Dear Thomas,
You know me, sometimes I like just to sit and watch.
Not that I ever plan it - it's hardly something you schedule into the day.
But occasionally an opportunity crops up. This particular one being in York railway station.
In the cafe. An hour to wait for a connecting train. A coffee.
And no 3G means radio silence.
Funny how the smartphone which made the big wide world so available to us, has, in many ways, stopped us looking at life being lived right under our noses.
So I sit and watch and write what I see.
Chuggers.
A cheery duo. One tall, lean with a pink mohican; his bobble-hatted colleague toasty in a parka.
They have blue jackets on with 'RSPCA' printed on the back.
They sing, they smile, they play air guitar, they cajole and cadge, plead, but not quite beg. They jauntily hail each passer-by.
They must have hides as thick as a rhino's.
Responses vary. Commuters spot them a mile off and quicken their pace - their rush to get from A to B an excuse not to stop.
Some brush past saying nothing, pretending they're not there at all.
Others frown and give no possible opening, a curt 'no', a blunt but speedy 'no thankyou', the occasional apologetic smile, sometimes, even a bit of banter.
But in the hour I spend here I see no success, no reward for their energetic, painful-to-watch antics.
Does chugging work? Does it really? I'd be fascinated to know.
Inside the cafe a group of well-attired women with perfectly-placed silver hair kiss and catch-up at a nearby table over cappuccinos and decaff lattes. They are elegant, poised, and command attention. One looks like Helen Mirren.
I don't think they meet often. I think this is a 'Christmas exchange' meeting.
I don't think they are close friends. They are friendly, but not warm to each other.
Their handbags disgorge piles of Christmas cards which are dealt and received over the table and talk ensues of Christmas journeys, cruises and, right on cue, just when I thought they might be different, of grandchildren.
I wish, on behalf of my own parents, perhaps, that people of that certain age would find something else to talk about. It irritates me.
One woman dominates the conversation and I can tell from the body language of the others that they merely tolerate her. Does she feel it? I wonder if she does and her discomfort makes her louder still.
There's a skin forming on my coffee.
A teenager walks in. He's about 17, maybe 18, a black shirt over a t-shirt, a woolly hat pulled low and his backside hangs out of his jeans.
Here's a question..do they make jeans to fit so, or is it some crafty work with buttons and a belt? I don't understand why boys dress like that but I guess I'm not supposed to.
He is insulated, cut off from the world by the sound in his headphones. He looks at no-one - just mutters his order then retreats, almost embarrassed. He looks uncomfortable in his skin. And I remember having the same awkwardness.
One old lady sits alone with her pull-along suitcase propped up on the chair opposite her. She stares into the distance.
She's been sitting here for much longer than I have and I wonder where she is in her head.
Something seems to snap her out of her reverie and she glances at her watch before rising from the chair. She looks sad. But I think we all do in repose, when we haven't got our 'faces on' for the world.
It's quite warm in the cafe, welcomingly so. But we all keep our hats and gloves on.
It occurs to me that stations like this are worlds in miniature. All lives are here - rich, poor, happy, sad, on the up, down and out, all carrying our bags, all carrying our baggage.
It reminds me of something I was told once. We all have a story. We all ARE a story.
And I am overwhelmed by the urge to close the cafe doors and to refuse anyone permission to leave until they recount theirs.
Inane pop music. Then Frosty the Snowman.
"I'll make some more tuna sandwiches," says the chap behind the counter to the assistant.
A family come in and sit near. Old man, old woman and younger woman. The man looks exhausted and a little unwell. His wife and daughter (I'm assuming) see him to the chair opposite me before going to the counter to order.
I smile at him and he nods back.
His wife and daughter return and, as I start clearing up my cup, stirrer, sugar sachet, the older lady asks: 'can I pop my tea bag in your empty cup pet?'
'Course you can,' says I.
They are heading back to Newcastle. I'm heading back to Chesterfield. We chat about the weather, about the woes of Christmas shopping, about which trains we're catching.
Time to go.
We leave at the same moment; a fleeting goodbye and Merry Christmas.
I head off to platform 3...
Monday 12 December 2011
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Hillsborough
Dear Thomas
I found myself rooting through my old newspaper cuttings last night.
The wind, rattling around the windows of our old house had awakened me, I couldn't get back to sleep and it was a sudden compulsion.
Double wrapped in thick dressing gown and duvet, I found the large A3 envelope marked 'Halifax Courier', pulled out the crinkled broadsheet pages and lay them across the floor.
It was just after 2am. Hours earlier news bulletins and social media chatter had turned the clock back to 1989, to Hillsborough. And in the dark hours, well, I can't explain but I wanted to go back there too.
So I sat, perusing my work. My words.
And I looked at them and I thought, how awkward, how inadequate.
I think about you Thomas, and the peacefulness of your passing - and I think of the families of the Hillsborough victims, and wonder, how can they bare it, even now?
I remember watching the 'pitch invasion' on TV. Mere background noise until the urgency of the commentator's voice filtered through.
I remember driving on the M1 and hearing the radio recount 'a number of serious injuries'.
I recall looking for smoke on the horizon as I approached Sheffield. Smoke? I can't account for that other than to suggest my brain was preoccupied with memories of the last football tragedy - the fire at Valley Parade.
All along the journey the radio updated the numbers. Injuries turned to deaths. 1,2,5,9,10, 15, onwards and upwards as the miles passed.
Remember Thomas there was no Twitter, Facebook, no internet, just the radio, so it was still mightily unclear as I hurridly double-parked the car and made my way to the ground..
On the way I saw a man sitting on the kerb, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. Wretched. I can't remember what colours he was wearing.
'What happened,' I asked. And sat down next to him.
I wonder sometimes how he is now. He had watched the events unfold, as if in slow motion, he said. He had watched people die. That's what he kept saying.
