Trendy But Casual

Make It Mine*

Oh yes. The Scudder Road Circus has been back in Italy for a sunny, wintry break. What were we doing there? Maybe it was a bit of a buying trip:

I can't say anything more than that. These days I have internet stalkers, apparently, who monitor this blog to track my movements and - perhaps - assemble a case (or two) against me. Why? I guess when you have a circus, a lot of people want in. My advice: start your own circus.

For Tikileaks operatives, here is some potentially useful evidence of my ongoing commitment to eating and drinking while in a foreign land:

 

 

The two restaurants pictured are both in Montepulciano - the splendid Caffe Poliziano, and Acquacheta - with its handwritten "completa" sign hanging in the window. After four tries, we managed to squeeze in to an early seating there. It was absolutely worth the wait.The very first picture was taken at Panella in Rome, where we ate outside, coats off, in the sunshine, while the soft Romans around us huddled under blankets and gas heaters. They wouldn't last two minutes in Glasgow, though their commitment to smoking at all times while outdoors would be admired.

By the way, we called into a motorway Autostop on our way down to Rome, and I saw a giant jar of Nutella for sale. 'Who would ever buy such a thing?' I wondered. Now we know: vendors of giant donuts and toffee apples in Piazza Navona. This is why it's important to travel to foreign places. It broadens the mind.

Other things I learned in Italy:

1. If you're not wearing a quilted jacket/coat and long leather boots, Italians will look at you a little strangely, as though you are a sad case, or probably a gypsy.

2. There is no limit to the number of bookmarks I will buy if they reproduce a bit of fresco.

3. When there is no way of lighting the stove in your rented apartment to boil water for tea, then drinking wine instead is the only solution.

4. We really need to get a family crest. (We can only agree on two panels so far - a circus tent and a snake.)

5. During carnival time in Italy, even the cats dress as harlequins.

That's enough Italy. I have other news to report, like a German-language rights sale for RANGATIRA (to the very nice people at Walde+Graf), but that can wait for another post and a web site update. First: a book to finish work on by the end of this month ...

* The title of this post is a reference, of course, to THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN. If you are unfamiliar with this song, or (even worse) the movie, please remedy your cultural ignorance right away.

The Scudder Road Circus goes to Edinburgh

Don't get excited: the Scudder Road Circus & Literary Journal isn't performing at the Edinburgh Festival this year. Transporting all the animals and printing presses on the train from Glasgow would be complicated, and Edinburgh is very crowded in August, with little room for us to unfold the Big Top. It's hard enough for TMiddy and me to wrangle ourselves, anyway, especially with the weather this changeable. But a visit to the Fringe Festival seemed like an essential office outing, so off we ventured yesterday morning to the Far East.

It's less than an hour on the train to Edinburgh, but over there it's a different world, really. The train station is crammed with tourists. The streets are lined with cashmere-and-kilt shops. The bagpipe buskers play 'Scotland the Brave', not 'We Will Rock You' as they do in Glasgow. "Now I feel like we're in Scotland," TM observes. He foolishly draws my attention to a commemmorative Princess Diana tartan, and then manhandles me down the street before I have time to distract myself with royalist tat. We don't have time for Scotland right now: we need to collect our booked tickets - for five shows - and find the first venue. As it takes us fifteen minutes just to find the right way out of Waverley Station, we're already running late. (I've slipped into present tense, I know. It makes the whole day seem more dramatic.)

Picking up the tickets at the Fringe Festival Office is also complicated, because much of the Royal Mile is thronged with desperate people brandishing flyers, trying to drum up audiences for their shows. This is necessary, because there are too many shows. Evidence:

Many of these show-hawkers are in costume and/or aged 18. If they're not shoving flyers at you or shouting FREE SHOW! or TWO-FOR-ONE! or FOUR STARS!, they're dancing around on makeshift stages, waiting to dance around on makeshift stages, attempting to out-bill-sticker everyone else, or handing out paper masks (that may or may not be ironic) to a dubious TMiddy.

We pick up our tickets (tip: book online in advance, so you don't have to stand in the endless queue) and try to make sense of the venue map. It's hard to do this when you're being accosted by people wanting to know if you would like to see a great/free/four-star show that day, or if you would like to buy a copy of the Scotsman and get a free I Heart Edinburgh bag.

We only have four different locations to deal with today for the five shows, so it's not as bad as it could be. The tightest change-over time is 15 minutes. I've picked our shows based on various strict criteria. Anything we see today must be: a) recommended by my friend Deborah Keyser, who comes here every year for ten days, seeing six shows a day, so she can book acts for theatres and arts centres in Wales; OR b) randomly selected because it sounds sort of interesting.

