Bully for El Bulli

Hard to believe, but this gigantic bulldog is covered in icing sugar, its garland of flowers - and seemingly random fried egg - made from spun sugar and jellied fruits. But this is no ordinary giant icing sugar bulldog (does such a thing exist? Hopefully), but one made by the pastry chefs at world-famous Spanish restaurant El Bulli. 

Celebrated in an astonishing exhibition at Somerset House, El Bulli - famous for head chef Ferran Adrià's 'molecular gastronomy' - started life as, of all things, a mini-golf course. In its first restaurant incarnation - if the photos are to be believed - El Bulli was a stereotypical Costa Brava tourist restaurant, not dissimilar to the sort of venue we'd have seen in ill-fated 90s soap Eldorado (but with sturdier furniture and, one hopes, door frames that didn't wobble when people passed through). Menus included all the Spanish classics (paellas, gambas and  sardinas aplenty) that the well-heeled tourist had come to expect. 

But in 1987 Ferran Adrià became head chef, and things started to get interesting. What struck me most about the exhibition was that it takes a very special mind to think of the things he did - never mind actually making them. Ravioli that's a bubble, rather than the traditional pasta envelope. Soup that - rather than the liquid you'd expect elsewhere - arrives as a foam spelling out the words 'THE SOUP'. Olive oil caviar (looking alarmingly like tiny cod liver oil tablets). 

And the detail of it all. One of the most fascinating exhibitions was a huge glass case full of rough plasticine models of bits and pieces of food, used to mock up each dish before it appeared on the menu. All helpfully labelled, because of course in the world of El Bulli, nothing is as it seems. 

The restaurant closed in 2011, but the El Bulli Foundation is due to open its doors next year. On the same site, it will be much expanded and is billing itself as a 'centre of creativity'. The emphasis, says the team, still headed by Ferran Adrià, will be on the development of cooking and other fields of creativity, rather than simply on making money. 

That said, this exhibition will no doubt be the closest most of us will get to Adrià's cooking. Whether you're a cook or a chemist, or simply a lover of beauty, it's well worth a visit. 

The Simon Community - compassion without questions

This morning I went to Christine O'Mahoney's funeral. Christine was a cantankerous but kindly and much loved member of the Simon Community in London. Indeed, as one of the speakers at the funeral said, it still hurts to arrive at the Community's house and not to find Christine sitting on the steps, smoking, chatting and berating random - usually innocent - people. She was 87, a remarkable age, given a checkered past that had involved bereavement, alcoholism, estrangement from her family, and homelessness.

Having lost all contact with her own relatives, Christine found a new family in the Simon Community - and there were a good 50 people there this morning to pay tribute. It was one of those funerals where people laughed as much as they cried, and a tribute as much to the Simon Community as to Christine herself. Without those volunteers, she may well have ended up as one of the growing number of people dying alone, unfound for weeks or months at a time, in this supposedly developed, civilised nation.

London School of Economics - new building

To the LSE for a debate this evening - stunning building, all smooth surfaces and beautiful wood finishing.

Review: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Off to town yesterday for a matinee performance of the much lauded Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. A friend booked the tickets months ago - this was an eagerly awaited jaunt, spoilt only by the mid-week realisation that it clashed with the Ireland-France match (in retrospect, a good thing).

What to say? It was loooong. And as the culture snob in our group pointed out, I was not 'Wagner-trained', so three hours sitting on it left my backside a tad sore.
I found Adrian Lester, as the drunken ex football star Brick, disengaged (certainly for the first half of his performance) to the point of looking bored. Yes, he looked fantastic, but he just didn't looked particularly bothered. Perhaps this was him playing 'anguished and misunderstood'.

As Maggie, Sanaa Lathan was all outraged sulkiness - with a fantastic wardrobe. Sitting in the front row, I was in a great position to appreciate the series of fantastic cocktail frocks she brought out of her walk-in wardrobe. And the leather padded bar in the opposite corner was stunning. Perhaps my fascination with the set is an indication of how distracted I was.

James Earl Jones - Darth Vader to those of us of a certain age - was Big Daddy, with the girth required. His voice was every bit as booming as on screen - I don't think I imagined the reverberations - and the later scenes with Brick were touching.

