So it’s the 80s and I’m on the train heading to Washington from New York and I join the queue in the diner.
I suddenly realise there’s a couple of guys who after I guess a few alcoholic libations are pairing off people in the queue. Their attention falls on me and they loudly pair me off with a woman next to me in the queue with the phrase ‘The Australian guy …..’
The woman sees my puzzled expression and kindly tries to reassure me by saying ‘It’s because of Crocodile Dundee, they assume that if you don’t have an American accent you must be Australian even if you are English.’
This is a decisive moment as I’m aware of Americans desire to claim European heritage so in the same vein, I say: ‘Actually I’m Welsh!’ Her eyes light up with joy and she says ‘Me,too!’ Stunned I say ‘Oh!’ not sure what would be a more appropriate response. ‘Yes’ she continues, ‘My surname is Llewelyn- McTavish!’ A little confused, I respond ‘So half Welsh half Scottish?’ Nothing in the world would have prepared me for the reply, which was ‘It’s McTavish spelled the Welsh way!’
As you can probably imagine, I was, unusually, lost for words. Should I destroy this woman’s belief in her Celtic origins, or should I just smile? I took the latter route. Why ruin her dreams?
We headed for Chiusi to get the train to Orvieto only to discover that there is a two hour wait for the next train. Then by the time the train arrived 25 minutes late, we were frozen and yes it was the 4th May! An inauspicious start to the day.
The journey is relatively quick, as we are both transfixed by a hyperactive young man. He is wearing shorts, a T-shirt and trekking shoes. Every exposed part of his body is tattooed. There is a superhero on the front of his left leg, and what might be a self portrait of his hirsute head and face on the back. The other leg displays a replica of a whiskey bottle label on it and so it goes on. In front of him on the opposite seat is a colossal rucksack with every available loop having something attached to it. There’s folding walking poles, a head torch, and a GPS locator.
The pockets are filled with protein bars and energy drinks, the drinks containers being fitted with tubes to enable in-flight refuelling. He spends the entire 20 minutes of the journey, removing items from the rucksack and reattaching them to a different locations, or checking his phone. He prepares to disembark quite some distance from Orvieto. This is a wise move as before he can get the rucksack on, he attaches a bumbag to his front – a bag which would probably adequately serve as a weekend case for most people. Finally fully loaded with sun shades balanced on his bandanna’d head, he strides for the space near the doors which he virtually fills. He might well have benefited from banner, saying EXCEPTIONAL LOAD in three languages. Completing the scene, he takes out his mobile and gives a brief account of the kilometres he has covered and the heights he has scaled. He concludes his presentation with the dramatic statement ‘Non sono più in gara!’. I’m no longer in the game.
The platform at Orvieto is very low and as he stepped down, I’m sure I was not the only person present wondering, nay even hoping, that he might slip and end up struggling on his back like a beached turtle. ‘Pride comes before a fall!’ they say, but clearly did not in this case, but maybe that’s for the best.
We take the funicular to the top of village and decide to walk rather than take the the bus. This helped to warm us up, but not sufficiently that we weren’t attracted by an ‘end of the line’ sale. I spy a nice zip-up sweater for €9 which the owner tries to convince me that will be too small, though it says it’s large and more importantly it clearly fits me. Lesley also finds a top, and for €18 that’s £15.45, we are ready to face the world.
We wander up the street, reminiscing about meals we’d eaten there, and also seeing the great Jim Hall in the theatre during ‘Orvieto Jazz Winter’.
The Duomo at Orvieto is a massive and beautiful building and though I’ve seen it dozens of times in the last 30 years, it still slaps me in the face and says ‘Look I’m still here and I’m beautiful!’ We soak it all in for a while and take some pics simply to prove to ourselves that we’ve been there, yet again.
Looking for somewhere for a lunchtime snack, we head off into the less busy hinterland which believe it or not still exists, even in a busy tourist infested town like Orvieto. We see a small bar and decide it looks worth a try. Essentially it’s a corridor going deep into the building but it feels ‘right’. The waitress arrives and we order salumi, cheese and some focaccia and, of course, wine. She returns with the glasses, and I’m stunned as to how sparkling they are and so a conversation ensues about how to clean glasses. The food is good ‘solid fare’ and includes their own licorice chutney so we have a conversation about our encounter with Fortunato Amarelli the appropriately named head of that noble family and their licorice empire and we enjoy another great lunch.