 

Ever since I spent an evening at the Osmond Family Theater in Branson, Missouri (in 1998, while travelling to every place Laura Ingalls Wilder ever lived), I have appreciated the power and time-saving efficiency of the medley. So the first show of the day is a medley, of sorts - Mervyn Stutter's Pick of the Fringe. This show runs every day for ninety minutes, and seven or eight acts get a chance to do a few songs/dances/jokes and promote their own gig. Every day the show is different. As we're not British, we haven't heard of Mervyn Stutter, but apparently he is the Comedy Voice of the Baby Boom Generation. He wears a pink suit with a yellow trim. ('Sounds awful,' as my mother would say.) This get-up reminds me of a black pencil skirt festooned with pink, turquoise and yellow polka dots, owned and loved by me c 1980/81. I wore it (with a black leotard) to see Cheap Trick at the Auckland Town Hall.

(I can't say any of this to TMiddy, because he grows enraged at the fashion/musical taste of my formative years. In 1981 while I was skulking around West Auckland trying to look New Wave, he was living in New York, allegedly dancing with Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, dropping by Elaine's for cocktails with Woody Allen, and listening to Beethoven and the Clash.)

Mervyn Stutter, who been doing this show for 20 years, hands out 'I Saw Merv in 92' to anyone claiming to have been there back in the day. He tells us that he and his team of researchers have seen loads of shows and carefully selected acts "so you don't pay tenners for turkeys." He also tells us that today is the first time ever, in 20 years, that he's sold out this venue. (We're in Beyond in the Pleasance Courtyard, which I think seats around 400 people.) Courtesy of Mervyn, we see some numbers from the musical APPLY WITHIN ("the first time I've ever heard the word 'fart' in a musical!" snorts Merv); comedian Mark Olver selling his show OLVER: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, which promises, he says, "actual violence"; an amazing and sinister dance excerpt from PINOCCHIO: A FANTASY OF PLEASURES by Company XIV from New York; the first seven minutes of the play SOLD - seven minutes which run through the entire history of slavery; some amiable nonsense from the FITZROVIA RADIO HOUR; comedian Steve Hall with tales of man-hair from his show VERY STILL LIFE; and a crowd-pleasing, wide-smiling a capella group from South Africa, SOWETO ENTSHA.

On the way out of the theatre, all the performers are waiting, in a reception line from which there is no escape, to smile in sweaty exhaustion and hand us flyers. (This is especially impressive in the case of the APPLY WITHIN cast: they left Mervyn's stage to perform their entire show at another venue, racing back just in time for the flyer-shove.)

The other shows we see are TOM BELL BEGINS at the Tron; CHRISTMAS FOR TWO: FRIENDS WITH YOU at the Caves; NEW ART CLUB: QUIET ACT OF DESTRUCTION at the Bosco Theater @ Assembly George Square; and MATT GREEN: TOO MUCH INFORMATION back at Pleasance.

Matt Green is funny, and gets a good reception from the audience (a full-house, albeit a small venue). He is probably the most slick and conventional of the comedians we see. Christmas for Two is a double-act, Sarah Campbell and Amy Hoggart, and there isn't a whole lot of atmosphere at their show - not really their fault. Sketch comedy in the afternoon, in front of an audience of 20 or so ... No wonder the performers are clapping themselves at the end of each sketch, just to give us all the idea. The sketches are well-acted, I think, but not funny enough, and not as weird as advertised.

More rollicking fun is to be had at New Art Club's show at the Bosco Theatre. This is a Deborah Keyser recommendation, and an excellent one. There's shouting, dancing, a tug of war. Even TMiddy joins in the spirit of audience participation. It's easy when audience participation = a massive bread-throwing fight,us making animal noises (mainly owls and stags), and someone made to dress up as a wizard/badger. There's also a re-enactment of one of my favourite Morecombe and Wise sketches. We've already booked tickets for TM to go again later in the month when his brother visits from the US.

All comedy's an acquired taste, of course. Two people march out of New Art Club after ten minutes, looking grim-faced with disapproval. As we're leaving at the end, I overhear two sulky youths with Arctic Monkey haircuts.

Monkey 1: So, did you like it?

Monkey 2: No, not really.

They exchange pained looks. Maybe we Scudder Road Circus-ites enjoy the show because the Bosco Theater makes us nostalgic for a big-top tent of our own.

Nobody walks out of Tom Bell's show, but some of the c. 15 people there look very unhappy. I glance over a few times at a stony-faced older couple, for whom the act apparently is torture. On the way out, another couple apologises to the man they brought along. 'So sorry!' they groan, as though we've all just endured a nightmare.

I, however, spend much of the show crying with laughter. Tom Bell is hilarious. He looks like the weird nephew of Keats and Rick from The Young Ones. Although before the show, while arranging the chairs, he tells us "this is a friendly show," there's an anxious edge to it, the feeling that it might all implode and have to be abandoned at any minute. His humour is very, very silly, which is the highest possible accolade from the Scudder Road Circus. Highlights: kitten falling asleep on bookcase; Kegworth; other fish in the sea; cat with ruff; deodorant. (The story that involves the cat with the ruff is over-elaborate and stupid, but very funny.)

