These are the most interesting, curious, obscure things I read, watched, listened to and came across during week number 29 of 2026.

Wine Tasting

I’ve been going to a six-week World of Wine course organised by the excellent people at Cambridgeshire Local Wine School. Each week we try wines from a different region of the world, I’ve learnt so much from the host, Mark Anstead, and it is great fun. Actually I’d go as far as to say it’s the best evening class of all the many I’ve taken during my life. We start at 7, sober and end at 9, half-cut, exceedingly chatty and very jolly. Highly recommended.

Book families

One book always leads to another…

From Gathered leaves from the prose of Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907)

Frederik Rohde in Rome

Niels Frederik Martin Rohde (1816 - 1886) was a Danish landscape painter. In 1843 Rohde travelled to Rome staying in Italy for one year before returning to Copenhagen. I love the clean outlines and warmth of this sketch.

Books - Machiavelli week!

Two books on the great man published a hundred years apart.

1. Nicolo Machiavelli the Florentine by Giuseppe Prezzolini (1928).
   One has to feel for Machiavelli. He died a disappointed man. I wonder what consolation it would be if he were to know that 500 years later his books are still read and he is known the world over, highly regarded, legendary, one of the fathers of modernity. Prezzolini is a fine writer, bringing Machiavelli and his time fully to life.

   

2. The Throne - Franco Bernini (2024) (tra. by Oonagh Stransky).
   This is a fictionalised account of the time Machiavelli spent at the court of Cesare Borgia, his experience of which would form the basis of The Prince.. At 384 pages it feels somewhat padded out, a third of the story involves a somewhat unwise romance between Niccolò and Dianora Mambelli, a prisoner of Borgia, who I later discovered is a fictional character. The book really didn’t need this and I found it a bore to read after a while.

   

I enjoyed Prezzolini’s book so much I took a look at his published journals and copied this one on his daily routine at the age of 87:

January 2 1970

I have changed my daily routine; now I try, and often manage, not to sleep in the afternoon. I write in the morning and in the afternoon. In the evening I write letters and my diary. I read my usual quantity of newspapers, magazines, and books. At night, if I wake up and cannot get back to sleep, I read for a couple of hours. Last night I spent it with a book on Cybernetics that I like very much; I made some discoveries and managed to understand almost everything (even if my old man’s memory retains very little afterward, still I have at least glanced into an unexplored territory, and I feel happy to still be curious and capable of learning).

Diario (1968-1982) - Giuseppe Prezzolini

To do

1. Learn how to pronounce Znojmo.

Strolling to Syracuse

Some of you may know of my grand journey from the small German town of Grimma (Saxony, a handful of kilometres southeast of Leipzig) to the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, and some may not. Whatever the case I strongly encourage you to take a look at the latest post chronicling my adventures along the way.

Strolling to Syracuse

Into Bohemia

Read more

2 months ago · 4 likes · 4 comments · Martin Black

Onwards to Week 30!

Notes torn from my commonplace book, they all took place on April 15.

1828 - Lord Macaulay

It is only by walking on foot through all corners at all hours that cities can be really studied to good purpose.

Letter to his mother from Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay

Macaulay is right about walking in cities. When travelling solo I’m happy to walk 20km more or less randomly through streets, parks, lanes and alleys, following my nose, desire lines, a dérive, as the Situationists would later have it.

I like Macaulay. He is probably my favourite Victorian, and I’d like his bust on my desk, but alas such things do not exist. I need to find a YOUNG PERSON who can work a 3-D printer.

1867 - Henri Frederic Amiel

A squall of rain last night. My old housekeeper says the gusts of wind were like the reports of a cannon. April caprices!—It is grey and dismal out of the window, and the roofs are glossy with water.— Gleba putris1 and a sluggish brain. Spring does its work, and implacable age drives us towards our grave. After all, everyone has his day.

Melancholy. Languor. Lassitude.—A yearning for the great sleep comes over me, though it is combated by the need for a sustained sacrifice, an appetite for the heroic. Are not these the two ways of escaping from oneself? To sleep or to give oneself, in order to die to the self: this is the longing of the heart—Poor heart

From The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel

I know little of Amiel. He does sound exceedingly French though, and I say that in a loving way. Ah, the eternal struggle between the urge for a good nap and an appetite for the heroic! One that I know all too well.

1888

Matthew Arnold dies in Liverpool

Arnold is the kind of writer whose works I need to find cheap in a second hand bookshop.

1982 - My journal

The Higsons and King Trigger at the Venue. Higsons were amazing, really brilliant. King Trigger - worth seeing again. Great night, stay until 2.00 with Paul and Sean.

The Higsons were a ‘punk-funk’ band, I must have seen them half a dozen times, my hazy memories are all good ones. John Peel loved their first single; I don’t want to live with Monkeys, I still do.

King Trigger were what we’d now term as ‘indie landfill2’, though their first single River still makes me smile.

The Venue was in Victoria. Sean was a psychopath.

2019 - My Journal

in Bangkok

Good sleep, Middlemarch sent me off very quickly. Cat miaowing, How to write about Bangkok without resorting to cliche?

… walk down to Muslim restaurant, good goat biryani, coffee at About White, went back to flat, buy red t-shirt on the way, take river boat to shrine thing. Boat back to Sathong Pier, pork skewer food ‘street food’ - lovely. Go to South Indian veggie - excellent. Hotel Sky bar, 3 beers, taxi home (70 bht).

Young Green Coconut!

