To Poland, to one of those towns that has had at least a couple of names over the last hundred years, and more than one population. No matter how successful Poland becomes – and it is a very successful place – I wonder whether it will ever dispel the atmosphere of sadness this knowledge generates.
I was there because it’s home to a factory that supplies a business in the UK. The links are not just commercial – they’re also personal, and longstanding too. I think the early open border the UK offered to workers from the new Eastern European EU members – around a decade ago now – will come to be seen as a hugely influential decision. As a consequence London has become, among much else, something of an Eastern European metropolis, an echo of Vienna or Berlin from times past. It’s where people from around that part of the continent come to work, study and socialise, and some never move back. The budget airlines keep everything knitted together in much the same way as the railways did in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I was accompanied by a couple of London-based Poles. One was properly expatriate, now a self-described lifelong Londoner. You meet all sorts of people like this in the city – foreign born and still very evidently quite foreign in name, accent, cuisine – but Londoners through and through. It’s why criticisms of the Limpick opening ceremony for being too multicultural seem bizarre to many in the capital. You don’t hear the word used much any more, at least in seriousness: it’s no longer political project or social policy, it’s just the way things are.
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I seem to be coming across more Brazilians than usual. Our new kitchen was fitted by a team of them, and a couple of the new barmaids at my local are too (ahem). I asked one of them why this was. Apparently, young Brazilians with European parents or grandparents – mostly Italian and Spanish as well as Portuguese – are applying for European passports and choosing to come and stay in London. Brazil being wealthier nowadays means there are plenty who can afford the long-haul travel and something to get themselves set up here.
I can’t imagine how rubbish our weather must seem. At least we can offer them a couple of weeks of beach volleyball.
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Mitt Romney: a highly implausible person in many ways. Not least because he’s named after a form of rounded, woollen glove in which the fingers share a single compartment. Why isn’t more made of this? He may literally be a puppet of shadowy interests.
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It’s good how Kenneth Branagh has grown into his face. Its stubbly satchel quality is perfect for Wallander. My feeling is that it used to be too round: it couldn’t help conveying a bouncing bumptiousness. Now it’s gone a bit knobbly and rough round the edges it has a more sympathetic, downbeat, avuncular look. Even his liplessness, which made him seem callow, now lends a rather attractive grimness.
He deserved the opening ceremony gig, where he played Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I particularly liked his impression of the wide-legged stances Brunel adopted in these photos taken against the anchor chains of SS Great Britain. What with the stogie, stove-pipe hat and implausibly massive links that hang behind him, they must be some of the most masculine images ever produced. The man appears to have engine oil running in his veins.
But even the new, improved Branagh was unable to summon up the full measure of engineer-y testosterone. From today’s working actors, Bob Hoskins or Anthony Hopkins might have. Kirk Douglas certainly would have – the only man whose features could bristle without the aid of facial hair.
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I suspect Mark Rylance, whom Branagh replaced, would have pulled it off too. I saw him as Rooster Byron, a wild man of the woods, in the much feted Jerusalem. ‘Nuff said.
I was also lucky enough to see him the other night, at The Globe playing Richard III. I was surprised at how many genuine laughs there were in it. He carried off the old psychopath with a rural burr, a wry manner and the odd jig, as jocular as he was sinister. Richard of Glawster indeed; I was reminded of a West Country poultry farmer I know.
At home we’ve all become well acquainted with this particular royal villain through the marvellous medium of Horrible Histories. They tend towards the Tudor propaganda explanation for his bad rep. The play is certainly a reminder that Shakespeare could have shown Goebbels a thing or two – I’m not sure any personality has been so comprehensively discredited by a work of art.
Anyway, they’re fighting a losing battle. Mummy and I aren’t allowed to refer to Richard III by that name (he’s ‘R3’). We’re also not allowed to use the word ‘murderer’. We’re especially not allowed to make any allusions to young princes being imprisoned in towers at the mercy of wicked uncles. It’s all very well for your kids to take an interest in history, but one forgets how absolutely terrifying a good bit of it is. Imagine how tough it must be in Poland…
More mitt words:
mittflopper n. a toady, the image is of one who constantly shakes hands.
mittglommer n. an ingratiating person, a sycophant; thus mittglom n. and v.
mitt man n. a confidence man, esp. when specializing in religious charlatanry.
mitt store n. a form of confidence trick in which a supposedly legitimate business masquerades as a front for crooked poker games (ostensibly being played ‘just to pass the time’). The victim is ‘mitted’, i.e. dealt into such a game and fleeced of his money.
mitt-wobbler n. an ingratiating person, a sycophant
big mitt n. a form of swindling involving the use of a stacked hand while playing poker.
big mitt man n. a confidence trickster.
chilly mitt / cold mitt / frozen mitt n. a rejection, a snub
greased mitt n. anyone who has been bribed.
grease one’s mitts v. to accept/solicit bribes; thus grease someone’s mitts, to bribe.
throw the mitt(s) v. to pick pockets.
Magnificent, Mr Slang.
Just had to google it – apparently Mitt is the diminutive of Milton
I wonder if all this influx of comely maids from eastern europe and brazil will have any effect on our future output of people who look like Wayne Rooney?
Maybe, but it has certainly killed any market for the lasses who used to come down from Leeds and Bradford for the day to tout round King’s Cross.
The other reason there are so many Brazilians here now Gaw – and there are a lot – is because the US has made it a lot harder for them to enter the States
Why did the US do that I wonder? To keep out the Brazilian islamists? Or to leave plenty of room for the Mexicans?
One recalls that Nero Wolfe considered the evidence and then banished Utopia from his bookshelves on the grounds that More had libeled R3.
Brazilians eh? Coming over here, waxing our women
“They need to spend on infrastructure” goes the mantra, meaning shed loads of plastic pipe, water, gas, telecoms. Emerging from beneath the elephant that was the workers owning the means of production, the poverty was palpable, it was everywhere, it hurt. The Euro was beginning to pour in and and they were buying, finished product and, this is where we stepped in, the production process.
Winter 1998, the Lexus headed from Katowice towards the Ukrainian border, to a town who’s name was unpronounceable and demeanour unforgettable. The journey was a nightmare, undulating roads through areas of vast apartment blocks interwoven with coal mines, power stations and steelworks. Groups of very large diameter steel pipes rising up and crossing the road like steaming goalposts, supplying heat to the downtrodden. The Lexus, it turned out, was the only one in southern Poland and belonged to the gaffer, his driver was nervous, dent it sunshine and off with your nuts.
Sitting next to the driver was a heavenly vision, Julie Christie and Julie Driscoll in one petite gorgeous bundle, man, my wheels were on fire, from situations such as these do lawyers make a fortune. Our interpreter for the visit, Iwona had greeted us at the airport, standing in front of surly Stanislaus, the placard bearer. Time as ever, has rose tinted the memory but eyes did meet across a crowded room or at least a crowded arrivals area. The next four hours became a one act play of verbal footsie played out on a Ridley Scott set.
Eventually that party pooper common sense prevailed.
Brilliant malty!
He carried off the old psychopath with a rural burr … as jocular as he was sinister. Richard of Glawster indeed
It all sounds very Fred West — intentionally so??
I did wonder. There are certainly some very sexually creepy lines in the play and Rylance had the audience reacting with audible disgust a couple of times. When I first considered this as a parallel I thought it was a bit barmy. But, in any event, it has proven to be thought-provoking.
Did you like the play, Jerusalem, (leaving aside the performances)? I am wondering if there’s some bit of me missing as, while happy to acknowledge the energy et cetera of the production, I thought the play itself was feeble nonsense but I’ve not yet found anyone at all prepared to even faintly agree with this opinion. (Worm – that waxing comment was hilarious)
I wrote about the play on my old blog. It’s pretty rambling stuff I’m afraid:
http://gawragbag.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/jerusalem.html
Thanks – v. interesting. While reading it, I remembered how my friend up in Eastern Hungary is particularly fond of the Gypsies in her village, because they were the one group of people with absolutely no respect of authority – which was just what was needed under the Communist regime. Perhaps the usefulness of characters like the one played by Rylance depends on how pernicious the authority against which they rebel happens to be.