The show is a bit of a mess: there's a lot stuffed into an hour, including a couple of sort-of songs, and it isn't clear if the Neptune wardrobe malfunction is planned or not. (Tom's laptop running out of power is clearly not planned, but much funnier.) But weird, silly, edgy, surreal messiness is exactly what we're hoping to see at the Fringe. The show is at 3:40 PM every day at bar downstairs at the Tron - entrance on Blair Street. Don't get confused as we did and wander around upstairs, clutching your tickets and looking pathetic.

Tom Bell's show is also highly educational. I am now a convert to the delights of LOVE IT! magazine. Today I handed over 68 pence at W.H. Smith on Sauchiehall Street, and brought my own copy home. At the moment, when not out and about on important Scudder Road Circus business, I am working on the sequel to RUINED (referred to by TMiddy as either EVEN MORE RUINED or RUINED 2: RETURN TO NEW ORLEANS. It is called neither of those things.) But occasionally I need a break from artistic endeavour. Evidence:

And yes, that is a coyote on top of the record player.

Meanwhile, I'm sad to say, London is burning. Spending a day at the Edinburgh Festival, or escaping into the dreamworld of LOVE IT, it's easy to forget about the bad things happening down there and in other English cities. When we got back from Edinburgh last night, and caught a taxi home, the streets of Glasgow seemed eerily quiet compared with the violence going on elsewhere. I hope all our friends in London are safe from harm. We live in strange times.

 

 

Roman Holiday?

I'm always surprised to learn that anyone other than a friend, family member or fan visits this blog. (Those fans, by the way, often belong to Frank Cottrell Boyce, who rashly consented to an interview with me last year.) Occasionally someone else stumbles in and wanders around, agog - someone who's Googled SISTER'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY or DEVONPORT FERRY. For unknown reasons, these pictures of bag tags are very popular as well.

Sometimes students drop by to gather information for a school project. Other writers tell me they're regular readers, mainly to follow the exploits of TMiddy. All sorts of people pop up as readers - old school friends, current and former students, the brother of someone I once worked with. Some people demand more posts about my books and about writing in general. Some (i.e. my father) would like more pictures. Everyone wants more TMiddy.

But today I learned that not only people who like me seek out this blog. Apparently, other people with too much time on their hands read it as well. Who knew? In the manner of the Two-Star Detective Agency in Cedar Rapids, IA (an actual place of business), these people snoop about online for incriminating evidence. They suspect that when I was in Rome, I wasn't conducting research for a novel at all. Instead I was ... EATING AND DRINKING.

Here I am, pictured on this very blog, having a beer with my lunch! There I am again, later the same afternoon, eating gelato! And that night, after dinner, I'm spotted drinking a glass of wine! How can I possibly be walking around Rome, exploring sites, taking notes, and writing down story ideas when I am so flagrantly involved in non-research-related activities?

Well, haters, I have good news for you. TMiddy, now revealed as a Tikileaks operative, was with me in Rome, and he must be on your paylist. Every day we spent there, he took pictures of me running from the stiff handshake of Novel Research into the cool embrace of Liquid Refreshment. It was very hot in Rome, and we were walking miles and miles ... but no. No excuses. You all know the truth. I didn't go to Rome to research a book, did I? (However long the contract and tight the deadline.) No, I went there to drink Fanta and Frascati. Pictures never lie, and they always tell the whole story. Let the evidence be revealed.

 

 

 

 

 

In case some of the softer hearts out there are concerned I did nothing but rehydrate, let me reassure you. I also ate breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. I know, I know. I should have been working THAT WHOLE TIME. But a woman cannot live on Fanta alone. Here is some more incriminating evidence.

 

 

 

 

In my defence, I'll say this: I wasn't alone in committing this crime of eating and drinking every day in Rome. TMiddy, my betrayer, was there right by my side (or, more typically, across the table). It was just like that scene in CASINO ROYALE where James Bond is playing cards with the villain, as though they're BFFs and not soon-to-be-brawling enemies. But I must admit, TM doesn't look at all happy here, does he?

 

 

He knew this would compromise the case against me, don't you think?

From now on, I'll add a new category to this blog: Tikileaks. It's a New Zealander's version of Wikileaks, with more humour and fewer Australians. I'll use it to tag anything useful in case against me (The People VS Dilettante). Knowing me, however, that's pretty much every blog post. La!

 

The end of Rome

Rome is eternal, but we just had a week there, crammed with too many things to see and beset by too many blisters. This was my scribbled-on, bedraggled to-do list after five days:

 

Sadly Ponte Milvio did prove a bridge too far, but we managed to get to almost everything else. And Tom took a picture that could be a cover for the Rome novel I'm writing - this is from the Protestant cemetery, where we spent a fantastic hour:

 

 

I've realized that place is the most important starting point for so much of my work. I had various plans and ideas (vague thoughts, really) before I went to Rome, but now much more is clear to me, and the story began revealing itself in the most unexpected places.

I wish I could get started on this right away, while Rome is still seething in my head, but now I must turn my attention to a sequel to RUINED. This has pushed its way to the front of the queue, in an Italian-like manner.

