Washington DC; Arlington Cemetery

 Washington DC

 

I failed to read my guidebook before a recent brief trip to Washington. This was not because of lack of time: I had bought the Rough Guide in 1998, just before going to the US for a family funeral. 

RENFE Train Tourism in Spain

 RENFE Tourism in Spain

 

 

RENFE is the state owned, but non-monopoly, railway company in Spain. (RENFE is of course an acronym; but only the most ardent hispanist would thank me for spelling the name out in full.)

 

Boating on Coniston Water

 Coniston Boating

 

In the middle decades of the last century there was much public interest in the pursuit of world speed records on land and water. In the UK, the leading pursuers were father and son, Malcolm and Donald Campbell, Donald being the more successful. 

 

In the 1950s and 1960s Donald set several records on land (flat desert terrains in  the US or Australia) and on water. Interest was such that sponsorship money from the oil and aerospace industries was forthcoming. Replica toys of his “Bluebird” vehicles were popular (I had one…).

 

In the course of time, jet engines became the propulsive norm for water vessels and, later cars (too late for Donald, as it turned out). Huge speeds were attained.

 

In the mid 1960s Donald fixed on Coniston Water in the Lake District as the ideal location for hunting water records. It is long enough (5 miles; 8 kilometres), still enough and, unlike its larger neighbour, Windermere, free of mid-lake islands.

 

For several years Donald Campbell brought his Bluebirds to the Water, improving his speeds and records. Finally, in January 1967, he came aiming for 300 mph, measured as the average speed over a marked 1-kilometre course.

 

Donald made one very high speed pass from north to south, falling just short of his goal. He immediately turned Bluebird round and started his second pass, south to north. Bluebird accelerated- and started to lift its nose, beyond its safe parameters. In effect, it began to take off. Something caused the jet engine to stall, flooding perhaps. The sudden de-acceleration made Bluebird rear up and somersault several times backwards before hitting the water and destroying itself and its pilot. (a scary Pathe Newsreel film of the accident is on YouTube.) The body of Campbell and the main Hull of Bluebird were not recovered until nearly 25 years later.

 

Coniston today remains in its traditional role – a lake for swimming, pleasure yachts, dinghies, rowing boats, kayaks and paddleboards – plus a little tourist steam-paddle boat that plies up and down. On either side steep but mostly small hills rise. Coniston village is the only sizeable settlement on the Water, at the northern end.

 

Coniston, lightly fictionalised, is the setting for Arthur Ransome’s children’s adventure books, Swallows and Amazons. My grandmother fed me them one by one every Christmas and birthday for a few years. I must have enjoyed them, I suppose; but I remember nothing of them, except that they feature four children and sailing boats.

 

It is many years since I ventured on water in a small craft. On a recent stay on the shores of Coniston much was on offer – we had the choice of kayaks, paddleboards and rowing boats.

 

(Yachts, unconnected to our arrangements, were moored on the side of the Water opposite. I thought that they belonged in coastal marinas. What was the point of a relatively large, cabined, sailing boat on a narrow lake only 5 miles long? Unless they served as houseboats – but there was no sign of that.)

 

We had our afternoon on the water, in two of the rowing boats. These were handsome wooden affairs, propelled by two pairs of oars each. They featured a fairly ornate stern seat for someone to take the rudder – but no rudders were fitted.

 

After initial clashes of fore and aft oars, we managed a passable rhythm and completed a 4-5 km round trip to little Peel Island (referenced by Donald Campbell in his live radio commentary during his doomed last run). Our speed was at the far end of the spectrum from Bluebird’s, down there with the slower ducks.

 

I was glad that I had had the foresight to bring gloves for the rowing.

 

Later, satisfied with our achievement, we sat with our backs against the boathouse wall and watched the magnificent sunset, which a cameraphone rendered as a passable Mark Rothko painting.

 

August 2024

Thomas Gainsborough; Goya

 Thomas Gainsborough; Goya

 

 

What did Gainsborough think of the sitters for his famous society portraits? This question was prompted by a recent visit to Gainsborough’s family home in Sudbury, Suffolk. 

I Went to Athens and...

 I Went to Athens and…

 

 

It’s a quip that has stuck in my memory. The great American comedian WC Fields: “Last week, I went to Philadelphia. It was closed”. An elegant but doubtless completely unfair barb. Of course, I’d never reach for that jibe to describe my actual experience…

 

This month (May 2024) I went to Athens. I had not been since one day in 1980. On the way to a stay on the island of Alonissos  (in the Aegean Sporades), the plan was to spend a couple of nights in Athens and day-trip the Parthenon (again, after 44 years).

 

It started well. There’s a hotel offering modest rooms but a sensational roof terrace bistro. Arriving late in the evening we were looking out to the illuminated heights of the Acropolis. A fantastic visual appetiser for the next day’s exploration.

 

In the morning we set off on foot. Central Athens, apart from a few big squares and wide boulevards, is a city of undulating, crooked and narrow streets. Some are pedestrianised, given over to tourist ambling, and some dedicated to taxi rat runs.

 

For the novice foot traveller, orientation is not easy but wandering, hopefully not too erratically, is pleasant.

 

Our first stop was to be the Acropolis Museum, to learn the basics and more before tackling the vast site itself. We wended our way, with a few false turnings. Then, the Museum was, large and modern…and CLOSED. Google, hastily consulted, insisted that it was open. Google was refuted by the fact.

 

So, nothing for it, on to the Acropolis itself. A few steps away from the closed Museum there’s an entrance- not the main one. It was CLOSED. No explanation given. Google again insisted that the site was open.

 

We decided to walk round the base of the great rock, thereby reaching the main entrance, although now fearing the worst. The worst was confirmed – CLOSED- Again, no notice.

 

We tramped round, admiring the changing view upwards- like failing trumpeters round the walls of Jericho. There was obviously some reason for the closures but we couldn’t discover it. It was the Tuesday after the Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday. Easter Monday was indeed a holiday; but not, according to all the calendars, the Tuesday.

 

A last throw of the tourist dice. We would try the Archaeological Museum , 1 ½ kilometres to the north. Google said it would open at 1400. Could Google be third time right?

 

Navigating the way on foot meant descending, from the path around the final eminence of the Acropolis, the steep, stepped and narrow alleys to the north.

They are crowded to the point of impassibility by restaurants. Then we followed wider modern avenues (passed closed shops, including Marks & Spencers).

 

On our trek we came across an archaeological site about a kilometre north of the Acropolis. It’s not especially grand: a stretch of ancient road just outside a now lost City gate. But the distance from centre of ancient Athens told us something of the ancient city’s size – considerable.

 

We reached the Museum at opening time (according to Google). It was CLOSED for the day. Finally, however, there was a (handwritten) notice to that effect.

 

We turned towards the region of our hotel, and perhaps an early supper at a recommended restaurant in a secluded square.

 

We found the square and the restaurant. It was CLOSED. Fortunately, its neighbour in the square was OPEN – and perfectly acceptable.

 

It was here that the friendly waiters explained the day of closures. May Day, 1^st May, the workers’ holiday, had this year fallen in the Greek Orthodox Holy Week. To avoid conflict between the secular and sacred, the Greek Government had decreed that the 1^st May holiday be “transposed” – to our day (7^th May) of frustrated tourism. (Keep up, Google.)

 

We went back to the hotel’s rooftop, and again admired the profile of the Acropolis, and a magnificent sunset.

 

Next morning, we left for the Sporades, on a small propeller plane.

Behind us, Athens was now OPEN again.

 

May 2024

Frigiliana , Acebuchal the "Lost Village" and Wars

 Frigiliana and Acebuchal, The “Lost Village”

 

Frigiliana is a well-known pueblo blanco (“white village”, of Moorish origins) in the hills some six kilometres inland from Nerja on the coast. 

 

Justice in War: Michael Walzer

 Justice in War

 

 

Michael Walzer is the pre-eminent exponent of modern Just War theory. This is the philosophical tradition that debates the “justice” of going to war and the moral constraints that should be observed in the waging of it.