Ravel Double Bill at the Zurich Opera

Performance 26 January 2018

Putting these two operas on the same bill is the right choice for both of these operas. The humorous L'heure espagnole can hold its own against a fair number of other one act operas, but the nightmarish L'enfant et les sortilèges is not so easy to programme with another opera, there being very few to complement or contrast without committing a sin against this jewel. So placing it against Ravel’s lighter work is logical. This double bill, directed by Jan Eßinger, was performed five times in May 2017 at the Theater Winterthur. Then, as now, the conductor was Pavel Baleff and the orchestra, that of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. There have been changes to the production according to Eßinger in a promotional video with the change of house.

I make no apology for more detailed coverage of the latter. It has more roles, the performers covering more than one part. It is also more complicated and more interesting. Do not for imagine for one minute that I think L'heure espagnole to be simply frothy. It is also a morality tale, more akin to Mozart's Figaro than Strauss' Fledermaus.

For L'heure espagnole, the stage started as a greyscale wall with l'heure espagnole written across it in what I consider to be a typically continental script. The lighting flickered across the stage, giving us the impression we were about to see a very old movie. This effect diminished but continued subtly throughout the opera. 

Torquemada (Spencer Lang) entered and performed a theatrically exaggerated dumb show that looked like it might be from a silent movie. He opened up the wall, which was actually two flaps, revealing them, when open, to be two walls of a room, the third already in place behind them. Te walls were enormous blackboards on which there were painted clocks as well as two pairs of doors. Torquemada drew clock hands and time divisions on the clocks' blank faces, pulled out two clocks from the wall (to facilitate the comedy later). This all took place as Ravel's pre-Ligeti tick-tocking metronomes and spooky, drowsy music, a more ominous dawn than that for Daphnis and Chloé, lugubriously emerged from the pit. This is quite an amazing musical opening to any opera. It beats being at the bottom of the Rhine any day! 

On the doors stage left Torquemada chalked "entrée", and on the doors on the red panel that opened on the living quarters he wrote "prive" which irked me. It wasn't until his return towards the end of the opera he finally added the missing acute accent. I was relieved to finally see "privé"!

The plot unfolded, the cuckolding Concepción, neatly characterised by Paula Murrihy, deciding on either an empty clock in her room then one of two clocks, each containing one of her two hopeless suitors. First up was Frédéric Antoine’s Gonzalve was a picture perfect camp narcissist as a poet too in love with himself and words to perform and get the mechanism of his pendulum started. His successor, the pompous businessman Don Inigo Gomez (Michael Hauenstein) in the role which I find seldom comes alive enough for me in comparison to the others, who is too large to get out of his clock case without help, but who managed to get in alright. Parents and animal owners know this sort! All the while the hunky Ramiro (Andrei Bondarenko) performed alternated astounding feats of physical prowess with a limited art of conversation before the penny drops and the bells starting ringing silently in both his head and Concepción's. 

The epilogue is an awkward moment, as I think it is in other music dramas as varied as like Così fan tutte, The Rake's Progress, Britten's Parables, and so on. Nevertheless, visually it brought the work to a close, a rotating glitter ball effect lighting up the auditorium. As the opera ended, the characters closed the two side walls of the room, and the two panels bore a different legend which my eyesight could not make out. A slowly shrinking spotlight, as in the end of silent movies one may have seen, disappearing into blackout, brought the opera to a happy close with the final cadence.

We were then unceremoniously ejected from the auditorium and it was locked off, presumably to ensure secrecy of the construction of next set, since dismantling the first set would apparently provide few challenges.

The call to return eventually came and we entered Collette's cautionary tale of the child's nightmare. Unlike L’heure espagnole, which was a merry romp sticking to the plot, I have a few quibbles with the production for L’enfant et les sortilèges. Firstly, the mother (Paula Murrihy having a much easier time) is a nun and yet she is still addressed as “Maman”, and secondly, the child does not tend to the wounded squirrel (or if he did, I missed it) towards the end making a mockery of the words and the act of redemption "Il a plansé la plaie, étanché le sang." Without these two errors I would have no hesitation in calling this an excellent production.

The curtain rises on a schoolroom. We were given a preparatory dumb play in a schoolroom presided over by a nun, who is to be revealed as "Maman”. This set up the scene as the child in detention for bad behaviour. He was taunted by his classmates before being chased out by the nun. After behaving like a ghastly spoiled brat, overturning the furniture, tearing down a poster, the nightmare soon began. It started off benignly enough with The Chair and The Shepherdess, delightfully played by Ildo Song and Hamada Krisstoffersen, in the guise of the school janitor (on one roller skate) and a cleaner. 