This last picture is me and TMiddy at the Trevi Fountain. We got up at 6:30 AM on Saturday to see it without the noise of the usual 400-strong crowd. We threw coins in, of course, as per the instructions in THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN. (TM: "I think I missed.")

Day One in Rome (in pictures)

 

 

Snow Day

Yesterday, the last day of January, was an anniversary: T. Middy and I met on January 31, 1998, in Birdland on West 44th Street, New York City. I was there for the record company - sitting in the bar, reading the New Yorker, wishing I was somewhere else - and he was with a friend. (This friend was then a boyfriend, now a husband, of a member of the band signed to the label for which I worked. Got that?)

And now here we are, thirteen years and one day later, sitting in a very different bar. The bar of the Hilton across the road from the airport (i.e. "The Airport Hilton") in St Louis, Missouri. In life we're played the cards we're dealt, and the card we've been dealt this week is from the Incredibly Bad Winter Weather pack. We managed to elude bad hands in December, when we got out of London despite a week of snow-related delays at Heathrow, and in January, when we avoided a snowstorm in Denver en route to New Zealand. But today in St Louis, trying to get back to the UK, the good run ended. Our flight to Chicago was cancelled this morning (NB: I no longer know if this spelling of "cancelled" is correct in any country) and we had to plead for another night at the hotel. Weather is whirling through - ice and snow, from the SW to the NE of the country - and nobody is flying anywhere today.

The bar at the Hilton, where we've been sitting with our computers for much of the afternoon, is packed with fellow strandees. Some of them are quite drunk now. A number of them have been working their computers and phones. Others have been working the indoor baseball-cap look, which I still don't understand. Outside it is freezing and foggy and white.

After re-booking our flights and returning the rental car (in freezing rain) to Avis nextdoor, we had breakfast here, and discovered the secret of success at the American hotel buffet: stay for a long, long time. The longer you stay, the more you feel able to return to the buffet multiple times. I began with pancakes, blueberries and maple syrup, returned for yoghurt (an amuse bouche), and then got a made-to-order spinach and mushroom omelette. TM had several very greedy courses. We then retired to our room for a three-hour nap, before staggering down to the bar with our laptops, inadvertently leaving our door ajar. (This was discovered by TM mid-afternoon.) Have I spent the time working on worky things, or watching episodes of 30 Rock? Did I reach occasionally for the snack bowl, or did I assiduously pick out and scoff all the wasabi peas and honey-roasted nuts? Did we stick with the free hot drinks or switch to over-priced goblets of wine at a very-pre-dinner hour? You be the judge.

If I hadn't met TM thirteen years ago, I wouldn't be in St Louis now. I can say that with complete certainty. If he hadn't met me, he wouldn't have the spent the past (glorious) month in New Zealand. I have lots of fantastic pictures to post; it's been a very enjoyable, very productive time. I'm talking about NZ here, though I did manage yesterday to get to the Galleria in St Louis, and, as cards go, the Galleria is a good one.

Tomorrow: flying and work, hopefully. What's left of February 1, 2011: a snow day.

 

 

Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow

We spent last New Year's Eve in New Zealand: the weather was good, and we crammed in a lot, as I recall - a trip up to Warkworth to have lunch with my cousin, Len; then dinner on Cheltenham Beach (the garden used in the old Telecom London/Auckand ad) with our friends Sarah and Hamish; then back to my sister's house, which was overrun with teenagers ("who the hell is that?" someone said when we walked in); then drinks at a friend's place down the road, followed by a scramble through the mean streets of Mt Albert to watch the fireworks over the Sky Tower. When we got back to my sister's house, the teenagers were eventually herded out (my sister: "how soon can we make them leave?") and we cleaned up.

This year we've spent the day in planes and airports - St Louis, where big thunderstorms were rolling in, to Denver, still snowy from yesterday's blizzard, to LA, where there are flowers in bloom and we walked to Terminal Two delighted to be outside without a coat. It's already 2011 in New Zealand, and in Britain, but we'll be celebrating tonight somewhere over the Pacific. By 'celebrating' I mean by taking Nyquil tablets and falling asleep during an episode of NEW ZEALAND'S NEXT TOP MODEL, which I hope will be available via in-flight entertainment. TM and I have been sick as dogs all week with flu, and I lost my voice some time on Tuesday night. (It's Friday now.) You'll know how sick we are when I say we've been sitting here in the Koru Club at LAX for the past four hours and all we've been drinking is hot soup and mint tea. (There's free wine in the Koru Club, as well as yesterday's NEW ZEALAND HERALD and today's DAILY MAIL - which TM is carrying home for my mother: I don't want to be seen with it.)

I'll blame the illness for my complete indolence today. Instead of getting work done, I've been watching episodes of 30 ROCK and COMMUNITY on my computer, and cheating on NYT crossword puzzles (I have a book). Considering I've worked on chapters of a novel in the Koru Club during previous visits, this is a poor show.

