THE SOUND OF ONE MARACA

The Queen Mother of Boogie-Woogie

In order to warm up for the marathon of partying that is May in Brussels, at the end of last month I dragged Scouse Doris and her swain Rupert Posz-Jordie to see Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra at the Ancienne Belgique.  Jools was accompanied by his 16-piece band, comprising a 12-piece brass section that filled the KNOB-shaped hole in my life: all superb musicians, as well as singers Louise Marshall, who reminded me of Amy Winehouse with talent, and the magnificent and Junoesque Ruby Turner, who turns out every third Wednesday in August for Jools on his televised New Year's Eve Hootenanny, and in the flesh is quite something to behold:

Every number was a foot-stomping boogie-woogie, and the house was rocking.   Each musician got a solo spot, and drummer Gilson Lavis' five-minute virtuoso drum solo (during which the rest of the band went out, had a cup of tea and a fag and a quick nap, phoned home, then ambled back in), the likes of which had not been heard since Cozy Powell, whipped the crowd into a frenzy.  Jools' tinkling of the ivories was up to his usual standard, and he did his party piece which involved taking a rollicking boogie number, segueing into a long stretch of Bach, and then seamlessly segueing back into the blues again.

All the brass section were superb, but a special mention for Rico Rodriguez, aged nearly 80 and still going strong.  He can still blow that 'bone, and led the crowd for the final encore in a rousing chorus of "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."   We certainly did.  It certainly was.

The grand old man of ska

I feel like writing to UNESCO to recommend they give Jools "Intangible Cultural Heritage" status.  Or to the Culture Secretary reiterating Prince Charles' recommendation: "Why don't you make Jools an official National Treasure, Hunt?", although that would inevitably elicit the question "Where did you dig him up from?"    

If Jools and his band are touring anywhere near you, I highly recommend you go and see them.  If you don't come out singing, check your pulse, there's something very wrong.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to apply some Superglue to my maracas.  I got so carried away during Gilson's drum solo that I cracked them.  A new pair are on order from Nicaragua. Meanwhile, a true diva can always perform with one arm tied behind her back:

BETTER DEAD THAN ..... MAUVE

Tomorrow, under a peculiarly Belgian system, the employees of every company in the kingdom with more than 50 staff will vote their union representatives onto the works committee and health & safety committee, choosing from 3 lists representing the three main trade unions:  the Greens (Catholics), the Reds (Socialists) and the Blues (Managerial).  Nowhere else in the world, I believe, is democracy so compulsory.  Personally I think it's because their only decent football team has chosen mauve as its emblematic colour.  MAUVE!  Which self-respecting beer-swilling Belgian woman would want to be seen dead in mauve?  So, instead, they dress up in red or green bin liners and march through Brussels at the drop of a hat.  Demonstrating, along with tax evasion, is the national sport of Belgium.  It is particularly popular round about this time of year, and cafés on the main north-south road through the city make a killing on refreshing the revolutionary spirit at regular intervals along the march.

Hot Flash has a works council and H&S committee, and I have been co-opted onto one of the lists (modesty forbids me from saying which, but let's say the binliner matches the cherries in my fruit basket) since it was thought that my gay umbrella and my fruity hat would be vote catchers.  Now, much as I support the rights of the working woman, I am personally a bit backward in coming forward.  I don't like speaking in public, although I don't mind standing at the back and tinging my triangle.  I hate confrontation.  But, as is the way in the workers paradise, those with the loudest voices will inevitably impose their will on the more timid, and I feel it is incumbent upon me to be the elder stateswoman in the nest of menopausal vipers that lurks at the heart of Hot Flash.  


However, it is probably a little early in the day to apply the soft pedal.  Wally von Klampwangler, our lederhosen-and-monocle wearing lady bandleader, has turned out to be something of a dictator, and is more concerned with correcting our fingering and tonguing than giving some overall direction to our musical productions or feminising the programme.  It doesn't go down too well with the musicians.  Millicent Tendency, the head of the "red" delegation, is a lady with a sax to grind.  It is turning into a bit of a Mexican stand-off between Millicent and Wally.  I am standing firmly - well, lurking furtively actually - behind Millicent.  But it could get very nasty in the next few months.


