AllisonAdler
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Posts posted by AllisonAdler
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No problem, as an admirer of Burges' work I'll just buy the Williams book, I'm sure that the details I'm curious about will be found there.
It doesn't have that info, Medhb--I just bought it at Cardiff Castle a few weeks ago. And alas, they were renovating the damn Burges rooms at the Castle when I tried to see them as well!!!
The V&A has some great Burges furniture, and, I just discovered this visit, some really fabulous silver designed by him as well.
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Made of Honor (very cute), 10,000BC (eh), In Bruges (very good), and The Water Horse (extremely cute) on the plane to and from London.
The Duchess in London. Wow, a great film.
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The view of Kensington Gardens outside my window this morning.
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My little dog is slowly getting better, after being run over by a heartless
driver who left her for dead in the road, outside the house.
All the very best wishes for your dog's full and speedy recovery!! -
Reading Bill Clinton's speech in The Guardian just now (bummed that I missed it live!!). I really do adore that guy.
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^ I loooove that song
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Could we just all possibly agree that Robert and Jimmy have equally good reasons, in their own minds, for doing whatever it is that they do? No-one here or elsewhere is so morally pure as to be able to judge anyone else, and I think it's fair to say that these are two grown men dealing with what life has to offer them as they see fit. And quite right, too.
edited to add: nevertheless, expressing upset about Jimmy's non-appearance at Montreux is very different indeed from accusing Robert of being 'selfish' because he's doing what he always said he was going to do.
OK, first, about Ahmet Ertegun dying - you're holding Page responsible because he didn't see in his scrying ball that Ertegun was several months away from death due to falling at a future Rolling Stones concert?Let me see if I have the rest straight, as well - Page told Nobs in good time that he would not be performing at a tribute attended by many people besides Page. IOW, Page bowing out hardly meant the proceedings needed to come to a screeching halt.
We do not know what, if anything, he communicated personally to Ertegun; well, anyway, I don't. His public reason for not attending was a quite reasonable one - he'd recently had surgery. But people keep implying that wasn't the REAL reason, and somehow whatever the REAL reason, which they either don't know or won't/can't reveal, it was selfish of Mr. Page.
These are the same people who will say about Robert Plant with a straight face "He's not selfish, he's just doing what he feels like," and who don't think it was a big deal he couldn't stop rehearsing for two days to attend the American Recording Academy's bestowal of a Lifetime Achievement Grammy even though it was clearly of some importance to others in his circle of acquaintances. I'm not saying Plant didn't have that right, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy; apparently only certain people may do what they feel is most important to them. Others have to do things to please everyone.
So, Nobs or whoever else was responsible for such things chose not to make Jimmy's withdrawal public until very far along in the proceedings, yet it's Page's responsibility the organizers didn't take him at his word from the start and alert the ticket buyers? Better to announce he'd changed his mind and would be there after all. Or were they interested in how many tickets they could sell with Page's name on the program?
Or are you saying Page himself misled the organizers, was wishy-washy, said yes, then no, then maybe?
Honestly, I would appreciate having the point clarified.
Maybe this will help with the raw emotions: the only person I saw mention Ahmet Ertegun in public, sending wishes that he get well while he was still alive (although unconcious), was Mr. Jimmy Page at the British HOF awards ceremony in 2006, when Led Zeppelin was inducted. (Not saying there weren't others, just saying Page is the only person I saw or heard.)
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Best article in The Mail ever. I think I've missed my true calling, or milieu, or something.
Dogs and ponies belong in the house, obviously.
As Boris Johnson is attacked for his unkempt appearance at the Olympics...Why are posh people so scruffy?By KISHANDA FULFORD
Last updated at 10:04 PM on 26th August 2008
The carpet looks filthy, the fireplace brims with ashes and a dog is shedding hair on the floor.
The chair cushions are on their last legs, propped up on decrepit armchairs, showing no signs of ever having been cleaned.
Worst of all, the lady of the house seems to be wearing her Wellington boots in the sitting room.
