English Dreaming, English Rain as an Illustrated Publication

In the last few days, many readers have asked me to post some pictures of Avignon, Musée d’Orsay and the Three Bridge Kingdom. I am afraid to say that this is not going to happen. As a writer, it is not unreasonable to expect that the focus of my primary blog is always going to be words.

Besides, photography is not my strongest area. I do not have the eye. All my good shots echo the tricks I learnt from working with and managing photographers when I was a newspaper editor. The little I know about composition and framing devices* rarely rises my pictures above the barely competent or commonplace.

While English Dreaming, English Rain as an illustrated publication is not going to happen, I have created a new blog where readers who want to see my photographic hackings will be indulged. Given the continuing need to occult certain information about my life from those that would stalk me or see some profit in making threats into manifest action, the new blog will be strictly invitation only. If you are a friend, regular reader or correspondent and want an invite, just email me at the usual address.

*Strangely, when I used be curious about Anne-Marie Forker, I saw that the photographs she was selling in galleries used the same ‘shoot through an archway/ogee or other dramatic window frame’ that I had demonstrated to her when we both used to take shots for one of her younger sister’s art projects. I guess this means that at least some of my framing devices do not suck.

Jacky Parp-Parp Pardon

Over the course of recent bout of interviews, one question begun annoy me: “What is your next book called and what is it about?” It is a perfectly reasonable avenue of journalistic enquiry, but somehow it seems too invasive. Beyond the usual author superstition on giving away working titles and subject matter, prematurely exposing the gestating wee beastie makes me uncomfortable.

Therefore to occult the truth, I have decided to tell any interviewer who asks that my next book is called Jacky Parp-Parp Pardon. It is a children’s book influenced by Jaques Brel, Louis Armstrong, Viz, Vic and Bob and the comedy of Jacques Tati. Due to its French quality, I am moving to Provence to write it.

Cobbled Streets and Cat-wide Alleys

My broken body has forgotten sleep. Bruised lungs protest the need for rest. I want air unburdened by its city clothing of carbon monoxide and diesel fumes.

I head south. As much as landscape, it seems as if I am travelling through weather. Forests trapped by mist; encased in static silence as if every vapour droplet was composed of resin. Shoulders of mountains wet where low cloud clings to them in a tearful embrace. Fields wearing the penitent brown of sackcloth are lashed by rain. With Mont Ventoux growing in my vision, the mistral roars. Its growling gusts so forceful everything but blue sky flees from them.

The mistral chases me up Avignon’s cobbled streets and cat-wide alleys. Barely existing pavements splutter out as rues narrow and turn like dying streams. To let motorists pass, several times I have to press myself to medieval wall or ravaged plaster, scored and failing like grandfather skin. Cars here are clearly driven by owners that believe aluminium can pass through stone or flesh like a phantom when faced with a problem of width. The saints of the city must be constantly called upon to bestow the grace of millimetres.

Fording the trickle of traffic on rue des Infirmières, I finally reach my new home. Number 35 hugs the Avignon’s walls like a child sheltering beneath a parent’s coat. I have private courtyard roofed with wisteria, tiled floors and cabbalist blue shutters. It feels as if I am living in a Provençal postcard.

The Solace of Musée d’Orsay

Today Paris is good enough to provide me with a reassuring selection of clichés. The equivalent of stock footage shorthand allows my tired brain to construct the city with hack readymades. The end of the street has an artisan boulangerie where I can buy croissant from 6am. Turn right onto Avenue Ledru Rollin and there is a pâtisserie window that turns chocolate, glazed apple and Crème anglaise into erotica. Green neon crosses, more night club than pharmacie, wink at bar patrons who look as if they have had permanent hangover headaches for decades. One billboard in four seems to pander to the French obsession with lingerie.

The walk to Gare d'Austerlitz is enlivened by unexpected road closure. Exasperated stabs of horns and an explosion of shouts offers the aural cliché of Parisian gridlock. Arbitrary police searches are conducted to a soundtrack of bleating sirens and the distant barrage of whistles – a sonic cue that always runs ahead of the storm front of protest. Hitting the Seine and the first flea market, cause is encountered amid coalescing CGT placards.

In this city of Haitian handshakes, kisses at altitude and ancestors honoured with Dubonnet salutes, the most glorious cliché is the Musée d’Orsay. However fevered the mind, however battered the body, my spirit is always elevated by the art of and in this building. Today its exhibitions include Masks, from Carpeaux to Picasso and Le mystère of pastels, but its constant magic is that of transcendence. When Paris has left me broke and betrayed, the solace of Musée d’Orsay has never failed.

Beyond its train station façade, Musée d’Orsay possesses the extra dimensionality of a TARDIS. The gigantic clock and dwarfing light and space are pure Time Lord. Its selection of sculpture, Impressionist and Symbolist work so good their acquisition suggests Gallifreyan temporal prescience.

In the elegant bustle of Café des Hauteurs and the romance I have taken in the galleries of Romanticism, there is no room for the language of dust. This is not a theatre for ghosts. Here is joy and inspiration. Gateways forged from imagination, diligently guarded by the great Ours Blanc. Pompon’s finest piece is one of my surest Parisian friends. Being nose to nose with my beloved polar bear always brings smiles.

Rolling Through a Dark France

Around five, a bruised, broken twilight gives up. Rolling through a dark France, its landscape hides from me. After an hour, taillight ghosts begin to cluster. Crossing anonymous sodium suburbs and neon valleys, hints of Paris are dropped.

Beyond the strobing rush of le périph, La Ville-Lumiere of memory becomes the city of now. For once, arrival is the easy part of the journey. An apartment, milk and wine are bought in the right sequence within minutes of each other.

It is odd to be back walking the street of the 12th arrondissement. Paris feels like an old girlfriend who has cheated age and looks like your recollection of another time. She has moved on, what you share is at best fond history, but she still has a special smile for you.

Mr. Southwell is in France

I am shutting up shop for a brief spell. This post is the equivalent of putting a notice in the window that reads: ‘Mr. Southwell is in France recovering from a nasty illness. He will return shortly with tales of handshakes in Goutte d’Or, superb sausages and kisses stolen in front of the Théâtre Municipal. Apologies are offered for any inconvenience caused.’