A few brief impressions after visit to El Palacio de El Escorial (on a day in winter, hence the lack of 'real' tourists):
El Escorial is the palace built by Philip II of Spain and is situated about an hour's train ride to the north-west of Madrid and one winter's day we decided to go and do the 'touristy' thing and look around but this is not a tourist guide to the building, it is more of an impression of what we found there.
If you want the history etc then full details are here (in Spanish)
The palace itself is huge and very impressive in every way; here you can see the scale of it:
First thing you see inside is a small display of architectural artefacts including some of the original drawings as well as a scale model of the wooden cranes used in the construction. It is easy to forget that before the industrial revolution everything had to be done by hand and lifting heavy stone blocks required a combination of hard labour and ingenuity.
The royal apartments are surprisingly small. The King's bedchamber is centrally placed within the building and very cleverly designed; from his bed he could see the surrounding countryside through two balconied windows and looking the other way he could see through his private chapel to the Basilica's high altar.
All of the rooms are beautifully designed, furnished and decorated but none more so than the Biblioteca. Despite a huge fire which destroyed part of the collection, there are still some 40000 manuscripts and books in Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. Some of these are open and on display in glass cases. The ceiling fresco is by Pellegrino Tibaldi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellegrino_Tibaldi and, in my view, is much more impressive than the other frescos elsewhere in the building.
The Pinacoteca (art gallery) is divided into four rooms and displays works from the 15th, 16th and 17th century including this wonderful masterpiece by Rogier van der Weyden:
When I saw this painting I almost fell over because of the disorienting use of colour - red, which is a colour that comes forward, is used as a background and the two foreground figures (and two others on separate panels at the sides of the main picture) are bluish grey which is a receding, background colour. It appears as though there are four statues standing in front of the painting. The effect is startling and is not seen to quite the same effect in reproduction. You need to go and see it for yourself but don't blame me if you fall over; you have been warned!
Down in the Pantheon are the tombs of Spanish kings and various notable figures of Spain's history including the famous Don Juan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Austria) - the most handsome man in the world (so I am told!)
Part of the building is still used as a school and you have to admit that is one magnificent playground!
Shortly after this picture was taken an elderly tourist decided to join in, just to show these small boys how.... and with a muttered 'Dios mio' my compañera headed for the chapel to beg forgiveness for my foolish ways.
and only 6½ leagues and 1191 yards back to Madrid:
The return journey was my first and (so far) only ride on a double-decker train. Why don't we have things like that in this country?
In a week when anything seemed possible and nothing was impossible, a series of appearances, events and utterances kept us amused or confounded. Rick Stein was discovered to have been moonlighting as the Archbishop of York (see comments on this tweet); no doubt Stein’s familiarity with loaves and fishes clinch the deal.
Emmanuel Macron astounded almost everyone with his hirsute appearance in an open-necked shirt in an attempt to look sexy and down with the bruvs, but only managed to extract comments on the veracity of his rug.
From someone who gives the impression he is sneering at people most of the time, his recent speeches invoking the royal 'we' at every moment and his James Bond power play show he is rightly worried about winning a second term. He will win as France will either vote in ever smaller numbers and all the other parties will band together as usual to stop Le Pen getting into the Elysée and France will then moan about Macron for another five years; seems to be the pattern everywhere.
Boris has been keeping his head down in Ukraine. A direct missile strike would end all his problems about Partygate and lying to everyone continuously so maybe just maybe the wearing of a suit rather than the normal obligatory camouflage jacket could have been a desperate cry for help.
The odd cuff lengths if you're going out in style rather let the side down
Keir Starmer somehow gives himself immunity to any fines as his beer in hand photo was in a totally ‘different’ category to the ones that have landed Boris in the merde, but it won't do him any good banging on about Boris as it appears most of the civil service of whatever colour were partying while old people died on their own, and apparently we have all ‘moved on’; how convenient a war can be.
Two things from that photo are far more important than if he broke the rules: as in the Music Man that line 'medicinal wine from a teaspoon and beer from a bottle and we got trouble in the city' or something like that, how uncouth is drinking from the bottle; it creates the same reaction, as those old enough to remember, to the reaction to anyone drinking beer from a straight glass! Also, the vanity of the man shows, as he is wearing glasses, though never seen in public wearing them. So, two hugely important facts from a rather bad photo.
Elsewhere Priti Patel is attempting again to stop the flood of illegals crossing the Channel with a doomed attempt to send them all to Rwanda. She was seen inspecting a hotel room that looked suspiciously five star for such a destination; the only reference I have to a Rwandan hotel room is the film of the same name, not that I think she had that in mind... or maybe she did?
Priti Patel suffers like Macron from a height disadvantage. Her appearance on the rostrum in Rwanda was not helped in this area by her Rwandan official who appeared to be about 6’ 8” and the fact that next to him she looked like the second uncovering of a Russian doll.
