Sea Pictures

I came upon this recording by Janet Baker, b. 1933 of the famous composition Sea Pictures of Sir Edward Elgar. Many people will love other singers but to me Baker has a clear voice and diction, making her singing so enjoyable. Elgar had a style all is own, imperial perhaps, full of confidence in his country and in the institutions which represented Britain in July 1899, when all seemed eternal. We just live in a very different world, this composition is beautiful, an historical piece.

This song cycle Sea Pictures consist of 5 songs based on the works of several poets.

Here The Swimmer poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870).




Some of the words of the poem of The Swimmer

The skies were fairer, the shores were firmer
So, girt with tempest and winged with thunder
And strong winds treading the swift waves under
To gulfs foreshadowed through strifes forbidden
Where no light wearies and no loves wanes

Salute to a brave and modest nation!

Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers , 'The Sunday Telegraph'
LONDON :

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably
almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops
are deployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as
always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does..
It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both
of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over,
to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall,
waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she
risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. 
But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower
still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely
neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with
the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global
conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions:
It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one,
and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world
wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's
entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World
War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by
Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British
order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its
unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as
somehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with
a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic
against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy
landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest
air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime
indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was
necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United
States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course,
Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian
identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood
keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary
Pickford, Walter Huston,Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David
Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter, Mike Weir and Dan Aykroyd have in
the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be
Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a
moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of
its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of
them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that
1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping
forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest
peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN
peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian
imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control
paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in
disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally,
the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless
friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things
for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud,
yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian
families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Lest we forget.

Japan

Recently while browsing for a book I fell on the Amazon site and a selection of books popped up, one of them was Sir Ernest Satow, A diplomat in Japan, first written in 1885 from his diaries. Satow in diplomatic circles is seen as sort of an icon, he wrote the famous Guide to Diplomatic Practice in 1917, many times updated and still used today, I have a copy I often used as reference.
Satow became Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to Japan and China and Head of the British Foreign Service. He also served in Siam (thailand), Uruguay and Morocco.

Sir Ernest Satow, P.C., G.C.M.G. 1843-1929

As a young man in 1865 he joined the British Foreign Service, he very much wanted to go to Japan not China, why because as he tells us, he was intrigued by those beautiful Japanese Geishas. To his credit Satow makes a point when he is hired that he absolutely wants to go Japan specifically, he wants to learn Japanese and is sent to China first. Why China, because at the time it was known that Japanese Kanji was borrowed from Chinese script so it was assumed by Westerners that Japanese was like Chinese, Satow knew this could not be but being a new hired no one would listen to him.  He will only stay in China a few months events in Japan will make it so that his presence is required and there he will study intensively Japanese and become a very resourceful translator for his Head of Mission. In all Satow will spend 21 years of his Foreign Service Career in Japan.

Japan was that big unknown country then having opened its ports to foreign savages i.e. non-Japanese people, in 1854. Try to imagine a country totally closed to the outside world, Japanese society is highly stratified and everyone has a place and rank, all living in an ancient feudal system highly codified by honour and ancestor worship, all ruled by a Shogun or Tycoon who is a Regent, this function is occupied by the Tokugawa clan for 400 years and an Emperor or Mikado, who is kept behind high walls and is rarely seen and if heard by the aristocracy and never the people, speaks Court Japanese which is somewhat like Ancient Chinese. These ancient titles of Tycoon or high Prince and Mikado were the ones used by the British having no other point of reference. What is very funny is that in his diaries Satow explains that none of the Foreign representatives, the UK, Prussia (there is no Germany at that time), the Netherlands, France, Italy and the upstart USA have no idea how Japan is governed, who is in charge and who should they negotiate with to open up the port cities. Europeans do not speaks Japanese and must use the handful. literally of Japanese who speak Dutch, to translate from Japanese to Dutch to English. The French Minister Des Roches has one Japanese translator who does a poor job of translating and Satow is often asked to help out, thus giving the British and advantage.
Why Dutch, because being merchants like the Portuguese they had been trading in Japanese ports for centuries prior to the other Europeans.  Osaka appears to be the one area that is always more open to Europeans or Savages than any other Japanese port. Some cities like Kyoto the Imperial Capital are totally off limits, it was unthinkable that such barbarian filth should approach the capital of the Chrysanthemum throne. I visited Kyoto just a few years ago and entered the park where the Imperial Palace stands in splendid isolation, you do understand when you see it that for the Japanese the Emperor is a God, regardless what we Westerners might think of it today.

