Not enough snow

Like most people in the south east of England, I woke up to snow today - just not enough of it.
While my first move was to peer out the window, my second was to check National Rail's live online departures board, in the hope of being marooned in Leatherhead. Alas, twas not to be, and off to work I traipsed. But doesn't our pond look beautiful in that blue light?

Where the wild winds blow ....

Having just spent the best part of a week between Edinburgh and Manchester (not literally ...), being windswept in the former and soaked to the skin in the latter, I was almost happy to get home to sleepy old Surrey. Until I spotted the garden fence ... or, rather, the gap where it should have been. Worst (or possibly best) of all, the neighbour's cat and I can now eye each other balefully without having to leave our own space.

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.

Visited the magnificent Pere Lachaise graveyard on a family trip to Paris last weekend. I was last there 20 years ago, and wanted to revisit Oscar Wilde's grave, with its stunning Jacob Epstein sculpture. On my earlier visit, it had a few lipstick marks here and there, left by Wilde's fans, and I read later that they were destroying the stone. At the risk of sounding like "incensed of Tunbridge Wells" or some other such middle class citadel, I have to admit to being gutted to see the damage done by so-called "fans" in the intervening decades. So much so that I couldn't even be bothered to hang around long enough to take a proper photo. Whatever happened to quiet veneration?