Travel

Black but comely

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Do those words cause offence? Is it the sort of thing you should shout out in the streets these days? Does it make you think of skin colouring? There are many skin types from black through browns, olives, yellows, reds, pinks, pales to white. If Coco have missed any please tell me [off?]. Please do not think that Coco has forgotten about frogs, fish, flora and feathered friends whose colourings are far more vibrant than our own. Does it make you think of complexion? A dark (to submit to modern perspectives on the matter, but Coco really means black) complexion is much more robust than a pale [white] one and longer lasting. But it is not just skin colouring that is in view here.

One of my friends declared after a wonderfully warm and dry spell in Canada: I am black! Well if your first language is not English perhaps you do not notice the similarity in the words but in Spanish soy negra (which also happens to be close to the colour of the sauce) you would, and so may be forgiven for the declaration.

And perhaps this also gives you a clue as to what is being said in the opening remark.

If this had been said in the modern age then this is what the young lady would have written to her friends perhaps through the medium in which you are now reading it, or perhaps on a better known social media platform, (and if you are not reading it well, what can I say? You would not even know that this had been written anyway) whilst on her holiday in Tenerife or Lanzarote, but they were said three thousand years ago, albeit in not too dissimilar circumstances. We find them towards the beginning of a play which antedates even the surviving plays of the Greeks by just a little short of five hundred years.

At the beginning of a play, as we were being introduced to her, one of principle characters made this declaration to her teenage friends. We do not know what her complexion was, though perhaps it is likely to have been an olive shade, but we do know how she had come to say: I am black! She herself tells us that the sun had scorched her, as one of the translators puts it. We would say tanned. She was a farmer’s daughter and worked in the open air looking after her brothers’ vineyards (under duress) rather more than her own. Her exclamation and explanation tells us that the events here are taking place in the summer months possibly around or towards the harvest time for grapes.

She was a farmer’s daughter but in the manner picked up, but toned down also, by Disney was to become even more than the Disney princess. Without giving a spoiler the story also ends in a different place than you would expect the Disney story to end. So the timing of the play is also introduced to us, the events then unfold for us over a period of perhaps as long as three or four years. The stage directions have either been lost or not preserved depending upon your perspective on the matter so it is not entirely possible to be certain of them, but there is enough in the text to settle most of the possibilities. Now, it is not at this time I want to say any more about the play, but hope to return to it in the coming days (it is not possible to return to it in the preceding days you will take careful note).

Now you may wonder what a story about a teenager who had been sunbathing has to do with Easter weekend. Well nothing really, but we all make many allusions, correlations which have no actual basis or causation, but does it matter? In scientific (in the general sense) enquiry, yes of course it does, but not in literary works, you only need to read Lucas or Adams to understand that.

Now for those of you who missed your trip to Lanzarote, Tenerife or just St Davids, and longed to have been able to write home to say those opening words to your friends but have been unable to do so, and for you who merely read the opening words just to skip to the end and for those of you who have managed to climb this far, it is in common parlance Easter time:

The Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week having fulfilled everything that he had been sent to do, having carried the just wrath of God, paying the penalty for our sin, lying in the grave after the manner of Jonah in the belly of the whale, therefore God has highly exalted him that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Let us worship him.

Come, brave hearted lion eater: Chao Yuen Ren

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Moonlit night

施氏食狮史
首被平原的管家(Google-Coco)
Unregistered appointee

If you had ever thought that She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore was difficult – consider a puzzle in the style of Carroll –

Chinese is already confusing enough with all of its tones, characters, markers and lack of articles, inflections and tenses, but this poem really shows just how difficult Chinese is especially for the native Mandarin.

A Chinese author, 趙元任, expressed the puzzle in this way:

漢語 English

施氏食狮史

石室诗士施氏，
嗜狮，
誓食十狮。
氏时时适市视狮。
十时，适十狮适市。
是时，适施氏适市。
氏视是十狮，恃矢势，
使是十狮逝世。
氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。
石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始试食是十狮尸。
食时，始识是十狮，
实十石狮尸。

试释是事。
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

In a stone den lived a poet called Shi Shi,
who was a lion addict.
He had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that same time, Shi Shi arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows,
caused the ten lions to die.
He took the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp, so he asked his servants to dry it.
After the stone den had been wiped dry, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that the ten lions were in fact
ten stone lion corpses.