The Japanese are described as very curious of any foreigners having never seen one, it is a true novelty.
The different Princes and great Lords spend a lot of time fussing on Protocol and on receiving these Foreigners. Satow spends a lot of time as the go between his chief and the Japanese Lords, going to great feasts and drinking mountains of Sake, all the while trying to figure out what the Japanese position is to various questions the Europeans want answers too, who has authority and who can make things happen. You understand that sometimes diplomacy is a bit of a complicated dance where each party has to present its point of view in a carefully measured way. Satow's job is to try to figure out who is who and who does what, per example who is in charge in Japan after the Shogun resigns, the Europeans did not believe the Emperor was the real head of the country or that the Japanese would follow him, it just goes to show how Europeans did not understand the Japanese mind.
In this period of decline for the Shogun and the Meiji Restoration, this book by Satow written from his diaries is fascinating for the details it provides into the lives of the Japanese, dress and customs at the time. It also gives an intimate look into the British Foreign Service of the time, reading about it I can see how little as really changed, some things are exactly the same 150 years later.

A good book to read which gives a glimpse into a world forgotten today but which shaped our relationship with Japan in the XXth century.

Books I am reading now

A few weeks ago I was reading the Globe & Mail, dubbed Canada's National Newspaper and Jeffrey Simpson whose column I have been reading for years, I wonder how old he is, I do like his column a lot. He recently recommended a new book which has been published on the War of 1812, titled the Civil War of 1812. This war will be commemorated in 2012 by the Canadian Government as will be the Diamond Jubilee of our Sovereign.
A monument to the war's bicentennial is under construction in Ottawa, but no one seems to know where exactly. I think I may have glimpsed at it today by accident at the corner of the Western Parkway and Wellington street just below Parliament. I saw what looks like the new footing of a great monument, but I digress.  What I wonder is, will the government also build a monument to the Queen on the anniversary of her 60th year as monarch. She already has an equestrian monument on Parliament hill on her favourite horse Burmese (1962-1990), a gift of the RCMP.

H.M. the Queen riding Burmese

All this to say that Jeffrey Simpson in his column suggested that we should not commemorate the war of 1812 between Canada and the USA. It was according the author of the book Charles Taylor, more of a civil war between the same people, than a war between two nations. The book is full of very interesting facts, unknown to me. One in particular made me laugh, the White House sent an express messenger to Canada to warn us that war had been declared, so General Sir Isaac Brock had several hours head start on the US Authorities at the border who had no idea that they were at war with Canada. Brock took advantage of it. The book also shows that US politics was not much different then as it is today. The Republicans were against taxes of any kind. The Federalist were very friendly to Canada and willing to see  things our way. Many of the great American heroes were nothing more than greedy businessmen and rapacious landowners, the 1% of their time. The USA was not well established as a Republic and it would take at least until 1867 or after the Civil War to firm up in the population the idea of republicanism and nationhood.

The other two books are on our first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891) born in Glasgow, Scotland, he move with his parents to Kingston, Ontario at the age of 5. Richard Gwyn has done a marvellous job of bringing the man to life in a very personal way, showing him as a human being with his frailties and not just as a politician. Macdonald was certainly a man of vision, who united the Nation, built the transcontinental railway, created the first national political party. He became Prime Minister at a time when Britain was no longer much interested in Canada, preferring India and openly suggesting that we might want to join the USA, it was an uncertain time, even our border with the USA was not clearly established, we had far more land to the south of the 49th parallel. It was a time when Macdonald had the vision of us as a distinct people, as Canadians different from the Americans. He was a Scot by birth but an immigrant by choice who believed in the possibility of his new country Canada. His vision, to secure land, the North West ( a.k.a. Western Canada), owned by the Hudson Bay Company and to build a railway to cement the national bond. He also had clear plans on governing, he created the RCMP, ensuring that our history would be different from the Americans. His vision was that of a country based on law, order and good government, settlement of the western provinces to the Pacific ocean would be done by the government in Ottawa and not as in the US model by whoever happened to be going westward. He also decreed by Order In Council that the Government of Canada would use British English spelling in all its documents and this is what we do to this day.

Sir John A. Macdonald as First Officer of the Privy Council of Her Majesty in Canada. This picture is a favourite of mine and hangs in the Foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa.

 Certainly Sir John ranks amongst the great Nation builder of the 19th Century, men like Disraeli, Garibaldi,  Bolivar and Bismarck. It is most amazing that a man who suffered so many personal tragedies, his first wife died young, his first son died in infancy, his second son Hugh John was distant from him, and though his second marriage was a happy one, his daughter Mary was born an invalid, he love that child and 30,000 letters survive full of gentle and funny words for his dear daughter. His strenght of character allowed him to rise above it all, in other words he took the high road and who we are today as a country is thanks to him. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Canada.

Sir John A. Macdonald as a young man 1842.

Earnscliffe, the home of Sir John on Sussex Drive in Ottawa, it is the Residence of the British High Commissioner since 1930. He died there in his study in 1891.

Egon Ronay Food Critic

This week a great man died Egon Ronay, aged 94. He was born in Hungary, his family owned 5 restaurants in pre-war Budapest, the business was seized by the Soviets in 1944. He fled communist domination in 1946 by being freed by a Russian Soldier to whom he had sold coffee just before he was to be shipped off to Siberia. Egon fled to Britain where a family friend gave him a job as a waiter. He would later open his own restaurant in London The Marquee near Harrod's, introducing French food when it was largely unknown after the war in a London of food rations and austerity. Then he went into publishing with his famous Ronay Food guides, who in many ways surpassed the Michelin Guides. Egon had a staff of 30 inspectors and he himself would visit restaurants always under an assumed name, eating 4 meals a day.

I remember well a BBC World program about traveling and Heathrow airport in 1994 when he was inspecting food outlets and restaurants at Heathrow in London. One of the driving forces behind the remarkable change in Heathrow's catering standards at the time was food critic Egon Ronay who was recruited by BAA's chief executive, Sir John Egan, in 1991 to help overhaul the whole experience of eating at the airport. Ronay was an elegant man, always well dressed, very professional in his approach, witty, courteous and polite.

Ronay’s policy of accepting no advertising or hospitality from hotels or restaurants boosted his credibility with the public at large. He later began publishing annual pub and budget-restaurant guides.
The Ronay guide, published for nearly 30 years, could make or break a restaurant. Mr. Ronay bolstered the careers of chefs like Raymond Blanc, Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay, although he could turn on a dime. In 2008, he complained to The Daily Mail that Mr. Ramsay and the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver “are not chefs anymore, they are businesspeople.They're not as good as they used to be."

I completely agree with him, in my travel I noticed to often in one city or another a celebrity chef opening a restaurant and letting others do the cooking, only his name is suppose to guarantee excellence, but that is all a scam really, celebrity does not equal merit.

I also travelled countless times through Heathrow airport and always found at the time the restaurants cleaner with better food than other airports in the world. Air travel nowadays is a chore, security, rude staff, overcrowded and poor dirty facilities, that is what most airports are all about, push people through. Imagine having a good coffee or a sandwich that is fresh with good ingredients, as if you made it yourself. Pleasant staff and clean facilities, all this to me enhances traveling pleasure.

I think I liked Egon Ronay because he cared about food and quality and loved simple food well prepared. He use to say:
“I really wanted to see better food. That really was my purpose.” Going to a restaurant, you want to be able to understand the menu and know exactly what it is you chose, I simply hate it when you read the menu, you look at an item and wonder what is that or how is this prepared, the waiter does not know, has to go and ask, comes back with a vague answer. No that is not what restaurant dining should be, I am not interested in the fact that it is fancy, food should never be fancy, just good and well prepared. At least that is the way I learned it in Switzerland at the hotel school. How to cook green vegetables, so that they are crisp and with a beautiful color, or prepare a steak so that it is cooked the way the customer wants it or offer a dessert that is simple and yet pleasant without being heavy and difficult to digest. It seems that those qualities are difficult to achieve these days in most restaurants because they are more focused on the decor and the atmosphere than on the food.

When I think of all the pre-prepared, processed frozen and factory shipped food being served nowadays in countless restaurants, with countless additive, too much salt or sugar, this is when I remember Egon Ronay and his efforts in raising the standards. As the old saying goes: '' Eating well is the best revenge''. The world needs more people like Egon Ronay.

In 1989 he published a memoir, with recipes, “The Unforgettable Dishes of My Life.”

Where have I been?

I have been away in London UK for a week or so, went there on business. I was in London last around 1997 at Christmas time. The City has changed, very multicultural but at the same time still very English, in the way things are done. On the way up from Rome I was not sure my flight would take off as Alitalia staff said they would be on strike that day, well I arrived early for my flight to find that no the strike at been called off at the last minute. Why did they want to strike, I have no idea, in most cases its because they can. Anyway got to London and took a taxi into town, love London Cabs, they are comfortable and spacious, the driver knows his stuff, no nonsense. I was staying on Grosvenor Square, very central, the large park has a statue of FDR and Eisenhower, the USA Embassy is at one end of the square and Canada and Italy at the other end. Canada also has Canada House on Trafalgar Square which use to be the residence of our Ambassador around 1900.

We went to see a play at the Theatre Royal Haymarket near Leicester Square which is now Chinatown. The play with Sir Ian McKellen and Roger Rees was Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, I had seen it maybe 35 yrs ago at least in French and I did not like the play at all it was done very differently with pathos, doom and gloom and existentialist angst. This time it was done completely differently more in the Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin approach, more a reflection on the absurdity of life and how we do not always control what happens to us, Fate pushing us around. Will went to see a play at the Apollo Theatre, Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, it is being very well received. We also went to the Barbican Centre for a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra sponsored by BBC Radio3, our friends David N. and J.S. invited us, it was a concert with pieces by Janacek, Korngold and Martinu, the conductor Jiri Belohlavek is an expert on these composers and he had a feel for their music. Afterwards we went to Smithfield which is the meat market of London, a huge place, with some restaurants and cafes open 24 hrs a day, if you want bacon or sausages at 3 am, no problem. We went to St-John restaurant whose speciality is English Tapas, who knew there was such a thing as English Tapas, lots of fun and very nice atmosphere. The restaurant has a website see www.stjohnrestaurant. com, I recommend it, the dessert was Eccles Cake and a slice of Lancashire cheese.

We did a bit of shopping, me for toy soldiers 54mm and bought all manners of soldiers for my collection in Shepherd Market. I can get carried away, too easily. London is a great place for this sort of thing. We also bought English cheeses, a Saint Crozier blue, Leicester red and a third one made from a rare breed of Sussex cows who are almost extinct as a breed but making a comeback because their milk is of very good quality, the shop Paxton & Whitfield is on Jermyn street near Fortnum and Mason. We had lunch at F&M, very good food and nice atmosphere, I told Will it reminded me of Murray's in Montreal.
We also visited the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum, wow! We also pop in the Brompton Oratory next door, Cardinal Newman, the Anglican convert to Roman Catholicism use to be a member of the Oratorian order. The Pope wants to make him a Saint, but when they opened his tomb last year, his body was said to be very well preserved, however the rush of air reduced everything to dust in seconds, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Remember I was there for work, I did work and did all this other stuff. Will also discovered a very nice restaurant called Cafe Boheme, we had a wonderful supper there after the theatre. A lot of restaurants in the theatre district are open until 3 and 4 am, so if the play ends at or near midnight and you are hungry, you have options. Will said that he found there were lots of crowds and this is true on all main streets, a bit much at times, but very lively. In Chinatown, I noticed how many of the restaurants offer all you can eat for 3 pounds sterling chinese buffet, I remember what my father use to say about this, he who worked in the restaurant business all his life, called it Hepatitis buffet, very unsanitary. I do not remember ever seeing such a thing in China, even in the huge restaurants on 4 floors, you ordered from a menu, a la carte, no buffet.

The flight back took forever, it is only 2 hours and 10 minutes from London to Rome, but I noticed that Alitalia had an old MD-80 and once I saw that I thought there will be problems, of course it broke down, mechanical problems before it even left Rome, so Alitalia had to get another plane and this created a 2 hour delay with no compensation. The staff in London pretended they had no idea that there was a delay. When it was pointed out to them on the big electronic board, the reaction was, oh look!? So instead of arriving in Rome at 7:30pm we arrived at 10:30pm. They also serve only a juice and one cookie on the whole flight. Next time I will fly British Airways, they serve a full meal.

I found that London has an energy Rome simply lacks, so much more engaging.