¡Hala Madrid! ...y nada más

 "I love thee as I love Madrid that we have defended and as I love all my comrades that have died. And many have died. Many. Many. Thou canst not think how many."  - Ernest Hemingway

I said last week that the Anglo-Portuguese army attacking Madrid was bigger and better than the defenders. The only hope for the French was to hope the initiative went their way and that they could see out the five turns allowed for the game before losing. In the event the opposite happened, with the Allies, for the second battle running, drawing the consistently higher dominos. At one point I drew the 2:1 domino; surely James would beat that? But no, he drew the 1:0. The very next draw I drew the double one; this time? No, he drew the 1:0 again. You can't help some people. On top of that, there were two double dominos (*), one when the French had all but succeeded in reaching the end of their deck, meaning that we only played one turn in the evening and Peter and I had been through our deck more than twice.

James will no doubt post a comprehensive post, but the evening ended with the French on the verge of losing all their army morale despite much of the British force, including their strongest infantry division and their cavalry, not having done anything at all. I give it half an hour at most next week.

* When both sides draw the same domino all used cards are shuffled back into the deck, but it doesn't count as an end of turn.

Never Judge a Book by its Colour

I've received a couple of questions about William Watson, one of whose poems featured here the other day, mainly along the lines of "Who he?". Well, he is now a somewhat obscure literary figure - deservedly so if the example of his work which I posted is anything to go by - who first came to my notice because he was born in Burley-in-Wharfedale, the village half way between Otley and Ilkley. Sir William, as he apparently was, nearly became Poet Laureate on more than one occasion, but didn't. He did however contribute to The Yellow Book, which is the other reason I had vaguely heard of him. The Yellow Book was a quarterly publication whose contributors included all sorts of fin de siècle luminaries such as Henry James, W.B. Yeats, H.G. Wells and so on; and has cropped up in a number of books that I have read, most recently David Lodge's 'Author, Author' which is about James. It appears that the cover colour and the name was chosen because that was the generic term at the time for salacious French novels - one such features in the story of Dorian Gray's descent into decadence - and they wanted to be cool by association. 

Note the exchange rate

As a bit of research I have dipped into an edition - the one whose cover appears above - and must report that it hasn't aged well. It opens with another terrible poem by Watson - the Lower Wharfe Valley is not to poetry what it is to wargaming - and then moves on to a pretty unreadable essay by James. I am aware that my own prose style is somewhat convoluted, full of ellipses, subordinate clauses and whatnot, but James makes me look like Ernest Hemingway in comparison. On top of that he sprinkles his work with untranslated French phrases in italics; not terribly comme il faut if you ask me.

Their marketing ploy backfired somewhat in the end. Oscar Wilde turned up to one of his trials clutching a racy novel recently arrived from Paris, but the colour of the cover made everyone assume that it was The Yellow Book itself. Given that Wilde was about to go to prison for gross indecency what they found they had actually achieved was to appear débauché by association with him.

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.” - Oscar Wilde

Here's a faux French phrase that might have livened up Henry James' article: A woman walks into a pub and asks for a double entendre, so the barman gives her one.

Operatic Queens

"Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing." - Florence Foster Jenkins

No sooner have I referred to the role of the coarse actor in amateur dramatics, than I have been to see an amateur performance that was very good by being very bad. I have been to see 'Glorious!', the story of Florence Foster Jenkins. My companion for the evening had seen the Meryl Streep film on the same subject and, according to her, it covers the same ground in a very different way. This version was certainly very funny, in particular the transition between the first and second scenes of the second act which was also well directed. I could, however, have done with fewer gay 'jokes'; if there was ever a time when simply saying the word 'pansies' was funny then thankfully it has long gone. Top marks must go to Katrina Wood in the lead role. It must be incredibly hard to sing that badly on purpose if one can sing properly in the first place. Here is Madame Jenkins herself to show what I mean:

I am going to see 'The Magic Flute' soon, and I'm sure that I won't be able to get that rendition out of my head. In the meantime I went to see the live broadcast of 'The Queen of Spades' from the Royal Opera House. Opera directors are seemingly incapable of telling a story straight and this was a high concept production, although I must, grudgingly, say that it largely worked. The main idea was that the composer was on stage throughout, mostly sat behind a piano watching his characters take life, but also with his own story, of his guilt about his homosexuality and his extremely short lived marriage mixed in with Pushkin's novella. If it succeeded it was because they threw the kitchen sink at it theatrically. I was very taken when the male chorus came on stage all dressed as Tchaikovsky, with many of them looking more like him than he did; it was like the occasion when Ernest Hemingway came fifth in an Ernest Hemingway lookalike competition. Here, for the avoidance of doubt, is the real thing:

There is a Mozart pastiche in the ball scene of Act II, and there was coincidentally a reference to 'The Magic Flute' here as well with two sopranos dressed as songbirds alternately wrestling with Tchaikovsky (or possibly with Count Levitsky; it was hard to tell by then) and writhing erotically on the floor together. By no means the most bizarre aspect was when the title character died (apologies for the spoiler, but - once again - it's an opera) they buried her in the piano. Sometimes when things are that weird one just has to go with it. 

The Battle of Lewisham

 “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.” - Leon Trotsky 

The fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham, which falls today, has been given some unwanted context by events in the US. I was there of course, and the pictures in yesterday's Guardian and the others I include here certainly bring back memories.

"Are you a communist?"

"No, I am an anti-fascist."

"For a long time?"

"Since I have understood fascism." 

- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

A very pleasant complaint for a man in London

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love." - Ernest Hemingway

I have been to London again (it rained) and have to report that Virgin East Coast managed to maintain their 100% record of delayed or cancelled trains when I travel with them. The excuse yesterday seemed to vary between an 'incident on the line' (a sad euphemism for such a tragic human story I always think) to Kings Cross having been evacuated due to the arrest of a man with a gun. Now I was actually on the concourse at the time of this supposed police action and I saw nothing; which on reflection possibly says more about my powers of observation than anything else.

I made the trip to meet with a group of bankers. It seems that they had advanced a large sum of money to someone. let's call him Jack, for the purpose of buying some magic beans and had taken as security a charge over the beanstalk that Jack intended to grow. They now find that there is no money, no beanstalk and, for all intents and purposes, no Jack. Another triumph for the banking system. 

Speaking of London, I have recently got to know someone living in West Yorkshire who, at the age of 42, has astonishingly never been there. It may be for the best though; my friend - a non-drinking vegetarian whose main hobbies are knitting and growing vegetables - is very innocent and has led a sheltered life. Some people are just not ready to be exposed to the sort of goings on that one finds in the big smoke.