David’s Blog

Switzerland’s popular democracy with the right to call referenda looked far less attractive today as it descended into racism and intolerance. The country voted to ban the construction of new minarets, in a surprise result certain to embarrass the neutral government and which the justice minister said could affect Swiss exports and tourism.  The Swiss news agency ATS and other media said about 57.5 percent of voters and all but four of the 26 cantons approved the proposal in the nationwide referendum, which was backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP).

The government and parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and the country’s cherished tradition of tolerance. The government had said a ban could “serve the interests of extremist circles”. “Muslims in Switzerland are able to practise their religion alone or in community with others and live according to their beliefs just as before,” it said in a statement.  Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the outcome of the vote reflected a fear of Islamic fundamentalism, but the ban was “not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies”.

A group of politicians from the SVP, the country’s biggest party, and the conservative Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the referendum on the initiative. Its campaign poster showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil associated with strict Islam.

This is not the SVP’s first run at a deliberately racist campaign. In 2007 it launched a poster campaign depicting three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag, with one craftily kicking away a black sheep, which was plastered on to billboards, into newspapers and posted to every home in a direct mailshot. The poster was, according to the United Nations, the sinister symbol of the rise of a new racism and xenophobia in a country where one in four, like the black sheep in the poster, are now foreign immigrants to this peaceful, prosperous and stable economy with low unemployment and a per capita GDP larger than that of other Western economies.

This latest referendum is a disgrace in a state which found no problem in being bankers to the Nazis and handling stolen goods from around the world generally. Let’s go the whole hog and bar steeples, roadside shrines, crosses on the skyline and Stars of David on Synagogue windows? Still, Switzerland’s Cantons were the result of vicious sectarian warfare? This should serve as a warning that the world is still building barriers and stigmatising people based on race and religion. It is surely the mark of a mature and confident society that it welcomes diversity and the contribution of different cultures to enriching society for everybody? It seems the cuckoos in Switzerland are not just in the clocks.

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/swiss-go-cuckoo.html

Some journeys are the hardest to make and some words are the hardest to write. This time last year on the plane from London to Dublin my head was in a swirl as I tried to take in that Conor my friend of over 35 years was gone. His death, just after his 52^nd birthday, was unexpected. Compared to the rest of us most of the time Conor was whippet like and was physically active enjoying the outdoors and bringing his big and boisterous Alaskan Malamutes for a walk or a run most nights. He had told me a couple of years earlier that a health screen they had picked up on his blood pressure but he was on tablets for it and watching his cholesterol so I thought no more of it. His work responsibilities in the computer industry were heavy and when our paths crossed I was sometimes astonished at the travelling he did but Conor had done much in his career and was riding the Celtic Tiger.

His active lifestyle probably masked that he was suffering from congestive heart disease as his heart rate and so on seemed strong and healthy. He died unexpectedly in his wife’s arms early on the morning of the 27^th November in the Mater Private Hospital Dublin. It was a great shock as he was due to be discharged that day and had responded well to his treatment and the stents which had been inserted to clear blockages. But it seems he had had probably four heart attacks in the previous days and though everything had been done he was just very unlucky.

The large crowd which attended his removal and funeral in Dublin spoke of the diversity of his interests and of those he had touched; there were of course family and friends, members of 5^th Port Sea Scouts and others from the Scout Movement, from traditional music circles, from the Poolbeg Yacht Club where he had been Mooring Officer, from dog breeding circles, Neighbours, colleagues from the Irish and International Computer Industry and many more. And then, first and foremost, his wife Frances, his daughter Roisín and son Shane. What we all had in common is none of us wanted to be there for our friend Conor had been taken too early when he still had much to give and much he had planned  to do.

Conor grew up in Finglas West in a family where his father was a Fianna Fail activist who gave him a keen awareness of the Maguire family roots in Co. Fermanagh. He never forgot he was named after the Irish Patriot Conor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen. The Earl of Enniskillen took part in the rebellion against English rule and the attempt to take Dublin Castle in 1641, was arrested and sent to the Tower of London. He was tried, convicted and hanged, drawn and quartered. The seat of the Maguire’s was the still extant Enniskillen Castle and Conor always felt a visceral sense of grievance when he saw the flag of St. George flying over the castle.

Conor wouldn’t thank me for saying so but over the years Finglas West did much to earn its epithet in Dublin of “The Wild West.” Conor impressed at school but did not excel being interested in nature and crafts but even then as the Celebrant at his funeral who had been his teacher observed he stood out from the crowd, avoiding fads and peer pressure and wearing a hat when that wasn’t fashionable. Indeed this became his trademark over the years gaining him the nickname of “Conor the Hat.” The more practical reason is the male genes in the Maguire family dictated that they were follically challenged! The big influence when he was younger was a remarkable character called Dick Vekins who was the Scout Leader or “Skipper” of 5^th Port Sea Scouts in Dollymount. Always demanding the best from each scout he instilled values of doing their best and achieving their potential. He strongly believed that scouting had something for everyone and this is reflected in the events that he organised from the most physically gruelling boat or canoe race to a poetry competition. Dick was an accomplished metal worker and craftsman who ran his own business and was an accomplished mandolin player. Shipwrecked as a Marine during WW11 and left virtually crippled he restored his mobility by exercise and willpower and took up wrestling representing Ireland in international competition and becoming president of the Irish Amateur Wrestling Federation. His association with 5^th Port left Conor with a lifelong love of the sea and the outdoors, craft, music and poetry and enduring friendships. He also learned from Dick that setting high standards for yourself and influencing others by example is more effective than any other way.

Leaving school Conor started off as an unhappy apprentice plaster. Soon,  not seeing a future in such hard, dusty and damp work he got a job as a warehouseman at a local pharmaceutical distributor and then as stores controller at a bustling clothing manufacturers, Jack Toohey in Marrowbone Lane in the Liberties of Dublin. After a number of years looking for a challenge he became logistics manager for Rexel Ireland, an office supplies firm. The computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard was setting up a major manufacturing plant in Ireland and Conor got the position of Logistics Manager EMEA with them. Soon he was flying in from Chicago with whole production lines and developed his reputation in the computer world whilst gaining membership of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and becoming expert on customs law. In 1999 he was headhunted by Novell systems as their International Trade Services Manager EMEA and in 2005 was headhunted again by Microsoft. In September 2008 he was once again headhunted by Symantec. By any standards this was a remarkable career trajectory largely built on his drive, personal reputation and being trusted in a hugely pressurised industry, but there was another element. Once, when we were talking, I worked out some probabilities he was discussing and gave him the answers. He turned around and said “God, I hate you!” I was a bit shocked but then he explained something I had never realised, that he was severely dyslexic and resented that I could always work out maths in my head but he couldn’t. When people threw numbers at him he had to write them down, go away somewhere quiet and work them out on paper. Knowing this you had to admire his career achievements all the more.

We have a saying in the Gaelic which is not really translatable into English “Tá mo chleamhnas déanta” but “my match is made” or more idiosyncratically “This is THE one” might do. When Conor and Frances O’Callaghan met this was the tune which he was humming and they formed a strong partnership with France’s practicality balancing Conor’s idealism.  We all knew each other well from nearby neighbourhoods, scouting and mutual friends, I used to see Frances’s best friend. Their relationship endured such trials as going on a canoe trip from Dublin to the river Boyne when Frances was six month’s pregnant. In October 1979 I got the call that Frances needed an urgent lift into the Rotunda and around 1.30 in the morning after spending an incredibly boring 7 hours in the waiting room Conor emerged and uttered the immortal words “Dave – it’s a girl and I’m still happy!” Well they were both really happy and when 8 years later after the sadness of a miscarriage their daughter Roisín was joined by their son Shane their happiness was complete.  