And I felt such a weight of responsibility, not just to tell his story properly, but to look after him too.
Of course any journo will tell you of the wall that comes up when you're on a story, particularly a tragic one. A bit like it does with the police and the fire service, I imagine.
And so I got about my business of interviews, press conferences. In truth still having no real idea of the weight of the loss.
Then, the next day, back in the newsroom, I saw the pictures.
Hundreds of them. And they just kept coming.
And I see some of them now in my mind's eye. They will always be there, I think.
I couldn't look at them - but I couldn't look away. Many of them were simply unuseable, too appalling, too intimate, for surely death is a private thing even when the world is watching.
I can't recount them here, the detail of them, because it feels like the worst kind of intrusion into privacy - and I remain impressed by the restraint of editors who, in those coming days, did not print them. Some did, of course. Did a mother spot her loved one dying on page 1?
I got to know a number of local people who had been at the match, including Dave and Bob L. I had interviewed them and they invited me to accompany them to a memorial service at Anfield the following week.
We went together by bus and queued and trudged along with thousands of others, in silence, to get into the ground.
Following Diana's death we have got used to the 'carpet of flowers' tribute but here, in Anfield, it was a first, for me at least.
The green of the pitch obliterated.
And I made my way to the kop and, with my two friends, joined in the service and sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
And when we stopped singing the thousands of people still queuing outside, out of sync with us inside the ground, hit the yearning crescendo of the song - and it was eerie and intensely moving and it was as if we were suddenly cocooned. All of us. In that massive stadium.
And as the minute's silence began a baby started crying - and it started raining.
And in a sublime moment all that could be heard in that absolute human silence when the baby quietened was the gentle pattering of rain on the plastic wrapping paper of the flowers on the pitch.
On the bus home, afterwards, interviews done, piece written (in my head at least), I realised, for the first time, the privileges and responsibilities that go with the job.
It's strange looking back on those cuttings now. Faded, yellowed, torn.
Yet the memories are suddenly far fiercer than they have ever been.
I hope that the chap I'd found on the kerb is ok. I hope Bob and Dave L are too.
And I pray the relatives of the dead will one day find peace.
It makes me feel that I was lucky Thomas, because you left us so gently.
xxx
I found myself rooting through my old newspaper cuttings last night.
The wind, rattling around the windows of our old house had awakened me, I couldn't get back to sleep and it was a sudden compulsion.
Double wrapped in thick dressing gown and duvet, I found the large A3 envelope marked 'Halifax Courier', pulled out the crinkled broadsheet pages and lay them across the floor.
It was just after 2am. Hours earlier news bulletins and social media chatter had turned the clock back to 1989, to Hillsborough. And in the dark hours, well, I can't explain but I wanted to go back there too.
So I sat, perusing my work. My words.
And I looked at them and I thought, how awkward, how inadequate.
I think about you Thomas, and the peacefulness of your passing - and I think of the families of the Hillsborough victims, and wonder, how can they bare it, even now?
I remember watching the 'pitch invasion' on TV. Mere background noise until the urgency of the commentator's voice filtered through.
I remember driving on the M1 and hearing the radio recount 'a number of serious injuries'.
I recall looking for smoke on the horizon as I approached Sheffield. Smoke? I can't account for that other than to suggest my brain was preoccupied with memories of the last football tragedy - the fire at Valley Parade.
All along the journey the radio updated the numbers. Injuries turned to deaths. 1,2,5,9,10, 15, onwards and upwards as the miles passed.
Remember Thomas there was no Twitter, Facebook, no internet, just the radio, so it was still mightily unclear as I hurridly double-parked the car and made my way to the ground..
On the way I saw a man sitting on the kerb, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. Wretched. I can't remember what colours he was wearing.
'What happened,' I asked. And sat down next to him.
I wonder sometimes how he is now. He had watched the events unfold, as if in slow motion, he said. He had watched people die. That's what he kept saying.
And I felt such a weight of responsibility, not just to tell his story properly, but to look after him too.
Of course any journo will tell you of the wall that comes up when you're on a story, particularly a tragic one. A bit like it does with the police and the fire service, I imagine.
And so I got about my business of interviews, press conferences. In truth still having no real idea of the weight of the loss.
Then, the next day, back in the newsroom, I saw the pictures.
Hundreds of them. And they just kept coming.
And I see some of them now in my mind's eye. They will always be there, I think.
I couldn't look at them - but I couldn't look away. Many of them were simply unuseable, too appalling, too intimate, for surely death is a private thing even when the world is watching.
I can't recount them here, the detail of them, because it feels like the worst kind of intrusion into privacy - and I remain impressed by the restraint of editors who, in those coming days, did not print them. Some did, of course. Did a mother spot her loved one dying on page 1?
I got to know a number of local people who had been at the match, including Dave and Bob L. I had interviewed them and they invited me to accompany them to a memorial service at Anfield the following week.
We went together by bus and queued and trudged along with thousands of others, in silence, to get into the ground.
Following Diana's death we have got used to the 'carpet of flowers' tribute but here, in Anfield, it was a first, for me at least.
The green of the pitch obliterated.
And I made my way to the kop and, with my two friends, joined in the service and sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
And when we stopped singing the thousands of people still queuing outside, out of sync with us inside the ground, hit the yearning crescendo of the song - and it was eerie and intensely moving and it was as if we were suddenly cocooned. All of us. In that massive stadium.
And as the minute's silence began a baby started crying - and it started raining.
And in a sublime moment all that could be heard in that absolute human silence when the baby quietened was the gentle pattering of rain on the plastic wrapping paper of the flowers on the pitch.
On the bus home, afterwards, interviews done, piece written (in my head at least), I realised, for the first time, the privileges and responsibilities that go with the job.
It's strange looking back on those cuttings now. Faded, yellowed, torn.