I am by no means a fifth columnist.  I do not really want to be on the works council at this stage, but I could not say no to Millicent, especially when she was holding an AK47 to my head.  I am only there to make up the numbers.  So whatever you do, don't vote for me. No offence to any of our simian friends reading this, but I don't want to end up like Stuart Drummond, alias H'Angus the Monkey, who is now serving his third term as Mayor of Hartlepool after entering the election as a joke in 2002 on a manifesto to provide free bananas to schoolchildren (which he broke as soon as he reached office, of course).  It explains a lot about Boris Johnson's recent victory in the London election.

The thrice-elected Mayor of Hartlepool

My long-term strategy is to insinuate my reasonable ideas slowly into the delegation's modus operandi, and embarrass the top brass into giving us what we want.  I shall gradually introduce tea-drinking to union meetings, which I think will calm down the raging hormones.  If it gets too bad, I may be forced to add some HRT to the PG Tips.  Having lived through the 1970s in Britain, I am all too aware that strident militancy led directly to strident Thatcherism.  If Arthur Scargill had only used his maracas to play a gentle samba to Mrs T rather than banging his big drum, history might have taken a completely different turn.

CHATEAU CRAWLING IN THE LOIRE

On my recent tour of the Loire Valley I visited a number of Chateaux: my favourite was Chenonceau. Not, please note, Chenonceaux with an x which is the name of the village. Chenonceau had kitchens that would be worthy of Renaissance Masterchef.

 

Its ancient history - the rivalry between the Queen Catherine de Medici and the King's mistress Diane de Poitiers was fascinating. Diane seduced the King when he was 19 and she was 39. She became his lover, confidante, political advisor, emissary, and muse.  When he was dying of wounds inflicted during a jousting tournament, it was her colours that were tied to his lance, and her name that he called out in his dying moments, although the Court (and specifically, the Queen) refused to allow her near him.  She was exiled to the country after Henri II's death, and died aged 66. Her remains were unceremoniously chucked in the communal burial pit by the revolutionaries in 1789 but were disinterred later.  Scientists found traces of gold in her hair, which she had consumed in liquid form to preserve her beauty, and which may have ultimately killed her. 


Chenonceau also has magnificent nurseries where they grow masses of flowers which are used by their own floristry team to fashion the extravagant flower arrangements in every room. These are fresh every week, and often themed: they were all on an Easter theme when I visited.







Its more recent history is also fascinating.  The Cher river, on which the castle stands, formed the dividing line between occupied "Vichy" France and free France.  During the second world war, partisans smuggled resistance fighters into free France through the lower section of the part built across the river, under the great hall.


I attempted to stalk Sir Mick Jagger, but he seems to have camouflaged his chateau so well that I couldn't find it, despite having been driven past it some 20 years ago. The French radio teased me all day, playing Maroon 5's "Moves like Jagger" and various Stones numbers. Still, even that was better than Adele's "Someone like you" which they played every half hour. Having played all my Bai Kamara CD's several times, I tuned into Radio Nostalgie which at least didn't bang on about the French elections all the time.

Il Maestro 

Amboise is a lovely town with a fascinating castle sitting high over the Loire. It is the last resting place of Leonardo da Vinci who spent the last three years of his life there as a guest of the King. It also served as a prison for Abd el Kader, the Algerian rebel leader, who was under house arrest there from 1848 to 1852, allbeit in luxury conditions. He came with a retinue of 80 people, 25 of whom died in the four years they were resident in the cold, damp castle. They are buried in a small Moslem cemetery specially made for them, and their names are inscribed on marble slabs in French and Arabic. 

Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau

Azay-le-Rideau is one of the fairytale castles of the Loire region, not on the Loire itself, but sitting in its own lake. The roof space has been opened to the public to show off the masterful French timberframe roofing which has been given special UNESCO "intangible cultural heritage" status. The Loire Valley area itself is recognized by UNESCO as having cultural intangibility, and French cuisine also bears the coveted label;  one wonders why UNESCO doesn't just name the whole country culturally intangible and be done with it. It is perhaps no coincidence that UNESCO is situated in Paris ....




After cruising down alternate banks of the Loire from Orléans to Saumur via Bourgueil and Vouvray (purely in search of chateaux, you understand)  I cut across country back eastwards to the Berry, and Bourges, which is where the "Printemps" store chain originated. Le Printemps de Bourges. I made the mistake of arriving there on Easter weekend. Bourges is not the most throbbing of towns at the best of times, outside of its annual spring music festival,  but on Easter Sunday it was as dead as a dodo. There was a market (for all their Sunday closing laws, French Sunday markets are open even on the holiest Sunday in the church calendar) , but after a quick sniff around the cheese stalls at Les Halles, there was nothing else to do until lunch, and it was only 11 o'clock. The only free show in town was in the Cathedral, so I decided to go to Easter Mass.

