Wednesday Window - Paris Winter Fashions

I was rather surprised not so see this shop filled with everyday Parisian people buying this practical winter clothing.
Actually I'm pretty much at a loss to imagine the type of person who might shop there. Would you?

Quick Filler Post

I forgot to prepare something for today's post so I just finished breakfast (and cleaned the marmalade, toast crumbs and coffee out of my moustache) and decided to take a close-up of my hairy appendage as it's almost the end of Movember.

Holy crap! have you seen those things enlarged to the size of a 27" monitor? No WAY am I subjecting your sensitive eyes to such horrors. The sooner that monster gets shaved off my face the better.

Brr … I shudder in icky horror.

WTF Monday - Moustache Madness

Thank whatever god you want to pick for the fact that Movember and its associated moustacherie madness ends this week.

Having shaved off my ridiculous goatee years ago (it went the way of the ponytail and the stupid pointy sideburns - sheesh, what was I thinking?) I now find that my facial hair grows a resplendent Santa White and so I resemble not so much a moustachio'ed lothario as a fat man who's been eating doughnuts and has sugar all round his mouth.

Yes, I'm in Mum's kitchen and baking a cake. Mum is the local cakey expert and her oven is considerably less knackered than mine so I borrowed both it and her expertise for my cake. It's for the office Christmas Bake-Off (like a jerk off but with slightly tastier results).

My cake is having a nice rest at the moment and regularly imbibing Guinness and fine brandy. When it's ready for its big prom date I'll photograph the finished article and do a "What's Cooking With Dive?" post, as I've not done one of those for yonks.
I'll be giving Gerry next door a course on Indian regional cookery over the next few weeks so a cookery post or two might pop out of that, too.
Tis the season to eat way too much and end up as fat as me.

And yes, that teeshirt is as close as grouchy Old Dive will ever get to the Christmas spirit.

Twin Peaks

Dammit! Why did I have to come up with that phrase to describe the photo? Now I've got my old Audrey Horne ache again.
Sigh …
Well, nothing for it but to drag out the DVDs and indulge in a little Audrey Hornery.

Happy Sunday from a middle-aged, late November kind of place.

Saturday Statuary - Arse

Would somebody be so kind as to explain just what the heck is going on here?

A Pox On Window Reflections

Yesterday's sunset (mid-afternoon in these latitudes) spoiled by the reflections of the office lights, dammit.
It was actually a lot spiffier than it looks here.

Happy Thanksgiving, Colonial People. Enjoy your Turkey.

Give thanks that you don't have to eat this stuff as well …
(Many thanks to engrish.com for years of breakfast-time giggles).

Wednesday Wall

Ah, the dictates of fickle fashion.
M&S have put up a green wall on their spiffy new extension.

I thought I'd better snap a pic before the whole thing dies and drops off.
These things cost an absolute fortune to install and maintain and they could get the same effect with a couple of ivy plants.
Green roofs are great. I've put a whole load of those on buildings, but green walls are a royal pain in the arse and never last.
I'll keep you informed with increasingly sad photos over the coming months.

Temporary green walls, on the other hand, can be fun. This one was at the National Gallery the last time I was in London.

In case you didn't guess, it's supposed to be a van Gogh.

Turkey, Schmurkey

I've got nothing to post today so I'll do the usual Thanksgiving week thing and insult my Colonial friends.
Yay for Natalie Dee for my regular morning giggle.
And here's my own take on Thanksgiving (or at least what I took it to be back in 2006).

Have a spiffy week (unless you're a turkey).

WTF Monday - Poor, Poor Purcell

This should really belong in a Saturday Statuary post but it is in truth so godawful a shambles of a sculpture that it ended up here.
For fuck's sake, what was going on in the sculptor's mind? Did he hate Purcell that much?
At least the authorities placed it right opposite New Scotland Yard so it stands a good chance of being blown up by terrorists. Put it way up on your list of things to avoid seeing in London.

Purcell is worth so much more …






I can never resist the opportunity of posting Andreas Scholl videos, especially "What Power Art Thou" (the second one) with it's devastating "Let me"s in the "Let me freeze again to death" line.

At least Purcell's glorious music lives on even if the sculpture sucks fat, hairy arse.

Sunday Bondage In The Park

Saturday Statuary - I Can See Your House From Up Here

One of many King Georges (I can never be bothered to find out which but there have been way too many of the buggers) attempts nonchalance while sticking a sword in his foot.
One of a series of spectacularly dumb statues dotted around Westminster.