The Clock, a maniacal Yuriy Tsiple, violently introduced a more menacing character. His head popped out of the clock above the schoolroom door stage left. Then he was dashing about inside the classroom, before exiting, slamming the door behind him.

The Chinese Cup (Irène Friedli) and The Teapot (Spencer Long), exchanged their enjoyable but peculiar nonsense banter with panache. Though I did not feel it was directed enough towards The Child, especially with the threat that “I boxe you, I marmalade’ you…”. 

The Fire was presented as a sultry temptress. Sen Guy emerged from the stove in the classroom dressed in a sparkling red sequinned dress and white fur stole. She sang seductively and the menace underneath was made clear without excessive mannerisms to produce a dangerous femme fatale, hot enough to warm, or hot enough to burn. If only Ravel had seen Fenella Fielding with her classic "Do you mind if I smoke?" moment, might have recast the voice as a rich contralto instead of a sparkling light soprano had he seen this costume.

As The Fire disappeared back into the stove the chorus of shepherds and shepherdesses appeared as a catholic church procession, complete with a (smoke free) censer and reliquary. This scene did not quite work as well as the preceding ones and it felt a little awkward, but the idea of the pastoral being represented by the church fitted in nicely with the logic of dreams.

During this scene Sen Guy, had a quick costume change to become The Princess (La Princesse). She rose from out of the floor of the classroom to tower three times or so her natural height only to descend again. This static tableau required Sen Guy to use her voice to bring out the character, which she did quite well, though I would love to see her in this role again with more experience under her belt to bring out more subtleties. The Princess needs a little more pain.

The Little Old Man representing Arithmetic turned up with the rest of the class for a mind blowing lesson which I'm sure some of experienced at one time or another in a subject we couldn't get the hang of! It is a favourite scene of mine as the music and words come together. François Piolino created more menace from this character than I thought possible. 

The ensuing duet of the two cats, Gemma Ní Bhriain and Yuriy Tsiple, brought a darker note with their miaowing and cavorting as they ushered in the scene in the garden, but in this production we are still firmly rooted in the classroom. The wall dividing the teacher’s room came away to reveal and ever increasing schoolroom with a trompe l'oeil effect which brought an other dimension in more than one sense to the nightmare. Figures in the distance were gigantically out of proportion to their surroundings adding to the unease and dreamlike unreality of it all.

The music for this scene can move me to tears and this evening's performance did just that. Whatever musical magic Ravel conjured up worked again. The Tree was played by Ildo Song. This time, instead of the more kindly roller skating janitor his voice was ominous, his huge hands waving like branches. The words "Celle que tu fis aujourd'hui à mon flanc, avec le couteau dérobé... Hélas! Elle saigne encore de sève..." hurt as though one could feel the knife cutting in. Bugger. I'm fighting back the tears at the memory. 

At this point the pace picks up as various creatures start to crowd in. It is not possible to pick out any one of the singers as they blended together at this point to bring a perfect ensemble performance. The only giveaway as to who they were was the costumes they wore in earlier roles as they wore huge heads which otherwise disguised their appearance.

I felt that at this point production sightly lost its way. The threat of the trees and animals ganging up didn't quite come to scratch, but perhaps I was still wiping my eyes at this point and was distracted a little too long. The child did not, as I pointed out earlier, do any healing, or I missed that moment totally.

However as the word Maman becomes more dominant in the libretto and the music climaxes towards an apotheosis that Ravel cleverly fails to provide in the music, a screen at the back of the classroom rose to reveal Maman in silhouette, and the child's closing falling fourth of “Maman” and a sudden blackout provided the required effect. It left the audience stunned into silence for quite a while. It was a wonderful way to provide a visual apotheosis that is not in the music. 

As for the audience, I was very disappointed by the poor turnout at the opera house for this double bill, We were sitting in the Parkett Galerie level, just above the Stalls. Our row, as were those behind us, was almost empty. It is a shame, especially when I consider how much fuller the opera house was in 2016 for a most peculiar, not to say disgraceful train crash of a production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail which I saw on 26 November 2016. Zurich did seem unusually quiet on this trip, so perhaps many other events were equally poorly attended.

In the most positive sense, this is an opera that it is hard to applaud at the end, and in this production I felt my emotions were slowly and sensuously sucked out of me. A collective sigh would have been praise enough for this interpretation, despite its flaws. It's an ending where you want to hold a hand and feel a reassuring squeeze to tell you that, no matter how naughty you are, there is always somebody there for you.

OK. Maybe I am reading too much into L'enfant et les sortilèges, missing my best hand squeezing and ever forgiving best friend on what would have been his 62nd birthday. But if I am reading too much, then it's not by much.

The final accolade goes to the conductor, Pavel Baleff and the orchestra of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, who brought out all the magical sounds in both operas extremely well. 

Haiku of the Day. Happy 61st Birthday.

Anniversaries
are paths from the past, and paths
into the future.

Haiku of the Day. Tinnitus

If only you knew

how much I wish I could hear

anything clearly.

Haiku of the day. Newspeak © 2017

Newspeak © 2017

Alternative fact
equals my truth is the truth.
Your facts are all lies.

Haiku of the Day. Frost.

Dew frozen in time.

Death, a life cut short in time.

Frost evaporates.

Trump speak: And you thought W. speak was hard work

I am not a fan of the soon to be President of the United States of America. I thought I had heard it all from politicians in the art of obfuscation, but Trump speak is a new and wearying experience for me. The thought there could be eight years of this kind of talk is frightening, more frightening than the clever sound bite merchants who peddle their odious wares since it gets more difficult to understand what exactly the man is on about.

Trump speak (from his news conference 11 January 2017 as President elect):

1. The overuse of the word "very" or even "very, very" and one "very, very, very":

"We’re going to have a very, very elegant day. The 20th is going to be something that will be very, very special; very beautiful. And I think we’re going to have massive crowds because we have a movement."

"Ike Perlmutter has been very, very involved, one of the great men of business. And we’re gonna straighten out the V.A. for our veterans. I’ve been promising that for a long time and it’s something I feel very, very strongly."

"And I will give Reince Priebus credit, because when Reince saw what was happening in the world and with this country, he went out and went to various firms and ordered a very, very strong hacking defence."

"I was in Russia years ago, with the Miss Universe contest, which did very well — Moscow, the Moscow area did very, very well."

"As a real estate developer, I have very, very little debt. I have assets that are — and now people have found out how big the company is, I have very little debt — I have very low debt. But I have no loans with Russia at all."

"Now, I have to say one other thing. Over the weekend, I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer from the Middle East, Hussein Damack, a friend of mine, great guy. And I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai — a number of deals and I turned it down."

2. Repeated comment (e.g. not gonna happen):

"One of the commitments I made is that we’re gonna straighten out the whole situation for our veterans. Our veterans have been treated horribly. They’re waiting in line for 15, 16, 17 days, cases where they go in and they have a minor early-stage form of cancer and they can’t see a doctor. By the time they get to the doctor, they’re terminal. Not gonna happen, it’s not gonna happen."

3. Bring up your opponent's past weaknesses thereby absolving your own (i.e. by implication we don't have any at all and make assertions as though they are fact):

"And I have to say this also, the Democratic National Committee was totally open to be hacked. They did a very poor job. They could’ve had hacking defense, which we had."

4. Remind people how wonderful you are:

"I was in Russia years ago, with the Miss Universe contest, which did very well — Moscow, the Moscow area did very, very well."

"And actually, people have learned a lot about my company and now they realize, my company is much bigger, much more powerful than they ever thought. We’re in many, many countries, and I’m very proud of it."

5a. Keep going until you hope everybody loses the thread because you already have from about the third word (I've omitted the Russia peroration to this):

"Now, I have to say one other thing. Over the weekend, I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer from the Middle East, Hussein Damack, a friend of mine, great guy. And I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai — a number of deals and I turned it down.

I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president, which is — I didn’t know about that until about three months ago, but it’s a nice thing to have. But I don’t want to take advantage of something. I have something that others don’t have, Vice President Pence also has it. I don’t think he’ll need it, I have a feeling he’s not going to need it.

But I have a no conflict of interest provision as president. It was many, many years old, this is for presidents. Because they don’t want presidents getting — I understand they don’t want presidents getting tangled up in minutia; they want a president to run the country. So I could actually run my business, I could actually run my business and run government at the same time.

I don’t like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to. I would be the only one to be able to do that. You can’t do that in any other capacity. But as president, I could run the Trump organization, great, great company, and I could run the company — the country. I’d do a very good job, but I don’t want to do that."