After many criticisms of the plan Pritti said in effect, ‘If you can think of anything better tell me.’ Coming from the person in charge of all this and paid to do the job, she has so far been an abject failure, so perhaps Joe Soap in the job for a while would be an improvement.
Though to be fair, if one can be, she has to deal with a civil service that is a carbon copy of that in Yes Minister and despite supposedly being there to carry out the wishes of the current government does all it can to thwart it, whether it be migrants or Brexit; another part of the public sector that needs a total clear-out.
At the same time Border Force (time for a name change) is sending more and more personnel to ‘deal’ with the illegals crossing the Channel, while at the same time forcing legal travellers to wait for hours to pass through security to go on holiday at airports and traffic jams of lorries carrying essential goods are further held up at ports for the same reason.
Just a thought: if the Australian method of using an island has proved so effective why don’t we ask if we can share that facility? Hardly much further than Rwanda and we know it works.
As an aside, why do so many asked about Channel crossings use the ‘we must stop the crossings because of the danger of death’ as a precursor to whatever they say? These migrants pay to cross the Channel and as with anything else in life they take that risk. It is their choice, they could always take the legal route and apply like everyone else to enter, but the deaths have been minimal considering the transport used and they are picked up outside Calais anyway.
Back in Ukraine Vlad, having failed in a short dramatic takeover has resorted to other methods to achieve his aim. The West in its desire to openly help Ukraine militarily is sending almost everything they ask for, all at great expense (not that that is a concern of modern government) to fight the evil invader.
Apart from Germany: because of the calamitous Ursula von der Leyen as minister of defence before she took the lead role in the EU, the German army has hardly anything left to send. The government has left it to the arms manufacturers to send stuff; not having anything left in their stockpile they are paying the arms manufacturers to send arms direct. I hope for their sake Vlad doesn’t decide this is a good time to invade Germany!
If anyone has any idea what is actually going on there send answers on a postcard. Othe than slowly flattening the place he has achieved very little apart from condemnation by the West for everything he has done. Lots of sanctions, various European harbours filled with confiscated oligarchs' yachts, dozens of huge mansions are now standing empty (as many stood before all this kicked off) and no one knows what they are going to do with it all. Add to that the price of gas, minerals, fertiliser, grain - all either in very short supply or at stratospheric prices - and if you had arrived from planet Zog you would declare a score draw or worse at the moment.
The only person who has gained from this is Zelenskyy The war disguises a decidedly dodgy premiership where opposition is shut down along with any questions at his mysterious wealth in what is a decidedly corrupt nation; not that many from the West with ‘interests’ there are not as corrupt, but for now all that has gone away.
Still, assurances from all the big players that retribution is nigh is comforting as the leader of the free world exits stage left, or is it right, having shaken hands with the invisible man.
And you should never turn your back on the public, still …
Elsewhere in the USA the military are gearing up for a possible offensive…
(From 2016 but illustrative of how Woke has come to the Army)
This is probably a little unfair as the senior ranks have already made their minds up…
The Commander in Chief meanwhile was conversing with the Easter Bunny on future strategy, having told Putin ‘you don’t know what is coming’; this from a man who doesn’t know where he is going.
At the same time that 'Sleepy Joe' further confirms his total unsuitability for the job in hand, his understudy makes a play for the top job and fails, as she has done since day one…
We can’t finish the week without the heartfelt outpourings of the boss of Scottish Power revealing the ever increasing numbers of customers who have fallen behind with their energy bills. Naturally, with an October of further high rises coming this will for the first time actually mean many will have no choice but to choose between eating and heating; though with food and commodity prices also going through the roof the choice may not be that simple. For some, 'little is more' will become a distinct reality.
Across the pond one of the founders of the BLM organisation is cashing in on / with all the donations. As footballers here take the knee in a move to show their solidarity with their coloured brethren, the founder of the movement is showing some of that community are more equal than others…
It goes without saying that a lifestyle of luxury demands a suitable toast at the table and what is better than a suitably labelled Pinot Noir to set the tone?
Letting your wine breathe takes on a whole new meaning!
On a local level we had a copy of the town council news letter arriving last week; one item caught the eye amongst the exciting news that another bus shelter had been refurbished. What was interesting about this proposal was what it didn’t say, i.e. what they were wanting to achieve in creating mayhem by closing a short connecting piece of road that runs past the school with two barriers manned by volunteers? No alternative routes, and I mean none are available, so that presumably the school run mummies can drop the little darlings off and pick them up without illegally parking everywhere as they do now or blocking private driveways on the nearest housing estate. If this is the object of the exercise it will cause chaos for the earlier reason and there are not enough parking spaces at the council offices currently used anyway so illegal parking will continue.
