three Canadian cities

Completing the somewhat travelogue of our [now last year's] trip is way overdue.

When we left Berlin our destination was Montreal, and our first visit to Canada. We arrived tired on a too hot afternoon [later news bulletins spoke of a highest temperature in so many years] and our first impressions of Montreal were not appealing. The city seemed scruffy and undistinguished. I guess after London and Berlin its North American tendency to sprawl and appear over-sized in every way was an unfortunate contrast with the more human-scale European cities we had just visited and so enjoyed. That, coupled with the temperature and our tiredness maybe caused us to take a less than approving initial view of the city.

We had a quite pleasant time in Montreal, however the city failed to ignite any spark of delight in us. The old quarter is very handsomely maintained; is smartly presented to appeal to visitors. Similarly parts of the business and commercial heart of the city neighbouring the quarter are also quite stylish. Yet we felt there seemed no real centre or focus to the city and mostly projected an air of shabby tiredness. This was disappointing since i think we had expected Montreal to embody a degree of pizazz and French sophistication. Maybe we just caught it in a wrong moment; maybe we were in the wrong mood, a lull in the middle of our journey.

I don’t wish to suggest Montreal wholly displeased us. We had several perfectly pleasant experiences: our hotel suite was spacious and well situated between the old quarter, the Village and downtown; we admired the stylish Gault Hotel and would have liked to stay there but satisfied ourselves instead with an evening meal in their restaurant which was fine tho’ not outstanding; we found an excellent bakery in the Village that served quite good coffee and made delicious pastries and breads; and in a vast atrium beneath the Hyatt and near the Place des Arts we found the MBCo. Boulangerie which served superb pastries and sandwiches; also in the Village an ordinary corner cafe-diner were we could get basic food, beer and ok coffee, and watch the local gay community; the contemporary art gallery had an exhibition by two memorably arresting artists, Vik Muniz and Thomas Hirschhorn, both of whom were new to us and their work well worth discovering.

From Montreal we went by train to Ottawa.

Canada’s capital quite impressed us. Ottawa is a smart, prosperous-appearing city. We much enjoyed our time here, and while this was no doubt partly due to the favourable impression the city presented us in general, the major cause of our pleasure was the presence of friends. We would most probably not have thought of stopping in Ottawa had not Martin and Clodoaldo been living there, and their hospitality and services as guides to the city certainly made our visit very enjoyable and gave us much to remember. The presence of Allen, who came up from San Jose to join the four of us, served to increase this enjoyment.

 One of the city-visitor things we did was tour the houses of parliament which included going up to the viewing floor in the Peace Tower which gave an excellent view over the city. We also spent a grey, damp Sunday afternoon at the art gallery - a building with several impressive spaces [the entry ramp to an atrium beneath 'teepee' skylights; 2 internal courtyards with geometric plantings and pool suspended over the entry foyer] and the usual range of art works - a reasonable number of which stopped us and asked for attention.

When we travelled on to Toronto, again by train, Allen journeyed with us. He was to visit family friends in the city, but we joined up again for a day together to seek out some of the major sites-to-see in the inner city. On that day we had an enjoyable time looking at the press photo exhibition at the Brookfield Centre Lambert Galleria; City Hall and the Eaton Centre; the old distillery quarter; Casa Loma and its astonishing stables.

We much liked Toronto - again our preferred sort of city: big, bustling and prosperous, with lots of variety in even just the few districts we explored. We were impressed and amused by some of the architecture we saw, such as the addition to the design school but even more so the Daniel Libeskind extension to the Royal Ontario Museum. [If only Christchurch could overcome its timidity and boldly tell Peter Beaven to let go of the nineteenth century.] We also played tourist and took a trip to Niagara Falls - fine to do once; yes, they are impressive - especially close-up to the vast onyx curve of solid water sliding silently over the top edge of the falls on the Canadian side - but after a little while, it’s just a waterfall. The Canadian town of Niagara appalled us in its Disney tackiness - the place must be a kind of hell in the height of the summer visitor season.

