Saturday 29 May 2010

The Hospital of St Cross


The Church of St Cross. Click the heading for more photos of the church.

The Hospital of St Cross, Winchester, is the oldest charitable institution in Britain, founded in 1133 by Henri de Blois, King William's grandson. It has been home to the Master and Brethren of St Cross since medieval times.

The Hospital* is also England's oldest continuing almshouse and is a group of medieval and Tudor buildings, including a medieval hall and tower, Tudor cloister, the Norman church and gardens. For over 850 years St Cross has provided food and shelter to people in need and visitors can still receive the Wayfarer's Dole (a small beaker of beer and a morsel of bread) on request. In times past in the Hundred Mens' Hall up to a hundred poor men received a daily ration of food.

My father Patrick was first married here to Catherine Stephenson in 1940.

Visiting on a rainy day in May, I came across the Society for Creative Anachronism holding a fair and engaged in a pilgrimage to nearby Winchester Cathedral. Click here for some photos.

[*The term "hospital", in this context, has the same origin as "hospitality"]

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Chelsea Flower Show 2010


The Chelsea Flower Show 2010. Click the heading for more photos.

The Chelsea Flower Show this year fell in a glorious sunny week, the temperature on the first day topping 90F, but the gardens remained spectacular and those with strong water features unsurprisingly attracted the judges the most. The Best in Show garden was so crowded that I was unable to get close enough for a decent photo and had to be content to shoot over the heads of the BBC cameramen. But I liked his concept of the diverging paths and the huge wall, at the beginning so opaque, opening gradually to reveal that all paths lead to the same end.



My favourite designer, Ishihara Kazuyuki, again produced a stunning moss-covered room lit by his signature glass waterfall and surrounded by rich and unusual planting, but this year he only received a silver - having previously won two golds - possibly on the judges' perception that this garden was somewhat less original.


The small gardens were as always a delight, my favourite being a garden at the edge of a moor, complete with music stand on which rested the music for Die Schone Mullerin.



Click here for the Chelsea Flower Show 2008
Click here for the Chelsea Flower Show 2007

Friday 21 May 2010

Scenes From a Hampshire Childhood




















Herry and Danny at Stocks, Hampshire in 1953

'Scenes From A Hampshire Childhood' by Gerald Ponting is a small masterpiece, capturing beautifully the era of the 1940s and 50s spent in a peaceful village in the Hampshire countryside. Village life, grazing milking cattle on the village green (in that case Breamore marsh), his father's milk round, toys, dogs, household and kitchen equipment such as the 'copper', the arrival of television, flowers of the hedgerows, the village fete and the village school are all beautifully evoked from a background of the writer's simple and settled home life. The photographs are particularly astonishing, as Mr Ponting took up photography as a child and he has captured scenes rarely seen in such contemporaneity. Click the heading for more details about the book from the author's website

Sunday 16 May 2010

Favourite Places


Wandsworth Common; not the most romantically named place on earth, but a huge and beautiful city park nevertheless. Click the heading for a walk across the Common to the river and back

Saturday 15 May 2010

Old Wykehamist Reception at Lincoln's Inn



The Old Wykehamist Sports Reception was held in the Old Hall, Lincoln's Inn on 13th May 2010. The Warden, David Clementi, introduced the presentation of Winchester's sporting achievement by the likes of Douglas Jardine, the Nawab of Pataudi(who managed to play test cricket with only one eye), Hubert Doggart (who was a Cambridge Blue in five different sports and captain in four) and Howard Angus by David Fellowes, the Director of the Winchester College Society. About 100 people attended and all were amazed at the depth of talent that was exhibited, most of which proved the old truth that a healthy mind produces a healthy body, in that the sporting 'greats' were mostly also highly gifted academically as well.

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Tate Modern's 10th Anniversary


Part of the Tate Modern's attraction is the approach to it from St Paul's over the Millennium Bridge


A favourite Bacon triptych. Click the heading for a selection of other works.

I was interviewed about the Tate Modern by the BBC. Fortunately I didn't see the news programme on which it was shown, but I've had people contact me from as far as Australia to say that they saw it!

Sunday 9 May 2010

Henri Matisse



Matisse - The Red Studio at the Museum of Modern Art

A superb series on the modern artists by Alastair Sooke opens one's eyes to Matisse's originality. His work has influenced artists such as Rothko and many designers including Tricia Guild and Paul Smith. See some of Matisse's paintings in the Musee Matisse by clicking the heading, although much of his best work is in the Hermitage, as well as in New York and Paris.

Friday 7 May 2010

A Child From Everywhere

On 6th May 2010 Caroline Irby held an exhibition at the V&A Bethnal Green (The Museum of Childhood) of her 'A Child From Everywhere' project in which she photographed children from 185 different countries currently living in the UK.

Also at the exhibition was Alanna Clear, who's own project (with her husband) travelling 20,000 miles by motorcycle and sidecar from Alaska to the tip of Patagonia and interviewing people on the way about the secrets of long-lasting love looks to be even more interesting. It's called 'Going the Distance' and will be edited and published later this year.

Thursday 29 April 2010

The Lord Mayor's Lunch


The Lord Mayor, Nick Anstee, held a lunch at the Guildhall in aid of the Army Benevolent Fund, supported by Prince Charles. It was very well attended and the money raised by the silent auction and raffle exceeded £100,000. Click the heading for some more photos.

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Farewell Robert Le Pirate



Charles Viale, dit Robert le Pirate, vient de mourir à 88 ans. Et avec lui, c'est la plus belle époque de la vie nocturne azuréenne qui disparaît

C'était sans doute le dernier des Mohicans, quoique plus flibustier qu'indien. Les soirées dans son restaurant du Cap-Martin ont fait le régal des journaux people du monde entier. À une époque où people voulait encore dire quelque chose.
Sa réputation est d'ailleurs venue d'outre-Atlantique où Franck Sinatra, alors au sommet de son art, ne jurait que par lui. Dans les années soixante, Onassis y amenait la Callas, Alain Delon y dînait tous les soirs avec Jane Fonda lorsqu'ils tournaient « Le Félin », BB y a peut-être dit « oui » à Gunter Sachs. Le Prince Rainier s'y rendait accompagné de Grace Kelly.

De ce haut lieu de la nuit, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Grégory Peck, Nat King Cole, Gina Lollobrigida, Kirk Douglas, le « Johnny » national, Bébel, Claude François, Tino Rossi, Serge Gainsbourg, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Brel, le roi Hussein de Jordanie, le prince Charles, Jacques Chirac, Dario Moreno, et Ursula Andress, pour ne citer qu'eux, gardent tous, pour ceux qui sont encore en vie, des souvenirs souvent impérissables... mais pas toujours avouables. Seuls quelques happy few ont pu parfois assister à ces soirées d'anthologie.

Mais pourquoi autant de stars ont-elles hanté les nuits du Cap-Martin ? Tout simplement parce que le pirate était un hôte inimitable. Le mélange de son style fantasque et de l'insouciance de ces années dorées a permis aux quelques mètres carrés de son restaurant de devenir le lieu le plus branché de la Côte. Il fallait réserver des mois à l'avance pour avoir la chance de s'asseoir à la table de Robert le pirate.

Lui était toujours torse nu. Tirait en l'air en plein restaurant. Tant et si bien que les seaux accrochés au plafond quand il pleuvait faisaient partie intégrante du décor.

Inimitable
La musique, toujours, accompagnait les frasques du pirate qui n'hésitait pas à jeter de l'huile sur le feu de son immense barbecue avant d'embrocher de son sabre la viande à cuire. Un véritable show man. Au Pirate, on cassait les assiettes, les ânes s'invitaient à la table en fin de soirée et l'on apportait avec la petite barque son café à Dino De Laurentis qui « garait » son Riva devant le restaurant.

Et que dire de cette scène restée gravée dans la mémoire d'un serveur : « Le Saint en personne est entré. Tout le monde s'est tu devant tant d'allure. Et avec son accent très british, Roger Moore, a demandé de la « leng oust ». Le pirate a mis son couteau entre les dents et a plongé pour remonter le crustacé. Bien sûr, il avait un vivier au fond de l'eau ».
Roger Moore était bien d'ailleurs l'un des seuls à pouvoir commander. Parce que chez le Pirate, c'était le Pirate en personne qui vous disait ce que vous mangiez au gré de ses humeurs.

Ses humeurs définissaient aussi le prix à payer pour ces folles soirées. Le Pirate se transformait souvent en Robin des bois. Et il n'était pas rare de voir un riche industriel italien payer sans le savoir pour des Roquebrunois désargentés attablés quelques mètres plus loin.

Des Roquebrunois et des Mentonnais pour qui Robert le pirate était une véritable légende. Pour cette génération, approchant désormais la soixantaine, le restaurant du Pirate, c'était aussi un muret où les gamins s'entassaient pour apercevoir les superbes filles qui arrivaient très apprêtées dans de grosses voitures américaines et repartaient... soutenues par les serveurs, incapables de tenir debout. Le champagne, du Don Pérignon évidemment, coulait à flot chez Robert. Lui-même avait d'ailleurs la réputation de commencer sa journée, vers 11 heures, en avalant une flûte avec un peu de cassis. Avant de prendre un bain dans sa chère Méditerranée, comme tous les jours de l'année.
Mais ce que tous ces gamins attendaient, c'était surtout les Strangers in the night.

Le moment où les lumières s'éteignaient. Quand les lanternes s'allumaient et que la chanson de Sinatra débutait. Le Pirate prenait alors la tête de son équipage de stars et traversait la rue pour aller aux « Frères de la Côte », sa boîte de nuit. Les « Strangers in the night » ont disparu désormais. La Côte est devenue plus sérieuse. Peut-être plus triste. Surtout depuis que son pirate de la nuit s'en est allé...
opoisson@nicematin.fr
From Nice-Matin March 2010