This past year, 2010, has been busy rather than serene. A novel written, as well as some stories, and numerous magazine columns. I spent most of May in New Zealand, which always makes me happy, and we had a brilliantly lazy holiday in Mexico in June. I took a course in script editing at the BBC in London in February, and got the chance to teach with (and learn from) Eric Overmyer in the spring. We worked at Jazz Fest for the fifth year running, and somehow I managed to miss Mardi Gras altogether. Big upheavals, obviously, with the move from New Orleans to Glasgow. We had to sell/give away a lot of things, and abandon Salon M, and say goodbye to a lot of friends, and drive ourselves crazy with stress. We're still not settled: we now have things in Kiwi Storage in Auckland and Kangaroo Storage (really) in Glasgow, as well as in the homes of my sister, my brother, TM's parents, TM's aunt and ... who else? Speak up if we're storing something with you. Please don't sell it or throw it away. (I'm talking to my brother here.) We'll round up all our belongings one day and maybe have some kind of home.

We just spent a great week in London, arriving by train and leaving by plane but managing to elude all the snow-related cancellations - saw Alan Ayckbourn's SEASON'S GREETINGS at the National Theatre, and the fantastic Gauguin show at Tate Modern; queued to buy macaroons at Laduree, and to attend the St Paul's Cathedral carol service; saw lovely friends, and had amazing (if unfortunately costly) meals at Ottolenghi and Moro. Here are some pictures. The first three are shop windows - Selfridges (with a tribute to my hero, Frank Sidebottom), a swanky shop on Jermyn Street, and Fortnum & Mason.

The next group are from our wanderings: Borough Market in Southwark, Leadenhall Market in the City, the window at Ottolenghi in Islington (we were staying just down the road), and the view from our seats in St Paul's.

I suspect this post may have the forced cheeriness of one of those Christmas round-robin letters that list only the triumphs of the year. Rest assured, my Schadenfreude friends: there have been some resounding low notes, and I'm staggering into the new year a little punch-drunk and unsure. Maybe it's just the Nyquil, or the prospect of our third plane journey of the day - this one twelve hours long. Maybe, as I've often claimed, uncertainty and insecurity are not entirely bad things.

No resolutions this year, aside from the usual - to become EVEN MORE glamorous. I do have some New Year's wishes, if they count:

1. That Cafe Baru on Magazine Street in New Orleans fixes its lighting issue in the back room, because it's one of my favorite places to go but that shrill lighting is a deal-breaker.

2. That instead of buying me gift cards for Aeropostale, a shop for 12-year-olds, my in-laws will buy me a gift card for SKY MALL, so I'm forced to buy e.g. a camouflage Slanket, or exact replicas of the earrings Hermione wore to the Yule Ball, or fake rocks to position around the garden I don't have.

3. That people will stop inserting the line "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough" into "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," when the original line is much, much better and almost always applicable.

Unlike resolutions, all of these things are totally achievable, I think, with a bit of good will and application.

I'm lying about the resolutions, of course. I have just one, and I was reminded of it by a slab of the Berlin Wall outside the Imperial War Museum.

Happy new year, everyone. If you're in Auckland this January, please get in touch. T. MIddy is available for mini-golf tournaments. I will be working a lot, but never during cocktail hour.

 

Of Christmas markets, snow, and disappointments

Tonight the M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow is still an icy, snow-ridden mess, and the Minister for Transport here in Scotland is saying sorry. Nobody in government here, local or national, believed the BBC Weather on Sunday when they said that snow was on its way to the Central Belt (or, as I prefer to think of it, the cummerbund) of Scotland. Instead the government did what we used to do, until we realized the imprecision of its forecasts: they consulted the Met Office. When I looked at the Met Office forecast online before our trip to Edinburgh on Sunday, the only bad weather predicted for Monday was fog and cold.

As discussed in previous posts, we went to Edinburgh for an overnight stay on Sunday so I could see the Christmas market. Here is the dramatic arc of my relationship with Christmas markets in Britain. (It's a one-act play with too many scenes and settings, so possibly difficult to stage.)

Scene I: In the Guardian, I spot an ad for trips to European Christmas markets. All these markets look snowy, picturesque, authentic. I wonder: which shall we visit? Shall we explore the one with tunnels, or the one in the medieval square, or the one surrounded by snow-capped mountains? Shall we go to the city that has a different market in every neighborhood? Shall we visit the one with real ponies on the carousel or the one where the stalls themselves are handcrafted from pine cones and fir boughs and all the stallholders wear lederhosen? I rip the ad out of the paper and stick it on the fridge.

Scene II: I look up flights from Glasgow to relevantly Germanic airports, and start to worry about how much all the flying and driving and hotels and gallons of gluhwein will cost. (This is not a very dynamic scene, I know. It's like the one in THE GHOSTWRITER where Ewan McGregor works out the top-secret international conspiracy by typing a few key words into Google.)

Scene III: Up in Stirling, I ask my colleagues which Christmas market they'd recommend. "Oh, there's a good one in Lincoln," they say. "And there's one in Edinburgh, you know." But what about Germany? "You don't need to go to Germany," they assure me. Not when Frankfurt (or is it Cologne?) comes to Birmingham (or is it Leeds?)

Scene IV: I rip the Guardian ad for European markets off the fridge and throw it away. We will not waste money this year flying to Germany for Christmas markets, I tell T. Middy, even though Germany invented Christmas, and is still quite good at the lead-up, even though it celebrates it on the wrong day and with shoes instead of stockings. My sophisticated internet search skills have uncovered the St Nicholas Fayre, an annual weekend-long extravaganza of Christmas markets in York. And in Edinburgh, according to my local sources, there's both a German and a Highland market. Who needs the Continent? Not us. TM is relieved that I'm taking the sensible course, for once, despite the opportunity Germany offers, i.e. to drive again "on the right side of the road" and to make jokes about only following orders.

Scene V: I book a car for the trip down to York, and a hotel in Edinburgh. I don't stop to think about things like "will it be snowing for days on end?" because we are in Britain, not the Continent. At the last minute, I pitch the New Zealand Herald with a story on British Christmas markets, but I've left it too late. None of this trip will be tax-deductible, but that's OK. It's much cheaper than going to Germany, and sure to be JUST AS GOOD.

Scene VI: One of my colleagues, who lives in Edinburgh, tells me that the Christmas market there is lame beyond belief. "Nothing like the ones in Germany," he says. I experience doubt. But it's too late. Everything is booked. We can't opt for Europe instead.

Scene VII: We drive down to York, traveling into the worst early winter weather in decades. When we arrive at my friend's house, she warns me that the St Nicholas Fayre is lame beyond belief. "It's all kitsch," she says, making an I-just-ate-something-sour face. We race off into town anyway. She's right. There isn't even any mulled wine. We have to drink hot cider instead. TM takes one sip and makes an I-just-ate-something-sour face. Even I cannot find anything to buy, and my tolerance for tat is almost super-human. The next day we go around every impromptu market in an historic building (King's Manor, Barley Hall, Guildhall, etc) where all the stall-holders are dressed in Medieval gowns and (in King's Manor) we manage to buy glasses of mulled wine. I'm so low-ebb by now that I actually sit willingly to listen to a duo playing a lute and a harp. ("People must have been really stinky in the Middle Ages," observes TM, looking at the lutenist's greasy mullet.) But wine and madrigals can't make me forget my Christmas-market disappointment. I have to go to Little Bettys twice to dull the blow.

Scene VIII: A week later, we catch the train to Edinburgh, traveling into the worst early winter weather in decades. (The Lincoln Christmas Market is canceled completely this year because of the snow.) We leave our bag at the hotel and rush off to see the German market and the Highland market. There are (allegedly) German stalls and German stallholders at the German market, but they seem a bit second division. TM buys something German that is like a large MallowPuff, a favored biscuit from my New Zealand childhood. I don't buy anything. The queue for mulled wine is too long. In the Highland market, I learn that chips with curry sauce are a traditional Highland food.

Scene IX: (Can you even have nine scenes in a one-act play?) Back at the hotel, I loll disconsolate on the bed watching COME DINE WITH ME (omnibus edition) on television, and tell TM that next year, whatever the cost, we're going to Germany.

So this was the Christmas market and the ice rink and the fair in Edinburgh on Sunday:

After traipsing through this lot, we decided to climb the Scott Monument (the Gothic thing in the background). I haven't done this for years. Apparently I have a short memory, because I'd forgotten how many stairs there are, how incredibly narrow and winding they are, and how the whole experience induces vertigo. Only hobbits have small-enough feet to deal with the tiny steps, and cloaks woolly enough to withstand the icy blasts of wind. The last time I climbed the SM, it was summer. This weekend, each landing/outside viewing platform was encrusted with lumpy duvets of slick ice. The only way the building could be navigated was by clinging by our gloved fingertips to rocky outcroppings and snowy railings. Even the griffons were dribbling icicles.

 

Views were good, of course.

But what's a view when there's mulled wine for sale at the Assembly Rooms, even if those of us with vertigo managed to knock over the cup and spill wine across the tablecloth? We decided not to rush back to Glasgow the next day, but to tour Holyrood Palace, something we'd missed out on the first time we visited Edinburgh back in October.

In the morning, this was the view from our hotel window:

It was snowing when we woke up, and it snowed on and off all day. This is outside the hotel, where cars weren't able to get in or out of the street. The truck, trying to do a laundry pick-up, had been stuck there for some time. The guys in the truck had laid towels on either side of the back wheels, but nothing was working.

The receptionist tried to call us a taxi to the station, where we planned to leave our bag, but pointed out a taxi on the other side of the square that was stuck there. So we walked to the station, which was all very picturesque.

