Saachi Art

There's a TV programme about Saatchi and his so-called art. There was a slim possibilty that I might, just might, have watched it; then I saw the name of one of the judges - Tracey Emin of Unmade Bed fame. A judge? Come off it Saatchi. But when you think about it, it's not all that surprising; after all Saatchi is an advertising specialist not an artist, nor a known critic of art, only a collector. And a collector is someone who collects. Sometimes, as with old books, they turn out to be valuable objects; often they are collected because someone who has no taste at all likes them - as with comics (some of which are now quite valuable I hear).
Saatchi is a fraud. Emin is a non-artist. As for "the shark" - as Robert What'shisname said of it "more praise to the angler, at least he caught the f****** thing" or words to that effect.
I think people are beginning to come round to thinking that a lot of modern art, modern music, modern poetry is really a load of junk. With art, a guy decides to present a made object to the gullible public and he proceeeds to argue about its artistic content - it's the argument that becomes the important feature not the work itself. Poetry is bogged down in free verse and non rhyming lines which often read like prose. Music.... I've done my best to try to listen to some modern music but have now given up altogether; I now feel like the critic who, at a concert where Schonberg was playing one of his 12 tone pieces, got to his feet and said "Stop, stop, that's enough, no more...." and left.
Charles Saatchi - isn't he married to that Lawson woman who is said to be sexy as she cooks (as sexy as a rice pudding in my opinion)? But her food looks good. Perhaps Saatchi should try presenting her dishes as works of art: they look better than The Unmade Bed. You can eat them too!

Leftovers

A food writer in Slatemagazine.com says the leftover turkey (after Thanksgiving) should not be turned into other meals like risottoed turkey scraps or tsunami fried fricasee; she believes that the only decent way to eat leftover turkey is in a sandwich, that turkey is a really inferior bird to the chicken and other more exotic wild birds. She's right. Turkey is popular in America because its a traditional food to eat at Thanksgiving parties; its not eaten because it's particularly liked but because it's... well, traditional: it brings America's short history into mind, how they got shot of us by emigrating to America from Britain; it's in memory of the Pilgrims who celebrated their first harvest of The Plymouth Colony in 1621. They don't eat it because they like it, they eat it because, like Everest, "it's there".
I don't like turkey either. It's too dry, not very tasty. You have to have stuff with it to make it interesting, often to make it palatable: cranberry sauce, stuffing, sausages..... Chicken is superior in taste and texture. The author of the article mentions capon as being better than both turkey and chicken. It's bigger, has the breast, nearly, of a turkey and tastes better. It's not a large chicken but a castrated cock. Nice to know!
Leftovers in general are more popular now probably because of the credit crunch; why waste all that food, sort of thing? What I do with leftovers is this: chicken pieces leftovers I put in a pan and pour over them a tin of curry and heat (Homepride is my favourite) or throw them in a wok and pour over them a jar of sweet and sour sauce (Uncle Benn's is good). Beef leftovers? Cottage pie - fry with onions, put in a dish, cover with mashed potatoes and stick in the oven. Lamb leftovers? Shepherd's pie - same as cottage pie only it's lamb not beef. Pork leftovers? Leave well alone. Duck leftovers? No such thing - there's so little breast, you eat it all in one go.
O yes, leftover potatoes: chop into small pieces, fry, beat an egg in a cup and pour over them. It's called.... all together now.... an ommelette.

Malta

"Britain has fewer road deaths by number of cars than any of the other 27 countries in the European Union, apart from Malta," according to Alexander Chancellor writing miserably about his fate at the hands of the fuzz when he was caught on a drink-driving charge. Never mind about the point he was going on to make, I was stalled from reading on a for a while at the name "Malta".
I was on holiday there some years ago and three things struck me: it seemed like a country that had at some time in the distant past been part of volcanic fallout - there wasn't a blade of grass to be seen anywhere, the ground was like shale, no fields, no bushes, can't remember if there were trees. Secondly, the place was full of crooks trying to sell you "time shares" - one young chap came up to me and asked me to dip my hand in his bag to see if I would be lucky; I did and he immediately told me with great delight that I had won a holdiay to the Caribbean. "Just pop in the house down there and...." "They'll try to sell me a time-share place" I put in. He shook his head and went on to explain something but I said, handing him back my Caribbean prize "Here, you have the holiday in the Caribbean." Thirdly, I remember the cars there. They all seemed fifties and sixties - if not earlier - British cars which were just about roadworthy. Everyone drove like maniacs but, as Chancellor says, there were few accidents. One of the reasons is, I believe, that there are no traffic signals; when they arrived at a cross roads they gave way to bigger vehicles. Simple way to clear up road casualties: no traffic signals.
O yes, there is another thing I remember about Malta, something that killed off what little socialistic principles I had retained from my youth, the state red wine. It's was about 50p per bottle and it was dreadful stuff. I thought "if the state can't do better than this then something's wrong with the state."

Enid Blyton

I have only ever read one story by Enid Blyton; it was mercifully short and pretty awful. But the woman fascinated me then probably because I was looking for financial success in writing (never achieved) and wondered how it was that she was so prodigiously successful; maybe I could learn the trick from her. I learnt nothing from her from that one story of course, so I decided to read her biography - or was it her autobiography? Whatever - it was, I think I can truthfully say, the most boring book I have ever read (though Agatha Christie's autobiography runs it a good second).
Now that I have seen the BBC play about her life I can understand why it was so boring: it contained none of the dirt. This dramatisation was a real hatchet job on her; it was hard to imagine how it was possible to live with her, yet she had two husbands who, for a time, were fond of her - myself, I think I'd have left at the earliest opportunity before I found myself with m,y hands round her neck crying "will you just stop talking for a minute or two...."
The play gradually transformed her from being an irritation, like a rash that gradually gets worse and worse, into a monster.
Of course she was determinedly ambitious to such an extent that she practically abandoned her two daughters to the care of a maid. And her ambition was such that she achieved immense success. I read once that her sales were almost as great as The Bible which took top place in the best-seller list. Apparently she still sells 8 million books per year though she died some time ago.
She was never popular with libraries and schools whose personnel looked down their noses at the stuff she turned out. But there! they turned down their noses at Roald Dahl too.
It's always the case that when someone is very successful there's a desire by the elite writers or artists or sculptures or whatever to try to demean them for their lack of literary style or some such thing. In a book about literature for children I once looked at, there was no mention of either Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl; both seemingly were despised by that elite group of children's writers whom few children actually read.

Bristol Old Vic

Just come back from seeing a wonderful production of Chekov's "Uncle Vanya" at The Bristol Old Vic. There has been a lot of controversy over the past few years about this old and famous theatre resulting in its closure for a year or so, but things have now been resolved and plays are being produced once again. The theatre has been refurbished - well yes it has in a way: the foyer and bars have been improved but the inside seems to me to have remained the same as it was when I went there about 20 years ago.
Now there is I suppose a good deal of nostalgia about this ancient theatre; I have the feeling that because of memories of great theatre there in the past they didn't dare modernise the interior. The fact is that it is one of the most uncomfortable places I have been for some time (excluding the upper circle of Cardiff's New Theatre). The seat I had was small and there was little leg room; the seat itself was not horizontal but sloped forward; every time I tried to sit properly the seat squeeked. Another thing about the row I sat it - the front row of the upper circle: it's dangerous - the balcony is too low and I could imagine someone (me that is) toppling over onto the seats in the stalls.
So here I was trying to get comfy while watching one of the finest productions of Chekov I have seen. This "Uncle Vanya" was as good as, if not betteer, than one I saw years ago with Olivier, as the doctor, and Redgrave as Vanya.

