The weekend immediately before the All England Lawn Tennis Championship fortnight begins is more than ever a great time to be at home in SW19 and SW20.
For some years the small shopkeepers of Wimbledon Village have held a fair on the
Saturday before the tennis takes over (not to be confused with the more commercial fair which makes camp for a couple of weeks in June on another part of Wimbledon Common). Originally the Village fair was little more than a couple of stalls outside High Street shops, along which one moved in a desultory kind of way. Soon however the Village fair began to expand onto a piece of the Common near to Rushmere Pond. A small horse show was included in subsequent years and the Village fair later expanded to take up most of the Common around Rushmere.
We visited the fair last Saturday and were amazed at how crowded and popular it had become. Of course the lovely sunny weather which has continued ever since, helped but a great feature was that many of restuarants from Wimbledon Village High Street had set up stalls barbcues, beer tents, strawberry and cream stands, coffee pitches and makeshift kitchens to sell their wares al fresco with ample outside tables and furniture to make savouring their culinary wares really enjoyable.
One usually expects Village restuarants to be quite pricey especially at this time of year but mrs maytrees and I having opted for the ubiquitous hamburger from the Butcher
and Grill restuarant's BBQ, were amazed at how good it tasted and at its relatively inexpensive price tag of around £5. Maybe we will visit their main kitchens sometime...
Meanwhile another positive feature of the fair was the number of other locals who were doing much the same as us. The opportunity for spontaneous meetings and and catching up with news and views of many local people who we had not chatted to for a while or in some cases, before at all, was embraced by many. In a large City/connurbation like London such opportunies can be surprisingly few and far between.
Interestingly enough a good percentage of people we chatted to, recogised us and vice versa from Church. The reduction in Church going, apart from any theological issues, I conclude therefore raises the issue of limiting the opportunities for social interaction within the community - an English urban one anyway.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Burqa - Personal Rights and Community Obligations
The debate in France about whether to outlaw the wearing of the Islamic burqa by women, raises a number of interesting secular and religious issues.
The debate within France seems to include the concern that some women are wearing the burqa because they have to rather than choose to. The French are our closest neighbours and despite historical emnities are possibly closer friends now than our
American cousins have been in the recent past (whose poodle was Tony Blair said to be?).
However France sometimes seems even more committed to a nanny-like state
than the UK currently does. Should the state really be interfering in the private lives of citizens to such an extent that spouses should be forbidden from placing huge pressure upon each other as to what to wear? Coercion within marriage is the antithesis of what married life is supposed to be about but is the pressurising of a woman to wear a burqa any worse than pressurising her to wear kit a la Anne Summers say? Should the State ban the latter as well? Why stop there - who within the state will decide what else is and is not allowed to be worn and what criteria will he (or she?) use?
I prefer the more modern attire for Catholic nuns than their wimples and dress codes of old but still respect and admire present day Carmelite sisters for example, who wear their brown habits. But surely the point is not what I prefer but what the wearer prefers, even having regard to the external pressures upon her preferences? Who knows, not incurring mother superior's wrath might be the main reason for a Carmelite to dress in the her distinctive brown habit rather than following some other religious communities by dressing in civvies.
A husband's wrath like that of mother superior, might be wrong perhaps unacceptably so but in the absence of violence seems mainly a matter for regulation within the family or religious community. Violence actual or threatened, should attract state intervention but individually on a case by case basis.
On the other hand if someone who chooses to wear her burqa also then choses to work in the wider community, say at an infants' school where the little ones are unsettled or worse by the teacher's face being hidden, the interests of the children should be given priority over those of the adult.
In the wider community, one would not expect say an hairdresser man or woman, to hide their own hair.
So I would be against banning the burqa except where either the wearing of the same would not be in the best interests of children or other vulnerable people who are supposed to be being guided by
the wearer but are distracted or frightened by her covered face or where the wearer
should know that the job she is doing would be interpreted by reasonable customers as best done without a mask.
Hopefully the French will not impose uniform bans.
The debate within France seems to include the concern that some women are wearing the burqa because they have to rather than choose to. The French are our closest neighbours and despite historical emnities are possibly closer friends now than our
American cousins have been in the recent past (whose poodle was Tony Blair said to be?).
However France sometimes seems even more committed to a nanny-like state
than the UK currently does. Should the state really be interfering in the private lives of citizens to such an extent that spouses should be forbidden from placing huge pressure upon each other as to what to wear? Coercion within marriage is the antithesis of what married life is supposed to be about but is the pressurising of a woman to wear a burqa any worse than pressurising her to wear kit a la Anne Summers say? Should the State ban the latter as well? Why stop there - who within the state will decide what else is and is not allowed to be worn and what criteria will he (or she?) use?
I prefer the more modern attire for Catholic nuns than their wimples and dress codes of old but still respect and admire present day Carmelite sisters for example, who wear their brown habits. But surely the point is not what I prefer but what the wearer prefers, even having regard to the external pressures upon her preferences? Who knows, not incurring mother superior's wrath might be the main reason for a Carmelite to dress in the her distinctive brown habit rather than following some other religious communities by dressing in civvies.
A husband's wrath like that of mother superior, might be wrong perhaps unacceptably so but in the absence of violence seems mainly a matter for regulation within the family or religious community. Violence actual or threatened, should attract state intervention but individually on a case by case basis.
On the other hand if someone who chooses to wear her burqa also then choses to work in the wider community, say at an infants' school where the little ones are unsettled or worse by the teacher's face being hidden, the interests of the children should be given priority over those of the adult.
In the wider community, one would not expect say an hairdresser man or woman, to hide their own hair.
So I would be against banning the burqa except where either the wearing of the same would not be in the best interests of children or other vulnerable people who are supposed to be being guided by
the wearer but are distracted or frightened by her covered face or where the wearer
should know that the job she is doing would be interpreted by reasonable customers as best done without a mask.
Hopefully the French will not impose uniform bans.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Billy Elliot
The final treat of the maytrees' birthday season was an outing to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see the much acclaimed Billy Elliot musical.
The positives first: Drinking tea outside the Pret a Manger opposite the theatre during the hectic Friday evening rush hour period whilst watching the crowds head for Victoria Railway Station, rather than being part of the crowd, was remarkably enjoyable. The Theatre is an attractive Victorian musical hall design. The child stars and dancers in the musical itself were very talented and not at all shy of acting/dancing/singing in public. Also 99.9% of the packed theatre including mrs maytrees, obviously loved the whole show. Unfortunately I was one of the 0.01% who did not.
The story of making success from deprivation and under privilege, is as old as mankind but the Billy Elliot story was, to me, told with cliche and soppy sentiment as its main style. The 1970s miners' strike backdrop was portayed as the oppressed sticking together and fighting Mrs Thatcher mainly via the police yet the reality at the time was that coal mining was a dying industry. Arthur Scargill and cohorts
were expensively burying their collective heads in the sands. But that is a detail as the musical was not really intended to be correct politically or historically accurate for that matter.
The problem for me is that however talented children are, I don't enjoy spending 3 hours watching them any more than mrs maytrees would want to spend under half that time watching Mr Ronaldo, who at £80m is possibly the most talented football player on the planet at this time, display his undoubted skills on the football pitch.
I was also uneasy about a number of aspects in respect of the young children, all of whom were real stars. The language the minors had to use on-stage for one. In the 1970s doubtless adult miners would have used typical expletive and worse type expressions in their every day conversations but would they have been so relaxed about their own tiny children emulating them? Also men dressing up in women's clothes I find a 'drag' or worse but scenes of boys dressing up as girls seemed to me to be quite unattractive as was the scene towards the end when the whole cast wore frocks (tutus?).
May be my sense of humour is out of key with the mainstream or perhaps I need to be more laid back generally but I left the theatre with a sigh of relief at the finish.
The positives first: Drinking tea outside the Pret a Manger opposite the theatre during the hectic Friday evening rush hour period whilst watching the crowds head for Victoria Railway Station, rather than being part of the crowd, was remarkably enjoyable. The Theatre is an attractive Victorian musical hall design. The child stars and dancers in the musical itself were very talented and not at all shy of acting/dancing/singing in public. Also 99.9% of the packed theatre including mrs maytrees, obviously loved the whole show. Unfortunately I was one of the 0.01% who did not.
The story of making success from deprivation and under privilege, is as old as mankind but the Billy Elliot story was, to me, told with cliche and soppy sentiment as its main style. The 1970s miners' strike backdrop was portayed as the oppressed sticking together and fighting Mrs Thatcher mainly via the police yet the reality at the time was that coal mining was a dying industry. Arthur Scargill and cohorts
were expensively burying their collective heads in the sands. But that is a detail as the musical was not really intended to be correct politically or historically accurate for that matter.
The problem for me is that however talented children are, I don't enjoy spending 3 hours watching them any more than mrs maytrees would want to spend under half that time watching Mr Ronaldo, who at £80m is possibly the most talented football player on the planet at this time, display his undoubted skills on the football pitch.
