31 July 2003

From the email:

Your own English correspondant has just been watching some English Home Improvement shows and I can quite confidently say the presenters are DIVINE, but what they perpetrate on the room is NOT. Horseshoes spraypainted white with fairystones glued on them, taking pride of place over the fireplace, a 'curiosity' coffee table with a glass top through which you can see the huge fake agapantha flowers resting on velvet ... URGH! The presenter though! Lordy, the accent, the english alternative rock hair, the fabulous clothes *sigh* PITY about the taste in decorating.

I went to Harrods yesterday, and had to ring M to expect me a little late for dinner because I had wasted about 20 minutes staring at a bag. Love at first sight.

Apart from the window shopping though I just strolled down Picadilly. It is FABULOUS weather right now, lots of sun (I may even have gotten a light TAN shock horror), but the pure amount of cub scouts, groups of Japanese tourists in matching caps and backpacks and badly dressed Americans running around ... hilarious. I was asked three times yesterday if I was Australian purely from me saying 'hi'. Yup, tourist written all over me.

Yesterday afternoon M, M and I went for a run (in the rain because all that lovely sun disappeared as soon as I was using it for good and not for evil) and we went through Epping Forest which has Snaresbrook Crown Court on the lake. At one point there is no modern buildings in sight and you could swear you were back in 1600 with the white swans on the lake and the castle rising up out of the trees ...*sigh* I am very happy.

30 July 2004

From the friends, Th'inkwell:


Saturday July 31 2004


Twas my fete


I was at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s ‘Village Fete’ today, billed as: 


“The best of British and international up-and-coming creative talent design stalls take over the V&A's Garden, surrounded by the activities of a traditional British Fete.” 


It was supposed to be: “A quintessentially English event” with a “modern twist”. 


What it actually entailed was a crowd of painfully fashionable young things strolling around the V&A courtyard to dubious music. On the edges of the courtyard were the stalls manned by the artistes. Most of the stuff was harmless, but showed a shocking lack of imagination from people who should be brimming with ideas. 


Nevertheless, I was glad to be out on a balmy night and photographed some of the most interesting goings on: 

“Are you always the one who makes the tea? Are you surrounded by colleagues, friends and family who shirk their tea-making responsibilities? Teabuddy is the answer to your prayers.” 


You’ve skinned them alive and hung their hides from the lintels to warn others in the office of my severe dislike for making 20 cups of tea instead of just one? Awww, thanks guys, you shouldn’t have. 


“Teabuddy is a tool for keeping-up with the making of tea in the office, at home, or, just about anywhere. No more fighting over who made the last round, or exactly how you like to take your tea - Teabuddy simply takes the hassle out of tea-making.” 


Ahh, they didn’t. 


Essentially, it’s a web site with a list of tea preferences listed next to coworker’s names. Every time you twitch in your seat so that you can be construed as looking in the direction of the tea room (and therefore be burdened with The Making Of The Tea), you can just tick the names that want tea, print off a handy tray sized list (arrow) and take it with you to the tea room, safe in the knowledge that your subservience to the common horde will be up to their exacting standards.* 


Please note that the tea-totallers were, in fact, imbibing Foster’s beer (circled). 


Asked how they will be making money off the site (whilst taking my free tea), I was told that they won’t – that they do this out of the goodness of their hearts. 


You know, sometimes I wish I had a trust fund to fritter away too, it might be fun. 


*(Why don’t I like making tea for the whole office? Simply because what was going to be a 45 second task turns into a production of theatrical scale. Others presume I’m going to make them a beverage simply because I’m making my own. Absurd. Also, as a recovering HR person, I can advise that it’s actually a better idea for everyone to get up from their chair to get their own tea as they will inadvertently be stretching, relaxing, helping their circulation and posture as well as allowing their eyes to focus on longer distance things than just their monitor and desk for a few minutes. ) 

This man was recruiting an elite militia for a new country called Bananistan. Qualifications required were an asymmetrical haircut, sneakers that had never been used for any form of exercise and hideous vintage clothing that cost more than a monthly mortgage payment. Most of the people in the crowd qualified. 

When creative people go bad. 


Pay a pound, get a baseball bat, lab coat, gloves and goggles. Lucky dip as to what you get to smash. Hope for the melon. Get a piece of electronic equipment instead. Be glad that you didn’t take your afternoon dose of Ritalin. Umm, smash stuff. You have 60 seconds. 


