75th anniversary of the great victory

This being notice of an article by President Putin about the Second World War (reference 1), prompted by an article in the NYRB (reference 2), ostensibly a review of a book (reference 3).

It seems that Putin, having been in power for so long, has got a bit old for showing off his torso while doing manly things like spear hunting for bears and boars in the wilds of Siberia, and has taken to writing learned articles about Russian affairs, particularly Russian history. Or at least getting them written in his name and published on the presidential web site at reference 7.

This particular article is rather tiresome, not very even handed and rather clumsily written, even allowing for a possibly careless translation. I suppose he is raking up all this stuff as part of his drive to prop up Mother Russia with its glorious, thousand year history. A bit of diversion for ordinary Russians from the messy realities of their daily lives.

We are forcefully reminded that it was the Soviets who put the most into the war, not least their horrific casualties. We are not reminded of the extent to which these casualties were the result of Stalin’s mistakes and his brutal style. 

We are also reminded that the slice of eastern Poland taken by the Soviets in the course of the war contained a very mixed population, including plenty of people who were not Poles and plenty of people who might well have been more at home in what is now Belarus and the Ukraine.

And Putin does land some other punches. Some of which follow.

First, the Western powers made a very bad peace after the First World War.

Second, the Western powers – France and the UK – made a grave error in capitulating over Czechoslovakia. The Czechs and the Slovaks were well up for fighting and were well armed. Had we backed them, that might well have been the end of Hitler.

Third, the Western powers behaved very feebly at the time of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, which left his western frontier very weakly defended. Again, quick, decisive action by our greatly superior forces might well have been the end of Hitler. This one was new to me: I suppose I had not thought that it had been possible for us to do anything during the Polish campaign, which only lasted a few weeks. The amateur article at reference 5 suggests that we have at least a case to answer.

Then given our failure to engage with the Soviet Union, Stalin did not have much choice but to buy time by making a pact with Hitler, just before he invaded Poland, a pact which gave him a share of the spoils. His position at this point having been gravely weakened by the mistakes and brutal style already mentioned.

Fourth, the passing of the curious document at reference 6 by the European Parliament, with its very one sided, anti-Russian account of the causes of the Second World War, is not helpful. Not the way to build understanding, to build bridges.

And fifth, it is all to easy to interpret the actions of the Western Powers during the 1930’s as an attempt to dump dealing with Hitler on Stalin. Let them bleed each other to death while we get on with our lives.

So while a lot of what Putin and his cronies get up to is most unsavoury (to say the least of it), we should do better than blaming the Soviet Union for the Second World War. Not least by being clear, by coming clean about the mess that we made of 1938 and 1939. And all the unsavoury currents swirling around our own green and pleasant land at that time.

Perhaps while he is waiting, Putin will be penning an article about the importance of oral hygiene, which would make a change from all this grandiose history.

All very depressing.

PS 1: he does not miss a beat when it comes to having a pop at the pre-war Poles, but he is much more positive about Churchill, a man with rooted aversion to the Soviets, but who did what needed to be done at the time. Unlike some of his colleagues.

PS 2: another of Putin’s efforts is to be found at reference 4. Marking the heroism of the legendary, immortal 6th Paratroop Company, almost wiped out in a battle in the northern Caucasus. ‘On March 1, 2000, almost the entire personnel of the 6th Pskov airborne assault company died in the Argun Gorge. Of the 90 troops, only six survived’. I associate to the battle of Rorke’s Drift, another battle on the fringes of empire, celebrated in the film ‘Zulu’.

References

Reference 1a: The real lessons of the 75th anniversary of the World War II – Vladimir Putin – 2020.

Reference 1b: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/vladimir-putin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary-world-war-ii-162982. 

Reference 2: Stalin’s Lawyers at Nuremburg – Benjamin Nathans, NYRB – 2021. September 23rd, 2021. 

Reference 3: Soviet Judgement at Nuremburg: A New History of the Military Tribunal after World War II – Francine Hirsch – 2020.

Reference 4: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62890.

Reference 5: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/3042/why-didnt-france-and-the-uk-invade-germany-in-september-1939.

Reference 6: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2019-0021_EN.html.

Reference 7: http://en.kremlin.ru/. Supplementary to reference 1.

Reference 8: http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/en/VlMXXg4uCU1WOilGCMNzd8sPyIujZg3y.pdf. The official version of reference 1. With documentary annexes and without the tacky advertisements.

Reference 9: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181. The true story of the Ukraine. But unread by me.

Bad taste

It left a rather bad taste in my mouth to read that a couple who lost a baby during a difficult birth in 2016 have just been awarded £2.8m, with a further £0.7m said to be going to the lawyers.

