Monthly Archives: April 2020

The Great Equalizer?

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It’s been said that the current situation is a great leveller for we are all likely targets for Covid-19 and the wearing of a mask (now compulsory in Italy where they are issuing two per family in Bagni di Lucca) places us even more appearance -wise in the same boat.  Now no-one will know if we are smiling, grimacing, smirking, grinning or just expressionless: one’s mouth (as we know from our emoticons) can tell so much about oneself.

Some years ago when I was a lecturer in an inner London college of further education one of my students of Somalian heritage entered my class, not with her customary hijab but with a full-face niqab which only allowed her eyes to be seen. Of course, one can learn a lot from looking into another’s eyes; they do say after all that eyes are the gateway to the soul. However, I felt rather disconcerted and, in the face (!) of any consistent college policy on dress I went to the principal to report my unease. ‘Do you have any problem with this student?’ he asked me. ‘Yes’, I answered, ‘I can’t teach her if I can’t see her expression.’ Clearly teachers depend very much on visual signs from students to tell them if the class understands what they are being taught and whether their teaching approach is working. The principal’s answer was to put the student in another class under a different teacher. She reprimanded me for my suggesting what a student should or should not wear to a class.

Luckily this situation was quickly resolved and didn’t turn out to be a major incident.  Later, nationwide, there were huge debates centered on individual cases. One of the most well-known was that involving a school girl, Shabina Begum, who attended a school in Luton.  She lost her case (her lawyer was Tony Blair’s wife) and I don’t know what happened to Shabina’s educational progress since.

The difference between my situation was the difference between a school with a defined policy on what to wear and a college of further education where such matters are largely left at the discretion of the student.

Anyway, this topic is back. It seems we are all masked now. Goodness knows what the PM, who famously said that Moslem women wearing the niqab looked like letterboxes or bank robbers, would make of it now.

Certainly there have been recent robberies where the perpetrators have worn surgical masks to disguise themselves.

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But is Covid-19 the great equalizer it’s cracked out to be? Of course, the present pandemic does not really make us all equal. Some live cooped up in tower blocks with no facility to lay themselves on the sunny grass (parks are closed) while others reside on country estates with acres of private meadows. Some have no means to do a big shop and bring home enough supplies to fill a freezer (which they mostly don’t have.) Others can only afford to shop in stores which have no delivery service. It’s difficult to practice social distancing if one lives in a Brazilian favela or an inner London hostel for the homeless. Beggars must be having a particularly hard time. I noted a hunchbacked female dressed in black and looking a bit like an Italian ‘befana’ (the traditional epiphany witch) wandering outside our local shopping  centre with her customary cup to receive monetary offerings. Nobody dared approach her because of social distancing. She continued pleading, however, to an invisible public. Sometimes habits die hard.

Every pandemic in history shows that it is not the great leveller it is meant to be. For example, in the great Spanish flu epidemic after World War one it was the working classes who suffered the greatest outbreak of pneumonia -related complications and consequently the highest death toll.

So let me not hear of any talk about Covid-19 being the ‘great equalizer’ any more. I will, however, agree that with surgical masks plastered on our face, disguising too the shades of lipstick or facial hair (or not), we are tending to look rather more similar to each than ever before…

Letter from London

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I am truly of the opinion that, despite all the strictures imposed upon them and the fact that Italy remains the hotspot of the pandemic (that is until Trump’s America takes over shortly) the inhabitants of Bagni di Lucca are in the best place to be in the current pandemic. They should consider themselves very lucky (although that’s often a difficult thought to hold at the present time!)

Things are not looking too good in the UK at the moment.  Yesterday 938 victims died from the terrible virus. That’s higher than Italy’s saddest day when 919 died. And the worst is yet to come. With the lack of PPE (nurses at our local hospital had to wear bin bags in the absence of equipment and three of them were subsequently found positive), the low figures for testing, the abandonment of old folks in their homes where they are dying in scores (fifteen perished of coronavirus yesterday in one institution), the inability of too many people, now called ‘covidiots’, to realize how serious the situation is, the approach of the traditional Easter bank holiday with the promised fine weather a great tempter for people to escape from it all, the confusion of how the police should act in controlling lack of social distancing, and last but not least, the continued presence of the PM in an ICU  doesn’t add up to a very happy picture (typical English understatement…).

Yesterday we caught an empty bus to Harrow to do our local shopping (yes, we are not yet restricted to one borough unlike more serious-minded Italy). We were asked to enter by the bus’s centre doors by the driver as a precautionary method to keep the safe distance of two metres from him. (It’s scary to find out that fourteen London transport workers have died from Covid 19 in the past three days). We asked the driver how we were to tap in our travel cards to pay the fare as the machine was sectioned off by a red ribbon. ‘Don’t worry about that’, answered the driver who was fully masked, wore gloves and sat in a cabin sealed by a perspex pane. ‘It’s not important now whether you pay or not. Your safety comes first.’ We thought ‘how considerate of transport of London to put passengers’ safety before financial gain’ and were reminded of how too many concerns are still putting money before people’s health at the present time.

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At the bus station cleaners were busy cleaning and sanitizing windows. We’d never seen that before in day-time.

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Sadly the use of PPE and self-distancing is not at all consistent. Our return bus journey had no such precautions: we entered by the front door instead, paid our fare as usual and noted that the driver wore no PPE.

It’s this worrying inconsistency that indicates to me how lacking in firm direction the UK government is. If anyone thinks that the return of our PM to political life will improve matters then one should think again about someone who was still happy to shake hands with people while the pandemic was starting to rage in Italy.

We’re all taking our chances when we step outside our front door. In my worst imaginings I compare the present situation to Sarajevo’s ‘sniper alley’ during the Bosnian war. At least there one could see where the bullets were coming from!

 

Flouting the Rules in Walsall

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With characteristic British compromise the lock-down here in north-west London is often dilatory and not always enforced. Is not breaking the lockdown and social distancing a piece of advice, a by-law, a rule or a possible criminal offence? For lots of people it’s not at all clear. For example is it still OK to sit down on a park bench or feed the ducks?

Meanwhile corner shops are enjoying a boom spell; time spent in queues outside supermarkets can be considerably reduced and there’s a feeling, too, that in supporting local businesses one is doing a good turn.

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However, rules in convenience stores are not always adhered to. Yesterday at my local shop there was no indication of when I should enter and certainly there was no pavement marking the distance between queuing customers. There was, however, a shopkeeper’s notice in the store’s window pleadingly requesting that no more than two people must enter to do their shopping at any one time.

I entered, did my shopping and then waited near the till for two customers before me to pay and move on. However, they seemed to be engaged in a social chat with the shopkeeper. He had to ask them to move back so that I could pay up and also keep the safe two meter distance required. The customers started laughing: they clearly thought the whole procedure was funny and didn’t budge. The shopkeeper then looked at me and commented ‘they must be crazy’. I was eventually able to get out of the shop. This, unfortunately, is the attitude of several people around here.

However, there are increasing instances where flaunting the rules can lead to significant consequences – a Walsall dad was recently fined £480 when his son was caught breaking lockdown rules for the fourth time (fines double every time one is found out). The police also commented that the son had been abusive to them. As the sergeant rightly said “some people seem to think that they will not catch the virus but they can unwittingly pass it on to others as well as catching it themselves.”

I just wonder how long many people will be able to put up with these restrictions on their daily lives. Certainly it must be hellish to be cooped up in a small council flat, like many people, with kids impatient to get out and join up with their mates on bikes and skateboards.

Only time will tell. One thing is sure, however. Unless attitudes change for a lot of people the UK is going to be in lock-down for months to come.

 

 

First Impressions of Longoio, Italy

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As the UK situation has moved from Johnson’s advice to the nation to ‘take it on the chin’ and rely on ‘herd instinct’ to the PM being admitted into an intensive care unit under a ventilator, it’s for all of us to bury our political differences for the present time and wish him a full and speedy recovery so that he may happily see the birth of his fiancée’s new baby this year.

Meanwhile, I have frequent desires to cocoon myself as far as possible from further demoralizing news about the present UK government-exacerbated crisis. This mind-isolation can be helped by not having the wireless permanently tuned to Radio 4 but, rather, to  often very palliative music of Radio 3.

Another way is to sift through one’s photographs. Sadly, my snaps taken before the digital picture explosion of this century are relatively few. Indeed, there are more photographs in one year now than there are from the whole period before 2000. I’ve mentioned my own change from analogue to digital at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/death-of-analogue/

I am also reminded of that fabulous 2011 exhibition by Keane of Barga news on the same theme at:

http://www.rcbarga.it/ComuneNews/2012/Keane%20Mostra%20-%2021%20Gennaio%202011/Keane%20Mostra%20-%2021%20Gennaio%202011.htm

What would I give to have a few more photos of myself and my mates and girlfriends at school or university? I treasure the handful that I do have. Like this one taken on the roof of my Cambridge College’s chapel (King’s) during one of Fellow John Saltmarsh’s tours of his favorite building:

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One of my rediscoveries during our present lock-down are the first photos taken in the spring of 2005 of the house we were to buy in Longoio, Bagni di Lucca when we were taken there by Luciana Gargiulo (wife of architect Francesco Rondina) of ‘Casa e Ville’, Ponte a Serraglio:

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(The very first sighting of our Longoio house)

What strikes me about these ‘early’ photographs, apart from their continued novelty and freshness  (we were younger then!), is how much we were able to see in the short time we had at our disposal. Some of the places I recognize well, others less so. Let’s always try to photograph road signs of where we are!

We later returned on our own to the house at Longoio. At that time (and until 2008, when we bought our first Italian car, a FIAT ‘Cinquina’), our main mode of transport was by scooter:

It’s both lovely and sad to see these photographs. Since the purchase of our Longoio house it’s clearly not been all plain sailing. To start to describe not only some of the good things but some of the bad ones that have occurred to us in Longoio would not be appropriate at this time when so many of us are suffering through no fault of our own. Let us look towards an Easter when the word ‘resurrection’ will seem to mean so much more…

 

 

 

 

Daffodils and Daring

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What better way to forget, even for a few moments, the current health crisis besetting most of the world (could one have ever imagined that such a thing would have struck during our lifetime?) than to pore over one’s photographs from the past.

I could continue keeping a pandemic blog but this time I want to think of the freedoms we have temporarily lost: for example, the freedom to walk, without providing any excuse, in London’s parks. Brockwell Park near where I used to live, with its lovely flower gardens and its lido, one of the largest anywhere, was closed last week-end. The reason given was one of social distancing  – preventing contact at less than two meters from one another. True, it’s difficult when one is in a park and meets up with friends to avoid social contact. However, there is a very narrow margin between prevention of infection rules and the police state. In totalitarian countries it has often been the case to prevent any unauthorised gathering for fear of protests.

We should be enjoying spring and looking forwards to the Easter period. How sad it is that our enjoyment has had to be limited. However, it is tactically necessary and is not a sinister plot to enslave us. We are sacrificing our freedom in order to help our National Health Service staff and volunteers cope with the crisis. If anyone wants to know what it’s like to be at the front line as a nurse or doctor one needs no further than looking at the reports of someone who recently sold me a very playable piano: Colette Marie, resident of Bagni di Lucca, Ponte a Serraglio and professional nurse, has been letting us know through her FB page, something of what it’s like to be there:

First, some of her reflections on how life has changed in the UK, or should change:

“I’m allowed to do a run, one walk or one exercise a day. Have to stay at home. A bad instruction? Nope, first time in my life I’ve been given permission to lie in, chill out, and look after myself. All done well…heh off the treadmill for a few weeks.

If you don’t look after yourself, sad as no one else will do it. Police here asking people politely, ‘Where are you going’ and why, why bother, cut out the unnecessary insecurities. The message needs to be clear, direct as it saves lives. If you want a life ….stop buggering about, it’s just a break from lunacy, plastic and competing.

Boris please be more authoritative. Tell people straight, and stop pussyfooting about. (My comment: I think he’s got the message more fully now that he’s been admitted into hospital – OMG in intensive care now!). It’s about to peak moving west. The NHS is scared stiff. So the public should feel scared. Stick to the rules. I went out looking for masks and thin surgical gloves….guess what, none in shops. If you want us to help your citizens on front line. Where can I get the necessary uniform?
And who will give it to nurses like me. Apparently in 2 weeks we will have it.

Govt. must feel desperate to have to ask for volunteers. So they don’t need training, can do their bit….emmm how many will be infected then then?”

Now more about the virus itself:

“Trump’s latest. Politicians, queens, kings, presidents (like him!!!). Apparently couldn’t be seen (and it wouldn’t be the done thing to be seen) in a mask !!!!!!! What a capitalist statement.

This viral predator takes no prisoners, does not show interest in your self-importance, your hair cut or your bank balance. It could be in your nose now, in the neighbours walking past. Respiration means hot damp air is exhaled. It lives in moisture, if you are carrying it and you don’t know you are, the spray of your moisture at 2 meters may be contained in the mask much more than if you blast it 2 meters into the air. The recipient walking past can avoid inhalation (well less easily with their mask on) vice versa, double attempt at a barrier between you and them.

It’s not bullet proof but it’s preventative. These important kings (with their gold skulls) could try and not influence the public when it opposes prevention.“

Now some comments about Colette’s professional experience:

“Florence wards in the 80s (I was on them wearing hats, capes, aprons on Victorian wards) great for patient observation, those govt. (hasn’t been prepared plus discouraged their use) are now rebuilding. The matron in the 80s would have his guts for garters, we were expected to have a mask, double gloves, plastic shoe covers, sanitizer, theatre gowns and goggles (on the general wards) if infections were active.

We were proud of our infection rates and were always mindful of pandemic management. How sad it is that he (Trump) is allowed to open his mouth. I can only say protect yourself and protect others to the best of your ability. I’m saddened that the world invites him to comment on it or others who encourage him too. Perhaps important people could have a gold mask? With orange faces on”.

More on life as a nurse on the crisis front line:

“60 hrs. Completed now of hard graft, one more tonight 72 hrs..12 on 12 off….and we have to stomach his self-righteous waffle. I know lots of us like to hear our own voice on FB. Just finished 7 x 12 on 12 off hrs. Taking some time off, feel wrecked. Bit shaky, less heroic than my ego believes I am.

Thanks soooooo much all your wishes, lessened my fears when I needed to step up and perform. Got through it. No energy at mo.
Hope to god the light at the end of the tunnel comes quick. I nursed legionnaires in the 80s loosing medical staff because of ventilation systems. Nursed HIV hepatitis and more. But not knowing what this bugger will do has been very very worrying for us all (my emphasis). Felt it for the patients really struggling in side wards, acting like acute care beds in a community hospital. Harder in many ways due to environment.

Enjoyed enforcing safety the night team. X god bless and lots of love kindness does work as a motivator. No more drama from me for a while.in bed with my water bottle, I’m that tired I’m frozen.”

Keep up the good work Col, we’re all behind you! In fact, every Thursday at 8 pm it’s become a custom on our streets to publicly applaud the NHS for the effort they are putting into saving lives. What could I do to help? Stay at home, of course!

In the meanwhile, I’ll probably have to miss out on the wonderful wild daffodils of one of my favourite London open spaces, Lesnes Abbey Woods. Will I be challenged by plod if they find me there?

To make up for at least one walk I’ll posting here some pictures from the woods taken in spring 2005.

 

 

Our (Un)Virtual(ly) Social Life

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So many of us are now living in a universe where the virtual world mingles freely with the real-time one. Even before the present situation we spent (too much) time on social media to keep in touch. Now, however, apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr have become even more indispensable to our lives. Since the rule in this health crisis is to socially distance oneself and keep well away from others, not so much to avoid catching any virus from them but, more importantly, not to potentially infect them, social media is clearly the safest option.

The grim fact is that the pandemic emphasizes mankind’s common fate that ‘the paths of glory lead but to the grave’ together with all other living species. It truly concentrates the mind.

Luckily, however, with theatres, museums cinemas, and other places of entertainment closed for the duration we are offered a cornucopia of places which we can visit, not only with our memories but also with our laptops.

The following sites have given me particular enjoyment:

Sir John Soane Museum

http://explore.soane.org/#/

Tate Modern

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/modigliani/modigliani-vr-ochre-atelier

Natural History Museum

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2015/june/dive-back-in-time-with-david-attenborough-s-first-life.html

British Museum

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/new-virtual-reality-tour-with-oculus/

Louvre

https://arts.vive.com/us/articles/projects/art-photography/mona_lisa_beyond_the_glass/

There are plenty more to Google for one’s enjoyment. Clearly, museums are also using these methods to attract potential audiences once this unfortunate episode in human history is over.

However, more traditional methods of passing the time hold firm. There is nothing more satisfying than having a real book in your hands and reading its pages. If you are a musician then there are many opportunities to practice to your heart’s content in the privacy of your home. Some musicians have expanded this to include others and now whole orchestras and choirs are playing on-line creating a virtual venue where no real one can be currently used. Here is a moving example: part of Bach’s ‘Saint Matthew Passion’, so appropriate for this week, especially as today is Palm Sunday:

https://www.facebook.com/brightvibes/videos/213242649888508/UzpfSTEwMDAxNjY5NjU5NjgyNDo2NDU0MDI1MjI2OTI5NjI/?id=100016696596824

Palm-Sunday

PALMS

I was standing by the east gate

when I first saw him pass.

Could this man create so much hate

and yet unite all class?

 

Through the thick crowds I caught his face

and for one fleet instance

it seemed as if he could replace

death itself with his glance.

 

People had cut down palm boughs,

waving them before him

with hosannas and solemn vows

in one rapt festive whim.

 

Sat astride the colt of an ass,

prophecy-fulfilling,

he rode through the acclaiming mass

like a king returning.

 

How would this local triumph end?

No blood had yet been spilled.

Would it forevermore transcend

the man, the god they killed?

 

All we knew was that we seemed free –

our happy feast had come.

Yet wine and bread would never be

the same again for some.

 

And as the palm leaves’ cross-shaped folds

are given in this nave

will he say that our future holds

no terror in the grave?

 

FP

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Music is for me the balm that truly soothes the soul. In this respect I’ve been thinking about a particular favorite among the composers I love. Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was born of an Italian father – (I’m reminded of De Sica’s ‘Garden of the Finzi-Contini’, a classic starring Lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda and Helmut Berger) and a German mother.

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(My wife Sandra with the actor Lino Capolicchio who starred in ‘The Garden of the Finzi Contini’)

Despite his ‘foreign’ parents Finzi became a quintessentially English composer with works displaying a beguiling mix of rhapsodic lyricism, humour and introspection. His songs are absolutely wonderful and his ‘Dies ‘Natalis’ is quite ecstatic. My own favorite among his works is the eclogue which would have become a part of an unfinished piano concerto:

It is such poignant music, enfolding your heart in its waves of golden emotion… so lovely and beautifully played by this Italian ensemble with a great pianist.

Gerald Finzi loved the English countryside and became an expert in apple-growing;indeed he managed to save from extinction several rare English apple varieties. Finzi is also an example of how careful we must be during these critical times. He went for a stroll with his fellow composer, mentor and friend Ralph Vaughan-Williams, and visited a family whose child had chickenpox. Finzi was already suffering from Hodgkin’s disease (the same disease my mother died from) so his immune system was at a low ebb. He developed shingles (an awful disease – I know, I’ve had it) which developed into a severe brain inflammation and died shortly afterwards at fifty-five years of age, the day after his cello concerto had been given its première on the (then) ‘Thud’ (alias) Third Programme.

The history of music is sadly full of composers who have died from not practicing social distancing in areas where plague and disease flourish. Let us hope that concentrating our friendships on-line will help prevent the ‘carogna’ (Italian for bloody or carrion) virus from further spreading itself.

Along a London Towpath

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This week-end promises fine weather. What places to visit then, what walks to relish, what friends to meet and what events to enjoy? Only except that now any step outside our semi-detached must be ‘strictly necessary’: a weekly shop (pharmacies, food and hardware shops still remain open), an essential walk with the dog or a stroll only for exercise and that to be conducted at a short distance from one’s home – no excursions to anywhere further than the local park – else a ticking off, or worse, a fine from the police.

The Grand Union Canal passes nearby where we stay; at 137 miles in length England’s longest artificial waterway, it was constructed to join London with Birmingham during the heady days of the industrial revolution. Superseded by the railways and the motorways, and with commercial traffic disappearing in the 1980’s, when the transport of Lime Juice from Brentford to Boxmoor ended, this placid stretch of water in London is now dedicated to pleasure trips on the characteristic canal longboats and to leisure walks along its towpath..

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We walked a stretch of the canal that passes through Brent and it was a truly emancipating experience. I suffer badly from cabin fever at the best of times and ours was more than a walk: it was liberation.

 

There is little pretense at picturesqueness in this part of the canal: it passes through the backs of industrial estates with their factories and warehouses and quite often there is an unacceptable load of trash, mainly discarded beer cans, lining the towpath. Yet it’s possible to enjoy the placid and remarkably clean waters and the moorhens, ducks and Canada geese that paddle on them.

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There are a few longboats moored up, some for sale. I’ve rarely been on one – most memorably along the Regent’s canal part of the waterway – and it is truly relaxing.

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We emerged from our walk along the canal near a Hindu temple. As the sun bathed on the shrine’s mellow carved stones we felt for a short instance we were nearer to Rajasthan that to Rayner’s Lane.

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The canal pubs may be closed, and whenever we pass someone on the tow paths we must maintain social distance (which doesn’t mean we can’t be social with them) but no one can take away from us the sublime pleasure of a sunny week-end in a London now, with no traffic and few airplanes flying over it, miraculously transmuted into a remarkably silent city.

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PS If you can read Italian I’ve written more on London’s canals at

I Fiumi e i Canali di Londra

Chocolate Box or Neo-Rococo?

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Some years ago we were donated a jigsaw puzzle, formerly belonging to a sadly deceased neighbour.  For years the puzzle languished in storage until I recently unearthed it. Looking at what the puzzle’s theme would have depicted on completion I immediately exclaimed ‘a chocolate box, schmaltzy concoction.’ My wife, however, liked the picture of two ladies playing a game of chess with a young gentleman looking thoughtfully on.

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She persuaded me to appreciate the incredible skill of the painter in depicting the intricate embroidery of the ladies’ sumptuous dresses and the extraordinary re-evocation of the salon’s tapestries. True, there was much skill shown in representing these feature (I just wonder how many contemporary artists could, or would want to, paint in this way). Just look at how the delicate coffee cups and the silver sugar salver are detailed or how the embroidery on the man’s coat is worked or how the mirror’s gold gilding or how the floor’s marbling have been rendered. Absolutely stunning and quite masterful!

With the current pandemic confining us to long hours at home and with time freely available we have been encouraged to use these weird days in various ways, one of which is to have fun in doing jigsaw puzzles. I finally decided that the jigsaw’s picture was a little bit more than just chocolate boxy and investigated its painter, an Italian of course. Arturo Ricci was born in Florence on 19th April 1854 and died in 1919. He studied in Florence under Tito Conti (1842-1924), who was highly regarded for “the grace of his figures, precision of drawing and strength of his colours” but whose artistic skills Ricci was to greatly surpass. Like his master, Ricci (not to be confused with the far better known and appreciated Venetian baroque painter Sebastian Ricci (Belluno, 1659 – Venice 1734)) became a painter of genre and family life scene. His clients included rich travellers on the European ‘grand tour’, particularly Americans who saw in his elegant scenes a more leisurely and glamorous pre-industrial revolution world brimful of rustling silks and shimmering satins.

However, it was also said of Arturo Ricci that “he paints too well for his subject.”  I cannot quite disagree.

Clearly Ricci fused two strands in his artistic creations: one was the intimate world of domestic interiors of such eighteenth century artists as the Venetian Pietro Longhi and the Frenchman Chardin. The other was the transcendent pastoral world of Watteau which I first discovered in my own school’s picture gallery:

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(Watteau: Les Plaisirs du Bal. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London)

Arturo Ricci’s rococo-reminiscent art reminded me that there was, indeed, a neo-rococo revival in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In London the concurrence of eighteenth and nineteenth century versions of the sinuously decorative style known as rococo are displayed to perfection in the examples on display at the outstanding Wallace collection. (I think that’s the museum I shall head to first when this bloody virus is finally vanquished!).

Italy, too, has had its neo-rococo revival and it’s not only in painting, fashion and furniture but music too. Puccini’s third opera and first major success, ‘Manon Lescaut’, sets an eighteenth century novel by Prévost to music which often incorporates eighteenth century forms, including the minuet.  I do not doubt that a part of the overwhelming success of ‘Manon Lescaut’s première in 1893 had to do with the rococo revival in the arts. I also have no reservation that, particularly in its use of lithe floral motifs, neo-rococo paved the way for Art Nouveau, or ‘Stile Liberty’ as it is known in Italy.

I think I should add something about the history and therapeutic value of jigsaw puzzles. John Spisbury of London is thought to have made the first jigsaw puzzle in 1760 by using a marquetry saw. Puzzles were later produced on geographic themes (‘dissected maps’) for children’s education and occasionally on political subjects.

Ironically, the jigsaw’s greatest popularity to-date has been during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. I wonder if there will be any similar correlation in our present age. However, there is one point on which many psychologists concur: doing jigsaw puzzles can help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and, furthermore, become an important aid in preserving one’s sanity.

So begin your own jig-saw puzzle…starting with the edges, of course!

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A thousand thanks to my wife, Alexandra Pettitt, for having encouraged me to appreciate the artwork of Arturo Ricci, quite apart from having received and kept the jigsaw puzzle themed with one of the painter’s most charming and accomplished works.

 

 

 

 

Pre-Blogging Days

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On the 6th of March 2013 I published my first blog post. It’s here if you want to look at it:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/a-mornings-work-in-lucca/

Seven years on I’m still carrying on blogging.  Indeed, writing a blog has almost become a compulsion and I feel somewhat lacking if I don’t scribble something down on a daily basis.

Of course, throughout the centuries people have kept blogs, or rather diaries, as off-line blogs are best called. The only difference today is that a blog crosses that delicate line between what is best kept to oneself and what may be considered to be of interest to others. Did diarists like Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn really expect their diaries to be published? Thankfully, their intimate thoughts were not consigned to the flames but found their way into the annals of English literature and social history. Others were not so lucky: for example, the diaries of the great Victorian traveller and sex-liberator, Richard Burton, were burnt on his death by his prudish wife. Certainly one of our greatest losses in this field are the destroyed diaries of Byron. Some diaries, however, were clearly meant to be published at the outset: for example, those of Alan Clark.

I do know, however, of at least one living diary writer who has given clear instructions that their scribbling should be destroyed if anyone finds them (in the attic).

When my mother-in-law died last year my wife made a touching discovery: she found that her mother had written, not so much a diary, but a series of intimate and revealing vignettes covering her life and some of its crucial moments, especially of her early married life. This was an unexpected and moving moment for both of us and we cherished reading this unintended testimony of a remarkable woman. (I just wonder what she would have made of the current pandemic times). I know of other persons who have unfurled war-time diaries of deceased family members and are using the present age to transcribe and perhaps even publish them. Of course, the most famous war-time diary is that of Anne Frank which has only relatively recently been published in full.

I am sure that there will be a new generation of ‘war-time’ diaries, this time dealing with the on-going covid-19 pandemic. Certainly there are several fine ‘lock-down’ diaries being written. An entry from one of them (Kerry Bell’s) can be read in the current issue of Lucca’s ‘Grapevine’ magazine at:

http://www.luccagrapevine.com/

For it’s the present crisis that has drawn so many of us to cherishing our time upon this earth even more and to reflect and realize how many tasks we have never properly carried out because we thought we had too little time in which to carry them out – whether they be attending to house and garden, or starting that unwritten novel which one is supposed to harbor within one’s inmost recesses, or beginning a new hobby, or reading those novelists known only to us by their book covers, or saturating oneself in meditation.

Should I edit my two-thousand plus posts into a more manageable volume? For the time being I don’t think so. My blogs are so full of cross-references and links that they stand best in their present form. There are many other examples which read well as blogs and would lose a lot if they were transcribed into a strictly linear form. I still have the printout of a blog on birds by my late-lamented school contemporary Ian McCormick (alias McDonald) who became an authority on such diverse subjects as Shostakovich and The Beatles. He wanted it precisely in blog form.

What I might do, however, is to go back from that first blogging year of 2013 to those times in which Italy was first incalculably imprinted on my affinities. Because of my half-Italian origins these go right back to the day was born. Intensified by my marriage to a London girl of Italian background, Italy became even more central to my life when I bought my first Italian home in 2003. In 2005 I effected a radical life-style change when I decided to work in Italy instead of merely using the country as a holiday resort. Looking at the photographs from this epoch I realize how much has changed sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Gone is that early enthusiasm of having shaken off the shackles of an Inner London teaching post in a college of further education, and instead discovering the natural and cultural beauties of a captivating part of ‘Il Bel Paese’, engaging in new activities and new friendships. I may be more sober in my opinions now but I am also wiser.

Anyway here are a few snapshots of some of my earliest times in Italy: the two holidays I spent in Caspoggio, an alpine village in the Valtellina valley of the Lombardy Alps, an area, I hope, safe from the turmoil the rest of this province is experiencing.

It is a centre for excursions to the Rifugio Marinelli:

And to the Pizzo Scalino:

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And to the high Bernina summits (something my mother had achieved when a young girl but which eluded me).

I wonder how many others of you will be spending this enforced seclusion, at a time of plague and uncertainty, to muse upon your own lives. I think most of you.

 

 

 

Government Warns of Chlorinated Coronation Chicken Peril

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A government warning on the perils of badly cooked chlorinated Coronation chicken has been issued with effect from today and relates to those forms in which this legendary dish is being prepared, whether it is on a plate or in a sandwich, using imported chicken from the USA and without the full, correct ingredients.

A spokesman from the Foulness biological experimentation station stated that ‘it is of increasing concern that, even with chlorinated specimens and failing the implementation of the correct amount of flaked almonds and raisins, the dish may prove to be inedible and may cause gastric complications. We are particularly concerned that crème fraiche and dried apricots are being omitted from the chicken’s preparation much to her Majesty’s government’s unease.”

The dish which, when correctly cooked, produces a warm flutter in the stomach was originally created by Constance Spry, one of Britain’s best-known food writers and flower arrangers, for the Queen’s coronation banquet in 1953.

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The Metropolitan Police are considering fines should one’s chicken not fulfill expectations. Door-to-door inspections may even be started later this week. If one is a vegetarian  then it will be necessary to fill in the appropriate self-certified form for authentification.  The use of drones has not been precluded although the RSPCA has protested about their use near chicken coops.

There will be daily broadcast radio and television updates on the coronation chicken situation.

Here is my preferred recipe for Coronation Chicken: (Courtesy of Felicity Cloake of ‘The Guardian’)

Serves 6

1 chicken
1 cinnamon stick
5 black peppercorns
Pinch of saffron
1 tsp. salt
4cm piece of fresh ginger
Bay leaf
5 tbsp. good quality mango chutney

50g ready-to-eat dried apricots, finely chopped
2 tbsp. good curry powder
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
200ml mayonnaise
200ml Greek yoghurt
50g flaked almonds, toasted
Small bunch fresh coriander, chopped
Green salad and basmati rice, to serve

  1. Put the chicken, breast-side up, in a large pan along with the cinnamon, peppercorns, saffron, salt, the bay leaf and half of the ginger and fill with cold water until only the top of the breast is exposed. Cover with a lid and bring to a simmer, then turn down the heat so only the occasional bubble rises to the surface. Cook gently for about one and a half hours until the juices run clear. Take out of the pan and set aside to cool, and then remove the meat in bite-sized pieces while lukewarm. Finely chop the rest of the ginger.
  2. Put the mango chutney and apricots into a large bowl. Toast the curry powder in a dry frying pan until fragrant, then add the chopped ginger and stir both into the bowl, followed by the Worcestershire sauce, then the mayonnaise and yoghurt.
  3. Once the chicken is cold, fold it through the dressing and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours before folding through most of the coriander and serving topped with the almonds, with a green salad and basmati rice.

 

PS Thanks to Alexandra Cipriani Pettitt for suggesting this theme to me.