5b. Veer off course as soon as possible:

"First of all, you learn very little to a tax return. What you should go down to federal elections and take a look at the numbers. And actually, people have learned a lot about my company and now they realize, my company is much bigger, much more powerful than they ever thought. We’re in many, many countries, and I’m very proud of it."

* * * * *

* * * *

* * * * *

At this point I gave up the ghost as it was all much of the same. I expect many of you will not even get this far. If you have, you deserve to be very,very proud of yourself, because you have read my extremely wonderful blog entry which was very, very good, and while we're on the topic of ghosts, wasn't that a great film? That Ibsen guy knew how to right a good story and is was great to see Patrick Swayze, a lovely, lovely man, take on a role by such a very, very great writer.

A Memory Sparked To Life By Food

I have just travelled back in time, probably over 50 years to an equally grey and dark day.

Lunch cost me no more than 94p from Waitrose. Cooking it only required boiling water in the kettle, which I added to a warmed frying pan and after I added my lunch to the water, I kept the water on a low heat, but I don't think that was really necessary. Removed lunch, let it drain a little, placed on a warmed plate. A good old squeeze of lemon juice over lunch.

Eating it was a wee bit fiddly, but if you pull it away from the tail you get few, if any bones.

If you haven't guessed by now, it was a kipper. 

A glass of an over chilled and unexceptional Gewürztraminer is easing me into happy reveries of days gone by. I'm posting it here as I can't share this moment with either of two special people in my life. One is dead, the other is thousands of miles away. 

I raise my glass and fondly toast you both.

When you wonder if you've fallen down a rabbit hole and not been aware of it happening. Number 47.

I am waiting for a delivery today. I hear a vague rustling sound, like it might emanate from the front door.

I look out of the upstairs window to see a person standing in front of the house looking it up and down, but parcel see I none. There is, however, a rather small unmarked, white van which is not recognised by me.

Using all my powers of deduction I conclude this might be related to the expected delivery, so I descend the staircase. I open the front door. No sign of the said person. 

I am about to go indoors when she appears from across the street and says "Oh good, I thought you weren't in."

In all innocence I say to her, "I hardly heard you at the front door. Why didn't you use the doorbell?"

To which she answers, "I didn't know if it worked."

No wonder people don't receive deliveries they wait for all day if this is what happens across the board.

Ian d’O’s (or Iain d'Eau's) Diary. A First Class Bear gets a Special First Class treat.

Sometimes it is good to have a guest blogger on one's page. Today I am handing over mine over to a new best friend. He's called Ian d'O, though he prefers the more exotic spelling of Iain d'Eau. He is pretty sanguine about the spelling, but I think I may have to acquiesce.

On our return flight from Singapore to London via Zurich with SWISS, I discovered we were to travel on the new Boeing 777-300 (ER) being introduced into the fleet to replace the older, smaller, and less fuel efficient A340-300. I had some miles to spare and when Ian found out he kept tugging at my sleeve. I relented and we got to travel First Class on the new plane.

Now as I am not really a clever blogger, I don't take the right photos on phones at the right time nor do I have the first idea of what I am doing. I tried to supplement Ian's text, but I let him down. He has been kind and forgiven me, but I am on warning that detention may happen at any time.

Here then is the travel blog of Ian d'O, also known as Iain d'Eau.

When you are a bear and you have found your human, the only human that was meant for you to look after, you soon find out if looks can be deceiving.

Timbo said he fell in love with me from among all the other bears at first sight. Ha! He does not know bears like he thinks he does. 

Well, after we went from Penang to Singapore and stayed there a few days, I met Timbo’s specialest friend. He has got a nice nick name. Timbo calls him Special K, because he is a very special person.

Special K has a lovely smile. I thought it was the cutest smile I have ever seen since I arrived in the shop at the lovely E&O. Believe me, I have seen lots of smiles in the shop. 

When it came time for us to go to cold, chilly, nippy, London I wanted to be tucked in Timbo’s bag to go to the airport.

I am excited, what does cold mean? What does chilly mean? Why does nippy mean? I think it is not going to be as lovely and as warm like Penang or Singapore, but I think it could be fun. I know I will like it, because I will be with Timbo, looking after him.

Apparently you have to check in to get on a plane. You cannot just walk up and get on one. First you have to give your luggage to somebody who sends it off to who knows where? 