My first trip to the Far East. I pose a good question in the first paragraph. I answer it by choosing as my accommodation a tiny, poorly air-conditioned room in China Town, where I’d hang out by the window watching the world go by, smoking Winstons and playing Combat Rock by The Clash. Cliche indeed3.

Young Green Coconut could be a band name but is actually a fantastically delicious drink.

2021 - My journal

I haven’t said anything about the Russian build up of forces on the Ukrainian borders. Quite frightening, hopefully just sabre rattling.

Oh, history!

2022 - My Journal

No work today as it is Good Friday. Walked dogs, went shopping (tested negative for Covid19)

2024 - My Journal

I guess I should say something about Iran’s 300 strong drone and missile attack on Israel on Saturday night. Will Israel retaliate, who can say? Will the entire region go to war, I think not, we’ll see.

Oh history! (again)

If you enjoyed this post you’ll really like my Strolling To Syracuse substack in which I record my GRAND QUEST to follow Johann Gottfried Seume’s walk from Leipzig to Syracuse in 1801.

Strolling to Syracuse

Johann Gottfried Seume's Grand Stroll to Syracuse.

By Martin Black

I was asked, with much politeness and sympathy, who I was, where I was going, and the like; and they were greatly astonished when they heard that I wished, on foot and alone, to make a walk from Leipzig to Syracuse.1

In October I will have lived 62 years, in September I will be retired for one year.

What am I going to do for the next thirty years2, what is my aim, my program? These and other such questions have been nagging at me. If you read my last post earlier this year you’ll know I started 2025 in a bit of a slump. The excitement of liberation from work had been replaced with lethargy, mediocrity and banality. I was but a dreary ghost, playing my son’s GTA 53 for hours on end and drinking too much white wine while watching Narcos and Peep Show on Netflix for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t good.

Things have changed though. Over the summer I have outlined a grand project, a project that will take at least a decade, a project that covers six European countries and endless amounts of culture, history, travel, food and drink.

The Grand Project

Johann Gottfried Seume was born in Saxony in 1763. Orphaned at an early age, he studied in Leipzig before he was press-ganged into military service by Hessian mercenaries4 and sent to America. He later worked in Warsaw, witnessed the partition of Poland, and returned to Leipzig to live by tutoring and writing. He died in 1810 in Teplitz5.

The stroll to Syracuse. In 1801, Seume walked 3,600 miles from Leipzig to Sicily . He wanted freedom from coaches and closer contact with real life. His book, A Stroll to Syracuse6, mixed classical references with sharp views on poverty, power, and privilege. Its plain style won many readers, though censors disliked it. He came back through Paris in 1802.

I really like Johann Gottfried Seume

I think we’d get along (he spoke good English). We enjoy travelling, walking, and observing. We read and study history, though his classical knowledge is stronger than mine. We like food and drink. We are sons of the Enlightenment and stand for reason, liberty, and justice. We can mix with all types and backgrounds and we’re both intensely curious.

With this project, I will retrace Johann’s steps. I’ll walk some of it, but I’ll also use local transport between towns.

My stroll will take time, perhaps a decade, and I’ll do it in stages, depending on time and cash. Sometimes I’ll travel with my wife or friends, but I expect I’ll be mostly alone.

I’d love you to join me on this grand adventure! Find out more on the Substack below or at www.seume.org.uk.

Strolling to Syracuse

Johann Gottfried Seume's Grand Stroll to Syracuse.

By Martin Black

2

I plan to get to at least 90 years in a hardy state of physical and mental,If I play my cards right and la fortuna looks kindly on me.

It’s been a while

My last post was in October, take this as a quick update.

November

I went to Riga for four days, my second Baltic capital, Vilnius is next. Riga is unlike Tallinn, maybe it was the grey skies and cold but it all felt a little more Soviet. Still, I enjoyed myself immensely and admired the architecture, the river, the coast, the food, drink and people.

I will write more on this.

December

I devised many grand projects for the start of 2025.

January

Overwhelmed, I abandoned the grand projects and found myself in a slump, a quagmire of despondency.

February - March

I faffed about, I spent too much time playing on my son’s XBox.

April

I left England for a twenty two day trip to Hong Kong and Japan. In the former I met up with my son who is studying at Hong Kong University for a semester. In the latter I met up with an old Japanese pal (old in the sense I’ve known him for 35 years).

I will write more on this.

May

Back in my fenland redoubt I feel refreshed and ready to go at it again. Another list of projects but this time manageable, spend ten minutes a day on X, Y and Z, there’s no hurry (well, I’m 61, in one sense there is a hurry).

Music

Punk and post-punk

I’m beginning a new series listing my 100 favourite singles from the golden age of contemporary music (i.e. the period of my youth). The list is not in any particular order.

1. Simply Thrilled Honey by Orange Juice (see October 2024 post)

2. There Must be Thousands by The Quads
   It’s 1979, a small club somewhere in West Midlands, the audience are ecstatic, cheering, the opening riffs soar and then launch us into three minutes of utter glory. One of John Peel’s favourite all-time singles, and he should know. The band released one single and disappeared.

   ---

Stay hep!

Four weeks into my retirement: I turned 61, I started a business, I went to Lincolnshire.

Out and about

At the weekend I visited a friend in the underrated county of Lincolnshire. The highlight was the quite astonishing Lincoln Cathedral, I was really not ready for the drama of the building, it is utterly magnificent!

After the cathedral we walked to the other side of town to watch Lincoln City FC (The Imps) play Leyton Orient (The Os). Prior to the match we found a friendly local cafe by the name of ‘Bangers’ where we enjoyed the all-day-breakfast with excellent Lincolnshire sausages.

