STARCHITECT

We Have a Starchitect

Yes, I know it's a horrible word, and it's usually applied to the likes of Richard Rogers and I M Pei, but it's beginning to feel appropriate for Biba Dow, our Project Architect. Biba has just been shortlisted for Women In Architecture's Architect of the Year award, with a big feature in the Architects Journal. She has been nominated for the Garden Museum, whose extension and refurbishment she has designed, but apparently the journal are featuring us as a current project. We are very happy that we picked Biba several years ago from the competition that we held to get an architect for the Project. I was part of the panel alongside Dan Cruikshank, Maeve Kennedy of the Guardian, and George Ferguson, ex-President of RIBA (and at that point future Mayor of Bristol, now past Mayor of Bristol). We were struck by Biba's enthusiasm for the Victorian building, and the relish with which she wanted to make a new building that would respond to Street's masterpiece. What we all remember is that she said that the Victorian building hid great treasures behind an austere facade, and that she wanted to build a jewel-box of an extension that would signal to the visitor the joys that awaited them inside. What wasn't obvious then, but has become so over time, is Biba's complete understanding of the social purposes of the Project, that this building can be transformative in the life of this community. We aren't just tarting up a church and building a posh extension, but starting off a Project that will give the people of  North Paddington somewhere they can be proud of, a focus for art, culture and heritage in their neighbourhood, and a thing of beauty that they can claim as their own. Biba has been committed throughout to our insistence on co-creation wherever possible, so that local people have a stake in this building, while of course maintaining the integrity of her own artistic vision. It's a very exciting process, and it's great to have someone like Biba involved, who is really good at engaging with ordinary people and helping them to catch the vision.


The Other Starchitect

There was a racehorse called Starchitect, who was about to achieve the biggest success of his career in a valuable handicap at Cheltenham in the autumn, when sadly he fell and was killed. A horrible occasion. Awful for everyone connected with the horse, including the trainer, David Pipe (who a friend of mine tutored through his A levels, many years ago). National hunt racing always carries that danger; if they are going to  jump fences then the risk is always there. It sickens you with the game when it happens, but we all know that horses jump and race for fun, not because humans force them to. It is incumbent on the humans connected with horse racing that they create the best possible conditions for the horses.


Dope Testing Regimes

Now in British horse racing a horse will be disqualified if a dope test reveals anything "other than a normal nutrient". There was a recent case when a horse of the Queen's was disqualified after being fed some dietary supplement that the manufacturers claimed was perfectly innocuous but which turned out to contain prohibited substances. That regime has the benefit of clarity, even if it may seem draconian, and is based on a sense of human responsibility for what is done to the animal. Other sports are much less clear.

The case of Chris Froome's asthma inhaler is a sad one. I do not believe Froome to be a doper, or a cheat. He is clearly the outstanding stage racer of his generation, and one of the finest of all time (even if rather uncharismatic). I suspect, though, that he and Team Sky have used the rules to gain any possible advantage. Froome has returned an "adverse analytical finding" with a higher-than-permitted level of the anti-asthma drug Salbutamol. The rules permit cyclists to use Salbutamol, but only up to a certain level  (and only by inhalation) with a doctor's note. Froome has that doctor's note. Hence he has not been disqualified, or suspended, and is now trying to explain how he might have returned an elevated level in a test if he had been using within the limit. It  is generally held that using Salbutamol would give no advantage to anyone without the asthmatic symptoms, but there is a suspicion that it might, which is why there is a permitted limit.  Now my problem with this is permitting the use of Salbutamol at all. Apparently it is quite common, because we are told that many endurance athletes, cyclists among them, experience asthmatic symptoms at the peak of their performance. Asthma is regarded by the authorities as a normal complaint, the medication of which should be permitted to elite athletes. Now, pardon me, but I don't think that what has been described is asthma at all. Asthma is a horrible condition, which afflicts many people in their daily lives (and killed a teenage member of my congregation a couple of years ago). When elite athletes are cycling or running faster than the rest of us, their bodies have a lot of responses to that stressful exercise, like pain, exhaustion, lactic acid buildup, and apparently difficulty breathing. It has long been said that the best cyclist is often the one who can bear the pain best, and that's part of the sport. You don't become asthmatic only under conditions of great physical effort, so I'm afraid that I would say difficulty breathing is a result of great effort just like pain, which the athlete has to put up with. I find it hard to believe that someone who is asthmatic in daily life would actually find themselves in elite sport. The problem is that cycling (like athletics, which has a much worse problem with doping) permits the use of substances "other than normal nutrients" and has always done so; the anti-doping regime seeks to codify which abnormal substances may be permitted.