This booth attracted one of the largest, loudest crowds. I have to say I was a little disturbed by the sight of the previous boy baseball-batting the bejeezus out of a life-size female dummy’s head. 

One of the more creative ways to win things was dreamt up by guys who used old transport pallets to make laptop stands. 


A toy rat was placed into the top of a large PVC tube and the contestant given the rat paddle. They had to ‘Smack the Rat’ against the wall as it came out the bottom. This woman missed the critter and it’s on the floor in a sorry heap (arrow). 


What fete would be complete without the stick-your-head-in-this-thing-and-look-silly stand? 


I diligently stuck my head in and looked very, very silly.

29 July 2003

From the email: 
To be quite honest, I am sitting here in what could be a set for one of the Ruth Rendell telemovies and I find myself waiting for Inspector Wexford to knock on the door. My home for the next four days is very cool; the top apartment in a terraced house in a series of tiny streets of curry houses, pubs, terraced houses, pubs, long narrow picket-fenced cottage gardens and pubs. 

But I'd have to say that it was the handy flight plan on the TV on the plane that defined my journey. I found the only thing that kept my mind off how very sad I was feeling about leaving everyone behind for so long was watching the land over which I was flying. I really started getting excited over the Caspian Sea and once we hit the Carpathians the flight attendants would take turns to ask me to return to my seat because I had my nose pressed against the glass of the exit windows. Over Germany the attendants got REALLY shirty, there was a lot of turbulance but the sunrise was unreal. The best part was actually about 30 minutes before we got into Singapore ... a lightening storm above the cloud layer against the sunset ... spectacular. 

Once into Heathrow I was interviewed by an immigration officier who spent more time holding forth on the phenomenon of Australian passports smelling of fish than asking me about my VISA. One confused gentleman tried to make off with my luggage at the retrieval but I managed to head him off and there was NO customs (hehe). I was waiting for Monica in the lounge and I saw a Bobby, a Black Cab and a car rental agent holding a sign for Mrs Primrose Taylor-Barrington. Welcome to England.

26 July 2004

From the friends, Th'inkwell:

Monday 26 July 2004

Bugged

Max recently commented that I sound rather angry on my blog, as if I don’t like anything – ever. Then she remonstrated that I always find something negative about cultural things she takes me to. She’s quite right on that account, the last two things she had taken me to were a shockingly bad modern music concert and a very poor talk by a woman who gallivanted her way around Antarctica, finding it to be (surprisingly) full of male scientists.

This comment, however, was made after taking me to the National Portrait Gallery’s showing of the entrants and winners of the BP Portrait Award and listening to my running commentary.

Essentially the half hour diatribe can be summarised thus: 5% were excellent, 15% were good, 20% were passable, 60% should have been recycled for the valuable canvas underneath. Somehow, most of the winners were chosen from the last group.

Max knows I’m generally a happy, bouncy person. Max listens to me warbling songs at inopportune moments. Max just wonders why I choose to be so cuttingly negative so often.

The answer is passion. I just don’t have lukewarm feelings towards anything I give a damn about. I either love it or I hate it. I may love it despite some small flaws, I may hate it yet see some redeeming qualities – but you won’t find me shrugging my shoulders and saying “Yes, well, I suppose it’s nice.”

I once heard a definition for ‘nice’ that I very much liked. Nice stands for:

Nothing

In me

Cares

Enough

…which sums up the concept perfectly.

It’s easy to know when I don’t care about something or someone. I’ll be very quiet, I won’t venture an opinion, I’ll smile weakly, I’ll say that it’s ‘nice’.

If I get fired up, whether it be foaming at the mouth from anger or beaming from adoration – it just means that I care, I really do. Perhaps the reason that there are so many negative entries on my blog is that I give a damn about too many things that are out of my influence to change.

So here’s something positive – something I wrote a while ago and shelved, thinking that it wasn’t really good enough to do homage to something I truly loved. Perhaps it’ll balance things up a tad.

_____

Firefly

(I guess it’s all been written before. I’m sure I’m not the first blogger to be struck with ‘I’ve just watched the entire series of Firefly, there aren’t any more left and I simply must immortalise the grief with a post’-itis.

It’s probably been written more prosaically, it’s probably been written by someone with a unique angle, it’s probably been as done to death as anything popular with the smarter people on the web. However, in light of the fact that I can be as commandeering as Mal and as scary as Zoe, I’ll just go ahead, do it anyway and stare down anyone who so much as twitches at the plan.)

