One-sided debate

My former College's annual London seminar, in the relaxed and august setting of Carlton House Terrace, features a panel of Old Members who have a common area of expertise. The subject this year was "Beyond Fantasy or Fear, The Future of Britain outside the European Union", billed as a debate.

It was nothing of the sort, as all five speakers - some admittedly more strongly than others - endorsed our membership of the EU. Hooray! But the question is, how do we articulate "our" position in such a way as to persuade people?

Particularly impressive on the platform was Professor Anand Menon, pointing out that European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy talks about a British departure in terms of "amputation". Britain's is one of the most influential voices within the EU, says Anand: leaving, our impact on the world stage would be vastly reduced.

I enjoyed the evening, but I feel the format needs looking at. First, five speakers is one too many. And the speakers didn't appear to have been encouraged to agree the areas each would cover. In the audience were a number who made valuable contributions to help it in the direction of a true debate, but I suspect others too had expertise such that it would have been valuable, time permitting, to hear their views articulated. Secondly, at previous seminars Old Members on the platform have been willing to share confidential insights. Apart from Mark Blythe, I thought, frankly, that this year’s bunch, though highly competent, came across as a dull lot!

Finally, as Master (and chair for the evening) we are fortunate to have a man described by a former national newspaper editor as one of our most brilliant political analysts, yet of his own views we heard nothing. A pity!

"Who are you?"

Grayson Perry's recent TV mini-series "Who are you?" made essential viewing for both of us, so we were happy to be able to catch the art works he made during the filming, on show at the National Portrait Gallery. The Memory Jar attracted much the biggest crowd, unsurprising given today's general concern about Alzheimer's. Christopher, the victim portrayed so poignantly by Perry, both on the small screen and through this pot, had been my contemporary at school, which brought it all home.

Earlier we had spent a couple of unforgettable hours in the company of late Rembrandt next door at the National Gallery.

Post-investiture

Luckily, we happened to be coming to London anyway today, so could be part of the celebratory lunch party after our friend Sarah received her MBE at Buckingham Palace - well-earned by many years at the inter-faith coalface in South London and elsewhere.

Pope Francis' Strasbourg speech yesterday rang simultaneously a warning to and an endorsement of the EU - the latter being something Sarah's Islamic friend and I passionately agreed upon. Unfortunately she had moved round the table by the time I found myself in a radically different conversation on the same subject with my other neighbour, a UKIP sympathiser.

Having been brought up short by this, I was again by something in the Times, a paper I normally never see. Columnist Janice Turner - in her Notebook - writes about a friend with a home that makes Janice want to change her entire house. How does she achieve this? Why, by abandoning "dim eco-friendly bulbs". "Sod the planet," the friend says, and Janice follows suit. Haven't they heard of LED?

Seven wheels

William, Edmund and I have been biking in London - from Paddington to the Tower, and here we are posing under the Eye. As on last year's car-free Saturday, when I went with a University friend, it was a glorious day for cycling. Even more than before turned out, though today I didn't spot so many (other) eccentrics.

At times William wiggled almost as much as his uncle Leo did at his age, but whenever I thought I'd lost him, I heard him whistling peacefully not far away in the throng.

The pocket chess set I had brought with me came in useful on the return train journey: my mother gave it me as a child, and I in turn passed it on to Edmund aged seven, but it remained in a drawer at home. Now it has a third name inside it: William's. He shows promise.

Edmund meanwhile wrestled with emails - giant haystacks of them: how lucky was I, he exclaimed, to have grown up in an era of less than instant comms.

Voluntary exile

We are away from home for three weeks, having let the house to a Spanish family. The ten of them arrived from Stansted in a hired bus late on Thursday evening. We immediately had the feeling they were going to make themselves at home, which was reassuring after all the effort to get things ready for them - as well as packing for our trip.

After a night in Worcestershire, we are now in South London for a couple of nights. Today, we went to the Matisse cutouts at Tate Modern and called to glance at Smiljan Radic's 2014 Serpentine Pavilion. My photograph was taken, however, on our first visit, to the throbbing Brixton Art Fair: I enjoyed this as much as either of the more prestigious cultural stop-offs.