Writing and cutting

Last week I started to read Tom Wolfe's second novel, "A Man in Full", but I didn't continue. It's a great lump of a book, about five inches wide.... In short (no pun intended) it's too long. He puts every detail he can into his descriptions so that you wonder "has he done this so that he cannot be accused of doing too little research?" for he must have done a tremendous amount of research since it is a book about big business and banks and money dealings and collapse and I'm pretty sure he didn't know much about this when he set out. Something came to mind about Raymond Carver, the short story writer, who when asked how he produced a short story said he'd write it then he'd cut it and cut it and cut it. If only Tom Wolfe had followed this precept then I might have read further because, I have to say, it was quite an interesting novel. I did finish and enjoy "Bonfire of the Vanities", his first novel, and was looking forward to enjoying this one but.... no, I could not spend weeks reading the rest of it (I'm a slow reader).
I once had a story of mine accepted by the BBC on condition that I would cut it from about 3400 words to the Morning Story section of 2400 words. So I set about cutting it; I didn't enjoy this but if that's what the producer wanted then that's what I'd give him. It was accepted as the new 2400 worder. And I have to say it was much improved.
This same story I gave to a class of evening writers I used to teach and asked them to cut it from 3400 to 2400 words approximately, as I had already done. I was surprised and pleased that they all made practically the same cuts I had made.
I'll wait for the film of "A Man in Full" to come out with the hope that it is rather better than the film of "Bonfire of the Vanities".

Norway

In a letter in The Daily Telegraph yesterday someone was writing from Norway about being nostalgic about church bells; he had been living in Norway for many years and, apart from the lack of church bells ringing, he seemed to love the country. Well I was nostalgic for Britain after only a week or so in Norway.
For one thing I could not find a pub there; and the only place I could buy a bottle of wine there was a sort of supermarket where wine was sold from behind bars - the prison kind! One had to point to a picture of the wine one wanted and the server (behind the bars) would fetch it and pass it to you through a slot.
It seemed to me that you weren't encouraged to drink there; on the contrary, drinking was something that was frowned on - so the cost of a pint was extremely high.
I saw a stand with bottles of red wine on it one day when I went to down to dinner; they were about £20 each. I asked how much the house wine was and was told "that is the house wine".
But it wasn't just the cost of booze that made me averse to Norway's attractions. There was the fact that the weather was so dreadful all the time we were there. In Bergen one day we had sun, rain, snow, sleet, a high wind, and hailstones all in a few hours.
The fiords I expected to see blue (like on the telly) were grey. The waterfalls I expected to see like Niagara were small, like you see in North Wales (they're better in North Wales).
In a large hotel we stayed at, the evening entertainment was the hotel's regular dining room pianist dressed up as Greig playing - Greig!
I was glad to get home, away from the greyness and the lack of cheap drink and the beetroot (cooked with practically every meal as a vegetable). Back to the church bells.

Man of the West

I recall reading somewhere a long time ago that the avante garde "new wave" French critics were very fond of American gangster films and that a much favoured western they liked was Anthony Mann's "Man of the West". I have just watched the first half of the film tonight and will watch the second half in a few minutes. I don't often agree with the French critics but in this case I do. I think it's a superb Western, though not a traditional kind, no chases, not much riding and there's no real hero; rather, there's a flawed hero, a man who's changed but who knows he was once capable of brutal violence.
To play a part like this requires someone of powerful cinematic presence; a certain kind of star is required. Possibly James Stewart, one of Anthony Mann's favourites ("The Man from Laramie"; "Winchester 73" etc.), might have filled the roll satisfactorilly enough but the choice of Gary Cooper is surely the best there could be. Here he is getting on in age, he moves not too athletically, but he is there, that presence which fills you with the feeling that whatever happens to other less courageous characters, he'll be there to comfort and protect them - if he can.
He is the gentleman among some of the darkest criminals I can think of on the screen with Lee J. Cobb the vilest of them.
While I am fond of Anthony Mann's earlier westerns with James Stewart, I like this one more.
How two critics can differ so profoundly in their judgements is illustrated by David Thomson's take on this film: "Mann's final masterpiece...." and Leslie Halliwell's: "Talkative, set-bound, cliche-ridden star western with minor compensations".

Tenessee Williams

I've just, this afternoon, seen Theatre Clwyd's production of Tenessee Williams's play "The Glass Menagerie"; quite a good production done in a style which, I read, is very like the style in which it was originally performed.
There is one unsettling thing, to me, about the central character, Amelia, the mother of Tom and Laura, both no longer in their teens (though their mother treats them as if they still are) and that is that she is such a bore. Bores are difficult enough to portray in novels (I think immediately of the one in "Emma" which almost wrecked the book for me) but should prove almost impossible to present in plays. This one is so grindingly borish that I wondered if the part had ever been successfully played. Well it seems that it has - many times! Must be me then. Though I insist that this middle-aged woman from the deep south of America is a person whom, if you met her in real life, you'd flee from as fast as you would from someone with swine flu. She is obsessed. She is full of romantic yearning for the life that once was when she was young and had "gentlemen callers" by the dozen mooning over her. She is tactless. She is ruthless, unsympathetic, manipulating and deceitful. She is, in short, a monster. Yet great actresses have played her and succeeded in making her palatable. More than that - they've made her acceptable as a human being..... but surely not loveable!
The play itself is a bit of a mess with its "voice over" of the son telling us what's coming next (really, though, what has been) and the opening act's relentless battles between mother and son, with the same things being said over and over.
But the second act lifts the play into a world of manners and decency that gives the play a rich centre that is near to being moving.
I was surprised to see that Gertrude Lawrence played the mother in an early film and that Kirk Douglas played the gentleman caller (though I think he must have done this rather well - just up his street).

Maths

There was a quite famous mathematician at Cardiff University in my day; can't remember his name but he was one of those guys who could do fantastically difficult numerical problems in his head as if he didn't have to think of them at all; he just spoke the answer straight out just after the question had been asked. Yet as regards the teaching of Maths there I am told there were many complaints: a group of students went to see him about the quality of the teaching in his department; he said, of course, that he would do something about and, of course, he never did. After he retired a rather brillant woman took over (Rosa Morris was it?); she had, it was rumoured, done some brilliant work on some aspect of flight during WW2. She was a rather grim person whom, you felt, you would never dare attempt to approach and while the teaching in her department was pretty awful no one was ever brave enough to approach her about it.
There were some lecturers in that department who were so dreadful that it was a wonder that they were employable at all. One youngish man (one of those blokes who you wondered if he'd ever know what it was to be young) used to start with chalk on the left hand side of the board in big letters and symbols and end up on the other side in letters and symbols so small you couldn't see them.
Another had a tiny book from which he read to us in a high-pitched voice, so high you had to be a dog to be able to hear it properly. Another, when asked a question, went off on a different track from that which he was on and lost everyone in the course of it.
I was told that he, when he later became professor of the department, took a phone call from a colleague after the xcolleague had been on holiday for about eight weeks and the conversation went somethig like this:
Colleague: Hello Professor, how are you?
Professor: Hah, it's you.... the answer is dee y, dee x squared plus 2 dee y dee x...... etc etc.
I wonder if the best mathematicians make the best teachers. In my experience they made the worst.