Yet the memories are suddenly far fiercer than they have ever been.
I hope that the chap I'd found on the kerb is ok. I hope Bob and Dave L are too.
And I pray the relatives of the dead will one day find peace.
It makes me feel that I was lucky Thomas, because you left us so gently.
xxx
Sunday 16 October 2011
Brussels
Dear Thomas,
Conversation over dinner last night with a chap from Eindhoven.
'Where are you from?' he asked.
"Yorkshire in England," I replied.
"Ah, Yorkshire! You 'av ze Yorkshire Ripper! Non?" he said. "We know of zis Ripper, ze killer! And ze Yorkshire Pudding also!'
'Ohhhhh Kaaaaay," says I (keeping calm), "Anything else?".
'Ze black pudding too!" he said.
A fellow diner, a charming twinkly-eyed chap - a pathologist from Luxembourg - chipped in. 'Where is this Yorkshire? Is it the South? Liverpool?'
Oh dear.
And I spent the following ooh, hour or so (!), extolling (quite forcefully, it has to be said) the virtues of my wonderful county. Because once you start, you can't stop.
It was a fabulous evening - and I think it marked the moment when I started to really feel at home in this vibrant city where everything happens, where most people are strangers, but all seem so happy to get along.
I told them about Leeds, about York, about Sheffield, about the seaside, the hills, the dales, the culture, the shopping, the art...anything to dispel from our Dutch friend's mind the idea that all we had of note in the region was a serial killer.
Afterwards I thought about their initial response - and my own reaction of righteous indignation.
And realised that we all do it - we all hook on to a cliche or a piece of notoriety about a place and it clouds our judgement forever.
Take poor Belgium, for example - the butt of endless jokes. Despite its huge importance why do we mainly only hear it referred to in terms of size comparisons. See http://www.sizeofbelgium.com.
Wales suffers this indignity too, of course.
And yet, now I'm here, I cannot, cannot understand why I have never been before. As I've said previously, perhaps it just needs to holler across The Channel just that little bit louder.
And perhaps Yorkshire does too. The good people at Welcome to Yorkshire are doing a cracking job - but there's clearly a way to go....certainly judging by this experience.
Conversation over dinner last night with a chap from Eindhoven.
'Where are you from?' he asked.
"Yorkshire in England," I replied.
"Ah, Yorkshire! You 'av ze Yorkshire Ripper! Non?" he said. "We know of zis Ripper, ze killer! And ze Yorkshire Pudding also!'
'Ohhhhh Kaaaaay," says I (keeping calm), "Anything else?".
'Ze black pudding too!" he said.
A fellow diner, a charming twinkly-eyed chap - a pathologist from Luxembourg - chipped in. 'Where is this Yorkshire? Is it the South? Liverpool?'
Oh dear.
And I spent the following ooh, hour or so (!), extolling (quite forcefully, it has to be said) the virtues of my wonderful county. Because once you start, you can't stop.
It was a fabulous evening - and I think it marked the moment when I started to really feel at home in this vibrant city where everything happens, where most people are strangers, but all seem so happy to get along.
I told them about Leeds, about York, about Sheffield, about the seaside, the hills, the dales, the culture, the shopping, the art...anything to dispel from our Dutch friend's mind the idea that all we had of note in the region was a serial killer.
Afterwards I thought about their initial response - and my own reaction of righteous indignation.
And realised that we all do it - we all hook on to a cliche or a piece of notoriety about a place and it clouds our judgement forever.
Take poor Belgium, for example - the butt of endless jokes. Despite its huge importance why do we mainly only hear it referred to in terms of size comparisons. See http://www.sizeofbelgium.com.
Wales suffers this indignity too, of course.
And yet, now I'm here, I cannot, cannot understand why I have never been before. As I've said previously, perhaps it just needs to holler across The Channel just that little bit louder.
And perhaps Yorkshire does too. The good people at Welcome to Yorkshire are doing a cracking job - but there's clearly a way to go....certainly judging by this experience.
Friday 14 October 2011
Brussels - October 14
Dear Thomas,
You missed a great fight.
In the red corner, the TV presenter. In the blue, his earnest producer.
It had become quite personal.
They were trying to agree the tone of a report on the European Parliament's brand new Parlamentarium visitor centre.
'You're being totally unconstructive," the presenter was hissing to his colleague, jabbing at a screen in front of him. "Why do these bloody things never work when you want them to!"
She muttered something back at him, trying to keep things quiet. His response was to raise his voice further. "Give me ideas! Give me your thoughts! Stop being stroppy and give me SOMETHING." (this said while thumping his fist on the table.)
"Don't you accuse me of being stroppy," the producer snaps back.
Drop the Dead Donkey comes to Brussels.
The cameraman was keeping out of it, instead panning around the room, picking up general shots of visitors trying hard to look as though they weren't listening.
To be fair, their job wasn't an easy one - how to get across in 30 seconds all that needs to be said, all that ought to be said about this strange and costly venture
The European Parliament, trying to help people understand what it actually does, has spent £18m on its new baby.
Cynics, certain elements of the tabloids among them, would prefer to label it a 'propaganda centre': a way to "brainwash children", a way for "MEPs to stroke their own egos"(Daily Mail).
I probably would agree with the 'egos' bit, not so much the brainwashing. Take any eight-year-old along to this and they'll be bored witless after five minutes and back on their Nintendos.
Problem is, three years over budget, if it wanted a good press, it couldn't have got its timing worse.
The Euro-zone is in meltdown, austerity measures are biting hard but hey, let's give them a stilt walker in an EU flag, some free nosh and a jazz band and they'll be storming through the doors.
Not quite. It was hardly heaving.
You can see where the money went. Because it's a high-tech, multi-media, gimmick-fest.
Following airport-style security checks you are greeted by over-zealous, too-cheery visitor guides so anxious to show you something that it all smacked, just a little bit, of desperation. If they really pressed home how fantastic everything was, maybe we'd believe it.