This loss was, we are told avoidable, the result of errors in care at a Nottingham hospital trust. No doubt there were errors and I dare say the trust handled the matter badly after the event, but awarding the couple a large sum of money in consequence does not seem right to me: it is not as if they have the care of a handicapped child for life, or anything of that sort - although we are told of the trauma of the stillbirth itself and then what came after that costing them both their careers and their previously large incomes. 

Perhaps it is fair that there should be compensation for this last, but I don't like the amount of it. Not least because the trust in question will now have £3.5m less than it might otherwise have had to keep the people of Nottingham in good health. Possibly softened by prior conversion into professional liability insurance premiums - which just changes the route by which the taxpayer pays.

Maybe the couple will do the decent thing and give most if not all of it to a suitable charity. More imaginatively, they could give it back to the trust itself in some suitably heart warming ceremony involving handing over a large old-style cheque.

References

Reference 1: Stillborn baby’s parents receive £2.8m from Nottingham hospital trust: Payout to Jack and Sarah Hawkins is thought to be largest settlement for a stillbirth clinical negligence case - Jessica Murray, Guardian - 2021.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/reflexive-fines.html. There is some read across here.

Trios

A week ago to the Wigmore Hall for another round of trios at one of their lunchtime concerts, given on this occasion by the Amatis Trio of reference 2. Checking, I find that I heard them back in 2019, in the by then not very prestigious Purcell Room. Noticed at reference 3.

As it happened a cold morning, as already noticed at reference 4, although the frost was lifting by 11:15 or so when we left the house. Passed an M&S trolley in Station Approach, but one which had gone by the time I got back to it.

Onto to All Bar One in Regent Street, somehow getting the idea that they were part of the Whitbread operation. Which I first knew as a big London brewer busily buying up regional breweries, with the form that the tied pubs so brought in, sold Whitbread bitter (whose name I forget) and the regional brewery bitter, rebranded as Trophy. I remember that I used to quite like the various offerings so branded. Checking with Wikipedia, it seems that after they had to sell their 2,500 pubs in the early 1990's, going onto to all kinds of ventures, mostly selling them on after a few years, but now the owner of Premier Inn plus a number of pub grub chains. The big brewery in Chiswell Street is now an event venue. I dare say also a listed building. Must take a look next time I am in the vicinity of Whitecross Street or the Barbican. While All Bar One, again according to Wikipedia, is a Mitchells & Butler brand, itself part of the Six Continents Group. Nothing to do with Whitbread's, not ever, so I don't know where I got that idea from.

Past the Christmas window at Margaret Howell, a fashion house last noticed at reference 5.

And so into the Wigmore Hall, where we were given single sheet programmes printed on rather odd paper, slightly plasticised, with a margins problem on the back. Perhaps knocked up in the office upstairs, rather than going to their regular printer? That said, would they have a printer which would cope with 500 copies? Would they go to a local print shop? Whatever it is that they are doing, hopefully they will get better at it.

The front of the hall was reasonably full and before the off we were entertained by the lady sitting behind us who was able to talk in a very knowledgeable way about the afternoon teas to be had at the Savoy. Talk of gluten free and smoked crab scones. Not a type of meal which I particularly go for; cake and some sort of strong drink, perhaps brandy, yes - cucumber sandwiches at a fancy price no. While BH rather likes them.

The flower arrangements were dominated by spotted green anthuriums. Five to each of the two pots, arranged in forward facing circles. The hall certainly has a good florist.

For trios we had Shostakovich Op.8 and Brahms Op.8, both early works containing plenty of hints about what was to come. Both rather good. The encore may have been an arrangement of Fauré's 'Après un Rêve'. The name did involve a dream and the length on YouTube is about right.

For lunch we went to Ponti's again, back in favour after a gap of some years. Mixed bread rather good on this occasion, some of it cheese flavoured. After which I went for pizza, which was fresh and the sprinkle of rocket was easily removed. One of my better meals there. BH went for salad followed by a rather yellow ravioli, which she thought rather good. Sauvignon Blanc and grappa to drink. Everyone happy.

There had been some talk of shopping, but by the time we had finished lunch we decided to call it a day and try to beat the rush hour on the way home.

Raynes Park platform library still closed. But there were taxis outside the station at Epsom.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/irritation.html. This being the occasion which yielded the Evening Standard which prompted this post.

Reference 2: https://www.amatistrio.com/.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/parkhouse.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/cold-frosty-morning.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/mainly-schubert.html.

Trolley 450

On an otherwise rather cold and wet Ewell Village anti-clockwise, a trolley turned up between Kiln Lane and the Ewell Village turn-off. Returned to a reasonably busy looking Sainsbury's. 500 looking a good way off yet, so maybe next Easter is a more sensible target, rather than Christmas or New Year. Maybe if will be appropriate to combine the celebration with that for Easter: 'Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funeral bak'd-meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables'.

