Les Boulots

It never rains but it pours.

Feast, or famine?

After trying ridiculously hard to find a semi-professional part-time job, I get two offers within two days. What can I do? Take them both, I guess; work full-time hours, juggle my life and see which is the better option. Although they are both sales roles, they are very different in nature: one is based almost locally and will involve little travel, whereas the other is for a US-CIS startup with the potential for unpleasant amounts of business trips.

What are your thoughts, dear reader?

Au revoir chômage

Being a chômeur sounds so much more romantic that being on the dole, le chômage more productive and - somehow - more interesting than being unemployed. And, frankly, I've quite enjoyed it. Moonface likes my more relaxed nature, likes the way her life is smoothed by my being around more. And a French friend who hadn't seen me for more than a year, said that I looked younger than she remembered me. It must be the stresslessness. Yes.

And now, it's coming to an end. But, I hope, (and here I touch wood) in a perfect fashion - a part-time but stimulating and possibly professional job. It will give me the chance to work from home some of the time, to do a little travelling, to maintain my biological knowledge, and will give me the reason to pick up a couple of words of a new language. So let's hope for the best, plan for the worst, and work as needed and not much more.

Hay Bluff

Escaping for the weekend, we returned to Hay Bluff expecting the area to be full of vans staying for the Literary Festival in Hay, this week. Instead, it was empty, so ours was the only eyesore spoiling the view over the Welsh Marches.

We walked on Saturday, about 20km, with a wonderful mixture of terrains. On a massive loop, we started by climbing the Bluff along Offa's Dyke, walking the frontier between England and Wales. We had views of miles in all directions, then descended into the valey below the Black Hill. This was where Bruce Chatwin's novel "Under the Black Hill" was set, and the movie was filmed locally as well. We passed a beautiful spring gushing from the mountain and drank straight from the rock.

Then we followed an old bridleway or sheep-trod to loop back on ourselves, walking the boundary between moorland and farms, crossing fords every few hundred yards to return eventually to our car-park. Then we slept, and as we did so the weather changed, with a cold wet wind coming to meet us after the brilliantly bright day. And so, reckoning that Hay would be full of visitors and that its four pubs would be packed, we returned home to Bristol.

Ben Nevis

After the euphoria of helping my father to climb Snowdon I have no wish to return there (nor has Moonface) but we feel that we need some new physical goal to meet for our walking. So, as we know that long-distance walks are not challenging for us any more, even though they are so enjoyable, we need a little extra.

Ben Nevis! Scotland's highest mountain.

Yes, I know that the Three Peaks runners can ascend this, Sca Fell and Snowdon in just 24 hours, but I'm not that ambitious. It's fifty percent more ascent than Snowdon and considerably steeper in places, so it will be a proper exercise for us. And now with a van to sleep in and take us there, the logistics of the 500-mile journey become much easier. Later this year, perhaps?

Daughters

Daughters can be hard work. We headed for a pub on Thursday evening, at the desperate request of a friend whose sixteen-year-old daughter is giving her grief, by staying out overnight and not answering her mobile phone. Friend needed someone to talk to and -being a single mother - some adult company for a change. What can she do? Her daughter refuses to give her the boyfriend's address, or even his name, and there is no way of forcing the girl to divulge the information. So she's sent the girl to her grandmother for a week, but that is leading to resentment and arguments.

We were joined by another couple. Their nineteen-year-old is sulky, uncommunicative and unco-operative, hardly speaking a word to her parents. They are upset because this girl has just refused to attend a family wedding in favour of a mate's party. Both girls have exams in a month's time. I wonder if that has anything to do with their moods?

Porklet has been a model of good behaviour in comparison, I guess. That is, apart from the odd spot of drunken damage. I don't think that we're any better parents than the others; one of whom is fairly strict, and the other less so but very moral; so I suppose that it's down to luck and genes and the girls' choices of friends.

Sounds of Summer

My father's going steadily deafer; it's noticeable how he finds it difficult to join in conversations, these days. He first remarked upon it when he was about my age, so I suppose that I should worry about my own hearing, but much of his ear damage was caused by gunfire during the war.
Even so, I do find that noisy pubs and clubs make it difficult to pick out a single thread of conversation amongst the general background hubbub.

