Mustering the support staff

Looking down Tackleway to the sea - the Shoebox is the house by the lamp-post, with the blue front

When you move country you forget that it's not just a question of switching residence: there's a whole network to re-establish.  It's only after three months that I begin to feel we're getting there.  I'm not talking about friends and acquaintance: it starts with the need for tradesmen - electricians, plumbers, joiners etc. - and the places to shop for daily needs - a decent butcher, vegetable shop and  supermarket.  But where do you go for shoe repairs? or dry cleaning?

Then there's the question of personal maintenance - the doctor and dentist and - last but not least - a decent hairdresser (less a problem for me, since it's a once-over with the clippers, than for Paul with his flowing locks).  But there's also the osteopath, the acupuncturist and - ideally - a decent masseur. 

And that's just us: there are the dogs to consider as well: registering with a local vet; finding a decent shop for leads, beds etc.; and then locating a groomer and a dogsitter.

We now have a pair of cleaning ladies who come in each week to give the Shoebox a once-over; the fishmonger is beginning to know me; and the dogs are delighted with the canine hotel we've located when we're away for the night.  As I say, we're getting there.

But the formation of new networks goes with nostalgia for the old: our dear cleaning lady, Agnès, our electrician Bruno, and the ever-charming Dr Picard, to name but a few of the people we became fond of during our stay in Ribérac.  It's not absence, but familiarity, that makes the heart grow fonder.  Out of sight, perhaps, but never out of mind.

Antony Mair

 

Waiting for that groomer!

The royal buttocks

The shoreline below East Cliff, Hastings

 



I've been thinking a lot about privacy recently, particularly the way in which, through Facebook and Twitter, people are happy to sacrifice their personal privacy for the perceived benefit of belonging to a group.  Big Brother does something similar: the "housemates" give up all privacy for the time of their internment, knowing that their every move is being televised. 

Several things bother me about all of this.  Research is now showing that an increasing number of young people are suffering from depression and anxiety as a result of the conflict between the public image they are (or feel they ought to be) projecting on social networks and their real selves.    Cyberposing is rampant, with Facebook entries or tweets that say things like "In Rio, overlooking Ipanema beach with a daiquiri" or "Recovering from an evening in the bar of the Ritz in Paris".  Per-lease.  We know the truth: you're in your semi in Bromley, with a life as mundane as everyone else's.

So far as Big Brother is concerned, it's not just the being televised at every moment that bothers me: it's the removal of all the normal props of any sort of internal life, such as books, newspapers, television, even - yes - computers.  How do the housemates cope?  how does someone as intelligent as celebrity housemate Julian Clary not go bonkers in twenty-four hours?

The answer is, I suppose, that, unlike subscribers to the social networks, who are motivated largely by peer pressure, there is the attraction of filthy lucre (for the celebrities) or five minutes' fame (for the rest).  But do they really understand what they are letting themselves in for?

Which brings me to the royal buttocks.  The furore about publication of photos of the princely posterior is hugely artificial.  In spite of the 3,600 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission, I really don't think the majority of people care.  Anyone with half a brain cell must have realised that pictures of the event would find themselves onto the internet and into the press before you could say "download".  If the prince had wished, he or his minders could have frisked participants for cameras beforehand.  As far as I can see, his sacrifice of privacy was entirely voluntary.  Like the Big Brother contestants, however, he may not have realised the full extent of the consequences. 
  

Antony Mair

International Composers' Festival, Hastings

The portico entrance of Saint Mary-in-the-Castle, Hastings

 

 

We had a terrific surprise this weekend, when we attended the final concert of the first International Composers' Festival in Saint Mary-in-the-Castle, Pelham Crescent.

 

Pelham Crescent is a decayed but stunning Regency crescent facing the sea just beyond the edge of Hastings Old Town.  At its centre a white portico on Ionic columns is the only visible exterior part of the former church of Saint Mary-in-the-Castle, built at the same time as the crescent.  The interior is beautiful, comprising a semi-circle built against the cliff, facing the portico, behind which, originally, would have been the altar of the church.  Parishioners sat either at ground level or in a raised gallery.  It is now the perfect performance space. 

 

The composer Polo Piatti, who lives close to us in the Old Town, was the guiding genius of this event.  We had not heard of him before, but thought the event worth a visit.  In Hastings, you should always be ready to be surprised.  The concert comprised a series of pieces by participating composers, all accessible, and superbly performed.  The festival ran over two days, with a series of talks, discussions, rehearsals and performances, and the seating was arranged informally round tables downstairs.  We found ourselves in the gallery, where the accoustic was fantastic.   

 

More exciting even than the music itself was to be in touch with yet another artistic initiative.  "If it's not there, make it happen" seems to be a recurring refrain in Hastings arts circles.  In these days of cuts and austerity, it's impressive to see it succeed.

 

Antony Mair

The experience of blogging

Old fishing boat beside the fishermen's huts on the Stade, Hastings

 

 

I started this blog about six weeks ago, as a way of keeping in touch with friends in France - and indeed elsewhere in the UK and the rest of the world.  Otherwise there's a danger of losing contact: and friends are too important for that.  However, the blog seems to be developing a slight life of its own.  I'm a tad taken aback to be told by blogger.com that I've had over a thousand page views in that period: and when I look at the audience figures I see that, in addition to the UK and France - which I would have expected - people seem to be clicking in from the USA (25% of the total).  Flattering though this is, I can't believe these are all people I know.  What interests them about my little ramblings?  perhaps they'd let me know.  The other surprise is the number - just under 5% - from Russia.  Now I know nobody in Russia at all.  I'm flattered, though slightly alarmed.  I am not going to be drawn into disclosing my views on the Pussy Riot question, for fear of some cyber-retribution.

Of course this whole thing has gone slightly to my head.  I have added some tweaks at the end of the blog, which enable you to be posted as a "follower", and - I think - to have the blog sent to you by email.  But since my technical expertise is severely limited, none of it may work.

I shall continue to fire postcards into the ether, since somebody somewhere is clearly enjoying them  Perhaps there's a single person out there who's been logging on a thousand times in the past six weeks.  If so, I'm delighted to be giving at least one person something to do!

Antony Mair   

 



Beyond Eastbourne...

View from the Shoebox, with Beachy Head in the distance

 

Before we moved back to the UK I subscribed to the Financial Times on my Kindle.  At a time when I was deeply concerned about where the euro was heading the FT was a useful addition to the French media.  And the FT was great, although as time wore on I felt more and more ignorant about economics - there seemed to be as many theories about the euro's fate as there were economists. 

 

When we returned to the UK I subscribed to the Guardian, again on my Kindle.  It seemed fine at first: less targeted to a readership comprising solely teachers and social workers than I recollected, and the broader coverage was welcome.  However, as time wore on it became clear that the foreign section was woeful.  Or perhaps I mean, in particular, the European coverage.  After several weeks of reading the Guardian I felt my grasp of European politics not just slipping, but disappearing altogether.  Syria, China and the US got ample coverage.  M. Hollande, Frau Merkel and S. Monti didn't get a look-in - let alone Brussels and the EU at large.

 

Thinking it was a problem with the Grauniad alone, I bought a hard copy of The Times.  Perhaps it was too much to hope that a paper forever tarnished by its Murdoch ownership would approach the status of a journal of record that it once had.  In brief, it was the same: Syria, China and the US.    

 

As I look out to sea from the Shoebox I can see Eastbourne in the distance, and Beachy Head beyond it.  If I were to turn my eyes further to the left I should be able to glimpse the French coast.  I haven't succeeded yet, but I'm told one can sometimes see it.  Perhaps someone could alert the UK press that it's still there.

 

Antony Mair

 

Bread and beyond

Obsessive? moi?

When we first got back to the UK I had great difficulty getting used to the bread.  It never seemed to taste of anything.  Even the Old Town bakery Judges didn't really seem to hit the spot (I've had to change my views since - I was feeling pretty negative at the start about a lot of things.)  This is no good, I thought.  I'll have to get back to baking it myself.

The joiner working on our windows, Ollie Adams, turned out to be a baker's son.  He recommended Dan Lepard's recent book Short and Sweet, subtitled "The Best of Home Baking", and I set to.  My mission was interrupted after a week or two when Paul visited a Chinese doctor in Hastings and was told to stop eating any yeast.  My subsequent attempts at soda bread were far from brilliant: even following Dan Lepard's recipes it turned out a bit too heavy for comfort.  Undeterred, I looked at the other bit of Dan Lepard's book and discovered the joys of biscuits, both savoury and sweet.  These things have a way of taking hold, as you can see from the picture above: ginger biscuits and macaroons for tea and elevenses, and savoury ones with blue cheese and oatmeal, or chilli flakes and almonds, for that glass of wine in the evening.  Although there are only two of us in the house, when you take visitors and our dogs into account as additional consumers we seem to get through a fair quantity each week!

What I'm a little anxious about is that I've only begun to deal with the contents of this book, by tackling the "Bread" and "Biscuits and cookies" sections.  However, there are six other sections, ranging from cakes (don't even go there) through "sugar sugar", covering sweets and fudges (go there even less) to pies and tarts for supper (mm, may be better).  Now I just have to hope that the Chinese doctor doesn't extend the restrictions...

Antony Mair

Café society

Our new "coffee house" in George Street (with Paul and the dogs)

When we had our estate agency in Ribérac, prospective buyers from the UK would speak wistfully of "café society".  I know what they had in mind: those expanses of tables and chairs on the broad pavements of Paris streets, where you can people-watch for hours.  I think they also had some idea of Jean-Paul Sartre and Juliette Gréco on the Boulevard Saint Germain: people dressed in bohemian black, discussing the meaning of life.  The concept was a sort of mish-mash of Sartre and Maurice Chevalier. 

Ribérac's cafés didn't really meet this sort of expectation.  I realised after a while that the people who frequented them most had the time to spare because they didn't spend it on DIY in their houses and gardens.  But they weren't exactly high-grade intellectuals either: they'd have appeared as out of place in les Deux Magots as a ploughman at Versailles.

What's curious, though, is that the English, who started the coffee house idea in London in the eighteenth century, seem to have given it up subsequently.  Starbucks and Costa may be reviled, but they at least reintroduced quality coffee to the UK after the filthy instant brew the English had lived on in previous decades.  I'm not sure that our new Hanushka Coffee House is going to be the haunt for Hastings' answers to Addison and Dryden, let alone Simone de Beauvoir, but for the moment it's a nice place to sit in the morning and watch people strolling through the Old Town.  And, this being a small place, you inevitably see a familiar face and someone to chat with.  Which is, I suppose, what society is all about anyway.

Antony Mair