2016 # 11 Easter Monday

Its been some weekend. The football team I coach (with Dan playing left back this week) won another semi-final and play the final on the 6th April, the day after Dan's 21st. And yesterday was an Easter trip to London for a family celebration because it also coincides with Dan's birthday, and he got the chance to see his Brown Grandma, Granddad, aunties, uncles and cousins. In fact the only person missing was Abbi, and then wouldn't you know - having taken in the Alexander Calder exhibition at the Tate Modern before lunch we bumped into her (pictured above). Serendipity plays a huge part in our lives and there she was, the tennis player, still in Oklahoma but there in spirit and soon to be back with us (she graduates in May - yay). Going up to London by train is always a treat and on the way we came across this sign. Any idea what its about? Answers on a post card please. We thought it might be describing us - we were indeed 'Off Up' to the smoke but its not the kind of sign you expect to see in a station. I recommend the Calder exhibition and of course there is a load to see at the Tate Modern already. It was a fine trip and even the two problem moments caused little stress. Having come off the train at Blackfriars and walked over the Millennium Bridge we got caught in a hail storm right on the cusp, going back was just as bad an option as going forward. Serendipity at play again, on the way back from the Tate we were caught in the same place; ah well, both times we ran forward and not back - moving forward into spring, leaving winter behind, happy Easter - we love listening to this in the car

2016 # 10 Good Friday

The boy pictured front, centre, is my Dad's brother, my Uncle Wull (William, is not Willie or Will but Wullie or Wull). I never knew him. Come the Second World War he was in the RAF, a tail gunner in a Lancaster and he died over what was known as Czechoslovakia in 1944. Indeed, pretty well all of this football team would have gone to that war, all mates. I was thinking about the terrorist incidents in Brussels last night, and Paris and around the world and how the old hippy maxim of peace, love and understanding isn't such a bad idea. Yesterday an expert on ISIS (from Goldsmith's University) was saying that radicalism and recruitment to terrorism was easy in Europe when you had areas such as Molenbeek. I guess we have our own enclaves here in the UK and in an old fashioned parlance they are probably the modern equivalent of what were known once as ghettos, though its much too simple an explanation. Can societal alienation be the biggest factor. The only time I can recall being seriously racially discriminated against (apart from the odd Jock jokes, which are only mildly irritating) was in Southall, Birmingham. I was crossing the road at the lights, in front of an Asda van  and he made to lunge forward. I jumped out of the way and the driver and his mates laughed, 'Want some of my Van, white boy?' he shouted. Again, very mild and less than the comments women and gay people get regularly, or the comments that come with being black or Asian in this country. The thing is, it all speaks to and off intolerance and I suspect driving the Asda van said more about the problems being created. Education, employment and opportunity are tools for social mobility. My Uncle Wull along with millions in this country was fighting for a better world, for a better future and 72 years later we are still the recipients of his generosity. Today is good Friday; Happy Easter to those who believe in the Biblical story and also to those who prefer the Easter bunny, and to everyone who believes in peace, love and understanding, its a good message.

2016 # 9

'Poets - unlike other people - ,' wrote Ivo Andric, in Disquiet, 'are loyal only in misfortune and they abandon those who are doing well.' This always struck me as an odd thing to write. It is like saying the collective noun for poets is a 'glum'. But I don't find this to be the case at all. There are preconceived notions about all art, of course. We tend to think of medieval art as a bit religious and that would be true, but that doesn't mean its not a colourful world. The painting above is in the Uffizi and is the Adoration of the Magi by Ghirlandaio but look at the colours. Of course it was painted right at the end of the medieval, indeed where it overlaps with the Renaissance. Though some of the Caravaggio and Rembrandt stuff can look as though they were painted in a dark room. I am in Florence as I write this and its the most remarkable city, the people are wonderful, the waiters especially and they take such a pride in serving what is fairly routine but wonderful Italian food. GF spaghetti and clams in a light tomato sauce sprinkled with oregano and washed down with a glass of chianti, roll me up and send me to heaven. And now its Saturday morning and I am off for a run - nay, waltz (que the music) - by the river.