Try to explain this matter.
石狮
石狮

Coco thought you might like to hear Google read the words for you in languages that either still use Hanzi (漢字) or have only recently adopted other forms of writing.

Mandarin
Japanese
Vietnamese

Empty block

Coco cannot explain it, but a useful discussion of the purpose of the puzzle may still be found here: pinyin.info
☺






With apologies in advance for errors of syntax, orthography and grammar which may be found embedded in this document whether arising from oversight, incorrect application of language packs or generally any other misadventure; and in general for any offence given inadvertently or inappropriately or both taken or not taken by those whose sensibilities, whether grammatical, orthographical, moral or simply personable, have been offended whether, not or if you have not incorrectly misunderstood the content, intent, meaning and purpose of this article, and to those whose copyrights may have been inadvertently or wantonly infringed, but never as to cause damage the copy holder’s rights, and, if you have managed to read this far, for any errors or omissions whether wilful, unintended, innocent or deliberate in the content of this polemic, and with thanks to you who have made it thus far for your patience.

Bill and Ben

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When Faith could..

Coco heard the other day about Bill and Ben, not the famous flower pot men, but a pair of mountaineering brothers, indeed twins, and their little sister. They were well known by all for their many adventures. They did everything together, and would only ever climb if they were both in the team.

Although they were twins, the two brothers were very different. Bill was tall and lanky, a head and shoulders above anyone else. Ben was quite short and stocky. Whilst Bill was able to reach out to the hold that no one else could reach, Ben could scramble across anything. So by working together no mountain side was outside their capabilities; it was really little wonder that the club were always very glad when they were able to join the expeditions. Faith, who being ten years younger was still but a child always came along to help. She was not allowed to climb, but she did not care about that. She was quite happy to sit in the Gelato parlour or play in the park whilst they battled with the mountain. Even better, she thought, that Bill and Ben had to pay for her.

It was much like that at home too. Contrary to expectations, Bill was no tenor, but he had a voice so deep that even Rachmaninoff had not written anything that could do justice to his lowest notes which we were quite as strong as your or my middle C. On the other hand Ben had an exquisite tenor range which really only began beyond where any baritone would be embarrassed to go. When the family sang together at home, Ben led them from above, Bill supported them from below and mother, father and little Faith just filled in the middle as best they could.

Now whilst Bill and Ben loved their little sister, Faith was always up to tricks with them. She teased them mercilessly. There was an occasion when, knowing how much common sense they lacked she took advantage of it. They were a little younger then, shall we say immature? at the time. Whenever they went away, their mother made sure that Bill and Ben each had their names stitched into every item of clothing that they had. Was this for their benefit or to let others know whose cllothes they were in mother’s mind? Well little Faith was quite sure that the boys were so lacking in common sense it was to make sure that they wore their own clothes not each others. So one night whilst on camp she crept into their room, stole away all of their clothes and took them to her own room where she proceeded to carefully unpick every label and stitch them back into the other brother’s clothes.

She did not believe it would work as well as it did. The following morning, she was up early for breakfast much to the astonishment of her parents who had learned that she really did prefer to lie in the hot bath than to eat, but despite the lack of sleep, she did not want to miss anything that might happen that morning. Suddenly the breakfast hall fell into fits. Bill had arrived in what could have been a pair of shorts, followed by Ben who appeared to be wearing the bellows of an accordian on his legs when you caught a glimpse of them peeping out from underneath a rather long and tight Jersey jumper. There were hoots and whistles from their fellow campers which did not seem to perturb them until they were taken across to a mirror. How embarrassed they became, especially when Faith asked: Did you not realise the labels were the wrong way round? She had caught them once again.

She never ceased to plan little tricks like this, and Bill and Ben had to be constantly on the watch for the next one, but they would never be without her. As she grew the tricks became more elaborate, she waited to catch them out when they were not expecting it. Well, she was now a young woman and she had planned this one for years. She knew that she would only be able to do it once, and she also had to get it exactly right otherwise the consequences might be, as she put it, somewhat unfortunate. So she waited for the right opportunity. It would come she said to herself.

