A visit to a lost civilisation

R.I.P. GNER, Britain's best railway co. No more shall I luxuriate in your comfortable first class seats and enjoy your delicious lunches cooked by your on-board chef. Farewell, real coffee in real china cups and endless free cake. Alas, from the end of the year, a different co. will transport us up the East Coast and, although the views will be the same, nothing else will.
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It may surprise some of my readers to learn that south of here is an ancient and decaying city, called London, and that, without even a visa, I was able to visit it. Such an eye-opener. There is sunshine. There is the possibility of bed sans hotwater bottle. There are hostile natives with shaven heads and ugly dogs. There is Bluewater, a vast temple complex dedicated to the goddess of shopping. Above all, there are friends. And it was worth every second of my 19-hour trip home to see them. So thank you: Simon, for meeting me at Kings Cross; Ian and Sue for arranging great meal in brilliant pub (quick plug for Doom Bar, Cornwall's award-winning ale) (I'd give the pub a plug if I could remember its name); to the England rugby team for beating the French while I was in said pub; to Isabel and Maria-Elena for a lovely day together; to Lucy for a great day's shopping and excellent style advice; to Cheryl for coffee, cake and nice long natter and to Cath and Adrian for a great weekend in Hastings with great home-cooked food and a memorable long walk. I feel blessed.

I have decided that it is time to reclaim the word 'culture' for them as enjoys a trip to the theatre, as opposed to the post-modern meaning of 'lifestyle choice' as in 'chav culture', 'culture of violence' etc. So this paragraph is dedicated to culture - and if you're allergic to it, skip now... When I wasn't seeing friends, getting my hair done, going to the dentist, giving up my allotment (sad one, that) I was in London, enjoying the sort of stuff I should have enjoyed when actually living and working there. I saw the terracotta warriors exhibition at the British Museum. This was fab - quite small, but thus you were able to concentrate on what was there instead of feeling overwhelmed. They are big! About 6 foot, and all different - different armour, different faces revealing various ethnicities. They stand, or drive chariots, or kneel, bow and arrow in hand. As well as warriors, the first emperor had other armies: an army of civil servants, for instance. They've just found an artificial river, with beautifully detailed life-size bronze birds, and musicians serenading them. They haven't even started excavating the main burial mound, where the actual tomb is. There was a big projected message: 'none of this will be excavated in our lifetime' which made me feel rather sad. I want to know! Actually, they will probably never excavate it, as that megalomaniac tyrant is regarded as the sacred founder of China.

I went to see 'Macbeth' at the Gielgud, with Patrick Stewart in the title role. He was awfully good. It was done in 20th c. dress - sort of Great War trench-coats crossed with Nazi uniforms. It opened in a field hospital, the 'bloody man' being wheeled in on a stretcher, tended by 3 nurses who turned into witches once the royal party had left and promptly murdered the poor sod. The banquet where Macbeth can't sit down because Banquo's ghost keeps getting in the way was done as a sort of social-climbers' dinner-party, the witches in attendance as catering crew. I'm not sure how they did the end because I fell asleep - always my problem in an overheated theatre.

Highlight was 'Carmen' at the Coliseum, directed by Sally Potter, who directed 'Orlando.' I'm not an opera fan, but I love 'Carmen.' It was really interesting to see how film director tackles a stage work. She used a gauze screen a lot of the time, so you had filmed images of people in the streets or of prostitutes in doorways and behind that you could see the chorus. I'm not sure why she turned the girls who work in the cigarette factory into prostitutes, tho' from what I used to hear about some of the factory hands in Nottingham, it was a thin line... Potter was criticised for making the opera 'not Spanish enough' but I loved some of the things she did e.g. to fit the toreador business in with the modern setting, she had all the chorus 'off to sunny Spain' (now you'll have 'E Viva Espana' on the brain for the next week - quick! replace it with 'the Toreador's song.' Hmm, maybe not...) and buying pot donkeys with flower vase panniers and sombreros. So it was great, except for Carmen herself who looked like Nigella Lawson in a slip and who was just not sexy. You couldn't believe any man would sacrifice his seat on the bus for her, let alone his life. To symbolise her freedom (Potter sees her as representing a free life v/v a conventional one) she was barefoot. And pen-toed. Outsize feet, too. But everything else was wonderful.

My house is fine. The tenant is looking after it ok. A couple of things disturbed me: returning from London early evening, I found he's gone out leaving open big windows at front and back (and a sign saying 'burglars welcome') and the hot tap on full. Less disturbing, if rather weird, was the discovery that he's taken my invitation to treat the house as his own by wearing my dressing gown.

I managed to miss the train coming back and dear GNER (see obituary above) gave me a free first class travel voucher all the way to Aberdeen. Setting off an hour later than planned meant I nearly missed the ferry. They let me on just as they were pulling up the gangplank. I'll try not to do that again. Being glared at by half-a-dozen ferrymen was an unnerving experience. To quote PG Wodehouse, "it's not difficult to differentiate between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine."