EDINBURGH IN AUGUST - MIND BLOWING CITY OF POETS

I didn't know what to expect.    I don't like people telling me I must like a place before I go because I instantly have extremely high expectations, and they are very high, as in ethereal, and consequently I've been disappointed with both Ireland and Ibiza - not because they are not wonderful, but because they were not as wonderful as I imagined.    Everyone told me the festival (in August there's the book, the arts, the international as well as the Fringe going on) so there are festivalS, would be amazing.   I had visited Edinburgh before, never during the festival season and passed through quickly on the way to St Andrews.  Walking the streets of Edinburgh (boy did I walk for those four days), I realise J K Rowling has filched every stone and cranny from every narrow archway and corner, every shadow and smell, every alley way and signpost.   She owes Edinburgh but I think she's paid back in bucket loads.

I was there for four days. I ate very little (I don't eat much anyway but seemed to live off almonds and water, and occasionally when I got really light headed, jelly sweets, and I had one lunch (at Civerinos @civerinos  www.civerinos.com) - very good.    On Saturdays they feed the chefs from the nearby restaurants and swap stories about how little sleep they've had in August. I don't think anyone sleeps in August in Edinburgh.  They have September for that. In August far too much going on.   I was even dreaming poetry on the second night.

The city is multi-layered, built up one street on top of one another, like a multi-dimensional cobweb, and this is mirrored by the mish mash web of incredible creative chaos which are the festivals, intertwining with each other - the high culture of the international festival, attracting big names like Juliet Binoche (beautiful but a bit snotty, pity), and baroque  of Lestyn Davies (think sound track from The Draftsman Contract and Dangerous Liaisons)  with the bookish book festival, tented and neat lawned in a square, with the arts festival spit-spotting galleries and sculptures anywhere there's a space and the fringe using every other nook and cranny, a bit like Rowling did but with less subtlety.  There isn't a space that hasn't been used for something creative.   The place buzzes with the inspired and inspirational.  You walk from one venue to the next because it is the quickest way to do it (dodging the tourists not forgetting YOU ARE ONE OF THEM, and the 'Edinburgh Crusties' who are here for the more cerebral stuff).   So you see a lot of Edinburgh.    The venues are inspired, anything from warehouses, to conference centres, student dorms, pubs, restaurants, ladies toilets, rooftops, cellars, graveyards, churches, anything that is a 'space' is taken.

Highlights.  OMG. Where do you start?   There are thousands of productions going on.   Do not go home thinking you have missed the best. If you do you will be miserable all the time. So be zen, be in the now and just enjoy what you see.    I went to about fifteen productions, plays, performances in three days.   That's enough. You need some time to walk, think, admire, be.

Two productions I attended at the EICC were mesmerising.    The Encounter, and 887.   The Encounter was phenomenal. Like Edinburgh, it was multi-dimentional, layer upon layer upon layer of story, of character, peeling away, with the actor and writer (Simon McBurney, one man show).  It was journey telling and story telling on a whole new level.  Desperately funny, funnily desperate, McBurney made himself vulnerable and so did the audience.  Some high art (OK, I find a lot of it), is too clever to loose yourself in. You are still thinking 'this is very clever' rather than getting into it.    The ego doesn't get into this performance.  It is visceral and perfect.   I have never experienced anything like it. Complicite is the company who produce works like this and it is mind blowing.  I still want to cry (in a nice way) when I think about it.  Its sort of like Walkabout (Jenny Agutter film) but set in South America.   You want the journey to continue.    I know actors over act, but boy is McBurney on the money.   You don't want it to end although you are utterly exhausted emotionally by the end of it.  A bit like walking round from venue to venue at the Festival really.    Any way, think you get the idea that I liked Encounter.   887, I saw after The Encounter.    If I had seen it before I would have thought more of it, and there were moments which were incredibly poignant, and creative, but the ego crept in and I could see it.   I could never see it in the other play.

Kate Tempest was another performance that blew me away.    She recited for an hour one poem after another with blistering intensity about, well, the beige-ness of life and how we are all terribly fearful and terribly angry and we do nothing about it.  We are bashed into apathy and mediocrity, but she did it, (as per Encounter) in a funny, filthy, powerfully poignant, lyrical, wise way.   Both The Encounter and Tempest made the audience cry and laugh within a few minutes of each other.   That is amazing.

The Fringe, I saw Phil Jupitus. He's a very funny comedian, and he's also a very good poet.   He makes up poems using the titles of the productions in the Fringe, and they're very good as well. He hates David Cameron and Boris Johnson with a vengeance but then I get the feeling that everyone in Scotland feels the same.

I watched Trygve Wakneshaw and his production of Kraken.   Very clever. I saw his penis but then so did everyone in the audience.  Twice.  

No penis performances include - Funny Bones Trash, excellent, funny and poignant (that combination again) for the children and their parents.    Go take your young children,  but they will need to be able to walk.  You walk everywhere in Edinburgh. No whinging children.  If they whinge, don't bring them. Tell them they are going to the real Harry Potter Land, and if they whinge they'll be turned into snakes or something.

UKIP the Musical, Nigel Farage meets South Park, clever and funny. Not poignant.   But funny.    Antigone, at the Rose Theatre, with Binoche and Finbar Lynch (very good) as well as obi Abili and Kirsty Bushell. Very strong cast.   I thought there would be no laughs in this one but there were.  I'm not a regular theatre goer but I do admire beautiful acting.

The performances go onto the early hours. I saw Pole, about Pole dancing at midnight, three girls performing (around poles) about the good, bad and very very ugly of the industry. One is a yoga teacher.  Yes some of the moves are very much like yoga postures although perhaps Iyengar wasn't thinking that at the time.

Tips, tips, tips, how to do the festival.   BE FIT.    And if you can, go by yourself and make friends, or just talk to people.  If you go with someone try not to debate too long what you are going to see. It takes time. Be spontaneous. Take a risk, as Kate Tempest would shout.    I know its not English but DO IT.

1) Wear very comfortable shoes.
2) Take snacks with you (almonds and water good).
3) Listen to those who say they loved something but do not die if you don't see it yourself.   One person's five star is another's no star.

I was told I must see Filthy Talk in Troubled Times, and didn't, but one day I'm sure I will.    And Tea Set and Brute.  But I didn't.    But I didn't stop walking or clapping, or crying or laughing, and occasionally I ate, and sometimes I even slept (at the Town Chambers (self catering apartments) with gorgeous views over Edinburgh and the Glasshouse - which is the other side of the railway station, in the new part by the Ingleby Gallery where I saw some of Charles Avery's work.   And I saw the David Bailey exhibition.   Powerful photos, but the best by far were Ralph Fiennes (1995) looking utterly edible, Jeanne Moreau (with smoking cigarette) 1966, Marianne Faithful (1964 - superb), U2 Bono 1985, his ego shouts out in this photo. Its all about him, will always be about him, has always been about him.   Bailey captures them even when they are soul less.    Mick Jagger in 1976 looking utterly trashed.   Mandela 1997, you want to know what he's thinking - probably (has he taken the photo yet?..), and Jack Nicholson laughing, Francis Bacon, looking as distorted and disturbed as the images he painted, Jacqueline Henri Lartigue (1982) like a map of a life on his face.    Incredible light on the face.   David Lean in 1989 looking dreadfully sad.

4) Go up by train and back by sleeper.    Its part of the experience, although someone I know found themselves in the same carriage as Janet Street Porter, so it wasn't quite the experience they had hoped for.

5) See the Edinburgh Tattoo. Its the icing on the cake.  The ceremony is wonderful. The castle beautiful.  The rest of the events are the cherries, each of them incredible. I have so much admiration for every performer there.   You are amazing, as are those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make it happen. Actually you are exhausted but you still do it because you love it - I can tell.  

Edinburgh is the cake, substantial enough to welcome everyone and more than just a backdrop. Its the inspiration for so much of the work that goes on here.   You visit during this season and you end up breathing with the pace of this place, absorbing the performances. The place and performance become one. As J K Rowling realised, the energy of this place and people makes magic.

Edinburgh is a city of poets and for a month the world gets to hear what they have to say.  And for four days so did I.   It was a privilege.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS - DIVERTING ATTENTION WITH EASY TARGETS

Bring out your dead and those who are easy to target.    In the City a trader has been jailed for 14 years for LIBOR fixing.   What only him?   And only thirteen other of his colleagues? And no one at the top knew anything about it? No one?

His colleagues obviously didn't like him and he, like the other 13, has been sacrificed. Those who are 'discovered' are allowed to be discovered - its blood letting. The ones who did the most damage are allowed to get away with it as long as a few are seen to be punished. But these guys are small fry.    Watch carefully at those who are not jailed and those who are.

Those who are sent to prison will receive the heaviest sentences not because they are more guilty than the others, or more friendless (no one has friends or is friends in the City, they have contacts) those who go to prison are simply less well connected.    The trader didn't drink alcohol.   That would, if nothing else, brand him a loner and a loser.

And Ted Heath.   Bring out the dead; unable to protect themselves, they are also easy targets. It is easier to kill a memory of someone, than bring to task someone who is still alive, in power and able to manipulate the media and the law. These dead names are diverting attention from those in power in every industry, those well connected folk who are still manipulating the media and the law, who are as guilty.    They do not care if their reputation is destroyed when they are long dead. Who would.

No more bringing up the dead, lets go for those who have got away with it and are still alive.

ON MY BIKE, AND TO MINSTER MILL

I interviewed the fascinating Will Butler-Adams this week, MD of Brompton Bikes. Excellent bike. A fraction of the weight of Boris Bikes.   Everyone should have one. Everyone.   Make life much easier and nicer.   See the full interview in forthcoming Richmond magazine.  They are in a race this weekend as part of the big cycling event which will make traveling by car in London a nightmare, well more than it is already.  www.brompton.co.uk

I also visited Minster Mill this week.  Good if you have pets. Not perhaps children. Good for lovers (v romantic) and dog lovers (see below). www.oldswanandminstermill.co.uk

KIPLING MAKES EXCEEDINGLY FINE FESTIVALS

I went to Brighton this weekend and a place called 'Rottingdean', a place which sounds dreadful but it is utterly delightful (see photos)l. Its a beautiful village outside Brighton where Kipling lived and rented a home for about five years, and was happy until it became tourist ridden and people kept looking through his windows. When he once pulled the curtains on a woman she said 'how rude'.    I get the feeling the same would happen in Richmond.

Parking in Brighton is appalling. Far worse than Richmond, which I thought was impossible, but Rottingdean, about a ten minute drive away along the coast, is fine.   You can park and stroll and in the warm June sunshine it was an afternoon of heaven.  

The second annual Kipling Festival takes place this week (25th June to 7th July), with a variety of events celebrating the life and work of the man, born in India and most famous for The Jungle Book,  The Just So Stories, The Man Who Would Be King and 'If'.   "If" is one of those poems written for men, by men, to men, but it is as relevant to women.   Kipling himself wrote a lot of his stories about men for men, but he had a formidable mother and married a formidable woman, so perhaps he felt women didn't need the courage and focus, they had it in spadefuls already.   And he didn't want to give women the vote so obviously he was deeply flawed in many ways.   

The Festival, organised by the phenomenal Christine Foster (below) a local theatre director, this year celebrates the 150th anniversary of his birth in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1865.   The events explore the early life of a man who would be Kipling - winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for the sheer 'originality of his imagination and his remarkable talent for narration' - at the time when the young reporter was creating the beloved poems and tales of his adventures under the exotic influence of the The Raj. 

Rudyard Kipling lived at The Elms in Rottingdean from 1897 to 1902.  His history can be viewed in a room dedicated to him at the Grange Museum.   

I arrived to the walled library gardens to find actor Geoff Hutchinson in full flow under the blue skies, amongst the roses, playing Kipling.   Evoking the eccentricity and mesmerising complexities of a man who was prone to depression, he quoted from his famous works, spoke of his life story in first person, then broke into full cockney (although don't think he is) when finished and out of character. Hilarious and rather wonderful.   Geoff didn't recite the poem, 'If' which would have made me cry.  It has the same powerful theme to 'The Quitter' by Robert Service. It stirs real courage; a quality I admire in anyone, and always wish to build in myself.  There were talks from celebrated historians Kathryn Tidrick and Mary Harner, who had a bit of a to-do over whether Kipling's wife was a force for good or just a nag. We decided she was a force for good, who had to be a nag.   