Took the opportunity to take in a few rows of cars, and a few more after that, ending the walk by bracketing the missing No.36 with at 28 and a 40. Nothing at all in the thirties.

A new bean and lentil shop in Ewell Village, rather fancily fitted out with lots of brown wood, somewhere in the vicinity of the junction of West Street and High Street. Hard to see how one could make a living out of beans, so perhaps it is a hobby shop funded by a high-earning partner. But possibly a branch of the operation at reference 3, which has an outlet in not-far-away Surbiton.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/trolley-449.html.

Reference 2: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - William Shakespeare - 1600. Act I, Scene II, Lines 180-181.

Reference 3: https://www.refillogic.co.uk/.

Piano 51

This piano, a walnut cased, Steinway patent grand at Polesden Lacey, a 1904 Model B, was noticed but not scored at reference 2. So visiting again on another pre-Christmas visit (to be noticed properly in due course), it seems fair to score it this time.

With the rather superior snap above being lifted from the National Trust, from reference 3, taken with rather more light than was available yesterday. I learn that it is not the piano that was here in the house's hey-day, rather a donation from one Denis Parker, probably much the same sort of piano, once the property of the pianist Rose Keen. The National Trust managed to raise no less than the the enormous sum of £36,000 to have it shipped to Cologne for restoration. BH has memories of pianos and piano related stuff being planted around the gardens at the time they did the fund raising - while I can raise nothing of the sort. Nor is clear to me how much of the original piano, apart from the case, is left. I associated to the expensive heritage work noticed at reference 6.

There seem to be a lot of Denis Parker's, so I was unable to trace this one, but I had more luck with Rose Keen, almost certainly the one at reference 7. The daughter of a baker (father) and confectioner (mother), a lady who was mixed up with Futurists and the art of noise, back in 1914, before settling down as a piano teacher.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/piano-50.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/osberts-day.html.

Reference 3: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/polesden-lacey/projects/restoring-our-steinway-piano.

Reference 4: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/polesden-lacey/features/tickling-the-ivories-20-june-2016.

Reference 5: https://youtu.be/Ihw-dRV0Pgo. The story on YouTube, the work of one Hannah Simion Malmcrona – visitor experience officer for the National Trust, a lady with a much bigger Internet footprint than I had expected from her job description. A lady who started out with the National Trust as a catering assistant; so maybe they do their own grub, rather than contracting it out, as is commonly the case.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/08/strawberry-hill-1.html.

Reference 7: https://miraculousagitations.blogspot.com/2015/06/rose-keen-and-futurists.html.

Reference 8: https://www.piano4u.com/Piano/Detail/1514. You can clearly pay a lot for a piano like the one which is the subject of this post. Perhaps this one is particularly expensive because of the ice cream cone legs.

Schwanengesang

About ten days ago now, to the Wigmore to hear Bostridge and Vogt do the Schwanengesang (D957) with the new-to-me Eisamkeit (D620) popped between the two halves of the first piece. Rather as with the rendering of 'Die schhöne Müllerin' noticed at reference 1, the promoters were keen to point up the origins of the work, with the two halves, the first settings of a group of poems by Rellstab, and the second settings of a group of poems by Heine, with one by Seidel ('Die Taubenpost') tacked on the end. With it all being brought together posthumously by Schubert's publisher. I might say that while I find 'Die Taubenpost' a very fine song, I also find its content, its words, a bit creepy, with the singer far too keen on poking his nose into his girl's private affairs. Almost to the point of what today is called stalking. But perhaps German romantics were like that.

Started off the proceedings with a snooze in the afternoon. After which it did not seem nearly as cold out as it had in the morning. There was also a trolley in Station Approach, although it had gone by the time I got around to going back for it, a day or so later.

All this being at the same time as the post at reference 3 was germinating, I was interested in the substantial halos I was getting around the lights on the platform, the product of the steam on my spectacles, mask being up by this point. Rainbow haloes around the white lights, monochrome halos - red and orange at this point - around the coloured lights. All right and proper.

Locomotive variety in the form of a three car unit heading for town on the Waterloo line, with the middle unit including a large tank. Presumably some kind of line cleaning operation.

The Wigmore is continuing with cut price programmes which you can print at home, which I had done, with the result that I could read over the songs during the train ride. Maybe some of them would stick firmly enough to inform the subsequent hearing. At least I would know something of what they were about, what they were on about. That is to say farewells, yearnings for absent loves, lost loves, solitude and death. Plenty of tears, plenty of water generally.

Preliminary visit to the Cock and Lion where we had the unusual spectacle of a youngish lady collapsing at the bar. She had asked me for the time in a slightly distracted way, while I was at the bar, and I had thought nothing of it, but by the time I was sitting down, down she went. Her friends retrieved her, and from a distance normal conversation appeared to resume. I thought perhaps that they had been going to a while, perhaps since early afternoon, it now being a little past seven.

For the second time in several years, the first time being noticed at reference 4, I noticed the four clocks above the bar. My thought on this occasion was that on the last occasion they had been working, telling one the time of day around the world, but checking with reference 4 reveals this not to have been the case. Not working then either. Memory lets me down again.

Found what looked like a car key on the threshold as I left and a chap in a cheerful group nearby was very glad to get it back. Having recently lost a car key, something I know all about.

Into the fairly full hall. One lady up front with a complicated hairdo and what looked like an expensive fur coat. More a mantle, which one might have thought was a bit warm indoors, but perhaps she was older or more ill than she looked and was feeling the cold. Something else I know more about than I used to.

While behind me we had a middle aged couple, the gentleman half of which seemed to like moaning. Didn't like Bostridge, never heard of Vogt and not keen on the Schwanengesang. Otherwise quite nice to be back in the Wigmore Hall. He got seriously cross when the concert was about 10 minutes late starting, going to the length of summoning an usher and telling him that some people had dinners to go to afterwards. He also turned out to be a fiddler with his programme, although not as bad as some. 

More Cock and Lion at the interval, which was not quite as busy as it had been earlier. No Johnny Walker that I could see, no Bells - and the only whisky that I recognised was Monkey Shoulder, so I took a drop of that.

Back for the second half. I thought Bostridge was in good form, looking and sounding suitably anguished. Lots of power and control. He also had some music hidden away inside the piano, which we could see because of its reflection in the highly polished lid. Didn't seem to make much if any use of it; more a prop than anything else. They earned two short encores, something I have mixed feelings about after this sort of recital, but they went down well enough. While the audience generally seemed a bit stunned. Mr. Grumpy had gone by this point, so perhaps they slipped out before the encores.

For some reason I was slightly distracted by the way the the closing notes of the accompaniments closed. They didn't just stop, or fade away. Rather it was as if they were being turned off at a switch in a way which gave the end of the note in question a slight tweak. Some quirk of the piano? Of the pianist? Must listen out for it again.

Did the 65 or so steps out of Vauxhall which left me a bit stunned, particularly when I had done to 35 or so more up to the overground platform. Thought about the Falcon at Clapham Junction, but settled for the Half Way House at Earlsfield. Which turned out to be busier than usual with maybe fifteen customers scattered about the place. A healthy looking mixture.

Back on the platform, there were more halos and this time I decided that the monochrome halos were the same size as the corresponding band of the rainbow halos - which I think is how it ought to be, but which they had not seemed to be back at Epsom.

The bookcase had vanished from the waiting room at Raynes Park and the good supply of not very promising looking books was arranged along the windows. Access denied, apparently for redecoration. Hopefully both access and bookcase will come back.

By this time the red and green lights had become speckled, as if what I was seeing were the individual droplets of water on my spectacles. Whereas the white lights had become stars, Christmas decorations rather than halos. And I learned that the front lights of trains were actually hexagons of small hexagons, these last having maybe three small bulbs to a side. Not a matter that either Bing or Google was able to help with, so something else to be checked properly on the next occasion. 

Last up, following the Bromptons of reference 4, another Brompton. And I realised that part of the answer was that the crank of the pedals and the folding of the back wheel were not on the same axis and that they were at least a few inches apart - so the chain did change length when the back wheel was folded inside. Maybe it would be difficult to make the two axles strong enough if their axes coincided. As can be seen on the snap above.

Home to a spot of white wine and the stump of a banana cake, this last having served ladies that lunch earlier in the day.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/folk-at-temple.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/an-evening-outing.html. The first Brompton.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/on-seeing-colour-some-science-fiction.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/trouts.html.

Nuts

One of the pick-me-ups from the recent visit to Wisley was a handful of nuts, about the size and not unlike conkers. One had now been cut in half, revealing a nascent shoot, tucked in behind a fold of the skin. I thought at first that this fold was a bug, but now I think it is a feature - to use jargon from the world of computer software.

Unfortunately, neither BH nor I thought to mark down the tree concerned, somewhere, I think, near the alpine houses, above what their map calls the alpine meadow. Neither sweet nor horse chestnut. So a task for the next visit is to track it down again and identify it.

In the meantime, the surviving three nuts have been dropped down holes in the new daffodil bed. Maybe something will come up in the spring. Hopefully conspicuously enough that I give it a bit of space.

And a quick Bing offers the buckeye, from Ohio, as one possibility. According to Wikipedia: 'Aesculus glabra, commonly known as Ohio buckeye, is a species of tree in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae) native to North America'. Which last include the horse chestnut, the maples and that favourite dessert from the Chinese restaurants of my youth, the lychee.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/winter-wisley.html.