But it's birdsong that I would miss as much as anything else. I can hear a blackbird singing outside in the garden now, and it's just so relaxing. Some birds just spell out summer and their song can instantly make me feel better. Urban swifts, screaming high above us on a late summer evening; larks in clear blue sky on moorland; robins competing with each other in hedges.

And now, listening, I can pick out others from the city traffic and the rumble of the occasional lorry: there is the "tseep" of tits and a couple of wood-pigeons hooting to themselves. They make living in the city much better.

Llanberis

Whilst in Llanberis to join my father on his pilgrimage to climb Snowdon, I knew that the town reminded me of another place, but I could not work out where it was. Not Britain, not Europe.

It wasn't so much the appearance of the town that was giving me deja-vu, so much as its feel, an atmosphere. It used to be an industrial town, with slate quarries and railways and Victorian tourism. Now all that's left is the tourism, with visitors coming here for just a day or two so the shops are closing, and the restaurants have to make a living on two or three days' business a week, mainly in summer. The local youths seem aimless, yet there are plenty of incomers who have arrived for the mountain sports which are based here.

Then I realised where Llanberis reminded me of: Tofino on Vancouver Island, 300km north of Victoria, at the back-end of nowhere. Both towns have an industrial past (Tofino's was in fishing and processing whale-meat) and yet both are now totally dependent upon tourism for income. Both are water-side towns as well, although llanberis lake does not compare with Tofino's outlook onto the north Pacific Ocean. And in some ways there is irony in their tourism; Llanberis was built by the slate quarries that destroyed huge chunks of mountain and now all the visitors are here to climb those mountains, Tofino's visitors are there to watch the whales that its early inhabitants did their best to eradicate.

And, let's face it, I don't really want to return to either of those little sad towns.

Snowdon (2007; 82)

He made it. After seventy-five years of having missed out on a childhood adventure, my father finally climbed Snowdon. He found it hard, and at times his face was yellow with exhaustion and he had to sit down to rest, but he climbed the highest mountain in Wales, then walked down again. At eighty-two, that's an achievement.

The weather wasn't perfect for his climb. Although there was sun in the valley, the temperature was cool and there was a strong wind. As we reached the summit ridge, we entered cloud and it became cold. At the very top, there were squalls of hail with a wind so strong that Alan had to scramble the last few metres to the cairn on his hands and knees. Taking the photograph at the summit felt dangerous, as standing was difficult so I had to brace myself against the force of the gale.

And the descent was worse in some ways. The train that normally runs to the summit of Snowdon on its rack system, was not operating so that we had no option but to take Alan down to the next station by foot. He needed to rest on a couple of occasions, and had a cramp in his leg which delayed him for some minutes. However, after recovering, he successfully arrived in Llanberis again, as happy as I have known him for years, but looking tired and worn.

(more later)

Newts

It rained on Sunday. It pissed down all day, consistently, without break, heavily. The streets were running with water where the drains and gutters had overflowed, and cars hissed by spraying passers-by as they drove. We felt cooped up, hemmed in, unable to get out to enjoy ourselves.

Then just before nightfall, there was a break in the clouds, blue sky broke through, and we were able to get outside for a stretch.

I wandered into the garden in bare feet, and peered into the pond, much fuller than normal after several days' downpours.

There were newts suspended in the water, motionless, spread-eagled, still. They looked like miniature dragons hanging in space, waiting for an eternity. They hung there, crystallised in the clear water, little saw-toothed backs menacing the surface above them, tiny spatulate toes pointing in all directions. Then they saw my shadow andbwriggled rapidly down beneath the weeds and out of view.




[A joke:

Have I shown you my pet newt, Tiny?

Why do you call him Tiny?

Because he's my newt! ]

Foxes

There's no point in my looking guilty about that poor fox; I did it.
In my defence, foxes are horrid pests, both in town and in the country.

But their numbers don't appear to be dropping, as since returning to Bristol from that weekend, I have seen two of the mangy animals walking unconcerned along our street, and another one walked through a friend's garden whilst we were eating a meal, and stopped to watch us as we in turn regarded it. Then it loped off, unpeturbed.