I was stopped in my tracks somewhat when chatting to a foreign-sounding exhibitor: seeing me with a camera strapped across my chest, she asked me innocently: "Are you exposing yourself?"

A glimpse of Clubland

Last night, Caroline's Goddaughter's engagement was celebrated with a party at Brooks's Club, which looks over St James's Street to Boodle's. Her fiancé William had known her for some while, but they only became an item in fairly recent weeks.

His mother told me that when she had had them both to dinner as long as 18 months ago, she sensed there was good chemistry between them. "I told his father as much," she said, "immediately afterwards, adding that I wondered how long it would take for them to realise." Me: "I hope you didn't mention it to William," She: "Goodness no! That would have been fatal."

The future of the UK's energy supply: how should the Government secure it?

This was the question for discussion at the annual Univ. London Seminar. Half a dozen Old Members and a Fellow were this evening ranged upon the platform at the Royal Society: all had energy credentials of one sort or another, as did many of those in the packed audience.

Energy investment advisor Jim Long saw the present uncertainty as stemming from a long-term lack of any coherent UK energy policy, combined with our politicians implying that peoples' bills can be kept stable or even go down. This effectively placed the 75% of our capital investment that comes from overseas at risk.

Oliver Phipps of ERM was concerned about the low level of our gas storage: one week's supply, compared to Germany's three months'. But more so, that in less than a decade we had turned from being a net exporter of energy to a serious importer, with 87% based on fossil fuels. We badly needed to accelerate our investment in energy efficiency and renewables.

Gas industry expert, Dr. Jennifer Coolidge saw an immediate threat in the rising cost of our Norwegian supplies, and applauded our renewed commitment to a nuclear component.

Looking long term (the 200-year view), Laurence Fumagalli - who works in the wind power sector - saw all our energy coming from nuclear and solar PV, but over 50 years he foresaw a 30:30:40 mix of nuclear, renewables and gas. In the short term, he thought offshore wind had a big part to play. But overall he was worried about the very high levels of investment that would be needed. Not much of a mention of climate change! The evening's Chair, Professor Gideon Henderson, a College Fellow, specialises in this area, but kept his peace.

The final speaker was the most senior member of the panel, Ron Oxburgh, once Chairman of Shell. Individual governments have little control over energy prices, he said. In particular, fracking in the UK would do nothing much to reduce it, though the Treasury would benefit. He was an advocate of North Sea Interconnectors, to bring hydroelectricity from Scandinavia and thermal energy from Iceland, though in the discussion that followed another Old Member asked why on earth our neighbours would want to share our high price levels.

Mention was belatedly made of the need to bring the demand side into the market, and better energy efficiency (following China's lead) and conservation incentives called for: the Green Deal, though, was thought to be a dead duck. We waste 70% of our electricity generation capacity, said Nick Falk, who spoke up for combined heat and power, pointing to the lead given on this by the Germans and Danes.

Generally coal - though cheap - was given the thumbs down: successful CCS was far away and likely to prove more than twice as expensive as nuclear. Drax's conversion to biomass depended on unsustainable supply. A Severn Barrage? Opinion was sharply divided on this.

The most telling contribution, I felt, came from someone pointing out the deception of carbon reduction targets being based on production, not consumption: the emissions we import are up 20% since 1990, he said. All in all, a better question for discussion would have been, What steps must Government take to manage carbon reduction in a world of uncertain energy futures? I longed to hear some regret for the relative failure of the Warsaw COP 19 Summit (just ended), some attention to the dire warnings of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report - even a mention of Pope Francis' reflection that we all have to think if we can become a little poorer.

I took the photograph earlier in the day walking along Monmouth Street, drawn as usual towards Stanfords for a browse amongst their maps.

100 up

Agnes completed her 100th poem at home in Bristol between lunch and tea on the first day's play at Brisbane. More than satisfactory in both quarters: with Gift Aid, the 24-hour poetry slam will have raised the best part of £2,000 for the typhoon victims, whereas, in the cricket, Australia look to be pushed to reach the statutory 400 they might be said to need as a platform for a win in the First Test.

Everybody following our daughter's 24 hour burst of creativity has expressed amazement at the richness of her imagination. Let's hope the experience, as well as helping the needy, opens some doors for her!

Meanwhile, in London today, we managed a visit to Prue Cooper's show at Abbott and Holder. We have long admired her press-moulded earthenware pots, as quirky as they are useful. Her blurb says she likes to make "things that communicate through being used... the lettering being integral to the design in the same way that the words are integral to a song... We're bound together by stories."

My favourite in the present exhibition is this one photographed: I shall never now be able to listen with proper seriousness to Marcellus' questioning of Barnardo in the opening scene of Hamlet.

Earlier, at a cousins' lunch, I overheard part of a discussion about houses in the country, and the husband of one cousin asking another (female), never before encountered, "Is your seat large?"

Cycle Norfolk - 3

Not much cycling today, as we were homeward bound. We had a happy overnight stay with good friends, still living in the house where we got engaged 38 years ago. They don't look much older, whereas...

The house has grounds all round, including an enormous walled garden, now mostly down to grass (and sprouting mushrooms when we inspected it this morning). At £20 a go in petrol alone, you can tell there's a lot of mowing. We share their dilemma of knowing when to move, and where to. Who wants our big brown furniture? And as for pictures...

You can't drive that way, but the cycle path back into Norwich runs attractively along the West bank of the Yare - once past an enormous sewage farm. There was time to visit St Peter Mancroft, and collect another sundial photograph, the "hand" being St Peter's keys in this instance. What a church! It stands alone, a stone building amongst the city's many other churches, which are flint. From the West end, you are dazzled both by the impression of light and by the gold of Seddon's reredos beneath the East window - the central figure of which is Comper's seated, beardless Christ, with something of the look of a Greek God about him.

In London, we ran into rain again. Before Liverpool Street, we passed the Olympic stadium etc., seen for the first time. Then in amongst the forest of skyscrapers which make Wren's steeples look as if they have strayed from a model village.

Cycle Norfolk

We are staying in rural Norfolk, having come here by train and bike today. There was over an hour between our supposed arrival into Paddington and our departure from King's Cross, ample time, I thought, to bike between the two along the Regent Canal towpath, our most tranquil route. But the Cheltenham train came in late, and it was slow going through the rain, so we ended up having to run the length of platform 11 to catch our connection. Then we had to squeeze our bikes in between the end carriage doors, there being zero other provision, this despite the service feeding Cambridge, Ely, King's Lynn, the most cycling-friendly part of England. (As Amanda tells Elyot,"Very flat, Norfolk.")

King's Lynn merits further exploration, but we much enjoyed what we had time to see of the old town, whizzing round the outsides of Clifton House (with its 18th Century barley sugar columns either side of the front door and extraordinary Tudor tower at the rear), the Guildhall, the Old Gaol, the Custom House and the so-called St Nicholas' Chapel (almost the size of a small cathedral). It was St Margaret's Minster that impressed me most though. Not just the Norman West front: the 13th/14th Century arcading and brasses too - but also the modern crucifix above the pulpit, altar frontal and stained glass in the large N-W window under the tower. A vibrant church!

We were glad to complete our 15 miles here before dark, and get out of the rain. This after only a minor detour - not bad considering I had no proper map. As my photograph shows, our kind hostess, a very old friend, has begun to look uncannily like Basil Hume. He was never, to my knowledge, a cat-lover: she gave us a cat as a wedding present.

Freecycle London

The Freecycle Network - of which we have long been local members - must be a bit dechuffed by the highjacking of the name "Freecycle" by Prudential for their Ride London, which took place today. I went up for it, pedalling along with a university friend who lives in Kensington and 50,000 others. Michael and I wondered whether, when we first met, more than 50 years ago, we could ever have envisaged ourselves in 2013, cycling sedately together in the slow lane between Hyde Park and the Tower through a car-free London.

Not that we were the oldest taking part, by any manner of means. Yet one of the highspots was seeing the extremely young enjoying the freedom of the streets, along with a rich assortment of eccentricity - for instance this slightly boxed terrier with owner.

Ring Cycling

It would be interesting to work out how many miles I cycled during this last week that I've spent in London. I visited Wandsworth, Maida Vale, Camden and Southwark, and much in between: rather satisfying, to be seven days in London without a freedom pass, but still paying nothing to get around. The chief hazard I identified was not from buses or lorries, but those fellow cyclists who zoomed past at twice my speed.

It's hard to imagine that 2013 will bring me a greater musical experience than the Proms Ring Cycle, which reached its conclusion last night in a packed and hushed Albert Hall. Too often in the theatre applause breaks out the second the curtain falls, without any savouring of the drama: Barenboim though held us spellbound, not just throughout the five and half hours of Götterdämmerung, but for a good few seconds following the final bar of music.

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings" goes the saying; which while true enough on Saturday, can't be said of this Götterdämmerung. Nina Stemme's physique gives no inkling of her vocal power - a superb Brünnhilde; and matched by the best Siegfried I've come across: Andreas Schager - a great actor with a heroic voice. How rare is that!

"Don't you get bored with seeing The Ring so often?" I'm asked. Far from it! Each time there's something you haven't noticed before. One of my favourite themes is that describing Freia's essential contribution to the vitality of her fellow Gods. "Golden apples grow in her garden," sings Fafner. But the same theme occurred last night when Hagen described his blood as "obstinate and cold" (in contrast to the "pure and noble" blood of Siegfried). And Brünnhilde's refusing Waltraute's request to give up Siegfried's love (or rather its token) is accompanied by the music first heard in the opening scene of Das Rheingold to illustrate the renunciation of love in very different circumstances.

Nobody goes to Götterdämmerung for the jokes, but those of us standing tightly-packed in a stuffy Proms arena could be forgiven for a snigger at Siegfried's words to an off-stage Hagen: "Come down! It's airy and cool here."

From left, my photograph shows Margarita Nekrasova (1st Norn), Schager, Anna Lapkovskaja (Flosshilde), Stemme, a sombre-looking Barenboim, the great Waltraud Meier (2nd Norn and Waltraute), Mikhail Petrenko (as at Cardiff in 2006, a Hagen to be feared - he received a pantomime "Boo!" at his curtain call), the ROH Chorus Director Renato Balsadonna, Maria Gortsevskaya (Welgunde), Aga Mikolaja (Woglinde) and Gerd Grochowski (Gunther).

South Banking

In Ring terms, yesterday and today are holidays, and I'm enjoying a little London leisure. The night-time rain has cooled things down, so making it more comfortable to cycle around. Southwark Cathedral hosts an inter-faith exhibition this week, put on by our good friend Sarah. That made something to aim for: it was an added bonus to find a steward who knew all about the Cathedral's stained glass. Much of it is C.E. Kempe, and indeed there's a memorial to him in the South transept. I admired the colourful Henry Holiday window at the West end also (complete with a panel which seems to depict the Rhinemaidens: you can't get away from it!). The Cathedral, wedged in between railway lines, is now of course dwarfed by the Shard.

From London Bridge, I pushed/rode my bike three miles upstream along the Thames path: from the dry dock that's home to Drake's Golden Hind (such a tiny vessel to have circumnavigated the globe all those 400+ years ago!) to the brand new St George's Wharf development at Vauxhall. Most of the way was thronged with people enjoying themselves: drinking mainly, but also playing on the shore or on the artificial beach outside the Festival Hall; learning from the brilliant garden exhibition by Hungerford Bridge; watching jugglers, acrobats and limbo dancers; browsing the book stalls by the Film Theatre; queuing for the Eye; photographing each other against the river backdrop, and proselytising - my ear was bent for ten minutes by a young man from South China, who worshipped at All Souls Langham Place and made it his - or rather the Lord's - business to accost people sitting in the pleasant gardens outside Tate Modern on his way home from work every evening (so he told me).

You don't get the feeling that Austerity Britain means much here.

We need to talk about Michael

I rode - a Boris bike - from Westminster to Paddington yesterday via the North bank of the Serpentine. If you are used to normal English temperatures, then wearing a Burqa - this is just one of many women I saw there who were - must be a trial on such a hot afternoon.

I omitted to say in my last post how much I enjoyed meeting again my school contemporary Michael, over from Los Angeles, in my excitement to describe our visit to The Bankside Gallery. Why are old friends better than recent ones? Not only had we been in the same school house, but we also overlapped at Oxford; yet we could never be said to have been close. So why bother to reestablish contact after all this time? We concluded it was because then was such a formative period in our lives. Maybe also ranks need closing: others we knew better at school are now dead.

Narrating our respective stories (the abridged version) made me reflect upon my good fortune. Michael, for all his celebrity as a professor twice over, has had to live through bereavement, loneliness and (to a great extent) exile from the country he calls home: he could be said to suffer from nostalgia, in its original sense. From his standpoint, my stable life in a beautiful part of England, supported by my wife and family, seems enviable indeed.

Two important things we are both it seems glad to find ourselves still sharing: good health and our Faith. Returning from the South Bank, Michael and I went to Vespers in the richly-decorated Lady Chapel of Westminster Cathedral. This was a first for me, and I was impressed, but at the same time a little alarmed by the triumphalist note sounded by placing poor old John Southworth's body in the middle of the main nave aisle in preparation for his feast day (tomorrow). What does martyr veneration do to foster better mutual understanding between Christians and those of other religious persuasions in our midst?

Brettrospective: "An Engraver's Progress"

Earlier this month, I mentioned that an old school friend, now resident in the US, had contacted me and come to lunch at home. Today, I was given lunch in London by another such: Michael (on the left in my photograph) was in Europe on a visit from Los Angeles.

It's curious indeed that two out of the 30-odd people with whom I started in St Hugh's House at Ampleforth should have got in touch at much the same time after so long a period of silence and separation. A third contemporary at St Hugh's was Simon Brett, the distinguished wood engraver. I don't recall who told me (some weeks ago) about his forthcoming 70th birthday exhibition: I noted the dates with interest, but feared I should probably miss seeing it in London, because I had no plans to be there this month.

This was until Michael invited me to meet him at his club. After an elegant lunch there - more elegant (it would not have been difficult) than in the St Hugh's House refectory - we made our way jointly to The Bankside Gallery, where we found Simon presiding magisterially amongst a quite extraordinary array of examples of his work over the years.

On the train homewards, I have been reading the exhibition catalogue. Seldom have I seen such a beautiful one. Not only are more than a quarter of the thousand plus images listed reproduced, some full size, but there are a dozen moving tributes to Simon and assessments of the different aspects of his life’s work. A true festschrift, and indeed itself a collector’s item!

In her essay, Miriam Macgregor writes of Simon, “His quiet and controlled demeanour hides a minefield of drama.” And it seems to me that it is theatre, even more than literature that may be Simon’s secret love. You can see this clearly, for instance, in the details of the shipwreck in The Third Voyage from the Pericles suite. And Two in the Forest vibrantly and sensually sums up Act One of Die Walküre. (A minor quibble here though: surely Siegmund has removed the sword from the tree before going to it with Sieglinde to beget Siegfried?)

"The wonder of the human imagination," Simon reflects in his catalogue introduction, "is that it allows us... to weep for Pericles and Marina as truly as for our own children." Echoes of Hamlet asking rhetorically of the First Player, "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?"

All those years ago at school, I recall Simon’s delight at his grandmother Zena Dare playing the part of Mrs. Higgins in the Drury Lane My Fair Lady; and Simon himself returning from taking part in a school play, his walk-on role requiring him to deliver bad news in the form of a letter to the King or some such. While waiting in the wings, he’d been drawing a cartoon figure, before entering to say his line on bended knee. Unfortunately going on stage he handed over the piece of paper the wrong way up: the performance ground to a halt.

The cartoon may have ended up as one of Simon's contributions to the Ampleforth News, which already showed a precocious talent. Sharing a room with him as I did, you could not escape being aware of his high seriousness. Teenage frivolity? Yes, but it knew its place.

Seeing so many works with Christian themes in his exhibition this afternoon, I asked Simon whether he was still a practising Catholic. No, was his reply, and I think he went on: “But I retain a Catholic spirit.” Seeing him I regretted not having my digital recorder, as Simon imparted much wisdom in the relatively brief time we had together.