I'm armed with a multimedia audio guide (think iphone only bulkier and clunkier) and the expo starts in a room with models of the three European Parliament sites in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg and signs showing some of the issues debated.
It's a disappointing introduction - and anyone with a young family would have bored children even at this early point.
It doesn't get much better downstairs - a dimly lit, long, long dreary tunnel filled with spoken and written quotations.
There are lots of black and white photos here and, if you swipe your audio guide against them you get an explanation of what you're looking at on the device itself.
It's meant to be the best kind of interactivity, but it hasn't been thought through. You swipe your phone across one of the swish all-singing, all-dancing consoles and it starts telling a story in your chosen language.
But if you're half-way through and someone else swipes their card over it, the whole thing begins again in their chosen language. A lot of people weren't bothering.
The problem is it's like a long, long, long lecture. It's educational - to a degree. But it's neither entertaining nor engaging.
The next room is all about getting to know your MEPs. There are pictures and biographies of all 736 of them, as well as recorded messages from some. One wonders how many of them genuinely thought this was a good idea.
Throughout it feels like expensive, slick design over substance.
There's a huge multicoloured LED ceiling with European facts and statistics screened below on a circular screen.
Then there are more screens allowing you to witness the parliament in action and hear real stories from EU citizens.
I sit on a sofa and start to listen but while their stories are interesting, it's all very samey and oh so positive
- it's like we're being sold a line. And that feels faintly sinister.
It was easy to become distracted - especially as this was where the TV presenter and his producer were arguing so vociferously at the next table.
I never found out what line they chose for the report.
Leaving, I felt unclear about the purpose of this venture, paid for by you, me, all of us.
No doubt coach parties and school trips will keep the numbers up but whatever the great minds behind
Parlamentarium (I keep wanting to say Planetarium) were imagining when they brewed up this idea,
I can't help but think they could have done so much better - on significantly less cash.
Can I suggest the next time they're in the UK they take a trip to Leeds City Museum or the National Media Museum in Bradford to find out how.
In the meantime here are some bedtime stories from the visit Thomas. You'll not enjoy them half as much as The Gruffalo...
xxxx
You missed a great fight.
In the red corner, the TV presenter. In the blue, his earnest producer.
It had become quite personal.
They were trying to agree the tone of a report on the European Parliament's brand new Parlamentarium visitor centre.
'You're being totally unconstructive," the presenter was hissing to his colleague, jabbing at a screen in front of him. "Why do these bloody things never work when you want them to!"
She muttered something back at him, trying to keep things quiet. His response was to raise his voice further. "Give me ideas! Give me your thoughts! Stop being stroppy and give me SOMETHING." (this said while thumping his fist on the table.)
"Don't you accuse me of being stroppy," the producer snaps back.
Drop the Dead Donkey comes to Brussels.
The cameraman was keeping out of it, instead panning around the room, picking up general shots of visitors trying hard to look as though they weren't listening.
To be fair, their job wasn't an easy one - how to get across in 30 seconds all that needs to be said, all that ought to be said about this strange and costly venture
The European Parliament, trying to help people understand what it actually does, has spent £18m on its new baby.
Cynics, certain elements of the tabloids among them, would prefer to label it a 'propaganda centre': a way to "brainwash children", a way for "MEPs to stroke their own egos"(Daily Mail).
I probably would agree with the 'egos' bit, not so much the brainwashing. Take any eight-year-old along to this and they'll be bored witless after five minutes and back on their Nintendos.
Problem is, three years over budget, if it wanted a good press, it couldn't have got its timing worse.
The Euro-zone is in meltdown, austerity measures are biting hard but hey, let's give them a stilt walker in an EU flag, some free nosh and a jazz band and they'll be storming through the doors.
Not quite. It was hardly heaving.
You can see where the money went. Because it's a high-tech, multi-media, gimmick-fest.
Following airport-style security checks you are greeted by over-zealous, too-cheery visitor guides so anxious to show you something that it all smacked, just a little bit, of desperation. If they really pressed home how fantastic everything was, maybe we'd believe it.
I'm armed with a multimedia audio guide (think iphone only bulkier and clunkier) and the expo starts in a room with models of the three European Parliament sites in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg and signs showing some of the issues debated.
It's a disappointing introduction - and anyone with a young family would have bored children even at this early point.
It doesn't get much better downstairs - a dimly lit, long, long dreary tunnel filled with spoken and written quotations.
There are lots of black and white photos here and, if you swipe your audio guide against them you get an explanation of what you're looking at on the device itself.
It's meant to be the best kind of interactivity, but it hasn't been thought through. You swipe your phone across one of the swish all-singing, all-dancing consoles and it starts telling a story in your chosen language.
But if you're half-way through and someone else swipes their card over it, the whole thing begins again in their chosen language. A lot of people weren't bothering.
The problem is it's like a long, long, long lecture. It's educational - to a degree. But it's neither entertaining nor engaging.
The next room is all about getting to know your MEPs. There are pictures and biographies of all 736 of them, as well as recorded messages from some. One wonders how many of them genuinely thought this was a good idea.
Throughout it feels like expensive, slick design over substance.
There's a huge multicoloured LED ceiling with European facts and statistics screened below on a circular screen.
Then there are more screens allowing you to witness the parliament in action and hear real stories from EU citizens.
I sit on a sofa and start to listen but while their stories are interesting, it's all very samey and oh so positive
- it's like we're being sold a line. And that feels faintly sinister.
It was easy to become distracted - especially as this was where the TV presenter and his producer were arguing so vociferously at the next table.
I never found out what line they chose for the report.
Leaving, I felt unclear about the purpose of this venture, paid for by you, me, all of us.