Big Mama was played by Phylicia Rashad - or the Cosby Show's Clair Huxtable, the thought of whom, even 2 decades later, brought a twinkle to my brother's eye. Rashad is also a sister of Debbie Allen, the show's producer. She seemed to spend most of her time on stage bellowing, but I appreciate this may be down to the script, rather than any shortcomings in her own technique.

Did I enjoy it? Kind of. I didn't go away raving about, and it didn't occur to me to write about it until today - which really answers my own question.

Huguenot graveyard, London

A teacher of my father's once told him that he probably had Huguenot blood, a guess based, I presume, on his mother's maiden name, Minford. And ever since he told me this, I've rather liked the idea of having a drop or two of French blood. I would say it accounts for the bad temper, but I suspect being Irish covers that ...

But I digress. Wandsworth wasn't always best known for its prison, or being home to Gordon Ramsay. Back in the 17th century it provided a rural base for the wealthy Huguenot cloth and dye merchants lured there by the twin benefits of religious freedom and the River Wandle. And not only did they live here (many of their homes still standing, now split into flats) but they also died and were buried in Wandsworth.

The Huguenot graveyard, known as Mount Nod, is still there, marooned in traffic in the middle of the south circular. The space between the graves is relatively tidy, but the graves themselves are for the most part in a dreadful way - trees growing through stone, names so worn as to be illegible. I can't decide whether to be sad at its neglect or relieved that it hasn't been cleared to make way for yet more swanky flats.

Old workhouse, Wandsworth

Out and about in Wandsworth today (translates as: the only dentist in the world who doesn't scare the bejaysus out of me works there, so I schlepp back twice a year to see her), and I decided to check out some sumptuous flats which I thought might have been an old hospital. Turns out that they were once the St John's Hill Workhouse. This sign caught my eye.

BT Tower - view from the top

Up the BT Tower today, for a work event. The invitation didn't specify which floor, so on my way there it suddenly occurred to me that I might be schlepping into London for a first floor view of a portakabin. Happily not. I was ushered into a lift for a very smooth whizz up to the revolving one-time restaurant on the 34th floor. We were lucky with the weather - the views across London were stunning, and I was able to spend some time (when I should have been listening to the presentations, obviously) observing builders at work on a far below rooftop.
But I did find the revolving aspect slightly disconcerting. Perhaps because it didn't start until two thirds of the way through the event, by which stage I had forgotten about it.
There was a story in the papers today about the restaurant re-opening to the public in 2011 - I asked a BT employee but she said it wasn't true. We shall see.

Porgy and Bess at the Royal Festival Hall

To London's Royal Festival Hall last night for Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess, conceived by its composer, George Gershwin, as an “American folk opera.”

This semi-staged concert performance was stunning. While all the leads were good, it was Xolela Sixaba, as Porgy, who clearly captivated the audience. His voice was deep, rich and rounded, and he had enormous physical presence. Despite lacking the dramatic performances of fully staged operas, the cast were convincing enough for at least this member of the audience to care what became of their characters.

Bess, Kearstin Piper Brown, hit her high notes with apparent ease, and sashayed around the stage like the good time girl that she was. As for poor, doomed, Clara – played here by Pretty Yende – her “Summertime” echoed around the hall long after the baby son she'd been trying to sooth to sleep had been orphaned.

This is one of the most sensuous of operas, and well served by Cape Town Opera's chorus. Their background humming, although that seems too lowly a word to describe it, was mournful enough to send shivers up the spine.

What really stood out? So, so much. Porgy's sheer joy during “I got plenty of nuttin' “, with its lovely twangy banjo accompaniment. The chorus grooving as they backed Sportin' Life in “It ain't necessarily so”. The almost tangible sense of panic from the cast as the storm picked up and fear grew for Jake and his crew.

Just a couple of quibbles – particularly at the beginning, it was very difficult to make out the words being sung (a case of poor enunciation rather than any lack of volume). This performance was captioned for the hard of hearding, which at least meant that the audience had a reasonably good idea of what was going on – but of course, to a certain degree, it detracted from what was happening onstage.