We watched The Imps continue their good start to the season by beating the Os 2-1. Lincoln City FC is a friendly club, family-orientated and full of good cheer. I wish them well for the rest of the season.

The other highlight of the visit was a roast lunch at a fine English village pub by the name of the Generous Briton. The food was fresh, beautifully cooked and absolutely delicious. All this washed down with a couple of tasty pints of Timothy Taylor bitter.

In the evenings we feasted on the new TV series adaptation of James Clavell’s novel Shogun and what a veritable feast it was, highly recommended!

Dog Walking business

Dog Walking in Ely had its first two customers, the first a trio of Scottish Terriers, the second a Labrador by the name of Olive. I’m also walking a Shih Tzu by the name of Buster for the Cinnamon Trust, a charity that provides support for elderly and terminally ill people with pets.

Books read

• Midnight in Peking by - a fascinating book which focus on gruesome murder in Peking of Pamela Werner, shortly before the Japanese invasion of China and the start of World War Two. I learnt so much about China at this time, a China that was soon to be lost forever in the malicious whirlpool of Mao’s dictatorship.

• The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham - A nice hardback edition from the 1950s found in a charity shop for £2. I’ll always pick up a Maugham book, a decent writer and an interesting man, tells a good story.

Podcast recommendations

There a so many excellent podcasts, here are only two of them…

• The Martian Revolution - a nonfiction telling of The Martian Revolution of 2247 from Mike Duncan, creator of the legendary The History of Rome, one of the first great history podcasts.

• The Red Emperor in which interviews veteran China correspondent Michael Sheridan, author of a new biography of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party .

Music

Punk and post-punk

I’m beginning a new series listing my 100 favourite singles from the golden age of contemporary music (i.e. the period of my youth). The list is not in any particular order.

1. Simply Thrilled Honey by Orange Juice. In the winter of 1980 punk was undergoing strange mutations. Joining in on the fun was Edinburgh’s finest combo Orange Juice. This thrilling, joyful single warmed us all in those dark days of the early 80s.

Jazz

One of last of the giants of the golden age of jazz, Benny Golson, died last month at the age of 95. Golson was a bebop and hard bop tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. All his music from the 50s and 60s sounds utterly modern and wonderful, it’s all good.

YouTube

Interesting to compare the Chinese city of Dangdon with the North Korean city of Sinuiju.

A short (30 min) documentary in which a grandson's accompanies his grandfather from Roumania to Moldova in an attempt to uncover the truth about their family's past as refugees from Bessarabia.

That’s it for now, have a hep weekend!

Redundancy and (early) retirement

Well I knew it would happen at some point. I started at my former employment almost 25 years ago as a website generalist, that role no longer exists, we’re all specialists now, the ‘webmanager’ and his un-PC pal, the ‘webmaster’ are no more. Which is all fine, I accept that, I’m an old hand with an old school approach and I’m surplus to requirements. My ex-employers are nice and are generous, I harbour no ill-feeling. I was offered redeployment to another team or, seeing as I’m over 55, early-retirement, a decent redundancy package and an old fashioned pension of the kind today’s young will never know. My wife and I did the sums, we can just about afford this, I’m taking retirement.

It’s good.

Charles Lamb1 described the feeling best in a letter to William Wordsworth in 1825:

Here I am then after 33 years slavery, sitting in my own room at 11 o'clock this finest of all April mornings a freed man...I came home for ever on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelm'd me. It was like passing from life into Eternity. Every year to be as long as three, i.e. to have three times as much real time, time that is my own, in it! I wandered about thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holydays, even the annual month, were always uneasy joys: their conscious fugitiveness — the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holyday, there are no holydays. I can sit at home in rain or shine without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master.

I eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever. I lay no anxious schemes for going hither and thither, but take things as they occur. Yesterday I excursioned 20 miles, today I write a few letters. Pleasuring was for fugitive play days, mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent.2

Another retiree, Montaigne, wrote:

“We have lived long enough for others; let us live at least this remaining bit of life for ourselves.” Let us keep, he urges, “a back shop [une arrière-boutique] all our own, entirely free in which to establish our real liberty and principal retreat and solitude”. 3

As for me, I’ve started up a dog walking business, I’m reading a lot of books, I’m hiking, cycling and learning to sketch. I have more projects than I can possibly hope to manage. Oh, and I’m going to start publishing these on a regular basis once more.

Lucia Tallová was born in 1985 in Bratislava, Slovakia. She is a well-established author of the young generation in the Slovak scene, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Painting.

Update

My wife is unwell, my mother fell over and is in hospital recovering from a broken hip1 and one of my two dogs, Smithy, died…so I’ve not written any posts.

This is short update on the many and various things that have caught my attention recently.

Why am I even doing this?

F.L. Lucas from Journal Under the Terror (1938)

Suffolk Summer

My grand project for the next twelve months is to follow in the footsteps of one John Tate Appleby of the US Eighth Air Force who was based at an airfield in Suffolk. Appleby spent most of 1945 stationed in Suffolk and on his leave days he cycled through the countryside, exploring the villages and churches, talking to everyone he met and gradually falling in love with the county. He kept a journal at the time and eventually published it under the title Suffolk Summer.

My intention is to attempt to cycle on the same days as he, follow his route and see what has changed in the 80 years since that summer in Suffolk.

Books

I recently completed the Oedipus Trilogy of Sophocles the great Greek playwright from 400BC. The trilogy is comprised of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. I really can’t recommend these plays highly enough, they are ‘easy’ to read and the subject matter and lessons are still very much relevant.

I’m looking forward to continuing with my exploration of the classics of antiquity, Virgil’s The Aeneid is next on the list.