No doubt coach parties and school trips will keep the numbers up but whatever the great minds behind
Parlamentarium (I keep wanting to say Planetarium) were imagining when they brewed up this idea,
I can't help but think they could have done so much better - on significantly less cash.
Can I suggest the next time they're in the UK they take a trip to Leeds City Museum or the National Media Museum in Bradford to find out how.
In the meantime here are some bedtime stories from the visit Thomas. You'll not enjoy them half as much as The Gruffalo...
xxxx
Thursday 13 October 2011
Brussels - October 13, 2011
Dear Thomas,
It's all your fault, you know, that I'm sitting here in this odd flat overlooking this grand church in this country I'd never visited and, if truth be told, had never had any intention of visiting. And now it's about to become home!
Just goes to show that you really don't know what's around the corner. Oh Tomble, those fools who wish they could see the future.
What would I be doing now, I wonder, if you hadn't slipped away so quietly that night.
We'll talk about that sometime, but not now. Not now.
It's my sixth day here - and I'm not as lost as I was. For a day or two at the beginning the sense of not belonging, the utter newness of it all, the absence of you, made it - made me - unbearable.
Now I don't feel so lost.
I just get lost.
All the time.
I leave the flat, I know where I'm headed - but when I get there, I'm not there. I'm somewhere else.
It's as if the city reshuffles itself when I'm not looking.
I have a map. I turn it upside down. Hold it up in front of me, spin around, left, right, this way, that way. It makes no difference. I still end up where I didn't intend to be. And it renders futile all attempts to adopt the 'I'm a local you know, most definitely not a tourist' nonchalant air I'm aiming for.
Yesterday, fed up, I actually switched on the iphone 'data-roaming' signal to find the local Lidl.
I set it on 'compass mode' and held it out in front of me and started walking. Sadly I became too focused on it as opposed to watching where I was going. So when I did get to Lidl, and after I'd done the shopping, I had to switch data roaming on again to get me home. I'm waiting for the bill.
Last night, for a bit of culture, J and I went to watch a piano trio at the Palais des Beaux-Arts ('Bozar').
Surprisingly this cultural centre, built by Victor Horta in the 1920s was the first of its kind in Europe - housing concert halls and and exhibitions embracing music, theatre, cinema and art. It is, quite simply, stunning.
The more I get to know this city (granted it has only been six days) the more I feel it hasn't really shouted about itself loudly enough - or rather, it's been shouted down by its noisier, heavyweight European neighbours.
The place was heaving and a complete cross-section of all life was there: elegant, heavily made-up immaculately attired women 'of a certain age' with distinguished-looking partners; businessmen and women, young couples, music professor-types and, delightfully, many, many young people.
The sweeping clean-lined auditorium was full in the lower tiers. In our upper tier there was a lot of space, and hence, a lot of furtive seat swapping. You know, couple arrive, sit down, note empty seats nearer the front, move to the front, are kicked out by the late-comers claiming their seats so they go and find another one. A kind of well-dressed ever-so-polite musical chairs. We stayed put (ah, so English).
For the record the trio - Renaud Capucon (violin), Gautier Capucon (cello) and Frank Braley (piano) - played Beethoven's piano trio No 5 (op 70/1) followed by Schubert's piano trio No 2 (op 100).
I am no expert and certainly in no position to judge or review because I don't know the pieces at all.
I can only say that the performances were beautiful, powerful, passionate, soul-stirring. As always I am humbled by the immense talent of musicians who, without doubt, must give their lives entirely to their art, certainly to be able to play as they played here. Such are the demands placed upon them, willing slaves to their great composer masters, do they have room for anything else besides their music?
The pianist's page-turner missed his cue at one point - the clearly-rattled musician frantically rustling back and forth to get to the right page. Would they row about it during the interval, I wondered.
It made me want to read Vikram Seth's haunting 'An Equal Music' all over again.
Three small men on a vast stage in a vast auditorium. But shouldn't chamber music be played in a more intimate setting? I think so and, therefore, think a little was lost on the way.
Anyway, amid the sublime soul-stirring music, there was comedy. Classical music audiences are a funny bunch - and very unforgiving.
One poor soul made the mistake of clapping between movements (the classical music version of the Original Sin).
Oh the agony for that lone individual, for he died the death of a thousand shushes.
Yes. They shushed. They tutted and they carried on shushing. I was mortified on behalf of the clapper but outraged at the cruelty of those who'd shamed him.
I suspect he disappeared at the interval never to return.
It's ironic you know. The clapping was unintentional, accidental. Compare that to the great racket of throat-clearings, coughings, and nose-blowings that broke out every time the musicians paused for the next movement. In decibel terms there was no competition.
It must infuriate the musicians. Who are these people that feel the need to harrumph, hack, blow, and wheeze as soon as the music stops? They surely can't be enjoying the music, trying to hold it all in until they get the chance to send forth with such gusto. Just had a thought - it looked as though the concert was being recorded - I bet the coughers were hoping to get in on the act.
We exited the Bozar into a balmy evening and headed back into the bustling heart of the city for moules frites in Restaurant Vincent, Rue des Dominicains.
J had been to this place before and was keen to return. Its meat dishes are legendary. Indeed, raw meat features heavily in their 'shopfront' - veggies look away now...
The restaurant is hot, steamy hot, filled to bursting with locals and tourists and for at least several minutes I could do nothing but stare, wonderstruck, round and around me, above and alongside. For every wall is made up of huge tiled murals depicting the source of their products: fisherman on a wild sea, sheep in the fields, a cockle-picker on the shoreline etc etc.
Here's their website to see more: http://www.restaurantvincent.com.
Afterwards J suggested I find my way home without his help. He insisted. It would be good training, he said.
We left the restaurant - I turned left, he asked me where I was going. I said 'home' and he pointed in the opposite direction and set off walking.