On our last evening we walked around the corner from our hotel to Jamie Kennedy’s Bar and Restaurant which we had read good things about. The reviewers proved to be quite accurate - this is a very good place. Kennedy is one of Toronto’s leading chefs – had worked in numerous other restaurants – this is his first own establishment. He serves ‘small plates’ – very up-market tapas – and the five we had were exquisite. We indulged ourselves and had the recommended wine with each – fortunately in small glass sizes – these were without exception exceptional – lovely, lovely wines – many of them Canadian which we’re not likely to taste again. The atmosphere has that nice buzziness, not too loud, but a busy buzz of people enjoying themselves and a staff who are on to it but not making a fuss about that. Our waitress was one of the kind you encounter in these good places every so often and wish for always. She was affable and loved to talk about the food and the wine, and knew what she was talking about – especially the wine. She gave excellent advice without the least pushiness and was genuinely interested in our reaction to and comments on what we had just tasted. This was a fitting frame and end to what had begun at Hutong. We left the restaurant elated, just as we had in Hong Kong, and the lantern of lights of Toronto’s skyline that appeared as we walked out onto the street seemed to reflect that mood as well.

We hugely enjoyed the whole of this trip. We could have borne for it to continue a little longer. However maybe best to finish thus, and there will be others - soon!

television

A week or so before we left on our excursion to Europe and Canada, TV4 began broadcasting the Channel 4 series Skins. Immediately we fell for its quirky brilliance - dialogue in the best English dramatic tradition, a character collection as individual as they are appealing, and plot lines that make you chuckle and wring your heart by alternate moments. Great to watch and then we’re gone. The series is not quite over when we get back but we’ve missed all the central episodes. No matter this is the age of the web and so we acquire the series and are in process of viewing it all through.

Skins is a great treat in the tv desert. So too is Spooks - for just the same reasons - great script writing, intelligent acting and plots that make the heart race and bring you to the edge of the sofa. [And one must not of course neglect to mention the gorgeous Mr Rupert Penry-Jones of whom we can scarcely see enough and of whom we have been in lust since the days of the likewise fondly remembered North Square, yet another of these great British series that are left virtually alone to redeem the tv medium from the abyss.]

There’s much to despair about the dross that presently screens as the majority of the fare on free-to-air television in this country. The major evening new bulletins on the 2 principal channels push sensationalism before balanced reporting and virtually never offer informative analysis let alone background to their subject matter which might make the events a little more explicable. The content range of the shows that screen in ‘prime time’ is so severely limited that often the only interesting stuff to view, when one can’t really take yet another cooking programme, is Deutsche Welle’s Euromaxx.

I should not grumble - this state of poor television means i can read more, and write this blog. And then when a really good tv programme turns up, i appreciate it all the more. Long live Skins and Spooks, Dr Who, Rick Stein exploring regions of Europe and The Simpsons.

Berlin

Berlin - hmmm - quite a different associative set for me than London. Of course. i didn’t grow up with a close familiarity with things German, since after all i was a post-war New Zealand child and England was the mother country. Nevertheless one came to understand that things German, Teutonic, embodied style - a smart style of precision and quality; good lines and solidity; serious. I loved in my adolescence a novel called The Wooden Shepherdess which, if i remember correctly, was set in Germany. Later there were Isherwood’s books and the seductive Cabaret which they spawned. My first car was a Volkswagen beetle: driving it at night i confess to running fantasies connected with Le Carre’s spy novels of coldwar Germany.

So i’d always paid some attention to Berlin. It possessed a certain enigmatic and intriguing cachet; that and its being a major world city of art and culture and national identity, it seems kind of surprising neither of us had visited it earlier. But now we have; and it didn’t disappoint in the least. We really enjoyed our scarce week there in Mitte which was the most brilliantly fortuitous base for our stay. Mitte was, pre-war, the cultural and energtic heart of Berlin, i understand. Under the grey succubus of the GDR the district fell into ennui and decay - you can see this still in many buildings and vacant lots. However reunification has breathed life back and Mitte today pulses.