While we were doing this, Timbo and the lady were talking about miles and redeeming them The lady gave Timbo a number and he said it was wrong and too much. Timbo was right. I am learning Timbo knows some special things and makes sure he knows about them. I think he can be a clever Timbo, for a human. He is not a bear, so he cannot be that clever.

Next, after you give away your bags with your belongings,  there are all kinds of people who have noisy machines in their hands that stamp a small book of Timbo’s. 

He said everybody has one these when they travel the world. They are called passports. I asked Timbo why I did not have one. Apparently, because I am a bear, I have special privileges which mean I do not need a passport book. Sometimes, I feel I would like to be a tiny bit less special and have those books. Timbo says they tell stories of places he has been to.

After that there are loads and loads of bright, shiny, shops, and they sell all kinds of things. Timbo went around and said there was not much and he then used magic spells like “exchange rate” and “Brexit” and “those blithering idiots” to make the desire to spend money go away. They worked very well. Timbo must be a powerful wizard to make himself not spend money, because everybody in the hotel shop spent money.

We next went to the lounge. This is yet another special place for certain special people. There are different kinds of special people and they all have different special places. Timbo said he was not that special, well, not yet. I asked him when he would be. He smiled and said to me, “Wait until we get to the gate”. Then he crossed his fingers. I crossed my claws too. They are magic claws. Only a bear’s special human can see them. Timbo’s smile grew bigger when he saw me do that.

After he had been doing lots of finger tapping on his phone, and lots of smiling, writing nice things to his friend Special K, he said it was time to go to the gate. We went past all the bright, shiny, shops again. I am learning humans do things like this, to make sure the magic spells are still working.

Next we get to the gate. Timbo had to take all sorts of things out the bag (I stayed hidden), and then we all disappeared inside a big box that made me feel funny. Timbo says they use Ex Rays to see what is there. These Ex Rays could not see me. I must be a more magical bear than I thought.

We came out the other side, and Timbo had to pack the bag back up again. It is unfair to Timbo, because he packed it very well in the first place. I know that because I had loads of space to snuggle up in.

The people looked at his ticket. This made it the fourth time somebody had looked at his ticket. Humans cannot trust each other very much to read the same information. After a few minutes when we had been in this new lounge (but I thought we were at the gate) Timbo’s proper posh name was called out. He went to the man and the lady who after all that checking of the ticket only took it away and gave him another one. Timbo said with a happy smile “2K”. This was the magickest magic spell so far.

After a little while longer, the man asked Timbo and three other people to join him. Nobody else. We went along a special tunnel which then became two tunnels. A lovely lady was guarding our tunnel. I knew it had to be an even more special tunnel. 

When we go to the end of this tunnel a beautiful smiling lady said what Timbo told me later was “Grüezi”, a Swiss word to welcome you. I was a word that you have to say back but Timbo using his knowledge of magic said “Grüezi wohl” which makes the lady feel even happier, he said.

Cor! Wow! Golly! Blimey! What a big room! And only eight huge, massive, humungous, big seats for all five of us! There was a funny little seat opposite each big seat. Timbo tucked me in the one he had and put the safety belt round me so I would be ready for when we left. He did not want the lady to tell him off for not looking after me properly. When she came to check Timbo was a good boy, She was very pleased he was looking after me properly.

All buckled in properly.

The photo Timbo took of me with the special bag of goodies and slippers he was given.
Please note, nothing bear sized was provided.

The lady also gave Timbo pyjamas which he is allowed to keep (Swiss do not have bear sized pyjamas, I think that is very wrong). Timbo says he does not wear or like pyjamas very much, but these pyjamas he has from Swiss are the best and most comfortable he has ever had. He said they are featherlight and then sniggered. That word must a funny word, though I do not know why. I think Timbo might be a little naughty.

We had loads of gorgeous scrummy things to eat. I was not as hungry as Timbo, so I only had a little bit of a starter of lovely salmon. Timbo also had the green split pea soup that he said was "Super Suppe" to the lady. That was Timbo making a joke I found out because the words sort of sound a little bit alike. 

Timbo's Salmon Thingy

My Sensible Sized Salmon Thingy

The Super Suppe. Haha!!

Then it was time for bed. The nice lady made up a bed for us. When it was all done I crept under the duvet and it was really lovely.

In bed waiting for Timbo.

Cor, what a big bed!
And there are special nibbles by the bed for me!!!