Without further info the legality of this comes into question, and as police are conspicuous by their absence dealing with the current parking on double yellow lines outside the school, who is going to enforce all this, other than volunteers?
They are having a consultation table (!) set up outside the school one day next week. Could be interesting, though the real interest is what idiot proposed this in the first place. It said in the preamble ‘if acceptable we will get used to it’; we of course is not those that propose this nonsense as they all live elsewhere; sometimes you just can’t make it up.
The sign off line to this proposal is 'we will help the environment'; I've never been sure what qualifies anyone that sits on local council committees but it certainly isn’t common sense.
Numbers of perfectly fit sportsmen are apparently keeling over at an unprecedented rate; a pure coincidence that it all started after Covid vaccinations of course and the authorities when asked say the number is in line with normal incidents; no doubt one day we will get the truth on that as well.
Meanwhile - and this is just football:
And lastly the Queen has had to suffer a surprise visit by the Kardashians complete with Netflix crew. Aa place on the balcony for the Jubilee celebrations is Harry’s hoped-for reward for this furthering his celebrity status as a, er, I have no idea. He also managed to use a well known Charles-ism, if that is a word, by describing the 95-year-old monarch as having ‘great form’ as if she was race horse; the Queen has always loved horses but has yet to identify as one; with what has gone on in the Royal Family in the last few years it would be better if the Queen appeared on the balcony alone or with a horse, she really doesn’t need the dysfunctional siblings anywhere near her.
Finally finally I leave you with this: Serena in goal would be good as getting a football past the Incredible Hulk would be difficult (plus she has great reaction speed); Lewis on the other hand I would suggest is not a football person, and dressed like that is more suited to a role in Madame Butterfly than standing on the terraces.
What the nation needs at this time is Tony Blair and a rousing chorus of 'Things can only get better; or is it 'build back better' now? On second thoughts, perhaps not.
Not bad for one week and I didn’t even have to try!
It is good to get away from the famous names to explore the lesser known names of classical music. Even better when they draw on traditional folk melodies of their homeland so here is a selection from the Hungarian Béla Bartók.
Béla Bartók was born in the Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós (now Sînnicolau Mare in Romania) on 25 March 1881, and received his first instruction in music from his mother, a very capable pianist; his father, the headmaster of a local school, was also musical.
Bartók’s earliest compositions offer a blend of late Romanticism and nationalist elements, formed under the influences of Wagner, Brahms, Liszt and Strauss, and resulting in works such as Kossuth, an expansive symphonic poem written when he was 23.
Around 1905 his friend and fellow-composer Zoltán Kodály directed his attention to Hungarian folk music and, coupled with his discovery of the music of Debussy, Bartók’s musical language changed dramatically: it acquired greater focus and purpose. But as he absorbed more and more of the spirit of Hungarian folk songs and dances, his own music grew tighter, more concentrated, chromatic and dissonant – and although a sense of key is sometimes lost in individual passages, Bartók never espoused atonality as a compositional technique.
His interest in folk music was not merely passive: Bartók was an assiduous ethnomusicologist, his first systematic collecting trips in Hungary being undertaken with Kodály, and in 1906 they published a volume of the songs they had collected. Thereafter Bartók’s involvement grew deeper and his scope wider, encompassing a number of ethnic traditions both near at hand and further afield: Transylvanian, Romanian, North African and others. Bartók died from polycythemia (a form of leukemia) on 26 September 1945 in New York.
You’ll know of a simple, ingenious system called What3words. https://what3words.com/ A trio of words will identify your location anywhere in the world to within 3 square metres; so useful in an emergency.
What if we try to do the same for a period of time?
For example ‘god.king.country’ recalls an entire bygone age of collective identity and established authority. More precisely, Henry V’s 'harry.england.george' pinpoints both time and place – Agincourt, 25 October 1415.
The signing of the US Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia on 2 August 1776 is defined by 'life.liberty.happiness’ – a flag for the individual’s rights and self-determination, now tattered and fading in the scorching light of global money and power.
For here and now, ‘covid.mask.jab’ is weak, covering two years and much of the world.
What better combination would you suggest, for us or yourself?
Before officially confirming someone as a saint the Catholic Church used to employ a 'Devil's advocate' who would argue against it, citing possible misdeeds and character flaws.
For some reason President Zelenskyy has been 'canonised' by the West following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite the years-long aggression of the Ukrainian government against the people of Donetsk and Lukhansk. Now either the latter are Ukrainians, in which case Zelenskyy has indeed been 'attacking his own people' (an allegation the Google Adsense Team forbids), or they are not, in which case Ukraine is guilty of the very thing of which Russia stands accused, i.e. 'waging aggressive war', which is against international law.
Zel is good-looking, superficially a charming young man and has excellent presentational skills; we had one of those in Number Ten a few years ago and one way or another we are still paying the cost. Our news media has fallen about Zelenskyy's neck like James I around Buckingham's, to a degree I would not have thought possible until the last few weeks. Will no-one here act the Devil's advocate?
Despite Silicon Valley efforts to block out coverage from the Russian side there are still voices querying Zel's saintliness. Here for example is The Grayzone, alleging his tyrannous behaviour:
'Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country...Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia.'
Speaking of 'one less traitor' I am interested to learn more about what has happened, or will happen, to the two generals Zel sacked on March 31, calling them traitors:
The Daily Mail quotes him as saying 'Regarding antiheroes. Now, I do not have time to deal with all the traitors. But gradually they will all be punished.'
Punished how?
Another site says he added... 'That is why the ex-chief of the Main Department of Internal Security of the Security Service of Ukraine, Naumov Andriy Olehovych, and the former head of the Office of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Kherson region, Kryvoruchko Serhiy Oleksandrovych, are no longer generals.'
Naumov fled the country just before the Russian incursion; but will he be safe from further retribution?
Here's a curious vid that YouTube deleted but has reappeared on the, let us say more broad-minded, Brand New Tube; it is suggested that the white lines on Zel's desk are narcotics, though by today's standards in political circles perhaps that is unexceptional. I should like a translation of what he is saying, though:
Our greatness is not in Empire; not even in joining someone else’s, as we did so disastrously in 1973. You can tell it was an awful mistake by the way that around the time of the Maastricht Treaty John Major assured us we would continue to be ‘the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, etc.’ He did pride himself, didn’t he, on being able to talk to the man in the four-ale bar (loading up on Hooky as old maids cycle past to Holy Communion.)
What could be a better role than ‘being at the heart of Europe’ and ruling us in conclave with bibulous bureaucrats? How about being the best-run country in the world? One that works for all its people, without the Blairite ‘many not the few’ garbage?
Please don’t splutter, but unions and the Welfare State did make a huge difference in their time. However, I’d like to suggest that paradoxically, the next step forward towards moderate prosperity for all is not on the traditional socialist path.
Also sixty years ago was a speech by Hugh Gaitskell to the Labour Party Conference, warning against the enthusiasm for membership of the Common Market. https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/speech_by_hugh_gaitskell_against_uk_membership_of_the_common_market_3_october_1962-en-05f2996b-000b-4576-8b42-8069033a16f9.html He laid his finger on the tension in the socialist movement between international brotherhood and promoting the interests of working people at home; a tension that has never been adequately resolved and which has been clouded over with dreamy rhetoric from bloviators on both sides of the Commons debating chamber.
The key, I think, is in control of the rate of economic change. It is not in our interest to have a trade war with e.g China (even if we could do it); on the other hand, it has certainly not been in our long-term interest to let the World Trade Organisation break down all the lock gates on the money canal and see multinational businesses become insanely rich while Western workforces struggle in the mire left behind by the outrushing floodwater.
My understanding of Conservatives (not the ‘hard-faced men who had done well out of war’ but the ones who were brought up short by the 1945 landslide and realised that the game had changed) is that they would like a country in which individuals can improve their lives by industry and thrift. That involves setting rules for their economic environment so that it is possible to work and save money.
The Welfare State will crash if we allow claimants to multiply; we have to tackle economic immigration when there is so much structural unemployment and under-employment, and we have to tackle the latter by negotiating trade arrangements that allow for benefits on both sides. Is our political establishment sufficiently aware of how the system works, and could be made to work; and is it willing to tackle systemic challenges systemically?
If not, I have to be thankful that our airport is only twenty minutes away.
In the days of Richard Ingrams' editorship no-one was safe from satire - not even Albert Schweitzer, at one time considered an uncanonised saint. Private Eye was a frequent flier to the libel courts; but the threat of criminal libel from Sir James Goldsmith decided Ingrams that the game was no fun any more.
Now, as regards Ukraine, it seems to have taken sides. It's not as bad as the Daily Mail, for me now unreadable (the articles by e.g. Ian Birrell deserve to be in some kind of propaganda museum); even The Spectator last week featured a cartoon cover depicting Putin's scowling Slavic head as made up of a mountain of skulls (some Russophilic commentators perceive Western attitudes as racist and have taken to referring to themselves as 'steppen*gg*rs.)
Coming back to the once-fearless Eye: perhaps Ian Hislop has been a 'safe pair of hands' for too long; perhaps he has become too comfortable, too occupied with other projects. Here are the relevant cartoons from issue 1570 (the one before this week's); judge for yourself who is getting the easy ride here.
... Maybe I'm wrong; maybe PE will get round to doing a thorough feature on all the parties who have long been pushing for this dreadful confrontation; and a critical profile of Vlod. Maybe.