I was also uneasy about a number of aspects in respect of the young children, all of whom were real stars. The language the minors had to use on-stage for one. In the 1970s doubtless adult miners would have used typical expletive and worse type expressions in their every day conversations but would they have been so relaxed about their own tiny children emulating them? Also men dressing up in women's clothes I find a 'drag' or worse but scenes of boys dressing up as girls seemed to me to be quite unattractive as was the scene towards the end when the whole cast wore frocks (tutus?).
May be my sense of humour is out of key with the mainstream or perhaps I need to be more laid back generally but I left the theatre with a sigh of relief at the finish.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Everyman Hampstead - Last Chance Harvey
A trip to North London to see a romcom flick yesterday did not sound a hugely attractive idea for a grey and wet friday evening immediately after a hard day's work. Still maytrees max. had bought two tickets for mrs maytrees' birthday treat
so we set off to celebrate. I'd forgotten that some of N London's tubes still had lifts but Hampstead was as pretty as ever.
The Everyman cinema is thankfully not part of a huge chain. Their films are watched from comfortable sofas rather than the usual upright cinema chain type seats. Being served glasses of wine, hot sticky toffee puddings, ice cream and olives at our sofa also made for a great idiosyncratic atmosphere for watching a film.
Last Chance Harvey was a treat to watch. Filmed in London by Director Joel Hopkins
when he lived in USA at a time when he felt homesick for his home city, meant that the scenes he shot did not depict the typical tourist view of Town. Somerset House fountains at dawn when the road sweeper was doing a round, buskers in the
book mart on the South Bank and through a window of the National Theatre, to name but a few. And we learned about the home sickness part from Joel Hopkins himself. The Everyman had arranged for the film's Director to be introduced by a film critic to give a small talk at the end of the show and to answer questions from the audience. He spoke about writing thescript, trying to get it accepted, working with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson and the interplay between playright (also Joel Hopkins) and famous actors in script wrting and editing. He mentioned his wish next time to direct a film that someone else had written.
One girl in the audience who like us, very much enjoyed the film, asked Joel Hopkins how he had managed to depict in such accurate fashion, the relationship between a single woman of a certain age (Emma Thompson) and her mother (Eileen Atkins). This elicited comment from Mr Hopkins that he got on well with his own mother - there was laughter from the circle seats and it then transpired that his mum and other family members were present - and that he was self evidently not a single girl.
After taking that lift again down to Northern Line platform level I happened to bump into the film review critic who had facilitated the discussions with Joel Hopkins.
Upon my congratulating him for enabling such interesting views and information about the film to be brought out he, ever the pro, asked if I had enjoyed the film to which I replied with a resounding 'yes'.
so we set off to celebrate. I'd forgotten that some of N London's tubes still had lifts but Hampstead was as pretty as ever.
The Everyman cinema is thankfully not part of a huge chain. Their films are watched from comfortable sofas rather than the usual upright cinema chain type seats. Being served glasses of wine, hot sticky toffee puddings, ice cream and olives at our sofa also made for a great idiosyncratic atmosphere for watching a film.
Last Chance Harvey was a treat to watch. Filmed in London by Director Joel Hopkins
when he lived in USA at a time when he felt homesick for his home city, meant that the scenes he shot did not depict the typical tourist view of Town. Somerset House fountains at dawn when the road sweeper was doing a round, buskers in the
book mart on the South Bank and through a window of the National Theatre, to name but a few. And we learned about the home sickness part from Joel Hopkins himself. The Everyman had arranged for the film's Director to be introduced by a film critic to give a small talk at the end of the show and to answer questions from the audience. He spoke about writing thescript, trying to get it accepted, working with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson and the interplay between playright (also Joel Hopkins) and famous actors in script wrting and editing. He mentioned his wish next time to direct a film that someone else had written.
One girl in the audience who like us, very much enjoyed the film, asked Joel Hopkins how he had managed to depict in such accurate fashion, the relationship between a single woman of a certain age (Emma Thompson) and her mother (Eileen Atkins). This elicited comment from Mr Hopkins that he got on well with his own mother - there was laughter from the circle seats and it then transpired that his mum and other family members were present - and that he was self evidently not a single girl.
After taking that lift again down to Northern Line platform level I happened to bump into the film review critic who had facilitated the discussions with Joel Hopkins.
Upon my congratulating him for enabling such interesting views and information about the film to be brought out he, ever the pro, asked if I had enjoyed the film to which I replied with a resounding 'yes'.
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