Breakfast With Daryl

Go on. Click this link. You know you want to.
What could be finer than having Daryl and his band play you their new album live as you sit in your own chair sipping coffee?
That's just what I did before heading out into the world this morning, and I'm much happier for it.

Enjoy … and also discover a strange factoid about Brian Eno.

It Gets Dark So Damned Early These Days

In another month it will be dark at half-three up here in the frozen north. I long to hibernate through these most depressing three months of the year. But at least I get some eye candy when I walk out of the office after work. Yesterday afternoon this is what greeted me from the car park. The spire of the Cathedral all lit up gold behind the stair turret of Pull's Ferry makes it look vaguely Disney.

Gnarly Brick

No reason. I just saw this as I walked past and thought "Ooooh, gnarly!"

Accidentals

I'm sure we all have loads of these. Photos of the inside of a bag or the sky at a funny angle or - as in this case - the floor of a café.

And so begins another in the interminable series of occasional posts that require no real input from my lazy-assed brain: photos that my camera has taken without me knowing it.

It's amazing how desperate and boring one can get when the inspiration to write doesn't come.

WTF Monday - You Really Don't Want To Go In There …

Seems like everybody's in Paris except me, dammit! Colin and Linda are over there for a long weekend and sent this back via Colin's phone (hence the fuzzies).

In case anyone needs confirmation that old men like to giggle at schoolboy humour, here's Colin in Rome, adhering to the dictum, "When in Rome, do what the Romans do: pee in the fountains and make little girls flee for their lives."
Or something.
Rome is currently bracing itself for Phil and Colin's next visit in February. Probably a good time to stay out of Italy if you don't want to get caught up in this type of behaviour. They'll be taking over comedy duties from Berlusconi.

We may grow older but we're damned well never going to grow up.
Happy Monday.

A Fifty-Three Year Old Man Writes …

A huge thank you to Speedway.
I awoke this morning to find I was fifty-three years old.
Aww, crap …
I was somewhat surprised that I didn't start screaming as soon as consciousness allowed, but no; my reaction was more of a "meh …"
Oh, well, what the hell. Another year closer to blesséd oblivion.

And so, stumbling around the house like a zombie with a half-grown Frank Zappa moustache, and groaning like Grandpa Simpson I arrived at the downstairs Mac, coffee in hand, to find a birthday greeting from our Speedway in my email inbox.

Of course I clicked on the link. What unalloyed delight!



I've admired the genius of Florence Foster-Jenkins for many a decade, but to be woken and serenaded by her on my birthday was … well, let's just say that this is probably the best thing an opera buff living on his own can wake up to in the morning, so my gratitude overflows copiously in Speedway's general direction.
I laughed so hard at the high notes that I couldn't eat breakfast.
And I dare say Mozart giggles in his grave whenever anyone plays this.



Here's how it SHOULD be done: the beautiful (even in that Star Trek wig) Diana Damrau giving it to Dorothea Röschmann's Pamina in Colin Davis' glorious adaptation of die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (the one with Simon Keenlyside as Papageno - a regular rainy Sunday DVD treat over at my house … come on over).

Saturday Statuary - Pick A Hat

Hokay, so the choice isn't great and they're not going to keep your head dry, but to be offered a free hat by an angel with her boobies out is as pleasant a start to a museum visit as any.

Welcome to the Carnavalet. Pick a hat and then enjoy the splendidly chaotic gallimaufry of the museum that gives you the entire history of Paris in as messy a mélange as the real thing.
I love the place.

Friday Filler

So anyhoo …
I've been moved around the building a little as they've been trying to sort us out into teams who no longer have to shout right across the room.

This is my new workstation. My old one was four places to the left and back one, looking out at the Castle, but now I'm right in the middle at the front of the building and get to look at the Cathedral.
Yay!

Yes, that's Pont Neuf on my desktop. I'm still jonesing for Paris after our cancelled office trip and it's a heavy hint dropped to the partners.

 The view out of my window is some compensation, however. I make no apology for boring you with endless photos of the same scene. It's just kinda spiffy. My last office looked out at the wall of Francine(no apostrophe)s Pie Shop and the one before that gave me a splendid view of a London traffic jam, so indulge me a little.