Checking the timetable realise we have one hour and a half to wait before the next train. We pause at a bar for an Ichnusa for me and a coffee for Lesley. The two youngish guys sitting beside me talk incessantly for 20 minutes not pausing for breath, politeness, or even alcohol. We move on and walk down to the castle where a group of ladies, of a certain age, are creating watercolours. Sketching outdoor is nice but please don’t call it ‘plein air’.
We take the funicular down to the train station surrounded by a group of the loud middle-class English youths! I’ve come to the conclusion that I am bigoted – I can deal with loud Italians but loud Brits and Americans are my breaking point. This was confirmed when we spent that evening at the L’Oca Bruciata, the Pizzeria in the village which was packed with Italians. The buzz was lovely but later on when three Americans enter the bottom bar as we enjoyed a ‘post-cena’ ice cream my hackles were truly risen!
Then nobody‘s perfect and I do try my best. I comfort myself with that and we go to bed.
Thursday morning, headed for our local bar – coffee, cappuccino two croissants €5 – a bargain!
Then we walk to Santa Croce. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio and I managed to shoot one of the arches with no punters – a rare achievement. The Vasari Corridor will soon be open to connect the Pitti Palace with the Uffizzi Gallery, which enabled the ‘magnificents’ to reach the Uffizzi without having to mix with the hoi -polloi.
The Vasari corridor
We also walked across the Piazza della Signoria. I love the way they cover any restoration work requiring scaffolding with photographic reproduction of how the building will look. Brilliant.
We then went to the Basilica di Santa Croce, which contains the graves or commemorations of Galileo, Dante, Mikel, Angelo, Ugo, Foscoli, Rossini, Marconi, and believe it or not, Florence Nightingale. Coincidentally, Rossini was featured in my early morning earworm as quando corpus morietur rang out its cheerful message in my head yet again. –‘when the body rots!’ for those of you not familiar with this catchy little tune!
Dante thinking…..
The paintings are amazing though one appeared to contain a dodgy looking guy about to fondle a young lady in a totally inappropriate setting.
Where’s his hand?
I also managed to do some of my vertical axis photography – how else can you photograph ceilings except by holding the camera flat in your hands?!?’
Another Brunelleschi dome!
I’m writing this sitting ar a favourite location – the Cafeteria Oblate which is part of the University library with a lovely view of the Duomo. So sitting here, surrounded by excited young students watching lightning illuminate the Duomo in the rain.
So we arrive in our village – we don’t own it – the ‘our’ is a term of affection for a place I found over 30 years ago. As usual, there is a problem. This time it’s the boiler which refuses point blank to ignite. Fortunately, Corrado, our local mechanical magician disassembled the beast the following day and resolved the problem.
Strangely, we’d simply accepted the issue and headed for the bar – a night without central heating or hot water is no big deal. We are welcomed like old friends, which of course we are. I have a chat with Andre, Anna’s son about photography. He is very excited as his lecturer has put him forward for a big project.
Two beers later we head for the pizzeria where I’ve been eating since the early 90s and have continued to do so through three or four different owners. It’s always good food and it feels like home.
Lesley discovered that a friend is doing a gig the following night. We thought it would be great to surprise him, but realising that it’s an hours drive away and it would inevitably be a late night we decide against it. We come to this decision sitting at the bar looking out over Lake Trasimeno. Frankly, it wasn’t a difficult decision.
So after a second evening at the pizzeria I sleep well but wake exhausted. Today is the official opening of the newly resurfaced back road. No big deal, you might think. However, in a small town, it’s worth marking. Sometimes events in a small village seem quite sweetly childlike – if you’ve lived in an adult city, like Manchester, Paciano seems like a small child, you want to nurture, to pat gently on the head and encourage them to go onto bigger things and I say that with all the affection I possess.
The next part of the day was taken up with lunch – raw, broad beans with fresh pecorino, fantastic. Then a post-prandial doze. I wake feeling much refreshed and we head for the bottom bar.