Athletes fall foul when the regulations change. Hence Maria Sharapova's suspension. She had used Meldonium for years, because it was permitted and was believed to enhance performance. She certainly didn't have the sort of heart condition which is the only good reason for using it, but she was able to get a doctor's note. So she used it, and was careless enough not to notice when the rules changed and it ceased to be permitted. Tough luck. She was clearly gaming the system. My sympathy and admiration  for Froomey is immense, but I fear he may be in the same boat.

       

TOWN AND COUNTRY

Red Kites

Those of us who used to drive along the M40 in the 1990s would get really excited when we saw red kites soaring over the motorway, initially around Stokenchurch, the point where the road goes over the top of the Chiltern escarpment, because it was there that the birds were first reintroduced, back in 1989. Helen used regularly to tell me to keep my eyes on the road, as I became childishly excited at seeing the magnificent birds, but I confess that with the passage of time we all became a bit blasé, and accustomed to them. It was a feature of our last couple of years in Reading that one began to see red kites over the town centre, so that would have been in maybe 2005 or 2006. Everyone living in Berkshire was aware that the red kites were expanding their range, and I imagine that most people shared my delight at that. Not all, though; a friend taught at a village school in West Berkshire and recalls a boy cheerfully saying, “My dad shoots them!”

This week I went and stayed in Reading while visiting the Wantage Sisters, and so drove from Reading to Wantage (a delightful drive) a couple of mornings. I was delighted to see three red kites over farmland just east of Blewbury, which my friends tell me is as far west as they have heard of them. It is perfectly logical that the kites should pass from the Chilterns to the Berkshire Downs at Goring, but perhaps the absence of woodland makes it less attractive. The thought occurred to me that by now they might be approaching London, since they have certainly colonized most of the Chilterns, but they seem not to be heading this way. Famously red kites were commonplace in London in Shakespeare’s time, but after the development of shooting as a sport for the wealthy in the eighteenth century their numbers began to fall. The modern red kite seems reluctant to venture too far into an urban environment, and I’m sure London must look terrifying from the air, with only occasional green oases. In India, though, there are plenty of urban kites (black kites) who seem totally at home. The big difference of course is that our waste disposal is much more efficient, and so there is not much for a large scavenger to eat in the city. Herring gulls and foxes would provide solid competition, so I don’t suppose London is that attractive for the red kites today, but I keep looking up when I go west, just in case.

Sisters

Anyone who knows the history of the catholic revival in Anglicanism during the nineteenth century will remember the pleasing statistic that there were more religious sisters in England in 1900 than there were at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. It was one of the striking features of Anglo-Catholicism that the religious life was revived, despite bitter opposition, and of course this was mostly among women. Women’s communities pre-dated men’s, and always outperformed them; there have always been more Anglican sisters than monks. The point that modern feminist scholarship has grasped is that religious sisterhoods were actually empowering for women in Victorian England, as they gave educated women the chance to work, and to take agency in their lives, and not be the chattels of men, which is one reason why they were so hated.

I went to Wantage to look at the archives of the Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) to see what I could find out about the history of St Mary Magdalene’s, because the sisters were here in Paddington from 1870 to 1944 (and then came back for a few years after the War). For most of their time they lived in Delamere Terrace, in the house that Dirk Bogarde emerges from towards the end of “The Blue Lamp”. They ran all sorts of parish organisations, as well as being in charge of visiting, and must have made a tremendous difference to the parish. Most importantly perhaps, they ran a mother-and-baby home (which eventually moved to Stamford Hill) and a home for women alcoholics (which moved to Spelthorne). The main vocation of CSMV was to work in education (and they did some of that in Paddington as well) but here they were mostly engaged in what we would call social work (at one point they ran a home for women thieves, which they moved out to Ealing). One of our volunteers with the Heritage Project is intending to research the sisters, and my trip was to check out the material. It is clear that there will be plenty of stories to tell.

A Visit from our Sponsors

Officers from the Heritage Lottery Fund came to see us this week, and clambered up the scaffolding to see the progress on the cleaning of the ceilings. I am pleased to say that they were suitably impressed. Rightly, because it is impressive. They also peered over the edge to see the great hole in the ground, into which concrete is imminently to be poured. I got excited a couple of weeks ago when I saw a concrete mixer arrive, but it turned out that this was just laying a slab for other concrete mixers to come and park on (because our site is getting to look like Passchendaele). This week, however, four tons of steel reinforcing rods have been delivered, so concrete is genuinely imminent. We had managed to fix a sign to the hoarding advertising HLF's support a couple of hours before they came; the trouble is that those signs are not very robust, as the second one we had was carried off by a gale and smashed to pieces against my garden fence.   

And the Geese..

Last Sunday as I went to prepare the Vestry for our Sunday worship, I saw the pair of Egyptian geese on the grass moving towards Senior Street, heading for Royal Oak, and one of them was honking very loudly. They almost never honk, and you never see them out of sight of the Canal, so that was doubly mystifying. I thought perhaps the honking meant that they were lost, so I tried to herd them back towards the Canal. I moved them twenty yards or so north, but then they shrewdly split up, and herding became impossible, so I left them there. Later, when I actually went over for Mass, I could hear the honking again, but couldn't see them. I spent a few moments checking, and then saw them, both in the topmost branches of a leafless tree on the corner of Delamere Terrace, from which no doubt they could see the Canal very well. I suspect the honking was all about mating, though it seems a bit unnecessary when they are already a couple (unless there's more going on here than I have begun to imagine).

FAMILY LIFE

Travels to my Aunt

Last weekend I went to visit my Aunt, down in Surrey. I’d realised a little while ago that I hadn’t been to see her since Helen died; it was something we used to do from time to time, but we always drove  down together and I haven’t been driving so much over the past two years, because it’s much less enjoyable on your own. When I came to look at the map it dawned on me that it was perfectly possible to do it by train, as it wasn’t a particularly long walk from that station to my Aunt’s bungalow; I’d just never thought of doing it. The only time we had taken the train was when we went to my Aunt’s ninetieth birthday party, which had happened in a village hall virtually next door to the station. I have a vivid memory of waiting with Helen on the platform to go home watching an excellent stag beetle under the pine trees in the summer heat.

Remembering how long ago my Aunt’s ninetieth birthday party happened was the sort of thing that Helen was very good at, and I am much less good. So, it was in the summer, clearly not the summer of 2015, nor the summer before that, because I would remember, so it was some time longer ago than that. Fortunately Aunt June wrote a book, of which I have a copy, so I could check, and there found that she is now in fact ninety-eight and a half.

I had proposed giving myself a bit of a lie-in that Saturday, and thought of getting to her at half past twelve, but she was shocked at that suggestion, which was much too late, so I said I would get to her for eleven-thirty. She then called me again to check whether I was driving or coming by train, so I confirmed that I would come on the train that arrived at eleven-eighteen, whereupon she said that she would meet me at the station. I protested that I could perfectly well walk, walk would do me good etc, but was firmly overruled. It would be much too muddy, and they had had a lot of rain, which left lots of standing water on the roads, so walking was really not a good idea. You will understand that Aunt June is not to be deflected.

So, I duly got the train, and wrote half a sermon on the way (in increasing discomfort as I had forgotten that South-West Trains commuter stock doesn’t feature lavatories). Aunt June was there on the platform to meet me, and showed me to her car, parked just outside. She then drove us home. She made us tea and insisted I sit with the newspaper while she finished making lunch. I was able to help a bit with bringing things through and clearing up, but my attempt to leave after lunch was smartly brushed aside, as she intended us to have tea and cake (she apologised that the cake was bought). She drove me to the station just before four, so that she didn’t have to drive in the dark, which she no longer does. I sympathised, and said that I don’t enjoy driving in the dark either. I at least have the excuse of wearing glasses, I suppose.

