Tea

 Yesterday was World Bee Day (not to be confused with World Bidet) – and, by chance, I had in my change a £1 coin I'd never seen before, with the face of our King on one side and on the other an attractive design featuring... two bees. Today – how they keep on coming – is International Tea Day. And why not? Tea, if properly made with good leaves and no milk, is a fine drink.
The poets have not had much to say about tea: there's Cowper's much-misquoted 'The cups that cheer but not inebriate', and this from Basho –
 
A monk sips morning tea.
It is quiet.
The chrysanthemum is flowering.

And then there's Wallace Stevens's 'Tea at the Palaz of Hoon', from his astonishing first collection, Harmonium. This is not, it must be admitted, a poem about tea. It has a Wikipedia entry to itself, which I have battled my way through, emerging unenlightened and drained of all pleasure in life. So I return to the poem, which is a thing of beauty...

Tea at the Palaz of Hoon

Not less because in purple I descended
The western day through what you called
The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
I was myself the compass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.


    Finally, and with apologies for lowering the tone, here is a lyric that is definitely about tea, sung by the great Jack Buchanan, and surely a fitting anthem for International Tea Day. His account of the genesis of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony is, I fear, unsound.

Danish

 Last night I watched an episode of Andrew Graham-Dixon's The Art of Scandinavia. The subject was Danish art, so I was expecting good stuff. Alas, I was disappointed: for one thing, this was more a potted cultural history of Denmark, from Christian IV and the Frederiksborg Palace to the original Legoland, by way of Hans Christian Andersen (no Kierkegaard). But more importantly, the coverage of actual Danish art was at best patchy. Plenty of  Thorvald's heroic neo-classical sculpture (a little of which goes a long way), and more than enough of Eckersberg's unalluring nudes – after which it was straight on to Hammershoi's pallid interiors. So, no sighting of the greatest of the Golden Age painters, Cristen Koebke, no Golden Age landscapes (that's one of Købke's above), and nothing of Krøyer and the Skagen painters – in other words, all the most beautiful and enjoyable Danish art was missing. 
   Though I can't say I like him, I know Graham-Dixon has made some excellent TV programmes, many of which I've enjoyed – but this certainly wasn't one of them. He's also written a big fat book about Vermeer, which everyone is raving about (just as they were about Laura Cumming's recent book on Dutch art, Thunderclap, which I found disappointing). I don't think I'll be reading it – life seems too short.

Britain's Favourite Butterfly – and Mine

I see that the charity Butterfly Conservation is running a poll to find Britain's Favourite Butterfly. At present, the Peacock is leading the vote, unsurprisingly, and in second place I'm delighted to see the Orange Tip, ahead of the Red Admiral. Has anyone voted for the Dingy Skipper, Britain's dullest butterfly, I wondered? They have – it's there at number 37 (of 60 eligible species). So what is at number 60, the bottom of the poll? Incredibly, it's the Silver-Spotted Skipper, a beautiful little butterfly that gladdened my heart on many a late-summer walk in the Surrey Hills. Of my own favourites, I was also startled to see the lovely Dark Green Fritillary way down the chart at number 49. But Nige, I hear you ask – if you were to vote, what would it be? Readers of this book need hardly ask – yes, it would have to be the White Admiral (currently at number 26). The special magic of this butterfly is as much in its flight as in its beautiful wing markings. Jeremy Thomas writes that 'No account can do justice to the White Admiral's dainty movements, or convey the character of a creature so ideally suited to gliding in and out of dappled shade among the branches of mature woodlands.' Indeed. 
  This video gives some idea of the beauty of Limenitis camilla...

Dark

 And here, by way of counterweight to the International Day of Light, is a poem by Edward Thomas. As with the Donald Justice, it is one of his last and most beautiful (and untitled), written on his last Christmas at home with his family. A few months later, on Easter Monday 1917, Thomas was killed in action at Arras, shot through the chest. 

Out in the dark over the snow

The fallow fawns invisible go

With the fallow doe ;

And the winds blow

Fast as the stars are slow.

Stealthily the dark haunts round

And, when the lamp goes, without sound

At a swifter bound

Than the swiftest hound,

Arrives, and all else is drowned ;

And star and I and wind and deer,

Are in the dark together, – near,

Yet far, – and fear

Drums on my ear

In that sage company drear.

How weak and little is the light,

All the universe of sight,

Love and delight,

Before the might,

If you love it not, of night.

Light

  I'm sure it can't have escaped your attention that today is International Day of Light. I must admit it was passing me by until it got a mention on the radio this morning. I've no clear idea what it is – some kind of Unesco invention, it seems – but it gives me the perfect pretext to post again one of my favourite poems – one of the last, and most beautiful, written by Donald Justice. Three six-line stanzas, rhyming by repetition, the last stanza directly paraphrasing Chekhov's Uncle Vanya – that's all there is to it, and yet it creates something far bigger than the sum of its parts. I find it intensely moving, and I rate it among the great short poems of the twentieth century...

1 
There is a gold light in certain old paintings
That represents a diffusion of sunlight.
It is like happiness, when we are happy.
It comes from everywhere and nowhere at once, this light,
  And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross
  Share in its charity equally with the cross.

2
Orpheus hesitated beside the black river.
With so much to look forward to he looked back.
We think he sang then, but the song is lost.
At least he had seen once more the beloved back.
  I say the song went this way: O prolong
  Now the sorrow if that is all there is to prolong.

3
The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work.
One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good.
The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar.
Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good.
  And all that we suffered through having existed
  Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.

West Wind

 The mid-May weather here has been unseasonally cold, with sudden violent showers of rain and hail. The swifts have withdrawn to await better things; only the doughtiest butterflies – holly blues (amazingly abundant this year) and speckled woods – are showing themselves, in the rare moments of relative warmth; and me, I'm back in my herringbone tweed jacket. The worst of it is the relentless, hard-blowing West wind. I'm no fan of strong winds, from whatever quarter, but the West is undoubtedly the worst, scrambling my brain in a way no other wind does. If I were to write an Ode to the West Wind, it would consist of three words: Cease And Desist. Or I might adapt the ancient lyric, with apologies to Anon: 
Westron wind, when wilt tha cease?
Thy blowing drives me mad.
All I ask is a little peace
And the quiet I once had.

In the Mediterranean world, away from the rude Atlantic blast, the West wind is regarded as a welcome visitor, a soft, warm breeze,  personified as Zephyr. (Even Chaucer talks of Zephyrus with his sweet breath – really? In England?). Here is a glorious madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi (baptised on this day in 1567, fact fans) in which 'Zephyr returns, and with gentle words warms the air and sets the waters free, and whispering among the verdant boughs, makes the field flowers dance to his glad sound'. If only. 

 

Wartime in Wool

 Yesterday my old friend Bryan (Appleyard) paid a visit to Lichfield. We met, as usual, in the cathedral, which, on his last visit, was hosting an exhibition of Peter Marlow's wonderful photographs of English cathedrals. This time, by way of contrast, much of the cathedral was given over to a vast exhibition, The Longest Yarn 2, which tells the story of wartime Britain in a series of eighty 'wool art' tableaux composed entirely of, er, knitting wool. Above, for example, is VE Day at Buckingham Palace. 
   What can I say? This was clearly a labour of love, created by an army of volunteers over who knows how many man/woman-hours. It covers the whole duration of the war, from Chamberlain's broadcast to VJ Day, taking in the Blitz, rationing, the Battle of Britain, evacuees, bomber raids, D-Day, street parties, the lot. The trouble is that knitting wool has, shall we say, limited expressive possibilities, and knitted figures inevitably look like something from vintage children's television, with their round faces, button noses and vacuous expressions. Despite this, I understand that many people are finding the exhibition moving and impressive – and it is certainly attracting large numbers of visitors: the cathedral was heaving. It is, in its very English way, sweet, charming, and quite bonkers. Perhaps, if I hadn't watched the seriously moving BBC documentary Children of the Blitz the night before, The Longest Yarn 2 might have done more for me...
   Then we walked round Stowe Pool, dropped into St Chad's church, enjoyed an excessively liquid lunch, and had a look around the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, where, in the bookshop, I bought a copy of Piers Brendon's Eminent Edwardians, and a facsimile of a letter from Boswell to Johnson. 

Donovan and Fred

 Today, the singer-songwriter Donovan, a man not given to understating his contribution to popular music, celebrates his 80th birthday. A while back, on the occasion of another Donovan birthday, I wrote this: 
'Today is the 67th birthday of that titan of troubadours, Donovan. Singer-songwriter, poet, mystic, visionary, man of letters, musical and psychedelic pioneer, Donovan was the most influential figure of his time, entirely changing the course of music history. Without him, the Beatles would have been just another beat combo, California's Summer of Love would never have happened, jazz, psychedelia and world music would probably not exist, and no one would ever have heard of Jeff Beck or Bob Dylan.

You might recall the 1965 meeting between Dylan and Donovan captured in D.A. Pennebaker's film Don't Look Back. The director later recalled that
'Of course, when Donovan met him he was very excited and decided to play something for him. Dylan said he liked 'Catch The Wind', but Donovan said, I've written a new song I wanna play for you. So he played a song called 'My Darling Tangerine Eyes'. And it was to the tune of 'Mr Tambourine Man'! And Dylan was sitting there with this funny look on his face, listening to 'Mr Tambourine Man' with these really weird words, trying to keep a straight face. Then Dylan says, Well, you know, that tune ... I have to admit that I haven't written all the tunes I'm credited with, but that happens to be one that I did write! I'm sure Donovan never played the song again.'
   Back in the Sixties, music fandom was intensely tribal, especially in the school playground, but often in the music press as well - Cliff v Elvis, Beatles v Stones (even, briefly, Beatles v Dave Clark Five), and of course Dylan v Donovan, which now looks rather like Beatles v Dave Clark Five. But let's be fair, Donovan - at least in the years when he was managed by Mickie Most - did produce a string of agreeable, even classic, singles. These, and indeed his early albums, were part of the soundtrack of my misspent youth, though A Gift from a Flower to a Garden finished it for me (Dear Flower - Thanks but No Thanks). But then there was the strangely wonderful 'children's album' HMS Donovan, which I remember (with a blush) being played worryingly often in my rooms at university...'

Nothing to add, really – except Happy Birthday, old chap!

As it happens,  Fred Astaire (né Austerlitz) was also born on this day, in 1899. No one could dance like him (especially when he was dancing with Ginger Rogers), and no one could put across a song as effectively as him – no wonder he was the songwriters' favourite. Here is a clip of classic Fred and Ginger – Irving Berlin's 'Cheek to Cheek', from Top Hat (1935). Enjoy...

The Great Centenarian

 Well, there's no escaping the Attenborough centenary – it's everywhere, and will be all day, with a special concert from the Royal Albert Hall on TV this evening. It was 100 years ago today that the Great Man, our most assured National Treasure, was born – in Isleworth, by the Thames in Middlesex (though he did not grow up there). I remember Isleworth from my childhood: it was there that, despite the state of the heavily polluted river, I saw my first (and for a long while last) Kingfisher. A flash of electric blue, unmistakable, unforgettable...
    So, Attenborough. In his prime a great broadcaster and communicator, and even a great Controller of BBC2, responsible for Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. As regular readers of this blog will know, I found Attenborough in his later years hard to take, such was his insistent focus on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change. Having bought in to Paul Ehrlich's Malthusian predictions of planetary catastrophe caused by human overpopulation (which hasn't happened), Attenborough then bought in to CACC and its similarly dire predictions, continuing to push the notorious Michael Mann 's Hockey Stick model long after it had been shown up be mathematical nonsense. Though he was a genial fellow, a mensch and an all-round good egg, there was a disturbingly anti-human strand in Attenborough's thought. But never mind: he was, overall, a great good thing, his early achievements, I hope, outweighing later developments – and the quality of his brilliant earlier documentaries outweighing the gee-whiz visuals and lame commentary of much of his later work. Enough: de centenariis nil nisi bonum. Even I salute you, Sir David. 

   And here I'll append my own Nature Note: yesterday I saw my first swifts of the year – a pair flying high and passing from sight, and then, later, a single bird swooping down almost to within touching distance. Always a red letter day (and a little late this year), always a joyful, heart-lifting experience.

  And here, for good measure, what I think is one of the great nature poems (set in a garden, like Attenborough's latest series, The Secret Garden). It's by Emily Dickinson –

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad, —
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

History

 I've been watching the reruns of Simon Schama's A History of Britain, a sweeping 15-part series that dates back to a time long before Schama became an annoying metroliberal pantomime dame – and to a time when the BBC would put good money into producing a straight, intelligent narrative history, presented without gimmicks and authored by an actual historian. Imagine that happening now, quarter of a century on, when narrative history is barely taught in schools, and profound historical ignorance is the norm. How did this sad state of affairs come about? It's hard not to blame the constitutional vandal Blair, perhaps the first British Prime Minister to entirely lack a sense of history, except as something to be 'on the right side of' – a notion barely less fatuous than 'things can only get better'.  (The right side of history of course meant the left side of politics.) A proper sense of history, i.e. the past, is, it seems to me, essential for any society, any nation to thrive, and ignorance of it can only lead to decline, and indeed fall. But when, like Blair, you are a globalist 'anywhere man', with no firm belief in national identity or cultural roots, the past barely exists; you live in an eternal present. This seems to be what far too many people are now content to do, aided and abetted by institutions that have no interest in transmitting the story of the past, unless through the lens of our present preoccupations. Perhaps it will be down to the novelists and poets to keep alive some genuine sense of the past? 
   Here is Philip Larkin taking a deep dive into history – seventeenth-century Holland, to be precise – in a sonnet written on this day in 1970 and drawing inspiration from the genre paintings of Jan Steen –

The Card Players

Jan van Hogspuew staggers to the door
And pisses at the dark. Outside, the rain
Courses in cart-ruts down the deep mud lane.
Inside, Dirk Dogstoerd pours himself some more,
And holds a cinder to his clay with tongs,
Belching out smoke. Old Prijck snores with the gale,
His skull face firelit; someone behind drinks ale,
And opens mussels, and croaks scraps of songs
Towards the ham-hung rafters about love.
Dirk deals the cards. Wet century-wide trees
Clash in surrounding starlessness above
This lamplit cave, where Jan turns back and farts,
Gobs at the grate, and hits the queen of hearts.
Rain, wind and fire! The secret, bestial peace! 

Birthdays

 Today is Mrs N's birthday – and that of the inventor of the piano, Bartolomeo Cristofori (born 1655). One of his pianos, built in Florence in 1720, survives in playable condition, and this is what it sounds like (the pianist is Dongsok Shin, and the piece is a Scarlatti sonata, K9). Having a wooden rather than a metal frame, a Cristofori piano is a delicate instrument, compared to what came later, but the action (a fiendishly complex affair) is essentially that of a modern piano...

Couples

 An interesting piece in The Times yesterday, about literary couples, i.e. cohabiting couples composed of two writers, each pursuing their own projects or, sometimes, collaborating. American examples include Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt,  Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. From this side of the pond, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath of course, Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn – and our old friend Kingsley Amis and his wife of 18 years, Elizabeth Jane Howard. Their honeymoon in Spain seems to have been positively idyllic, at least according to Howard: 'In the mornings we wrote sitting opposite each other at the table, our typewriters almost touching in the small space. Then we went to the beach...' 
 As we know, that happy time did not last, as Howard was soon struggling with the domestic demands of looking after the needy and demanding Amis – plus a house full of friends and family – and coping with his drinking. I've written about the Amises' life in their 'bloody great mansion' before, and the wonder is that Howard put up with it for as long as she did (and somehow managed to carry on writing). In happier times, I was interested to learn from the Times piece, she and Amis once 'decided to write a few pages of each other's novels'. The novels were Howard's After Julius and Amis's One Fat Englishman. They duly swapped manuscripts, briefed each other on where the plot was going, and set to work. According to Howard, the chapters that resulted from this work-swap experiment went unnoticed and unsuspected. I guess there's an opening there for a literary sleuth, armed with the latest tools of textual analysis – though perhaps there is more important work to be done...

'One of the most unmeddlesome of women'

 Having recently read Richard Holmes's excellent account of Tennyson's early years, The Boundless Deep, I was amused to come across this picture, in J.G. Riewald's Beerbohm's Literary Caricatures (a great book for browsing in). It shows Thomas Woolner, the only sculptor in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, sculpting his portrait bust of the still beardless Tennyson in 1857 – the bust that is now in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. The caption reads: 

Mrs Tennyson: 'You know, Mr Woolner, I'm one of the most unmeddlesome of women; but – when (I'm only asking), when do you begin modelling his halo?'