A firefly is a creature given to metaphor. Short lived, dazzlingly and surprisingly bright – it conveniently mirrors larger occurrences in history and allows us to essentialise and encapsulate them in one convenient image. Part of the fun of being human, I suppose.

I don’t think Joss Whedon gave his show the moniker with any foresight that it would so closely mirror the actual lifespan of nature’s firefly. I’d like to think, rather, that he knew - given the right creative freedom - he could make the show sparkle and delight like the little bug. Happily, he was right, I was utterly delighted.

It wasn’t until I saw the extras on my DVD set that I came to a more complete understanding of why this series was so good. The sections went through the concept, set design, camera/FX/CG work and musical score - I saw how each element was controlled by someone with a deep understanding for their craft, a genuine love for the show and run in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experimentation mode. Many things weren’t done the way that they’re usually done. I heard the phrase ‘you simply don’t do that’ many times. I LOVE to hear that kind of thing – it’s usually the way fantastic new processes happen.

To me, Firefly is an example of what happens when a talented group of people come together and give their best to a project which is itself led by someone talented giving their best.

In the same way as like attracts like on a personal level (you can tell a man by the company he keeps as the old saying goes), like hires and retains like on a professional level (you can tell a company by the people it keeps). I think it explains why companies carefully and obsessively controlled by the original entrepreneur or by a strong CEO have such a different feel to those which are controlled by the ‘everyone and no-one’ of committees committed to the ‘everyone and no-one’ concept of stakeholders.

I don’t buy into the new ideas about the way things should be run. Things that work are always, ultimately, controlled by an individual.

One person holds a vision, controls it’s execution at the macro level – he hires people he can see ‘get it’ and they control it’s execution at the micro level. Joss Whedon wrote the theme song, for chrissakes. There’s no mistaking who was at the wheel here.

I daresay that he fought every decision the besuited bumpkins at Fox handed down with the superior mein of those who forage daily at the trough of popular opinion.

Someone who didn’t understand the concept of Firefly and who wasn’t completely and irrevocably committed wouldn’t have fought for its original inception tooth and nail. We wouldn’t have had the short, fresh, violent and utterly brilliant season of Firefly we do today – we would have had ‘Friends’ on a spaceship arguing over who would receive which quarters and wondering whether the Alliance General gave Rachael the eye. It would have lasted 10 years. It would have canned laughter every time Ross fell off his horse or fumbled with his gun. The horror is actually palpable, isn’t it?

Whedon had his concept, though. He fought for it and today we have a piece of art that is incredible in it’s design and execution.

So, besides the fact that someone stubborn got his way, why do I love it so much? Let’s start with the fact that I’m not a passive watcher/listener/reader of entertainment. Silly though it may seem, I talk back. Often, I will suggest what I see as obvious actions for characters to take in their situation. As the episode goes on and the characters (inexplicably) ignore me, I become more and more agitated. Occasionally, I yell. Often, I swear.

Half an hour into the first Firefly, I remained in the same position on the couch. I had been completely silent. An hour in and not a muscle twitch. Two hours gone and all I could do was turn to M, slack-jawed, before quickly scurrying to the mouse and clicking on the next episode.

***Warning…spoiler…plot element discussed below.***

In the second episode, when Mal is confronted by a giant of a man who vows to spend his life hunting Mal down to kill him, I find myself thinking – “Aha! This is the clincher…this is the Bad Guy who will pop up every once in a while, try to kill Mal and be thwarted. All this because Mal is going to have one of those weak moments of hippy conscience at the very time when he could stop the Bad Guy. Gotcha – same old lazy scriptwriting.”

It may not seem it, but damn do I love being proven wrong, especially when I think something’s not good.

And so it was that I was proven wrong, so very, very wrong.

Just when I was beginning to grumble something to the effect of “Just kill him, for chrissakes, why the hell would you let…” Mal simply shrugged and kicked the bastard into a turbine engine. It was the loveliest little bit of violence I think I have ever seen. I made a noise, something like “Oip!” and felt my eyebrows raise far beyond safety limits.

***End of plot spoiler, you can read below safe in the knowledge that you will be surprised by EVERYTHING in Firefly. I promise.***

What Firefly gets so right – what sets it apart from every other show I’ve seen - is the fact that the morality is so damn close to what I agree with. The characters don’t faff about – they know which action gives them the most benefit personally and they take it without qualms. There is no apology for what would be considered crude opportunism in other shows.

You also won’t find your stock standard characters, your Tortured Soul 56b and Bimbette 29a on the show. You’ll find very complex characters making very difficult decisions and *gasp* actually THINKING those decisions through.

You’ll also be entertained. Joss spins his usual verbal mastery and gives the characters strong, punchy, funny lines.

So here’s an endorsement – nay, a directive.

If you like what you read on my blog, if you’ve clicked through on a few of the links and enjoyed them, go and buy Firefly on DVD. There’s no prerequisite to have enjoyed Sci-Fi previously, this isn’t traditional Sci-Fi.

When there’s so much entertainment around and so much of it is lukewarm, finding something that makes you think, laugh, gasp, worry, chew the couch cushions and admire the actors is a prize. Go discover it for yourself.

24 July 2004

From the friends, Th'inkwell:

Tuesday 3 August 2004

Vettriano

Last week, I went to the Jack Vettriano exhibition at the Portland Gallery in London. I scrawled notes of such incomprehensibility that it’s taken me a week of painful reconstruction to figure out what on earth I was trying to say.

Now, I’m no art critic and my education in art is simply to have been dragged to galleries as a child – more and more willingly as time progressed – to listen to my mother’s (art specialist by profession) commentary on pieces. Eventually, I came to see the great satisfaction in seeing good art without sulking and kicking car tires first.

Nowadays, going to a gallery is a treat at home and a must every time I travel to a new city. I think I’m one of the only people my age that rates the Rijksmuseum as the highlight of their stay in Amsterdam.

Anyhow, on to my post and what I was thinking when I saw the exhibition.

Jack Vettriano isn’t popular with the art establishment, particularly the female subset who make vapid noises about the way women are portrayed sexually in his art. What better recommendation, then, could one have to go and see an exhibition?

There are two Vettrianos, though. The nice, light, romantic ‘Dance me to the end of Love’ Vettriano and the darkly sexual Vettriano. It was the latter on display at the Portland Galleries this time including some that are almost impossible to see outside of his live exhibitions.

Dance Me To The End Of Love

I think the impact was interesting for me because I (as a female) got to look through the eyes and step into the desires of an unashamedly sexual man. Vettriano is a singularly talented narrative painter; it’s very easy to be transported to his scenarios and even easier to become involved in them.

His talent, I think, is to bring movement to an inherently still medium. The same canvas and paint that could show the calm, frozen time of a still-life instead shows a great deal of movement – movement about to happen, movement suppressed, freedom of movement captured lightheartedly and perfectly. It’s almost painful for me to watch these characters, half expecting them to continue their paused movement at any moment to do what it’s so evident they’re about to do.

You won’t get the same feeling from these thumbnails, unfortunately. Don’t try for it in the reprints either. As with most oil paintings, the originals are so good because of the way that light interacts with the suspended particles in the paint – you have a richness and a glow that gives depth. That’s why serious collectors will buy an original – they really are getting something that no-one else can have, no matter how good their copy.

As I mentioned, this exhibition was dominated by the ‘darker’ Vettriano. I’m quite glad for it, as it seemed that his breezy beach paintings (well composed though they are) were just him warming up. Getting used to the human form, getting used to space and colour, getting used to movement.

This is not to say that he now uses the crisp, photographic form of the Renaissance painter. He seems to borrow a little of his style from the early impressionists, many brush strokes are obvious and you are under no illusion that this is oil on canvas. I think it aids in conveying the movement inherent in his compositions.

The evident brushstrokes also serve to give the hint of structure that you must fill in for yourself. The form is there, the detail is occasionally ambiguous, the intent and emotion behind the pose is all important.

So what is the intent? The scenes in this exhibition were split between portraits of his favorite models engaged in a solitary activity such as walking or gazing out a window and those of sexual tension and sexual encounters.

Now - if you think that sex should always be a gentle confluence of souls with lots of talking about feelings before and after (sometimes during) then I’m afraid you’re not going to like these Vettrianos. These poses are all about clandestine, forbidden, passionate sensuality. He openly admits that these couplings are doomed from the start and that he portrays people who just can’t help themselves when it comes to temptation.

The Embrace of the Spider

What you see, though, is not the ugly portrayal of sex which is evident in so many contemporary artists. These are not confrontational scenes of rape, the nudity is not incidental. At the same time, each painting is blatantly honest about what it is portraying.

Passion Overflow

Because there’s no attempt to hide the sexuality, there is no need for the audience to draw it out from insinuations in the images. It’s all there and it’s definitely unapologetic for its chosen theme – you have the time to focus on the sensuality of the pieces instead. To put it another way – you get over the fact that you’re seeing a garter belt very quickly and become far more interested in the positioning of the bodies and the expressions on faces than seeing a peek of something that is traditionally forbidden.

The focus seems to be on WHAT is happening far more than HOW it is happening. It’s why the subjects are in that situation in the first place and the relationship between them that is emphasized.

Along Came A Spider

Interestingly enough, unlike the artist that idealizes the virginal, the untouched, the woman before she is sullied with the taint of sex, Vettriano seems to show his women with the familiarity of an established lover. These women have ‘fallen’ into ‘sin’ already – yet don’t seem to be any less desirable for that fact. Rather than wanting to find and pluck something new, he seems to hunger for more of the same and venerate those women he knows can give it to him. This is where, I think, the evident appreciation for his models comes through in the painting and why the art is so sexually charged. It’s not a work of contempt – it’s a work of understanding and appreciation.

There is no contempt for the human form either. Although not sculpting his male or female forms to the fashion magazine ideal of today – there is no mistaking that both are rather attractive and both are DISTINCTLY posed and dressed for their gender. As he puts it:

"I’ve always loved women who dress as women, you know, pure femininity." ... "When you know a woman’s wearing stockings there’s no sort of question about it, and I love that world where there’s a strict division between men and women. If you were painting contemporary life now, man and woman, from the back, you can’t tell the difference.”

If the women are ultra feminine, then the men are ultra masculine. Far removed from the pretty-boy Beckhams, DiCaprios and Pitts, these creatures radiate masculinity, poise and strength.

The power play between the sexes is clearly shown. We don’t have two sexually androgynous humans coming together for a night of sensitive-to-each-other’s-emotional-needs lovemaking interspersed with tea, basket weaving and psychotherapy. There is a man who evidently dominates the woman physically – there is no shying away from who will be doing what to whom.

Pincer Movement

Equally powerful (although in a completely different way) is the woman, who is sure of her power over the man and is wielding it unflinchingly.

In fact, in the introduction to “Lovers and Other Strangers”, Anthony Quinn says of the brunette used in most of Vettriano’s paintings:

“..she looked like a woman to whom a pledge of eternal love might provoke her to stab you with a stiletto.”

Vettriano himself says:

“I portray women wielding sexual power.”

Clearly, these are not damsels in distress.

What I think I see in equal measure is the man surrendering himself to what he perceives as his basest desires whilst at the same time physically dominating the female in the piece. It’s rather a clichéd juxtaposition and one that relies on considering the longing for sex to be something other than honorable.

Although I don’t really agree with this dim view on humans as flawed due to their desire to copulate, I must applaud his mastery at perfectly conveying this idea.

Other paintings, those with a person alone, show a strong individual lost in a reverie – completely unaware of the viewer. Even when the subject is a very strong woman in serious and contemplative repose, there is a hint of femininity and sexuality through exposure of a piece of the traditional accoutrements of the feminine seductive arsenal – a hint of stocking, a little piece of bra showing, a very high stiletto heel, even just a beautifully tailored dress. There is no dichotomy between femininity and purposefulness - they coexist naturally and beautifully.

Baby Bye Bye

Edinburgh Afternoon

The men he portrays alone are somewhat of a mystery to me. I get a sense of stoic, practiced isolation from them and am not sure if I’m misreading his intentions. Many are straight self-portraits, which I tend to find difficult to unravel at the best of times.

What I do know is that Vettriano is almost uncannily popular. In a world where it seems the public consistently opts for the worst creative compositions available, the fact that I had to crane around people to see what I considered very good art was somewhat gratifying.

Of course, he comes under fire for this very popularity and comments:

"Well you know, you run the risk of the wrath of the establishment by being popular, but at the same time why shouldn’t people have an image for £10 when they don’t have a lot of money to spend? And anyway, I own the copyright of my work until 75 years after my death and then it’s a free for all and you think - well why shouldn’t I benefit from it now?

"What would Van Gogh have done, what would Monet have done if they had had the opportunity? Instead of that what you get is, the marketplace is flooded with their stuff and they’re not earning a penny from it."

Happily, he’s earning far more than pennies. Annoying the establishment may be a faux pas – but what a profitable one.

Reach Out and Touch

Vettriano quote source - interview

22 July 2004

From the friends, Th'inkwell:


Saturday 24 July 2004

Beggars and Choosers

I have just this evening been told by Perry de Havilland that it is imperative to post daily. Several times if at all possible. I realised I’ve been neglecting the blog – not through want of love for it, but because of my inherent perfectionism and tending to take days to actually write something I’m finally happy with. Leaving it untouched for days simply isn’t on – I’ll have an insurrection on my hands and you’ll all leave me alone to babble to myself in a corner. Clearly, something must be done.

So if you’ll bear with entries that aren’t as polished as usual, I can manage the daily(ish) rant. Here’s today’s -

Yesterday, Max and I were on our way to the National Portrait Gallery for an evening lecture from Sara Wheeler, author of Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica as part of the Three Centuries of Women Travellers exhibit. The lecture itself had some interesting points, although I was disappointed by the author’s constant need to obtain cheap laughs from the audience by peppering her halting tale with obligatory anti-man jokes. There are only so many times you can chuckle at the use of the word ‘testosterone’.

Anyhow, in one of the interminable underground walkways connecting tube stations, we came across a man who was huddled in the corner with a sign: ‘Hungry, please help.’ I noticed Max slow down, but was swept along myself by the rush-hour crowd. When she caught up with me, I saw a wry smile on her face.

Apparently, she had read the sign and stopped to offer him her packed dinner. Not a shabby dinner either – a flat bread stuffed with freshly grilled salmon, avocado and salad. The man, however, had refused as he was a vegetarian.

Now, correct me if I’m completely wrong here – but vegetarianism is a moral choice for most people, not a physical requirement for survival. That moral choice usually hinges on some belief that animals are equal to humans and that it’s cruel to eat them. I have severe – SEVERE – problems with those who think that humans and animals are the same. If someone wants to believe that they are no better than a slug, so be it. Don’t apply it to me though.

Nevertheless, this man was starving, wasn’t he? So by not taking the food he was essentially saying that he values a salmon’s (or cow’s, or pig’s … or whatever’s) life above his own. He would rather hold out for someone to give him cash so that he can head to Pret a Manger for a vegetarian baguette and a double espresso.

I myself try to avoid wheat and milk because they’re not particularly good for me – but if I were starving, I’d take a hamburger and milkshake to sustain myself. I can only understand this man’s attitude if eating animal flesh is somehow severely physically detrimental to him. If he’s just doing it to save the whales then perhaps Darwinism can claim a deserving victim.

What on earth is it that makes people think they can demand the constituents of alms granted to them?

The one thing I can say for him is that at least he was just begging, rather than mugging us as is the government’s regular wont to do. Where it was his (stupid) prerogative to refuse the very thing he actually needed and demand something else to satisfy his whim, it is not a prerogative that is open to those who are on government assistance.

This is why I can’t stand to read of people not satisfied with the standard of government housing , government provided childcare or whining about social services being provided in a way that’s not sensitive to their particular bent . To my thinking, they’re damned lucky that they obtain anything at all.

Don’t like the housing? Start paying market rates of rent like the rest of us and you can choose from a variety that will stagger you.

Don’t like the childcare? Either don’t breed or pay for your own goddamned sprog.

Don’t like the way social services are delivered to you? Don’t take any.

Better yet, throw social services out the window and ask me directly for what you need. I’ll see what I can spare. 

18 July 2005

From the diary:
This city sings to me every time I watch its people with wide open eyes; from street sleepers kissing each other's hands like gallants in parting, to the young couple helping a very drunk man patiently through Charing Cross Station and a crippled but incredibly tall man with his loving, diminutive girlfriend, there are a myriad of stories on the street for the interested to observe.

10 July 2005

From the diary:
I think I may have the secret to why I love this countryside so much. It is the beauty of the whole as defined by all the little parts that make it up; the landscape is divided and compartmentalised, whether it be with fences, hills and valleys or landscapes. It is distinctive in itself and in man’s hand. It is fun for me to see the lie of the land, and make informed decisions on what it all means - like the moment I saw Old Sarum mound and knew exactly what it was.

27 June 2011

Pre-Dinner Pun Run

Three friends planning to dine together at a Thai Restaurant.

Jay: Let's Thai it down!

Rhys: That's thai-riffic then. Does 6.30pm suit... remember I am a nanna these days and I can't be home too late (you will see me starting to fade before your eyes).

Jay: Thai me kangaroo down, sport!

Max: Good lord girls, your puns are getting thai-ed.

Jay: I think I will have a big appeThait on Thursday ;P

Max: Thank goodness we are not on Thait budgets then ...

Jay: hopefully the food will be enThaising

Max: And the conversation will be enthai-taining ...

Jay: We had better be on Thaim because Rhys can't stay out too late

Max: I think you are right, she will be re-thai-ring early. You and I can go paint the thai-n red once she leaves though ...

Jay: I am signing off now as I am Thai-red of work. It's Thaim to go home. I will Thai my best not to think of any more puns.

2012
I warn each friend that their formally private exchanges are being mined for material, so I sent the above exchange to Jay and Rhys, and the below resulted:

Jay: Thanks for the enthaitainment.

Max: You were enthaitled to know you are going to be starring in a great lithairary endeavour!

Jay: It's going to be thaim consuming for you.
You can't thai a good pun down.

Axe-Bearing Barbarians: The Varangian Guard and the Image of the Money Making Viking

A wing-helmeted, axe-wielding barbarian leaping from a shield-hung longship onto a beachhead is perhaps the most enduring image of the Viking era held by the average modern punter.  The Vikings of 800 – 1100 were the terrifying wolves of the sea who dominated the Eastern trade routes and the Western sea lanes with their superior ships, their formidable military prowess and their lust for land and plunder.  The Vikings were not merely a bunch of axe brandishing, beer quaffing blondes only interested in taking the gold and the women and going back home.  The Vikings were an incredibly powerful and effective wealth accumulating people who tailored their methods of acquiring the wealth, land and persons of their victims to the different circumstances encountered.

The measures that the Vikings took to plunder wealth from the different arenas of Europe in which they operated were almost extreme in their dissimilarity.  In the eastern European countries that would eventually become Russia, the Vikings came ‘first as pirates, then as traders, and finally as the most trusted guards of the imperial person’[1] as well as being invited to become the ruling class of the lands they traded through.  Such a progression from pirate to Prince shows an exemplary use of influence and force to glean the most profit from the situation.  On the other hand, the rest of Western Europe were subjected exclusively to the pirate version of the Viking experience, while the British isles and beyond enjoyed the pleasures of certainly one and debatably two heavy waves of extensive settlement by the same ambitious warriors.

Of the many interesting careers available to the average Viking warrior wanting to leave home and pursue gold and girls across Europe, the top destination was the Varangian Guard, the exclusively Viking elite bodyguard of the mighty Byzantine Emperor based in the cosmopolitan Mecca of the eastern empire, Constantinople.[2] From a checkered past the Varangians Guards (Varangian being the name given to the Vikings in Eastern Europe) became a fighting unit that marched victoriously across Europe, was commanded at its peak by the indomitable Harald Hardradr and overthrew an Emperor.  A place in the Varangian Guard was regarded at home in Scandinavia as a position of great honor[3] and distinction.[4]

The Varangian mercenary guard in Constantinople was a legacy of the Russian Riurikid Princes jostling for power in the ninth century.  The Scandinavian settlers in Russia were ‘formerly the creators of trade networks and tribute-collecting states’[5] but increasingly became the shock troops of the Rus Princes jockeying for position and prestige.  As the original Rus settlers around Kiev, Novgorod and Lagoda developed a sense of nationality and established a power base, the new wave of Vikings travelling the Volga and the Dneiper river systems, known as the ‘Varangian Way’,[6] were increasingly viewed as interlopers and were hired as mercenaries.  Vladimir and Iaroslav especially, towards the end of the tenth century, used the Varangians against each other as well as against their Byzantine neighbors and sometimes allies to the south.  This created a situation that saw Varangians sent variously to attack and or serve the Byzantine Emperor as the mood of the Rus Prince or the terms of a treaty demanded.

This is a dichotomy in the role of the Vikings in the East that goes beyond even the inevitable currency of loyalty for money that mercenaries inevitably use.  A parallel instance of the Vikings playing two ends against the middle can be seen in the rest of Europe, with Danish, Swedish or Norwegian Vikings finding themselves in the position of being hired to protect a town from other Vikings.  Even more impressive is the extortion of the vast amounts of money paid by the British Kings through the Danegeld, to keep the Vikings to the Danelaw.  The image of Vikings as violent raiders of the coffers of Western Europe is eclipsed somewhat by their pure skill at securing profits from whatever situation was presented to them.