Then Timbo came back with his featherlight jim-jams, as he called them, then he sniggered again. He got under the duvet and we slept long hours. But before we went to sleep, the nice Julia lady gave Timbo something that made him gasp and he said “Oo@! I love these!” It is a traditional gingerbread from Apenzell, part of Switzerland. He had one. I had a nibble too. I can understand why Timbo loves them.

They have a name that has extra meaning for me. They are called Appenzeller Bärli-Biberli. These are small version of the Appenzeller Bärli-Biber. Putting -li at the end of Biber makes it mean it is a small thing. I asked “So what is a Bärli, Timbo?” He smiled at me again and said “You are a Bärli, Iain.” Gosh.

On this special new plane, there is so much lovely specialness for me, there are slidey parts that make it like a tiny, tiny bedroom. The slidey bits are about as high as Timbo’s chest and he said he likes the tiny, tiny bedroom not being all locked away.

When we woke up we stayed under our cuddly duvet a bit longer. It was soon going to be breakfast and the lady took the bed away and pulled out the table and gave us a lovely breakfast with crêpes, they are very posh pancakes says Timbo, with bananas and yummy sauces. Then it was soon time for Timbo to get dressed properly, while he was away, that nice lady Julia brought me a nice big bag of Appenzeller Bärli-Biberli, all tied up with a lovely SWISS ribbon. She must like Bärlis. I like her.

Me and my nice big bag of Appenzeller Bärli-Biberlis

When Timbo got back he had to pack everything up into his bag. I have a private photo of me with Annamarie and Julia, and also with the lovely Sara Dibenedetto, who was the kind and caring Maître de Cabine who was also a friend to me, but she was busy looking after everybody on the plane, so I did not get a chance to know her better.

We landed in Zurich which the Swiss spell Zürich. It is also the name of the Canton, which is like a small country inside the bigger country of Switzerland. That is a bit like my old home in Penang, because Penang belongs inside Malaysia. We had a nice relaxing wait before we went on to London, but it was not as special or exciting a journey, because they do not do nice First Class with big beds to London.

You know, I could not have chosen a nicer human than Timbo. He showed me there are many nice humans in the world, they almost as nice as bears, or even Bärlis. I think I prefer to be a Bärli.

The Last Full Day, The Rainy Season, Blackpool and Doughnuts, W. Somerset Maugham

Thursday 13 October 2016

I can’t complain. The rain has held off from drenching the area until today. I really should have come outside the rainy season for more adventurous outdoor stuff, like the local Botanic Gardens, ascending Penang Hill, revisiting the War Museum and other places south of George Town. If I have time and opportunity in the future, I will do it come back. Of that there is no doubt.

The ghosts of places still to revisit will be benign, as my return visits to Bali, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore have proved. the shared love we had for this part of the world probably is the reason. It was shared, and the memories, visits, explorations were positive apart from only one. A pretty good record, all things considered.

Now if there’s one complaint I have about breakfast, it was the inclusion among the pastries of mini ring doughnuts. How dare they provide something irresistible? Has the kitchen no shame in forcing me to have one (yes, I can resist temptation)? Of course the best ring doughnuts I’ve ever had go back to my days as a prize bingo checker, and later my elevation to prize bingo caller at the old Central Station in Blackpool.

Like many school kids in the borough, I worked in the Blackpool tourism business in one way or another earning holiday money. I was a sad bugger. I took it seriously. I played bingo elsewhere observing how others who had been there for years operated. One guy, with one of the worst wigs I have ever clapped eyes on, and who was well known to everybody in the prize bingo world, was good at his job. I later found out, following a visit by the D’Oyly Carte, when he was a couple of rows in front and maybe half dozen seats to the right that he liked G&S and sang along with everything. He also had a personal odour problem, which I discovered were also as well known as his excellent  hairpieces.

But I digress, I digress.

One aroma that filled my adolescent senses and always needed to be satisfied, not that I ever made the slightest effort to avoid it, was that of freshly made ring doughnuts. One watched them made, from the batter being fed into the system, the fat sizzling away, the alchemical change from semi-liquid to more solid matter happening before one’s very eyes, then plopping out and being sugared, picking it up gingerly and biting into it with the full pleasure of fat, batter, sugar and warmth invading the mouth. That’s how one east a proper ring doughnut, and every miserable failed attempt at creating one will always revive the happy memories of my teenage years and the Fylde.