But the thing you may find really shocking about this tableau is that it is not the home of some slovenly slattern.
It is the country retreat of Rachel Johnson, the sister of Mayor of London Boris Johnson, as pictured in a recent newspaper supplement.
Life of grime: Rachel Johnson's home epitomises the upper-class tradition of not bothering to keep their houses tidy
Ms Johnson is something of a social butterfly, appearing at all the best parties in designer-wear. But at home, her polished exterior evidently disappears into grubby chaos.
Yet for my own tastes Rachel seems to live in style and comfort.
I can hear the gasps of horror from around the country. But I have something to reveal. Rachel Johnson is not on her own.
A surprising number of members of the upper classes really are this grubby. Not only that - but they love being so.
I can vouch for that - my husband Francis, whose family have been resident in their manor, Great Fulford, since 1190, could more often than not be muddled for a tramp. And he's far from unique.
The upper classes live with their dogs in their beds and their wives trussed up in old dressing gowns girdled with binder twine. Many live in old farmhouses which don't even have sinks in the kitchen.
In my own part of Britain - the West Country - there are two examples that spring to mind.
Tim Chichester, a true gentleman in every way, lives in a farmhouse on his family's glorious Wiscombe Park estate in East Devon.
He hasn't dusted in decades - if ever. On his Aga is a stuffed badger, coated in layers of cobwebs, and he has a pet raven which leaves its droppings on the old clothes horse.
Then there's the Marquess of Bath, master of Longleat house in Wiltshire and famous for his 74 wifelets, who openly admits to 'not being the best of washers. I can't remember when I last washed my hair'.
Take it from me, these two men are by no means the worst offenders. All over the country, at many of the grandest homes in the land, the upper crust are content to live in squalor.
Why do the scions of society delight in dirt? It might be simple to blame the whole thing on 'Nanny', who runs after the upper-class child chanting the mantra 'cleanliness is next to godliness' and tidying everything away.
This has the reverse effect on the child who, in later life, rebels.
'A surprising number of members of the upper classes really are as grubby as Rachel Johnson - and they love being so'
Perhaps their boarding school upbringing leads them to believe that clean clothes once a week is the 'norm'.
It surprises me that my husband packs only two pairs of underpants to go away for a week's holiday - and it surprises me even more when he wears only one of them.
Of course, real grubbiness is not just thanks to Nanny or boarding school, but is a state of mind. The true upper-class Brits do not care what anyone thinks about their house, their clothes or their car.
They do not mind about cobwebs, dust on the top of their pictures, mud on their Barbour, cars filled with cherry stones or out-of-date food (unless it is moving by itself).
Here, I speak from experience. When parts of my house were scientifically tested by the boffins from Channel 4's How Clean Is Your House, the show's presenter, the ultra-hygienic Aggie, took great delight in telling me that I had streptococci on the kitchen table, E.coli on the great staircase windows and something unpronounceable lurking on one of the 15th-century chests.
I was warned that if any of us brushed against this potentially lethal piece of furniture with a small scrape on our skin, the chances are we would die. They told me that we and our four children lived in a bug minefield.
But you know what? We are all perfectly well and no Fulford to my knowledge has in the past 800 years died of one of these unseen horrors.
There's no denying, however, that a primary cause of slackness in hygiene standards is the upper-class love affair with animals, particularly dogs.
No male gentleman wants to see his dogs confined in a kennel: he wants them to lie on a cosy sofa during the day and then, in extreme cases, snuggle up to them in his bed at night or, at the very least, ensure that they are snug in their basket by the Aga in the kitchen.
Scruffy? London Mayor Boris Johnson was criticised for wearing an unbuttoned jacket and putting his hand in his pocket during the Olympics closing ceremony
These dogs are always forgiven for peeing on the curtains as puppies and when they grow older and roam and occasionally mistake a chest of drawers for a tree, nobody bats an eyelid.
Some people might squirm at the thought that my Shetland pony loves spending an hour or two in the house. He helps himself to carrots and tries to knock the lid off the dog food bin. But to me, he's just a part of the family.
Hygiene aside, the upper classes are also notoriously messy. They never throw anything away. This is partly due to inbred frugality and partly because, as they tend to live in large houses, the rule 'junk accumulates to fill the space provided' tends to apply.
So a quick perusal round a couple of my downstairs rooms has revealed: old pots of linseed oil; unwanted bits of riding tack; chunks of brown soap; wooden tennis rackets; brittle leather riding boots that are so small in the calf that a child cannot fit into them; wooden skis with the bindings gone; tables with woodworm; several cans of paint from the 1930s; ammonia in glass bottles; oh, and a rusted pairs of ice skates.
This rule about junk also extends to a toff's motor car. Rarely brought brand new, the upper classes seem to use their vehicles as a rubbish bin. This is, I suppose, better than throwing their litter out of the window.
Early in my romance with my husband, he arranged to pick me up from my parents in the late afternoon. He had spent the whole day cleaning his car out. I was horrified when I saw the car and thought I could not possibly marry anyone who kept his car in such pristine order.
Luckily, Francis had forgotten about the boot. As I went to put my suitcase in, there was not only copious rubbish but also two cock pheasants which had festered there since they had been shot several weeks before.
I have to remind him of that when, if I am on a cleaning binge and disturbing his peace, he tells me to stop being so 'middle class' and put the Hoover away.
It is not only the upper-class house and car that are less than salubrious, but their clothes as well.
The upper classes are either superbly dressed (rarely, though) or pitifully clad. It seems there is no in-between. In fact, a gentlemen does not go out of his way to buy new clothes unless he has got richer, fatter or his clothes are beyond repair.
My grandmother, an expert on lupins, was often dismissed by visitors to her house as the gardener. It was said of her: 'She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her by a pitchfork.'
But, if they had got closer to her, they would have seen that her hat was held in place with a very large diamond pin.
A past Duke of Norfolk, whose country seat is Arundel, in Sussex, was so appallingly dressed that a friend eventually remonstrated with him and urged him to tidy himself up: 'Whatever for?' he answered. 'In Arundel everyone knows who I am, while in London no one knows who I am.' That arrangement suited him perfectly.
My husband has what his friends call the 'moth' look about him. He does not possess a single sweater without a hole in it and at the time of writing he has only one suit that would pass muster. The rest are frayed and dissolving at the seams.
So why do some of the upper classes live in what some might think of as squalor?
The truth is they like to be comfortable. What is more comfortable than wearing an old sweater with that special 'eau de cologne Anglais rustique', which is a mixture of damp wool, dog and gun oil - with the odd gravy stain added for good measure.
After all, who wants to take their boots off if they are shortly going back outside - and anyway, what is the point? Why spend hours spraying 'surfaces' with chemicals when there are so many more amusing things to do? Is there any point in ironing your underclothes?
It could be said that the upper classes are highly eco-friendly. They don't hoover very much, hardly ever turn on the washing machine and have the heating on only when it is really very cold.
And, more to the point, where would you rather go for a cup of tea? To Rachel's comfortable messy house or to an immaculate drawing room where you are frightened of leaning back in the chair in case you crush the perfect cushions?
Dirt is a way of life to me and my fellow toffs. It's both comfortable and relaxing. It's medically desirable as you build up resistance to an enormous range of bugs.
You save lots of money as you don't need to buy many clothes, and when you do they last for ever. And it's even environmentally friendly.
A blind eye to the dust on the mantle and the mud on the kitchen floor has served our family well for more than 800 years. Neat freaks be damned, I have no intention of changing those habits of eight centuries. Not now. Not ever.
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Reading about Byron's groupies in The Independent:
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^ Proof of Ahmet's good taste.
And I'll back this up, having also been there with A. -
^Well, I think my source was quite a reliable one...
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Understood. Although to my mind, if the surgery was before, that's more reason not to perform, rather than less.
Anyway, the implication that it was some nefarious, last minute bald-faced lie without anyone ever giving details is what gets my goat, to be honest. If the promoters knew about it in advance, he covered his professional obligation. After that, either accept it at face value, or come out with what the real beef is. He bowed out on Roy Harper after that, and noone looked sideways.
Oh, it was only a last-minute thing (lie or whatever) on the part of the promoters--they announced it the evening before the show and had apparently known about it for weeks!
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Well, sitting around drinking and eating with a buddy isn't quite as demanding as standing (not to mention moving around) with a heavy guitar on stage.
Just playing devil's advocate, you understand. Maybe it was artistic or personal differences, and that's the polite excuse given, instead. But until I learn the actual story, I'm going with the fact (and it is a fact) that Page was suffering from knee pain at the time, enough to require eventual surgery.
There is that.
Actually, SC, he was very much out and about all over London, on foot, without any appearance of difficulty (of course he might have had the good pain killers). He had the surgery some time before the show, btw, not after. Furthermore, the promoters at Montreux apparently knew well beforehand that Pagey wasn't going to show, and the knee thing was indeed the 'spin'. That is the actual story--I was there (at Montreux and in Selfridges!!).
Edited to add: and don't get me wrong, I'm sure Jimmy had his own good reasons for not wanting to be there.
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A knee problem was cited as why he could not attend, and most were sympathetic to
that excuse, until it was learned he and Ross Halfin were out on the town together in London the same night.
Not to mention shopping the summer sales and such all over (London) town a few days later!
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Christine Carpenter's The Wars of the Roses: Politics and Constitution in England c. 1437-1509, which is excellent.
Park Honan's Christopher Marlowe, Poet and Spy, good so far.
And re-reading The Aeneid, Fitzgerald translation, amazing as always.
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Chariots of Fire
Tess
Notorious
To Have and Have Not
Persuasion
Howards End
Kingdom of Heaven
Amelie
8 1/2
Bridget Jones's Diary (the first one)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Music ones (with TSRTS obviously at the top)
24 Hour Party People
Velvet Goldmine
A Hard Day's Night
The Wall
Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii
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500th post! Had to be here, really:
Three favs:
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Thanks for this, Allison!
Nice to recall this special and emotional moment..I have never seen Jimmy so happy.
Hope to see him like this again in the near future...
Sure! And me, too!!!
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Even I am charmed by this at this moment of supreme disenchantment.
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Herco!!!!!! Nice to see you!
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Thats a huge time period... I might imagine there is alot to say.
The books I've read have been pretty short, looking for something a little longer to hold me over for more than just a few days...
I've read things like Homer's The Odyssey, The Battle on Salamis, the works of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, etc, and tons of Greek mythology... but nothing about Greece itself... sounds interesting!
Whats it mainly about? If has anything to do with politics and/or warfare, I will be more inclined to read it.
There is a good deal about warfare, but its primary concerns are archaeological and cultural. Have you read Herodotus' Histories? The Waterfield Oxford translation is very good. You might also try Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War (Lattimore translation). And if you haven't read The Iliad, the Fagles translation is amazing--I'm on the last four books at present and it's been fantastic.
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Just got done reading "The Battle at Salamis" by Barry Strauss.
Its about an epic Greek/Persian naval battle... but also references the battle at Thermopaly, which if you've seen the movie 300, is basically word-for word from this book.
Ancient Greece is bad ass.
It's pretty great! I just finished Robin Osborne's Greece in the Making 1200-479 BC myself.
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The Moonstone...Wilkie Collins... like to hear what you all think?
without making a link Moonchild anyone?
Both great! I've actually taught both of these and everyone really enjoyed them.
I'm reading Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, which is quite gripping.
Also just got Peter Trippi's book on J. M. Waterhouse--seems very good so far.
All the very best wishes for your dog's full and speedy recovery!!
What Made You Happy today?
in Ramble On
Posted
Watching one of our young neighborhood bobcats saunter down the street, wiggle its tail, and pounce on something in the bushes. Such a gorgeous creature!