It’s such a delight to see lots of people I’ve known for years. All around us there are people playing cards. Briscola is a game that requires a large amount of shouting and swearing and it often attracts a group of spectators that will be discussing the play and the result for some time after the players have gone home for their dinner. It’s pure theatre. There are at least three different age groups playing on different tables. It’s a wonderful communal experience and it happens at a location where there is a spectacular view of Lake Trasimeno, which bizarrely is virtually ignored and taken for granted by the locals whilst us newcomers simply enjoy it.
We always arrive here, full of good intentions to do this, find that and go there but after little more than 24 hours in the village, we are quite content to just sit here, chat and watch the world go by ……. very slowly.
It was a bitterly cold wintry day and I was meeting a couple of former colleagues for Xmas lunch. We’d arranged to meet at the German Market in St Ann’s Square Manchester and Charlie was a longtime friend of one of my colleagues. Two things immediately stood out about Charlie. First of all, he had quite a posh southern accent and he wore a cravat, which together give him an air of being from a different era. He was extremely easy to chat with and I took to him immediately.
After the Xmas event, lunches begin to happen more frequently, and I discovered that Charlie was a wonderful lunchtime companion. He was an accomplished painter, and his individually painted Xmas cards were always a delight to receive. His casual comment regarding a shop in London which was ‘where I always get my ochre!’ completed that Bohemian aura.
Charlie‘s other great passion was wine, which he sold as what would be called today a side hustle, which ‘enables me to drink better wine’ as he put it. Every year he would make a trip to France to bring back champagne, which I began to buy from him regularly, as it was both reasonably priced and extremely good. On one occasion, when Charlie came to my house for lunch we were celebrating his return to his favourite libration after having been quite poorly for some time. To underline the special nature of this event, he brought a bottle of vintage champagne from the same vineyard, which he carried in an insulated champagne carrier, the like of which I’ve never seen before. I have to say that that champagne was exquisite! At the same time, despite his considerable knowledge of wine, Charlie was not a wine snob in any sense. He once said that the only description any wine really needed was that ‘it tastes good and gets you pissed’ and I do find that difficult to contradict.
I went to visit Charlie for lunch one day and his house was, I can only describe as delightful – it could have been specified by a set designer working on a Bohemian drama. The front room was packed with items from his two passions – cases of wine, as well as several easels, tubes of oils and acrylics and a variety of artist tools and materials. The next room was lined with bookcases and much of the floor space was taken up with framed pictures, leaning against even more books. From between a couple of the frames, Charlie pulled out a small print and casually said, ‘This is my Magritte!’ Over lunch he told me that one day many years ago, he got a call from his mother who had a small shop selling artists’ materials, saying she had a painting that he should see. He walked into her kitchen to see propped up on the stove an original Picasso! A builder had brought it in as he thought ‘It might be worth a bob or two.’ I transpired that it was part of a major theft, which had been hidden in an old building. The thieves have been caught and convicted and sometime later this haul was discovered by this demolition crew!
Charlie was full of interesting surprises, none said for self aggrandisement, just parts of his life. Charlie once told me that when he was at college, ‘ol’ Penrose was always dropping in!’ that would be Sir Roland Penrose, artist, historian, and husband of legendary photographer Lee Miller – the one who was photographed in Hitler’s bath on the day of his suicide!
Charlie for me fulfilled both my criteria for good friendship and conversation. He was interesting – very interesting and always interested. I loved talking to him and though I didn’t know him very well, I felt a great warmth for him and from him and I miss him a lot.
It was a Monday evening and while watching Mastermind, I succeeded in answering a question on somebody’s specialist subject. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I began to wonder what my specialist subject would be – I often come out with obscure facts relating to random topics ranging from progressive rock bands to Mediaeval Metallurgy and British sporting saloons from the ’80s . Radio 4 has always been a major source of these little beauties. I’d posted a piece about this a few days earlier, mentioning a documentary about Lewis Carroll and in particular his commitment to, and passion for mathematics. Bizarrely, a guy I was at school with, commented on this saying that Carroll’s mathematical interests was one of his specialist subjects on Mastermind.
Pleasant though this was to hear about, it further confirmed my belief that I do not have a specialist subject, unless ‘useless information’ could be considered as such. I’m not ashamed of this, and I do not downgrade it as Seneca did as ‘better than no knowledge at all.’ In fact, I agree with Bertrand Russell’s assertion that ‘There is great pleasure to be derived from useless information.’ As I shall now demonstrate….
Somehow or other during the course of our first date, I managed to mention to Lesley, that the drawings of the dormouse in the original version of Alice in Wonderland were modelled on Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s pet wombat – a fact that she quickly googled at home to check. (Though subsequent research has proved it to be merely a legend……shame)
Does my magpie approach to facts end there? Definitely, not. What about the fact, that cartoon characters can normally be recognised by their silhouette? For example, have you ever wondered why you can always see both Mickey Mouse‘s ears from whatever angle he is shown? There you go. I learned that from Matt Groenig though unfortunately not in person, but courtesy of Radio 4. He also described how the ‘The Simpsons’ was invented literally just before entering a meeting to pitch a series to a producer. He had planned to pitch a version of Life in Hell- his already well-established comic series but he decided he didn’t want to lose the rights to his own creation! Hence The Simpsons. Good stuff, eh?
Often I can actually remember where I picked up these facts. ‘What’s that dog over there with a funny curled up tail?’ asks Lesley. ‘It’s a Basenji.’ I say confidently drawing on knowledge I recall from my treasured childhood possession ‘The I Spy -Book of Dogs’. In South Manchester, there is a Turkish restaurant inexplicably called Zeugma – which is a grammatical term describing a sentence constructed using a single verb with two unconnected nouns – e.g. he kicked the ball with determination and his right foot – a sentence I read in a Pear’s Cyclopaedia around 1962.
But why do people like myself, and much greater minds like Bertrand Russell and Stephen Fry find this stuff interesting? I can’t speak for them but for me, it’s a sort of obscure way of looking at something – as Alan Fletcher describes in his wonderful book ‘The Art of Looking Sideways.’ Yes – we folk are not interested in competitive conversation where two people well-versed in their topic hurl facts at each other like two mediaeval wizards would do with thunderbolts. We will happily to take a back seat until we’re able to slide our obscure fact like a sneaky stiletto into the conversational ribs of the main protagonists. Yes – I would admit though, that there can be a slight competitive edge. For example, as I was thinking about this piece sitting in a coffee shop, I could hear the owner pontificating about the finer points of making coffee. It was all I could do to restrain myself from asking whether he ground beans differently in the summer and winter as they do in Italy. I then headed off to meet a friend in the pub. Whilst I was waiting at the bar, a woman ordered a small bottle of Prosecco. Again I was on the verge of pointing out that the particular producer famously bottled wine for the Italian Armed Forces. However, in both instances, I kept my powder dry but still felt the strange pleasure through knowing something that the others probably don’t!
Frankly, I’ve never liked doing favours for people, but this is not due to my selfishness, but more to do with the unpredictable scope of a favour.
If I need, and this happens only in very extreme circumstances, someone to help me out, I will specify my requirement in the minutest detail considering every possible outcome and pre-empting every likely situation. If this ….. then that; if not, then that …..covering as our colonial friends might say all the bases. However, when others then ask me to reciprocate, the simple task they ask me to do suddenly seems to expand at an exponential rate.
Say for example, I’ve allowed a friend to leave their car on my drive whilst they are away on a two week holiday. Having already overlooked the fact that it’s badly parked, making it difficult to get into my own house, I might receive a message along the following lines.
‘I think I might have left the passengers window partially open. Could you please check it for me? You’ve got the key so you can sort it out.
Unfortunately this simple task often has an unexpected addition, in that it becomes quite clear that the window has been open for some time and like a good friend, I feel obliged to mop up the damage. Whilst recovering from the two minute task that has just taken you an hour and 47 minutes to do you receive another message.
‘I’ve just realised that the MOT is due before we get back. Now I usually go to Halfords which is not far from you, do you think you could book it in for me?’
Your blood pressure continues rising towards an unacceptable level as you call the MOT station for the seventh time to find yourself again listening to irritating on hold Muzak. At this point, you receive the final spine-cracking straw.
‘Sorry for having to ask you to do all this but I’ll be ever so grateful if you can. By the way you might have to put the spare on one of the back wheels…….‘
And as you reach for a glass, the sound of the can opening almost drowns out the fatal blow.
‘Thanks again, mate. Weather great here! See you soon!‘
rowlandwithaw 