There were wonderful little 'sayings' of Kipling, planted around the gardens for the 'Kiplings Kids', where children could treasure hunt the sayings and win a prize at the end, but I found more adults doing it (see below - they are are priceless and timeless).   

Although Kiplings home was bought last year (Just over £1.6 million so not London price as it is beautiful, on a green over looking the pond), you can walk round the walled gardens, which are ideal for inspiring a writer, wild flowers, peonies, camomile, garlic, herbs scattered as though the seeds have just been thrown down, but obviously not.

the incredible organiser (Christine Foster).

kipling and the other journalist…(I write poems and books too!!! and I love India.   Kiplette...

yes. agree with this one 

I think this was tongue in cheek.. depends on the mother… 

Not always, depends who you are flying with...

The festival continues this week and is very well worth the journey, especially the performances of The Fever Trees at the Village Hall ((Wednesday and Saturday). for tickets go to info@kiplingfestivalrottingdean.co.uk   There are plenty events for children and a writers group, who will read their own work inspired by Kipling in India.    You can even walk on the South Downs surrounding Rottingdean, guided by Rob Upward a local guide.    Just don't expect to find a parking space in Brighton. Eat at the Indian Summer restaurant www.indian-summer.org.uk to get you into the Kipling mood, and beware the hen parties.  Kipling would have been enthralled.  The festival was a credit to Christine and her team.  If you don't' go to any festival this year, do this. Its baby porridge; small, substantial and perfectly formed.     The Kipling Festival is bi-annual. 

www.kiplingfestivalrottindean.co.uk

FLYING HIGH WITH A TO ZEN OF YOGA

Interviewed the High Commissioner of India this week. Lovely man, lovely photographer (Glen) who also does yoga.   He loves the book and is sending one (I'm sending him one more) over to the Prime Minister.

birthday photos

BIRTHDAY ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN

Gawd, fifty one already.   Birthday morning, I stood on top of a hillside in La Clusaz, and cried at the overwhelming beauty of the place, silly cow that I am.  Closing myself off to hatred, I also close myself off to beauty as well - and its overwhelming when I feel safe enough to open up again and let the beauty in.  I'm back in Richmond now so heart hermetically sealed.   But for that moment, that day, there I was, very happy, and open, surrounded by (not so) silly cows, with huge cow bells munching grass (the cows that is, not me), I spent three days in the company of some lovely strangers, loads of mountain bikers, a yogi and osteopath who placed crystals in places I haven't had anything for a very long time!   It is a village of 2000, which explodes by ten in the winter months, and during the summer has a series of mountain bike competitions which defy gravity and courage (or is that stupidity).  I took the easy 9k route 'route de gourmande' which basically is they say an 'easy peasy' route punctuated by cheese and wine stop overs.  There was only one we stopped at (very good, goat cheese - excellent; and I had apple juice instead of cider, but was hit by a low hanging cow bell (from the tent) thank goodness for the bike helmet because I would have knocked myself out).  You had to be born before 2000 to take part - so I was fine.

But oh boy, my bum hurt. Absolutely aches. Those who take part in mountain biking must have butts as tight as walnuts or at least be able to crack them between their cheeks. Bless.   On the Saturday it was hot and everyone got sweaty. Then a huge storm (incredible in the mountains) and on Sunday, rain in the afternoon, so everyone was covered head to toe in mud. Except the panda eyes thanks to the glasses they wore. Some of the drops that ride over appear vertical. Am sure they are not, but they appear that way.

I did yoga on my birthday at seven am started a two hour walk up up up up and then reached the top, to downward and upward dog and tree pose and of course eagle and mountain pose because seemed appropriate on top of a mountain.  Was with lovely guide Natalie who was in Nepal when the quake happened. She told me it lasted for 45 minutes. She felt the earth was angry with the way we were behaving - we as in mankind.   "Trying to wake us up".  Has she succeeded?   Nope.   Have to happen again then won't it.   Not in Nepal again though please. Nor in la Clusaz for that matter. And they speak French there - more than you can say for the nearby Chamonix where they don't speak French in some bars now.

Lake Annecy lovely.  Have never visited - or if I have can't remember.   Lovely place which doesn't depend on tourism. Which is a good thing.  Places that do are at the beck and call of people with absolutely no taste.

Thank you to all those who wished me happy birthday.   I had a nice time. x