But she needed to practice somewhere first to ensure she would get it right, so the previous summer she had gone to Iceland on her own. It was most unusual. She never went out on the mountains to climb with her brothers so they wondered whether she had met someone but didn’t want any one to know at the time. She explored the interior, not the usual tourist spots, which was of great concern to them as Iceland is geologically active, and whilst she was there there were reports of some irregular geologic activity. But all was well, and after she returned try as they would they could not get anything out of her. They had to think that whatever it was, it had all come to nothing.

This year the boys had planned to go with their club up the face of a little climbed mountain in Switzerland. There was only one route and so she would know exactly where they all were and when they would come back down. They walked together down the main street in the pretty little Swiss village. She was rather out of place in her prim white blouse, dark skirt, white gloves and delicate hat, when everyone else either wore mountaineering kit or Lederhosen. The boys left her as she made her way into a very neat Italian coffee shop.

A few hours or so later, ‘This is it’, she thought to herself as she supped her Gelato and espresso in the quaint little parlour at the foot of the mountain. She was now a young woman and had discovered the joys of Gelato and coffee. Everything, she mused, was ready. One of the awful things about her tricks on them was that she was often not around to see the expressions on their faces when it was pulled off. She had to listen afterwards to their own remonstrations with her, as they tried to justify their own ridiculous behaviour, as in the switched clothes episode, or themselves, and listen also to the reports and corrections of other people who were there and saw it all. Oh! how she giggled as she remembered how often she had caught them out, but felt a little sad that she was never there to see it. ‘Ah, well, at least the other club members will give me an accurate report’, she said to herself.

On the mountain, they were all well underway. They were about ten thousand feet above the coffee shop where their little sister sat eating her gelato and Bill, who, by reason of his height, had just enabled them to move across a particularly tricky part far more quickly than anyone had expected, turned his mind to her as Ben was away moving across the scree like a gazelle leading a long rope behind him that the others could use to cross more easily. It was perhaps not, or maybe it was the right time to turn your minds to your little sister. He crossed the scree on Ben’s rope. To his astonishment, Ben said to him: ‘Do you remember that morning at camp, Bill? Do you think there is something wrong with Sissy? She has left us alone ever since she came back from Iceland’. Just then there was a crack, not an unfamiliar sound to mountaineers. Rocks move, and when they do so they crack. But this crack was different. It was loud. It was impossibly loud.

Later, when she heard about it, the only thing the other members of the club could remember after that were the words screaming from the lips of Ben, as only a tenor could scream them, simultaneously with the deepest roar from Bill that any auditor had ever heard, which were:

Faith! Put the mountain back!

Siamese Grapes

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Hmmm…this may not turn out quite as Coco had hoped..ah well here goes.

In the old days people used to write letters. Some of you will not even know what a letter could be different than these characters that we use to spell out words, but these different kind of letters were rather like posts in in this forum except that they had been written by hand using a pen to scribe letters out on a piece of paper. Such letters were greeted with great enthusiasm when they arrived in your house. They may have come from another part of the world and it may have taken several weeks to reach you (in those days in the UK you could send a letter in the morning and by the afternoon it would have reached and have been read by its recipient, but the postal service in the rest of the world was not quite as efficient as that. Since those days the UK has worked very hard to reach the same standard as the rest of the world). Often these letters would begin with an interesting story or description of an unusual event before going on to the real subject matter. Interesting things might be like, well, so much seems to revolve around those endless pictures of what is on the plate in front of you today, but it might be that you would be interested to know what I, the writer, of the letter had for breakfast this morning. Well, of course you are! Most of the time it was quite different, like the lady from sub-Saharan African who announced in her opening words that they had had a new toilet installed at their house. The choice of the preposition at is deliberate and accurate.

In fact one of these letter writers did so think that you would be interested in breakfast. Coco knew some people who worked in Brazil, well, actually in the Amazon basin, just a little way up the river…sorry it is easier to say down from the source a few hundred miles or so. Some would say the area was uncivilised, but there was a civil society among the tribes, just not the sort of civil society that you or Coco would expect, though Coco supposes today they are as busy posting into the forum of social media as anyone else. We would have called them hunter gatherers. Well one day, actually it was probably in a quarterly letter so far they were from any kind of even an irregular postal system, we were introduced to a typical breakfast, which could only be consumed of course after you had actually gone out of the village circle to gather it. French snails are interesting, aren’t they? Prawns, those cockroaches of the sea, are consumed in their millions. Aardvarks are known by another name which betrays their voracious diet. Well, here it is a five star Amazonian breakfast…

No, the grapes are not an illustration of that breakfast. Coco thought better of it. Coco changed his mind. Coco repented. It might put you off anything else that you might eat or want to eat today, or even for the rest of the week as ‘it’, the breakfast, preys upon your mind.

