Revisiting the Pre-Raphaelites

 

Rossetti: The Beloved

(reproduced courtesy of Tate Britain)

 

 

I went up to London yesterday to see the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain.  I've never really cared for the PRB (this trendy acronym was adopted by the exhibition organisers, and denotes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - feminists can refrain from comment).  But I wanted to see the exhibition to see whether I might have changed my view, with the passing of time.  But alas, no. 

 

I did come away with two things, however: the first was that I had always thought of the PRB as being later in the nineteenth century than they were: in fact they kicked off in the middle, rather than towards the end, and were therefore ahead of the Impressionists.  So the idea of them as a rather pathetic alternative to their more successful French contemporaries isn't correct, since they weren't really contemporary at all.  Secondly, though, on reflection it had not occurred to me that their preoccupations were more social than the Impressionists' concern with paint and how things are seen. 

 

It may be for this reason that, in the final analysis, they continue to leave me cold.  The anachronistic nature of many of the paintings is incongruous: the costumes are medieval, the facial expressions and poses distinctly Victorian.  More disconcertingly, a number of the persons portrayed are just begging to have bubble comments put beside them: take the lady on the right in the picture above.  She's obviously asking the girl behind whether she's remembered to bring the tickets.  The one on the left appears to be saying to the central figure: "Keep looking him in the eye and he'll give way".  While the central figure herself seems to be saying to the onlooker:  "Ok, this is who I am."  This all builds up to the idea of girls confronting a bouncer outside a nightclub. 

 

I don't want to press the point too much.  Some of the smaller paintings are beautiful.  I also particularly liked the stunning William Morris rug, portrayed below (again courtesy of the Tate), which I could happily have packed up in my bag and brought home had we a room large enough for it.  The colours still gleam like jewels.  But the great set-pieces of the PRB continue, I'm afraid, to leave me unmoved.

 

 

Antony Mair

 



Camber sands

Camber sands

 

 

The beach at Hastings is shingle - as are the beaches all the way to Brighton going west.  On the other side of Rye, however, to the east, Camber has wide expanses of sand.  In the summer months there is a permanent traffic jam of holidaymakers and their cars and caravans.  But outside the holiday season the sands provide a wonderful expanse for walkers and their dogs.

 

Camber itself is a nondescript village, with some cafés and small restaurants catering to the beach crowd.  But a dog-walk on the sands followed by scampi and chips is a good way to pass a sunny day.

 

There are those among you who have asked for more pictures of the dogs: I spent a fair amount of yesterday trying to get an adequate photo, but they were moving too fast for me, and I have a collection of pictures full of blurred fur scuttling out of the picture.  The only time they seemed to come to rest was when there was the prospect of a treat.  So here you are.

 

 



Shanty Night at the Stag Inn

Shanty Singers at the Stag

 

The Stag Inn is at the end of All Saints Street furthest from the sea.  I pass it almost every night as I give the dogs their final walk of the day.  On various nights in the week there is the sound of singing as I walk by, and on further enquiry I found that on Tuesday nights there are folk songs, on Wednesdays "Blue Grass" music, and on Thursday night the Shanty singers.  I've been wanting to go along to hear the shanties for a while now, and finally we got there last Thursday, with our neighbours Ian and Ketil.

 

They serve more than passable food at the Stag, and we had a good dinner in what seemed an almost deserted bar at the front of the pub.  Come nine o'clock, however, various people started drifting towards the back: they were out of sight but it soon became clear that that was where the action was.  In a separate bar at the rear the singers sat or stood round a central table, while others occupied space round the edge.  There didn't seem to be any spare seats, but everyone was very welcoming and more chairs and stools were produced for us.

 

The singers in the group took turns: the pattern of a shanty is that there is a sequence of verses with a chorus.  The chorus may be to accompany the heaving of sails or winches, or just a way of getting people to join in, and varies in length.  But everyone joins in, and since both words and tune are easy to remember it's easy to feel part of the group.  The photo - taken by Ketil on his phone, so not of the first quality - gives an idea of the event.

