Cap that

At the corner where a spur turns off from the little peninsula that is Cap Ferrat between Nice and Monaco, you can take some steps down to a little restaurant on Paloma Beach. The stony little cove looks out on to gently rippling blue and green water which supports twenty or so boats which are anchored about 100 metres away. They are mostly posh yachts. Occasionally a little launch will bring diners to the jetty avoiding the diving kids. The restaurant itself is not much more than a two storey shack. The word Paloma stands on the roof in red letters stylized as though they were a 60's motor racing brand. The dining area is mailnly beneath large cream awnings. The diners are varied; today there were Italian businessmen, a small peleton of cyclists (excuse the choice of collective noun, but I like the word), tourists and people from the boats. From the edge of the water you can look up at the stonking residences nestled in clumps of fur and cypress tress. Swim out a little way for a better view and you can hear the cutlery clinking on the plates; they've probably got a man to do it.

During lunch a fat Italian man's chair gave way under the strain.

Can you tell me..............

.........that stroppy bloke's nationality? Cors i can. Good afternoon from a very warm Promenade des Anglais in Nice. We arrived here yesterday from Corsica. First time I have been to Corsica and I liked it. The terrain is somewhere between Scotland and Arizona. Many of the people I had cause to interact with were refreshigly rude, which is fair enough. I was put on my guard immediately as the taxi driver who took us from the airport to Ajaccio resolved our minor disagreement over how much I owed him by butting me with his big tummy like those people in inflateable sumo suits do to each other. Bienvenue, I say. Bonifacio is perched dramatically on cliffs which is good because the drama ends right there, everyone starts packing up at about nine pm. Porto Vecchio, I liked very much. It has a buzzy but relaxed atmosphere (including some characteristically kurt locals), cool bars and shops. What is fabulous about this town is its poroximity to delicious white sandy beaches and the most unusually shaped mountains. The beaches are lined with aromatic pine trees where you can get out of the heat. In the mountains there are numerous walks. We went did one which takes you to the vertiginous (literally tranlated) Chicken Piss waterfall.


Cascade

It was quite a strenous morning, climbing up and then down to the bottom of the very noisey cascade. So much so that I went for a dip in a stream a little later. I took the precaution of finding a pool well off the beaten track as I had no suitable clothing, anyway it is much nicer without, I find.


Sorry....no jeans

I had got out and dressed with seconds to spare before a small group of people looking for a quiet place to micturate popped over the ridge (so it's not just the poultry). On the way back to the car I must have looked a bit deshevelled as a concerned hiker asked me about how difficult the walk was and even offered me some bread.

Once again I have packed prism glasses unneccesarily.

Big Blue

Going to Corsica tomorrow. Looking forward to it but for the time being, the things I need to do today are deflecting from the pleasant anticipation, which is probably a good thing as otherwise everything would not get done. That doesn’t explain why I am writing this rather than getting on with my list.

Also going to Nice which is somewhere I would like to live, I can already feel the warmth on my back and see the brightness of the light. I can hear the traffic banging along the Promenade des Anglais but that doesn’t bother me, I like the fact that Nice is a city as well as somewhere with a beach. You can lie on your towel or drive in the mountains. You are a few minutes from Monaco, Italy, beautiful countryside and the airport is five minutes from the town centre. You can be in your flip flops in the day and Patrick Coxes in the evening, swimming in the blue water by the Paloma Beach restaurant or pretending to be wealthy in Casino Square. I once rented a scooter, put on a jacket and tie and went to Monaco for the evening. I gave myself a budget of 500F (£50) and proceeded to lose almost all of it on the Roulette wheel before a couple of big wins meant that I was up in quite a big way. I boarded my scooter at 4am for the noisy ride back through the empty streets to Nice; feeling good despite my empty pockets.

Swedenblog

I was perched on a stool in a café by the baggage hall in Terminal 1 at Heathrow, reading about the Joad family setting off for California in their over laden car to truck conversion in the Grapes of Wrath when there was Dom. He and the rest of the passengers on his flight from Edinburgh had apparently been circling the clouds before the plane could land.

We headed for terminal three where we checked in and established ourselves in the SAS lounge (courtesy of Dom’s gold thingy). After some water and a V&T we boarded the plane where I ate a Dime Bar and Dom had something he liked.

At Arlanda we jumped into a taxi operated by an Iranian man intent on cheery conversation and speculation that we were only there for the Swedish girls. He dropped us in town for our appointment at the Ice Bar. However the Ice Bar folk had no record of this date and so we arranged to come back after dinner.

We wandered towards our hotel which was on an island called Gamla Stan. My room was neat and compact. There was a TV mounted on a bracket at shoulder height at the foot of my bed so I needn’t have packed my prism glasses.

I persuaded Dom that we should have Tapas for dinner, as there was a nice looking bar round the corner from the hotel. The food was tasty and afterwards, Michael, the barman set about getting us a bit drunk with various shots including one that tasted of bubble gum and a fiery one (called a Flat Liner) comprising sambuca, Tabasco (quite a lot of it) and tequila. Consequently we were warmed up for our rematch with the desk staff at the Ice Bar.


Inuit, I didn't; how to speak Swedish

This time though we were sped through check-in and in no time we were wearing our silver ponchos and gazing through the window of the airlock into the misty depths of the bar. Indeed everything inside was ice, the tables, the sculpture, the walls and even our glasses. There was quite a party atmosphere, from what I remember. Two Swedish blokes wouldn’t believe that Dom was English, such is his proficiency with the local lingo. Indeed they kept speaking to me in Swedish as they thought there was some scam going on. The butcher (cos that’s what he said he was) and his mate must have been a bit loud, although I don’t remember this, as the bar man would not let me buy them a drink (for clarification, he was happy to serve us). This created a slightly awkward hiatus but when we saw that the blokes were chatting to a Danish girl we re-entered the airlock and returned to the Tapas bar via another bar. More odd shots.


Odd shot


I watched a nature programme about the ten most deadly snakes in the world the following morning before Dom rang enquiring after my health. Such was the size of my bathroom and the relationship between the basin and the toilet that the latter had to be mounted from a jaunty angle. Why this should interfere with proceedings I don’t know.


After breakfast we headed towards the city centre and spent a relaxed day shopping and eating. I did some Zhan Zhuang (Jam Jong); standing like a tree in the garden that surrounds the main library. We had good burgers before setting off by cab for the Kent gig. The venue was a large circus sized big top tent. It was unusually well decorated and lit inside, quite eerie. It was raining hard and every so often a small torrent would find a gap between the sheets of canvas. There was a digital clock that counted down to the band starting, we arrived with about 1 hour 20 to go.

Impressively, the band started playing on the zero seconds to go. There was a zingy atmosphere, I was squashed up against a couple of young (I would guess experimental) lesbians who were experimenting quite a bit. Dom was squashed up against a heterosexual woman, though he had his back to her. The music was great, I knew about half the songs but enjoyed even those I’d never heard.

After the music it was back to the Tapas bar for some more bubble gum (in my case) and something more refined for Dom.


Photo opportunity

Next morning a brisk walk across town to the site where the Museum of Modern art had been temporarily located whilst the new building was made ready and then on by cab to the real one. I really enjoyed myself. There was an architectural section which featured many beautiful models including the Michelangelo Laurentian Library which I have visited in Florence on account of it purportedly being inspirational in Mark Rothko’s room at the Tate Modern (originally done for a New York Restaurant). Mark Rothko; he was an interesting man. Whilst I remember, I must go to the Matisse decorated Chapel in Vence when I am in the neighbourhood.


Museum of Modern Art

We spent a very relaxed rest of the day before heading for the airport in the late afternoon. The journey home seemed to go by very quickly as there was lots to talk about. I think it would have been good if the journey had taken longer.

Thanks Dom.