Our hotel was in Oranienburgerstrasse - a short walk down Friedrichstrasse to the Reichstag or the Museum Insel; or towards Alexanderplatz and the Hackescher Markt. But the public transport system is excellent and we used that lots - the trams of the U-bahn and trains of the S-bahn: had we been intending to stay for a longer time we should have had to get bikes, the clearly favoured transport mode of so many Berliners. The atmosphere of the city, and of Mitte in particular, felt immediately pleasant. Everyone was welcoming; the place felt alive but not frenetic; after London it seemed somewhat empty yet there were a good many people about all the time; we enjoyed the ever apparent contrasts of old, tired, shabby and stylish, striking, contemporary; we ate some excellent food; saw numerous beautiful guys; and experienced many memorable sites/sights. For a first visit we had a most rewarding time, and there is doubtless a great deal more to Berlin that we might yet discover.

Amongst what we did encounter and fondly remember were the life of the streets of Mitte, the excellent Monsieur Vuong restaurant, tapas bars, breakfast at espresso Ambulanz, coffee and aprikosentarte at a Caras cafe, the walk along the Spree bank to the Reichstag, queueing there [alongside numerous stunningly good-looking young men] to go up to Foster’s Cuppola, the Pergamon on Museum Insel, the Jewish Museum, and the holocaust memorial, the restored Brandenburger Tor and rebuilt Potsdamer Platz, trams along Oranienburgerstrasse through Monbijouplatz to Hackescher Markt and its neighbouring Hof.

London

Being back in London for a week in September was hugely pleasant. This city has always seemed for me so easy to live in - i’ve felt at home there right from the time of my first arrival way back in 1977. London has been familar to me forever - i guess in part because i read so many books set in London and England all through my childhood and adolescence, and lived a good deal of my in-my-head fantasy life in that city and country. i longed in those years to escape from the dull narrowness of the provincal antipodean town i found myself trapped in, for what appeared to be the only genuine centre of intellect and culture on the globe - England. Years and university mitigated that escape imperative. Nevertheless when i did leave New Zealand for the first time, that was where i headed. And arriving from the Continent and stepping out of Victoria Station into the streets of London for the first time i felt instantly at home. i must have looked at home as well, since the very next day i was stopped and asked for directions - something which continued to happen frequently in all the days and weeks after.

London then has always felt like home, but it is special and pleasing and enlivening for many, many other reasons also.   While it is familar, like a favourite shirt, it is also constant in another sense, as the sun’s daily return is constant - even if some of those London constancies get spruced up from time to time - yet it is for ever surprising you as well. You begin to think you know a particular corner of London, and then you discover something new you didn’t know existed just round a corner you’d passed a hundred times before. Amongst the new for us this visit were the Borough Market and Southwark Cathedral - wonderful - how could we not have experienced them before!

London is full of entertainments, both the organised and the incidental. We love them both. We get a great kick out brilliant theatre performances, such as the production of Medea with Diana Rigg in the name role we saw several years back, and this time the Complicite Company’s A Disappearing Number. We return time and time again to galleries, Tate Modern, the National, … - to see fondly remembered pieces and discover things new. Then there are the museums - some we’ve not made it to for even a first time yet: next visit. … Music, parks, architecture, shops, … and of course friends. The years passing has meant each time we return to London there are more friends there to catch up with than there were the time before, which is a whole treat in itself.

But actually just being there is enough. I don’t always want to “do things”, but i find i just want to be in London. To do the day-to-day stuff; to wander, to people watch, to sit and read or watch tv; to go out and buy food and come back in and cook and eat; to haunt a book shop for an hour and have a coffee, then go home [well the hotel] - but to do it, in London.

All of that is a delight. And we did it for a week again this September. Then when the week came to an end we didn’t really want to go, but, one has to. Fortunately as it turned out this time, it was Berlin we were going on to, and that proved to be great fun too.

coffee

Coffee, espresso coffee, is gorgeous stuff. I don’t crave it every hour of the day, but it is very difficult to do without at least a cup or two in any day. So in the morning, as soon as we get up the espresso machine is turned on to heat and I will usually have a flat white at breakfast and another after dinner at night. Occasionally there may be another cup during the day at a cafe; and if we’re at a restaurant for dinner I would usually prefer to have an espresso after the meal than my usual flat white or caffe latte.

We’re very well served in New Zealand now by the great majority of our cafe baristas. They know how to work their espresso machines and use the numerous coffee roasts available to make really good coffee. Sadly this is not so everywhere, as we had reinforced during our recent travels through Hong Kong, London, Berlin and in the three Canadian cities we visited.

Coffee begins to have a longish history by now since its discovery and cultivation, as a stuff one might drink, in Ethiopia way back in the tenth century. From this orginal home coffee spread first through the Arabian world, and then into India before arriving in Europe courtesy of Venetian traders in the early 17th century. Coffee invaded the major European cities during this century with coffee houses becoming spirited centres of social, often political and frequently business, life. [London's great insurance house Lloyd's grew from just such a coffee shop.] So the culture of the coffee shops then continues to be recognisable in our own cafes of today.

Disappointing then to find that now in some of those same great European cities quite dreadful coffee is served. They are still littered with coffee houses - of the ubiquitous chains, and others - but finding a really good espresso is extremely difficult. Our antipodean baristas could teach most of their northern counterparts we encountered on our tour a great deal about how to better perform their art and trade. Just as the NZ-Oz proprietors of Soho’s Berwick Street cafe, Flat White, are doing.

We had looked forward to drinking good coffee at Flat White [their fame having spread back home] but unfortunately during our stay in London the cafe was closed for renovation. However we were saved from repeated ghastliness at a Nero or Costas by Jason at C4, whose mentor, Richard, now roasts at the Monmouth Coffee Company, Monmouth Street, in Covent Garden’s 7 Dials. On Jason’s recommendation we sought out Monmouth that first morning in London and were treated to excellent coffees [with some fine Danish pastries from amongst the many deliciousnesses on the broad wooden counter that greets one on entry into this tiny but brilliant coffee house]. We were lucky enough to gain seats in the confined wooden booths [they must be very like, if not of, original 17th century coffee house design] behind the baristas’ station. Richard came up from the roastery below stairs to hear reports of Jason and to talk a while. We were well content - a pefect cafe experience.

Such coffee perfection proved to be a very rare thing in London. Monmouth have a branch at the Borough Market [next Southwark Cathedral and near London Bridge] as Richard informed us [it's where they are moving the roastery for greater convenience] and as we saw for ourselves that very afternoon. [More of the Borough Market and all anon - i think it deserves space of its own.] So Monmouth provide 2 of the 4 cafes where it is possible to get good espresso coffee in London. The fourth is in the Charing Cross Road on the right as one walks north towards Cambridge Circus from Leicester Square. This cafe is called Caffe Vergnano 1882 and we can assert, having drunk its wares, that it has reasonably, in recent years, been awarded best coffee shop accolades. I dare say there may be a few other London cafes that can produce well made coffee but we didn’t find them. What we found all too often was coffee that was too hot, without substance and regretably unsatisfying.

This experience of disappointing coffee we had over and over again - in Hong Kong, and in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Berlin proved a little better. The branch of espresso Ambulanz next door to our Berlin hotel, Arcotel Velvet in Oranienburgerstrasse, produced ok breakfast coffee. And we found a Caras cafe near the Hachensher Markt that also made quite good coffee and had pretty good aprikosentarte - so we returned there several afternoons for espresso and kuchen.

It was great to come home to our own little Italian espresso machine and C4 Crank beans.

travel

We’ve been travelling and i’ve not been blogging. From mid-September to mid-October we took ourselves off to Europe and Canada - the first such trip since 2001. Once we were back [and that's now three+ weeks] although there were a number of subjects i thought i might post on, i couldn’t find the focus to begin. Now i think i have. So for a while now i’ll wend my way through our journey again: Hong Kong, London, Berlin, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto. We had a wonderful time and didn’t feel we were quite ready to come home. And ever since i’ve had some trouble really being focused on work - my mind keeps wandering off, often to one or another of these places, and at other times just wandering!