So let him turn to the point of this tale. The photograph is not there to show you what Coco had for supper, or anyone else had for breakfast, though it might actually do that, but to point out a fault in the grapes. There is probably also a fault in the image of the grapes, but Coco takes responsibility for that.

Should Coco take them back to the store which sold them and complain about their lack of quality control? Is this a defective grape, or has it been genetically modified? Or is it a twin? That is incorrect, are they Siamese twin grapes? Is it edible? Does the mechanism which controls twinning in grapes also produce other intensely kenotic or phthartic metabolic agents which would be toxic if ingested? These and many other similar thoughts and questions swim around as it were in a delirium.

Answers to these and many other questions may be sent on a postcard please to all of your friends. And if every one of those friends send this message, and any further messages, on on the day of receipt within one month the postal services would have to deliver approximately π billiard tonnes of postcards on the next day, if any postcards were available to be had.

Transport?

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If you are a tube enthusiast, or even if you are not:

Scene 1

If you enjoy travelling on the tube, but especially if you do not read on….

It had been a long and a wearying day, All the particles were feeling quite low and certainly less energetic than usual. A bunch of electrons arrived on the platform at pretty much the same time as a bunch of photons, so the platform was quite full. The train pulled in. There seemed to be plenty of room. True there were some rather large neutrons and several terribly attractive protons, but not so many that they should have been the cause of a problem.

The doors opened. The electrons stood, as only electrons could, looking at each other in that inimitably negative way in astonishment. Perplexed, they listened again: Will all particles use all available doors!

The train started to move. They watched as the train departed with all photons safely on board.

Scene 2

More photons descended to the platform to join our beleaguered electrons. Shortly, a second train, which was rather more crowded than the first arrived.

The announcer blared out his instructions: Please move down the carriages, and will particles please use all available space!

Our poor friends, for we are beginning to get to know them quite well now, were no less confused by this message than by the first. How? How could they? Those rather large neutrons could make a pretty good attempt at it, but we? How can we do that.

The train pulled away. The electrons watched in dismay as the train departed with all photons safely on board.

Scene 3

Niels Bohr descended to the platform to join our now very excited and quite heated electrons. Shortly, a third train, which was completely packed arrived.

The announcer blared out his instructions: Please allow particles off the train before boarding! Use all available doors and move down the carriages using all available space!

Niels, noticing the excitement of our poor friends and their seeming inability to do anything other than race around the platform at high speed, suggested that they might like to get into the carriage. This so incensed the electrons that they collided with each other with immense energy causing the utmost chaos on the platform.

Fearing for the safety of the other particles the announcer ordered the driver to close the doors and pull the train away without delay. Niels smiled as the electrons now calming down watched the walls of the tunnel passing by the windows.

Travel?

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If you are a train enthusiast, this is not for you.

Canada

If you enjoy good dining and a quiet holiday read on….

On this trip we learned two new things:

  • Chocolate is cheaper than therapy, and does not require an appointment.
  • Chocolate is the answer, whatever the question.
  • Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso.

If you have ever thought about travel across Canada, then VIARail is the answer to your problem. Forget about Rocky Mountaineer, they throw you off the train when it gets dark. VIARail is the real rail experience. The train is everything. At almost three furlongs – two engines and 22 cars – it is only surpassed by the goods trains which share the sames lines on their journeys from Vancouver to Toronto – or, if you wish to leave the mountains till last, Toronto to Vancouver.

The stops are frequent, but not too long, so don’t stray too far from the train if you really must get off.

But who needs stops – the views are superb, whether it is of the north Ontario woodlands, the endless prairies, the Albertan forests or the mountains of British Columbia. The changing flora and fauna on the journey provide much interest for the traveller, but even the least interested in matters of the train will be absorbed by the magnificent variety of goods vehicles which form part of the great strings of goods trains – often well over a hundred cars. This traveller counted one hundred seven and fifty on one such string.

Whilst on board you will have a personal steward who is responsible for the well being of all travellers in his or her car. As for accomodation, you may have a private room, a suite, couchette or for the real enthusiast on a very tight budget join in the fun of economy. If you are in other than economy then you have the benefit of a private dining car – meet new people – or not as your preference may be. Three very hearty Canadian meals are provided each day, with the timing of sittings not unexpectedly dependent upon station stops! Train travellers will understand.

So in the words so beloved of the UK train industry – let the train take the strain!

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Where do you go when not in London?

My favourite curry house is in Crane Court, but where do you go when you are not in the City of London? That was the question that faced us when we were in that town which has apparently not yet made peace with Russia¹. The answer came from a friendly church pastor in Wooler: The Magna Tandoori, Berwick. And so we went. “Hmmm”, I thought as we walked in, “this might have been a mistake. There are no white tablecloths on the tables….ah well! beggars can’t be choosers and no one else had had a recommendation. “

We had been welcomed well enough and shown to a table in a good position. But now not expecting the best I sat down with my friends. Next problem – no popadoms. I was used to these delicasies simply appearing on the table, but here we had to ask for them.

But that is when it all turned around. The lack of tablecloths was made up for by the extensive menu – all of the old favourites and where else will you find duck and venison on a curry menu. Well, that had to be tried, and together with king prawns and other dishes, a variety of different rices and peshwari naan we all feasted away rounding the meal off with a little desert – the lemon sorbet is recommended and complimentary coffees on the sofas.

It was only then that I noticed how quiet it had been. All too often a place without table cloths is far too loud, either because the hifi had had its day and the volume control is jammed at the top or through the lack of furnishings to absorb sound. The quietness was not disturbing, but really added to the atmosphere. I could almost think that there was some music playing, but if so it was just there in the background not being intrusive so we could enjoy talking together without having to shout or strain to listen.

Excellent evening all round!

One word of warning, take a couple of teenage lads with you to help out with the food. This is not skimpy nouvelle cuisine. The helpings are generous.

O! Angelina

Returning to chocolate, we must not forget the establishment just across le rue de Rivoli from le jardin des Tuileries. Leave by l’allée de Castiglione, turn right and it is a less than a few hundred yards down on the other side of the road. A booking is essential if you do not want a long wait, but a long wait is worth its weight in chocolate. There are other branches of this establishment, to which ingression is somewhat easier if you pick the right day.
But Angelina by the Tuileries must be the foremost chocolate house in Paris. If you have nothing else but time for the Louvre, well they have one inside, but skip lunch and visit Angelina.

There are other versions of the story, but why refute a good story with too many contrary facts.

¹We are not at war with Russia, but according to some sources since Berwick had changed hands several times, it was traditionally regarded as a special, separate entity, and some proclamations referred to “England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed”. One such was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853, which Queen Victoria supposedly signed as “Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions”. When the Treaty of Paris (1856) was signed to conclude the war, “Berwick-upon-Tweed” was left out. This meant that, supposedly, one of Britain’s smallest towns was officially at war with one of the world’s largest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.²

Rights?

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There is much talk about human rights in the present age.

But there is little talk of duty.

What good is it if a man presses his rights, but forgets his duty towards his fellow citizens? He is no better than the Pharisees who were condemned by the Lord, Jesus Christ, who said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”‘ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down.” (Mark 7:9-13 NKJV)

By applying the law of rights – I have a right to do what I like with my money – the Pharisee, or indeed anyone who wished to do so, was able to lay aside his duty to provide care for his parents. All too often we press our rights without thinking of the consequences for others. Better to be wronged surely than deprive another of his rights or to fail to do your duty! The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian church, where people were all too ready to press their rights, said: Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! (1 Corinthians 6:7-9 NKJV)

What of the conflict of rights? What of the right to smoke? If such a right, to slowly destroy oneself, could possibly exist. Does this right not conflict with a right to clean air? I do not doubt that it would not be difficult to come up with a list of rights that conflict with one another on a very practical level, but also much more seriously on an ethical and moral level.

When we arrived in Winnipeg early in the evening we heard others speaking about going to visit the cathedral. Looking around we saw a cathedral like structure not far from the station. Could that be it? It looked like a cathedral. As we walked towards the bridge which passed nearby, we saw that indeed it was a cathedral, in a very secular sense of that word, for it was a museum to the god of the post modern age, Human Rights. Men fall down at the feet of this god, as if he must always be satisfied, whatever the outcome may be, and whatever common sense might say. Human Rights must be obeyed even if the granting of a right to one deprives another of a right. Who is granted and who is deprived depends more upon the ephemeral wishes of public opinion, or perhaps more upon the wishes of the liberal elite, rather than objective truth, so rather than human rights being granted, we are subject to the tyranical rule of the new despots of liberalism.

I have no wish to belittle the importance of rights, but to come back to the words of the Lord, rights cannot relieve us of our duties. The duty of the king to protect his people must at times mean that he will deny some of his people their rights. A man may have a right to family life, but if that man is a danger to the king’s other subjects, then it is the duty of the king to deprive him of his rights for the protection of his people. The king’s duty trumps the rights of the individual.

I do not think for one moment that this is popular teaching! Our response to a rebellion in the middle east shows that the West has lost its direction in this regard. Rather than supporting the king in his efforts to do his duty and maintain peace for his people, just because we disagreed with the king, we encouraged the rebels. Did we not think! Or did we naïvely think that by replacing one ‘rights’ violator we would not end up with another ‘rights’ violator?

There is a better museum of human rights to be found in Winnipeg than this monstrosity. In the grounds of St Boniface’s cathedral just a short walk from the CMHR, there is a pastiche, though a very serious pastiche, on the theme of the tomb of the unknown soldier. A young women leans forlornly on a marble grave stone. It is not clear whether she is the mother or the child, but whether she is the mother of the child she is one of whom the grave stone speaks eloquently, but silently, in French and in English:

  • À la memoire des victimes de l’avortement
  • In memory of the victims of abortion

The right to life has in our (post)-modern (so called) world been trumped by the right to do as you please with your own body. The mother is persuaded by the abortionist that the cathedral of her womb may expel the bishop whenever she wishes, after all it is her body, not the body of another. And so we prove that we are no better than the Spartans, and certainly no less cruel.

The sign outside the CMHR suggests that it is both a keeper of the past and a beacon for the future. As keeper of the past, then perhaps one can only suggest that it keeps the past so well that compassion has been lost within her. Of what use is compassion in a world dominated by rights!

For my part, there is only one thing that can follow a claim to be keeper of the past and beacon of the future – a folly of the present. Oh that men may see that the Lord who made the heavens and the earth, desires righteousness above rights, and compassion from and towards humanity.

The prophet Micah made this plain when he spoke out: Hear now what the LORD says:… He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (6:8)

My parable of the banker shows whereup, when rights trump duty, we can end.

I suppose I should let the CMHR speak for itself. Without contradicting what I said above they do some good. What is a pity is that the doctrine to which they hold, not being derived from Biblical teaching, leads them at times to reach the wrong conclusions.

Wenn außerhalb Paris?

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If you know nothing of chocolate, this is not for you.

Amboise

Wenn man in Frankreich aber außerhalb Paris sei….

Die Menschen, wer mein anderen Artikel „Reisen“ gelesen haben, kennen des Haus Angelina, die in die Straße von Rivoli ist. Aber, wenn man in Frankreich sei, sondern außerhalb Paris, wo kann man fahren um güte Schokolade zu finden? Fahren Sie nach Amboise!

Als wir in Amboise waren, besuchten wir die echte Platz.

Wir waren im königlichen Palast Amboise, wo ich ein Traum hatte. In meinem Traum sah ich die Königin Maria-Antoinette. Sie war an den Mauern dieses Schloß, und als sie herum ging, sie zufällig Bigot zu sehen war.

Darunter den hundertmeternhoch Mauern war die Gestalt des kleines Häuslein des Bigot, wer im Jahr 1913 ⃰ gegründet war.

Maria-Antoinette freute sich es zu bemerken. Und sie sprache in seiner Wonne: „O dass ich eine Kerlin wäre; ich wolle nicht hier bleiben müssen. Ich könne im Haus Bigot gehen.“ Und als sein Entzücken so gross wachset, in seinem Herz die Gedachten hemmungslos wild werden: „O dass ich Flügel hätte wie die Taube; ich würde von diesem Mauern fliegen, bis ich Schokolade fände! Und hin, hin aus diesen Palast, wolle ich mein Erfüllung in Bigot machen werden.“

Der Abschluß ist klar. Wenn man in Amboise sei, gehen Sie auf den Palast um das sehr geehrten, echten Haus an die Ecke zu finden. Bigot nennet sich ein Salon de Thé. Bigot ist nicht nur ein Haus, sondern ein Palast des königlichen Schokolade.

