Rain and Sun in Regent's Park

The sky hung white in the sky like a damp dishcloth.
As we walked into Regent's Park it started drizzling, but the air was mild and the greenery so intense it was almost intoxicating and everything seemed as it should be : specially designed for us by the great designer in the sky.
The wind gusted occasionally though, making it suddenly cold, and all the paddle boats were parked up empty, looking forlorn and unemployed.

Tony Blair, the armchair warrior, is back in the news, urging Britain to intervene in Syria. He says there is evidence that the Assad regime has used sarin gas against its opponents in the civil war raging there.
Tony's got form in this department and it's not good.
If only one of his many properties were located in Damascus - he might be less keen on 'intervention' if it was one of his places that got smashed up. Or if one of his sons was a soldier.
It started raining very hard.

It's not just the weather that's showing the symptoms of madness - the human race is racing towards insanity : machete madness in London, Kalashnikov killers, shoulder fired rocket launcher lunatics, rocket propelled grenade gangsters, drone drivers in bunkers in suburbia, everyone wants to kill someone,or themselves, it's the only idea we've got, the only strategy left on the shelf.
Whatever happened to non - violence, the strategy that threw the British out of India?
But then the sun burst through and the white sky turned blue and the scene was transformed.
Looking up, there wasn't a drone in the sky and all around Shia mingled with Sunni and Muslim sat down with Hindu. Girls in Burkhas talked excitedly about Korean pop stars and the geese and ducks waddled around looking for someone to smile at and found an old lady who smiled back at them and fed them with breadcrumbs. People stopped shopping at Primark, insisting that they wouldn't buy from sweated labour.......no, now I've gone too far!

Parks though, especially London Parks, bring the world together in peace. It has been proven scientifically that people are happier and more creative if they have spent time in the countryside resting their eyes on the greenery it provides. Prime Minister Erdogan in Turkey wants to build on the parks of Istanbul. If he wants his people to live together in peace, he should desist.

Mr Blair, pop down to Regent's Park, stroll around and do nothing for an afternoon. You work too hard. You need rest. The graveyards are full of indispensable people.
It started to get hotter as the afternoon wore on - was this the promised heatwave?
Over to Martha and the Vandellas.
In the sixties, they had heatwaves.

Beethoven in London, Prince Albert waits, Prince Philip fades , us at Lords

It's not my car but it's the same colour as my suit!

Mild air is making an occasional and timid appearance in London, but it's usually chased off by its cold front rivals as soon as they spot us walking out without our coats on, thinking that the summer might have arrived.
But the sun kept the cold at bay for us as we toured the hallowed halls and bars of Lord's Cricket Ground, led by my good friend, former boss, and author of the most important cricket book yet written, Mr Tom Rodwell, Chairman of The Lord's Taverners, which is the leading cricket charity in Britain.

Tom wrote 'Third Man in Havana' to document the power of cricket to change lives.
His qualification for doing so was that this is what he achieved as Chairman of Cricket for Change, and the book is both a hilarious and informative account of cricket played around the world by young people who, within conventional classification, we call disadvantaged, but measured by the more demanding standards of spirit and talent, are among the most impressive individuals you are likely ever to meet. Imagine facing a fast bowler when you are partially sighted, going by the sound of a rattle inside the ball.

The ground at Lord's is the headquarters of world cricket, and a paradox : a bastion of exclusivity and privilege and an inspiration and enabler of opportunity for millions through its generous support and donations to charitable enterprises which give young people a chance to participate in the sport.

It's a private club, wealthy, crusty and posh, with a long history - and it's great!

We stood on the balcony of one of the bars overlooking the pitch. A game was under way and I tried and failed to explain exactly what was going on to Elena.

Happy work though, as we supped the cool refreshing ale and watched the white clad figures who occasionally sprang into life before reverting to a form of statuary.

Later that day, we walked across Hyde Park to the Royal Albert Hall where The Philharmonic were due to give a performance of Beethoven, culminating with the great 9th symphony.

Two towering statues of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert stand sentinel at the north and south entrances to his eponymous hall.
I stared up at him atop his great plinth outside the south entrance, and wanted to reach up and touch his hand.

'" Oh, she's warm" sprang to mind from the scene in The Winter's Tale, when Hermione's statue comes to life at her husband's touch and  she is resurrected by Shakespeare to remind us that anything is possible.

If the stern Victorian Albert came back to life today he might soon find a vacancy as consort to a Queen. Prince Philip, the present occupant of the role is feeling unwell and is 92 years old.

Most of Philip's views would probably coincide with Albert's so we should expect no change in approach from our Monarchy.
Perhaps if Albert's revival coincided with Philip's departure, we would interview him before giving him the job, rather than it being a shoe in?
What was the relationship between Victoria and Mr Brown?
And while we're at it, why does Prince Andrew look so different from Charles and Ann?
The answers' don't matter, these aristocrats are only human it's true.
So why do we treat them like Gods?

Prince Albert remains domineering in death

Beethoven had a healthy contempt for Princes.
'There have been many Princes', he said, 'and there will be many more, but there is only one Beethoven'
The performance was electrifying.
The turbulence, terror and pathos of the human condition charge through and trample over your soul as you sit before the spectacle of the huge orchestra and choir in the Albert Hall.

Thanks Victoria, for this hall.
We hope it will always be here, and that future generations will listen in peace as Beethoven reminds them that we must live together in love.
Schiller's great lines to the greatest great tune in the world were rendered with Godlike majesty by the huge choir.

Oh friends, not these tones!
Rather let us sing more
cheerful and more joyful ones.
Joy! Joy!

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We approach fire-drunk,
Heavenly One, your shrine.
Your magic reunites
What custom sternly divides;
All people become brothers
Where your gentle wing alights.

 Listen up, oh you great leaders of our world, Obama, Putin, Assad, Li Keqiang - reflect on these lines!

All ye tempted to kill and maim to right your wrongs, think again, Gandhi and Martin Luther King showed another way!

Afterwards, we go to The Goats Tavern with friends and drink a few pints of London Pride.

They were good, and we are lucky to be alive.

Leaving the pub, we met two young musicians who had played in the orchestra.
They were delighted that we had enjoyed their performance so much, and talked enthusiastically about the power of music.

If music be the food of love...play on!

London - Blood in the streets, sun in the sky, people easily damaged...

There is blood being spilt every day, but more often than not away from these shores: Syria, Iraq, Palestine or Pakistan, but even in these battlefields the human body is generally maimed at a distance, this shielding the killer from his grisly work.

So it comes as a particularly revolting shock to see the bloodstained murderer dripping with his victims blood and spewing his angry words into the cameras on a London street on a sunny day.

The Sun described the murderer as a crazed and vile thug, and who can object to such language as we recoil from the horror of his act?

But it transpires that the perpetrator was himself the victim of a ferocious knife attack at the tender age of sixteen. He narrowly escaped death, but witnessed the hacking to death of his two companions by, yes, you've guessed it, a crazed and vile thug.
Our villain was living a chaotic life at this time: it was three in the morning in a council flat drug den when the assailant entered the flat supposedly to buy drugs but in fact intent on robbery and carnage.

So perhaps our killer was a traumatised young man, deranged and set off on a course towards mayhem and wild revenge by an incident and a life that might have tipped any of us over the edge? (A strange and incomprehensible brand of political Islam merely provided the encouraging cloak and found him a victim.)

We must be much more careful, all of us, everywhere, of the lives of others.

There is no excuse or justification for murder, we tell ourselves, and yet we often manage to find an excuse to invade another country, fire missiles from drones, invest trillions in weapons of mass destruction which we effectively wave at our potential enemies, saying, like a drunk in a pub brawl, you'll get this if you come any closer. Only when we say 'You'll' we mean entire nations.

Careful and sensitive reasoning has shown that even economic theories designed to pay back debts can be careless of peoples lives, as well as fail to pay back debts.
'The Body Economic' by Stuckler and Basu has used empirical evidence to demonstrate that, for example, ten million (yes, ten million!) Russians died as a result of the attempt to turn Russia into an experimental free market in a very short period, and they have shown how careless reasoning by our own Mr Cameron has killed innocent citizens (yes, his own people!) from heart attacks.
Of course, nobody meant these things to happen in the way that the deranged young man in Woolwich meant to murder a soldier. But maybe they didn't care enough that they might happen?

And if we don't put people first, their health and happiness, then there is much more chance that they will happen.

So next time you are responsible for a policy, ask yourself if you would do it to your nearest and dearest, or if you would like someone to do it to you?

It's amazing what a difference asking these questions can make to the paths open to us.

Yesterday we were surrounded by love and affection in the happy home of my brother's daughter, Joy, her husband Robert Jones (Bobby), their two young sons Charlie and Harry (two and four) and Bobby's father Alan.

Whilst we chatted and were worn out by the boundless energy of Charlie and Harry, Bobby, who is a spectacularly good cook, prepared a barbecue so delicious that it would have united the world's religions, Sunni and Shia, Protestant and Catholic, and brought about peace on earth.

Love is like the sun, it will burn forever in the human heart, but too many of us are kept forcibly away from its caressing touch or thrown into the shade where its warm rays can no longer soften the human heart.

Statesmen and women, I beg you, all of you, examine all of your policies and proposals to see if they carry forward the loving warmth of the splendid sun above, to see if they soften the hearts of those who will be affected by them.

Be kind, be generous, be careful, we are all easily damaged.

And if you want great food to bring people together, Bobby will cook for you and come together they will. He will cook while you relax, entertain and reconcile your guests. Text him on 07849864500

London in 1123 and 2013 at prayer, Smithfield, St Bartholomew's and Syria burning........

Back in 1123, Bartholomew Fair opened up alongside the horse market and St Bartholomew's Augustinian monastery.
It must have been quite a fair, because it was suppressed for rowdiness and debauchery in 1855, and generally speaking, things seem to have been bawdier and more debauched the further back you go.
Have a quick look at Chaucer or Rabelais if you want to check this out, or 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymous Bosch, from 1490.

While most folk then were making the most of the short span they knew they'd been allotted, some, a very small minority, were so removed from the cares of everyday life that they were debating ethereal questions as to the exact nature of The Holy Ghost and how the Spirit relates to the other two ..er....anyway, as we found today when we attended the sublime service put on by St Bartholomew's clergy, these questions are still being debated today. In fact, we were informed that just to discuss them in the terms they are being framed is to risk heresy, and that they are still causing a rift between the Latin and Eastern churches.

Oh dear, we'd have hoped our men of the cloth might have lowered their sights a little since St Augustine's days, but no such luck.
The service showed that the church still has the artistic, architectural and musical ability to move the human soul.

It moved ours, almost to tears, especially the choir, which rose and fell like swooping angels through the spacious canopy of the church and reduced its congregation to awestruck amazement that such heavenly utterances could be heard here on earth.
Yet all this power is turned towards the Holy Ghost and how to let it enter thy heart.
We know that each of us can only do what we can, and that charity begins at home, but surely the fine and subtle minds of our clergy can put aside their theology for a while as the world races towards armageddon?
If the Holy Ghost is the only character to get a mention in the play of life, then surely we are nearing the end of the play?

As our Prime Minister urges upon us a several billion pound outlay for another round of nuclear missiles to be fired in the event that someone fires something at us, thereby guaranteeing us the grim satisfaction of knowing that we have slammed the door on life once and for all, we wanted to know how The Holy Ghost wanted us to react, not argue about whether he is one and three at the same time.

And as Al Qaeda and other fanatics in Syria kill each other to get their hands on its oil fields, we wondered if the Archbishop of Canterbury might have a view on whether we should support the USA in its arming of the chaotic cadres of a different God who are roaming Mad Max style across the deserts of Syria?
Ah well, the Peace of God passeth all understanding, that we now know for sure, and we repaired to Smiths, a fine establishment adjacent to Smithfield market, for a cup of tea and fish and chips, and very good they were too.

Someone wants to knock down parts of Smithfield Market and replace it with new shops and offices.
Let's hope they love what's there now, because it's beautiful and human, and glass and steel, the materials of our time, just aren't, most of the time. If they love what's there now, they might create something as lovely.
Dream on, brother.

Next week, at St Bartholomew's, The Mayor and his wife will attend the service, and a piece by Olivier Messiaen will be performed.

Let's hope it's not his 'Quartet for the end of Time'

Outside the church, the life of London goes on, unaware of the Holy Ghost drifting around. He's gender neutral we learnt today, but we reckon he's on the prowl for debauchery and rowdiness.
He or she will find it sooner or later around here, in fact, anywhere he looks.
After all, as Shakespeare wrote, 'It's a bawdy planet'.

He washed away the sin of the world.

Really?

London life, a canal boat carnival, another lovely day and Sol Campbell for Mayor

The sun had popped back last week after a six month absence, having paid a fleeting visit to these shores, but it was blown away by winter's allied forces of wind and rain until, to our pleasant surprise, it briefly reappeared and burned away the opposition, dragging us and all London's 'little platoons' out again to Regent's Canal, this time towards Little Venice.

Here, there was great canal boat carnival under way.
An armada of Victorian looking long boats had descended on Little Venice to show off their shapes and sizes and swap tales of life on the waterways of Britain.

A build up of gas in the bilges seemed to be the biggest danger that these mild mannered mariners had to face, or absent lock keepers and rising mooring fees.
How Captain Kidd would have scoffed at these narrow boat navigators with their narrow horizons and flat waveless waters!
Captain Kidd was born in Scotland in 1645, the son of a Church of Scotland minister - things don't always go to plan do they?
By 1689 he was a Caribbean buccaneer, a pirate signed up by the governor of the Leeward Islands to fight the French in King William's war. But his piratical crew found this a bit boring and forced Kidd to sail for New York to sell their stolen bounty in the market there.
Kidd decided to become a pirate bounty hunter and set off with a new crew to the Indian Ocean to pluck the rich pickings that had already been plucked from their first owners. (who had probably plucked them from someone further back - who was the first plucker?)
King William himself had ten per-cent off this investment in plunder, and there were many other powerful and establishment investors in this daylight seaborne robbery. (Queen Elizabeth 1st - Good Queen Bess - was one of the very first investors in the slave trade. Worth Michael Gove, our staunchly patriotic Minister of Education,  reflecting on quite how proud we should be of our history.)
Captain Kidd ruled his ship with murderous violence but eventually, after taking six ships and their precious cargoes, he fell foul of his backers and was caught and sent for trial in London.
He was hanged at execution dock in Wapping on 23rd May 1701.
These were the men that built our Empire!
They sailed close to the wind and were made of stern stuff.
Were cruelty and violence essential survival techniques in a world without modern technology?
Our Industrial Revolution needed sugar to energise its working class, and that needed slavery to grow it and chop it. You can see the argument.

But it seems to be that any excuse will do - as A. Hitler and J.Stalin and M. Tse-Tung have shown, among many others, there is always a reason to massacre and blow everything lovely to bits.

Today in London, everything seems peaceful and the bounty of the earth seems to be plentiful.
But Sol Campbell, one of England's greatest footballers, points out and provides the evidence that racism in Britain is alive and well. Yet he loves this country despite its obvious disfiguring defects and crude discrimination.
Sol talks more sense than Boris Johnson and his privileged pals, who put up fantasy schemes to make their opponents look timid and lacking in vision.
It's one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Look instead at the life of Sol Campbell.
It will show you the kind of buccaneering courage, integrity and discipline we need nowadays.

We know it ain't easy, but the capacity to love outside of our own tribe is what we need now that there are seven billion of us.

And we know it will take more than love, but it's a good start, so hats off to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison when they sang 'All you need is Love' - Love is all you need.

Regents Canal London on a sunny Bank Holiday

The sun has slashed through our windows and carved up the walls of the flat into two diagonal blocks, so we decide to surrender ourselves to it completely and take a walk along the Regents Canal, which we knew would have been completely conquered by its welcome warmth.

The trees have given up fighting the Spring and are happily clad now in its lincoln green cloaks and the blossom has burst out laughing on the Cherry trees.

Philp Larkin caught to perfection the way that the trees renew hope for us despite the fact that they and we know that one day we’ll be dead - this no reason to give up before we have to :

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too,

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh,afresh, afresh.

Barges and boats, canoes and cormorants, ducks,  geese and swans jostle for space on the canal itself and London has sent a representative of every one of its peoples, nations, tribes, sects, classes, ages, clubs and cliques to strut their stuff along the canal path - these are the united nations of London and they show us the borderless future of tomorrow’s world, united under the banner of a warm sun and a canopy of deciduous trees and a border of flora and riverine fauna.

On a day like this, in a place like this, you realise that there is no need for us to fight each other. We can share this canal, this narrow path that lies alongside this narrow stretch of water with its narrow boats that give way to each other, so we can share this planet, surely.

Take this message to Mr Assad in Syria and Mr Netanyahu, invite them to take a walk along Regents Canal.

We will leave them to chat on one of the benches about how they can carve pathways of peace in their own part of the planet. As they sit, perhaps before the conversation begins, they will notice how the presentation of beauty and bounty in a small space makes people realise that space must be shared if it’s to be enjoyed.

The small space sort of frames the world for us and makes us aware of its limits and its frailty.

Share they must, or they will fill their spaces with hatred, which makes the air unbreathable, and their tribes will be done for, and surely that’s not the fate they want for their people.

We walk past the manicured lawns of the vast regency palaces, which back onto the canal. They are owned by the plutocrats of the word, but we notice how mostly indifferent people are to the startling discrepancy between their own accommodation and this - no envy, it seems, perhaps some bemusement, or reflection on what kind of drive it takes to accumulate so much and transform it into such ostentatious real estate. Or maybe it’s the sheer lifelessness of these enormous ornaments that adorn the ego’s of the very rich - they are there just to say, ‘Look, look what I have done’ but they can’t be played in for fear of damaging them and the ego they protect.

These barricaded gardens will never be stormed unless their owners become responsible for preventing all those who can’t be bothered to be rich from walking past in pleasurable and peaceful ways that belong to them. The most valuable property is your own soul, and most of us know this. It’s those that don’t that cause all the trouble. Real wealth is the freedom to spend your time in the way that you want to, in tune with your own soul, sensing the space that surrounds it and the satisfaction of sharing it with those that you have chosen.

As the great Jimi Hendrix sang so poignantly, ‘I’m the one that;s gonna have to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my own life, the way I want to...play on brother.

At Camden Lock I push through the crowds which throng the market and buy some ice cream for Elena and her Mum.

Back on the canal path, we use our wooden spoons to scrape the chocolate ice cream from the tubs. Around us, conversations concern a million different worries, but somehow they are not worries as the water laps up against the bank and other people’s worries seem more worrisome.

This is London, not Gaza or Damascus, and we are all grateful for that.

More photos of Regent's Canal is here

Len Blavatnik, Kate Middleton and London life

Len Blavatnik, the Russian oligarch and billionaire, has been feted in the media lately.

For one day, he even appeared alongside Kate Middleton on the front pages of the London press.

He has recently completed an extension to his enormous house next door to the Russian Embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, which will make it the most expensive and lavishly appointed house in London, apart from the big place at the end of The Mall : Buckingham Palace, where our beloved Queen spends time when she is in London.

The tone of the reporting and commentary revealed much about the values that underpin our society - they were adulatory, gushing, extravagant in their praise and admiration of his achievement in creating such a sumptuous private domain, from which he can look out over Kate and Will’s little pad next door. The standard of the work and the fittings are, according to those educated in these things, exemplary, and will set a new high for the London property market to aim at.

Of particular note is the huge private swimming pool which is both indoors and out. A sliding glass door will allow one to leave the air conditioned atmosphere of the palace and enjoy the ordinary atmosphere outside.



An interesting detail here is that all the glass is armour plated - but who could possibly want to harm a man whose fortune was made in the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union?

A man who has given away a small fortune to the poor of Israel in food parcels, is the largest ever donor to Oxford University and has given large sums to help and encourage the study of science, especially by young people.

I have no idea, but armour plated glass doesn't come cheap and and the sales brochures of palaces don't mention that they come with free added paranoia.

None of our obsequious commentators dared to ask whether this extravagance might be considered a colossal and insulting waste of money, vulgar and crass ostentation reflective of a crude personality determined to impress whatever the price.

Edward Gibbon ( The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ) might have called him a voluptuary, an adjective that can only apply to the slightly corpulent. The men that made Rome were ‘ lean and hungry’ and the men that lost it had a taste for luxury and loose living.

All I know is that history shows that Len's kind of money made rapidly often ends up in jail or disgrace - I hope I’m wrong, but I wish there were more sceptics. Hasn’t anyone read Trollope’s ‘The way we live now’ ?

Have we all forgotten Maxwell, Madoff and Enron?

Mr Blavatnik enjoys spending his money on vanity purchases such as film studios and recording companies,so perhaps, when we see the inevitable collapse in oil prices, he might turn out to be another Augustus Melmotte, the great fraudster, from Trollope’s brilliant satire of the impressionability of Victorian society in the presence of the trappings of wealth.


I wish more of us remembered and admired Diogenes who lived in a barrel and was once
asked by Alexander the Great if there was anything that he, the greatest man in the world, could do to help him.


Yes, replied Diogenes, you are blocking the sun, please move aside.


And perhaps Mr Blavatnik might remember the immortal words of the poet Shelley

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away

Ah well, he’s probably enjoying himself, draped in his supermodels ( what do they see in podgy old him? - oh, yes, I forgot )

Still, less of this carping, London is lovely in the sunshine and the Porchester Road public swimming pool that Elena and I attend is a good example of municipal public provision, provided at a reasonable price for rich and poor alike, a pleasant place to meet people from all walks of life except oligarchs and bankers, thank goodness.