Hake

When I was a kid we ate hake regularly. Not cod very much and whiting even less - hake was the dish. Hake is now so expensive that cod is the usually bought fish; sometimes haddock, rarely whiting. Why was it that we, my family, could afford hake and dismiss cod etc as an inferior fish. A friend of mine of my generation told me that in his household hake was usually eaten and that cod was bought "for the cat".
In Ashton's fish market stall in Cardiff, cutlets of hake are for sale at about £12 per lb while cod is much cheaper. I watched a woman buy a few cutlets of hake one day and pay about £15. Now, go along the counter a little and there you will find whole young hake selling for about £2.40 per lb. This is what I buy. Of course, when the head and tail is cut off the weight is less than that when the fish was weighed and priced, but it's still cheap.
I've often wondered why some people who like hake but can't afford the cutlets won't try this young hake in preference to the bigger, wider cutlets of hake; I can only guess that either they don't wish to buy fish with the head on with its eyes staring up at them solemnly, condemningly because of their lack of compassion .... or something, or, more likely, because they don't want the bother of cleaning them. Well, I have met people who don't like whole fish - or for that matter whole anything: chicken, duck etc - because somehow they feel they are going to eat a once living creature and they don't want to be reminded of that. But I feel drawn to the second reason: they don't wish to clean the whole fish. Well, actually, and this they might not know, the fishmonger does it all for you - free of charge. Great: you go home with two fillets of delicious hake for the cost of a cutlet of coley.
The hake we had today was so delicious I recalled the old days when we ate fried hake regularly and, if not gave the cod to the cat, would have liked to.
My method of cooking hake: powder it with flour, place it, skin side down in a non-stick frying pan on a low heat for five minutes, turn it and give the other side five minutes; pop it in a warm oven while I make chips. Salt and vinegar. Angel's food!

Baking Potatoes

There was an article in Times 2 yesterday about methods of baking potatoes; it was written on Bonfire Night when, of course, there'd be fires available for baking purposes. The writer suggested that a large potatoe be wrapped in foil and placed at the hottest, most firey part and left there for about half an hour.
When I was a kid we were always making fires in a lane near our house and often baked potatoes in them. We didn't wrap them in foil (I doubt if it had been invented then) but put them directly into the red-hot part of the fire and waited until they cooked. We didn't wait half an hour - our potatoes were small ones - but about a quarter of an hour; then we'd remove them with a stick and, when they able to be touched, we'd remove the hot, charcoal-burnt skin with light fingers, for fear of being burnt, and eat the potatoes. My recollection of them is that they were delicious. No salt, just the hot, crumbly potatoe.
Now, when I bake a potatoe, I choose a large one, prick it with a fork all over and place it in a hot 200 degree oven for about an hour. When it's done I cut it through the middle, drop a lump of butter in the groove together with some grated cheese. Open a tin of beans in tomatoe sauce to go with it and eat. Delicious.
But maybe not so delicious as those eaten round the camp fire many years ago.

Roald Dahl

Toby Young, in his regular column in The Spectator, last week wrote about how he was looking forward to seeing the new film "Fantastic Mr Fox" because the story "is a favourite in our household mainly because it is so gloriously 'off message'..... Instead of the usual homilies about inclusion and tolerance (in other children's books), it is a celebration of criminality". He was greatly disappointed because Wes Anderson, who directed and helped write the script, had "shoehorned" a politically correct message into the story. There's no political correctness in Roald Dahl stories.
About 20 or so years ago I picked up a book in the library: modern children's literature. I had not heard of most of the writers and didn't know anyone who had. I looked for Roald Dahl, he being one of the most popular of children's writers at the time.... he wasn't mentioned. Pretty obviously he wasn't considered good enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with this elite bunch.
There was a time when Enid Blyton was one of the most popular of children's writers; I doubt very much if she would have secured a place in a not so modern version of such a book. She had the reputation of not being wanted on the shelves by librarians. They'll stick yards of Mills and Boon there but not Enid Blyton (incidentally, I heard a librarian say to an audience once that they bought Mills and Boon books "by the yard").
But while Enid Blyton is (still) popular with kids she is simply unreadable by adults surely whereas Beatrix Potter can be enjoyed when you've matured into a bitter old bugger who can't stand kids.
Roald Dahl though is a writer of quite great stature: his short stories are wonderful - I particularly like "The Man from the South".
"There are some national treasures that simply shouldn't be entrusted to the Americans and the author os 'Fantastic Mr Fox' is one of them". So says Toby Young and I think I agree with him.