⃰ Marie-Antoinette war während des Französisch Revolution im Jahr 1793 hingerichtet.

When the viola plays…

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The orchestra detailed

Whilst we were away we attended a concert of operatic love songs given by a group of musicians consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, string quartet, bass and piano/harpsichord.

There follows the descriptions in apposition and opposition of the various instruments of the chamber group in relation to each other and their conductor who performed for a gathered audience in an auditorium in Venice.

The three singers, soprano, tenor and baritone were superb actors and played their parts very well, even to the extent of moving stage furniture around themselves when appropriate. The instrumentalists also displayed much character – and many well known characteristics. We must start with the leader (first violin), and then work from left to right.

The leader was every bit a librarian as you would ever expect to see – pretty, wearing a bun and the mandatory round metal framed spectacles. She always looked as if there was something going wrong. Her sternness was only matched by the accuracy of her fingers. On the left was the flautist, she was totally absorbed in the sound of the ensemble all of the time. When she had to play she almost gave the impression of ‘Must I play, but if I do I might spoil this gorgeous sound’. Of course she never did spoil anything, and was completely rapt in the beauty of the ensemble as she played. Next to her was the oboist. He was completely wrapped up too in his own sounds. When he was not playing he looked as if he only wanted to show how much more remarkable an instrument the oboe was, and he as a musician who played the oboe was, than any of the rabble that surrounded him, He waited impatiently for the next opportunity to shine, which he did of course whenever he pressed his lips against the cane. To his right was the clarinettist. If it had not been for the fact that now and again his fingers moved, you would have had to conclude that he was dead. Apart from the sound that emanated from his bell there was no life in him. Passing by our leader we come to the second violin, and what a second! If it were not that the notes she produced were required to complete the harmony I don’t think she would have been missed. I shall come back to the violist. on whose right we have the ‘cellist, who did what all ‘cellists do, produced beautiful sounds and somehow managed to remember that he was not a soloist. Next we had the keyboard player, who appeared to have a crisis of identity, being asked to play both harpsichord and piano in the same concert rather stretched the poor man’s brain somewhat. On the right we have the bass, a dear player who played for all her worth, perhaps as if she were trying to carry all the weight of Mahler’s 8th on her bass line, but, if you please, these were operatic love songs.

I said I would come back to the violist, and it is really necessary to set the scene a little more first. One of the pieces played was Offenbach’s barcarolle without the singers. The three woods were to take the melody lines and the strings to provide a pizzicato accompaniment. All starts well, four strings in pizzicato mode and woods doing their best. But one string is missing, and this to my mind produced the sternest of stern looks from our librarian. The missing string comes in playing arco, very beautifully arco of course as you would expect, but nevertheless still definitely arco and not pizzicato. Well what would you do in that situation? The librarian is shooting daggers at you, but you are in the middle of a performance and to suddenly shift for no good reason from arco to pizzicato would have let the performance down, ie the audience would have known something was amiss. Surely the art of performance is to turn mistakes to advantage? Well she did what all good violists do, either she brazened it out as if she hadn’t any idea at all what was going on, or else, she had not even noticed the librarian’s look, and carried on regardless.

The librarian did smile once. The baritone decided, perhaps to provoke her, that she was the object of his affection during one of his arias, and the kiss on her hand at the end of the song brought a little curl to the lips.

As my wife said: Only the Italians could do it that way, everyone an actor true to character!

None of this has anything to do with Chopin’s op 37 nr 2, but I thought I would bore you all with it anyway. I have two editions of the Chopin, and concerning this nocturne they are slightly different. I have not entirely decided which one to go with yet, what you hear is where I am presently, so as you listen: Ὄσοι οὖν τέλει, τοῦτο φρονῶμεν· καὶ εἴ τι ἑτέρως φρονεῖτε, καὶ τοῦτο ὁ διδάσκαλος ὑμῖν ἀποκαλύψει· Παῦλος ἀπόστολος which paraphrased may mean: Think about it. And if you think differently, we’ll talk when we meet.

Chopin 37:2