Workshop

Attended a Chi Kung Workshop yesterday. It proved to be a pleasant day out and I met some people I liked. The workshop itself could have been better. Despite his enthusiastic presentation style, the leader's slightly dodgy English meant that I missed some points (asking questions, by the way, often made the fog more opaque). If I am going to see someone who calls himself Master Something, perhaps I should not be surprised by such things.

Moolaade

I saw the above film a the National Film Theatre yesterday. Despite the frightening topic (female circumcision) this is a beautiful, perfectly paced thing. It is about progress and the unfortunate stuff that we do to ourselves along the way. Reading The Grapes of Wrath at the moment which I find to be a stoter of a book and shares some common ground with the film.

Wistful

As I may have mentioned on this very site before, I feel I can be better described by lists than anything else, not that it is necessarily of any interest to anyone, but I quite like to find patterns. Perhaps I will start another blog comprising of lists, in order that I can then produce a list of lists and eventually sum up my existence with one word, (which I forecast might well be "truth", or the lack of it).

Intitial stab at list of lists (in no particular order):

Surgical procedures
Books read
People loved
Things that could be eliminated from life
Favourite places
Favourite films
Groupings of types of people (as previously referred to)
Pieces of art which resonate
Clothes
Things to do (I have a new one which I may post soon)
Sources of energy
Purchases that proved to be excellent

I have also, lying in bed before getting up, been thinking of Venn Diagrams. I enjoyed them aged eleven but have never used them since.

First stab at the Excellent Purchases list:

1988, Hublot Watch, still a thing of beauty
1987, JVC 4 inch TV. Bought from Harrods, quite pricey at the time but still a perfect thing, used regularly. Watched Ayrton Senna go from fifth at the fist bend to first by the end of the lap at the European GP, Donnington 1993 on this TV
1993, Grey Armani leather jacket, always felt good in that(until I started to get a bit fat)
Circa 1978, G&S Fibreflex Bowlrider skateboard deck, much pleasure derived
1999, Kickboard; three wheeled skateboard with steering, I still use it. WIll be traveling from Victoria Station to Lambeth Bridge and back on it this very weekend.
1987, Porsche 356C. Owned until last month, much pleasure received in the early days even if not exploited latterly. Something that caused me to smile when I used it, how many things do that?
Circa 1990, Prism Spectacles. Specs that you wear to watch TV whilst fully supine. I wear them almost every day. Good for reading too.

Film Recommendation 2

This weekend I enjoyed the particular pleasure that is 'going to the cinema on a really sunny day' which adds a little to the basic pleasure (partly because there are very few people in the place), but not as much as 'going to the cinema when your supposed to be working' which is a delicious thing that I have tasted on very few ocassions.

Anyway, outside it was bright, so much so that my enjoyment of the trailers was hampered slightly by the fact that the usherette (are they still called that?) left the door open (thereby allowing shards of light to penetrate the inner sanctum; it was cinema 8 at the Odeon in Brighton, right by the back door, which leads on to the sea front).

Once the opening credits role we a ceiled in and transported into thirties New York before moving along to Amalfi, there to enjoy the intrigue and clever quips of "The Good Woman", the story based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan". If you want a bunch of beautiful people (including Scarlette Johannsen) playing clever people in a period drama in a stunning setting..........

Snacks on a different scale........

.......or scales on a different snack.

If you visit China you might be pleasantly surprised, as was I, that in many places they sell little dried fish in packets.

One of the best things about them is that if you like them and if you travel with a party form the west, as I did, you will be able to eat almost as many as you like, because in a sample survey of 12 occidental people of a variety of ages and sexes (well, 2 sexes), I was the only person to find them yummy.

Indeed, on a flight to Shanghai from somewhere else in China, we were given them by the delightful cabin staff (they are delightful by the way) and I had most other people’s from my group. On that flight I also enjoyed the kind of purple rice dish that they have for breakfast.

Film Recommendation

This weekend I thoroughly enjoyed the film, The Station Agent. Three isolated people becoming less isolated and making me laugh and feel a bit emotional along the way.

Her name was Rio

The other day I had lunch with Jose and Julian at a pub in town. I must have had quite a few lunches with them.

I suppose I must have been in my late teens when for a while, pretty much every week, Jose (Julian’s dad) would pick me up from my mum’s on the way to picking up Julian from his, on the way to going to a nightclub called the Warehouse in Leeds....for Sunday lunch.

They served food upstairs. Jose knew the owner, an American bloke I seem to remember. Having scoffed our burgers, Julian and I would go downstairs to watch the band, usually a fruity disco group called Best Friends. “Put it in the slot”, they would sing. There were also the Space Invader, Galaxian and later on Asteroid machines. Usually we’d end up amongst the last people there after the act had left the stage, Jose carousing with the beautiful people upstairs, me shooting lines of grunting luminous crabs, Julian watching.

There was the Sunday when we didn’t stop in Leeds but went to Milton Keynes to see UB40, Squeeze and the Police amongst others; Jose left us there and went on to London with his pal, picking us up on the way back later. Muddy, Milton Keynes Bowl.

We went to some massive discos in Spain circa 1981. “Operation Suntan” started as a 30 hour bus trip from Leeds to Barcelona to meet Jose. We stayed in Spain for a couple of weeks during which time we climbed into Salvador Dali’s garden and were the only trunked people on a nudist beach, (whenever I think of that I cannot get the sight of the naked German windsurfing bloke out of my mind). Then we headed off to France, driving fast along the motorways the bright sunshine bouncing off the blue sea, the car full of the sound of Duran Duran, Jose sharing a private joke with his girlfriend; the twenty four year old model, Julian and I wondering.

More recently Julian and I visited Jose at his home near Barcelona so we could attend the Spanish Grand Prix. Rosa, Jose’s friend from school would cook a lovely meal for us before we’d go out in the evening get drunk and play with the road signs. (Actually I’m talking about myself there, I blame those continental measures).

Jose, the Catalan septuagenarian, is still cool, always smart, always tanned, smelling cosmopolitan and expensive. He tells me he can’t be bothered to chat up girls anymore but I don’t believe it.

Commuting

In Sedona there is a small airport on the top of a plateau. It looks like a large rocky aircraft carrier. I drove up the hill and at the T junction at the top, was confronted by a sign offering about ten companies to the left. There were fewer to the right; I turned right. I parked and walked into the small terminal building and immediately knew how to choose which company to use. On his own playing a game on his PC was the Benny Hill look-a-like who was receptionist, chief executive, pilot and presumably everything else of his company. He couldn’t hide his excitement at the fact that once we’d gone out to look over his powered glider, I had said I’d like to take a trip.

The machine had two seats, side by side. Once inside we drove off to one end of the runway, abruptly he summoned full power; there was a lot of noise and moments later, still travelling quite slowly, we left the ground. After ten or so minutes he turned the engine off and so it was much easier to communicate; he told me that he lived a half hour flight away. On a typical day, he got up, stepped out of the house where his plane was parked, flew to Sedona, played computer games and flew people like me about and then flew home. Here was a man who was happy in his work and had given up trying to look otherwise.

With the engine off, we soared about the canyons sometimes skirting across the rims, frightening a little group of dear, sometimes plunging into a deep orange chasm as though on a massive, silent big dipper. He showed me ruins of American Indian cave dwellings and I remember seeing a very deep hole that he explained had one day recently appeared in the landscape without warning.

I glanced across at him a few times; he was grinning from ear to ear as was I. On one occasion we both looked at each other simultaneously and there was a slightly awkward moment before we quickly looked away and pointed out some landmark to each other.

After about a half hour, he radioed the airport and made an arrangement to land. We arced round gracefully so that the runway was stretched out in front of us. A few moments later we landed, the whisper of the wind shattered by the noise of the plane hitting the ground like a box of toys.