Air travail, by JD

I wrote this in 2011 when I was thinking of doing a blog post about travelling:

"Writing in the Guardian in 2007, the designer Sir Terence Conran told a story that illustrates perfectly the difference between the ethos of a publicly owned infrastructure company and a privately owned one.

Conran revealed that when he was working on the design of the state-owned Heathrow Terminal 1 and the North Terminal of Gatwick airport in the 1960s, he was pressed to make sure that he provided "lots of seating" for the public. Conran contrasted the concern the state-owned airports authority in the 1960s showed for the comfort of the travelling public, to the much more commercial attitude of BAA today, where "every square inch must be turned over to retail space."

Unlike its state-owned predecessor, the privately owned BAA is seemingly guided by just one concern: maximising profits for its Spanish-owned parent company, Ferrovial. That means out with public seating areas, and in with forcing people to pay to sit down in rip-off cafes and restaurants."

It was brought to mind after reading John Ward's latest observations on passing through Stansted Airport -
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/analysis-the-call-of-the-bowels-vs-the-demands-of-mammon-vs-our-citizen-liberties/

Ward's tale also reminded me of an unplanned meander through Barcelona airport (which is called appropriately enough El Prat.)

I checked in at the BA desk then looked at my gate number and access stair. The BA desk was at the foot of Stair C. My boarding pass said Stair A so I walked to the other end of the terminal and climbed Stair A. Through security check which was nowhere near as bad as these things are now. I then looked for the gate number and followed the signs past endless 'shopping experience' and, after a long walk, reached the gate. Entrance to the gate was on my left but to my right was the security check for passengers coming up Stair C!

(I think the Barcelona check-in episode was in 2000 or 2001, can't remember exactly. It was definitely before the 9/11 attacks because security after that was turned into an assault course, the poor passengers being the ones assaulted!)

I no longer travel anywhere because I have done enough travelling and have a lot of good memories but, as Ward says, our puritanical leaders do not want 'proles' like me to enjoy holidays and certainly not to broaden our horizons and our minds.

Beth Chatto, by Wiggia

A short tribute to a lady I knew quite well in her early days and who had more influence on how I approached gardens and design than anyone else; a remarkable person and sadly missed.
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I saw today that Beth Chatto had died, I knew she had not been well for some time though she still managed to get around her wonderful garden on her mobility scooter.

I met Beth in the very early days of her fledgling nursery and garden, a woman full of energy and positive actions, no dithering for her on where to put her plants, they went in where she wanted them with due consideration to site and soil and if they didn’t perform out they came, it was a ruthlessness that served her well.

Her husband was part of the Chatto & Windus publishing house family and his father bought him a 100 acre  fruit farm, it was here that Beth learnt the hard way the rudiments of soil and site and muck and how to use all to best effect.

She was a gifted flower arranger and this was she said part of what gave her an eye for placement of plants in the garden.

They purchased a plot at the present site of about 3-4 acres on what was to most a very difficult site on yellow clay but it had a stream through it that was dammed to form large ponds and provide sites for water and edge plants. The nursery then in ‘69 consisted of little more than table sales , today it and the garden cover 14 acres and employs 40 people.

Those early days were where she put the knowledge of her husband Andrew and her own to good use. The nursery then as now would have huge compost heaps that would in time transform the land around her.

The first time I visited the place was just about getting going, and the reason I visited was because I was looking for some unusual perennials that were on her small nursery list and were unobtainable elsewhere. It was this listing that would give the nursery its name Beth Chatto Unusual Plants.

My subsequent visits were for more than just plants. Beth would freely give advice and I had just moved to a house in Essex that had the dreaded yellow clay for a garden, plastic goo in the winter and impervious in the summer. She showed me how they simply dug trenches, used grit and anything else they could get for mixing in the bottom for drainage and then barrow loads of compost. It was an exhausting exercise on the scale she was gardening, her husband's input was mainly his knowledge of the land as he was suffering from  emphysema, she was running the show on her own as well as looking after Andrew.