The Varangian Guard was the crack personal bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor and was made up of exclusively Scandinavian fighters until the end of the Viking period saw a new ethnic makeup of the Guard.  The Varangian Guard were not meant to be politically active in Byzantine, but served merely as a ‘mercenary center of excellence for all Viking military skills.’[7] As with the rest of the Viking influence in Europe, the political powers of the Varangians was greatest just before their fall.  In the case of the Guard, the exiled Norwegian King Harald Hardradr’s intercession in the rebellion against Emperor Michael brought the Guard into active political maneuvering within Constantinople.  The power of the Varangian Guard to topple an Emperor[8] was due to the triumphant tour of duty around the Mediterranean including the Middle East, Greece and Italy[9] that the Guard enjoyed under the leadership of the famous Norwegian expatriate.  The Vikings reached Sicily in this campaign and ‘an historian on the lookout for key moments might be tempted to see this event as the final completion of a Viking circle all around Western Europe.’[10]

This romantic Viking circle around Western Europe is further closed by the impact of the Norman invasion of England in 1066.  William the Conquerors triumph came only weeks after the defeat and death at Stamford Bridge of the Varangian Guards greatest alumni, Harald Hardradr.  Many historians like to claim that the Viking blood in the Normans renders the Norman invasion the last and most successful Viking invasion of Britain. After 1066 the Varangian Guards ethnic makeup changed dramatically to include ‘Anglo-Saxon and Danish champions, chafing under Norman rule’,[11] changing the Guard from a purely Viking enterprise to one that included the descendants of one wave of Viking invasion escaping from the second wave,[12] ‘a most curious consequence for an offshoot of the Norsemen in the east of the activities of the Norsemen in the West.’[13]

This prestigious role for the Vikings in the East of providing rulers and their armies was very different to the Viking raiding of the rich monasteries and towns of Western Europe and the raiding and settling of the Vikings in the British and surrounding Isles.  The difference was in the plundering of wealth; in the West the wealth was already accumulated and stored in central towns and monasteries while in the East systems had to be established to accumulate the wealth themselves.[14] Thus, instead of the role of despoiler of the infrastructure of wealth creation they embraced in the West, in the East the Vikings built and administered the infrastructure for amassing wealth themselves.

The three centuries of the Viking Empire were centuries in which Vikings took up their axes, took to their boats and took what they liked from Europe.  They established the Eastern European trade routes, raided with impunity the treasure houses of West Europe and settled in the lands of the British Isles and beyond.  With their military prowess and tenacity they ruled Russia, campaigned for the Byzantium Empire, looted Europe and conquered the islands between their homeland and America, yet the different circumstances of each area of enterprise was treated with it’s own unique style.  As a people they set out into the world to make their fortune and they made a place in history for themselves through their success.  Not bad, really, for a bunch of blondes.

Bibliography

Dawkins, R. M., 1947, ‘The later history of the Varangian Guard : Some Notes’, The Journal of Roman Studies, London : Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, pg 39-47.

Griffiths, P. 1995, The Viking Art of War, Greenhill Books : London

Jones, G., 1907, A History of the Vikings, Richard Clay Ltd : Suffolk.

Page, R.I., 1995, Chronicles of the Vikings, Records, Memorials and Myths, University of Toronto Press : Toronto Buffalo.

Sawyer, P., 1997, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press : New York.

Magnusson, M., 1980, Vikings!, Bodley Head Ltd: London

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[1] Dawkins, R. M., 1947, ‘The later history of the Varangian Guard : Some Notes’, The Journal of Roman Studies, London : Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies p 39.

[2] Magnusson, M., 1980,  Vikings!, Bodley Head Ltd: London, p 120.

[3] Magnusson, Vikings!, p 296.

[4] Page, R.I., 1995, Chronicles of the Vikings, Records, Memorials and Myths, University of Toronto Press : Toronto Buffalo., p 84.

[5] Sawyer, P., 1997, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press : New York., p 155.

[6] Dawkins, ‘The later history of the Varangian Guard’, p39.

[7] Griffiths, P. 1995, The Viking Art of War, Greenhill Books : London, p 61.

[8] Page, Chronicles of the Vikings, p 103.

[9] Magnusson, Vikings!, p 297, Jones, G., 1907, A History of the Vikings, Richard Clay Ltd : Suffolk., p 266.

[10] Griffiths, The Viking Art of War, p 61. Ernie, I know this is perhaps a Cosmo reference, but almost every second author I read likes to get misty-eyed about the Normans, the English and the Vikings being one big happy axe-bearing family of European conquerors!

[11] Magnusson, Vikings!, p 296.

[12] Dawkins, ‘The later history of the Varangian, p 40.

[13] Jones, A History of the Vikings, p 266.

[14] Sawyer, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, p 135.