vendredi 11 juin 2004

'Pleasure of the eyes' indeed First call this morning. 8:20. Only the Wildcat and a very small handful of others who know me would take such a risk, except in an emergency. Caller unidentified. Most likely the Wildcat then (her 'phone does that). I pick it up. Click. Second try at 9:45. The same. Third time unlucky. Mid-afternoon. A middle-aged voice: "I'd like to speak to Mr Barry, please." "It's Barrett." "Ah, Mr Barry. My name is Mme Machin Truc. I'm calling because I would like to invite you, and Mrs Barry too of course, to a porcelain exhibition --" "No thank you." "But, Monsieur, if only for the pleasure of the eyes --" "No thank you." "Then I --" "Goodbye and better luck with the next one." The "pleasure of the eyes", indeed. Been reading my blog recently, have you, Ms Truc? I loathe cold callers and there are more and more of them. Sometimes daily. Most get filtered out. This one was more cunning, knows how to hide her number. I suppose you do when you're desperate enough to be human spam for a living. Not her day for it. I'd got to bed around three, forgetting that the hammering and power drilling on the second floor begin at eight a.m., the instant it's legal. The lady my brother once nearly accidentally killed when my cutlery fell down the stairwell, including sharp knives, is now having her flat redone. No household goods piled up in boxes on her landing, though, just ladders. Sam also chose his day. Table N° 9, despite warning, was taken when I got to the Canteen. And my chair was missing. "Sam!" But on the other hand ... she was pretty, blonde, looked intelligent, interesting. Hmm. He's up to something. Indeed he was, le patron. I had to ask three times before I extracted her name. Véronique. Caution, darling. Sit down in my life and you risk walking into the blog. Well, well, she wants "to improve (her) English" and she wants to pay for lessons. I gave her 15 minutes before I started tutoying her, told her to do the same and make life easier. I liked her. She's direct, spirited, partnered, fun and passionate about her ideas. So passionate, indeed, that I didn't even notice a much liked, retired man I'd not seen for weeks slip into the Canteen. He pricked his ears up, though, when Véronique started talking about the Fourth World (the poverty on First World city streets), Americans and all. I greeted him then. "But I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your name." "Philippe." "Sorry, of course. Philippe. Philippe, this is Véronique. She wants English lessons. Véronique, this is Philippe. He used to be a spy." That was a certain way of seeing that they hit it off immediately, with the bonus of being, in good part, true. Indeed, once Véronique had gone, after no less than a couple of hours, Philippe and I had a long coffee together over the current state of Africa. Sam must have known, somehow, that I've just begun a holiday. "Well, aren't you going to thank me?" he had the nerve to ask after the woman had left us. "Thank you?" I said. "Or thump you, you cheeky twerp?" "I know your weakness." "Which is, pray?" "Attractive, short-haired blondes." Now that, particularly after what I wrote this morning, was a theatrical master-stroke! Mention Meg Ryan and Sam presents me with Véronique, who, of course, needs to know my star sign, what's in the ascendant and what my Chinese year is. "Sam. You're mad. And this heart's already decisively taken, should the lady want it. Too late, mate." The pleasure of the eyes, indeed. Since Véronique is her real name and she does want lessons, grammar included, I'll say no more of her for now. Only one problem remains. She said she'll insist on paying for them, would be most embarrassed otherwise. I would be far, far more embarrassed to take money from a nice woman with honest eyes -- extremely closely read, of course -- who merely wants "structured" conversations related to her bilingual work and not only bemoans the scandalous existence of the Fourth World but does something about it. So, despite my vow, I'll accept "just friends", just once more. After all, they say that's what 'When Harry Met Sally' is about. I don't know yet. I've only just laid hands on it. And Natalie's waiting for me to review 'Augustine's True Confession'. No rush. But she wrote and said so. There's only one way out of such a sequence of events. Stick in a pin and ask Augustine herself. The picture is what she said. Do you ever feel conspired against? Perhaps I should have said "yes" to the china shop. 5:09:01 PM  link   your views? [] Getting out and away with it Last night, my part of town had a special beauty. It brought several species of the birds now sadly so few (apart from those pigeons) out into song, in the late evening light after a storm where the city colours of stone, paint, zinc, tile and tree became radiant. Cloud formations assumed countless hues, the unseen sun low enough to irradiate the wings and feathers of the late birds still in flight from beneath. There was a brief, silent rainstorm earlier, which I missed until I went up to the top floor of the Factory, cunningly trapped into the annual medical visit, and saw it with the fine view right up to Montmartre and the Sacré Coeur they enjoy. The air was less heavy than it had been for much of the week and such weather felt like a good omen for a month's holiday which has, with absurd suddenness, started. I haven't quite said all my goodbyes since I'll be working one last day on Sunday, focussing on Africa as ever while a far bigger weekend crew than usual will be showing up at AFP to give their all to the European elections. Those are about the only ones left in which I'm entitled to vote. Coming home, I listened to Ana Gracey again and rejoiced that I've found this fine voice to commend and that a couple of readers have thanked me for it. At least three of the songs given away on Ana's web site -- 'Pretty Girl', 'Jimmy' and 'Mo Lah du Say-o' -- strike my own ears as flawless, perfect gifts. If her Jimmy is somebody real, then he's a very lucky man. But then Ana's vocals, the often deceptively simple accompaniment and her words really caught my own predominant mood of the week, a bittersweet joy mingled with the uncertainty as to what echo my heart, freely and wholly surrendered for what must be the first and last time in my life, may find in the other. The hope also admits of her own absolute freedom. I know I wasn't going to go here again, but I can't stop myself, especially while she must remain far away for a few more days. Ana's own bravely shared heart sharpens these delicious and difficult emotions, but I'll say no more of the singer for now, since she'll undoubtedly be back, having paid me the honour of asking me to review more of her art in a while. After a long absence, I saluted a woman on the stairs yesterday on her return to the Factory, with a superb but not overdone tan she'd acquired while working elsewhere. When I saw her later, she was innocently dressed to kill, in a tight T-shirt and jeans, her slender midriff dangerously bared to render her more desirable than ever. Habitually shy in her beauty, she kept her eyes lowered as she walked. Until recently, there were three of them, people I work with whom I find almost unimaginably beautiful; but musing, I've extended this to at least a half-dozen, including ones I rarely see. It was after meeting the woman I feel I've forever loved and will love ever more, whom I find so very beautiful too, that I've been unable to avoid reflecting on what it's been about such people which I had considered irresistible. The satisfying outcome is that I've got no idea. They're none of them the same "type", in either personality or looks. Some smoke, others don't, they move in different ways. Their ages are varied. Such beauty can't be simply in the eye of the beholder and doesn't fit any of the other clichés that came to mind. When I dared tell one of them how she struck me and had the cheek to add that she was not alone, she was acutely embarrassed, then flattered, then accepted the compliment for what it was and made an entertaining guess at the others. She was both wrong and right. While it's always the eyes that draw me the most, there are few other common features. None of them wears make-up or when they do, it's sparing. They dress naturally, without ostentation, vanity or show. Their daily self-confidence varies from one to another, but all of them have it. They all know what they are, the effect they have on men, without making an issue of it. They have different senses of humour, which seems in part to be a matter of nationality, fun to tease out. The self-awareness goes with their creativity, expressed in different ways, and a shared ability to laugh at themselves. But that's about it. The rest remains a very agreeable mystery, one I have no desire to explore, but has come to convince me that everybody has a soul. I now believe those who tell me the spirit is something in constant motion and ... evolution. It's an odd notion, requires an otherness scarcely mentioned in a particularly interesting contrast between two different kinds of philosophy drawn and in part resolved in yesterday's 'In Our Time' on the Beeb, which kept me glued. The less muddied it is, the more readily some people let it show, whatever others might consider as their flaws, tics, weaknesses and imperfections, the more people simply live with it and leave it open for others to "read", the more beautiful they are. It's an absolute, uncultivated star quality. An inexplicable open secret. And something I've even encountered in the blogosphere too. You don't know why you know it, but you know it; it's unmistakable. I begin to think that real beauty starts where deceit ends, both of self and of other, in anything more than the most superficial, unimportant of ways. It is not flaunted, but is indeed a kind of truth. Such people get away with it by being nothing other than themselves. Whatever it may say on the web site, the guest on today's repeat of Sunday's 'Desert Island Discs' was Geraldine Brown, whom I've not seen since the days when the BBC television dramatisation of Paul Scott's 'The Jewel in the Crown' (IMDb) became one of two, with their equally five-star 'War and Peace', where nothing on earth could prevent me from missing an episode. So there is a DVD, far too expensive for now, but Marianne must see it one day, and when her English is up to it, I'm sure the Kid will find Scott's 'Raj Quartet' as magnificent as I did, one of the greatest achievements in 20th century literature. But unfortunately, I kept the radio on to listen to the first part of 'Woman's Hour'. This was a mistake, since the actress Molly Ringwald was being interviewed about ... well, the BBC site says what it's like to fake an orgasm on stage, but that was just a hook for a far more wide-ranging chat about her brat-movie career and now being in London to do 'When Harry Met Sally' (IMDb) in the theatre. If I'd not heard that and Ringwald's comments about Meg Ryan's performance, then I'd be able to resist the temptation. Francis the news vendor currently has the DVD at an "affordable" price, part of a series where I intended to behave myself and steer clear until they release 'Doctor Zhivago'. So much for that. As for Geraldine Brown, her 'Desert Island' disc of eight had to be Bach's St Matthew Passion. Hmmm. I could be a Man Friday to that. But then she asked for an iPod. And you know what? This time around, host Sue Lawley let her get away with it. 12:32:12 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.