 We were treated to a sunshower at sunset yesterday. These photos are straight out of the camera, by the way; I've not enhanced them at all. It was a truly orange experience. If I'd brought the big camera with a polarising filter it would have been even more extreme.
But I didn't.

The orange stuff falling out of the clouds is a light rain shower catching the rays of the setting sun. The rain kept washing across the sky in waves of … er … orange, and we all stood and gaped for a few minutes. Beautiful stuff.

So … that's where I sit now. Just so you know.

One For Vanda

If you have to ask you probably wouldn't want to know …

Wednesday Window - Foie Gras 'N' Knives R Us

Paris boasts some delightful shop window displays … and also some creepy and unsavoury ones.

Hey Ho

Here's a splendid article from yesterday's Guardian.

Meanwhile, In A Hobo Camp By The River …

Oh, lardycakes.

I like my boss. Don't get me wrong. He appears - outwardly at any rate - to be as sane as the next man, though that of course depends on who is standing beside him.
Any sane man, however, when faced with the concept of "Movember" would hold their head in their hands and groan with despair. My boss, however, pipes up with, "What a splendid idea! Come on, chaps! Let's do it as a team!" (Note: when your boss starts speaking with exclamation marks it's time to hide under your desk).

And so - with depressing inevitability - I get in to the office after the weekend to find a bunch of middle-aged men enthusiastically comparing stubble like a gang of four year olds playing Top Trumps.
We even have a name, God help us. The boss (again) messed around with the company name and came up with Team Furry And … er … Manly.
Yes, you read that right.
This is a man who it seems has never heard the phrase "homoerotic undertones" and who thinks irony means something like iron.
There will be prizes for the silliest moustaches. Men are for the first time talking of waxing without mentioning Brazil. A couple of the guys are horrified to discover their stubble is gingery but are determined to sculpt their shame into a Groucho or a Dali "for the team."

Sigh …
I tried to stop it. I really did. I even showed them a photo of me with a goatee, but other than a few blanched looks on the younger faces it had little effect.
I think the main problem is that none of us look like Johnny Depp, though several of them apparently believe they see him in the mirror.
Yesterday was a Cap'n Jack-fest. There have been "Arrrgh"s and "Shiver me timberrrrrs" floating around the office. They believe they look like a piratical crew of rascally rogues when in reality the room resembles nothing so much as a hobo encampment - admittedly a well-dressed one - an image made even more realistic by the piles of cardboard boxes the new monitors came in. All the office needs to complete the picture is a brazier and a couple of tents.

The women are lucky. They get to laugh at us and take photos. Fortunately nobody has been gauche enough to point out that a couple of them sport far more luxuriant moustaches than any of the pirate crew.

I managed to resist until Friday evening, when I was finally shamed into a cessation of shaving. Sheesh. I've said it before and no doubt I shall have occasion to say it again: "Verily, the gods do shit in mine hat and squish it down upon mine head."

Happy Movember, people. There may be photos later in the month but I sincerely hope not.
Roll on December the first.

WTF Monday - In The Days Before Television

More Views From My Desk

Autumn is definitely arriving here. This was taken Friday morning from the windowsill above my desk. Pull's Ferry is at the lower left and I think you've seen the big spiky building before, once or twice.
The trees are turning nicely now. Soon they'll get nekkid and winter will suck its way through here for a few months. Hey ho. At least it's pretty right now.

Things get a little distracting in the afternoons. A decent sunset makes it hard to keep my eyes down on the monitors.
Today the weather is grey and blear; mist and drizzle and near freezing temperatures under a leaden sky, so I'm taking refuge in Friday's photos to keep my spirits up.

Happy Sunday, one and all.

Saturday Statuary - What The Fountain Is Going On Here?

More Trashy Old Buildings

As we saw yesterday, finding a tiny sixth century chapel with some earlier Roman remains is a pretty big deal in my part of the world but just to put it into perspective, some people have a whole city full of that stuff.

Phil will be back there in February to photograph lots more of it for us (and to watch some rugby and probably drink a lot).

What Remains

After yesterday's peek through the window of what has become known as St.Mary's Chapel in Cockley Cley, let's check out some more of it.

Meandering through the woods away from the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village, the more adventurous wanderer might come across this sight.
Is it an old barn? Let's take a look.

That ain't no barn. And that door and window are pre-Norman, so we're looking at a Saxon church here. Cockley Cley already has a big late Saxon church only a few minutes across the fields, and that was probably built when this small church could no longer cope with the growing population.