 The start of our journey took us on a return visit to Hong Kong where we stayed only a couple of days. Hong Kong was shrouded in heat, humidity and a mix of autumn mist and smog, so distance views weren’t happening. Being back in this oriental bustle was rousing, even if the heat made us feel unenergetic. Renewing our acquaintance with HK was fun, and more so meeting up with friends Ginny and Marcus and his family. On our first evening Ginny took us to a stunning restaurant on the 28th floor of the One Peking building in lower Tsim Sha Tsui. Hutong takes elements of the old China lane and courtyard city dwellings and puts them in a 21st century steel and glass cage overlooking the Fragrant Harbour to the Island - i kept thinking, ‘Bladerunner’. If the setting was spectacular the food easily matched it - utterly delicious modern interpretations of northern Chinese dishes. Thank you Ginny, this experience elated us and established a high standard to which the rest of the trip struggled to aspire. The following morning we met Marcus, Pat and Julian and walked over to the polished, glittering, and vast retail shrine that is Harbour City for lunch. One of the best things about this trip was the number of our friends we were able to see and spend time with - more so than on our previous excursions. We’ve come home sure that meeting up with so many of you made this journey more fun and less wearing than others.

The following day we went on to London via Frankfurt [since we were flying with Lufthansa]. And because we were arriving at Heathrow late at night we’d decided to stay overnight in an airport hotel and journey in to our long-stay hotel the following morning. Which we did - said morning dawning with a cold wind but bright autumn sun, which made the tube ride into central London cheerfully full of promise. Having deposited our bags at the hotel [brilliant location just off Trafalgar Square and the Embankment] we went in search of coffee [the subject of another post!].

light

Cinema is several kinds of magic. Late yesterday afternoon we went to the first of the films we plan to see during this year’s international film festival. Venus stars Peter O’Toole as an aged actor still sparked with mischievous optimistic life. It is funny and sad in turns with an often extremely witty script by Hanif Kureshi and drawing in some wonderful supporting performances by Leslie Phillips [who, forgive me, i thought already dead], Richard Griffiths and Vanessa Redgrave.

The magic. Well first there are the unexpected spaces themselves — hidden away and belied by the facades of their buildings, they are warm dim caverns and fabulous caves. Then there is projected light: a curious feat of capture and re-invention. And the invention magics us into other lives, other times, other worlds hanging there so large and real as to be virtually palpable in the dark.

The fourth kind of magic happens when you emerge out of the dim cave when the latern show is over. This is best when it is night for then the magic is more dazzling, the effect more extreme. To go into the cinema in daytime and come out again to day still surprises, for there’s the world going on just as usual when you had for an hour or two quite forgot. To go in in day and return to find the night is wonderful — the city buzz and its lights conjure a magic as much an equal to that of the film. This seemed especially so last night — it was raining and the lights, candescent and neon, glowed and leapt and reflected in glass and puddles to multiply their life.

music

The first ever symphony orchestra concert i remember hearing was during my first year at university. The New Zealand Symphony played in the Civic Theatre in Christchurch under a handsome young conductor. Among the pieces they played was Mozart’s Haffner Symphony and earlier in the concert Ephigenia in Aulis, which i’d never heard before [i'd probably never heard the Haffner either come to that] and which haunted me. I always wanted a recording of it and never found one - tho’ i realise i gave up looking a long time ago. I might be able to find one now.

I loved the atmosphere of that concert and the conductor’s being young and handsome added to the delight of the night and the music. There was a great deal of music while i was a student. Most weeks i went to the lunch-time concerts organised by the university music department and held in the Great Hall - i learned so much music at those. And then there were regular evening performances by the music department’s resident quartet - four, in my memory, 30-something Russian musicians. They played some of the great quartets including a sequence of several of Beethoven’s. Again in my memory these took place in the winter term. It would be cold outside, the Great Hall with its high ceiling was hard to heat and although it was warmer [and sometimes there may have even been an open fire in the side fireplace] i think we sat in our coats. While the general light was weak [and that to me is just fine for such an event] the quartet sat in a golden pool cast by a domestic standard lamp with a red shade; and i loved the whole thing: the music, the people, all the history, and the tradition of this custom of how to present music. These 2 sets of concerts i think grew my enduring love of chamber music.

I had not grown up with recorded music. There was the radio, and my mother and i played the piano. There was no record-player in the house until i bought a stereo system from The Record Room maybe at the end of my second university year. I had begun buying records from Norm at his Record Room upstairs in Cashel Street; but by the time i bought the stereo he had an enlarged shop in Colombo Street. I also bought records through the Record Society. One scanned catalogues and ordered world renowned recordings several months in advance, and then as they became available could have them posted; but i always preferred the treat of collecting them from the EMI Record Shop - a dim, cramped and narrow L-shaped shop that ran between Colombo [classical at this end] and Cashel [popular].