Perhaps just as well the shops were shut in Bourges, I might have been tempted .....

Now my religious upbringing was somewhat patchy. Christened R.C. in homage to Grandpa Harridan who came from Ireland, I was brought up in a vague mixture of Anglican, Baptist and Spiritualist, with flashes of Hindu or Moslem depending on who our lodger was at any particular moment. I respect all religions, although subscribe to none, and do not go around taking flash photographs during a service. I took a place about halfway back, on the end of the front row of a block of seats, from where I could make a discreet escape should this prove necessary.

I love a nice flying buttress. Bourges Cathedral has got a lovely arse end.

The altar boys rushed past giggling and kicking each other, then reappeared 10 minutes later in the procession looking pious and holy, carrying huge candles, their eyes upturned to heaven. A stupid tourist woman tried to stand right in front of the procession to take a photograph and was swept aside unceremoniously by the verger.  One does not pap God on the march.  The Bishop of Bourges led the procession - at least, I'm guessing it was the Bishop, he had a pointy hat on - which went right in front of me.  My large handbag was on the floor, obstructing the processional glide every so slightly, and the Bish gave me a dirty look and swung his incense in my face. If he could have exclaimed "A HANDbag????" à la Lady Bracknell, he would have. The audience - sorry, congregation - knew all the actions, and were standing up, sitting down, standing up again, shouting things out, and waving their arms about (making the sign of the cross, surely? Ed.) I was not au fait with the audience participation bit, and the singing wasn't all that, so after half an hour I slipped away discreetly. Still, I like to think that my presence, allbeit brief, will have been registered somewhere.


After a short spin out to St Florent sur Cher with lunch in mind, and finding a very pretty village on the river with a lovely castle used as a town hall, but nothing resembling a restaurant, and nowhere to even buy a sandwich, I returned to Bourges too late to get a seat in a decent restaurant (one must be seated by 12.30 sharp in France or starve) and had an overpriced and very late lunch in the Taverne de Maitre Kanter by the Cathedral. The waiter was Colombian and the service appallingly slow, since anyone who does intangible French cuisine the disservice of sitting down to eat after 1 o'clock is considered an ignorant peasant and does not deserve to be served promptly.

By mid afternoon I was sitting in the Cathedral gardens wondering what to do for the rest of the day. On the map I saw what looked like a large park just outside the old town, so decided to mosey on down.  It was the best surprise of my whole trip - Les Marais is in fact a vast watermeadow which has been parcelled off into 1,500 or so allotments, where the good people of Bourges grow fruit, vegetables, flowers, or just laze around in deckchairs. The patchwork of gardens is divided up by a couple of rivers and a network of canals, and you can walk along the river banks for a couple of miles. It is idyllic, the peace broken only by the loud squawking of mating ducks. I realized why Bourges town centre was empty - everyone was here, walking their dogs and children, riding their bikes, fishing, rowing a boat or cultivating their gardens. Bourges was redeemed. 

Easter-themed arrangement to beat even Chenonceau, spotted on Easter Sunday

I stopped in Sancerre on Easter Monday to buy some wine, as you do, but by now the long-threatened bad weather front had materialized, and a small French hill town on a cold and damp Easter Monday is no place for older women, so I moved on to visit some friends living nearby who fed me royally for two days and helped me sample the small collection of local specialities I had collected from Chinon, Saumur and Sancerre.

One of McChé's French relatives, Mademoiselle Lucie

The Loire Valley ticked all my boxes. The weather defied the gloomy weather forecast right up until Easter Monday, and although chilly it was mostly sunny. The countryside is lovely - rather reminiscent of southern England, with soft rolling hills. The house prices were alarmingly reasonable. I didn't hear English spoken once until I got to Chinon on Good Friday. I found a big town I liked - Tours, which has everything you could want: a main railway station connected to the TGV, a medieval quarter, a Cathedral, a museum, an opera house, not one but four Irish pubs, and more importantly, a Monoprix, a Printemps and a Galeries Lafayette. I may well go back to Tours.  And the food defied description.  For an average of 20-25 euros (with the exception of Bourges on Easter Sunday) you can enjoy a 3-course gastronomic menu of exceptional quality.  As long as you are seated by 12.30. 

ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

I am not a beach person. I couldn't give a figleaf for the Maldives or St Tropez. The sand gets in my sandwiches and my orifices, I burn in the sun and I have to be careful with seafood. I know how to swim, but if I am forced to do so, I'd much rather it was in a swimming pool, preferably one with a bar in it where I might sip a pina colada between widths, rather than dicing with death in the briny, in which, as W.C.Fields reminded us, fish procreate, humans defecate and which often has a fairly violent nature. Swimming pools don't have sharks in them as a rule.



I do like a good river though. I was born on the banks of Old Father Thames at its most majestic point (Westminster, not the Dartford Crossing) and have always had respect for a Proper River. As I child I caught my first travel bug on the Woolwich Ferry, and spent many a happy summer with cousin Vera at Shiplake, in our jobs as First and Second Mates on Captain Uncle John's Daily Mirror fibreglass dinghy (HMS Ollie Beak), fishing for roach, or in the odd very hot summer swimming in the river.

It seemed a lot bigger then

I misspent a good deal of my youth at the Thames-side taverns of Greenwich, holding Arthur Smith's pint of smooth for him while he recited the naughty bits of T.S.Eliot: "By Richmond I raised my knees, Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe ..... weilala leia, wallala leialala ... ".

I misspent my twenties and a good part of my thirties on, and often under, the bridges of Paris, screaming under the Pont Bir Hakeim fancying I bore a faint resemblance to Maria Schneider, gazing romantically at the Eiffel Tower from the Pont Alexandre III, or cruising up the Seine on a bateau-mouche while Edith Piaf songs warbled from the tannoy. I'm definitely more river than riviera.




A city needs a proper river. I cannot take Brussels seriously as it only has a canal. There was once a river here called the Senne, which was built over. Bits of it emerge in the south of the city, but it's nowt but a trickle, you'd be hard pressed even to call it a stream. A babbling brook, nothing more. Pffft. And they haven't done much with the canal, which in places seems to serve as a rubbish tip. There are no chic canalside restaurants, no pleasant towpaths along which to stroll on a Sunday. Just derelict factories and flats, and once a year a fake beach. Shame on you, Brussels town hall.

Not exactly Amsterdam is it?
Photo: Lieven Soete www.bruxel.org

Next Monday I am setting off on a motoring tour of the Chateaux of the Loire. The Loire is a magnificent river, running for over 1,000 kilometers from the hills of the Ardèche northwards, and then west, to its outflow into the Atlantic at Nantes. It loops and meanders, it has islands and beaches and a great deal of it goes through wine country. I shall be overnighting in Saumur and Chinon, and taking in Bourgueil, Pouilly and Sancerre. Which might be an indication that the Chateaux are not the only focus of my trip.

I shall however keep an eye on the property market with a view to a retirement home...




Happy Easter everyone! Back in two weeks with some lovely photos I hope.




I'm packing my James Blunt CD as we speak.

NUL POINTS

I seem to have started something of a craze. Last night's Strictly Come Dancing Underwater for Sport Relief (they cancelled EastEnders, leaving me in total suspenders about The Crime of The Century) featured "celebrity" couples looking quite fetching in a variation on my gas mask. So I will probably add ballroom dancing to my potential dream catalogue. Can't wait.

It's that time again. With the first rustle of spring, the qualifiers for the 57th Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan are under way. All participating countries have voted for their song, and who is going to sing it. I can't imagine why they're holding the Eurovision in Ivory Coast which is not even in Europe, but it's probably got something to do with overseas aid.

No-one wants to win Eurovision any more. It costs too much to stage. Ireland is banking on nul points by entering Jedward, the identical twins conjoined at the hair follicles. This could backfire on them. I suspect this sort of lunacy is probably what passes for exotic in Baku. The UK is bowling a googly by wheeling out 75-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck, but they may have underestimated the Azerbaijani love of elderly men in dinner jackets crooning dismal ballads. Engelbert is Big in Azerbaijan. The Russians have gone one better and found a village choir of toothless old peasants to ensure they end up pointless. The Azeris (they hope) will ROFL their AO at the Russian grannies. This could also fall flat. The Azeris could be kinkier than they think.

Thank God Terry Wogan isn't still doing the commentary. I'd love a joint first between the UK and Russia, with a finale sung by Engelbert and the Russian Old Spice Girls.Let's hear it for Deafy, Gummy, Wrinkly, Shaky Khan, Nora Battsky and Posh.