This last picture was taken out the window of the National Gallery cafe, to which we retreated en route for a cooked breakfast and orgy of postcard-buying. There were also a few pictures we wanted to see, but the rooms housing them were closed for two hours. One of the paintings in question we tried to see in November as well, but the room was temporarily closed then too. So we headed out once again to take our bag to Left Luggage. No one was out on the ice rink. No one was riding the ferris wheel. Why not take the shortcut through Princes Street Gardens? This was my idea. Nobody else appeared to be walking along the path. I wonder why not?

Could it be because there was a chain blocking this path at the far end? And also a steep icy bank to negotiate in order to get out - one down which we would soon be comically sliding backwards? TM just wanted to get rid of our bag. "Then we can walk around," he said. "I'd like to rub your face in the snow." Nice.

Bag stowed, train timetable checked, we clambered and slid and stomped our way up into the Old Town and then down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. "The Royal Mile will certainly be cleared," I promised. (Wrong). "It will only take us 15 minutes to walk there." (Wrong.) "The palace is open today, because I checked the web site this morning." (Wrong. It had just closed because they "couldn't keep the paths clear.") So this is what we got to see of Holyrood.

 

The only people out were idiotic tourists like us, making the long trek from the closed palace to the closed castle, with nothing to entertain us but a few stuck cars and the modified statue of Robert Fergusson:

That's me in the background, wondering if the church was open. (It was not.) On the way back up, we passed an old man wearing slipper-like shoes, sliding home clutching a plastic bag of provisions.

PM: I hate seeing old people struggle in the snow.

TM: He's the same age I am.

We scuttled back to the station and managed to get one of the last seats on the train. People stood in the aisles all the way back to Glasgow, where the snow earlier in the day had been heavy. Now it's just cold, cold, cold. I was supposed to go up to Stirling today but couldn't, because the trains are a mess. Instead we bundled up and ventured out to the post office to spend a hundred pounds sending packages and buying stamps for overseas Christmas cards. We came home and wrote/addressed cards until TM declared he had "lost the will to live." Next year we won't send a single card, I think. We'll use the money to go to Germany, where trains run, even in the snow, where the Christmas markets are A-list, and where they drive on the right side of the road.

 

Big snow

It's been snowing for days now in Britain - more than a week, in fact, and nobody knows what to do. People write to newspapers complaining because there is no grit on the street, or buses on the roads, or bread in the shops. Smug Europeans also write in, saying that in Finland and/or Switzerland everyone carries snow tires in their pockets and the schools never close. But we live in Scotland, not Europe, so schools have been closed, you board a train at your own risk ("We cannot guarantee travel beyond Perth"), the pavements are treacherous glaciers, and restaurants haven't had deliveries for days. This is the worst early winter weather in forty years. Tonight in Glasgow, the temperature is minus 8 C. (So glad we're living in a flat with no central heating.) The Clyde river froze over this morning. People were trapped in their cars on the M8 and other motorways around the city for five hours. Almost no buses are running in Glasgow right now, and very few were running in Edinburgh for most of today.

I'd like to say that T. Middy and I are made of stern stuff and therefore go about our business in spite of the ongoing blizzards. But really we are just stupid, because we DO try to undertake all planned activities, even if the weather is against us. TM grew up in St Louis, home of much big weather, so thinks he knows what he's doing. I grew up in Auckland, a place never visited by snow, so I'm still childishly excited by it - in a "Look, fox prints! Why is it so cold and wet?" way.

So off we drove down to York last Friday, on a road closed two days later because of bad weather. That night, walking back to our friends' house along the river (after suffering a scalded arm at Loch Fyne restaurant, when a hurrying waiter spilled tea on me: thanks for the concerned follow-up calls, Loch Fyne - in your own time!), it started snowing. York looked beautiful the next day, which helped to soften the blow of its sub-par Christmas market, and the endless queue for Bettys.

But then it was time to clean off the car and drive north in the snow and fog to Northumbria, to visit my cousins. This area was the worst-hit place in the UK. (Snow covered the sand dunes on the beach at South Shields, and we went for a nice skid around a roundabout in Cleadon village.) Last Sunday we caught the Metro into Newcastle for a football match at St James Park, where the ground had been scraped clean of snow that morning.

(Of course we bought the gear, though we removed it that night in South Shields, in case one of my Sunderland-supporting cousins spotted us on Ocean Road.) This was what it looked like in Newcastle just after the match ended, when I insisted on wandering the Christmas market on Eldon Square:

Undeterred by weather, we planned to visit Alnwick and/or Bamburgh castles the next day. But these were closed, as were numerous roads leading to them, so we had to content ourselves with venturing to Durham, pretty but perilous in the snow:

While we were roaming the eerily quiet Cathedral, it started snowing again, and the cafe where we were about to have lunch instantly closed. So we slithered down the icy cobbles back to the car and headed north to Otterburn, high in the Cheviot Hills. The roads up there in the Borders were barely cleared, and we passed a snow-heaped car upside down in the ditch, never a cheering sight. When we arrived at the hotel, the Otterburn Tower, they seemed suprised that we hadn't cancelled, like all the other guests. Not us! We like being the only people in the hotel, and the only people in the restaurant, unable to get reception on the TV and wondering if the roads will be passable the next day.

