Hello, Goodbye

          We have often fantasised about living in some of the places we been to during our travels and now, fantasy is about to become reality. In a few weeks’ time we’ll be moving to Plymouth, a city that I know from adolescence. It’s smaller than Manchester and it’s a seaport, so it has quite a different feel, but that is the point – to experience living somewhere different – while we are still able. We’d had it in mind to migrate there a couple of years hence, but covid has catalysed events, challenging assumptions about likely future outcomes and putting pressure on timelines. Much is about to change in the way many of us live, our cities, our infrastructure and our freedom of movement so, with all that in the offing, now seems like the time to stop dreaming and make an actual move.

          Preparations for moving home include taking stock of possessions that need to be transported. We don’t have much, having downsized just six years ago, yet a reappraisal swiftly identified at least one item that need not follow us around any longer: my collection of CDs. The fact is, since I copied them all on to a hard drive around ten years ago, I haven’t laid a hand on a single one of them. Not that I have gone off listening to music – far from it – but CDs are just as redundant in the life I now lead as shellac discs and disposable gramophone needles were at the time I first bought a record, which (for the record) was in 1959. Even so, the tedious process of digitising the CDs was, in the end, pointless, since, for a modest monthly subscription, all that music is now available to stream online.

          And there is more: internet-enabled TV brings musical treasures galore straight to your favourite armchair. Last night, for example, I caught up on a bio of Count Basie that gave an insight into the man, as well as the music. Which reminds me: unlikely though it may seem, I do not expect my membership of the Heatons Jazz Appreciation Society to be revoked on the grounds of geographical disqualification. These past few months have seen its activities confined to Zoom anyway and, since the members mostly fall into the upper age-range ‘at risk’ category, the likelihood of physical meetings in the foreseeable future is small. I am confident that it will adapt to the times, as with its latest project, a plagiarised form of Desert Island Discs, which reflects the ‘marooned’ feeling we all have and seeks to bring us all together over the ether.  

          Not all decisions regarding possessions are straightforwardly dependent on logic, as anyone sorting through their cupboards will tell you. What do you do about the sentimental stuff – the love letters, the photos, the books inscribed with birthday wishes? The obvious answer, supposing one has the space, is that there is no need to dispose of them: take them along and let someone else do it for you when your time is up. Nevertheless, to put a perspective on this conclusion, the world is full of refugees and victims of destruction who have been left with nothing but memories, so I consider it a privilege even to have a choice in the matter. I will be taking my personal mementoes with me for as long as I can.

          Which just leaves one outstanding matter and the only one of real consequence: the friends we will leave behind. After so long in one place it is certainly not a matter of “easy come, easy go” (though in a few cases this is true) it is a case of wrenching oneself away. It didn’t feel like that when I left London, but I was younger then and the sense of adventure for what lay ahead easily overwhelmed any hankering to stay. Perhaps the secret to the success of this move is to try to emulate that optimism of youth and not dwell too much on the past.

Opening Shots

           While I was loitering in St. Peter’s Square trying to make up my mind where to go for coffee, a small blue tent slid slowly into view. Propelled by the wind, it progressed gracefully across the paving. I got a hand to it before it drifted onto the tram rails. It was empty but I guessed it belonged to a homeless person, so I put it under the arcade, whence it most likely came. There are fewer tents on the streets since the pandemic forced the authorities to do the decent thing and take more care of the homeless, but they haven’t all disappeared. I thought, at the time, that the scene would make a good opener for a film, since there was a sort of mystery about it. What had become of the owner/occupier? Perhaps they had found permanent accommodation – or moved into a friend’s tent for companionship.

          I was mulling over several possible plotlines, when a large pigeon startled me by landing in a flurry on a low wall nearby. I noticed that it had only one leg yet, by somehow twisting it into a central position beneath its breast, it was able to stand erect without the aid of a crutch. Perhaps it had been born that way. I could see no sign of injury or mutilation, no residual stump. The pigeon had adapted well to its handicap and I felt some admiration for it, unlike its two-legged fellow, an avian  brute, who arrived soon after and chased it away as though it were a nuisance. Mmm, I thought, an allegory on lack of empathy. Another good opening shot, perhaps.

          I suppose film was on my mind because the previous evening I had watched Witness for the Prosecution, a 1957 production by Billy Wilder starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. The plot is intriguing – as you would expect of its author, Agatha Christie – and the production, allowing for its era, is top-notch. From my contemporary liberal point of view, however, the experience was marred by the reduction of the supporting cast to gross caricatures. This may have been done for comic effect but, nevertheless, it left a bad taste, based as it was on the kind of class-biased assumptions of superiority that have long since been discredited. The saving grace of the film (production quality excepted) is that the story itself – a tragedy of unrequited love – is all too human, credible and moving.

          I have not been to a cinema since lockdown: too risky to be enjoyable. Instead, I have spent more time at home, streaming, reading and browsing the internet, the last of which is not without its own dangers. Not that I have been infected by a computer virus, but I have unwittingly attracted the attention of a blogger known as Peking Duck, whose mission is to spread propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party, of which I am not a fan. In the interest of open mindedness however, I have read some of Peking Duck’s content and have to agree that the CCP has achieved a remarkable feat in dragging China out of poverty and propelling it to the forefront of technological innovation. I also agree that ‘western democracy’ is not the perfect system of governance that some claim it to be, especially now that I see it crumbling under pressure from demagogues and corrupting lobbyists. But my real objection to the CCP is its anointment of Emperor Xi Jinping and the consequent snuffing out of all political dissent. I am, after all, a liberal and I said so in a comment to Peking Duck one evening after a few glasses of Bordeaux, which may not have been prudent, since I imagine now that I will soon be kidnapped, taken to China, charged, convicted and imprisoned under the new National Security laws. Now, that has the makings of a good film plot.

 

Who Do You Think You Are?

           On returning from several weeks away in the campervan, I unpacked my bag and, small as it is, found that it still contained items of clothing I had not worn and need not have taken. Despite my best efforts to pack only the necessities, I had over-provided. To be fair it was prudent, given the time of year, to take both summer and autumn clothing. But I really did not need that smart-casual outfit for the one dinner we had in a posh restaurant: the hospitality trade is currently so stressed that dress codes have been relaxed, face masks now being the only requisite. No, the fact is that I have not quite mastered minimal packing, certainly not in the same way as my friends who gad about in their (very small) helicopter and must adhere strictly to weight limits. One superfluous pair of pants and they could crash and burn.

          Perhaps the problem starts at home, where too many clothes are stashed for no good reason. Now that the routine of being back has kicked in and I have resumed my daily visits to the gym for a workout (if thirty minutes on a cross-trainer can be called such). I found that all the staff were pleased to see me – or anyone at all, really – and I could have my pick of personal trainers right now, despite my embarrassingly low-grade kit, which comprises an XR-emblazoned t-shirt, M&S lounge trousers and Primark loafers. The sports section of my wardrobe, at least, is admirably Spartan, which supports the theory that one’s choice of clothing is determined by lifestyle – although there are qualifications. First, there is the tendency to be aspirational about lifestyles that never actually materialise, a behavioural quirk that is the foundation of the fashion industry and which is responsible for many a wardrobe stuffed with garments that never get an outing. Garish shirts come to mind. Then there is the temptation of ‘the sales’ and the stuff we buy just because of the apparently bargain prices. I still have an overcoat that is too big for me, though I always pretend it is not. Then there is the tendency to cling on to outfits from defunct lifestyles, whether out of refusal to accept their redundancy, nostalgia for the past, lax housekeeping or plain, old-fashioned reluctance to discard ‘perfectly good clothes’. Whatever the reason, there must surely come a point when any reasonable person will acknowledge that an overstocked wardrobe is one of the things in life that can absolutely be categorised as unnecessary. This is especially true of the most problematic section of the wardrobe, the one devoted to the host of public outings that are not formal but do require a degree of effort at looking presentable. This is where the maximum clutter tends to accumulate, with more casual shirts, jumpers, jackets, trousers and shoes than can feasibly be worn in a lifetime

          Whilst most of these clothes may be discarded on a whim, it is harder to do so with the more formal gear, especially as I have a tendency to want to dress ‘appropriately’ – subjective though the definition is. I keep, therefore, several outfits in case of invitations to weddings, funerals, bar mitsvahs, formal dinners etc. The fact that these outfits are beginning to look passé is of less concern to an ageing gent such as me than it might be to someone more fashion-conscious. I like to think that the more outmoded I appear, the more sympathy I might get from other guests, perhaps being offered a comfortable chair or a refill of my sherry glass. And one lives in hope that an invitation will arrive to a proper garden party, in which case one has just the perfect outfit to hand – albeit twenty years out of date. The thing is, I have an image in my head of a dashing young version of myself in flannels and linen, which is as hard to discard as are the actual togs.

 

Back in Town

           I have lately been waxing lyrical about the west coast of Wales, where we recently enjoyed hiking and biking during a spell of summery weather, and the west coast of Scotland, a more remote region, where the weather was ‘variable’. (On one occasion the wind was so fierce that I got up at 03.00 to secure outdoor furniture that threatened to cause serious damage to the campervan. Only then was I able to sleep.) But weather is all part of the exhilarating experience of outdoor life beyond the city and, so long as you are properly equipped for its vagaries, no hindrance to full immersion in what the great outdoors has to offer –  rejuvenation of mind and body and, these days, refuge from the covid virus.

          However, what both coasts have in common – apart from an abundance of natural attractions – is a dearth of coffee shops. Of course, no entrepreneur worth their salt would sink capital into an enterprise in a place where footfall is insufficient to cover costs, let alone earn a profit, but there are outlets – cafés and such – where coffee, of a sort, can be had. Many of them sport serious-looking, fancy Italian equipment, which promises satisfaction their operatives are unable to deliver, because they lack either the expertise or the best beans – or both. So, one adapts by setting one’s expectations low. On one occasion, I resorted to a Costa takeaway from a Spar shop, reasoning that the well-known national brand would at least guarantee consistency of quality. It didn’t. Perhaps the shopkeeper used lower quality beans than the ones stipulated in the franchise.

          You might think that I bang on about coffee too much but, like any beverage, there is a quality curve and, if you develop a taste for it, you will seek out the best – budget permitting. More importantly coffee, like tea and alcohol, is not merely a drink – it has a social function, the legendary suburban ‘coffee morning’ being but one example. In fact, whole empires have been built upon get-togethers over coffee: consider the famed coffee shops of 17^th century London, where merchants, bankers, shippers and insurers met informally and built trading alliances that resulted in the biggest concentration of wealth the world had ever seen. More recently, this same phenomenon occurred in California’s Silicon Valley, where tech geeks met financiers and creatives, resulting in the spawning of the monster digital companies that now dominate our lives. Unfortunately, the success of these companies is such that their well-paid employees have ruined the local property markets, forcing prices up and tenants out, some of those tenants being the very coffee shops where they used to meet to swap ideas and make those serendipitous connections that can so change the course of world events. I hear that one such establishment, Red Rock Coffee, where the founders of WhatsApp used to hang out before they sold to Facebook for $19bn, tried to stay afloat by crowdfunding a mere $300,000 but failed to reach the target.

          Still, who needs coffee shops when you’ve got Zoom? Well, would Zoom have been stillborn but for the existence of Red Rock and the like? The same argument applies to cities in general: that they are hubs within which valuable connections are made between closely mingling populations of creative people, the result being economic and cultural outputs that sustain society. The persistence of the covid pandemic has seen something of a flight from cities, unfortunately, with commuters preferring to work from home and residents looking to sell up and move to the country, but I am not tempted to follow suit, myself. I put my hope in an urban recovery of sorts. It feels good to be back in town, in my favourite coffee shop, with a flat white made by a seriously bearded barista.  

Beware the Bewitching Sunset

           For almost a week now, we have been lodged at a beachfront campsite with a front row view of the sunset over the islands of Muck, Rum and Eigg. Comically named they may be (at least, to the English ear) but they look sublime when the light plays about them. Naturally, we are not alone: places such as this are prized by campervanners, motorhomers and caravanners from all over, thousands of whom are on the coast, even after the holiday season has ended, in search of peace, tranquillity, somewhere to run their dogs and the great, covid-free outdoors. Yet this landscape does feel wild and remote, despite the presence of others. It’s as if the lack of an urban landscape automatically reconnects us all with nature’s force.

          In the last three weeks we have ventured just once into the dangerous confines of a restaurant and that was to dine with friends staying nearby at the quaintly named hamlet of Back of Keppoch. But, with our adjacent tables being two metres apart, sustained intimacy was difficult to achieve and I am inclined to question the very future of restaurants. It is said that many will become unviable and have to close down. If so, we may see a partial return to the time when dining out was occasional or celebratory, which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the proliferation over the years of so many pizza and burger outlets that have added little to the excellence of dining and much to the rise of unhealthy eating – and at pretty fancy prices, too. I say this having dined cheaply but regally last night, in the campervan, on locally caught scallops and bream, which I washed down with a couple of glasses of chilled Chablis.

          As a resolute city-dweller, used to having everything on the doorstep, it may seem surprising that I have no gripes about the nearest shop being a forty-minute walk away in Arisaig but, if it were not so, the illusion of remoteness that makes this place special would be shattered. The older buildings of Arisaig sit on the shore of yet another of the perfect little sandy bays that are the hallmark of this coast, while the newer houses are arranged on the steep hill behind. Boats take tourists out to spot wildlife and ferries ply to and from the small islands – although this service has been suspended since the pandemic took hold. Islanders are, sensibly, guarding their isolation. The self-described “community” has provided a toilet block for visitors, in which there is a tin box and a polite notice asking for contributions toward its upkeep. And the sense of a community is evident in the prominence given to honouring its dead. As well as the prettily positioned hillside churchyard, there are two prominent war memorials. One is a stone Celtic cross high above the village, its pedestal inscribed with the names of local men who fought and died in wars from 1914. The other is a modern sculpture in polished granite that sits just above the tideline, across the road from the Spar shop. At first glance, the inscription appears to be in both English and Gaelic but, in fact, the second language is Czech and the memorial is for the fighters of the Czechoslovak Independent Brigade who trained here for special operations behind Nazi lines in Europe.

          This place is charming but, in its way, dangerous because it lulls you into thinking that all is well with the UK and its quaint, quirky history. Sure enough I awoke this morning to the news of the reported loss of 25% of our plant species, the Government’s feeble stance on environmental protection, the familiar catalogue of its incompetent handling of the pandemic and its self-serving fiddling-while-we-burn policies that seem intent on the destruction of what is left of our social fabric. In the face of all this, I must accept that the sunset over the Western Isles is but a temporary balm for my spirits.