Music

The new A Certain Ratio album is superb, hard to believe they have been make groovy sounds since the late 70s, labelmates with Joy Division but much lesser known. Post-punk funk at its best.

Smithy

Smithy, Smith, Smit, Smithson, Smithsonian, The Smifter. A good dog. He liked squirrels and sausages. Walked his own way. Much missed.

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February books

Rumour and Reflection - Bernard Berenson

As a Jew, and to a lesser extent as an American, art historian Bernard Berenson found himself in a dangerous situation in Italy, where he resided during the Second World War. Rumour and Reflection is his journal of those years (1941-45).

In the book Berenson describes daily life under Italian fascism and German Nazism, he reflects on possible post-war outcomes, history and literature.

One Year's Reading For Fun - Bernard Berenson

This book is a record of the books Berenson read during 1942.

With the war upon him, Berenson faced a terrifying future. In time of crisis some people go to church, some take to drink, others simply run away. Berenson turned to his library. The diary shows the remarkable degree to which, through absorption in reading, he managed to rise above the horror of current events. Surely, no one could have been in greater peril from Nazis and Fascists alike. Berenson was not only an American citizen; he was a Jew, and was well known as an anti-Fascist. Yet he declined the opportunity to be repatriated.

This books has so many rabbit holes to run down! One one of those merry runs led me to:

History of England - George Macaulay Trevelyan.

Berenson was impressed with Trevelyan’s book and wrote several entries on the work, this being the last:

3 December

Finished George Trevelyan's one volume History of England. Never read anything so satisfactory on similar subject in such small compass. It is a serious and successful attempt to explain what has made the England of today, going from significant joint to significant joint, appreciating it both for its own value and as a link in the chain, ignoring superfluities, never sinking to anecdote. Free, too, from undue self-congratulation, with no touch of nationalism. In short, as good a history of one's own country as human nature at its best will achieve.

It is indeed a fine history, a little dated certainly, and one could now quibble with some of his remarks regarding the British Empire, but Trevelyan was a man of his time and by all accounts a decent man. The book is beautifully written, with many stirring moments, although I skimmed much of the descriptions of religious machinations and controversy.

Historian Asa Briggs had this to say of the book:

The qualities of Trevelyan’s History are immediately apparent - largeness of view, freshness of expression, compression of judgement, fluency of narrative, and above all, evocative power in descriptions of events and of places as much as of people. The combination was and remains unique. The book as a whole is very much a work of its time, but its qualities have ensured that it has outlived its time.

I also appreciated how the book’s notes were placed at the foot of the page and dates in the margin:

There are also maps galore, I bought my hardback copy on Ebay for less than the price of a pint of English bitter in London.

Letters from Syria - Freya Stark

For me, Freya Stark stands alongside Patrick Leigh Fermor as one of the finest authors of the golden age of travel writing. Here is an example:

Damascus, April 7 1928.

Camels appeared on our left hand: first a few here and there, then more and more, till the whole herd came browsing along, five hundred or more. I got out and went among them to photograph. The two Beduin leaders, dressed gorgeously, perched high up and swinging slowly with the movement of their beasts, shouted out to me, but the Beduin Arabic is beyond me. I can’t tell you what a wonderful sight it was : as if one were suddenly in the very morning of the world among the people of Abraham or Jacob. The great gentle creatures came browsing and moving and pausing, rolling gently over the landscape like a brown wave just a little browner than the desert that carried it. Their huge legs rose up all round me like columns ; the foals were frisking about : the herdsmen rode here and there. I stood in a kind of ecstasy among them. It seemed as if they were not so much moving as flowing along, with something indescribably fresh and peaceful and free about it all, as if the struggle of all these thousands of years had never been, since first they started wandering. I never imagined that my first sight of the desert would come with such a shock of beauty and enslave me right away. But I left it feeling that somehow, some time, I must see more of the great spaces.

The excellent Explorers Podcast has recently finished an excellent series on Freya, go check it out, you won’t regret it, she was one fine woman.

Oh, Freya was a friend of Bernard Berenson!

A Bright Remembrance - The Diaries of Julia Cartwright 1851-1924

Julia Cartwright was a Victorian writer whose works were primarily concerned with the art and history of the Italian Renaissance. She had a highly successful career, producing twenty-three books on art and history. Five of her books were biographies of women, her most well known being Isabella d’Este.

The diaries are a fascinating glimpse into the life of a liberal-minded Victorian woman.

Oh, yet another friend of Bernard Berenson!

Black-out : listening to Beethoven

I love this sketch by Helen Knapp of a group of friends listening to Beethoven during the London blitz.

Crass at the Bingo Hall

On this day, forty years ago, I saw English anarcho-punk rockers Crass at a squatted bingo hall in London. It was quite an evening, Crass were a searing rage of fury and anger. We all had a wonderful time, I must write about Crass one day, ah, to be a young punk again!

Photos borrowed with thanks from the Kill Your Petty Puppy fanzine archive site.

A few notes on the second year of Putin’s war against Ukraine

1. I don’t hate anyone as such, except for Putin, I hate Putin with all my heart.

2. The Ukrainians are the most courageous and resilient people I know.

3. I’m proud my country is a staunch ally of Ukraine.

A hike along the Lark Valley Path

The dog, Jeffery, and I took a train east to Bury St Edmunds on Saturday. It was a bright brisk day, the going was probably going to be a little muddy but we weren’t worried about that.

The path follows the River Lark through west Suffolk from Bury St Edmunds to Mildenhall. It largely stays with the river bank though some sections veer away from the water due to lack of rights of way.

We walked about 12km up to the village of Culford where we visited the delightful St Mary’s church, set in the lush grounds of Culford Park. After a sandwich lunch we caught a bus back to Bury. All-in-all a fine day out on the trail.

Against chrysanthemums, mountains and Switzerland

Of his1 tastes and opinions I can qualify none as prejudice, unless it be his dislike of chrysanthemums ; but there were proclivities and avoidances as characteristic and as amiable as the best of prejudices. I do not think he had any love of the sublime in nature ; I have heard him avow a distaste for mountains, and he never spoke of Switzerland except as a natural obstacle.

From The Portrait of a Scholar & Other Essays Written in Macedonia, 1916-1918 by R.W. Chapman2

Hints of spring

Out hiking along a fen drove I found myself humming the jazz standard It Might as Well be Spring.

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm
I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string

I feel so gay in a melancholy way
That it might as well be spring

Here’s the excellent Stacey Kent performing the song live:

Of course, spring is still far away, we could quite easily still have snow in this absurd country.

Salve Piscatores!

I enjoyed this snippet from a obituary of the Harvard classical scholar John Houston Finley from 1995.

Finley wrote Four stages of Greek Thought which opens with:

Whether the Greeks saw things most freshly because they came first or it is pure good luck that, having come first, they answered life with unmatched alertness, they in either case keep ageless sparkle, as of the world lit by a kind of six-o’clock-in-the-morning light and the dew imperishably on the grass. The Greek mind remains in ours, because this untarnished freshness leaves it, like youth itself, our first exemplar.

That six-o’clock-in-the-morning light is a special thing if you’ve seen it.

Too indolent to bear malice

John Henry Newman’s portrait of a gentleman, perhaps something to aspire to in these days of rancour.

That’s it for for now, have an excellent week.

Eleven notes on anno domini

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now 1

1. I still have a full head of hair, in this I take after Samson. 2

2. I was surprised last October to find myself at 60 years of age, it felt unlikely.

3. At age 20 I aspired to an English Jack Kerouac, now I look to Montaigne in his library surrounded by books.3

4. Charlie Harper is 79 and still touring with the UK Subs. 4

5. I first realised I was aging at the age of 41 after listening and responding strongly to ‘Range Life’ by Pavement (2004)

   
   ‘I wanna settle down

   If I could settle down

   Uh, I would settle down’
   
   God I love that song.

6. At the age of 60, officially, I belong to the ‘Boomers’ but this is wrong, my parents are of that generation not me. Yet I’m too old to belong to ‘Gen X’. Rather I am of the ‘Blank Generation’ as Richard Hell put it:
   
   ’I belong to the blank generation and
   I can take it or leave it each time
   I belong to the ______ generation but
   I can take it or leave it each time’

7. Talking of Generation X, as a 60 year old I strongly object to this turning up in Google searches:

   

   As opposed to this:

   

8. The poet Robert Browning wrote about aging
   
      Youth ended, I shall try
      My gain or loss thereby;
   Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
      And I shall weigh the same,
      Give life its praise or blame:
   Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

9. Reading my diaries from 40 years ago, the me of that time is akin to a nephew, perhaps a favoured one. I try hard not to criticise, I hold my tongue and nod indulgently, though I really want to say something. Okay, I will say something:
   
   ”Smile at the ‘Italian girl’! For godssake stop writing about her and smile instead!”

10. The older I get the more likely I am to talk to people I encounter, stopping for a chat is a joy

11. At 60 you can officially refuse to use QR code scanner apps in bars and restaurants.

January books

I read a few books in January

• John Betjeman - Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches
  JB's criteria for inclusion of churches in the book includes those that are:
  "aesthetically worth bicycling twelve miles against the wind to see”
  I’ve been adding the Suffolk and Norfolk churches to a Google Map, ready for exploring later in the year.

• William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
  I read this, my second play by WS, largely due to finding a lovely version of the work with illustrations by the designer and typographer Eric Gill1.
  

• Harold Bloom - Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
  A useful short commentary - “Why is it so easy for the conspirators to murder him? His power…is all but absolute; where is his security apparatus? Where indeed are his guards?” - Why indeed?

• William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet
  I did not know the ending in advance, I was not expecting the ending, what an ending!

• Michael Ignatieff - Isaiah Berlin - A Life
  Nuanced and detailed exploration of the British philosopher and historian.

• Various - Norfolk country churches and the future
  Published in 1973, a collection of essays:
  ”Norfolk would not be Norfolk without a church tower on the horizon or round a corner up the lane. We cannot spare a single Norfolk church. When a church has been pulled down the country seems empty or is like a necklace with a jewel missing. Every Norfolk church that is left standing today, however dim, neglected and forgotten it looks, is loved by someone or it would have disappeared long ago.”

  

• Katharine Gilbert - Studies in Recent Aesthetic
  Published in 1927. I’m still digesting this, more next time.
  ”This little book contains six essays on the philosophy of beauty. The complexity of the subject, a complexity which seemed to grow under my eyes like the tiny Japanese paperflowers children plant in a bowl of water, deterred me for the time being from the presumption of a systematic treatment”

On language learning

From In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent on the benefit of picking languages to learn ’with high impact-to-proficiency ratios‘.

Pretty good Hungarian gets you a lot more love in Budapest than perfect French buys you in Paris, and one well-placed word of Ibo to a Nigerian taxi driver can reward you with enough compliments to beat back the insecurities from all other parts of your life for a week.