She was not a garden show devotee but the impact of Chelsea is not to be dismissed and she entered and won ten gold medals in ‘77 - ‘87 and then the RHS gave her its highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour. She was made an OBE in 2002. She never exhibited again after ‘87, she had no need to: her point had been made and anyway Chelsea took a huge effort at a difficult and busy time of the year for any nursery.

Her books, and I have them all still are gardening bibles on how to tackle different situations. The early ones The Damp Garden (1982) and the Dry Garden (1978) not only brought her to the attention of a wider audience but promoted her garden, her life's work.

She was never a designer in the traditional sense. Her garden evolved, was changed and evolved further, always looking to improve and place plants in better situations. Much of this went back to her husband's  research into habitat and fauna, "the right plant in the right place" has been used many times as her mantra and justifiably so.

She travelled the world in earlier years sharing her beliefs and became one of the foremost plantswomen of all time. In my opinion there has never been a better one. What she and her husband did with that unforgiving windswept  piece of land in the driest area of the UK was mind-blowing; there have been many great gardens built in this country but none have been built from what most would consider almost impossible barriers in human effort and a “testing” site.

Her words of advice stayed with me through my own career and are never forgotten. I sadly have not been back to the gardens for some time having moved from the area. It has become a go-to on the garden circuit and coaches arrive throughout the season, but that can never take away the accomplishment of Beth in what she created the hard way.

Greatest plants person we have seen?  I know no better. She will be missed by all that had a chance to meet her. I thank her.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Good Vibes, by JD

More Catalonian lunacy, by JD

Carles Puigdemont (r) welcomes Quim Torra in Berlin. (EPA-EFE/Omer Messinger)

Found on Quartz

I see the Catalans have finally elected a new regional president but this one is another lunatic. Quim Torra he is called. That is a wonderful name :) He sounds like a Catalan Supremacist. He described Spanish speakers as "The Castilian speaker, according to Torra: "Beast, hyena, viper, scavenger ..."  http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2018/05/15/5af9e6a246163fc7138b456e.html

His sole mission in life is the creation of an independent Cataluña by fair mean or foul; that second method being the preferred method. That should win him lots of new friends! The smallest party, CUP who are anarchists and have four seats in parliament, didn't vote for him because he is not radical enough. So it looks like the petulance will continue. And we think our politicians are stupid!!!

I don't like to say that I told you so but.......
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/catalunacy-by-jd.html

The archives of Barcelona’s Autonomous University hold a booklet signed by Nosaltres Sols! that was published around 1980, according to historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal. It contains eight pages of typewritten text written in the Catalan language, and titled “The scientific basis of racism”. The authors reach the following conclusion: “For the above reasons, we consider that the Catalan racial makeup is more purely white than the Spanish one, and hence that Catalans are racially superior to Spaniards.”
https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/05/15/inenglish/1526373293_276622.html

And I found this from 1931-
http://www.filosofia.org/hem/193/var/931nsols.htm
It does not state explicitly the racial superiority of catalans but there is no doubting their mindset.

This will not end well. The Catalans are determined to restart the Civil War. Their stupidity is breathtaking. And it has spread to the Balearic islands. Mallorca is seeing an exodus of doctors and nurses because of new regulations requiring proficiency in the Catalan 'language' Earlier this year Ibiza lost its last remaining paediatrician. And, as if to demonstrate how insane this has now become, the members of the Orchestra of the Baleares must speak Catalan. The music director is Japanese and speaks English in rehearsals. The assistant director is Spanish and speaks Spanish when he is in charge.
https://slippedisc.com/2018/04/you-can-join-our-orchestra-if-you-speak-catalan/

John Lennon was right 50 years ago - our government, every government, is run by insane people for insane purposes!

They must have a President before 22nd May and Torra is their third choice. The tidal surge behind it? I wish I knew but their belief in 'racial supremacy' has to be a factor plus the usual vanity and egomania of politicians. Sackerson asked - "How much social disruption is caused by posh people's boredom?" http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/posh-tarts.html
Maybe not so much these days, more like political vanity and egomania as I say above.

