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Saturday, January 31, 2004
Night And Day
"I've been around a lot of places. People do awful things to each other. But it's worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark. It really is. Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light. That's all you can say, really." - Tom Stoppard, Night And Day Thursday, January 29, 2004
Some Things Which Keep Me Going Back to Berlin
(Apart From The Bleeding Obvious, Of Course) C&A They still have a C&A here. And, you know, for the basics, it's actually rather good. Over the years, I've bought from here everything from leathers to feathers, and even once some rather saucy underwear, and still had change from 30 Euros. I cut the label out as soon as I get them home, of course. I might be happy and secure in the knowledge that I'm a cheap queen, but I don't want the rest of the world to catch on. The Shops Shut On Sundays… And I mean every last one of them. As a Londoner, most of my shopping is done on a Sunday to avoid the Saturday mobs from Zone Four, as well as the temptation to trip up attendant braying infants. But this does mean that I get to miss out on one of life's choicest pleasures, putting the world to rights with a bunch of mates on long boozy Sundays spent in a tatty pub serving decent beer and even better food. I'm not staking any claims for the originality of this work ethic, but after six days of creation, this Stranger needs a bloody good rest. …But The Bars Never Do Not strictly true, but as good as. And when your favoured bar finally does chuck you out at seven a.m. with the rest of the trashed and the mashed, then you'll find that the one just two secluded doorways down the street is opening up, so step that way, your table's waiting. You don't even have to crawl up to the counter, as the barman will come and serve you at your table for no extra charge, should you suddenly discover that remaining vertical is not the best or most practical of ideas. Dogs No, not the sort you end up chatting to in that sleazy slut-hut, not even if he is wearing a collar and chain, but rather the canine kind. As a big dog-person myself, I can understand Berliners' love affair with their four-legged friends. Whether a Chihuahua or a Great Dane, they're allowed in everywhere, even restaurants and classy department stores, and are simply the best-behaved animals I've ever seen, far more sociable than their snooty and yappy Parisian counterparts. And they never seem to make any mess. I can't recall ever seeing a cat in Berlin, which means that the city must sensibly employ some sort of municipal Cat-Catcher, or those contented and well-fed canines know something we don't. Thermometer Highs And Lows Climbing well into the thirties in the summer, dropping below minus ten in the winter, and I once experienced a low of minus twenty-five. No namby-pamby "cloudy and overcast" out here on the Prussian plain, this is real Weather, my dears, and the trains still run on time even though the river's frozen over. As someone who's bored by autumn and thinks spring's kind of over-rated, this Stranger loves extremes. Of any kind. Well, er, almost. "Zusammen Oder Getrennt?" Quite possibly Germany's biggest contribution to world harmony, and more than making up for any itsy-bitsy involvement in the odd World War. The words mean "together or separately?", and are what your waiter will ask you on presentation of the restaurant bill. Choose to pay separately, and he will then inform you precisely what each member of your party has had to eat or drink. This thereby avoids all those acrimonious who-had-what argie-bargies, which should only ever be conducted within the confines of a student union pizzeria, and never, ever, in polite, grown-up company. Women There. That one surprised you, didn't it? From Hausfrau to high-class hooker, they're the indomitable face of the city, immaculately turned out, no matter their age or income, right down to the roots of their perfectly-coiffed and hennaed hair. It was the women who cleared up the rubble of their war-shattered city, and that backbone of steel is still there, although they'd never think of getting their hands dirty now. They're Teutonic Cruella de Vils who dress in real fox-furs because they can, and who don't give a damn what anyone thinks of them. Cross them at your peril, but play the ever so well-mannered Englishman and they melt like snow, and will sing your praises in that uniquely raspy voice of theirs. Actually, I rather think most of them are drag queens. But then, Berlin's that sort of place. Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Desperately Seeking Sally
Sally Bowles would still be able to find her way home without much trouble. Even today, seventy-odd years on, and after a World War which flattened much of central Berlin, the house where she lodged alongside gay English author Christopher Isherwood is still standing. There really was a Sally Bowles, the best-remembered character from Isherwood's Berlin Novels, and whose story is at the core of the very different theatrical and movie versions of Cabaret. Only she wasn't called Sally, of course, and her surname was probably nicked from American writer and friend Paul Bowles; and she certainly didn't look anything like Liza Minnelli. And Berlin, then as now, might have been decadent, but it could never, ever, be described as divinely so. Darling. Jean Ross, the real-life Sally, was born in the year the Great War broke out, and died as Vietnam was finally spluttering to a close. After the Nazis won power, she left Berlin and spent time as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, before settling back in England, and having a daughter, best-selling and pipe-smoking crime novelist, Sarah Caudwell. The father was Fleet Street legend, Claud Cockburn, famous for producing what was judged by The Times of the day to be the dullest headline imaginable: Small Earthquake In Chile. Not Many Dead.It was only after Jean's death that Isherwood revealed she was the inspiration for Sally: Ross hated being associated with her fictional counterpart, and tried to forget her as best she could. No chance. She and Isherwood are evoked constantly in the city's tourist literature, oom-pah-pah bands bash out "Cabaret" and "Wilkommen" for the tourists, and one of my favourite gay haunts bills itself as the "bar for Sally Bowles and her friends", even though most of its thirtysomething clientele are probably not even aware the girl herself used to live just one block away from them. The Nollendorfstrasse is pretty much the same as it was when Ross and Isherwood lived there in the early thirties. Rows of trees line the massive street, branches black and bare against the pearl-grey winter sky, just as they were when Isherwood arrived here in December 1930. On either side rise tall terraces of nineteenth-century buildings, some of them still lodging-houses and pensions as in Sally's day. Their wedding-cake stuccoed façades are occasionally interrupted by an empty space, or an ugly fifties-style house, built on World War Two bomb-sites. And even though there are more cars on the cobbled street now, and you are just ten minutes' walk from the city-centre, there's a very un-21st-century hush, which makes you think that you might just be back in the thirties, and they're showing that new Blue Angel thing down the moving-picture palace. The pretty peach-coloured façade of Number 17 is a little out of keeping with its other more genteelly-shabby neighbours. Peering through the window of the huge front-door, down the echoing and finely waxed and polished hallway and into the white-washed courtyard where Sally perhaps smoked one of her expensive cigarettes; or looking up at the windows on the fifth floor out of which Isherwood recorded the morally dodgy life down on the street, I was tempted to ring the bell of one of the top-floor flats and ask for a look. I didn’t, of course: these are private apartments, after all, but it would have been the ultimate tapping into the whole Cabaret/ Berlin ethos. Or maybe I'm just an old Romantic nellie at heart. There's a plaque on the wall commemorating Isherwood's stay in the house, by the way: it gets the dates wrong. Appropriately enough, we're also right in the centre of Berlin's biggest gay district, a place where rainbow flags flap from every other balcony, and almost every third establishment is queer-run, or, at the very least, gay-friendly. Surprisingly, there aren't any places of the type Isherwood and his mate W. H. Auden would have frequented on the particular street where he lived. But if you're interested, the rent-boy bars are just around the corner. And no, I won't give you a link. However, at one end of the street, there's a cellar-shop stocking all manner of pervy gear and over-sized accessories for your big butch Berlin leather queen. And, at the other end of the block, opposite a classy homo café, there's a store called "Boyz R Us". It's an overpriced and slightly naff clothes-shop, rather than a "house of boys", as they're known round these parts, but somehow I think Isherwood, for whom, notoriously, Berlin did indeed "mean boys", would approve and see the joke. Not too sure about Sally though. I shall have to ask her the next time I'm there. Thursday, January 22, 2004
Don't Tell Mama
Must dash, my dears. Sally Bowles, that foolish child, has just invited me back to her darling little place for a couple of nights on the town, and it would be ungentlemanly to refuse. I'll be sure to give your love to Christopher and Wystan while I'm there, and I'll be back on Wednesday with stories to tell. Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Hands That Do
Health and Safety turned up today to give me a work-station assessment. I was touched by their concern, until I realised they're only covering themselves should I get struck down with RSI and decide to sue. However, I'm pleased to report my posture is perfect (those nights spent down at Love Muscle balanced precariously on some Mary's shoulders not in vain then); and, hard as it is to believe, I sit at my desk with both feet planted firmly on the ground. The most favourable comments, however, were passed on my keyboard technique, and especially the lack of any rigidity or stiffness in my hands as my fingers fly fluently over the keys. You know, this is probably the very first time in my life that I have ever received official approval for being limp-wristed. Monday, January 19, 2004
A-Choo
For the first time in I can't remember how long, I had no chores and nothing planned for the weekend. No deadlines to meet, no domestic admin to catch up on. My flat was so spotless my mother would approve, and even last November's ironing was all done. Each outstanding task on my "to do" clipboard was neatly ticked off, and I felt ever so pleased with myself. Two whole days to myself, forty-eight hours packed full of impromptu promise and spur-of-the-moment opportunity, and the suggestion that said impromptu promise might just speak with a French accent as well. So of course, this was the perfect weekend to get hot and sweaty in places I really don't like being hot and sweaty. My temperature has been pushing triple figures, and, when I haven't been lying down with a bag of ice-cubes on my head, I've been unglamorously crawling on wobbling limbs from bed to bathroom and back again, resembling nothing more than something from an early Quatermass. I have Lemsipped myself into a stupor, eaten more fruit than is properly good for me, and the only French Promise I've had is the wording on a pack of garlic capsules. There. That'll teach me to be such an insufferably smug git. Thursday, January 15, 2004
Darkness Visible 2
I love the National on London's South Bank. I reckon it’s my favourite theatre. OK, the concrete complex is so naff and seventies-ugly on the outside you're not surprised Doctor Who was once filmed here, on the grounds it looked like a prison camp of the future, but inside there's a whole different show going on. There are crush-bars which are anything but, a couple of decently-priced caffs, free live jazz in the light and airy foyer, the second-best theatre bookshop in the country; and, oh yes, some of the most cracking stage productions you'll catch anywhere (as well as the odd turkey periodically vanishing up its own arts). If I have one problem, it’s the braying brats who canter up here on school trips, or with Mummy and Daddy for their annual theatrical treat. I have a theory about this. Because the National Theatre is subsidised, and shoves on "serious" drama, it’s looked upon as vaguely "edju-kayshun-al". And that's why liberal, middle-class parents take Jemma and Justin here, rather than up to the nasty West End, which is where they really want to go, and where Jem would be on crack, and Justin on the game, before the end of Act One. Don't misunderstand me: I have nothing against children. Apparently I was one myself once. But those Victorians had it right: children should be seen and not heard. No, let me go even further than that. Children should be seen only up chimneys and down coal-mines. You could see and hear kiddies a-plenty in the National foyer last night for the second half of His Dark Materials, the dramatisation they said could never be made of the cult kid-adult crossover and the nation's third best-loved book. Heaven knows what it would be like if they ever get around to dramatising anything by That Woman, but the Uzi's already been ordered, and my place on Waterloo Bridge staked out. The kiddies soon shut up as the lights went down however. I've always thought the Dark Materials a bit po-faced and over-rated, achieving in three books what could have been accomplished in two, but the National production had me – and the kiddies – hooked from the opening scenes in the Oxford Botanical Gardens. Essentially, what we have on stage is the books with all the crappy bits taken out, and an injection of some sorely-needed humour. It kicks off with teenagers Will and Lyra travelling in search of their respective lost fathers through umpteen-and-one parallel universes. It ends as a literally cosmic struggle to defeat a corrupt Church, and topple a gone-gaga God from his throne, oust him from his kingdom, and, in its place, establish a Republic of Heaven. For someone who was taught by Jesuits, and who always thought Satan got the bum deal in Paradise Lost, that idea has obvious appeal for me. It's no wonder the Association of Christian Teachers has declared holy war against the books and plays, complaining, among other things, about their touching depiction of two gay angels in a long-standing and monogamous relationship. Meaty metaphysics and Christian cant aside, Materials is, at its simplest, a rip-roaring, dark and epic, adventure story set in richly-imagined and fantastically-realised alternative worlds, where heart-broken witches fly alongside Zeppelins, Texan balloonists go to the aid of armoured, talking polar bears, and Timothy Dalton comes over all Indiana Jones as he attempts to storm the bulwarks of Heaven. Central to the plot is the idea that we all have our own personal daemon, hanging around us at all times. These daemons, or souls, take the form of animals – a cat, a golden monkey, a venomous snake or reptile if you're working for Mother Church – and they're superbly realised as delicately-fashioned paper puppets, hovering around the actors, and manipulated by operators clad in black to the point of invisibility. But above all else, what's already made Materials for me the Theatrical Event of 2004 (and yeah, yeah, I know it's only January and we've got The Producers to come in November) is its staging (twenty-plus different sets – and then I stopped counting). Making full use of the Olivier's drum-revolve stage, the only one of its kind in the world, the stage is one minute the cluttered study of some fusty Oxford don, and the next a mad-scientist laboratory from a 1930s Frankenstein movie; an idyllic woodland setting becomes a storm-wracked plain of stones; and a Mediterranean seaside town is transformed effortlessly into a mist-shrouded Land of the Dead, guarded by vengeful Harpies. This must be the only production I've ever seen in my life when the final bows were given not to the cast, not even to the stars, but quite deservedly to the entire backstage crew. His Dark Materials is one of the most invigorating and gob-smacking theatrical events I've ever been to in my life (and I've been to a few, my dears), something which is going to be talked about in years to come. Most of the run is sold out, and its technical complexity means it's doubtful it'll ever transfer to the West End, but there are already rumours that the National might be bringing it back, if not this Chr***mas, then the next. If they do, grab the tickets the minute they come on sale. And tell them a Stranger sent you. Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Darkness Visible 1
Last night I saw the first in the National Theatre's two-part dramatisation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels. So today I should be offering a carefully-considered critical analysis of the performance, commenting on its fidelity to the original, as well as discussing the quality of the acting, dissecting the production values, and revealing what I really think about James Bond being in it. However, all that will have to wait, as I'm far too busy racing through the third book in the trilogy, before I get to see the final part at seven o'clock tonight. In the meantime, I think "wow" will just have to do. Monday, January 12, 2004
Friends In Low Places
Over the weekend I had to act as referee for a friend who's applying for British naturalisation. It was just the usual stuff, stating he was of good character and gainfully employed, and had never harboured any mucky thoughts about the Queen's corgis. To be honest, I was surprised and quite chuffed when he asked me. After all, there are so many others, some mutual friends, who have known him much longer than I have. I was slightly less chuffed when I discovered I was being asked solely because I was about the only one in this particular shared circle who didn't possess a criminal record. Sometimes I think I should be a little more selective over my choice of friends. Friday, January 09, 2004
And On The Conveyor Belt Tonight
The past couple of days have been spent clearing out my desk and immediate office space. Lest you think Mama Boss has finally twigged, seen me for the cynical, scheming what's-in-it-for-me sort of person I really am, and quite sensibly shown me the door, let me reassure you that this ludicrously early spring-clean is just the preparation for a major office move over the weekend. Apart from the usual spare keys, scribbled Post-Its, and mangled paperclips, I have so far discovered in my office drawers: a jar of jellybeans (I hate jellybeans); the terrestrial TV listings for June 1995, stapled to which is a November 1979 flyer from a punk-rock club; a personalised horoscope slating me as "cold and reserved", and another calling me "passionate and hopelessly romantic"; ten quid in tuppenny pieces; a workaday tape recorder, unused and still in its bubblewrap; my family tree, and, appropriately enough, an analysis of cult classic Freaks; the BBC Annual Report, as well as its country profile of Iceland (no, I don't know either); one topless photograph of Tim Vincent, two of Lily Savage (although thankfully fully-clothed), and a black-and-white negative of Diana Rigg; an unfinished novel, and a hardback, unread because it's all in Greek; and finally an old Tupperware lunch box from a couple of years back, with, er, something still in it. For me to have stored these particular items in my desk drawer, when other similarly useless things such as memorandums and reports get chucked straight in the bin, means they must share something linking them all together. Do you know what it is? Because I'm buggered if I do. I'm moving into the new offices next week. After three years of working in a gloomy and windowless basement, I shall now have a room on the first-floor, with access to daylight and the Outside World. If I crumble to dust on Monday morning, then I shan't be in the least bit surprised. Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Calendar Boy
I've given up on New Year's Resolutions this year. Usually by the time the blood's been mopped up on Albert Square, I've broken most of them anyway. This doesn't mean, however, that I've signed on to sail serenely through 2004, rudderless and lacking ambition, taking each day as it comes, and ignorant of any glittering new horizons of opportunity. For, instead of the Resolutions, this year I seem to have gone just a tiny bit overboard on the Calendar front. You'd think two Outlook accounts, one at work and one at home, would be enough for a control freak like me to record all my appointments and reminders, deadlines and goals for the coming year. Of course they're not. That's why most stuff is also backed up in the scheduler of my mobile phone, just in case the server at work breaks down irretrievably, and I simultaneously wipe my entire hard drive. This year, I've also gone fashionably retro, darlings, and bought diary and address sheets for the black, ridged-rubber Filofax I last used sometime back in the early nineties. On the hallway table stands an absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder desk calendar of Berlin, on which I've circled in red the dates I'm flying back this year, as well as all the other important dates for 2004: you know, those really important events I might miss if I hadn't already entered them in the Filo. And the mobile. Oh, and, of course, those two Outlook accounts. Not forgetting the Post-Its on the PC. On the wall by the bookshelf hangs this year's classy French World Cup Calendar. Surprisingly, no dates or deadlines are marked up on this calendar, as it was bought purely to convey the sporty side of my nature, as well as my love of this noble and ever-so-butch game of rugby. The fact that the black-and-white photographs of the team are as outrageously homoerotic as only self-confident and heterosexual Frenchmen can ever be has absolutely nothing to do with it. At all. In the kitchen there's the Sainsbury's calendar which I get every year, mainly because it's free. Every thirty days, I am presented with Delia's new Recipe of the Month, complete with thoughtful suggestions as to the best wine to accompany my family's meal. This month's delicacy is duck cooked in a tasty mango and ginger sauce, which I'll probably get around to trying just as soon as I've figured out how to boil an egg, and successfully divide by four. In the meantime, I'll concentrate on the wine tips. My final planner for 2004 is a magnetised-poetry calendar, onto which you're supposed to place random blocks of individual words until you come up with a halfway-meaningful phrase or sentence. Apparently it's designed to allow your creative juices free flow, but the only "poetry" I've managed to come up with so far runs: Beneath dancing skies I lie, hard between animal and shadow. While this might be the final and definitive statement on the human condition for some, it means sod-all to me. Each month is accompanied with its own cheesy set task, presumably to give you inspiration for your own creative-writing endeavours. At the birth of this New Year, I am encouraged to take a look at how my personal "garden" is growing, and set aside some time to decide which metaphorical seeds I have to sow in the coming year. Set aside some time? Er, sorry, but did you make an appointment for that? You see, I can't find any mention of it on my calendar. Not on any of them. Saturday, January 03, 2004
Small World
Yesterday, after successfully refraining from out-Heroding Herod in the infanticide stakes at the HMV sales on Oxford Street, I bumped into an ex on Old Compton Street, someone I hadn't seen for about fifteen years. No surprise there: sooner or later, everyone you've ever slept with comes back to remind you just how desperate you really were in your gagging-for-it twenties. Then I idly rang up an old friend to gossip on said encounter, thinking she'd be at home, but discovering she was buying bread and croissants au chocolat at the classy French patisserie just around the corner. So we met up for a drink in a wine bar I last frequented ten years ago. We were given a complimentary bottle of red by the new management, when it was suddenly realised that one of my best mates is a good friend of theirs. To soak up our middle-of-the-afternoon Merlot, we then went on to a restaurant where we happened to discover that our waitress was shagging the very same French boy whose back I was massaging down the gay club on New Year's Day (don't ask). We got another free bottle of wine. On my slightly worse-for-wear meander home, I waved hello on the street to someone I think I once used to work with, and would have met the ex again, if I hadn't crossed the road and gone the other way. I live in a city of over seven million people. Sometimes it feels just like a small town. |
