Taking the Waters

Yes, water is my theme for this month's blog - seems to be a lot of it about.
I visited The Roman Baths in Bath this weekend, the first time since completion of its £5mill+ re-development. As well as the excellently displayed rooms of museum exhibits, crowded even early on a Saturday morning, it was a pleasure to wander outside, around the wonderful, steamy Great Bath and all the very well interpreted spa bathing rooms. Amazing to think that the massive central bath is still lined with the original lead from 2000 years ago.
A quick coffee at the tea-cup tinkly Pump Rooms followed, including a glass of famous Spa Fountain water - yuk! Apparently ailing 18th century visitors drank up to a gallon a day of the stuff - enough to make anyone sick!

The shimmering green of Roman bath water reminded me of Atkinson Grimshaw's evocative, green-tinged 'Thames by Moonlight' paintings, recently displayed at London's Guildhall Art Gallery. His atmospheric paintings cleverly disguised the grimness of city life for his romantic Victorian customers.

Talking of the Thames, I think the plans for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee river pageant on 3 June, sound great. They reckon that 1,000 boats will accompany the Queen's luxurious barge, The Spirit of Chartwell, loaned for the occasion by Philip Morrell, all the way from Hammersmith to Greenwich. The Thames is the reason that London exists and any opportunity to celebrate its history and enjoy its river banks today, should be welcomed.

Contrasts for Christmas

I've just spent a really enjoyable Christmas week with friends in Bahrain. We enjoyed a brilliant ex-pat, family Christmas with turkey and all the trimmings courtesy of Waitrose, would you believe, though beyond 'the compound', the contrasting customs were fascinating. I've never spent Christmas time so close to the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, yet felt so very far away. Lots of red and white decorations everywhere, not for Santa but to celebrate Bahrain's National Day in December. No Christmas carols or church bells ringing but the regular calls to prayer from so many mosques. No donkeys at the manger but rather 'nodding donkeys' in the sandy expanses between high rise building plots and camels tethered bleakly at the Janabiya Camel Farm. We visited the huge Al Fateh Mosque in Manama, without the usual Christian church adornments and embellishments, of course, and so all the more striking in its simplicity. I certainly didn't miss any Heathrow flight path disturbance which we do get here in Hanwell from time to time but instead became accustomed to the buzzing of helicopters overhead, keeping a watch on actual or potential anti-Government protest groups which seem to spring up on a regular basis. The times of uncertainty we certainly have in common so I wish a Peaceful New Year to all.

Under and over London

Much concern in the press this week about the risk to UNESCO World Heritage status of the Tower of London and the Palace of Westminster due to what Simon Jenkins calls the 'phallic obsession' of Ken Livingston and Boris Johnson. It seems that the Tower could be downgraded thanks, in particular, to the Shard. Next door to London Bridge and casting its shadow over the Tower, the dazzling 66-storey block will be the tallest building in Europe when it is finished. And the Westminster Abbey is likely to be blighted by the 43-storey Doon Street tower, to rise immediately behind the National Theatre on the South Bank, higher than the London Eye and visible from everywhere in west London. Will future generations curse us for this high-rise mania, I wonder?
Buildings are driven ever higher in London by the rising cost of real estate so one solution is to go underground instead. A brilliant idea from a new company called the Old London Underground Company is to recover and refurbish 26 empty tube stations. deep-level shelters and caverns to use as nightclubs, meeting rooms and members clubs as well as tourist attractions. For sure the Old Vic Tunnels have become very popular very quickly and the Rotherhithe Shaft, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is on my 'to do' list , to see before Christmas. The ups and downs of London life .... love it !

Thought for St Paul's

I'm not sure that I can add much that is new to the current St Paul's Cathedral and 'tent city' debate but I do want to offer my opinion, albeit briefly. A few years back I was thrilled to be invited to work on a couple of marketing and audience development projects for the Cathedral which I enjoyed very much. It became clear to me just what a complex and multi-faceted organisation St Paul's is, with very many distinct yet inter-related audiences: volunteers, visitors, worshippers, partners, associates, funders, supporters and the wider Church of England community. At that time communication was of course, taking place with all the Cathedral's audiences though not necessarily in a strategic , integrated manner. Also at that time, as part of my consultation, I learned about the St Paul's Institute too which was already leading discussion and debate around justice and finance, morals and money. The lack of connectivity between the various Cathedral 'departments' was clearly an opportunity to be grasped. I think that the absence of this 'cross departmental thinking' and communications foresight has clearly contributed to the terribly difficult circumstances that the Cathedral now finds itself in, not only the PR difficulties but also the resignations and unhappiness amongst the clergy. Like thousands of others, I do sincerely hope that a peaceful solution can be found soon so the protesters can leave their camp in front of Wren's masterpiece and St Paul's, one of the most famous and beautiful cathedrals in the world, can also move on and continue to campaign for equality and social justice.

Globe to Globe

Shakespeare has been on my mind lately. I've just been to another class at my brilliant local Questors Theatre in Ealing. It's a few years now since I acted in a production there but I like to 'keep my hand in' so a series of Shakespeare workshops is just the thing. Thanks to the RSC, which has finally woken up to the value of amateur theatre, Questors is one of 57 theatre groups working with the RSC over 2011-12, in skills exchange and training. Under the 'Open Stages' banner and supported by grant funding, all of us 250 Questors acting members have the opportunity to improve our understanding of Shakespeare texts and our acting skills. Re-inspired by examining the rhythms, rhyme and pure power of Shakespeare's First Folio edition of 'Hamlet', I was delighted to hear about the Globe Theatre's 2012 multilingual feast, announced this week. Next Spring, 37 Shakespeare plays will be presented in 37 different languages, performed by 37 different international companies. What a marvellous contribution to the Cultural Olympiad! Supported by local ambassadors who will be 'selling' the performances into local ex-pat communities, we all have the chance to experience Shakespeare through another culture's eyes. I'm sure that the universality and timelessness of the Bard will triumph. Might not be everyone's cup of tea though. A friend of mine has just been to see 'Playboy of the Western World' at the Old Vic and swears she didn't understand a word of it, so thick were the Irish accents. So she might take some persuading though I'm certainly up for booking tickets.

Return to Edinburgh

It's two years since I last went to the Edinburgh Festival so I think I can risk writing another blog about it and in fact, comparable observations are interesting. I came home just after the last day of the Fringe and the announcement that it had broken records for the third year running, 2% up on 2010, selling 1.8mill tickets. And all that in spite of awful weather, the inevitable recession and the closure of some key venues, including my favourite Assembly Rooms on George Street. Of all of the shows I saw, the one that was most special for me was Sriyah, a programme of abstract dance by the Indian Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, accompanied by four brilliant musicians. The exquisite performances were beautiful, dreamy and sensuous. The contrast with the show I saw immediately afterwards, as you do in Edinburgh, could not have been greater - Rock the Ballet from New York, which was loud, fast and sexy - imagine 'ballet meets the Chippendales' - it was a blast.

The best exhibition for me was the Tony Cragg retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art. I remember the small Tony Cragg exhibition we held on the River Terrace at Somerset House a few years ago and I confess to not being too impressed but this time around, his work took my breath away. On until 6 November - catch it while you can.

And I can't not comment today on the fiasco of the Edinburgh tram, especially as I was so shocked by the resultant roadworks during my last visit in 2009. The disruption to transport, trade and business has been absolutely dire. The whole visionary project was due to be completed for next year and yet on the day I arrived, the City Council had just voted to cut its losses by spending a total of only £700mill on a route from Edinburgh Airport to Haymarket, rather than spending another £76mill to take the line as far as originally planned, to St Andrew's Square. Now I'm hardly a frequent visitor to Edinburgh but even I can see that this decision is a cop-out - either cancel the project altogether or complete the route into the centre. Apparently the phrase "getting off at the Haymarket" is a euphemism in Edinburgh for coitus interruptus - you couldn't make it up !

Post Script
since writing this blog, I note that Edinburgh Council has been forced to reverse it's decision on tram extension so that it will now 'go all the way' - hurray!

More volunteering

I went for an interview last week at my local Ealing Volunteer Centre, hoping to be a 'London Ambassador' for the Olympic Games. Looks like I just missed Boris who visited a few days later saying, "How tremendous!" it all is. And I must say, the process was surprisingly well organised. Apparently there are 10 volunteer centres aiming to recruit 8,000 Ambassadors from 16,000 applicants. Mind you, as only half of the applicants have been turning up for their appointments at Ealing, that increases the odds of being selected to start with ! We were split into small teams and firstly had to speak on several topics each for a few minutes and then role-played dealing with stressed out tourists - "Calm down, dear, it's only the Olympics!" Then we had to locate a range of tourist attractions on the London map and apart from sticking Tower Bridge on London Bridge station (?) our team did pretty well at that. So will I be steaming out to one of the 33 Olympic information 'pods' come next summer ? I'll keep you posted.

Also last week, literally in the heart of London, the first St John's Waterloo Festival themed 'War and People' drew to a close. Enjoyed by over 1000 people, six days of concerts, theatre, dance, walks, art and poetry were all initiated, conceived and delivered by a brilliant team of willing volunteers including myself, responsible for branding, marketing and promotion. The first night's Southbank Sinfonia concert was thrillingly recommended by Time Out and we're already planning for next summer's Festival to be themed 'War and Peace'.

Meanwhile, back in Ye Olde Hanwell, hurrah! We have succeeded in keeping Hanwell Library open - see my February post. But Ealing Council have warned us that it may only be for another year and that they are about to start consultations with volunteer groups with a view to them helping run and maintain local libraries. Aaah, so that'll be that 'power to the people' mantra that Cameron keeps preaching - in other words, we all do even more for free whilst supposedly embracing our new-found local 'People Power'. I'm not convinced by this blurring of amateur and professional boundaries but maybe I'm just a cynical and sometime, weary volunteer.