You don’t even need ‘pretty good’. Before visiting Estonia a few years ago I learnt a dozen phrases in that language and once there received surprised smiles and acknowledgements in bars, shops, restaurants and train stations. No one expects a foreigner to try a ‘small’ language and everyone is pleased.

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Gill gave us the classic Gill Sans typeface

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Books

Isaiah Berlin - A Life by Michael Ignatieff.
I enjoyed this biography of the great Latvian born English philosopher and historian of the 20th century. Berlin was primarily known for his defence of liberalism and concept of negative and positive freedoms.

Berlin was admired across the political spectrum (other than the hard right and left who, naturally, despised him).

In the days following his death, newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic accorded him the space in their obituary pages usually reserved for statesmen.

William Waldegrave, in a Daily Telegraph obituary, said:

if you had asked me to show you what I meant by the ideal of Englishness, I would have taken you to see a Latvian, Jewish, German, Italian mixture of all the cultures of Europe. I would have taken you to see Isaiah Berlin.

I love that!

A hike in Suffolk

I sallied forth on my first hike of the year. A bright, frosty 16 miles in the East Anglian county of Suffolk.

We enjoyed the traditional end of hike pint at the excellent Red House pub in Stanningfield.

2024 will be my year of hiking and cycling in Suffolk and Norfolk, expect further posts.

More thoughts on art

Sir Charles Holmes - Constable and his Influence on Landscape Painting (1902)

Through every age, and recently every decade, has held a different ideal of Art, a single broad principle seems to underlie and to interpenetrate each of them. One period or School may make sincerity to fact the goal of all effort, another the spread of religion or morality ; a third may take pride only in perfection of craftsmanship ; a fourth may see in Painting merely a supremely splendid means of decoration. Great art may combine in varying proportions all such ideals, good art may do no more than attain the single ideal of its own period, but all examples of great or good art agree in this — they aim first of all at the revelation of beauty, and attain their end, whether it be realistic or moral or technical or sensuous, through that revelation only.

The writer, Charles Holmes was a landscape painter. At this point in my wanderings in the history and meaning of art I find myself agreeing with the highlighted sentence. I’m looking in particular at Constable as he painted many scenes in Suffolk, a county I intend to explore more deeply this year.

The Pleiades

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An aesthetic innocent at the Wallace Collection

In my ongoing quest to understand art I’ve been reading a book published in 1927 by philosopher Katharine Gilbert titled Studies in Recent Aesthetic. I came across a useful phrase in the chapter ‘Remarks on the Ugly’:

It is now taken as aesthetic innocence to apply the word ‘ugly’ to the portraits of wrinkled old women, cacophony in poetry, discords in music, angularity in drawing or roughness of dramatic utterance. The shrinking from complex and uningratiating representation, if there is something powerful offered, is imputed to the timidity or intellectual narrowness of the spectator.

I think this is where I am right now, an aesthetic innocent, though I wouldn’t attribute timidity or narrowness to my good self, obviously. I want to learn more, how to appreciate art at a level other than that of the innocent.

Anyway, I went to the Wallace Collection last Tuesday. It was one of those bright blue crisp London days and I walked the two miles or so from King’s Cross to Marylebone through Fitzrovia, a lovely part of town with some fine buildings.

I went specifically to see A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin.

I was expecting a much larger painting and was a little disappointed by its actual size. The feeling was akin to that of the band in Spinal Tap when they realise the Stonehenge sarsen stones they had commissioned as a stage prop were a mere foot high rather than full-scale.

Anyway, I sat and gazed at the painting for a while, waiting to be moved but alas nothing came, had I failed? I had been led to believe I would be moved! Maybe this will come later. I enjoyed the painting and consider it beautiful and perhaps, at this stage in my attempt at connoisseurship, an archetype of what is beautiful, good and true. Something like that anyway.

More Shakespeare

I read Romeo and Juliet, gosh, what an ending, I wasn’t expecting that! I guess I probably knew somehow it would all end bad, it’s not labelled ‘a tragedy’ for nothing.

I’ve started on Love’s Labour’s Lost, which so far I’m enjoying.

Films

Last week I enjoyed Sink The Bismarck!, filmed in 1960, slightly wooden acting but excellent fun if you enjoy war films. Charley Varrick, from 1973, stars Walter Mathau in a menacing story of the aftermath of a bank heist gone-wrong, recommended. (both films on YouTube).

Have a lovely week!

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Things I’ve been thinking about

Art

I turned 60 last year and decided it was about time to learn more about art, specifically painting. Soon after making this decision, a number of questions arose, including:

• What is art?

• Is there a heuristic for 'good' art?

• Why do I 'like' X but not Y?

Of course, I could just ignore all this and just go off and enjoy art, I’m not sure I can do that though, I feel the need to work on the questions as well.

So, I’ve been reading, or rather skimming, some books on aesthetics, the philosophy of art and the history of art. I’m not sure these have helped yet, it all becomes rather complex quite quickly…but that’s okay, I’ve plenty of time.

On Tuesday I’m going to the Wallace Collection in London to see Nicolas Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time.

I chose the Music of Time after reading Anthony Powell’s magnificent series of novels of the same name. The painting is referenced in the first paragraph of the first novel:

I’ll report back next week and perhaps have a go at answering the three questions. Feel free to give your own answers!

Against interesting

Autumn in the life of Ferdinand Gregorovius

The autumn of Ferdinand Gregorovius’ life was the year 1853, at age of 32, which feels quite young to be in the later stages of ones life, though perhaps this is correct for midway through the 19th century. I love the line about the pomegranates, there is something of the dream about this.