And to the endlessly fidgeting “gentleman” in the seat in front of mine – you really are old enough to know how to sit still for more than five minutes. Like me, you are short, and like me, you need to accept that you won't always be able to see everything going on. Better to learn to live with it than to keep up the demented meekat act and risk a sharp jab in the back of the neck with a biro. You would have ruined a lesser performance.

I miss living in London

Leatherhead is a pretty town. It's friendly, and the surrounding countryside is beautiful, in a tame, home-counties kind of way. I'm reasonably content here, although I found the move from London hard.

But last night, just by chance, we caught a televised performance of Madness's latest album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate. It's a bit of an ode to London, north London in particular, and the stage set (at the magnificent Hackney Empire) involved a changing backdrop of Camden scenes.

It made me really miss London. Mention of Soho made me miss Bar Italia, and a shot of the French House took me back years. But it made me feel old, melancholy and exhausted. Thanks Suggs, and your nutty boy friends!

But I do get up to the big smoke now and again - I took this photo of St Pancras while waiting for the Simon Community soup van to pick me up last week.

Does free food keep people on the streets?

I've volunteered with the Simon Community for almost 4 years. It is, I think, the oldest homeless charity in the UK. Having spawned branches all over Ireland - which are now much bigger operations and linked to the London group in name and ethos only these days - it's inevitable that it attracts a number of volunteers from the Irish diaspora in England.

Almost every Thursday night since joining, I've gone out in a van with half a dozen other volunteers, several of whom have become close and trusted friends, stopping at 5 or 6 spots in central London to hand out soup, sandwiches, tea, coffee and sometimes warm clothes.

In my early days as a volunteer, we would see, in all, around 100 people. Now it's closer to 150, and sometimes more, the numbers swollen by recent arrivals from Eastern Europe, many of them unable to communicate at all in English.

Soup runs take a lot of flak - from all corners. One of the main accusations has been that by feeding people, we are convincing them to stay on the streets. I've always found this ludicrous. Good as our soup is, it isn't going to prompt anyone to sleep in a doorway.

But recently, as more and more well-intentioned soup runs appear along our route, I've begun to wonder if we really are helping people. And, more importantly, if we're helping the right people. Last night, I was on the receiving end of a fair bit of unpleasantness from some Eastern Europeans, all of whom have been abusive to me before. This was because I wouldn't give them a second cup of soup each. I don't know if they don't understand that at that stage in the evening we have another three stops, and maybe as many as 70 people, to go. Or if they just don't care. And certainly the most offensive of them didn't want any soup at all - he appeared just to want to have a go. I left the soup run and came home early - something I've never done before.

So now I find myself wondering whether we're doing the right thing. I suspect that more vulnerable people are staying away because of the changed atmosphere around the soup run. And should we be able to refuse to feed someone who is abusive but hungry? Or is feeding someone like this simply sending out the message that this behaviour is acceptable?

Beethoven as a migraine cure

Have been a bit blog-idle this week, but am hoping to make amends over the weekend. A combination of a migraine, hot weather and too much work knocked me for six, but you can imagine my delight at discovering that Migraleve mixed with loud Beethoven seems to cure even the worst headache.

Last night saw my Cadogan Hall debut - in the audience, I hasten to add - for an Oxford Philomusica and London Symphony Chorus gig. The opening piece, 'The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe' by the either improbably or utterly appropriately named Nimrod Borenstein was rather beautiful. I'm not a fan of modern classical music (having once attended a prom where the main piece sounding like rain coming through a leaky roof), but I liked this - particularly the oboe solos and the use of pizzicato.

The main piece was Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, the Choral symphony. As a lapsed horn player, I loved the horn parts. It was a 5-man section, and they had their work cut out for them. Being right at the front in the cheap seats meant that although we probably had an accoustically warped experience overall, we were all but sitting in the horn section, with all the old South Ulster Youth Orchestra (dear god, they didn't have Myspace in my day)memories that evoked.

My concert friend was unburdened by misty-eyed memories of Saturday mornings spent butchering the classical repertoire. His verdict on the Beethoven? "It's odd that we were most moved by the slow movement. The outer movements were dross." Also sprach Zarathustra .....