And then there is the 'cause' which is invariably imaginary. In the 1931 document they were comparing themselves to Ghandi and De Valera struggling for their countries. There was a definite logic to those two but Cataluña has never been a country. In fact a lot of things I have read will pretend that Aragon is really just another name for Western Cataluña as if Aragon were subject to Catalan rule when it has always been the other way round.

By the way, Craig Murray and Julian Assange are strong supporters of Catalan independence. They obviously haven't done any research on the history and even less by way of thinking about it. Which, to me anyway, calls into question their accuracy and/or motives for their other 'causes' (I also think Murray and Assange fit into Sackerson's "posh people's boredom" category but with added sanctimonious righteousness.)

I conclude with a reference to Tabarnia. Here is the BBC's version of the story -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-42777496

The provinces of Tarragona and Barcelona (Tabarnia) voted to remain part of Spain and the other two provinces, Lerida and Gerona voted for independence. Albert Boadella, who is a comic actor, has appointed himself as President of Tabarnia and the campaign for Tabarnia to remain part of Spain is based word for word on the Catalan campaign to leave Spain, only the words Spain and Catalonia have been switched.

Here is Boadella outside Puigdemont's house in Belgium-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToBevTHvHs8

And here is Belgian television's report on Tabarnia's desire for independence-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAE5z2Di-bw

I see from YouTube that Torra is already the subject of a lot of humour plus one studio interviewee, Joaquin Leguina, describing him as an imbecile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8tFZfjuW0A

It will be a long road back to normality :)

FRIDAY MUSIC: Jeff Beck, by JD

Looking back at the musical posts from both Wiggia and myself, there is a sort of haphazard intermittent pattern featuring musicians who explore other musical styles and/or cultures. I think 'crossover' is the popular name given to these artists. Not a word I like but I suppose it is as good as any other.

Previously we have had Wynton Marsalis -
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/friday-music-wynton-marsalis-by-jd.html
... the interchange of jazz and classical -
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/classical-jazz-fusion-by-wiggia.html
... and, more recently, the musical explorations of Ry Cooder - https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/friday-music-ry-cooder-by-jd.html

This is another such post and features Jeff Beck. He was one of the many 'guitar heroes' who came out of the 60s 'beat boom' and quickly established himself as possibly the best of a very good bunch.
http://jeffbeck.com/jeff-beck-still-run-jeff-beck-story/

What sets Beck apart is his musical journey since then. He acknowledges the influence of artists as diverse as Ravi Shankar, The Shadows, Les Paul, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman to name but a few. He also has a very distinctive and unique style such that he could never be mistaken for any other guitarist. One of the reasons for his distinctive sound is the way he has modified his Fender Stratocaster guitar and Fender make a guitar to his specifications which carries his name (if you want one, they are not cheap by the way!)

The other 'magic' ingredient is that fellow guitarists (Eric Clapton and Dave Gilmour among others) will all say they haven't the faintest idea how he gets such a range of sounds from his guitar.

And when the music business crowds in on him he escapes by building Hot Rod cars: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/08/20/no-ridiculous-self-driving-car-guitarist-and-hot-rodder-jeff-beck/89026794/

FRIDAY MUSIC: Swedish Nightingales, by JD

The Real Group are Swedish and sing acapella. That is all I know about them but I like their style!
http://www.therealgroup.se/about.html

May Days and Holi-days

Image source

"May Day festivals, which began with great public gaiety, usually ended in orgiastic displays of sexual licentiousness. Marriage vows were temporarily forgotten during this honey month. People coupled freely in the woods and fields, fertilizing the soil and each other, sharing a fervent participation in the regenerative magic of the earth." 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/don.../may-day_b_1465779.html

A German-born lady told me how women of all ages would stand at their doorways, dolled up, waiting... Any resulting babies were deemed legitimate.

As for Holi in India (celebrated in their - earlier - Spring), here is the past, imagined by someone with a deep knowledge of the country and its people: