April 2012. The marks I have given them in the brackets are out of five.

Caleb’s Crossing – Geraldine Brooks (3.5)
This novel is based upon the true story of the first Native American to go to Harvard, told through the narrative of Bethia Mayhew, a missionary’s daughter. Growing up on Martha’s Vineyard, Bethia rides her pony around the island and spies upon the Wampanoag tribe, fascinated by their painted faces and strange dances. She befriends Cheeshahteaumauck, nephew of the most powerful and aggressive paw-paw or shaman of the tribe. He calls her Storm-Eyes; she calls him Caleb, and they learn each other’s language and customs.

Bethia’s father attempts to convert the tribe, little realising that Bethia has already made inroads. Much to the anger of the shaman, he takes Caleb to raise him with his own son, Makepeace, and teach him Latin and Greek, preparatory to entering Harvard. Although Bethia is far brighter than her brother, as a girl reared in a Puritan family, she is forbidden from learning, and cannot maintain the same friendship with Caleb. Her plight is to be indentured as the men’s housekeeper in payment for Makepeace’s attendance at school, where she remains in contact with Caleb and his friends, while also eavesdropping on his lessons in her unquenched thirst for knowledge.

Two threads run through Bethia’s narrative. One is the water, and the other is Caleb. Fortunately Brooks avoids the modern storyteller’s habit of enforcing an anachronistic love-story, but their tales are nevertheless interwoven.

The novel is written in the form of fragmented diaries, which only pick up the story at random passages, and give it a disjointed feel. Perhaps because it is true and Brooks felt restrained by the facts, or perhaps because the narrative voice of the Puritan doesn’t allow for colour, but the novel is strangely uninspiring from a usually vivid author.

Percy Jackson and the Sea Monsters – Rick Riordan (3.7)
The second instalment of Percy Jackson’s adventures in the land of myths and Greek gods continues where the previous one left off. Percy (son of Poseidon) is happily playing basketball in his New York school gym when he is attacked by a race of giant cannibals (Laistrygonians) who live in the far north, possibly Canada. He is soon back at Camp Half-Blood, the summer camp for demi-gods where all is not so friendly as before and, like later terms at Hogwarts, there is an air of danger.

Chariot races take the place of Quidditch. They are a sport the children love but which are extremely dangerous and would never be allowed in the sanitised education department in which we live today.

Percy is sent on quests by Hermes, a shifty character dressed as a courier, who delivers messages, provides him with travelling equipment, tells him stories and is surprised when Percy wants them to have a moral. “Goodness, you act like it’s a fable. It’s a true story. Does truth have a moral?”

Percy must sail through the Sea of Monsters, through which all heroes sail on their adventures. It used to be in the Mediterranean but now the power of Western Civilization has shifted to the United States (with Mount Olympus being above the Empire State Building, and Hades being under Los Angeles), the Sea of Monsters is off the east coast – the Bermuda Triangle, where weird things happen that mortals can’t explain. He battles many mythical beasts such as hydra in a Florida swamp, and the Gray sisters in a taxi. He encounters pirate ships manned by skeleton ghosts, Edward Teach (Blackbeard) who likes celery, Circe turning men into guinea pigs, Cyclops, sirens, Charybdis and Scylla, the Golden Fleece, and man-eating sheep.

Percy is again assisted by Annabeth (daughter of Athena), Tyson (Percy’s half-brother and actually a Cyclops) and Clarisse (daughter of Ares) in his attempts to find and release his friend Grover, the satyr. All the children are trying to win the admiration, or even simply the attention, of their God-like parents while the Gods have to act indirectly and cannot intervene every time their child is in trouble. With echoes of Tolstoy, Riordan writes, “Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy.”

The novel is fast-paced and narrated in a relaxed, humorous style, full of mythological references and throw-away lines. Mostly it is perfectly pitched to provide entertainment with a sprinkling of education and is a fine sequel. I’m still looking forward to reading the next one.

The Gathering – Anne Enright (3.9)
When Liam Hegarty’s body is found washed ashore at Brighton, it falls to his sister, Veronica, to break the news to their mother. She is one of seemingly endless children (I think there are nine) and the whole family congregates for the wake and funeral. Veronica was closest in age and sentiment to her alcoholic brother, and his loss throws her into a reverie in which she remembers her childhood and reflects how unhappy she is with her present domestic situation: estranged husband; two daughters.

Veronica reinvents her past and it is important to her that she tells her story well. She is obsessed with sex and how people’s bodies fit together, which strikes the reader as awkward – imagining one’s grandparents having sex (in graphic detail) is not comfortable. Themes of sex (as opposed to love), abuse, children and procreation, are thrust upon us throughout the novel.

The novel has that blindingly brilliant but increasingly irritating Irish literature style of recording every minor detail. There are random asides and semantic tangents that lead to cul-de-sacs, like Virginia Woolf or, yes, I’m afraid it must be said, James Joyce. Veronica allows herself to be easily distracted by wordplay, and, in trying to comment on all minutiae, she can run out of specifics and trails off into vagueness. Although she makes constant perceptive comments, you begin to wonder how discerning these are, or whether they are just another device to distract you from the fact that there isn’t actually a story.

Waiting for Sunrise – William Boyd (3.6)
Waiting for Sunrise begins in Vienna in 1913 with elements of psychology and seduction, but it soon becomes a First World War spy thriller along the lines of John Buchan or John Le Carré. The switches between the two genres can cause disorientation, but the plot twists are intriguing enough to keep the pages turning.

Lysander Rief is an actor, like his famous father before him. The novel commences as he walks into an appointment with a psychiatrist, Dr Bensimon, whom he (and presumably his fiancée, Blanche) hopes will be able to help him with his anorgasma (failure to reach climax during sex). Dr Bensimon suggests parallelism as a cure. His theory, which is discredited in a mocking cafe scene by Freud, posits that we can change our past by inventing new memories. “The world is in essence neutral – flat, empty, bereft of meaning and significance. It’s us, our imaginations, that make it vivid, fill it with colour, feeling purpose and emotion. Once we understand this we can shape our world in any way we want. In theory.”

And therein lies the essence of the novel, as nothing is as it seems and pretence is everywhere. Vienna (and London as it transpires) is, “So nice and so pleasant, everybody smiling politely, nobody farting or picking their nose. But below the surface the river is flowing dark and strong. The river of sex.” Everything is a facade, created for maximum effect, from the poses of actors to the disguises of spies.

The war changes things beyond recognition. While it may appear unlikely that a mild-mannered actor can become embroiled in secret codes, torture and blackmail, these are interesting times. The “dislocation and sudden rupture” of war casts him in a new light, placing an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. The novel is extremely readable, offering personal insight alongside the thrilling tale.

Friday Five: Cricket

When I was a child, I couldn't see the point of cricket. Perhaps, even worse than that I resented it for the fact that it took up my parents' time; time which could have been far more profitably spent lavished on me.

My mother would have the television on with the sound off while every radio in the house was tuned to the commentary and if a six was hit or a wicket fell, she would hurry to the front room to watch the replay in pictures. My father enjoyed live cricket from Australia - usually atop a ladder in the middle of the night as he worked his way endlessly around the house painting the windows while wearing a headtorch.

I first started to realise its true value in the days before all-day Sunday drinking. Him Outdoors would take me to the local cricket club where we could lounge on a grassy bank all afternoon and decadently drink cider. This was the start of my conversion. It continued through local league, county cricket and international tests, culminating in the 2005 Ashes Series.

The roles were reversed as I watched live cricket from England through the wee hours of the New Zealand night biting my fingernails to the quick while watching some of the finest cricketers perform outstanding feats with bat and ball. And we won, which helped. I was hooked.

I am not a nerdy stat geek by any means. I remember moments and personalities rather than numbers and records. Of course there are now several variants on the game - the ODIs and the 20/20s - but it's still the tests that really excite me, and it's still the ones between England and Australia that I will willingly waste a whole week watching.

5 Things I Love About Cricket:

1. It's an entirely legitimate waste of time. Tell someone you spent five days lying on a sofa and they will think you are an invalid or a sloth; tell someone you spent five days watching cricket and they will at worst think you are obsessive. I get it now, mum and dad; all is forgiven.
2. Tradition - from the village green to the pitch at Lords, there is something comforting and familiar about all that history and all that sport being played to specific rules. I still don't understand at least half of said rules, but somehow this doesn't seem to hamper my enjoyment one jot!
3. The commentary - those guys (and sadly, as yet, there are no women in the commentary box) know what they're talking about, and most of them say it very entertainingly. Even more amusing are the times when they get distracted by someone's haircut or a nice piece of fruit cake.
4. The ebb and flow - when I was young and ignorant I used to be very frustrated by the fact that no one could definitively answer the question, 'who's winning?'. Now that I'm older (although I make no claim to be less ignorant) I love the fluidity of the game, revelling in the way the upper hand is often perceived rather than qualified. I don't even mind when it all ends in a draw.
5. The sound - from the gentle applause that greets the crack of leather on willow, to the raucous chants of the Barmy Army and the strains of Jerusalem on the trumpet, it couldn't be anything but cricket.