Month: January 2019

As I mentioned in the post on my recent birthday, one of several books I recently acquired is Inside The Third Reich, which I’m currently reading.

Written during his incarceration in Spandau, it’s interesting to a military history buff like me how little Albert Speer has to say about the military campaigns in Poland, the Low Countries and France, compared with the great detail he goes into about his architectural projects.

I’m only part way through the book – about a third – at the time of posting this. And at this point, despite being kitted out with Nazi Party military uniforms, Speer has no official military position at all, remaining rather simply a freelance architect, whose primary client just so happens to be Adolf Hitler. Seen in this light the skewing in favour of his own area of expertise and activity isn’t really surprising at all.

Indeed, although he’s a favoured member of Hitler’s innermost coterie, it’s clear that in the lead up to and the early stages of WWII Speer is very definitely on the outside of Hitler’s military circles. This would change, when he became armaments minister. But at the point I’m at, Speer is at pains to stress that whilst he himself felt such monumental projects as Hitler’s plans for central Berlin should be put on hold, in order to focus exclusively on the war effort, The Führer himself insisted that this non-essential work be carried on regardless.

Anyway, this fascinating book has got me interested in Speer’s work as an architect. For one thing the scale on which Hitler wanted things done lead Speer into an arena of architecture few can ever entertain even imaginatively, let alone embark upon attempting to actually realise in fact. And yet very little of the planned work was constructed. And of what was built, almost nothing remains.

For such immoderately grandiose plans to have ended up having such fleeting and ephemeral existences is in itself a fascinating and tantalising thing. Many of the buildings Speer worked on remain realised only as drawings or, at best, models. The latter only surviving the war (as far as I know) in photographs.

A bit of googling turned up a few things, such as a recent book on Speer’s architectural work, a short article about a ‘lost’ interview with Speer by Robert Hughes, and a number of instances of people selling a photo-book on Speer’s Neue Reichskanzlei (New Reich Chancellory), pictures from which help illustrate this post.

One thing both Hitler and Speer clearly revelled in was mass: Speer frequently reels off lists of massive volumes of cubic feet or yards, evidently pleased and impressed with his Hitlerian endeavours as being more favourably endowed, size wise, than anything else ever built before. Adolf and Albert were clearly size-queens, so to speak.

Speer also has a decidedly rueful note in his hindsight view, suggesting more than once that the aphrodisiac of power caused his style to develop in ways he suggests we’re not ‘true’ to his real nature. Perhaps the image above hints at the lighter more modernist approach he might’ve pursued more, had he not become court architect to a megalomaniac powermonger?

Speer also says he developed a ‘theory of ruins’, and that he discussed this with Hitler, and the two of them were in agreement on it. The idea was, in essence, that buildings of the Third Reich should be built in such a way that, like the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, they would still be awe-inspiring a thousand or more years hence.

The irony was to be that destruction would be visited upon the architectural works of Speer and Hitler’s other architects far sooner. And so it was that Speer’s new Reich Chancellory looked as you see it above, not in 2943, but just two years after completion, in 1945.

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NOTES:

[1] Breker clearly captures Speer’s likeness very well, but his Mekon like bulbous bonce, probably intended to flatter Speer by reflecting/emphasising his intellectual aspect, does look a bit comic now.

[2] The horse – possibly Breker again? – has a very stiff, heavy, unnatural look, typical of Nazi approved sculpture. The two figures pictured above also have this rather leaden feel.

[3] Revisiting the ruins of one of his mammoth projects with Robert Hughes, years after the war and his release from prison, Speer confessed that it could now be seen that the outward show of pomp and gravitas was only skin deep, and that even the quality of much of the stone cladding, which covered the concrete bulk of the buildings, would’ve disappointed his beloved Führer.

One of Hitler’s primary aims in the new Reich Chancellory was to overawe visiting bigwigs, and make them feel both small and tired. The first could be accomplished by architecture on a huge scale, the second by making them walk miles of hard shiny corridors before they met him, cowed and exhausted. Speer himself notes, in retrospect, that all of this, and even his own design style, as it evolved, becomes – indeed is intended to be – inherently oppressive. Well, that’s fascism for you in a nutshell!

On a recent visit to Topping bookshop in Ely, I had a very brief browse of a splendid large hardback on 1st Empire  glory, which was, I think, the Yale University Press publication Napoleon.