And as if there wasn't enough to feast on in the Bankside Gallery, Michael and I walked on later to the Menier Gallery, round in Southwark Street, to see a fine exhibition of paintings by Simon’s wife: Juliet Wood, "Alone and Together - Brunel's People."

P.S. Simon's exhibition in modified form can be seen at Art Jericho, Oxford between 24th October and 10th November; and at The Holburne Museum, Bath between 16th November and 9th February 2014.

Remembering Marius Gray

Many suits assembled to fill St Bride's Church, Fleet Street this morning and give thanks for the richly varied life of Marius Gray. Some of us also prayed (privately) for the repose of his soul: to me it was remarkable how his staunch Catholicism managed to pass unacknowledged throughout the service. Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who gave one of three addresses, confessed to me afterwards that, despite having worked with Marius for many years, she never realised he was a Catholic. Did he hide his light under a bushel? Well, perhaps you could say that, but for half a century he managed to live within an inter-church marriage, and there is another side to it too: such non-verbal communication was a Marius speciality - it summed up his modesty, but also his authenticity.

London

Though I set out (and returned home) in the dark, it was in fact sunny and bright in London today. So on arriving at Paddington I Borised to Marble Arch tube; and then from Holborn tube to my meeting. Later, I again had no problem finding either a bike or a docking station as - following lunch with Edmund at Mon Plaisir - I whizzed round Central London to catch up on photography at the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographers' Gallery, dropping in also to the National Gallery and RA (Burlington Gardens). All very refreshing for the tired Gloucestershire palate.

London

We have been in London today, to visit the exhibition of an artist friend in Islington. We met him, his wife and two friends for lunch first at the Quaker Meeting House in Euston, and afterwards dropped into the Coram Foundation en route for a rather brief look at the huge Shakespeare exhibition at the British Museum. This gentleman was picnicking as, on a beautiful Autumn day, we walked through Brunswick Square.

Lunch with Norman

I always feel that bit bolder about taking random photographs after a good lunch. This one was snatched whilst I paused at traffic lights on my Boris Bike: I was returning to Paddington to catch the train home after meeting a school friend at Mon Plaisir today. (I managed a quick visit to Edmund's newish office in Covent Garden beforehand.)

Norman lives and works in Rome, but comes over for Summer holidays. We haven't seen a lot of each other over the years, and it was a pleasure to catch up. As a prominent church historian, he comes in for criticism from time to time, mainly from right wing elements who see recent history rather differently to him. Yes, he agreed, Vatican II has taken a while to bed down, "but then so did Chalcedon". (Don't you love sweeping thoughts like this?) "It's easier with Councils like Trent and Vatican I, which strengthen the Pope's hand," he surmised.You don't get this sort of conversation much in Cheltenham.

I came away enlivened - and delighted that Norman had agreed to come and speak at a local Christian Ecology Link meeting at the end of his Summer visit next year: on ecology in the early Church.

Photography

This morning, I visited the newly-reopened Photographers' Gallery, and very welcoming I found it. The makeover provides a much airier setting for the displays, in what is a fairly cramped setting for an important gallery.

I much enjoyed the exhibition of contemporary Japanese photobooks - lots of good ideas there. And even more so, the work of the candidates for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, the winner to be announced in a month's time. I favour Pieter Hugo for this: his bleak reportage of life on the industrial wasteland outside Accra succeeds for me on every level.

From Ramillies Street I biked towards the National Portrait Gallery, but might as well have walked: it took me half an hour to find a vacant slot into which I could return the bike - I suppose people use them to commute to work.

Walking eventually down past the Garrick Theatre, my eyes were drawn to a pair of walking advertisements for "Chicago": red-stockinged legs, double yellows and chewing gum residue notating a form of pavement plainsong - or perhaps I spent too long looking at those Japanese photobooks.

To correct the balance, I ended up my time in London visiting Somerset House - not for the drawings on show at Courtauld Gallery as intended, but the Salgado exhibition at King's College, on the East side. I have long been a fan of the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. The extensive Arden Collection, on display in the Inigo Rooms, displays much of Salgado's earlier work, including the gut-wrenching Brazilian mining series.