Triple Hep and Blue

Motor City Scene

Thad Jones' 1959 album Motor City Scene was released at a time when Detroit was asserting itself as a new jazz hub, comparable to the likes of New Orleans, Chicago, and Kansas City.

• Cornet, Flugelhorn – Thad Jones

• Bass – Paul Chambers

• Drums – Elvin Jones

• Piano – Tommy Flanagan

• Tenor Saxophone – Billy Mitchell

• Trombone – Al Grey

Jones delivers a range of styles with the LP, tracks like "Let's Play One" showcase a playful gospel influence, while "Minor on Top" has a more of a bop flavour, and "No Refill" has a more somber tone, highlighted by a duet between Jones and bassist Paul Chambers.

Looking back from 2024, "Motor City Scene" stands out for its approachability and ease in an era often dominated by more serious and complex jazz forms. This album, now a classic, reminds us of an important moment in jazz history, where talent and innovation converged in Detroit.

No Refill

Minor on Top

Stay hep, cats!

Resolution

Notes on reading Shakespeare for the first time

In December I read Richard II, this month was Julius Caesar, next up is King Richard III. I intend to read at least one a month until they are all done.

Shakespeare was ruined for me at school. I remember a dimly lit room and something about a king, trees and witches. It moved me not. I had recently graduated myself from the ‘junior’ to the ‘adult’ library and was happily making my way through the manly rough and ready novels of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean and Ian Fleming, a young boy wanted action! Who needed these obscure Scottish manoeuvrings?

Was it poor teaching? Perhaps another teacher would have brought the play to life, perhaps it was just me?

Thinking back on it now, why didn't the history teacher and English teacher get together over a cup of tea and decide to collaborate, the historian would present the context of 11th century Britain while the English teach would introduce us to the play. The two would compliment one another, give flavour, conflict, bring both subjects alive!

Since leaving school, and particularly in the last decade, I've felt a gap in my reading, references to Shakespeare's plays continue, endlessly, to crop up and it felt increasing odd that I, as an Englishman, and a self-professed lover of books, did not know the man's work.

I'm experimenting with different approaches to the plays:

1. Ignoring the introduction, read the play from start to finish, read a commentary, watch a film (many on YouTube).

2. Read a commentary, read the play, watch a film.

3. Watch a film, read the play, read a commentary.

I'm undecided on to what extent I should understand each and every line of the play. With the first two plays I'd guess that I did not fully understand a third of the lines. Would I accept this from a contemporary work of fiction? Of course not. But if I stop every time to look up a line (Chat GPT has helped here) then it will take me twice as long to finish the work. Maybe this is not a problem if I'm 'getting' the main thrust of the play from two-thirds that are understood? I'm still undecided on this.

Have you had similar experiences with Shakespeare? I'd love to know your approach.

Recollection

Triple Hep and Blue

This month’s jazz pick is Ramblin’, a 1966 offering from pianist Jack Wilson and his quartet.

Wilson is an underrated jazz man, which is odd, because he had a sensitive touch and a fine musical sensibility. Covering all the bases of modern jazz, his music combined elements of hard bop, cool jazz and soul-jazz, all tied together by his tasteful playing.

Line up: Jack Wilson on piano; Roy Ayers sets the vibes; Monk Montgomery thumbs the bass and one Varner Barlow beats the drums.

Ramblin’ is an album of covers, my selections from YouTube are Sidewinder and Stolen Moments:

Until next week!

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Time wasters for people like you and me

I’ve been reading the letters and diaries of John Bailey1, this one can be filed under the rubric ‘some things never change’.

Triple hep and blue

I was talking to my mum who has early-stage dementia, her short-term memory is shot but she has vivid memories of her glory days (1950s) in and around London. My mum liked jazz and would go out dancing to the swinging sound of English band leader and trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton at the weekend.

Kinda like this:

She told me recently how, at the 100 Club, she was voted ‘hippest chick of the week’ by Lyttelton band. 30 years later I would go to the same club to ‘dance’ to punk bands such as Theatre of Hate and UK Subs.

A class of raki and a spoonful of jam

Raki is an alcoholic drink made of twice-distilled grapes, drunk all over the Balkan peninsular, Greece and Turkey. A fiery tonic that packs a punch, highly recommended.

Books

• The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (1836)

I regret to say I did not much enjoy the Pickwick Papers. There are a few moments that had me chuckling but 700 pages of unlikely stories became a slog.

This had me laughing out loud:

Is there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter?’

A corpulent man, with a fortnight’s napkin under his arm, and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. Pickwick; and, after minutely inspecting that gentleman’s appearance, from the crown of his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically—

‘No!’

One highlight was discovering a reference to a pub not too far from where I live which will, obviously, necessitate a visit.

The Angel Hotel, Bury St. Edmunds

‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, suddenly breaking off in his loquacious discourse. ‘Is this Bury St. Edmunds?’

‘It is,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.

The coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little town, of thriving and cleanly appearance, and stopped before a large inn situated in a wide open street, nearly facing the old abbey.

‘And this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking up. ‘Is the Angel! We alight here, Sam. But some caution is necessary. Order a private room, and do not mention my name. You understand.’

‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller.

Also reading:

• Frederick II - Wonder of the World 1194–1250 by Ernst Kantorowicz

• Goodbye Eastern Europe - Jacob Mikanowski

More on these next week

Work from home

Michaelangelo’s snowman

Kenny Clarke - Bohemia After Dark (1955)

The beguiling opening original is dedicated to Cafe Bohemia, the comfortable modern jazz caravansary in Greenwich Village.

Oh, how I long to spend a night at comfortable modern jazz caravansary in mid 50s New York City!