This is our rental car outside the hotel the next day, and a view from the car window as we drove south towards Hexham:

By the time we got to Hexham, the weather was deteriorating. What to do? Stop at the big Waitrose to buy lots of food, of course, and then drive back to Glasgow via Carlisle before the road turned into a giant chocolate slushy. The first pic is the carpark in Hexham; the second is the view on the drive back.

Back in Scotland, the snow kept coming. Trying to get up to Stirling was ridiculous. Trains were delayed or cancelled, and everyone in Glasgow Queen Street station stood around looking cold and cross, crowding through the ticket barriers so they could sprint onto a train as soon as one pulled in.

The view from the train on the way up to Stirling on Thursday was beautiful.

Even our neighborhood in Glasgow looked quite picturesque, though trying to carry shopping back from Byres Road along steep grit-free streets is no fun.

 

Because I am obsessed with Christmas markets, and may never recover from the psychological blow of the rubbish one in York last week, I'd booked a Sunday-night special at a hotel in Edinburgh this weekend. Even though we'd had people over for dinner the night before (departure time: c 3 AM, in the manner of all British dinner guests), and more snow was predicted for Sunday night, we set off on the train early on Sunday afternoon. What followed was a tale of two cities. I will write a separate post about it, because this post is already too long.

By the way, I'm aware that I'm now writing in a mixture of UK and US spelling. Just wait until I start speaking in Scots.

Liverpool

T. Middy and I recently spent a couple of days in Liverpool. It's changed a great deal since my last visit, c. 1992, when I was working at Polygram and either a) attending a Dmitri Hvorostovsky summer performance at an outdoor venue, during which I (ever underdressed) froze to death, even though DM insisted I take his scarf; or b) taking DJ Gary Davies up on the train to be interviewed by Richard and Judy on This Morning. Ah, my professional glory days.

Liverpool is brilliant these days. We stayed at Base2Stay - a renovated warehouse in a very central location, which (we were told) was well dodgy a few years ago. Even now the view is of a semi-derelict building across the street. I like derelict buildings.

 

We went to one of the shows in the Biennial in this boarded-up building, abandoned in the 1980s. It's the Scandinavian Hotel, backing onto the 'Europleasure' building (on the right of the photo below). The film we watched, Touch and Go, shows people throwing stones through the building's windows.

 

And after that we needed a drink.

We were there during the week, so couldn't see Liverpool FC play, though we did manage to find their shop. It is, we discovered, the best place to buy Liverpool FC towels, duvet covers, curtains, cups, stickers, clothes, shot glasses, ashtrays and lunchboxes. We spent most of our time doing every conceivable touristy thing, especially if it had some Beatles connection - though we didn't have time to go out for dinner with Pete Best's mother, possibly one of the many ways to spend our money on a Beatles-related activity. (One of the guided tours actually costs 95 pounds a person, which is about $1000 in a normal currency.) We were also prevented from taking a ferry cross the Mersey, now an expensive "river cruise", because it was full. We had to content ourselves with driving in a tunnel UNDER the Mersey the next day, which is practically the same thing, and (even with the motorway toll) a lot cheaper.

Here is TM at the original entrance to the Cavern.

We also went a couple of times to the Jacaranda, once run by the Beatles' first manager, Alan Williams, with murals downstairs allegedly painted by John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe when they were art students. Despite my job-induced aversion to live music, we really enjoyed the open mike ("give them a world-famous Jacaranda welcome") night - basically a sing-song. Sing-songs are exempt from my live music moratorium, especially if the songs include "Wonderwall" and "A Day in the Life" and "Pinball Wizard." The crowd there was mostly good-natured students who kept offering us seats, because apparently we are old.

Here we are, being old in the ferris wheel. After you've gone around four times, and taken lots of pictures, and discussed how the people on the "river cruise" will be suffering now the weather's closing in, you're reduced to taking pictures of yourselves.

And maybe you'll take one more shot of the view:

The other highlight of the ferris wheel, for me, was the 80s music playing while we were waiting to get on, including the German version of "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco. ("Er war ein Superstar/Er war so populär".) TM may beg to differ on this, but this is because he doesn't know all the words to "Keep Feeling Fascination" by the Human League, and is therefore at a social/cultural disadvantage.

Most of the time we walked around, because there's so much to see.

The two restaurants where we ate were excellent: Lunya and Alma De Cuba. The latter was one of the most spectacular restaurants I've ever seen - in a (deconsecrated) church built in the 1780s. This picture gives just a hint of how beautiful it is:

We were sad to leave. We plan to go back some time in the new year, hopefully to see a football match, and possibly hang out with Fernando Torres.

[T. Middy has just read this through, and says he would spell open mike "open mic". He also says he would not necessarily choose to hang out with F. Torres. Whatever.]

Addendum: the photo taken by TM on his phone downstairs inside the Jacaranda, with the alleged Lennon/Sutcliffe mural: