12/07/2010
How Very Bazaar.
Bon Jovi,
That crazy, sexy humanitarian and art-lover Napoleon Bonaparte ( who incidentally trails Napoleon Solo in the Napoleonic Cool stakes) once said of the Little Britayners that they are a 'nation of shopkeepers' or 'un naseeon des schoppekipeurs'. This was meant to be an insult and in reply the Brits went off and hacked out the greatest empire ever; much bigger than any Johnny Francay could dream of. But I digress again, what was a put- down is quite a roundabout compliment . If anyone is a nation of shopkeepers, it's Polayne. My own block has its little bazaar: a township of little shacks ,sheds and pavilions selling all you need to live : excellent charcuterie, tasty bread and cakes ( jagodzianki especially , the little blackberry pastries) , fresh fruit and veg straight from the tree and field, and if you want , straight from from a cow. The produce is irregular, unwashed and delicious. The strawberry and cherry season is in full swing and you can buy a basket of a couple of kilos for a quid. Polayners from the sticks park up, open the boot and commence trading. There's not a plastic wrapper or sell-by date in sight. You buy daily and fresh, usually returning from work. Thus, the weekly shopping chore , at least in my part of town turns into a continual buying and consumption that is woven into your daily habits, therefore your daily culture. You don't need to worry that you may run low, as there's always a little kiosk nearby. I can't get used to it yet , accustomed as I am to the weekly shop. Perhaps the supermarket and the weekly shop has done more to kill off the culture of good food and family dining than we know or care. I love these little markets though, and it must be an EU commissioner's nightmare. Ha ha , ha haaaaaaaaah. Great! Napoleon must be spinning in his mausoleum, ( okay,okay, so they use his metric system) . Varsovia is like that , a big sophisticated capital with loads of Ronnie Barker style ' open- all- hours' ( most hours) shops. You need to know your way around as there are no big names nearby an it's all within walking distance so , people walk. The corner shop butchers and bakers disappeared from the baroque avenues and rococo squares of my old home town, the ancient royal city of Boltoon a long time back, never ever to return, ever,ever,ever: the law of totally forseen consequences of the bleedin' obvious operated brilliantly in this case. I hope that it doesn't happen here , but I am not so sure. The supermarkets and hypermarkets have sunk their teeth into the country and lifestyles are changing like in the West of Europe. Once we had Catherine the Great, Fredrick the Great and Joseph the ( all crazy , sexy humanitarians and art –lovers) now it' Real , Carrefour and Tesco. We could be digging our own graves with a smile. Worse, dig one :get one free.
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16/06/2010
Bon Jovi to all ,
I 'm pretty sure that I'm over the worst; the grinning 'straw-behind -ears yokel' stage. Now, I can move fairly freely around the city without the feeling that I've got my flies undone. I still falter, natch, but the intervals between humiliations are becoming longer. The apogee, or perhaps nadir happened a few weeks back. I love Polayner second-hand book shops, I think they are the best in the world and I am irresistibly drawn to them like a moth to a light bulb. One sunny afternoon a few weeks back, I was walking ( with an independent air) along Dąbrowski street in old Mokotów district ( incidentally my fave historian Paweł Jasienica lived and worked there , but more of him anon) on my way to , somewhere or other. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for no apparent reason. Anyway, I spotted this shop and strolled on in . It's a great smell, old paper. I don't think it's a healthy smell , damp, sweet, vermouthy , but at least you know where you are. It's not THE best however ; numero uno in the ranking has got to be the combo of motorcycle leather/sweat/ oil with a top note of petrol. Now that is crack. But back to the subject. If you are a fan of esoteric works on obscure topics by unknown authors then Polayne and its second hand shops , is the place for you . I wandered round the shelves making a mental note of what I wanted and how much it would cost. There were only two clients in the place and I silently wished the owners all the best. It can't be easy running a place like this although it did seem fairly well established, with all the books in some semblance of order waiting for the eyes and fingers of the interested. After a couple of tours I crisply said my farewells to the guy who ran the shop and about- turned smartly to leave, over a step through a large double- door and into the balmy sunshine , when a quiet, measured professorial voice spoke, with as much hauteur as solicitude,
' Only not through the window!'
DOH!!
However, given the circumstances it was the best advice.
Not exactly back to square one , but pretty much.
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29/04/2010
A Fine Eton Mess
Bon Jovi,
Indeed! After thirteen years of a Labour ( Neil Kinnock voiceover) a Labour government , for all the talk of fairness and opportunity for all, all that the electorate has is a choice between two rival public schoolboys with attractive wives. We're back to the great rivalries of Westminster and Eton, Oxford and Cambridge, NW3 and SW6. No use blaming anyone but themselves especially since the Labour lot are as much dynastic and patrician as anyone else in the political/media class. Makes me larff to think of all those socialist trade unionists in ermine. Just follow the money/education/marriage network and draw the map on a big sheet of paper and you get the inescapable feeling that we are all going to be stitched up again. The grammar- school experiment of the seventies is over and those who were its product ( including yours truly) are as doomed as the Siberian tiger. All we can do is collapse in a foetal position in the corner of the room and quietly foam at the mouth. Then a yellow van will come and take us away. I suppose the education is the realisation that Life is a salon for courtiers. 'Twas ever thus , I suppose but there was a group of us young enough once to believe it . The History boys are history now. I have seen the future and it is pink or Cambridge blue. May God have mercy on our souls. But on the bright side, check the toons in the portfolio section.
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24/04/2010
Shadow and Dust.
Bon Jovi,
Polayne is returning to normality or as the Yanks would say, normalcy. It's been quite a time and before I get back to whimsy, I'd like to tell you about it.
The dates seemed to merge into each other but it was last Saturday and I was heading to Pilsudski Square to get to the comemorations . I was late and crossing the area around the Palace of Culture , a huge place but almost empty . The sirens started to wail and for a couple of minutes it seemed like I was in the Omega Man. I just followed the crowds to teh Saxon Gardens and it seemed that the whole of Varsovia City and Polayne was congregating there.. It was a beautiful , crisp and sunny day. The crowds filed into the Gardens or stood around the big screens that had been erected around the square. The names of the dead were being read out. Indefatigable scouts and guides were dispensing water and smiles. These teenagers and sub-teenagers are always on hand to perform all sorts of public duties and as the only disciplined force around should really be running the entire country. Dignified and stoic collective silence is still alive here. Most Polaynes I saw stand for the national anthem , even gum-chewing yoof. One granny was giving her little scamp of a grandson a good telling -off for not showing the proper respect. We stood, knelt and sang according to the rhythms of the ceremony and mass. It was extremely moving seeing people holding flags and banners and wearing black ( not fashionable black) We were awed as the honour guard snapped- to and delivered the volleys. Even the politicians sounded heartfelt ; this time they were.
After three hours I trundled home and missed the commitment of the presidential pair from palace to St. John's cathedral , which I saw on telly. Now that was really something: creamy evening sun, all the bells of the Royal Way pealing ( I didn't ask for whom they tolled as I already knew), the cadence of the funereal marches, the mounted escort. All the elegance of organised grandeur has a point and we lose these rites and practices at our peril. Not only are they beautiful in themselves in a choreographic sense and of course cathartic, but they do lift us from the everyday towards the Inevitable and the Awful . My only aesthetic quibble was that I wouldn't have used Hummvees to tow the gun carriages; I would have used an open top vehicle of some kind. The best way , of course is with a company of sailors in the British way. In Britayne, they ewoiuld have upped the ante since there is the scale for a big show of this sort in Londoon. There would be the entire Guards' Brigade, the Blues and Royals etc,. massed pipes and bands, full dress and reversed arms etc,. Polayne is more delicate and less imperious (maybe because Varsovia has never been an imperial capital) , but the ceremony doesn't suffer the more for this. I didn't want to stay in the flat so I went back to be where the crowds were packed. What else was there to do anyway? I milled around the old town aimlessly ,watching people and taking in the encroaching cold evening. I made my way back accompanied by the Chopin wafting from the special bicentenary benches they have dotted around the Krakowskie Przedmiescie. A state funeral and musical benches!
(Memo to self: state funeral: I want one)
My flat is a couple of minutes from the airport road and the week before, a sombre rhythm had developed as the bodies were being repatriated:like Wooton Basset. You could watch the arrival and reception on telly then time is as to go out to stand at the crossroads of Raclawicka and Zwirki and Wigury (visitors to Varsovia will travel this way to the city centre). Small knots of assorted humanity ; grannies and mums avec offspring, the disabled,a pretty girl on roller blades, smart-arse student types, dog walkers, C2s and Ds. With about twenty to go, the police shut the traffic lights and started to direct the traffic ,old -school style. You could make out the whuppa whuppa sound of the TV news helicopter approaching. The last remnants of oncoming traffic were despatched, and the road was clear. People started to place flowers neatly in the centre line of the carriageway. Then , just over the horizon , the blue police lights and we all craned our necks to see. First came a police car to part the waves then a couple of motorcycle outriders followed by an arrowhead formation of biker cops ( big, cop- Yamahas) . Then the hearses. On the Tuesday it was Maria Kaczynska. Later on came, ex-president Ryszard Kaczorowski and thirty four coffins. Then another thirty and Friday eight. Tonight , a week on, twenty. They were modern hearses, stretched Mercs or Beemers ( though I saw one of those new Bentleys, the ones they love on Top Gear ) . Just the flag draped coffin within and a small bouquet. The compartment was subtly lit from within with spotlights. It was all so non-Victorian , unlike Britayne. Very modern and sleek. Understatement and restraint again from the onlookers. I had gone to watch out of a mixture of natural inquisitiveness, respect for the dead ( I'm not that blasé to be unaffected) and a desire to make up the numbers . Furthermore, you just don't see the likes of this often. The cortege passed and we dispersed top whatever we were doing before. The cops switched on the traffic lights again.
The epicentre of grief that week was the stretch between the palace and the Old Town square. Every bollard had a votive candle, znicze ,on it and the pavements were carpeted in these things. They gave off quite a bit of heat as well as gold and red light. Quite a sight at night time with the place all lit up. It's about five hundred metres between the above points, and the queues to see the presidential lying in state ranked five deep, so that was 2.5 km of people from all over the place. Again, the ubiquitous scouts and guides were giving out free tea and organising the floral and candle offerings in front of the palace. There was a party of girls singing hymns and another queuing in sailors' uniforms ( why sailors'?) . Above the mortal multitudes were platforms for the foreign news organisations and you could see the reporters checking their make- up and preening themselves. They were at sub-olympian height. Not immortal per se but definitely not quite mortal either. It was a good time to wander around and be where the crowds were. On the Sunday of the state funeral in Krakoe, I came there again to watch it all on the big screen. I couldn't help but feel an anticlimax, that Varsovia not Krakoe should have ths onours after so much emotion. Ah ,well! The neighbours came though,from Brandenburg, the Baltics , the Ukraine, and Muscovy. Neither Prince Chaz, Sarko nor the Blessed Obama ( couldn't he walk on water at some point?) bothered to come, nor a host of other westerners, blaming the Icelandic volcano , which was the major headline news in Europa. Hello , do we not have trains on this great continent of ours? Buses? Motorbikes? I am sure Chaz could have come on his eco- friendly penny farthing. Not very impressive anyway., but a sure sign of Polayne's place in the ranking.
Musically the whole week was pretty awesome; Mozart, plainsong , and I am still humming the funeral marches ( I am a Morissey fan after all) and on the lookout of the cd. I even have them in my head as I jog round the park ( which gives an indication of my speed) The candles and the posters were taken down sharpish as soon as the period of mourning ended. A major problem was the spilt candle wax on the road. I had business in the town centre on Monday and I saw a big Merc do a power slide in front of the palace! Tonight , we saw the final twenty coffins come home . More funerals, but life does get back to normalcy fairly quickly. Successors have been appointed and elections are due . The Punch and Judy buffoonery that is politics in a democracy will start again and quite right too. I like all that stuff, anyway and although there might be an tone of appropriate gravitas at first , it can't last for very long . I felt sorry for Donald Tusk the PM though, who must have been to enough funerals to last a few lifetimes. You could see it getting to him as he gave the orations; the necessary eulogies . Next post will no doubt be lighter in tone, but you don't witness these events often to say the least, so there is something in just being there and watching it happen. It was all emotional but not emotionally incontinent. It wasn't like Princess Di's , despite the obvious allusions. But I saw what I saw and felt what I felt , and that I suppose, is that.
Talking about Punch and Judy politics; the election in Britayne and the nightmare scenario for every grammar- school boy d'un certain age; whether his vote will go to an Etonian or a Wyckhamist!
Ah, Brave New World!