Record Changer mag jazz covers

Record Changer magazine was published between 1942 and 1957 by jazz collector Gordon Gullickson. The magazine provided a space for jazz writing and a place for collectors to buy and trade discs.

On my other substack, Maps in Books, I wrote about Rivers in the Desert by Nicholas Glueck.

Well that’s a wrap for this one, wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Journals of Jules Renard

I’ve started on the Jules Renard’s journals, at this point I know next to nothing about Renard other than he was a French writer1.

In her introduction, Louise Bogan provides some detail.

I had to look up boulevardier, the Merriam-Webster defines such a person as:

The first boulevardiers got their name from the thoroughfares they frequented: the typically straight and geometrically precise boulevards of Paris. These particular men must have cut an impressive figure because the word boulevardier was eventually applied to any worldly and socially active man. Unlike many near-synonyms, "boulevardier" is generally a complimentary term.

In Jacques Perret’s 1964 book, Horace, the great Roman poet is described as a boulevardier:

Oh, and the boulevardier cocktail sounds rather tasty2.

Here are some excerpts:

It’s enough to throw you into despair: to read everything, and remember nothing! Because you do remember nothing. You may strain as much as you like: everything escapes. Here and there a few tatters remain, fragile as those puffs of smoke left over after a train has passed.

I adore the green of certain magazines after they have been washed by the weather in the kiosques.

His ideas resemble the pile of glass panes in a glazier’s basket: separately clear, opaque when together

A Latvian lullaby

A rather lovely, wistful, dreamy, folk song from Latvia…Aija, Baby, in the Womb by Ada Benefelde (1884-1967).

via the National Latvian Digital Library.

Xenophanes on greeting strangers

On Conrad’s Shadow line

Halford E. Luccock (1960)…

…and from Rationalism in Politics (1962) by Michael Oakeshott

I recently broke with a friend of 40 years over some stupid culture war topic. He (a tenured professor) continues to tweet idiocies such as ‘scratch a capitalist, and you’ll find a fascist’. Sure, this is the kind of thing I’d say back in my youth and twenties but then I grew up, experienced the world a little, talked to people from outside of my ‘group’, and sailed past Conrad’s line. My old friend is still on the other side, I wonder if he will ever join me?

The anniversary

The twelfth anniversary of my father’s death. From John Black I was gifted among other things, the love of travel and adventure, the endless curiosity of what comes after the next ridgeline.

The coronation

My meanderings with the monarchy:

• Pre Sex Pistols royalist : “Long Live the Queen!”

• Post Sex Pistols ultra-republican : “It’s a fascist regime!”

• Middle age centrist dad : “People coming together in the community is a good thing”

• summed it up well this week:

Royalty is an example of a tradition which we don’t really understand, but which serves a purpose

The film

Seven Days in May (1964) is a political thriller set during the Cold War era. US President Lyman's plans for nuclear disarmament are met with suspicion by General Scott (Burt Lancaster). A military conspiracy emerges to overthrow the government, but loyal Colonel Casey (Kirk Douglas), uncovers the plot and races against time to gather evidence. The film explores loyalty, power, the fragility of democracy and political intrigue. Black and white, well worth a view.

The swifts

The swifts arrived at our street corner on the 4th of May, six days earlier than last year. Oh my these wonderful creatures make my heart sing, little spitfires darting about the place, such joy and freedom.

Over practically every town and village and group of old buildings throughout the British Isles you will see them wheeling and diving: sometimes at great heights, each bird hunting separately for insects which form its only diet; sometimes in screeching packs almost at ground level, weaving and darting round every available obstacle in exultation at their unrivalled control of flight.

Henry Douglas-Home - The birdman : memories of birds (1977)

The podcasts

• The Ghost of Franco & Spain's Memory Wars - Michael Reid

  and Nigel Townson explore the role of memory in Spain's democratic transition.

• Mary Renault's Worldbuilding - Miranda Carter talks about the life and historical fiction of Mary Renault, whose stories from Ancient Greece have never been out of print. A fine writer, highly recommended.

• The Destruction of the Country House - John Saumarez Smith recalls the destruction of two country house libraries - Dropmore and Hampden in 1939.

The haiku

Commentary by Gilbert Highet:

That is all. But you see how much is in it, and how much more is implied.

There are: the season of the year (it is summer, hot summer, because the poet has been longing for the evening) ; the sounds of the world (after the noisy day, it is becoming quiet, so that even speech would be an intrusion); the light (growing dimmer into the restful darkness); the situation (two men sitting together, far from noisy parties); the mood (rest and meditation); and the thought behind the whole (that there is greater understanding, of nature and of friends, in almost silent companionship — not in complete silence, but in those brief words which are more eloquent than long speeches or busy conversation )

Chopin might have translated that into music, as one of the Preludes.

From A Clerk of Oxenford (1954)

The books

• Collected short stories of Somerset Maugham

• The Road : A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past by Christopher Hadley. The author searches for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. One of my hiking plans for the year is to follow Roman roads in East Anglia.

  

  ---

  The word

  

The epigram

Untruth loving viper is a fine phrase.

The bop

Dizzy Reece - Star Bright (1959)

Star Bright is a magnificent showcase of performances, by a dream team. Reece holds his own, with a tone “fat as butter”, generously allows plenty of space for Hank Mobley, who is in devastatingly confident form, for me the outstanding feature of this album. Throw in Wynton Kelly, and Paul Chambers, irresistible combination.

from London Jazz Collector

Fat as Butter sums up Reece’s trumpet nicely. This is one of those jazz LPs from the golden age where just about every track is a joy.