Early evening last Wednesday we went to hear the NZSO in the Town Hall. The programme was
SIBELIUS En Saga
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto
SIBELIUS Symphony No 5
We go to symphony concerts only rarely these days - the big sounds seem too often overblown or excessively romanticised - the more limited scale and subtlety of chamber music is now much more appealing. But occasionally the symphony orchestras offer pieces that still work the magic: Sibelius’ 5th is one. There is gorgeous lyrical stuff but the dark edge, the sometime sombreness and a nordic austerity make this still so listenable, so enjoyable, so thrilling. And like that first symphony concert i was remembering this one also had a handsome young conductor.
Pietari Inkinen is the new Music Director of the NZSO, and he’s not only stunning on the eyes, he’s superb with the baton as well. Maybe the Finnish heritage helps with Sibelius but i suspect his talent is way way beyond that easy explanation. Pietari drew a wonderful light, precise deftness out of the players; i don’t think i’ve ever heard a conductor get an orchestra to manage their transitions between musical sections so finely nor play silence so eloquently.

Pietari Inkinen at the NZSO

reading

I have just joyfully chuckled and cried my way to the end of Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother. Writers, like Haddon in this book, who can be so perceptive and so articulate about the human condition, about our endearing and exasperating foibles, and deftly set those to paper, have my unbounded admiration. Haddon’s presentation of this family of characters with their immediate partners and acquaintances, who proceed to make an utter hash of their lives and then gradually, with some good management and a whole lot of luck, succeed in largely redeeming themselves, is a treat. The writing is wry and light and quick; the novel is easy to read but substantial as well. The characters compel one’s attention and their stories matter. I wanted to know what was going to happen, and i cared. I guess they were all too familiar and so i was cross with them when they got it wrong [as i would get it wrong in similar circumstances - and one has similar circumstances - this is why one cares and why it is a book worth reading] and cheered when they got it right.

 On the front cover of the edition i have is a quotation from the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Brilliant … very funny’. For me this reviewer doesn’t well describe the tone of this novel. Rather, i think other adjectives that appear in quotations on the back cover more accurately describe Haddon’s accomplishment: ‘a painful, funny, humane novel: beautifully written, addictively readable’ [The Times]; ‘wry, warm-hearted and entertaining’ [Daily Telegraph]; ‘witty … subtle’ [Independent on Sunday]. So while i enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time [and it also told me quite a lot i didn't know], this is better. Mark Haddon goes on my list of authors for whom one waits impatiently for their next book.

films

Film festival time again. I’ve skimmed the catalogue and read the blurbs for quite a few — of these i’m thinking i might want to see Romulus, My Father; Death at a Funeral; Venus; A guide to recognizing your saints; Control. When i read further there may be more.

Last week on a cold damp afternoon we went off to see Paris, je t’aime — several of the pieces were entertaining and from characterization or plot development sufficient to hold my attention and interest. Tom Tykwer’s piece had some very good cinematography. But as a whole the film eventually tired me — i wanted it done; — pity, is a good idea [and i know, done before in other ways].

I did not feel that way about The Lives of Others which is the next most recent movie we’ve seen. I heartily concur with the reviews and every opinion i’ve heard anyone who’s seen it so far utter: the film is due unreserved plaudits. Beautifully composed, superbly acted, with outstanding attention to design — all of which compels your attention to the last moment, the last line, which was when the tears rolled for me. I might have expected my crying to have occured earlier, but no, here it was that last line that got me.

When Paul came over last week to eat with us we ended up showing him The History Boys [thank you Edmund] which he’d not seen. Such a repeatable delight — a wonderful, wonderful romp — to have contrived such a charming, quick group of guys [plus Totty] and equipped them with so much brilliant dialogue is delicious. Thank you Mr Bennett.

Thoughts of school boys and film of course reminds me of another stunning movie we’ve seen this year, Like Minds — more superb acting with excellent script and plot-making to conjure a compelling entertainment that keeps twisting away from the line you expected. See it.