 It was still in use between 1000 and 1100, as this Saxo-Norman doorway tells us, though by the time of the Reformation it had fallen into disuse and became derelict until squatters started living in it. People were still living there in 1952, with no water, drains or electricity.

Mercifully, someone realised what was hidden underneath all the decay and it has been slowly recovering since then, though it still has a temporary roof as the people who call themselves Christians these days prefer to waste their time and money on tax fraud, tawdry TV shows, pædophilia or bitching about one another's culty little cliques and so a few grand for some timber and thatch to protect one of the first places in Northern Europe to hear the word of Jesus is not a priority.

 Below the floor of the main body of the church are the remains of an earlier church and below those the remains of a Roman temple. The early Christians usually re-used old pagan sites as a derelict building is cheaper to repair and use than building something from scratch, and these were places where people had been coming to worship for centuries, so there was a ready made congregation ripe for conversion. Saint Fursey and his followers would have preached here because there was already an old ruined temple on the site which would act as a focus to draw people and as a shelter to live in.

The stone jambs to the opening are later, tenth or eleventh century additions to both shore up and decorate the old walls. The original building was all flint.

 This is the Roman lead coffin I was telling you about yesterday, dating from 350AD and sitting on some Roman floor tiles found locally.

 The sign over the wooden box in the apse explains that four feet below that spot were found the bones of the brother of Saint Fursey who lived and preached here and died on pilgrimage in 650AD (check him out if you have a copy of Bede's "Historia Ecclesiastica" (yes, of course I do; you know better than to ask) - he's in book III, chapter IXX.

The people who first heard about Jesus in this little space in a woodland clearing would have been aghast at what horrors their religion unleashed upon the world in the ensuing centuries. Fortunately this tiny chapel really does retain a sense of the innocence and hope of the early church and it's nice to pop in there from time to time to step back into a simpler world. I don't feel the message of Jesus in any modern church but I do in here.

Wednesday Window - Saxon Saints

Yay for something even older than me!
This window is in the earliest church around here, the teeny-tiny sixth century church at Cockley Cley, around which they've reconstructed the original Saxon village to which it belonged.
It was built on the site of en even earlier church - there were Roman Christian coffins found under it, one of which is on display on the dirt floor. The roof is currently corrugated iron as nobody has the money to thatch it at the moment but stepping inside you get a feeling of what Christianity was like before it discovered money and power and split into a billion bickering factions.

Dancing With The Dead

After yesterday's miserable post I cheered up considerably on the way to work when Radio 3's deliciously munchable Sara Mohr-Pietsch played me Aram Khachaturian's Valse from his Masquerade Suite.

Now THAT'S Halloween music!



Play this LOUD, close your eyes and picture if you will a dark and dusty after-hours circus run by Tim Burton. The crowds have all gone home and now here come Jack Skellington and the Corpse Bride leading a mad Valse, followed around the ring by the shambling, lurching, delirious, drunken and happy dead. If this music doesn't make you want to whirl 'til you're giddy then I hope your soul gets eaten by spiders while you sleep.

I had completely forgotten this brilliant piece of music existed but it kept me happy all yesterday, picturing the denizens of Halloween Town spinning ecstatically into oblivion.
Of course most dead people can only count up to three which is probably why they stick to waltzes.

I checked my CDs when I got home and sadly I couldn't find Masquerade. The only two Khachaturians I own are the ballets Spartacus and Gayaneh.

So as I'm in the mood for some more Armenian madness, pull up a chair and cock an ear to that gloriously romantic, sugar-syrup confection, the heartbreakingly beautiful Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia (only spoiled - if you're old and English - by the baffling image of Peter Gilmore hamming it up astride the deck of a sailing ship and sporting a pair of muttonchop whiskers bigger than his head in The Onedin Line, a magnificently silly 1970s drama serial for which this was used as the theme tune).
This one, however, is the same version I have, conducted by the great man himself.



I'll skip the Sabre Dance and go straight to the other great Halloween special Khachaturian wrote: that chilling (it still makes me shiver) Adagio from Gayaneh that was used in 2001 A Space Odyssey and again for the spookiest parts of Aliens. When it reaches half way through, "that" theme starts up for the first time and it makes me want to hide behind the sofa with Sigourney Weaver in a vest … er …



So here's to the mighty Aram Khachaturian, Armenia's greatest son, king of unintentional Halloween music and lush romanticism.
Thanks for cheering me up.