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Another Good Welshman for St David's Day

28/2/2013

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PictureThe Richard Burton Diaries Edited by Chris Williams
I'm posting my blog a day later than usual this week to coincide with St David's Day on 1 March. The man I've chosen needs absolutely no introduction from me: arguably the greatest Welsh actor ever, certainly the most charismatic and some say the finest British actor of his generation. I'm not here to argue his case; personally I found him worth watching even when he was in movies that might easily be described as pretty dreadful. Towards the latter years of his career there seemed to be a steady number of these films.

He was born in 1925 in Pontrhydyfen in the Afan Valley, South Wales. He was the twelfth child born to his parents and named Richard Walter Jenkins after his father who was a coal miner. Richard was just two years old when his mother Edith died of septicaemia shortly after giving birth to a younger brother Graham at the age of forty-four. A reminder of just how dangerous childbirth was until well on into the 20th century. The child Richard was taken into the home of his sister Cecilia and her husband Elfed in Tai Bach, Port Talbot. The teenage Richard formed a bond with his teacher and would-be mentor Philip Burton, who nurtured his talents, and whose name he would later adopt as his own. Towards the end of the war Richard joined the RAF and was accepted onto a short course programme at Oxford University where he starred in a production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. However by this time he had already made his professional debut as an actor in the play Druid's Rest by Emlyn Williams which ran in Liverpool and London. After being demobbed he resumed his acting career and in 1949 appeared in his first film role The Last Days of Dolwyn, again written by Emlyn Williams. He met and married his first wife Sybil at this time. There were to follow hugely successful seasons at Stratford and at the Old Vic, his performance as Henry V being highly acclaimed. In 1952 Richard Burton was nominated for his first Academy Award, however despite being nominated on a number of occasions it was an accolade he would never achieve.

Burton would have four wives but be married five times, wedding Elizabeth Taylor twice. As a young man with a passion for the theatre growing up in South Wales just a few miles from where Burton had, I was mesmerised by the majestic power of his voice. I recall listening over and over to my recording of Burton as First Voice in the 1954 BBC recording of Under Milk Wood - still by far the best. As a teenager I also had LPs of him doing speeches from Hamlet and Henry V. I remember, aged thirteen, going with my mother to the Carlton Cinema in Swansea to see Alistair Maclean's wartime spy yarn Where Eagles Dare and Mam turning to me in the intermission to exclaim, "Blimey, it's exciting!" It still remains a firm favourite of my family's to this day. I also love Burton's performances in Becket, The Night of the Iguana, The Taming of the Shrew, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and of course with Taylor again in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I still find myself loose-jawed to think that he didn't win for 'Woolf'' - however he did lose to Paul Scofield, an old friend from his early theatre days, who gave a fine performance as Sir Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons. Makes you wonder doesn't it, how many fine stage plays like these two make the transition to mainstream movies these days? Woolf is still a great movie, however the tragic daily routine of boozing and abuse between George and Martha is not easy to watch.

I am currently reading The Richard Burton Diaries edited by Chris Williams. I was given the book as a Christmas present from my son Tom and I am about a quarter of the way through this massive tome. They are a fascinating read so far. However I don't like to comment on books until I've completed them, so I shall no doubt be returning to the diaries in a future post.

I heard a story about Burton the proud Welshman once, that seems appropriate for St David's Day. He was on a car journey with his nephew (who was himself relating this story in a radio interview). They had stopped at a restaurant to have a meal, and at the end of this meal Burton was approached by another diner who told Burton that he'd heard he always wore the colour red about his person in honour of the Welsh dragon and his origins. Burton agreed that this was correct. The man said, "But Mr Burton, throughout my meal I've been studying you and you're dressed from head to toe in black!". Burton smiled, and unzipped the side of his Chelsea boot to reveal a red sock.

Richard Burton 1925 - 1984

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Serendipity

20/2/2013

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This is a blog about serendipity and the role it plays in the creative process. It didn't start out that way. I woke up this morning and started to mull over in my mind a mental list (as I do every day) of what I wanted to achieve today. It was at this point that I decided I'd better write my weekly blog a day early because I promised my son I'd give him a hand with some set-painting tomorrow. I love set-painting - for me it's a bit like pretending to be an impressionist painter with really big brushes!