 

It was brilliant.  We shall be heaving and ho-ing again, I predict.  Avast and belay etc. 

 

Now I've got to go and get that parrot.

 

Antony Mair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Back to poetry...

 

 

Before we moved back to the UK, friends would ask us what our plans were on our return.  Paul's were straightforward: to get back into agency.  Mine were rather more vague: I wanted to spend time reading up on a variety of topics - the history of religion; psychology and the development of consciousness in evolution; cognitive neuroscience - in order to try and make some sense of the world we're living in.  In fact, as matters have worked out I find myself more or less back where I was when we left the UK in 2005: writing poetry.

 

Poetry is big in the UK.  "Poetry News", which comes out four times a year, receives 3000 submissions a year, of which it publishes 150.  The annual National Poetry Competition, run by the Poetry Society, received 8000 entries last year.  The Poetry Society runs the Poetry Café in London; the Poetry Library on the South Bank is well-frequented; and throughout the country there are groups and individuals poring over verse.

 

Some months ago I joined two groups: one in Hastings and another in Brighton.  Both meet monthly.  The Hastings group brings together people who read what they have written on a theme given out the month before.  The Brighton group - one of the Stanza groups run as local presences of the Poetry Society - operates as a workshop: each person brings along something they have written and the others present give their comments.  You need to be able to make constructive comments and take criticism yourself.  I find it incredibly useful. 

 

It's curious to find that I took up, almost seamlessly, from where I left off in the spring of 2005.  I'd done little writing in France: the demands of the agency absorbed most of my energy.  Now I'm back, everything seems to have fallen quietly into place.  The other day I discovered that my study window looks onto the house of a neighbour who runs a small poetry press.  It all seems part of the curious serendipity of this surprising town.

 

Antony Mair

Season of mellow mists...and tax returns

View of the Stade from the end of Tackleway

 

Keats got it pretty badly wrong these past few days.  It's been wet, wet, wet: more like Lincolnshire in Bleak House: "The weather is so very bad, down in Lincolnshire, that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again".  Today the rain has disappeared, but a sea mist has blotted out not only the beach but the other side of the Old Town.  No sign of Keats' "maturing sun".

 

So we've been deep in paperwork: UK tax returns are meant to be in by the end of the month, and I felt smug at getting mine in ahead of the deadline.  Paul detests formalities of this kind, so there is always a bit of a last-minute drama: but even he has been sorting out papers and contacting his accountant.  At the same time, post comes in from the French tax authorities: the elaborate calculations set out on the back of the large form are unfortunately wrong, and I have to write to claim a refund they've conveniently ignored.  Just as I think things are clear, in comes another demand - for social charges.  Yuk.

 

As if all the tax stuff isn't enough, we're winding up our little French company.  Our French accountants have emailed me a mass of documents.  It takes me the best part of a day to sift them through, print them off, sign the relevant number of copies and arrange return packages to Ribérac - one for the accountants, the other for the tax office.  This is a load off my mind since it spells the imminent end of my need to continue paying French social charges.  The only silver lining to this particular cloud is that, if I can thread my way through another bureaucratic labyrinth, I am entitled to a small French pension as a result of my contributions.

 

I shall be more than relieved to tie up all the French loose ends: I never felt I was entirely in control of the bureaucratic process.  On discussing it with French friends I found that they experienced much the same.  Social charges, in particular, remained a mystery to me even after seven years.  I understood the basic process but it struck me as cockeyed, and the results apparently arbitrary.  What is particularly irritating is the sense that the bureaucrats start with the view that you're a villain, wanting to evade all payment.  The result, of course, is that you reach a point where you want to act the rôle they've cast you in.

 

It occurs to me that the first chapters of Bleak House are all about fog, used as a metaphor for the legal obscurities of the Chancery courts.  It seems appropriate that I should be dealing with all this stuff as the mist rolls in...