The urban foxes are different from the country foxes, though. Townies tend to be thinner and more watchful, and they are usually a different colour. Instead of a rich russet red, these are more a tawny black. Whether this colour gives them better camouflage in town, I don't know. Perhaps it's their diet of discarded kebabs, chips and chicken bones that does it. The one I saw returning from the pub last night certainly looked as if it was eating chips.

Musée d'Orsay 1

And the sculptures!

What are they for? I like nudes, paintings and sculptures, but there is a difference between a positive appreciation of the human body, and the exploitation of the image for purely sexual purposes. And I thought that many of the 19C sculptures, wonderful as they are, cross that line into pornography rather than eroticism or celebration of form.

Take the life-size marble figure above - created by Auguste Clesinger in 1847. The subject may nominally be "A Woman bitten by an Asp", but it's just porn. It's great representation, but the choice of posture and figure is (in my mind) exploitative. The woman is bent backwards in agony but in a position indistinguishable from ecstasy. It's dishonest art.

There were many statues with a similar undertone of exploitation,both of male and female figures that made me feel rather queasy. And yet, and yet....

In the same way that the over detailed accuracy of the establishment's salon art created the counter-movement of impressionism, I feel that this near -porn helped the reaction of sculptors like Maillot, whose blocky throwbacks to Mycenean art echo the two-dimensional Impressionists. And in many ways, his work is more erotic than the hyper-realism which he started to supplant.

Musée d'Orsay 2

I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago, for an interview. As I had a couple of hours to spare, I grabbed the opportunity to visit the Musée d'Orsay for the first time. Hmmm. The museum concentrates upon 19th century French art, and I found it interesting and illuminating rather than exciting.

Prior to touring the Musée d'Orsay, I thought that I had a very strong preference for Victorian representational art over all other types, but this visit started to change my mind. There was a special exhibition of Jules Bastien-Lepage's art, which disappointed me. His depiction of rural scenes was too accurate, too lifelike, too photo-like. And like photographs, some pictures looked as if they had been altered post hoc. Peasants' faces looked as if they had been painted after the rest of the composition, as if they had been beamed in from a different era, almost Photoshopped onto the rural scenery. Yes, the pictures were accurate, yes, they showed both the wonder and the hardship of country life with much less romanticism than the equivalent English paintings, but somehow they showed little soul. They made me realise how Impressionism could start as a reaction to the formalism of this dead representation; how less could start to be more, how painstaking accuracy could be supplanted by blobs and blends to give life to art.

Next visit to Paris, I'll try the Orangerie.

Bristol

There are some occasions which remind you how pleasant it is to live here.

Last week, while the good weather lasted, it happened twice. I walked into the city centre one evening to meet friends & go to the Thekla (qv), arranging to see them first at a newish bar by the waterfront. The location was Mediterranean in feel. We had a table on a low balcony overlooking the water, with the sun shining on the racing sculls rowing past us. Further away were the painted narrow-boat homes moored by the docks, the Georgian terraces of Redcliffe, and the spire of the church. It was quiet, peaceful, beautiful and warm. I drank wine and enjoyed the city.

Then, when we were ready, we walked the hundred or so yards to the Thekla, for loud noisy entertainment. Walking back home was stimulating, seeing the dozens of bars full of people enjoying themselves, then leaving the centre for the climb over Cotham to the sleepy inner suburbs. Magic.

Hunting

There must be some atavistic urge which makes boys throw stones. It's fun, it's competitive, and I suppose that in the past an ability to throw stones far and accurately had a strong survival value.

Adult men like throwing stones, as well. It's difficult to walk along a beach without picking up pebbles to throw in the sea.and as for the challenge of skipping flat stones on lakes or pools; that's and activity as difficult to resist as a second cider on a sunny day.

When I was a boy, like so many others, I was indiscriminate about what I threw stones at. Not windows, or rarely. Animals and birds, until I was told not to. Other boys, until I was smacked. Trees, shrubs; anything could be a target. I still like chucking stones, and I find that it's hard to stop myself from throwing them at big birds like crows or gulls. I nearly always miss, of course, because I choose to target birds too far away to hit.

But on Sunday something happened.
We were walking in a large group near the Quantocks, with myself and another bloke out in front. There was a strong wind, and the two of us were walking quickly uphill, silent because of the effort of striding up the slope. Now I can't justify what happened, but when a healthy adolescent fox ran out across the entrance to a field, just ahead of us, something happened. I was grabbed by an impulse to hunt it, so I stooped, grabbed a couple of smooth round stones, and threw. The first one missed completely, but the noise of the wind disguised the sound of the stone and my grunt of effort, so the fox trotted on regardless. My second stone hit it on its skull, and it dropped on the spot.

I felt simultaneously guilty and proud. My companion was astonished, and Moonface was appalled when she caught up with us a few seconds later. I didn't know what to do with the presumed corpse, so I assumed that it was too badly injured to live, and delivered a coup de grace.

It's a mercy that foxes are a pest and unprotected; I don't know how I would have felt if it had been any other animal that I had attacked.

See?

The Thekla

I went to the Thekla on Thursday, for the first time since it was refurbished. It's now a really good club, with the fore-hold extended to provide a good auditorium or dancefloor and an extended bar. For an old hulk of a freighter, it's pretty good. There's atmosphere and good acoustics, which is surprising since the hull is still just painted steel with no absorbent coverings.

And of course, it has its own Banksy artwork on the port side. Typically of Bristol, the port side of the ship is not to port. And so starboard is.

The bands were good, including as usual the support, outdoing the main act by a good margin. Jacob Fletcher: listen to him and his neat team of trumpet and strings.

The Lake

The swimming lake reopened at the weekend, so after returning from Liverpool in the unseasonal warmth, I went to try it. The level was much higher that during last year's dry period, but below the flod levels that we experienced in January (above)

Agh, but it was cold. 12.5C, 55F, but I did swim, albeit for only 200m. The swimmers were the usual types: teenagers in wetsuits diving and splashing and having fun, and the grey and saggy oldies (I guess I count as one of them) who were bravely enduring the cold and steadily stroking their way along the length of the lake.

But it's wonderful to be swimming again this early in the season. Usually it's July before I dare to brave the water.

Spanish Geordies

Maximo Park's lead singer, Paul Smith, looks like another Spanish Geordie to me.

The Tyne Valley area has a high proportion of dark-haired, saturnine-looking people who contrast with the fair and ginger Scots to the North, and the other mainly blonde northern English. This is supposedly because Hadrian's Wall was manned by Iberian troops seconded there, all of sixteen hundred years ago, and they settled. Blood and DNA tests have confirmed that there is a strong Spanish component to their heritage, and local dialect maintains the link; for example the word "netty" for toilet is derived from "gabinetta", or so they say.

Certainly a good many famous Geordies have the dark Mediterranean look to them, such as Bryan Ferry (above), Jimmy Nail, and the near-forgotten Paul Jones. And, as I said, Paul Smith.

Maxïmo Park

Maxïmo Park played to a full venue at the Academy last night, and in terms of enthusiasm, action and audience participation, the gig was the best that Moonface & I have attended there for some time. Compared with the lacklustre noodlings of Guillemots and Amy Winehouse's doped-up toneless voice, Maxïmo Park were full of energy and verve.

The singer, Paul Smith, has stage presence that holds the audience and pulls it to him. I've never seen so many fat adolescent girls jumping around so madly. He leaps and bounds and wings around the microphone like no other singer I've seen since Mick Jagger in the early 70's. The crown in the mosh-pit sang and swayed and danced like puppets. There was crowd-surfing and fainting, keeping the security busy hauling bodies out of the crush. Fainting girls were helped left, to be returned to the back of the hall; whereas surfing boys were marched right, to be thrown out through the emergency exits. Whether they managed re-entry or not, I don't know.

Smith's costume was smart. With a bowler hat, black suit and t-shirt, he looked like a negative version of Alex from "A Clockwork Orange", especially with his conspiratorial smile and knowing manner. The pianist is rake-thin, was dressed in a white cardigan, and moved like a marionette with an inattentive operator, all splayed legs and jerky arms, frequently drooping over his keyboards as if stoned. I don't think he was.

Overall,the are a fine band. And the support, Das Wanderlust, was almost equally fine. I'll try to see them again.