Anyway, 'serendipity': 'the occurence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.' To my way of thinking, without it, any kind of creativity would soon become moribund and stale. Some of the greatest developments in art probably owe more than a small debt of gratitude to it. Stephen King in On Writing is rather rude as I recall about writers who never waver from their plotting and don't allow the creative process itself to take over and light the way ahead. I totally agree, sticking rigidly to a pre-ordained plan effectively stifles creativity.

What on earth would all those thousands of tourists who jockey for a place at the Louvre around the painting of the Mona Lisa every single day do if Leonardo had declared, "Sorry love, but you're smiling again. I can't paint you smiling - nobody does smiley portraits!" (but of course he'd have said it in Renaissance Italian).

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones is confronted by a huge Arabian swordsman who, after drawing his scimitar, gives a bravura display of his skill to instill fear in his adversary. When this scene was shot, Harrison Ford, seeing the comedic potential of the moment, simply drew his gun from its holster and shot the swordsman. I recall the moment brought the house down at the Odeon Leicester Square. Spielberg didn't say, "Very funny Harrison, but now let's do the fight as it is in the script!" because he knew his leading actor had given him something hilarious, unexpected and far better than the fight we all anticipate is about to happen.

In August 2006 my wife and I visited my mother for a week or so. One of the features of our six-weekly trips to Wales was taking a daily walk. Sometimes my mother used to complain that she was feeling a bit tired. "Come on!" we'd say, "You don't want to miss out on an opportunity to have a nice walk." Later on, after the walk, she would invariably tell us how much good it had done her. One sunny afternoon we drove up to Cefn Bryn on the Gower Peninsula. Just to the north of the ridge summit at Cefn Bryn is a Neolithic burial site known as King Arthur's Stone, which is definitely worth a visit if you've never seen it. However, on this occasion we travelled in the opposite direction along the ridge towards Penmaen with its stunning views across Oxwich Bay and (my personal favourite) Three Cliffs Bay.

The photograph that inspired this blog was taken at the very end of our walk when we were on our way back to the car. I wasn't wearing my glasses, so looking into the small viewing panel on my camera would have been a waste of time. I just knew that what I was looking at would make a great photograph. I literally took the camera out of its pouch on my belt, pointed it in the right direction and snap!
PictureDairy Ice
I took several pictures in rapid succession but only this one, the first, was any good. In the subsequent shots the cow had moved its head or the ice-cream eaters had become conscious of their companion. I honestly don't know why this picture works, but it's a photograph that has certainly made everyone who I've shown it to smile. Let's see - a milk producer approaching a purveyor of frozen milk whilst surrounded by people enjoying cones of frozen milk? (Analysis paralysis!)

Who knows and who cares!


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The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver

13/2/2013

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I always find the dark months of January and February a bit of an ordeal, so over the last week or two I've been revisiting a series of books I first read and enjoyed a few years back to help keep my spirits up.
Picture
As I've probably mentioned before, I read every single day. The practice has remained a constant pleasure in my life since childhood. I recall a teacher at the grammar school I went to delivering a little speech to us new boys on the merits of literature (all the teachers at my school liked to present a speech from time to time - I reckon one or two of them might have made it as orators in Ancient Greece!). The teacher's nickname was 'Charlie Biol', not terribly imaginative considering we were grammar school boys, his first name was Charles and he taught Biology. However, what he told us on a drizzly afternoon in Wales, as he covered for our regular teacher who was off sick, has remained with me ever since. He said, "Always have a book ready to hand, boys. Because if you have a good book, then you'll never be short of a friend."

In my house we share every room with quite a large assortment of 'friends'. However they're not all my very own papery-chums, my wife reads too and tends to process a page of writing about three times as fast as I do and therefore tends to polish off triple the number of books. I always pay attention when she recommends a book because she has a really good idea of what I like. I don't often read children's fiction but will whenever Judith gives a book a big thumbs-up.