 

Antony Mair

 

 

 

  

Refugee cooking

Reduced cooking facilities

 

I had been dreading the turmoil of builders coming in.  Having just got used to the vagaries of our kitchen, I was going to see it all thrown to the winds.  I began to think of how we would cope.  When I looked at the Argos catalogue, however, the possibilities seemed greater than I had anticipated.  The last time I endured this upheaval I'd got a microwave and a double ring and washed up in the bathroom basin.  This time at least I had the sink in the utility area (a rather grand name for a space under the stairs).  But Argos opened my eyes to the possibilities of steamers, slow cookers, halogen ovens and deep fryers.  Friends recommended something with an incomprehensible Czech name that could substitute for an oven. 

 

Unusually, a sense of proportion clicked in: Paul's tenants next door are moving out at the end of the month so we only had three weeks or so to endure serious chaos, as we could move in there for the worst.  I'd been thinking of a slow cooker: then one day there was a smell of something stewing next door for the whole day, and I realised that a slow cooker would fill the house with a casserole smell for hours.  Fine if you're out at work but a bit of a pain if you're in.  So that was out.  The incomprehensible Czech cooker came in at over £100 so that was eliminated as well.  I thought I could manage fine with a two-burner ring and a steamer.  After all, steamers are healthy, aren't they?

 

The steamer certainly works.  And I'm sure it's a healthy way of cooking.  However, what they don't tell you is that the steam has to go somewhere, and that it emerges from holes in the top tray and on to the ceiling.  If the ceiling's low and old, you start getting concerned about the possibility of eating lath and plaster with your veggies.  Also, when you come to dish up, and remove the tray from the steamer, water drips out over work surface and floor.  So it's not ideal.

 

The two-ring burner, on the other hand, has been rather a triumph.  I've managed to do a casserole on it without difficulty, and of course the frying-pan plus pot of boiling water combination for veg has worked a treat.  The steamer has come in as an auxiliary.  I'm feeling quite proud. 

 

On the other hand, the tenants told us today that they've exchanged contracts on their new house and are definitely moving at the end of the month.  Phew! 

 

Antony Mair  

Hastings Bonfire Night

Part of the Bonfire Night procession

 

 

We had been told that Hastings Bonfire Night was something not to be missed, so we gave up the original plan to go to Eastbourne for the Met Opera direct transmission and stayed put.  Indications of what was afoot were already apparent the previous evening, when I was giving the dogs their late walk down All Saints Street: figures in top hats and feathers, frock coats and boots, looking like undertakers out of a Hammer Horror film, were wandering home after final preparations. 

 

The event fully lived up to expectations: just after 7 pm the beacon was lit on the top of East Hill, and a procession started, led by drummers, of Sussex bonfire societies and various community groups, in costumes varying from the Hastings stripy sweaters as above, topped with the top hats and feathers, through convict dress with arrows on (Battle Bonfire Society) to one group who looked fresh from the Venice Carnival - I'd got a bit confused by this stage about who was who.  Each group had at its head a standard-bearer, with a shield lit by three flaming torches.  There were of course additional torches, as you can see from the photo: it was a miracle that the overhanging half-timbered houses were not set alight.

 

At 9 pm a huge bonfire was lit on the beach, and then there was a fine firework display, watched by thousands of people.  I don't usually like crowds but this was a good-tempered lot enjoying themselves.  Things were a little different by the end of the evening, when the dogs were given their final walk: a number of folk in the streets were very much the worse for wear, finding their way home with some difficulty. 

 

The atmosphere was so pagan that I found it difficult to believe that it stemmed only from the celebrations in 1605 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot.  The proximity of the autumn equinox made me think that there might be a link with pagan equinoctial rites involving fire.  There doesn't seem, however, to be any historical basis for this.  The truth is, I suspect, that Hastings folk seize any opportunity to dress up in costume and have a drink or two.

 

Antony Mair