This sumptuous book is partner to a touring exhibition, currently showing in the U.S. and heading for the Museum at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, later in 2019. Sadly this affaire is not destined to come to the shores of perfidious Albion.

I’m seriously tempted to get this book. And I’d love to visit France to see the show, later in the year. The video above is a very short thing by Yale, giving a brief glimpse at the book. The video below is Napoleonic enthusiast Nicholas Hoare enthusing about it and thumbing through it, at slightly greater length.

My mum recently brought the excellent Upstart Crow TV series to my attention. Thanks mum!

Given my recent diatribes on how there’s practically nothing on current TV remotely worth watching, save the occasional re-run of something from the archives, it’s refreshing indeed to find some recently produced TV that’s not only bearable, but actually compelling, enjoyable viewing.

Ben Elton has done a superb job, helped in no small part by an excellent ensemble cast. And Elton and co. get to have their cake and eat it to, simultaneously mocking and celebrating ‘The Bard on Avon’, as Count Arthur once memorably called old Billy The Shake.

Great sport is had with the English language, using both that of the Elizabethan era – sirrah, etc. – and a delirious mash-up of contemporary and made-up stuff, resulting in such gems as ‘puffling pants’, so-and-so ‘doth hate my gutlings’, ‘cod-dangle’ and ‘tufted lady-grotto’.

And whilst the whole thing is delightfully clever, nay, witty even, it’s also piss-pot full to brimming over with knob gags and potty humour, in the best of British traditions, partaking of a noble lineage running all the way from Chaucer and Shakespeare’s lewd comic characters through to Carry On, Benny Hill, and now this.

David Mitchell is pitch perfect as William Shakespeare, both certain of his own genius and yet riddled with insecurities. And the action revolves, for the most part, around his two main haunts, the Shakespeare family home in Avon, and his ‘London lodgings’.

The cast are uniformly terrific. His country bumpkin family, with coarse father, fallen snob mother, homely milkmaid wife and petulant daughter, are a delightful lot. And in London we have his servant, Ned Bottom, Kate, his landlord’s daughter – aspiring actress and frustrated feminist – Kit Marlowe, Anthony Green, and Burbage and his ‘poor players’, etc.

Mark Heap’s Green, constantly scheming against the ‘Upstart Crow’, is a rare and wonderful thing, being that almost oxymoronic impossibility, a nuanced pantomime villain. His dastardly delivery of delightfully enunciated pre-cis-ee-on, and his m.o. of exiting rooms backwards, a-bowing and scraping with overdone mock politesse, all add up to a man one loveth to hate.

The trio of Burbage (Steve Speirs), Condell (Dominic Coleman) and Kempe (Spencer Jones) are also terrific: Burbage the big, bluff, bear-like luvvy, all strutty and shouty, Condell the Grand-Dame and chief whoopsy, and Kempe an obvious parody of Ricky Gervais.

Not only are all the chief players exceeding good, so to are the many cameos, from the less familiar young ‘uns (for example, in episode one Kieran Hodgson as the young ‘love lorn loon’, about to go up to Cambridge, is terrific), through Ben Miller’s Wolf Hall (an obvious reference to Mark Rylance), to Blackadder’s ‘Bob’ (Gabrielle Glaister), right up to such mega-luvvies as Ken Branagh and Emma Thompson. [1]

Teresa, my wife, stolidly refuses to be charmed by this utterly brilliant series, remaining a staunch Bl’adderite. I do love Blackadder, no mistake, but I might actually prefer Upstart Crow. It’s more consistently funny [2], more tightly jam-packed with laughs, and there’s a tighter focus. But I guess time will tell.

I definitely want this on DVD. It comes out in a few days, on Jan 14th.

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NOTES:

[1] I have to confess I’ve never really warmed to Branagh or Thompson, but I do enjoy their contributions here.

[2] By this I mean it arrived on our screens fully formed, whereas Blackadder took a while to evolve, changing dramatically from series one to two, and maturing thereafter.

 

Some years ago mine uncle didst take Teresa and I out to dinner and a concert, in Olde London Towne. I confess I forget what the restaurant or cuisine were, but I vividly recall the venue and music: the concert was at The Idler Academy café and bookshop (sadly no more!), in Notting Hill, and the group was the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments.

Their programme of musick that night was called The Ministry of Angels, and they had a CD of the same name, which was funded ‘by subscription’, i.e. ye olde fashioned form of crowd-funding. Terry very kindly bought us the CD.

This year he gifted us the group’s most recent recording, The Longest Night. The live concert, all those years ago, was enchanting. One thing I particularly liked was that they celebrated fallen angels as well as the goody-goody ones.

Both albums are excellent. But of the two I definitely prefer the most recent, which, despite an earthier more pagan programme is, musically, quite completely and utterly sublime. The music ranges from ethereal, starting with what sound like harmonics on a violin or similar stringed instrument, to earthily folksy.

Where the first album had an angelic theme, this one has a winter solstice Scandewegian core, several of the songs being sung in (sorry, should know, but don’t!) either Norwegian or Swedish, and the Hardanger fiddle and Nyckelharpa being strange and ancient instruments of those two respective countries.

Whenever I hear a harp playing music of this style/vintage (and that isn’t often enough, alas), I go looking for more similar stuff. I’m always surprised and disappointed how little there appears to be. On Amazon, for example, I could only find three or four such albums, and several of those were out of print vinyl or cassette releases!

Heavens above, I’m 47!

I had a lovely birthday: pancakes and bubbly in bed, for breakfast, pressies galore, lunch and dinner out. Very indulgent and enjoyable.

Got quite a few books, as is my usual way. Most extravagant bookageness on this occasion goes to a fairly old edition of The Photographic History of The Civil War, that being the ACW. Originally in 10 volumes, my version is condensed into five, and is nicely presented, in a case ‘n’ all.

My inspiration for these books was actually a Columbo episode, in which an ACW-crazy general with a diorama of Pickett’s charge has the same edition on his bookshelves. After the Napoleonic era and WWII, the ACW is my next ‘favourite war’.

Whether it’ll ever come to anything I don’t know, but I harbour dreams of building my own armies of Rebs and Unionists, perhaps even making the figures myself. Books such as this collection – fabulous in and of itself – are also great reference material, obviously.

The money dad gave me went on two more military history titles: For God And Kaiser, by Richard Bassett, about the Austrian armies of the Hapsburg empire, and Inside The Third Reich, by Albert Speer. Whilst I’ve only thumbed through the ACW volumes, looking at the pics, I’ve actually started reading Speer’s account, which I’m finding very fascinating.

My mum gave me some money, which I told her I was going to spend on some ‘toy soldiers’, not having bought any for quite some time. I think I’ll buy some Austrians in 6mm, probably mostly Adler, but maybe some Baccus as well? And, again… maybe I’ll even sculpt and cast some figures of my own?

Hannah had already bought Teresa and I the complete Good Life on DVD, but she also got me Marcos Valle’s eponymous 1970 album. I already had a Japanese reissue of this, but I’ve wanted to get the American Light In The Attic label reissues, as well, and that’s what this one is. I listened to it yesterday, and it is SUPERB!

Other presents included a router, a sander, and sundry other bits and bobs. And I’m thankful and grateful for all of them. So thanks to all concerned, especially to Teresa, for helping me have a lovely day. Oh yes, we also stopped in a local pet shop and chatted with some parrots…

 

Stayed up to see the New Year in. Not entirely sure why? The whole NYE thing is, I often find, anything from vaguely disappointing to full-on depressing. Perhaps I’m overstating? In many ways it’s all a bit… bleeaargh, if you know what I mean?

What I find most oppressive about the ‘festive season’, I guess, is the sense that we’re all seemingly supposed to partake of the same ‘automaton droid’ smiley good times vibe, regardless of how we might actually feel.

I may actually feel fine, and perfectly happy. But that doesn’t mean I want to wear silly jumpers, eat too much, and pretend I get on with everybody like we’re all the best of friends. And yet that’s exactly what I do, more or less. And it isn’t exactly too onerous either, I guess.

And so it is that having said all this, we did partake of Yuletide business in a fairly normal way: xmas tree, gifts, roast duck with all the trimmings, visiting with family and friends, etc. My younger brother and sister – Sam and Abbie – came over on their own, which was nice.

As is usual these days, we’ve been watching a lot of TV, although actually it’s more DVDs than TV. Hannah got us The Good Life, Complete Series box-set. That’s been fun to start working our way through.

I find myself feeling a bit like a grizzly bear, wanting nowt more than to hibernate. And I find I’m not doing almost any of the things I thought I might do over the Yuletide break. Instead of catching up on whatever it might be, I simply want to rest and recharge the batteries.