Walking back from breakfast I fell into conversation with a member of staff. If there is one thing I like about the E&O, it is the friendliness of the staff. Have yet to meet one surly person. We all have our off days, but there are more smiles per face here. One thing we spoke about was how Somerset Maugham, a name I associate (but not exclusively) with tales of life in the British Empire in the first half of the twentieth century., has seemingly disappeared off the bookshelves. I’ve had a cursory glance on line at his book On a Chinese Screen: Sketches of Life in China. It is well written, not given to fanciful fripperies and frills. I remember one of the first things we were given to read in the first form at Oakham School by our English teacher, “Slasher Hardy”, was a short story by Maugham, The Sexton, which we had to précis. Reading it I could not even begin to think how one could cut down such writing, so spare, with few, if any, excessive words. Why and how did I forget him so soon after that lesson in the Old School building?

After seeking shelter in the room I decided I had earned a day off. I have been here before and we had taken time off from tourism. I have plenty more reasons to return to Penang. Had I organised myself better, I could have extended this trip with a schedule of things to do, rain being the main spanner in the works.

Would I come back and do more? Yes. Would I encourage anybody wondering where to visit in Malaysia as their first port of call to come to the island of Penang? 

These questions are, surely, dear reader, rhetorical.

My one and only regret is unlike on the previous trip, I did not have afternoon tea here (it was naughty in the extreme). But when you don’t have somebody special, or at the very least, extremely pleasant to share it with, it’s not much fun.

Afternoon tea, at the E&O,10th November 2012.

Celebrating (a day late) my 58th birthday.

Au revoir, Penang. Au revoir George Town. Au revoir E&O.

I’m glad to have renewed our acquaintance. I’ll try to do better next time.

George Town: A Temple, more meandering, a Cemetery, and a rant about food and a review of a restaurant.

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Today I missed the chance to see the fishermen. One needs to get one’s lazy arse out of bed early to see them, and I resolutely slept through until quite late.

This morning at breakfast there is much less cloud over the coastal fringe where the hotel is situated. Yesterday was warmer than Monday. today looks to be a real scorcher. Within seconds of writing this sentence there was a short-lived but heavy rain shower. The temperature dropped noticeably and the sun continued to shine brightly. Nothing unusual there, then.

Probably the main delight for me is aimlessly meandering around the streets of George Town. There is a marvellous nucleus of colonial buildings, in different stages of (dis)repair. 

Some appear to be in need of architectural last rites. Dotted around the place is street art for visitors to enjoy. It’s interesting stuff and looks good in situ, but, like photographing Venice’s Grand Canal from atop the Ponte Rialto, such images are two a penny. I would need to have, or find, a special or quirky reason to pause at each one and “collect the series” either in part or complete on my camera. I twice observed a gentleman with a Leica resolutely searching out some of them.

After my large, late breakfast I made my way to the Kuan Yin Teng, the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy. She’s popped up in a few temples I’ve seen, so I guess she’s done a few good turns, a bit like the Virgin Mary I imagine. In Penang she has two temples apparently, one Buddhist, the other Taoist. I know some people hedge their bets on religion to be on the safe side, but for a Goddess to get about a bit is not so common place.

As is common with most functioning temples I've been to, one can buy last minute offerings to the relevant deity in literal or symbolic form. This temple is no exception!

These joss sticks are a bit unwieldy.

This is quite a lot of incense. 

Joss sticks were not allowed inside the temple.
These are located immediately in front of the building.

We went inside this temple on the last day of our first trip, 13 February 2011. Chinese New Year was late in 2011 and there was a lot of activity inside. This time was much quieter, a more relaxed day. A Chinese lady stopped to talk to me inside. In the winter months she comes back to Penang, but the rest of the year she is in Mississippi. It's interesting the people you meet.

These lanterns filled the ceiling above the altar at the back of the temple.

This is one hell of a temple block.
It is about 18 inches or 45 centimetres long.
I really wanted to test it!

When I saw this I initially only saw
 the small parts making up the whole.
The design is beautiful to my eyes.

I love taking photos of candles.
It's not easy.

Looking up, one sees beautiful work like this. 

The lady arrived as I was setting up the shot.
She has made the image work.

I then went on another nose following expedition, taking a diversion down an alley where useful stuff was on sale, stuff like screwdrivers, harness clips. In fact, in this small area including a few shops nearby, this seemed to be George Town’s hard core hardware ghetto. After the stalls had petered out, the plants outside this door caught my eye.

Walk off the beaten track.
You never know what you will find.

This is an ex-house. It has ceased to be. It is no more.

The Campbell Street Market

A small diversion on the way back to the pool, sorry, I mean the hotel, was the Protestant Cemetery. 

The cemetery, as seen from outside.

Most cemeteries are full of the usual notables and nobodies, and this cemetery does not fail in that respect. It does, however, contain the remains of a notable nobody, one Thomas Leonowens (according to Wikipedia it seems this surname was a creation and not the name he had at birth). He married his childhood sweetheart, emigrated to Australia, thence to Singapore, before finally arriving in Penang, where young Thomas found work as a hotel keeper. He died on 21st May 1859 aged 31 years & 5 days. His burial place is marked by a not insubstantial monument. 

The grave of Thomas Leonowens

His wife, Anna, went on to be better known, as the author of The English Governess at  the Siamese Court (1870) which was the basis for another book, several films and probably best known of all for a couple of generations, the musical The King and I.

One of the larger monuments of somebody I know very little about.

A detail from the above monument.

Whilst in the cemetery the heavens opened and the air was refreshed. It being only a short distance from the cemetery to the hotel I was back in the room in next to no time.

The arcade beneath the E&O's new extension.

But before I reached the room I was captivated by the colours of a stunning scene of the sea and sky. When I see things like that, I wish had the ability to paint and capture what I see and the emotion aroused by it, rather than merely photograph it and edit the image to try to recapture the parallel lines and the colours.

Seascape after rain. 

After resting it was time to go in search of food. The idea of eating before I am truly hungry defeats me, but yesterday on my hunt I found a not unpleasant place that offers pasta and tapas, Coffee Atelier, 55 Restaurant and Cafe, 55 Lorong Stewart (on the corner with Lorong Chulia), but as ever, once one gets out of Europe those terms become more fluid. 

Bruschetta (charmingly mis-spelled as bruchetta) appears under the heading of tapas. I'm sure as many sins have been created in the movement from East to West as have occurred in the opposite direction and also between one country and another. Spaghetti bolognese springs to mind as one culinary crime which will get Italians, if not foaming at the mouth, simmering with rage at the non existent and probably bastardised version served up before them.

One would hardly believe Fish and Chips could be cocked up in a grand scale, but it does, not least with the usual abortion laughingly dressed up as something made directly from the potato rather than a mush. Chips must be firm!

The young man the previous evening had been very polite, that I thought it churlish not to return, even though I preferred something more local, but with locals working on European stuff, why the Hell not? This review is not based on extensive knowledge of food, Jay Rayner style, but of one ordinary traveller's experience.

My choice was their aglio olio (no mention of peperoncino!) with bacon. It came served with cherry tomatoes and sliced black olives. I was offered the opportunity to have it served with cheese or to sprinkle it myself. I chose the latter. There was a gentle sprinkling of something black around the edge of the pasta bowl (yes, that was a nice touch). What came as a shock was the heat of the first mouthful on the tongue, and that was most welcome, but there was one more pleasant shock to the system. The pasta was firm! The concept of al dente was not only known but practiced. 

I will not allege this aglio olio will set the culinary world ablaze overnight with a culinary purity that even the Olympian Gods could scarcely believe capable from humans. 

Complaints? I would have loved a bit of ciabatta or focaccia to wipe the bowl clean. 

I came with no expectations, but I left the first course with a still warm tingly mouth, tongue and lips. 

For dessert I chose, as I have an evil streak in me, the homemade (please note the term, homemade) tiramisù, a dessert I really enjoy and I have eaten in different guises over the years. When it was brought before me it was served in a glass. Homemade was not interpreted like 'della casa' meaning bought in from a large catering company.

As a winter pud it would have stood up to the rigours of a walk in the cold back to the hotel but for George Town on a typically warm evening it was too heavy for my stomach. The creamy distinctly coffee flavoured filling (I think it was mascarpone) and the well soaked sponge tasted wonderful. A more daring oomph of alcohol would not have gone amiss for me.

Including a 600ml bottle of mineral water and taxes, the bill came to RM 48.75 (about £10 post Brexit). The food was better than some I've had in Europe, and even, dare I suggest, in some Italian places where the tourist customer is not treated with respect.

I had a pleasant conversation with the young man who was front of house. Yesterday he had been chef. He probably told me too much, had I been a critic revising restaurants, but it was pleasant to talk about food and to pass back to the staff the pleasure one's had. 

Our conversation had meant I avoided the rain and I returned the hotel dry to complete the blog prior to bed.