This may seem a very mundane tale, but I repeat that Aunt June is ninety-eight and a half. I suspect that part of the explanation for her longevity and spirit is that she still works; the BBC sends a car for her whenever she is required and she goes and records in Birmingham, as she has done for decades. She certainly keeps her mind sharp, and founded a Scrabble club in the village fifteen years or so ago after my Uncle died, with whom she had played the game for years. Do not imagine that this is all sustained by her children either, because my cousin David died more than ten years ago, and his sister Roz lives up in Suffolk, so Aunt June doesn’t have family running around doing everything for her. Rather, she is from a stoic generation, who just get on with things. She and Uncle Roger helped support me through university, so I have a lot to be grateful to her for, and I fear I am not a very good nephew.  

Brotherly Love

My brother and I have still not seen each other for Christmas. They were meant to come to me this year, though we hadn’t fixed a firm arrangement because of the fluidity necessary for them to respond to children and grandchildren. In the days when they were meant to come, though, they were both stricken with some sort of lurgy, and that has dragged on, first one, then the other being ill. I get occasional email bulletins. I could perfectly well go out to Essex to see them, but I don't want to burden my sister-in-law, who would insist on providing food, but perhaps that would actually be easier for them than coming up to town. With the passage of time this is beginning to feel a bit stupid, but is typical Everett behaviour. When my brother was working in town he would come for coffee or lunch some time in December and we would exchange presents, but now he is finally retired that hasn’t happened, so I still have presents waiting to be handed over to them. It looks as if these may turn into Easter gifts.

A Surprise

At the Parish Eucharist at St Peter’s yesterday morning we had an odd thing in the intercessions: we prayed for the success of Brexit. Now some people in the congregation may not have heard clearly, as the battery in the microphone was failing, but I was close enough to hear very clearly the prayer that “the aspirations of the British people be satisfied”. A good corrective to the Remoaning bias of the Vicar, you may say. Indeed. And of course we all want Brexit to be successful and not a shambles, though I wouldn’t have put it quite that way myself. The surprise was that the prayer came from a sixteen-year old girl of Nigerian descent. Perhaps my surprise just shows how narrow-minded I am.

TURN OF THE YEAR

RIP Gavin Stamp

They say that you should never meet your heroes, but Gavin Stamp was a hero of mine for nearly forty years, and when I finally got to meet him, in the last couple of years, he was charming, generous and supportive. It is a real blow to the St Mary Magdalene's Project that he has died, as he was an eloquent (and influential) supporter of everything we are trying to do. He wrote the "Nooks and Corners" section in "Private Eye" every fortnight (under the nom-de-plume "Piloti"), having inherited the column from Sir John Betjeman, and used it to expose the neglect and exploitation of our country's architectural heritage. I began reading the Eye as a teenager, and was exhilarated by the vigour of his architectural opinions, and the courage with which he exposed the dodgy dealings of property developers and local councils. He was also (along with the author A.N.Wilson) one of the most prominent "young fogeys" in the mid 1980s, which was a concept I felt very comfortable with. He was a scourge of insensitive development, and particularly the needless destruction of fine old buildings, and so gained a reputation as a reactionary, which was not really deserved. It is worth emphasizing that he has spoken forthrightly both on the London DAC and in public about the virtues of the new building, designed by Biba Dow, that we are constructing next to St Mary Magdalene's, when it might have been supposed that he would instinctively oppose it. In fact Gavin recognised good design when he saw it, and he saw it in Biba Dow's design for our new building.

In 2016 Gavin came to St Mary Mags to speak at a celebratory event organised by the War Memorials Trust, who are part-funding the restoration of our rather grand war memorial Calvary. War memorials were a special interest of his (he wrote the definitive book about Lutyens' Somme Memorial at Thiepval), and I expect the WMT expected him to speak about them, but in fact he spoke about the great beauty of St Mary Mags, and with great humility suggested that I knew much more about it than him. His charm and eloquence impressed all who heard him, but most of all his real enthusiasm for great buildings. He spoke very approvingly of how exciting our Project was, combining conservation, high quality new building and community use. He had agreed to be on our committee of reference supervising the conservation decisions around the Comper Chapel, and I was hoping to persuade him to come and give a lecture as part of our programme of events once the work is complete. We shall certainly miss him.


Christmas Treats

I don't think I mentioned that at the Carol Service one parishioner managed to set herself on fire, twice. The children at our Christingle managed to get by with no fire-raising, but that enlivened the Carol Service. The Christingle went off well, but quietly; we normally do it at 5pm on Christmas Eve (a strategically useful time for families, we have found) but with Christmas Eve being Sunday I felt no-one would come, and so moved it to Friday 22nd, in the hope that we might catch some people before they left town. I'm not sure that we did. It is a feature of Christmas in London that lots of people seem to vanish to their relations, which is a bit sad for the rest of us.

The school Christingle had featured brass players, as well as ukuleles, and they were really good. I was reminded of a couple of years ago when they had one Year 6 girl play the first verse of "Once in Royal" solo on the trumpet, which was spine-tingling, the more so because we knew the girl (and her circumstances) well. In fact, a little later she asked to be baptized, and it was clear that she was perfectly serious about the faith. Unfortunately her family circumstances made it impossible for her to come to church at 9.30 on Sundays, so I was delighted to be asked by her secondary school chaplain to come along to her confirmation subsequently. She is thoroughly involved in school worship there, and it is a joy to see her.

Midnight Mass passed off without incident. No-one caught fire. No drunks interrupted the service. No-one needed driving home afterwards. Not as atmospheric as St Mary Mags, but it was still lovely at St Peter's, with a different selection of people we hardly knew, joining enthusiastic regulars. On Christmas morning the Archdeacon joined us, which saved me a sermon, and proceeded to tweet photos of the Magi in our crib set, impressed that our Magi are Chinese, classical Greek and Indian (which is an unusual combination). I had insisted I had no idea who would turn up, but in the end it was a very respectable number (having been about five with three minutes to go to start time).

One of the Lunch Club regulars, severely disabled, came along last Sunday, which was great, even if his carer thought he wouldn't keep quiet for more than half the service. The Lunch Club Christmas Party was another successful occasion, but has rather faded from the memory. Our Brazilian tenants grumbled about Lunch Club members still being in the Hall enjoying themselves when they came to worship that evening, which was a bit lacking in Christmas spirit, I felt.

My brother-in-law came for Christmas, and my present was to be taken to Wembley to see Tottenham play on Boxing Day, which turned out to be very entertaining. So we saw Harry Kane's record-breaking hat-trick, which was very satisfying. Wembley is all a bit clinical, though, and the crowd doesn't generate much noise, certainly not with lots of tourists and neutrals like us in the upper sections. It was a super match, and good fun, but Kempton Park is more exciting.

I am now surrounded by chocolates and wine, which will take a long time to get through. Still, the bottle of champagne was consumed on New Year's Eve!       

NOT THERE YET.

Do They Care?

Regular readers will remember that local people round here (particularly on the estates, but also along the Harrow Road) have the perception that public authorities don't much care about them, so here's a new example. A Warwick Estate resident was mugged in the lift of her tower block. They took her bank card and used it almost immediately to draw money from the machine in the Costcutter shop on the Harrow Road. She is no shrinking violet, and reported the mugging to the police, with the precise time, and descriptions of the robbers, and urging them to view the cctv recordings, as there are cameras both in the lift and the lobby of the block. She knows about the cameras, because she was instrumental in getting them installed (paid for by residents' money). A little later she received a letter from the Metropolitan Police saying that no further action would be taken as "no cctv recording existed", but that the Westbourne Safer Neighbourhood Team had been informed. Well, that wasn't true either. To be fair to the Police, it is possible that City West Homes are not actually using the cctv cameras that exist on the estate; it is possible that their contempt for their tenants is such that they don't switch on the cameras that the tenants provided. Yes, I'm sure it's cheaper not to actually run the cameras and have anyone actually supervise them, but might it not have been polite to tenants to let them know that, if that was the case?

When I used this story in my sermon yesterday I got a response from a parishioner who lives on the Brunel Estate, who told me she was sure it was the Police rather than City West to blame, based on her experience. She was robbed at knifepoint, when pregnant, and pushing a toddler in a buggy, and duly reported it. The very next day she received a letter saying no further investigation was possible. Hmm.

Our dedicated Ward constables are good, enthusiastic and hardworking, but of course they are not in fact the police officers who actually investigate crimes, and local people have a very clear perception that crimes happening on the estates are of little interest. As far as the Met is concerned a certain level of robbery, burglary and car crime is to be expected on our estates, and frankly constitutes background noise. In Westminster, it is perfectly clear that the West End is the big deal for policing, alongside the royal and governmental areas, and up to a point that's fair enough. I think local people do get a bit grumpy about tourists being prioritized in front of them, but you can understand a strong desire not to kill the golden goose. So we must keep the streets of the West End safe, so tourists aren't frightened away, but estate-dwellers in north Westminster have nowhere else to go and have to put up with it.


And So It Begins

St Mary Magdalene's School Christingle Service was the first test of our substitute Christmas arrangements, having a church full of scaffolding. The school very wisely decided to halve it in size, so it was just a Keystage 2 service (the infants have Nativity plays) which meant that we could actually fit into the school hall, along with parents, and even have room for a stage. It was, of course, much less atmospheric, but perhaps being well-lit was responsible for the parents behaving better than they usually do in church. I felt I should inject a little more religion into proceedings since we were in a secular space, and that seemed to go down fine. I was interested to see the ukuleles being played, as they are stored in the "creative room" where we have the Class Mass, but it wasn't terribly exciting, as they were just strummed. They haven't got onto the full George Formby yet.

The Benefice Carol Service had to happen at St Peter's, and we had no idea what to expect. It had to be simpler, because there is no room for a choir, and hence the service would be shorter, as there could be no choir carols. James had got together a couple of string players, and so we had three short musical pieces, but essentially we did much as we normally do. Obviously, the atmosphere was different: 1970s functional worship-space instead of 1870s neo-gothic basilica. Curiously, two readers made mistakes in when they were supposed to come forward, which normally never happens; was this really the inherent informality of the building affecting the participants? Certainly, the awe-inspiring side of St Mary Mags does make people check that they're doing things right. Some experience this as being uptight, though that's certainly not the desired impression. Anyway, we had a relaxed Carol Service, followed by copious mince pies and mulled wine. We even had a dog in the congregation. Normally, at St Mary Mags, a charming Maida Vale lady comes to the Carol Service with her Jack Russell; this year a vulnerable lady who we know well, and who lives just behind St Peter's, brought her little dog (which wore a thick coat), so that tradition was maintained.

WHO IS SYLVIA, WHAT IS SHE?

Who Is Sylvia?

I went to see the ballet "Sylvia" at Covent Garden this week. Helen and I went to see it when they first revived it ten years or so ago, but I had no recollection of it. I should remember it, as the score, by Delibes, has several terrific tunes, some of them quite famous, and I realised as soon as the overture began that I ought to remember this. The ballet was choreographed by Frederick Ashton in 1952, though there are earlier French Romantic and Imperial Russian versions, and it's not generally regarded as one of Ashton's best works; he intended it as a vehicle for Margot Fonteyn, then at her height of stardom. The designs are also gorgeous, by Christopher and Robin Ironside.

"Sylvia" is a beautiful spectacle, but what people regard as unsatisfactory is the mixture of rather far-fetched classical mythology treated in a rather straight-faced fashion, with what is frankly pantomime (dancing goats, anyone?). I was struck by the seriousness with which Ashton treats the mythology, but started to wonder whether a new version ought to be attempted, making reference to contemporary sexual politics, because those questions certainly emerge. Sylvia is a hunting nymph, devoted to the goddess Diana, and is therefore pledged to chastity (Natalia Osipova was magnificent as the virginal huntress in the first act) but she is desired by two men, the shepherd Aminta, and the hunter Orion. Now Aminta's love for her is genuine, inspired by Eros, but Orion only wants to possess her. I have to say that when Aminta first declared his love and laid hands on her, it was clear that he was not understanding her lack of consent, because she was definitely saying "No". So she shoots him. Well, actually she's trying to shoot the statue of Eros, but he gets in the way (told you it was far-fetched). Eros then shoots her, and so she comes to reciprocate Aminta's love.

The really challenging thing, though, is Orion's characterization, because he's a piece of absolutely shameless orientalism, and the second act, set in his island cave (to which he has carried off Sylvia) becomes quite uncomfortable. Orion is depicted as an oriental potentate, complete with luxurious tent and scantily-clad concubines. It's all very mixed-up, as Orion's set-up involves Arabian, Chinese and vaguely Indian elements, compounding a sort of generalized English orientalism that was characteristic of the 1820s (see the Brighton Pavilion) rather than the 1950s. Now it's perfectly true that both Greeks and Romans regarded people from the East as their cultural "other", so it's not unreasonable to depict Orion in this way, putting him in voluminous trousers rather than the shifts and tunics the Greeks wear, and giving him villainous facial hair. His two concubines, in what are pretty much belly-dancer outfits, are a bit harder to take, but the real discomfort came for me in his two slaves, gorgeously dressed in red and yellow chinoiserie who then did a silly "Chinese" dance with tambourines, to a bit of plinky-plonk music. Now I presume Delibes wrote the music to deliberately sound "Chinese" so it's fair enough to make the dance Chinese, and to be fair it's not as grotesque as the Chinese dance in the Nutcracker, which has begun to embarrass the Royal Ballet, who changed the choreography last year, but the reason it feels uncomfortable is because it's racist! No-one would continue to use an "African" dance that depicted cannibals and blacking-up, but we appear to be less sensitive to grotesque caricatures of East Asians. It's meant to be funny (though I don't think I found this sort of thing funny even when seeing the Nutcracker as a child) but the amusement value comes from the humiliating depiction of a racial group according to a comic stereotype, so how is that okay? 

I don't want to seem po-faced about this, but this is beginning to feel like something that needs to change. One of the distinctive things about ballet is its ability to adapt, and there is enormous variety in the productions of even the most famous pieces, with whole dances being added and subtracted, so there's not really a "canonical" version of the great works in the repertoire. All of which should make it not too difficult. I really like some of the "authentic" versions of Imperial Russian ballets which try to re-create the spectacle of the 1890s (and no-one loved orientalism more than them) but that's a piece of cultural history, not a work of art for today. Sometimes "oriental" sounds appear in music just to suggest something exotic, and personally I think that's fine, because the "exotic" is a positive category, though I know some people would disagree, but what's really not on is the use of a national stereotype for comic or demeaning effect. Sorry, pretend Chinamen dancing sideways with hands at ninety degrees to their wrists are embarrassing at best, and frankly no longer entertaining in polite company.

ON MY BIKE

Hi-Vis

Last week several people told me that the government were going to compel cyclists to wear helmets and high-vis clothing. On investigation I find that this is fake news, which is just as well. Apparently, such a proposal is being investigated by government, but the evidence from Australia is compelling, where bicycle use has dropped dramatically since the imposition of compulsory helmet-wearing. Since bicycle use has enormous health benefits (as well as being good for traffic congestion and the environment) no rational policymaker wants bicycle use to decline.  There is also a philosophical point here about victim-blaming; if you compel cyclists to wear protective clothing, you are saying that cyclists are the problem, and the authors of their own misfortune. Sorry, not so. But I do realise that it is a lot cheaper and less politically difficult to make rules for cyclists rather than to actually enforce the existing traffic laws where they are routinely flouted by lorry and car drivers, or to enforce safe design principles on the bus and truck building industry, or to design safer road layouts. In fact, I think we all (cyclists included) need major re-education in conducting ourselves in a civilised manner.

Goslings and Cygnets

I probably mentioned before that a pair of swans on the canal have managed to keep seven cygnets alive, which is remarkable. When resting on my bike rides I regularly see a pair of Egyptian geese on the pond in Regent’s Park, and they have five goslings, not terribly old, which is very encouraging. I hope they are old enough to survive the winter cold. Sadly, the pair of Egyptian geese who live here on the canal show no sign of procreation. Charmingly, they were walking back and forth from the water to the grass, one following the other, each time I cycled past today, and they made little chuntering noises as you passed, as though concerned about your behaviour.

An Assault

I was punched while out riding recently. It happened as I was accelerating away from the pedestrian crossing at Clarence Gate, at the bottom of Regent’s Park; there was a group of people on the pavement, and as I passed them I received a blow on my upper arm, not hard enough to knock me over, or even to hurt, but just a total surprise. I didn’t stop, as my momentum had taken me a long way past before I properly registered what had happened, and what would I do? Get off my bike and wheel it along the pavement to ask, “Which of you hit me?” assuming they were still there? No, I just cycled on, wondering why, because this was completely out of the blue; I hadn’t done anything to upset anyone, nor had any cyclist in front of me. I came to the conclusion that it was because of the jersey I was wearing. Regular readers will be aware of my enthusiasm for brightly-coloured jerseys that have some significance; well, on this occasion I was wearing a recently acquired Team Euzkadi jersey, which is a brilliant lime green, bearing the word Euzkadi in black lettering, and with the left sleeve coloured in the design of the Ikurrina, the Basque flag. It had not occurred to me that wearing a Basque team jersey would be regarded as provocative in London, but I can only conclude that this was what was going on. The assault happened in the wake of the Catalan “independence” controversy, and I suspect I met a Spanish nationalist who was so enraged by the Catalans that he regarded my Basque jersey as just another threat to the integrity of his homeland. I should not, perhaps, add that I think the Basque claim to autonomy is much stronger than the Catalans’, but that the Spanish government are absolutely right in their interpretation of the constitution though they have been astonishingly clumsy in the way they have gone about addressing the matter.

Closed Estate Offices

You will remember that I voiced some apprehension about City West Homes’ (Westminster’s equivalent of the Kensington TMO) closure of their estate offices. They told us the few personal callers they actually received could be dealt with more efficiently on the phone to a call centre, and that this would free up housing officers to be present on the estates. Well, I can’t comment on the presence of housing officers out on the estates, but on this estate they were actually available in the office in the past. Meanwhile, tenants who try to phone find that they have to hold for ages (routinely ten minutes) and are then answered by people who have no local knowledge, which makes reporting anything very inefficient and frustrating. Those who turn up in person to the central office, at Westbourne Terrace, are made to feel very unwelcome, while if you try to email you find that you cannot email any named individual, and so pursuing an issue becomes very trying as it will be dealt with by different people on each exchange of emails. The tenants are left with the impression of an organisation seeking to evade responsibility, and to clothe all its actions in anonymity. Trying to keep the tenants at a distance is exactly what Kensington’s TMO used to do. There does seem to be a pattern of behaviour.

Fire Alarms

I don’t mention the Kensington TMO gratuitously, but you would hope that people would learn from the appalling experience of Grenfell Tower. It seems not. Keyham House is a tower block on the Brunel Estate, just over the tracks from us here, (and also in Westbourne Ward) and there the fire alarm is constantly going off. It rang for seven hours recently, and for four hours on another occasion. Residents are stopping up the alarms with paper to dull the sound. Everyone in authority seems completely accepting of this situation. City West have known about it for months. Have they no imagination? Have they not thought what it must feel like to live in a tower block where you know the fire alarm is malfunctioning? How can it be acceptable not to know whether a fire alarm sounding is real or not? This demonstrates a total lack of care, and I suspect that the “arm’s-length” nature of City West just encourages that ethos, because nobody really feels responsible. I am sad to say this, as I know some good people who work for them, but the contempt displayed by City West for their tenants makes me very angry.