Conor wrote a poem for Roisín, the first time the garden pond froze and they were able to put her standing on the ice and she was mesmerised to walk on the water and look down - it is called “The Cotoneaster Berries” after the bush which formed the back drop to the scene.

For Roisín, now almost grown.

The cotoneaster berries are scarlet now

Set against the waxen green gloss leaves

Stark contrast to the naked apple bough

And deserted swallow’s nest beneath the eaves.

The ice set thick upon the goldfish pond

Last night with winter’s first full frost

And trapped inside a fern-like frond

A tender keepsake of a summer lost.

The Rowan stands guard above the scene

Aloof and proud though stripped of autumn’s glory

A sad reminder of the things that may have been

As we turn another page on this year’s story.

The sweet innocence of children’s play

Like the scattered leaves lies strewn upon the ground

And in hidden places where I hope that it will stay

And in some other’s springtime be refound.

She is growing up so fast I know

That someday soon we’ll have to let her go.

©Frances Maguire MMIX

To know the context Conor & Frances bought a modest house in Clonmel Road which had a huge splayed back garden. Over the years Conor created a wonderland there with a pond, a dovecote, a tree house, a hot tub and sauna, dog kennels and even an Irish telephone box. He remodelled the house completely adding a full length conservatory with sail like blinds of his own devising which doubled as his studio for painting and woodcarving, a fireplace in the living room he built from cobblestones he “rescued” when Marrowbone Lane was resurfaced and a porch with the “Maguire” name carved in the corner post. All this was a huge success if you ignored the bitumen smoke emanating from the cobblestone fireplace for the first couple of years!

Their neighbourhood has a really wonderful community spirit with every Xmas an illuminated tree on the green and a children’s party attended by the Man with the White Beard! So it was on my pre-Xmas trip to Dublin in December 2007 I found myself conscripted as Santa to give out presents to kids, young and old, at the neighbourhood Xmas Party. I did a ceremonial procession around the Green with my bell and staff led by a sleigh hauled by two lovely Alaskan Malamutes and escorted by two of Santa’s helpers on motor bikes!! I took my place on Santa’s rocking chair and after asking the standard questions, (have you been a good boy / girl, have you pulled cat’s tails, etc I distributed presents. Not sure if it’s a new career, the work seems a bit seasonal! There were many happy memories in that house not least the “spontaneous” New Year’s Eve parties which Conor kept threatening to stop but where he always ended up being the MC for the sing song. I was not to realise that this was Conor’s last Xmas and that is the way with memories, sometimes we don’t realise we are making them or that they will be so important.

The house is also the place where I have seen Conor at his saddest. On the 1st September 1987 his eldest brother Eamon, aged 33, was found shot by the IRA as an alleged informer at Conalig, near Cullaville, County Armagh. It was a huge shock to the strongly nationalist family as they were only aware that Eamon was in Sinn Féin and they strongly refuted the informer allegation. Their distress was compounded by the three day wait (because of possible bobby traps) to retrieve the body, the knowledge that Eamon had been tortured and a police photo of the body being given to a Sunday Newspaper which ran it in colour as its front cover. I was in the house waiting for Conor when he returned from Craigavon mortuary after identifying his brother and in Oscar Wilde’s phrase “there was that in his face which none should look upon.” Conor was traumatised by what had happened but there was little point in our talking about it, in the face of such cruelty what was there to say?

Conor’s surviving brother Páraicwrote on his Blog (http://quiz.eblana.eu/ ) “He was passionate about many things - his family, singing, painting, writing - but he was especially fond of his dogs. He surprised many people around the Northside of Dublin as he sped past aboard his three-wheeled sled, pulled by his harnessed Alaskan malamutes.” Well Conor’s parents must have had a gift of prophecy as his name isderived from the Irish name “Conchobar.” The meaning of the name “Conor” is that of “lover of wolves”, or “Hound-lover” and he always had a love of and kept dogs particularly the Alaskan Malamute, a lovely big husky type dog as he said himself “Since first reading Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” when I was 10 or 11 years old, I’ve been fascinated by everything outdoor and dog related.” (http://ironmountainmalamutes.blogspot.com/ ). One of Conor & Frances’s happiest memories was the trip they made to Finish Lapland for his 50^th Birthday where they stayed in an Ice Hotel and went on sleigh drives with dog teams through the snow.

He also wrote about nature and wildlife and this is a piece called “The Young Hawk” which he often recited at the traditional music sessions in North County Dublin (Fingal) in Oldtown and Ballyboughal. Some of the traditional musicians would support him softly during the recitation and when he finished they would raise the volume and continue with the tune.

The Young Hawk.           

(Words to be spoken to the air of ‘Inisheer’)  Conor Maguire

Once, on Mullaghmore headland

Where the sea-pinks grew

White horses dashed on golden sand

And my thoughts turned, again, to you.

The wind whispered gently through the trees,

A promise of the rain to come.

A young hawk hovered on the breeze,

Heart a-beating like a drum…..

And when he struck to take his kill,

He fell from Heaven like a stone,

Then disappeared across the hill

And I was left there all alone.

You left me too that day

And I still recall the tears.

When there was nothing left to say

You fled back home to Inis Oir.

My days pass quietly now.

Yon boat drifts slowly into night

And like the sailor on her bow

Returning would be my delight.

©Frances Maguire MMIX

Conor was a great lover of Irish music and he and I were regulars at the sessions and in the campaign to keep the oldest Guildhall in Dublin, Tailor’s Hall, open as a traditional music venue. This was a special place with a turf fire in the basement, a skillet on the fire and traditional musicians from all over America, Brittany and famous Irish musicians such as The Furey Brothers and Pete St. John gathering informally for wonderful and genuine music sessions. Our great buddy Liam Weldon who hosted the sessions had a saying that “there is a great difference people who sing traditional songs and traditional musicians.” Conor’s love of life was reflected in his love of poetry, nature, carving, and painting and above all his love of song. As somebody who couldn’t hold a tune to save my life I was always in awe of his ability to lead a room in song.  This one of the songs he wrote, the inspiration was the camping spot in Knocksink Woods where he and Frances would go to chill out, enjoy nature and the scent of wood smoke.  He always bought Frances yellow roses because they have a better scent and last much longer than the mass produced red roses which are grown in sanitised greenhouses with no perfume and flood the market for Valentines Day each year.

Forever Mine

If I gave you yellow roses

And we shared a glass of wine

If I told you that I loved you

Would you say that you would stay

Forever mine?

There’s a wood out in the mountains

It’s a place where we could go

We could live our lives together

Just you and me, so peacefully,

No one would know.

Scented pine logs on the fire

Heather dancing on the breeze,

Songbirds sing in upland meadows

And as we kissed, the swirling mist,

Bejewelled the trees.

So I gave you yellow roses

And we shared a glass of wine

When I told you that I loved you

I heard you say, that you would stay

Forever mine.

©Frances Maguire MMIX

As I mentioned his association with 5th Port Sea Scouts and the nautical skills he picked up left Conor with a lifelong love of the sea. A few years ago he bought a boat, a small “Fifey”, a wooden clinker built boat constructed by William Fife & Co. in Scotland with a central console cabin over the diesel engine and small fore and aft cabin and a pump out “head” down below.  In this most modest of nautical contraptions he made a number of costal trips and gaining confidence went to the Isle of Man and to Holyhead in Wales. The ship was proudly christened “Roshane” after their children and was initially and conveniently moored at Grand Canal Dock and then at the Poolbeg Yacht Club in Dublin Harbour where Conor & Frances were active members.  Then in flotilla they went on some major expeditions such as to the Brest Maritime Festival in France. However his favourite was the trip they made to the Western Isles of Scotland to Oban and Islay. Once, Argyll and the Isles were along with Ulster part of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dalriada. After the English conquest of Ireland the Scottish part of Dalriada was separate from Scotland as the Gaelic speaking “Lordship of the Isles” (Triath nan Eilean) of mixed Gaelic / Norse rule only being incorporated into the Kingdom of Scotland in 1493. Conor was something of a connoisseur of Scotch whisky and I can still remember his sheer joy at telling me of being able to smell the peat from the distillery kilns 20 miles offshore from Islay and his subsequent tasting tour of the single malt distilleries in the island.

My last face to face conversation with Conor (neither of us were to know) was a few weeks before he died in our “local” in Dublin was about the tumble down cabin they had bought as a weekend retreat for his retirement on 8 acres half way up the “Iron Mountain” in Co. Leitrim. Guarding the Southeastern shores of Lough Allen, 585m-high Slieve Anierin is one of the best known summits in Leitrim. The peak is commonly known by its Irish name, Sliabh An Iarainn, which translates as ‘the iron mountain’ and provides a clue to the role the hill has played in recent history. An ancient Irish legend relates that the Tuatha De Dannan (The pre-Celtic druidic people in Ireland, literally “The People of Magic”) landed in Ireland in this very place. According to the legend they descended in a thick mist and on discovering iron, forged metal weapons. With their superior armour, they then set to battle and defeated the Formorian tribe at the battle of Magh Tuireadh. It is a beautiful area where walkers stand in awe at the breathtaking panoramic views over the West and Midlands of Ireland, or wonder at the amount and variety of flora and fauna encountered; foxes, hares, rabbits, badgers, raven and Peregrine Falcons. Also tellingly for Conor, on the other side it looks over the Lakeland’s of Fermanagh and the ancestral lands of the Maguire’s. Conor had intended to reforest all eight acres of the land in native timber.

Some journeys are the hardest to make and some words are the hardest to write. We laid our friend to rest in Dardistown cemetery about 400 yards beyond the take off threshold on the runway at Dublin Airport. Conor and I shared a disrespectful sense of humour and I can almost hear him say “If there is a plane crash there will be bodies everywhere!” Indeed over many years and ups and downs we were almost the proof that people are friends despite knowing each other. He has a fitting plain headstone of Wicklow granite from the beautiful county south of Dublin which we both loved but I cannot bring myself to say it is what Conor would have wanted for he loved life, Frances, Roisín, Shane,  people, music and the land of Ireland too much to want to leave. At his funeral we said goodbye but none of us there, after such a life, to mourn Conor Maguire, rather we gathered to celebrate a life which had been completed, albeit far too soon.

At Conor funeral for the first time in many years I met his boyhood friend Gerard Cowan who was living in America and who had been battling a brain tumour for nearly 10 years. While he was very obviously not himself he was still delighted to catch up with the old gang. I told him that Conor would have really appreciated he was there and he just said “Conor would have done the same for me.” There was a lot of decency about Gerard and we felt for him in his fight against his illness. It is odd and unsettling that the two West Finglas friends who grew up two doors apart on Kildonan Avenue have gone from us in such a short time as Gerard died in February 2009. I penned a short appreciation (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/02/gerard-cowan.html ) and was hugely humbled and touched to receive a note from his 11 year old son, Ben;

“Thanks for writing this about my dad. It’s nice to hear about when he was young and see the weird pictures. I love the outdoors and nature as much as he did. Mom, my sisters, and I miss him a lot, but Mom says he’s with Conor having a great time now.”

I sure Ben’s mum is right and wherever Conor is he is taking off his hat and leading the sing song. Ben’s sentiments brought to mind the poem “The Prophet” by the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran;

“Than Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

 For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink form the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

Conor Maguire

15^th November 1956 – 27^th November 2008

“Gone Home”

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/conor-maguire.html

It is acknowledged that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so by any standards the world’s most flattered mapmaker must be Harry Beck who devised the famous diagrammatic London Underground Tube Map. By the early 1930s, the London Underground network had expanded so considerably that it was difficult to squeeze all the new lines and stations into a geographical map. Passengers complained that the existing map was crowded, confusing and hard to read. It was decided that the network was too big to be represented geographically and the Underground commissioned one of its draughtsmen Harry Beck (1903-1974) to devise a more efficient method.

Basing his map on an electrical circuit, Beck represented each line in a different colour and interchange stations as diamonds. The crowded central area was enlarged and the course of each route simplified into the form of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line. The diagrammatic map was produced on a trial basis as a leaflet in 1933 and Beck continued to refine it until 1959. For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html

London Transport has contributed a great deal to modern British Design largely through the influence of Frank Pick. The obsession with clear design and image was continued through to Harry Beck’s famous schematic map, commissioning its own “machine typeface” to make its posters, signage and publications clearer, building instantly recognisable branded station buildings and station fittings and using engaging and innovative advertising in the 30’s. Today London Underground’s trademark roundel is the second most recognised brand worldwide. The Directors in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since. See about Charles Holden’s influence and his design for the Underground’s iconic headquarters here;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

The map above translates Harry Beck’s Map to add clarity to the United States Interstate Highway Network. Its creator Senex Prime (http://www.flickr.com/photos/senexprime/ ) set out to simplify America’s Interstate system & thought London’s Tube map was the best way to present a lot of information very concisely and clearly. In his own description;

“I have rendered the Interstate system in a much simpler form. I have made the “major” highways (those divisible by 5) the framework of the map, with the “minor” highways reduced in importance and rendered as thinner grey lines. Even with these highways, a difference in the greys indicates whether they are even-numbered (west-east) or odd-numbered (north-south). Dots on the highways indicate interchanges: large dots where major highways meet other major highways, smaller dots where major meets minor and tiny dots where minor highways begin or end. A full key at the bottom indicates clearly where each highway begins and ends.”

One of my own favourites is the Webzine b3ta (http://www.b3ta.com/ ) which had a map challenge where people were challenged to create a map that told the truth. Not surprisingly there are many re-creations based on the London Underground Map including this one which portrays London as seen by tourists, poor things.

Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit. His interest in transport maps stems from his belief that they echo the prevailing social and political trends of the societies they emanate from. His Urban World Metro Map is a “playful diagram” showing “all the cities which have, are building or are planning to construct an urban rail system.”

Like with Harry Beck’s Map there can only ever be one which was “The First” and for the story of the first Underground railway in the world which opened to passengers from Paddington to Farringdon on 10 January 1863 take a look at this post covering one of the world’s Great Railway Journey;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

As for Mr. Beck and his map? Well, as these examples show the map devised and then lovingly nurtured (by hand before the days of computers) in his spare time for over 30 years has made this simple draughtsman in London Underground’s Signals Department one of the world’s most influential and most imitated cartographers.  

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

After France won their World Cup qualifier last Wednesday at the Stade de Fraud with Thierry Henry’s handball the cry went up around France’s former Republican ally “Liberté, égalité, fraternité et replay!”

But it’s all over for Ireland in World Cup 2010. FIFA has refused a replay against France so the country will now have to return to discussing its bankrupt economy and incompetent dishonest politicians. Pity, they could have done with the distraction.

Depression about being cheated out of a place in World Cup 2010 by the French Handball team means I’m back on the drink! Still, we must now look for the positives, think of all the Irish fans who now won’t get murdered in South Africa!

The BBC reports that for a nation not particularly known for its moral qualms - it once hailed a head-butting footballer as a hero - the French feel surprisingly chastened about their questionable qualification for next year’s World Cup. Reactions to Thierry Henry’s handball, which led to the goal that sent the national team to the South African finals at the expense of the hapless Irish, have ranged from embarrassment to outrage.

The incident in Wednesday’s game has been commented on in newspapers, on websites, and in cafes up and down France. It has even become of affair of state, with politicians weighing in. President Nicolas Sarkozy felt obliged to tell Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen that he felt sorry for his people.  In an online poll for Le Monde, almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that the handball “discredits France’s qualification”.

Le Parisien newspaper summarised the national mood: “The handball of Henry has brought a decisive contribution to the theme ‘being French is being ashamed of one’s national team’.” So perhaps for Les Bleus, the French cockerel is not crowing too loudly?

Enfin, répétez après moi;

“Non! Rien de rien…

 Non! Je ne regrette rien…

 Car ma vie, car mes joies

 Aujourd’hui, a commence avec toi!”

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/je-ne-regrette-rien.html

Feelings are running high in Ireland after the country failed to qualify for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The only topic of discussion in Ireland today is the French Hand job! Merde!! Ireland suffered the cruelest of World Cup exits as France went through with a goal with a goal which should have been disallowed for handball. Thierry Henry clearly handled before playing the ball for William Gallas to score the equaliser which saw France win the play-off 2-1 on aggregate at Stade de France, Paris. In fact Henry handled the ball twice, which would have been a foul in Volleyball let alone Soccer!

Thierry Henry admitted that he had intentionally handled the ball to set up William Gallas’s decisive goal against Ireland in Wednesday night’s World Cup play-off in Paris. With cries of “cheat” ringing in his ears from furious Irish fans, the Barcelona and former Arsenal forward emerged from the dressing room to say: “I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.”

Today in Ireland the mood is grim with calls to boycott French Fries, French Batons and even calls to outlaw French Kissing! It is safe to assume that Thierry Henry is not going on holiday in Ireland any time soon. My personal favourite is the reworking of the 1916 Declaration of Independence which a wag has put on the Facebook protest site “Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”

“IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for A REPLAY.

Having organised and trained her boys in green, she has stood tall in the face of disappointment and injustice , through the support of the Irish nation home and abroad, through her hope and hard work, carried forth by the supporters, young and old, having patiently perfected her discipline, even learnt to take penalties, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she last night seized that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she struck in full confidence of victory. Two men sought to bring down a nation: one by means of trickery and deceit; the other, to pander blindly in the face of world powers.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to compete in the 2010 World Cup, and to continue with the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be victorious and undefeatable. The long usurpation of that right, played out last night by the hands of Thierry Henry and the blind ref, can never be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people, we demand the right to justice and a replay at the very least. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom, justice and victory; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms, last night we exerted it peacefully and proudly on a pitch in Paris. Now, we must face the second hand of God, the powers of FIFA and their colonial friends. Standing on our fundamental right to justice, and again asserting it peacefully in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic the deserved and righteous qualifier for South Africa, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our fellow countrymen and women to the cause of her victory, of the realisation of her long held dream, and of her exaltation among the nations of World Cup 2010.”

The French Goal Should Not Stand… Ireland Deserve to be in the 2010 World Cup

Contact FIFA via this link…

http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html

And join the protest group on Facebook;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833#/pages/Hands-up-who-think-Ireland-deserve-the-place-in-the-2010-World-Cup/181240290833?v=wall

“Hands up who think Ireland deserve the place in the 2010 World Cup.”

It didn’t have to be like this you know, once Ireland and France were allies united against the common enemy;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/years-of-french.html

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/hand-of-french.html

The passing of the First World War generation was marked by a special memorial service at Westminster Abbey today as millions of people across Britain and Europe observed the two-minute Armistice Day silence.

Ninety-one years after the guns fell silent at 11am on 11^th November, 1918, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh joined Gordon Brown, senior politicians and the heads of the armed forces in the solemn ceremony which commemorated the passing of the final three veterans of the war living in Britain, who all died this year. William Stone died in January, aged 108, followed in July by Henry Allingham, 113, and Harry Patch, 111. The only remaining British-born survivor of the war, former seaman Claude Choules, who is 108 now lives in Australia.

Few can have been unmoved by the poignant sight at the last commemoration at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London of these last surviving veterans of the First World War joining serving soldiers in current conflicts to mark the 90th anniversary of the day peace returned to Europe. Then Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone led the nation as it remembered the sacrifices made by the 1914-1918 generation. They each represented the armed service they belonged to - for Mr Allingham the Royal Air Force, Mr Patch the Army and Mr Stone the Royal Navy. All three men laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in central London to commemorate Armistice Day. Sadly, but not too surprisingly, all have now died since that ceremony.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/farewell-old-soldiers.html

Being in Westminster and not too far from the Abbey which was the venue for the ceremonies you notice the minutiae of these occasions, the police checking lampposts and sealing manhole covers before hand, the veterans with their medals heading to the ceremony, the Guards colour party in great coats and bearskins marching briskly along the footpath from Wellington Barracks, the ambassador’s cars with their flags going down Toothill Street and the boom of the field in Green Park announcing at 11 the beginning of the silence and two minutes later the boom announcing it ending. Why Gordon Brown’s car passed along Petty France this morning on his way to the Abbey taking a different route from the back of Downing Street to the front of the Abbey. As is the way here these ceremonies are well oiled and practiced with no need for self important motorcades or grandiosity. Wars are and, we sometimes forget, have always been controversial but the orchestrated personal attacks on Gordon Brown by Rupert Murdoch and the tatty Sun “newspaper” represents a new low by the Dirty Digger and his hired help who arrogantly feel they can manipulate the British Public and British Democracy.

But none of this controversy about current military engagements should in any way to detract from the personal heroism or sacrifice of soldiers in battle and it is right that their bravery is commemorated each year on Armistice Sunday, the service held on the Sunday closest to Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the fighting in World War 1 at 11.00 am on the 11th November 1918. Indeed when you read the obituaries of those who served in the wars and the enormous responsibilities and decisions they had to undertake at a tender age you somehow feel that those of us whose lives have not been tempered by war have somehow led shallow lives by contrast. However we largely read about those who survive, not those who perished.

This was brought home to me some years ago when I made a personal journey to the battle fields for there were deaths on both sides of my family in the First World War. My wife’s great uncle Edward Kenny who died with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and my Great Uncle, James McMahon who died with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Beaurevoir in the Ainse  5 weeks before the end of the war in 1918.

Private Edward Kenny, originally from Edenderry, Co. Offaly had fallen with the 2nd. Bn. Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders, at the Somme on the 27th August 1916 and he’s commemorated alongside 72,088 others at the dramatic “Monument to the Fallen” memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens at Thiepval on the D73 road between Baupaume and Albert. This monument is for soldiers who fell at the Somme who have no known grave or were not identified and his name is inscribed on panel 15C. The family believe he was 18 when he died for like many others he had exaggerated his age to enlist. To escape from poverty in Ireland they had moved to Bonnybridge near Glasgow and worked in the summer months as “tattie hokers”, the term for agricultural labourer’s who worked on the back breaking potato (tatties in the Scots dialect) harvest for bed and board and low wages. He joined up with the venerable Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders who are based at Scotland’s historic Stirling Castle and is commemorated on the Roll of Honour there and at The Scottish War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. Disgracefully, to visit the latter you have to pay an expensive admission charge into the tourist theme park which is the modern Edinburgh Castle. We were able to trace his war record from a photo which showed the distinctive hat band of the Argyle and Sutherlands. His brother (my wife’s maternal grandfather) served in the Merchant Navy during the war and survived to live to a ripe old age.

My great uncle who fell in WW1 was Private James Mc Mahon of the 6th. Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers and by coincidence he hailed from Clara, Co. Offaly, the same county as my wife’s great uncle. Unlike my wife’s relative James McMahon has a grave in the Aisne, the Department beyond the Somme whose capital is Cambrai and where the front line had stopped when the hostilities ended with the Armistice at 11 in the morning on the 11th November 1918. James McMahon was killed on the 8th October 1918 at a village called Beaurevoir, one of roundly 90 young Dublin Fusiliers who were killed from the 8th to 11th October and are buried with him in the cemetery. He was killed, aged 20, just over 4 weeks from the end of the war taking part in the so called “March to Victory” which lasted for 100 days until the Armistice. While not obvious today when viewing the sleepy countryside, in 1918 this was the last part of the fortified Hindenburg Line being attacked by tired and inexperienced British Troops resulting in disproportionate casualties amongst the attackers.

Like all the Commonwealth cemeteries it is beautifully maintained and lies on the edge of the village with the standard layout of the Cross of Remembrance and a shelter for visitors which also holds the Book of Remembrance. James lies in a row of other Dublin Fusiliers aged from 18 to 21 with his name on the headstone given as “B. J. McMahon”. I wasn’t expecting to feel a great deal of connection with somebody who died so many years before I was born but being there amongst the graves of so many young Irish soldiers who all died on the 8th October 1918 was surprisingly moving.

In our fallen relatives home towns of Edenderry and Clara there are still “British Legion” houses provided for ex-soldiers and their families and in the decades of poverty and economic stagnation many Irish families were quietly grateful for the “War Pensions” they received. Ireland was neutral during the Second World War but many served in the British forces and many also worked in England both to survive and help the war effort including my Grandfather and two uncles who travelled on British Legion travel warrants and worked for the electronics firm Lucas in Birmingham during the war whilst living in a company dormitory. My father at the age of ten and his family on the other hand came in the other direction as refugees from the devastating blitz in Coventry.

On Armistice Day I too am proud to wear a poppy not in support of British Militarism or to legitimise the wanton waste of life in war. Rather I wear it to remember the great sacrifice of Edward Kenny and James McMahon and all their comrades who made a brave personal choice to fight for the greater freedom of humanity and paid the ultimate price for their beliefs.

I leave the last word to the “Last Tommy” Harry Patch who thought that his comrade’s sacrifice had been in vain because what the world achieved was not “Peace in our Time” but rather it set the scene for the conflict of WW11. He expressed himself movingly and plainly in interviews in 2004;

“I was taken back to England to convalesce. When the war ended, I don’t know if I was more relieved that we’d won or that I didn’t have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle — thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany’s only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We’ve had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it’s a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn’t speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?”

…….”It wasn’t worth it. No war is worth it. No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives let alone thousands. T’isn’t worth it … the First World War, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That’s what caused it. The Second World War – Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side … and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T’isn’t worth it.”

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-somme-personal-journey.html

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/armistice-day-2009-end-of-generation.html

Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1991, Prague has become one of Europe’s - and the worlds - most popular tourist destinations. As in London, Paris, and Rome, visitors flock to the gorgeous buildings and monuments that grace the streets of Prague, entranced by structures ranging from Gothic and baroque to cubist and neoclassical. And while hundreds of thousands stroll over the Charles Bridge and gaze up at the St. Vitus Cathedral each year, far fewer venture away from the crowds to seek out the countless gems of art nouveau peppered throughout Prague. Significant Art Nouveau sites include the Municipal House, the Wilson Railway Station, the Grand Hotel Europa, and works by sculptors František Bílek, Ladislav Šaloun, and Stanislav Sucharda. There are large numbers of remarkable buildings in Art Nouveau style in Prague that remain unknown to the tourists since they pay attention mostly only to the Castle and the Charles Bridge.

The Art Nouveau style appeared in the early 1880s and vanished with the first gun-shots of the First World War. It was a brief but brilliant art movement and style of decoration and architecture characterised by intricate patterns of curving lines. In Prague at this time you had a burgeoning middle class and a unique Czech, Germanic and Jewish culture. With this prosperity there was a desire to redevelop the Joseprov, the Jewish Quarter which was overcrowded and subject to flooding. As we have seen elsewhere in Europe in Riga and Barcelona Art Nouveau was adopted as a sign not just of new prosperity but as sign of a new nationalist identity, in this case closely identified with Slav nationalism and incorporating symbolism and references from Slavic folklore and history.

Pařížská Avenue was laid out as the centrepiece of this redevelopment of Central Praque. In the first years of the 20th century Pařížská was laid out between Old Town Square and the Čech Bridge. It has always been one of the city’s most prestigious addresses, and today it is lined with upscale boutiques, coffee shops, and airline offices. It’s a sharp contrast to the gloom and despair of the Jewish ghetto that existed before. Designers used neo-Renaissance, neo-Baroque, and Secession elements. Facades are enlivened with richly decorated windows and balconies while above the eaves rise extravagant gables, attic windows, towers, and turrets. Originally named Mikulášská (St. Nicholas Street) because of the presence of St. Nicholas’ Church at the Old Town Square end. In 1926 Pařížská was given its present name, which is best translated as Boulevard de Paris, to pay tribute to France for helping to free the Czechs from Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I.

The first important principle of the Art Nouveau movement was a desire to get rid of the distinctions between high and low art or major and minor arts.  For many artists the essential thing was for art to affect and unify the lives of the people, not just in expensive oil paintings on rich people’s walls or in institutional salons, but in the essential objects of their daily lives—their homes, furnishings, cups and saucers, advertisements, wall hangings—everything from door handles to lamp posts and sewer gratings and toilet seats.  Even purely functional objects now largely machine made and mass produced should be shaped by the decorative powers of art.  Hence we see many Art Nouveau artists, and Mucha in particular, demonstrating an astonishingly wide range of artistic interests (in his case from posters and paintings to lottery tickets, jewellery, police uniforms, designs for money, stamps, wall hangings, and so on).

This emphasis on uniting beauty and utility was at the heart of the most important social “message” of the new art (something which earned it the name Art Social in some quarters).  It was inspired, in part, by a strong reaction against the ugliness of much of the manufactured material which was increasingly dominating people’s lives and making the very idea of the traditional artist-craftsmen obsolete (a response very strong in the English Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1860’s, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris, who looked back with delight to the ideal guild craftsmen of the Middle Ages).

Art Nouveau artists were well known for their scrupulous eye for detail. Inspiration came from nature. Under Art Nouveau style even an insect was beautiful and admired.  Art Nouveau means in French “New Art”. Nowadays it may sound a bid odd calling something „new“ when it stands for a style in art, architecture and design significant for the turn of the 19th and 20th century. However, for some people – including myself – it is one of the most beautiful and fascinating styles ever and in Prague you have the chance to see a lot of this unique style.

Art Nouveau was an international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art - especially the decorative arts—that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (1890–1905). The name ‘Art nouveau’ is French for ‘new art’. It is also known as Jugendstil, German for ‘youth style’, named after the magazine Jugend, which promoted it, and in Italy, Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularized the style. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it is characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant-inspired motifs, as well as highly-stylized, flowing curvilinear forms. Art Nouveau is an approach to design according to which artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life.

The movement was strongly influenced by Czech artist Alfons Mucha, when Mucha produced a lithographed poster, which appeared on 1 January 1895 in the streets of Paris as an advertisement for the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou, starring Sarah Bernhardt. It was an overnight sensation, and announced the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of Paris. Initially called the Style Mucha, (Mucha Style), this soon became known as Art Nouveau.

In France it’s called Art Nouveau, in England it’s Modern Style or Yellow Book Style, in Germany it goes by the name of Jugendstil or Secession. Whatever you choose to call it, the style has left an impressive impact on Prague. First of all, Prague is the home of the famous Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) – Art Nouveau artist who is most widely known for the posters he created for Sarah Bernhardt, one of the greatest actresses of that time. But even if his name says nothing to you, you should visit the Mucha Museum. It is in Panska 7, Prague 1, which is close to  Wenceslas Square or Powder Tower. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. In museum shop you can buy gifts with Alphonse Mucha motifs.  His work included, apart from sculptures and paintings, costumes and stage decorations, designs for magazines and book covers, wonderful jewellery and furniture and numerous posters. I bet you will love him too.

The influence of Alfons Mucha was felt in Prague and Moravia (part of the modern Czech Republic), whose style of Art Nouveau became associated with the Czech National Revival. Fin de siecle sections of Prague reveal modest buildings encrusted with leaves and ladies that curve and swirl across the facades. Examples of Art Nouveau in the city, along with the exteriors of any number of private apartment and commercial buildings, are the Hotel Pariz, Smíchov Market Hall, Hotel Central, the windows in the St. Wenceslas Chapel at St. Vitus Cathedral, the main railway station, Grand Hotel and the Jubilee Synagogue. The Olsany Cemetery and the New Jewish Cemetery are also important examples of Art Nouveau.

Obecní Dum, Prague’s Municipal House, is more romantically known as the Palace of the People, and this is a fitting title for a building that abounds in architectural diversity providing a cultural experience for all tastes. The sumptuously decorated, pale ochre facade and glazed copper dome of Prague’s Municipal House contrast with the sombre stonework of surrounding buildings. Architects Antonín Balšánek (1865-1921) and Osvald Polívka (1859-1931) were responsible for Municipal House’s design and so many of Prague’s foremost art nouveau artists and sculptors collaborated on its embellishment. The portal gives a foretaste of the delights to come, with filigree metalwork, jewel-like encrustations, allegorical figures, and a mosaic, the Apotheosis of Prague, by Karel Špillar (1871-1939). The gilt inscription around it is from ‘Hail to Thee, Prague!’ a poem by Svatopluk Cech (1846-1908).

Even the most hurried visitor should sit for a while in the sumptuous surroundings of Municipal House’s cafe and absorb the atmosphere of the classic Prague coffee house of long ago. A meal in the refined Francouska restaurace is one of Prague’s best gastronomic experiences, while music lovers can attend a concert in the Smetana Hall, the home of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. It is here that the Prague Spring music festival is launched, with a rousing performance of Smetana’s Má Vlast (My Home). The designers of Prague’s Municipal House have paid great attention to its functional spaces and fittings, and it’s worth admiring such features as stairways, elevators and even the cloakroom.

Prague Art Nouveau architecture adopts all of its foreign morphology. You will find bright colour which was brought by the Spanish Art Nouveau, dynamic curves of the French and Belgian Art Nouveau, the floral and animal designs as well as selected materials which were promoted by the Arts and Crafts movement. Undoubtedly, the Municipal House by the architect Osvald Polívka makes a prominent representative of the Prague Art Nouveau architecture. Numerous artists of both the older and the younger generation participated in its ornamentation – Alfons Mucha as well as Jan Preisler.

An equally prominent piece of architecture is the building of the Prague Main Railway Station by the architect Jozef Fanta. Numerous reliefs are to be found in here, above all of girlish and female figures. A set of female mascarons (grotesque masks) is unique, with each of them original. There are several Art Nouveau buildings and structures worth mentioning, such as the villas by the outstanding architect Jan Kotěra – the Trmal Villa, for instance, Kotěra’s own villa in Vinohrady, a Prague district, or the villa with a studio built for Stanislav Sucharda. The Bílek Villa is a unique construction built in the Symbolist style, with a range of extra-ordinary symbols and allusions to be found such as stylized ears of corn. Three constructions stand out from the typical housebuilding: The Topič House and Hotel Prague in Národní třída and the House “U Nováků“in Vodičkova Street, whose mosaic was designed by Jan Preisler.

Prague has always been the centre of Mittel Europa, the crossroads like Krakow between North and South, East and West, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, the font of Slavic Nationalism in opposition to the Hapsburg’s Austro-Hungarian Empire and from 1918 to 1938 the only democracy in Eastern Europe until the world acquiesced to its betrayal and destruction in the Munich Agreement. As mentioned it was the birthplace of a unique Czech, Germanic and Jewish culture and the naturalism and craftsmanship of Art Nouveau allowed all traditions to embrace this style from gravestones in the New Jewish Cemetery to the stylish apartment blocks along Pařížská Avenue to the stylish villas overlooking the Vltava it helped to unify and renew this unique city. Despite all that has happened since, today 20 years after the Velvet Revolution, it is still celebrated by the inhabitants of this unique place, the Golden City of Prague.

See also Art Nouveau in other European Cities;

Barcelona, Catalonia.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/antoni-gaud-and-barcelona-modernisme.html

Glasgow, Scotland.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/07/charles-rennie-mackintosh.html

Riga, Latvia.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/art-nouveau-district-riga-latvia.html

Original on Blogger;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/art-nouveau-prague.html

Regular blogistas will know that my favourite English City is the “City of the Dreaming Spires” the university city of Oxford. With so much learning going on Oxford contains many homes to the Muses or Museums to give them their more familiar title. There is the Pitts River Museum, The Museum of Oxford, The Museum of the History of Science, The Bates Collection of Musical Instruments, The Christchurch Picture Gallery and The Oxford Museum of Natural History. Oxford’s museums and collections are world renowned. They provide an important resource for scholars around the world, and welcome visits from members of the public. More than a million people visit the University’s museums and collections every year. For me from all this abundance of riches one of my favourite places to visit is what has been the somewhat forbidding and eccentric Ashmolean Museum. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-in-oxford.html )

At its opening in 1683, the Ashmolean was the world’s first ever public museum, a beacon of learning for a newly scientific age. Over the centuries, as an integral part of the University of Oxford, it has remained at the forefront of modern thinking on how museums can best foster learning, while giving enjoyment and inspiration to the widest possible audience. In the best tradition of Regency “Cabinet of Curios” it has always contained popular attractions like the Guy Fawkes lantern to recent acquisitions like the restored Titian painting “The Triumph of Love.”

The renovated Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology re-opens to the public on Saturday 7 November. The award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building, replacing all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. The redevelopment cost £61m, doubling the existing gallery space. The new building, designed by award-winning Rick Mather Architects, will provide the Ashmolean with 100% more display space. Located to the north of Charles Cockerell’s original Museum built in 1845, it comprises 39 new galleries, including 4 temporary exhibition galleries, a new education centre, state-of-the-art conservation studios, and Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant The Ashmolean Dining Room. In the Cockerell Building, the newly refurbished galleries of Western Art will reopen after 10 months of closure.

Behind its classically pedimented exterior the Ashmolean was strange design for the entrance led you to expect something huge and dramatic behind but the reality was a museum only one gallery deep where parts were immersed in a stygian gloom. Rich Mather’s clever extension addresses this and much more with all galleries now leading onto a bright atrium. These changes mark the latest upgrades to the UK’s oldest public museum, with its origins dating back to the early 17th Century.

The original museum of 1683 was based on the collections of Elias Ashmole, alchemist and antiquarian, a leading figure of “The New Philosophy”. It was literally a “cabinet of curios”, including a Dodo, artefacts acquired from credulous Native Americans and hand-me-downs from the Tradescants. Ashmole explained that his purpose was to encourage “the inspection of particulars… extraordinary in their fabrick”. By the early 18th century it was already a busy popular museum.  Elias Ashmole was an aficionado of antiquities who studied at the University of Oxford whilst posted to the military there. He was one of the first gentleman freemasons in England and had wide ranging interests including astrology and alchemy.

He liked to collect coins, metal, books and manuscripts and he apparently possessed the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone (one of the great alchemical secrets). Ashmole was also a founder member of the Royal Society, interested in the study of nature and objects and their application to the benefit of mankind.

But the choice of his name for the museum is not without controversy.  David Berry, project curator of the Ashmolean tells the full story: “The museum opened to the public officially in 1683 but its history is traced further back.  “The collection that was its core was compiled by two John Tradescants, father and son. They were gardeners to Charles I, and in the late 1620s John Sr took out a lease on a house in South Lambeth.  1634 is the first recorded instance of a visitor having seen that material.  It was really the first instance where a collection of that sort - what would be referred to as a Cabinet of Curiosities - was made accessible to the general public regardless of age, gender or status.  That is unique to them and one of the things that Ashmole inherited. It became a key foundational element of the Ashmolean when it opened here in Oxford.”

“The Ark”, as it was known, caught Ashmole’s attention when he purchased the house next door: “He had an interest in the Tradescant collection.  In 1656 he paid for and was in large part responsible for helping to compile a catalogue of it. It was the first printed catalogue of a museum collection or a collection of any sort in England.”  Many people make the comment that it should rightfully be the Tradescant Museum as opposed to the Ashmolean - it’s an interesting point

When John Tradescant III died at an early age, in the absence of an heir the future of the collection seemed in jeopardy. In 1659 the collection was passed to Ashmole by Deed of Gift.  But it seems that John Tradescant the Younger regretted this, and he left everything in his will to his wife. This led to a court case upon his death. The deed proved valid and Ashmole won the case. In 1657 Ashmole began negotiations with his former university. A museum was built on Broad Street (now the Museum of the History of Science). It opened in 1683 and housed the Tradescant collection.

“Ashmole is very often vilified for his role in this,” David Berry continues. “Many people make the comment that it should rightfully be the Tradescant Museum as opposed to the Ashmolean. It’s an interesting point.  “The bulk of the material that he donated and that arrived and was open to the public had a Tradescant provenance.  Ashmole was a major collector in his own right but quite a bit of that burned in a fire in his chambers in Middle Temple.

“But the institution is entirely Ashmole’s. It was through his influence that the university was persuaded to build the building.  Ashmole gave it its proper philosophical foundation. He provided it with a series of statutes by which it was to run. In a sense the right name is on the front door. The collection in terms of what survived is largely Tradescant’s and Ashmole was actually quite clear about that in his correspondence with the university.  He also donated all of the family portraits. We have a dozen or more portraits of the members of the Tradescant family which all very clearly say on them ‘Donated by Elias Ashmole’. He would not have done that had he not intended for their legacy to be preserved as well as his own.”

Over the years the museum rapidly began to run out of space. In the mid 19th century the university’s collections were subject to a “process of rationalisation”. The museum was originally conceived to represent the world in microcosm, crossing cultures, times and disciplines (the epitaph on the Tradescant tomb even reads “a world of wonders in one closet shop”). But in the quickly developing 19th century, the sciences were dividing into many different disciplines and the collections had to expand in line with them.

Eventually the 1860s saw the natural history collections transferred to Parks Road where they formed the core of the University Museum - now the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Once the Tradescant collection was moved to the Pitt Rivers Museum in the 1880s the museum was left with something of a crisis of identity.  David Berry describes the museum’s new change of direction: “the focus shifted almost entirely to the area of archaeology. The museum began to acquire significant holdings of material from Egypt, the Near East, from throughout Continental Europe as well as archaeological material from throughout the British Isles and the classical world.”

By this time the University Galleries, housed in a neo-classical building in Beaumont Street, had been displaying many fine examples of paintings, sculpture, drawings and prints. The treasures of the Ashmolean, which had outgrown the space on Broad Street, were moved to an extension at the back of the newer building.  It was in 1908 that the two institutions amalgamated to form the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. This is the museum we have today, albeit now with a new and improved modern makeover

Inside the new galleries, the Ashmolean presents a redisplay of the collections. The Museum’s curators have worked with leading design company Metaphor to create the innovative strategy Crossing Cultures Crossing Time, enabling visitors to discover how civilisations developed as part of an interrelated world culture. Objects’ stories will be told by tracing the journey of ideas and influences through time and across continents, transforming the way the Ashmolean’s rare and beautiful objects are understood.

Themed galleries on the lower ground floor explore the connections between objects and activities common to different cultures, such as money, reading and writing, and the representation of the human image. The floors above are arranged chronologically, charting the development of the ancient and modern worlds. Orientation galleries on each floor introduce the key themes, illuminating the many connections and comparisons which bring the past to life.

Strangely for a University City Oxford has been somewhat bereft of good restaurants, one exception has been the excellent Brasserie Blanc in the atmospheric Oxford canal side district of Jericho. http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/brasserie-blanc.html

This may sound surprising but every college has its dining hall where Fellows and Scholars sit down to “Commons” and every college has its Student Buttery. The Oxfordshire squirearchy for their part largely stay in the county frequenting country taverns and Blanc’s exquisite Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at little Milton. This leaves Oxford City itself abandoned to the chains, fast food and tourist specials. Two honourable exceptions have been the excellent operation in the crypt of St. Mary’s University Church and the Ashmolean Café.  The Café features freshly-baked pastries and organic yoghurts for breakfast and a range of tasty sandwiches, soups and salads for a light lunch. Highlights from the cakes and desserts menu include the orange and almond cake and wholesome muffins made each morning at the benugo bakery. The bakery offer is exceptional. A new addition in the renovated museum is The Ashmolean Dining Room which provides the spectacular setting for Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant.

Now the Ashmolean is pretty much uncontested as the greatest university museum in the world. The fact that this enchanting museum is also an active seat of research and scholarship only adds to its lustre, while the reality of seeing so many objects – squirreled away for too many years – out on display will make the Ashmolean a museum to return to, time and again. Go and see the reborn Ashmolean soon, an exceptional place in an exceptional city.

See also; Xmas in Oxford

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/xmas-is-coming.html

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Take a trip to your local branch of Prêt a Manger and the chances are you’ll be made aware of their “fresh ingredients” boasts. So the news that the high street chain is importing frozen chicken from Brazil may come as a surprise to you as it did to me. I used to greatly admire Prêt whose headquarters is in Hudson Place beside Victoria Station. It was set up by two college friends with its first shop in Victoria Street and in the early days Julian Metcalfe’s parents kitchen in their flat near Westminster Cathedral supplied the shop. They aimed to shake up the British sandwich market. However McDonalds bought a 33% share in 2001 (since sold last year at a considerable profit to Bridgepoint Capital) and there was concern that they would lose their ethical edge. These concerns now seem to have been borne out.

The chain which boasts its ingredients are ‘the best, natural stuff’ has come under fire for importing frozen chicken from Brazil. The meat in Prêt a Manger’s ‘Just Made’ chicken sandwiches is frozen and then shipped more than 6,000 miles to the UK. The £200million-a-year firm says it uses the South American chicken because the animals are treated well there. It claims the meat is produced in better ‘animal welfare’ conditions than those employed by companies which supply rival sandwich makers.

Sourcing chicken from the South American country is cheaper for British companies than using UK meat, with wages for workers typically 700 reais a month – that is about £250 a month or £3,000 a year. “Conditions are not great, but they could be worse,” said Eurides Silva, the president of a local food workers union. On top of their wages, workers will typically get a free basket of basic food in exchange for a 44 hour week. There is no health plan while cases of repetitive injuries among the mainly female workforce, who spend all day stripping chickens by hand, are common.

“There are lots of repetitive stress injuries to the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder,” said Mr Silva, “It’s repetitive work and fast. There are also a lot of muscle problems. Some companies have stretching exercises and gymnastics to help workers be more limber but a lot don’t want to bother. It isn’t ideal, if you want to avoid having these kinds of injuries.” Workers, he said, also bemoan conditions in the processing plants where the temperature has to be kept around 14 degrees and so “it is cold and wet and that is a common complaint”.

Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, the body that certifies organic food in the UK, is scathing of the mass market chicken industry that has grown up in Brazil, using limited grain and Soya supplies to fatten up chickens. Mr Holden said: “It is out of sight and out of mind. We are living off unsustainable chicken systems and we are not facing up to the inconvenient truth that our addiction to white meat has to be confronted.”

When it arrives in the UK, Prêt’s Brazilian chicken is defrosted, marinated and poached before being used in a range of sandwiches such as coronation chicken, simple Caesar chicken and chicken and red roasted peppers. The company earned £8.6million last year from its range of chicken products. Although there is no suggestion that the imported meat is harmful to health, campaigners have raised concerns at boasts that it is fresh.

The revelation comes a week after it emerged the chain’s ’spankingly fresh’ sushi was in fact frozen in Chile and shipped in. This outraged environmentalists, who warned of the huge carbon footprint this created. Prêt, which has built its reputation on ‘good natural food’, is not required to state on food labels where its meat is sourced from. Packaging on its chicken range says: ‘Just Made (never from a factory). A fresh Prêt sandwich doesn’t need a “use by” date. We make our food in every Prêt kitchen using amazing ingredients. The best, natural stuff you’d want to use at home.’

On its website it boasts that its chicken is never processed more than needed. Corinne Low, of the British Standards Trading Institute, said the wording was misleading as the government’s Foods Standards Agency counted anything which has been frozen as having been processed.  She said: ‘The term “fresh ingredients” should only be used where its intended meaning is no processed ingredients have been used.’

Robert Newbery, the chief poultry advisor to the National Farmers’ Union, said: ‘Processed meat should carry clearer labelling to encourage people to buy British.’ Brian Young, director general of the British Frozen Foods Federation, however, claimed meat producers here could not meet the demand. Britain shipped in 143,000 tons of cheap chicken, the equivalent of 60million birds, from Brazil and Thailand alone last year.

Yesterday Pret’s co-founder Julian Metcalfe pledged that by 2012 Prêt would sell only British free range chicken - which costs on average three times more.  Mr Metcalfe said: ‘People should buy less chicken or buy proper chicken. We have got to move free range by 2012. This is about bigger issues than the word “fresh”.’

I’m amazed that “fresh food” Prêt-a-Manger with “nothing bad in it” imports frozen chicken from Brazil which it then defreezes, poaches and marinades before putting in its “made in the shop” sandwiches, imports frozen crayfish from China and, most amazing, its “Fresh Sushi” frozen, yes frozen, from Chile! Maybe the most amazing thing is I’ve paid them £3.80 for a chicken sandwich!! - NO MORE, NO WAY!!!

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Rarely can there be a group as worthy of support as this (The Tayto appreciation society on Facebook) - I had to join as in an increasingly transient world the continuity and happiness provided by Tayto is important!

My life and Tayto have crossed on two occasions, both in a previous life as a VAT inspector in Dublin.

In the early 80’s I’d to call on a chipper called “CeeBees” in Parnell Street in Dublin - This was a strange operation as it only opened Monday to Friday from 12 to 2 and from 4 to 7, not the normal trading hours for a central Dublin chippie! It turned out it was owned by the Collins Brothers (CeeBees, geddit?) who had founded King Crisps and having sold it to Tayto for, then. good money, found themselves bored with time on their hands and ran this dilettante chipper just to have something to do. They were two gentlemanly old guys (well late 50’s) who told me the story of how they started King Crisps in Inchicore using a chip shop range to do the frying. Here I was in the presence of crisp royalty, the guys who had started doing individual batch fried handmade crisps! Tayto never did much with the King Crisp brand afterwards and when you see the huge success brands such as Kettles (and Tyrells) have made of the same idea it seems to have been a marketing opportunity lost.

Incidentally afterwards I visited the state of the art Tayto plant in Coolock and noticed that their purchases include parsnips. It turned out for 3 months in late winter / early spring potatoes were in short supply and not of good quality so they substituted parsnips instead. I was incredulous and said surely customers noticed? As Tayto had invented the method of flavouring crisps he said there was no real difference in taste and no, they had never received any customer comment! Considering what an upmarket premium product root vegetable crisps are today I was surprised he told me the second advantage of using parsnip crisps is they were cheaper!

Whilst reviewing the momentous history of crisps it should be remembered that when Mrs. Smith made her crisps in the 1920’s in her garage in North London they were mainly sold from a handcart by her husband Frank Smith (as in Smith’s Crisps) to an Irish Clientele in the pubs on Kilburn High Road.

The Irish and Crisps – they go together like Ham and Cheese, Jordan and Pete, Bread and Butties, St Kevin and Women, ………………………………….

Mr Tayto

Tayto was born in 1954, when Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy invented the first cheese and onion flavour crisp! In those days, Tayto would sell 347 packets per day. Nowadays, Ireland’s favourite crisps sell around three-quarters of a million bags per day. The factory now operates out of Tandragee Castle, where it is possible to take tours. Who wouldn’t want to see crisps being made IN A CASTLE? Plus, there’s a chance you might even get to meet Mr. Tayto himself. Wowzers!

Tours run from Monday to Thursday at 10.30am and 1.30pm, and on Friday at 10.30am. The Tayto Factory is closed on public holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Bank Holidays etc. The price for adults is £5, students and seniors is £4, and the price for children is £3. The tours are regrettably not suitable for children under 5.

www.tayto.com

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