I, the weak and feeble female, bowed to his greater knowledge and followed.
xxxx
It's all your fault, you know, that I'm sitting here in this odd flat overlooking this grand church in this country I'd never visited and, if truth be told, had never had any intention of visiting. And now it's about to become home!
Just goes to show that you really don't know what's around the corner. Oh Tomble, those fools who wish they could see the future.
What would I be doing now, I wonder, if you hadn't slipped away so quietly that night.
We'll talk about that sometime, but not now. Not now.
It's my sixth day here - and I'm not as lost as I was. For a day or two at the beginning the sense of not belonging, the utter newness of it all, the absence of you, made it - made me - unbearable.
Now I don't feel so lost.
I just get lost.
All the time.
I leave the flat, I know where I'm headed - but when I get there, I'm not there. I'm somewhere else.
It's as if the city reshuffles itself when I'm not looking.
I have a map. I turn it upside down. Hold it up in front of me, spin around, left, right, this way, that way. It makes no difference. I still end up where I didn't intend to be. And it renders futile all attempts to adopt the 'I'm a local you know, most definitely not a tourist' nonchalant air I'm aiming for.
Yesterday, fed up, I actually switched on the iphone 'data-roaming' signal to find the local Lidl.
I set it on 'compass mode' and held it out in front of me and started walking. Sadly I became too focused on it as opposed to watching where I was going. So when I did get to Lidl, and after I'd done the shopping, I had to switch data roaming on again to get me home. I'm waiting for the bill.
Last night, for a bit of culture, J and I went to watch a piano trio at the Palais des Beaux-Arts ('Bozar').
Surprisingly this cultural centre, built by Victor Horta in the 1920s was the first of its kind in Europe - housing concert halls and and exhibitions embracing music, theatre, cinema and art. It is, quite simply, stunning.
The more I get to know this city (granted it has only been six days) the more I feel it hasn't really shouted about itself loudly enough - or rather, it's been shouted down by its noisier, heavyweight European neighbours.
The place was heaving and a complete cross-section of all life was there: elegant, heavily made-up immaculately attired women 'of a certain age' with distinguished-looking partners; businessmen and women, young couples, music professor-types and, delightfully, many, many young people.
The sweeping clean-lined auditorium was full in the lower tiers. In our upper tier there was a lot of space, and hence, a lot of furtive seat swapping. You know, couple arrive, sit down, note empty seats nearer the front, move to the front, are kicked out by the late-comers claiming their seats so they go and find another one. A kind of well-dressed ever-so-polite musical chairs. We stayed put (ah, so English).
For the record the trio - Renaud Capucon (violin), Gautier Capucon (cello) and Frank Braley (piano) - played Beethoven's piano trio No 5 (op 70/1) followed by Schubert's piano trio No 2 (op 100).
I am no expert and certainly in no position to judge or review because I don't know the pieces at all.
I can only say that the performances were beautiful, powerful, passionate, soul-stirring. As always I am humbled by the immense talent of musicians who, without doubt, must give their lives entirely to their art, certainly to be able to play as they played here. Such are the demands placed upon them, willing slaves to their great composer masters, do they have room for anything else besides their music?
The pianist's page-turner missed his cue at one point - the clearly-rattled musician frantically rustling back and forth to get to the right page. Would they row about it during the interval, I wondered.
It made me want to read Vikram Seth's haunting 'An Equal Music' all over again.
Three small men on a vast stage in a vast auditorium. But shouldn't chamber music be played in a more intimate setting? I think so and, therefore, think a little was lost on the way.
Anyway, amid the sublime soul-stirring music, there was comedy. Classical music audiences are a funny bunch - and very unforgiving.
One poor soul made the mistake of clapping between movements (the classical music version of the Original Sin).
Oh the agony for that lone individual, for he died the death of a thousand shushes.
Yes. They shushed. They tutted and they carried on shushing. I was mortified on behalf of the clapper but outraged at the cruelty of those who'd shamed him.
I suspect he disappeared at the interval never to return.
It's ironic you know. The clapping was unintentional, accidental. Compare that to the great racket of throat-clearings, coughings, and nose-blowings that broke out every time the musicians paused for the next movement. In decibel terms there was no competition.
It must infuriate the musicians. Who are these people that feel the need to harrumph, hack, blow, and wheeze as soon as the music stops? They surely can't be enjoying the music, trying to hold it all in until they get the chance to send forth with such gusto. Just had a thought - it looked as though the concert was being recorded - I bet the coughers were hoping to get in on the act.
We exited the Bozar into a balmy evening and headed back into the bustling heart of the city for moules frites in Restaurant Vincent, Rue des Dominicains.
J had been to this place before and was keen to return. Its meat dishes are legendary. Indeed, raw meat features heavily in their 'shopfront' - veggies look away now...
The restaurant is hot, steamy hot, filled to bursting with locals and tourists and for at least several minutes I could do nothing but stare, wonderstruck, round and around me, above and alongside. For every wall is made up of huge tiled murals depicting the source of their products: fisherman on a wild sea, sheep in the fields, a cockle-picker on the shoreline etc etc.
Here's their website to see more: http://www.restaurantvincent.com.
Afterwards J suggested I find my way home without his help. He insisted. It would be good training, he said.
We left the restaurant - I turned left, he asked me where I was going. I said 'home' and he pointed in the opposite direction and set off walking.
I, the weak and feeble female, bowed to his greater knowledge and followed.
xxxx
Wednesday 12 October 2011
Brussels - October 12, 2011
Dear Thomas
In another life I'd have warned you against dark alleyways.
Especially at night, in the middle of a city you don't know where no-one knows you.
You wouldn't have cared a monkey's, of course. That was you all over, blithely striding out, oblivious to any danger; the 'there-are-bad-people-out-there' switch stuck in the 'off' position from the moment of your birth. You'd have trusted anyone.