This is how I came to discover the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness books by Michelle Paver. They are set right at the end of the Stone Age and follow the courageous efforts of a boy called Torak to bring to an end the powerful hold that a group of evil mages known as the Soul Eaters has over the clans of his ancient forest home. The stories move at  quite an incredible pace. By the end of chapter one of the first book Wolf Brother, Torak is all alone in the world. He soon meets the character Wolf as a tiny cub, only survivor of a flood that killed the other wolves in his den. They team up with Renn, a girl from the Raven Clan who can shoot an arrow straighter than just about anyone, and the three of them together take on the might of the Soul Eaters. Paver has studied Stone Age cultures and tribal ritual and has imagined a world for us that is both rich and vivid. She presents us with a picture of a society as it might have been, certainly ought to have been. The people in Paver's world have a deep inner life that revolves around the seasons, customs and superstitions of the world they inhabit, living lives that are just as full and meaningful to them as ours are for us. For modern children she makes it relevant and topical, without ever lapsing into cliche or 'caveman speak', and touches on conservation and ecological issues without ever sounding preachy.

Both times I read this series I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I have my favourites of course (the first, third and sixth books I personally liked best) but all are excellent. If these books had been available when I was a child I would have adored them. They are entitled and run in this order: Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, Soul Eater, Outcast, Oath Breaker and Ghost Hunter.

Give them to a child you know, or, read them yourself!


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NaHCO3

6/2/2013

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My wife Judith just can't help herself when something readable gets offered to her. She used to work in a large school with quite a good library and from time to time they would chuck-out some of their old books. Guess who would then appear on our doorstep, most of her torso hidden but eyebrows arched excitedly behind a stack of hefty tomes?

One of her favourite free papers is the Waitrose Supermarket's Living newspaper available at their checkouts. She generally scours the articles in the current issue after the shopping has been put away and we sit down at the kitchen table with a celebratory cup of tea.

"This reminds me of your Mam, " she said.

"Huh?"

"It's all about bicarbonate of soda!"

She needed to make no further explanation because I knew exactly what she meant. My late mother had great faith in bicarbonate of soda. The article Judith was referring to was in the 24 January issue of Living and described a new book entitled The Miracle of bicarbonate of Soda by Dr Penny Stanway. I haven't read the book myself and this isn't meant to be any kind of review, but I must say the book looks pretty interesting and offers 144 pages of tips on how to use this baking ingredient for a wide variety of health, beauty and domestic uses.

For most of my adult life I must admit that I viewed my mother's faith and devotion to "Bicarb" as one of her amusing peculiarities. If she didn't have any milk or flour or even money in the house, she would view this with characteristic phlegm, a minor irritation easily resolved whenever she felt like popping out to the shops or bank. On the other hand, to run out of "Bicarb" was by no means a situation that could under any circumstances be taken lightly - immediate action was required! Over her lifetime of eighty-eight years, and I'm making a conservative estimate here, I suspect she consumed her own body weight in it. She had no time for anything edible and green unless it had been tenderised with half a teaspoon of B o S (this meant boiling until the poor vegetable was way beyond the point of bearing any physical resemblence to its original form). The best cure for heartburn according to Mam was a good dose of "Bicarb"; any burns received in the line of duty of cooking were immediately run under cold water and then powdered well with, yes, you guessed it! It was in her view also highly efficacious for relieving sunburn. She even suggested inhaling small amounts mixed in water for clearing catarrh and sinuses (I was amazed to discover that bicarbonate of soda has indeed been used in commercially prepared nasal decongestants!)

Nahcolite as it is apparently called in its natural form is a component of natron which was used by the ancient Egyptians as a kind of soap, as well as being an important ingredient in the process of mummification (which we all know the Egyptians were into in quite a big way!). I did a little bit of research for this blog into bicarbonate of soda and goodness me the stuff is truly miraculous. It has literally hundreds of uses, cooking, cleaning, medical  - the stuff can even be used to smother a small fire because when it gets hot it releases carbon dioxide.

So there you have it, you should have learnt two things from reading this blog: bicarbonate of soda is a pretty amazing thing, and always pay attention to what your Mam says!

Lastly, speaking as someone who has always had problems with gluten, just imagine how leaden an onion bhaji would turn out without you know what? Tell you what, I'm checking the kitchen cupboard straight away!

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