That was always my terror. Your innocence was my joy, and it was the stuff of my nightmares.
Anyhow, I threw caution to the wind last night and, watching where I put my feet and taking care not to inhale too deeply for fear of what my nose might tell me, I stepped into the unknown...
J had found these alleyways - or rather he'd been introduced to them during a Jacques Brel audio trail.
There, all becomes clear, you see.
Old Jacques had a propensity for pondering the seedy side of life and I think alleyways and all their associations of debauchery, sordid pleasures and such like must have appealed to him. Especially what was at the end of them.
For down these dark valleys, sweet Thomas, sweet sustenance. A hostelry, a drinking hole, a pub.
First, down the Impasse St Nicholas 4, off Rue Marche Aux Herbes, the 17th Century Au Bon Vieux Temps. Definitely worth risking a walk on the wild side for.
The initial impression was of having discovered a great secret - and then realising the world knew about it all along.
After a day of visiting churches, it was as if I'd walked into another one - low-lit, oak-panelled, a weak-bulbed chandelier illuminating a huge stained glass window depicting some religious scene or other while, in another seated area, a wooden sculpture of the Madonna and Child looking out over her all-too-human flock.
A shrine to beer. Literally.
The woman behind the counter was grand in gesture, loud of voice, recounting to one local in rapid French the trials of her life; the world-weary glass collector, raising the odd eyebrow, had clearly heard it all before.
It was fascinating to watch her engage with her customers - a quick history lesson to a group of Americans and a brisk telling off to J for mistaking Kriek (a cherry beer) with a Framboise (a raspberry beer).
As we left we found her outside having a cigarette between servings. Jacque Brel would have written a song about this woman, I think.
The second alleyway was signposted by a brass inlay in the pavement (presumably so those in need of a lifting of the spirits didn't need to lift their heads to find
it).
A La Becasse, rue de Tabora 11. Becasse means 'woodcock' (if you've never seen one, one pops up and winks at you on the web home page here http://www.alabecasse.com/ ).
Brightly-lit, noisy and vibrant, locals and tourists mingling nicely. Great jugs of ale swung by one party.
There were a few oddly-dressed young folk outside.
Strange hats, long flowing capes daubed with symbols and writing.
Strange folk populate the dark nooks and crannies of cities the world over.
Then they showed up in the pub.
And they kept running up and down the stairs - and the bar staff weren't batting an eyelid. Perhaps some odd lodgers going to a fancy dress party then.
Then the clapping started.
A young woman, no more than 23 or 24, slow hand clapping as she walked into the pub, wearing the same weird garb of cloak and daft hat.
What followed? Well lots of young people followed.
A whole bunch of them. For clapping girl was their pied piper.
All tied together.
Hands bound.
Blindfolded.
Wearing sacks.
Prisoners, then.
They trudged through the doorway, following the unsmiling slow-hand clapping girl and, one by one, disappeared up the stairs. into the function room. For a function, presumably.
And that was that. Normality returned.
And our French really didn't stretch far enough to even start to discuss the proceedings with the waiter.
'Anderlecht supporters?' queried J-the-wag to the lad behind the bar.
The boy sniggered back.
'Etudiants'
Ah, students. The lad shook his head and we shook ours - a shared moment of understanding.
Enough said.
Suddenly the 'Why', the 'Who?', the 'What the heck was that all about..' didn't matter.
Students. Bonkers the world over.
Bless 'em.
xxxx
In another life I'd have warned you against dark alleyways.
Especially at night, in the middle of a city you don't know where no-one knows you.
You wouldn't have cared a monkey's, of course. That was you all over, blithely striding out, oblivious to any danger; the 'there-are-bad-people-out-there' switch stuck in the 'off' position from the moment of your birth. You'd have trusted anyone.
That was always my terror. Your innocence was my joy, and it was the stuff of my nightmares.
Anyhow, I threw caution to the wind last night and, watching where I put my feet and taking care not to inhale too deeply for fear of what my nose might tell me, I stepped into the unknown...
J had found these alleyways - or rather he'd been introduced to them during a Jacques Brel audio trail.
There, all becomes clear, you see.
Old Jacques had a propensity for pondering the seedy side of life and I think alleyways and all their associations of debauchery, sordid pleasures and such like must have appealed to him. Especially what was at the end of them.
For down these dark valleys, sweet Thomas, sweet sustenance. A hostelry, a drinking hole, a pub.
First, down the Impasse St Nicholas 4, off Rue Marche Aux Herbes, the 17th Century Au Bon Vieux Temps. Definitely worth risking a walk on the wild side for.
The initial impression was of having discovered a great secret - and then realising the world knew about it all along.
After a day of visiting churches, it was as if I'd walked into another one - low-lit, oak-panelled, a weak-bulbed chandelier illuminating a huge stained glass window depicting some religious scene or other while, in another seated area, a wooden sculpture of the Madonna and Child looking out over her all-too-human flock.
A shrine to beer. Literally.
The woman behind the counter was grand in gesture, loud of voice, recounting to one local in rapid French the trials of her life; the world-weary glass collector, raising the odd eyebrow, had clearly heard it all before.
It was fascinating to watch her engage with her customers - a quick history lesson to a group of Americans and a brisk telling off to J for mistaking Kriek (a cherry beer) with a Framboise (a raspberry beer).
As we left we found her outside having a cigarette between servings. Jacque Brel would have written a song about this woman, I think.
The second alleyway was signposted by a brass inlay in the pavement (presumably so those in need of a lifting of the spirits didn't need to lift their heads to find
it).
A La Becasse, rue de Tabora 11. Becasse means 'woodcock' (if you've never seen one, one pops up and winks at you on the web home page here http://www.alabecasse.com/ ).
Brightly-lit, noisy and vibrant, locals and tourists mingling nicely. Great jugs of ale swung by one party.
There were a few oddly-dressed young folk outside.
Strange hats, long flowing capes daubed with symbols and writing.
Strange folk populate the dark nooks and crannies of cities the world over.
Then they showed up in the pub.
And they kept running up and down the stairs - and the bar staff weren't batting an eyelid. Perhaps some odd lodgers going to a fancy dress party then.
Then the clapping started.
A young woman, no more than 23 or 24, slow hand clapping as she walked into the pub, wearing the same weird garb of cloak and daft hat.
What followed? Well lots of young people followed.
A whole bunch of them. For clapping girl was their pied piper.
All tied together.
Hands bound.
Blindfolded.
Wearing sacks.
Prisoners, then.
They trudged through the doorway, following the unsmiling slow-hand clapping girl and, one by one, disappeared up the stairs. into the function room. For a function, presumably.
And that was that. Normality returned.
And our French really didn't stretch far enough to even start to discuss the proceedings with the waiter.
'Anderlecht supporters?' queried J-the-wag to the lad behind the bar.
The boy sniggered back.
'Etudiants'
Ah, students. The lad shook his head and we shook ours - a shared moment of understanding.
Enough said.
Suddenly the 'Why', the 'Who?', the 'What the heck was that all about..' didn't matter.
Students. Bonkers the world over.
Bless 'em.
xxxx
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Brussels - October 11, 2011.
Found myself in a Flemish Eucharist today.
You know how I'm drawn to churches - not that I have any profound sense of Christian belonging - more that I find myself utterly consumed by 'what man hath wrought', the sense of the ancients, the weight of history, the genuis of craftsmanship.
I also find them comforting. I nearly always get tearful, and they give me room to think and remember you.
I always think of you in churches. I think you'd like to shout in them.
Anyway, the map had failed me, I had lost my way again and, having left that great church of the consumer age, the department store, found myself wandering along the busy high street that is Rue Neuve.
Amongst the modern shopfronts, the fashion houses, the fast food emporiums, nestles, quite unexpectedly, L'Eglise de Notre Dame de Finistere.
It's out of place, it really is - though of course, it can certainly claim it was there first.
No question of walking by. I pushed through the glass door marked 'poussez'.
You know how I'm drawn to churches - not that I have any profound sense of Christian belonging - more that I find myself utterly consumed by 'what man hath wrought', the sense of the ancients, the weight of history, the genuis of craftsmanship.
I also find them comforting. I nearly always get tearful, and they give me room to think and remember you.
I always think of you in churches. I think you'd like to shout in them.
Anyway, the map had failed me, I had lost my way again and, having left that great church of the consumer age, the department store, found myself wandering along the busy high street that is Rue Neuve.
Amongst the modern shopfronts, the fashion houses, the fast food emporiums, nestles, quite unexpectedly, L'Eglise de Notre Dame de Finistere.
It's out of place, it really is - though of course, it can certainly claim it was there first.
No question of walking by. I pushed through the glass door marked 'poussez'.
I suppose the nearest I can get to describing the sensation on walking through the door is to say it was like taking a step off life's conveyor belt. Like walking through a wardrobe and finding a lamppost.
It didn't fit, if that makes sense. It was impossibly unexpected.
I decided to sit down right in the centre of a block of chairs. There were a few others seated in quiet contemplation and, unlike the other churches I'd visited, there didn't seem to be much walking about and exploring.
The bells tolled noon, and then began a one-tone repetitive chime which I should have realised was a summons.
Entranced, as I always am, by the carvings, the ornate beauty, the sheer vastness of this beautiful building, I didn't really notice the seats had started filling up.
And then the organ struck up. I can't recall the tune, though I did know it - a mournful, gentle, piece comforting in its familiarity but funereal enough to turn my thoughts to you again sweet boy.
So the tears sprang again. And it's not really possible or proper to pick up and flee when the chap in green robes who's clearly in charge is moving to the front and bowing to the altar.
He pauses, looks about him, looks at me, for all I know sees me for the fraud I feel I am, and then begins.
Today was Tuesday so the service was in Flemish.
They alternate between Flemish and French, apparently, depending on the day of the week.
I did my best to join in. The Amens and the Hallelujah's and, while I can never say I am devout, there is something in such a familiar service, something that is there in your roots, in your childhood, that means you hang on to it, and you know it and you feel it. Language isn't really a barrier.
The communion bit was a worry though. I'd have scarpered if I'd known bread was being broken. Having never been confirmed it feels forbidden - more so when you see the utter devoutness of those around you. Several of the congregation, quite old and infirm, have struggled down to their knees on the hard, tiled floor. Another is holding her arms outwards, palms raised and a third is quietly weeping.
A member of the congregation walks beyond the altar, as far as you can go, to a tiny door, opens it, and bows low before a golden chalice. He carries it with great state and solemnity to the altar - and I start to inwardly panic. I should not be here.
But you can hardly flee at the moment of transubstantiation - so I stood. Rigid. Embarrassed.
A little ashamed.
And when everyone stood and started to move to the front, I stood, drew deep breath and sat down again. Waiting for the curt glances, waiting to be exposed.
But nothing happened.
And no-one wondered about the new girl they'd never seen before who mumbled when they sang and genuflected with the wrong hand and didn't join in with the responses to the vicar's singing. Or if they did, they didn't show it.
I liked turning to my neighbour and saying 'peace be with you'. I liked making first contact. The congregation wasn't large but it was varied and ordinary and, I think, kind.
After the service I spent some time looking around and, for a short while, I sat in a small chapel to the side of the main church. It houses a statue - 'Our Lady of Good Luck', brought to Finistere from Scotland at the time of the Reformation.
I watched a woman in her 50s light a candle and pray over it before placing it with the others at the statue's feet. I wanted to know what had brought her there and the journalist in me almost stopped her to ask. Almost.
Had she lost someone too, I wondered?
xxxxx
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