Cote d'Azur update - forget the burkini furor it's time to outlaw Speedo's

At least that's according to recent UK newspaper articles and Twitter storms. The Speedo in question is a figure hugging skimpy nylon attire worn - in this incarnation - by middle aged portly white men which is deemed offensive and should be 'outlawed' on the French Riviera. Zut alors! I may side with that call. It's actually the regulation in public pools in Paris for boys and men to wear Speedo's. A hygiene thing. When my son was eight years old he wasn't allowed to swim in the fantastic public pool near Bastille is his baggy swim shorts. "C'est interdit." And no way around it. We ended up buying a pair of Speedo's there - conveniently for purchase - and he almost refused to come out of the locker.

He said he was too embarrassed to swim. Well, all the other males - young and old - wore them so eventually he jumped in the pool. Ok, so here's some of the Twitter Speedo storm. Twitter users have been inspired by the controversial ruling to highlight a more offensive issue (than burkini's) plaguing beaches the world over.

So on Twitter In Wake of Burkini Ban, Muslim Women Demand Criminalization of Fat White Men in Speedos - People are asking France to ban 'pasty' fat men in Speedos instead of burkini's ...

Instead of banning the #burkini ban fat pasty guys in #Speedo ... Clearly, if there are now "Burkini Talks," there must also be a "Speedo Summit. And in the UK The Sun says ‘Speedos are 100x more offensive’: Following France’s burkini ban, scores of people are calling on men to ditch their skimpy swimwear

This headline from the Daily Mail: Oh no! It's the return of the Speedo: Those tiny pouches of straining nylon are all the rage again. Look away now ladies with Rod the Mod Stewart sporting one

Cara - Tuesday who says you be the judge, Mesdames et Messieurs PS There are more important issues in France than this...

By Train to Marseilles, By Steamship Via Suez

Annamaria on Monday

My credentials as possessor of a riotously romantic heart are well-established among frequent readers of this blog.   A passionate aria, an antique map, an image of the clock tower of San Marco in Venice.   The strains of a tango.   The sight of a lone giraffe standing under an acacia tree. They all take my breath away.  A list of images and sounds that provoke longing in me could easily fill up this page.

Today’s post—about how people traveled from Britain to East Africa in the 19-teens—needed a good title.    Something that would stir a sense of adventure in you.  Once I typed out the words above, it took me ten minutes to settle down to work.  I was high on the visions they evoked, floating a hundred feet up, watching my long-ago-and-far-away characters travel from London to Mombasa: their clothes, their conveyances, the scenery as their Victorian-style train click-clacks through France, the ship, the luggage.  They call at Naples.  I know that bay well.  Vesuvius.  Ischia.  Capri.  The deep dark blue of the Mediterranean.  And on to the south past Stromboli, spouting fire in the night.

I took this photo of the Mediterranean on a trip from
Livorno to Catania.  The deep blue sea is really blue there.
Not so the Atlantic Ocean I played in as a child

If I wanted to set a scene in Suez, I would have to research what it looked like.  One day perhaps I will go and see it for myself, but it won’t look as it did a hundred years ago.

My head already holds a composite historic picture of East Africa’s major port.  From photos I know its landscape, its buildings.  From many eyewitness accounts I know the colors, the bustle, the emotional impact it had on arriving passengers.

By the time the second book in my African series came along, I also knew quite a bit about how people traveled from Europe to British East Africa—and to German East Africa and South Africa for that matter.

The facts were easy to come by, from the Handbook of British East Africa, 1912, a copy of which is in the New York Public Library.   Just recently, I found a reprint I could afford (originals run in the thousands of dollars—if you can find one!).     For people of the time, the book had invaluable advice.  Today, it is a complete guide for this historical novelist.  How else would I discover details like: The quickest and most comfortable, therefore the preferred route, from London was by train to Marseilles and then steamer to Mombasa via Suez.  The handbook also has ads telling which companies offered passage, their schedules, and the price of various levels of accommodation.

The Idol of Mombasa, my upcoming book, begins with Vera and Justin Tolliver coming home to Africa after a honeymoon in Yorkshire, Glasgow, and Italy in January 1912.  I chose for them the steamship Galacian of the Union-Castle Line.

Founded in 1853, Union-Castle operated cargo and passenger ships serving this route from 1900 till 1977, when it went out of business.  The Galacian, built in Belfast, was turned into a hospital ship during World War I.  In March of 1917, it was damaged by UC-65, a German submarine.  A year later another German submarine torpedoed and sank it.

This is a poster printed on metal.  It sits on a shelf over my computer.
I found it on a rack outside a fancy stationary store on an elegant
street between Piazza Navona and the Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome!!!

In my story, arriving at the same time as Vera and Tolliver, is the Grand Mufti of Egypt, a character whose presence plays a pivotal role in the action.  He comes on a different line:  Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linne, which was established in 1890, to compete with the British ships, which dominated the market.

 In the last scene of the book, the Egyptian clergyman leaves Mombasa, this time sailing on a French steamer of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritime (Certainly the most romantic name for a shipping company.   How it sings to me!)  This one even had nicknames—“MesMar” and “MM.”  It was privatized in 1996, and now operates under the totally prosaic name of CMA CGM.  UGH!

The British-India Steam Navigation Company, founded in 1856, sailed mainly between the British Isles and India, but since there was a great deal of interplay between India and British East Africa, this line also served Mombasa.     

I have always said, romantic as I am and with a soul overtaken by historical fiction, I would not want to have lived in a time when there was no deodorant, hot showers, or painless dentistry.  But I would put up with a great deal of discomfort for the experience of steaming through Suez on one of those ships of yore.  As long as I could come back to the present—horrifying as it often is these days.

Oh, for a time machine!

 

Not One For The Ladies? Women in the spy genre

Zoë Sharp

A month or so ago, I came across a piece in one of the national UK newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, detailing the ‘twenty greatest spy novels of all time’.

The books dated from Rudyard Kipling’s KIM from 1901 and Eskine Childers’ RIDDLE OF THE SANDS (1903) up to SLOW HORSES by Mick Herron, published in 2010.

Monument to Yulian Semyonov in Yalta

In between are the likes of Joseph Conrad, Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming, Graham Green, John Le Carré, Robert Ludlum and Len Deighton, among others. There’s the odd more unusual choice, such as Russian author Yulian Semyonov’s SEVENTEEN MOMENTS OF SPRING from 1969, apparently written at the urging of the chief of the KGB as a propaganda exercise that became greater than the sum of its parts. Fascinating to see the Cold War from the other side of the curtain.

But, only one female author’s work makes the cut – Helen MacInnes’ ASSIGNMENT IN BRITTANY from 1942. Interesting that in the short paragraph describing each entry on this list, more lineage is given to Ms MacInnes’ husband, (an Oxford classicist and MI6 agent) than to Ms MacInnes’ own background.

Helen MacInnes and her 1968 novel, THE SALZBURG CONNECTION

Is it truly the case that women don’t, won’t, or can’t write in this genre? Or that the quality of what they do is not up to the standard of the men? I do hope not. But, if not, why isn’t their work more highly regarded?

Some of the first espionage thrillers I remember reading were those by Evelyn Anthony. She started writing mainly historical novels in 1949, but later switched to spy thrillers, including those featuring the female head of British Intelligence, Davina Graham.

More latterly, Gayle Lynds has enjoyed enormous success in the espionage genre, after her first novel, MASQUERADE, was apparently accepted then rejected by the female president of a New York publishing house as it “couldn’t possibly have been written by a woman”.

Libby Fischer Hellmann writes in the crime thriller field, but has branched out in more recent years with standalones such as THE INCIDENTAL SPY, set during the early years of the Manhattan Project.

And when the Robert Ludlum estate were looking for a writer to continue his work, the job went to Jamie Freveletti.

I don’t claim to be enormously widely read in this genre, but surely that can’t be it? Can it?

Any suggestions welcome!

And another point I noted from the ‘twenty greatest’ list – only one book featured a female protagonist. Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise is the only woman given centre stage, with others relegated to the usual love interest/damsel in distress/femme fatale role. Indeed, in John Buchan’s original novel, THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, the character of Pamela/Victoria/Miss Fisher (depending on which of the movie adaptations you’ve watched) is missing altogether.

Peter O'Donnell's MODESTY BLAISE.
I can only hope the novels are better than the dire 1966 movie of the same name ...

Reading the jacket copy synopsis for many books being published today, I would have said there were far more female protags about – I do wonder why they all seem to have to be beautiful, however. Do all male protags have to be mind-bendingly handsome?

OK, I’ve had my rant. Time for you to have your say.

This week’s Word of the Week is goya, an Urdu word meaning ‘as if’ and often used to describe the suspension of disbelief or transportation that comes through good storytelling.

The Miracle Worker

 

Jeff—Saturday

A friend of mine from Switzerland, who’s a big fan of mysteries and Greece, just sent me an email describing a miraculous experience he had a month ago on the island of Corfu. Miraculous life saving experiences aren’t unique to William Griffiths, for aside from having created hand-rub formulas celebrated by World Health Organization in its “Clean Hands Save Lives” program, he’s been present at more miraculous, life-saving moments than I care to say. 

Though some wags might be tempted to say to one involved in so many situations requiring miraculous intervention, “Please send me your itinerary so I know where not to be,” William sees it as another of his continuing contributions toward bettering lives.

Among the many ways he betters those lives is by taking their photographs, for he’s also an excellent photographer. 

At times, William’s avocation overlaps with one of his miraculous moments, as was the case with his latest experience at the concert of his good friend, Greek classical composer Stamatis Spanoudakis.

Here is my adaptation of William’s brief run down of the miracle he witnessed on Corfu. It’s of the sort he labels, “Hazards and Coincidences”:

It all happened on the Greek Ionian island of Corfu on the evening of Sunday, August 7^th.  The concert was scheduled to start at nine, but as musicians waited offstage to take their places, the Bishop of Corfu used the opportunity of welcoming Maestro Spanoudakis to give the crowd of 3,500 fans a half-hour speech. 

[I can just see the audience fidgeting in its seats.] 

As soon as the Bishop finished, the musicians hustled on stage, unexpectedly accompanied by an unwelcome crew of gate-crashers: trees of lightning, roars of thunder, near gale force winds, and heavy rain…the tail end of a fierce storm that brought flooding and 20 deaths to FYROM.

Next to the stage stood a fifty-foot high metal pole holding heavy concert lights in place.  The winds sent the pole crashing to the ground at the spot just vacated by the musicians—and opposite to where they now stood—while rains drove the 3,500 fans to the exits, and winds sent their now empty chairs flying in all directions.

Miraculously, only one person was injured, and he just slightly.

As William puts it, the Bishop’s speech averted disaster, for by speaking as long as he did he’d not left enough time between the musicians coming on stage and the storm hitting for fans to move into the prime spot vacated by the musicians.  Had he spoken any less—or more—the falling light pole most certainly would have cost lives.  

Way to go, William!

By the way, the concert was held on the following night—before an even larger crowd—and here’s an example of Spanoudakis’ music.

––Jeff

The Death Of The Olympic Dream

Another Olympic Games has drawn to a close and didn’t the Brits do well ( not a penny of the 40 million quid spent developing that bike was wasted!).

Once again we were a United Kingdom cheering on our cyclists, our gymnasts and our athletes. Interesting to see that today the newspapers are full of headlines about the death of the Scottish Independence debate due to the 15 billion hole in the Scottish economy that has just been announced. But that is for another day.

Andy Murray was Scottish, Jade Jones was Welsh, Mo  Farah was a Somalian now a Brit and Mark Cavendish is from the Isle of Man (A Manx man- if you want to amuse yourself look up any interview that Mark gives--- that is one weird, weird accent).

What the Olympic Games are now about seems to be a bit of a movable feast. First, the freak show argument. Whether you like it or not, to be that good at some things you have to be on the very extreme of a normal human physique and physiology. Mo Farah has very long tibia and radial bones. Michael Phelps has a very long back and short legs for his height, as well as huge feet. Simone Biles is extremely short with an underdeveloped pelvis for a woman of that age – see later hormone arguments. 

                                              

                                                     Talented but you don't see guys like that in Walmart.

After the Bejing Olympics the British Sports Association put out a call for anybody that was too tall to 'feel normal'. It was  a jokey way of getting hold of those women over 6 feet tall and those men over 6 feet 4 inches. They then sat them in a boat and asked them to row quite quickly and the rest is pure gold.

                                              

                                                     ludmila 

So if that tweak of DNA and freakishness is applauded in gymnastics where it is not seen to be an unfair advantage to tumble quicker and more accurately than anybody else why is that acceptance not universal.  (I have a Russian patient who was a gymnast in the same Soviet training camp as Olga Corbet and she waxed lyrical on how precise a female like Simone can tumble and somersault due to her power/ weight ratio and short limbs. She also knew Ludmila Tourischeva  and although she was a fine gymnast her physique- female with curves and in /out bits - would be incapable of doing what Biles does now with such ease – the physics just doesn’t work out).  

                                    

                                                         Simone

Why do we not accept that it's only a tweak of nature that makes hyperandrogonous women so good at running the 800 metres. The woman standing next to Caster Seminar in the 800 metres must have the same feeling as the man standing next to Usain Bolt in the 100 metres. The best you are going to get is silver. 

So why is one accepted and the other one up for all kinds of debate?

The state of hyper androginism (where the levels of testosterone in a female are 3 to 4 times what is present in a normal female) lends itself to the 800 metre distance. Caster has a 3% time advantage as she starts on the line and the investigations are now being called for into the testosterone levels of Niyonsaba and Wambui who were second and third in the race. There is no easy answer to any of that and the comments of the girls they left in their wake were not helpful. I do have some empathy for the Scot Lyndsay Sharp who ran a personal best in the Olympic final but could only finish 7^th but she DID run a  PB in the Olympic Final and that is  much to be applauded. Shame six others went faster.

                                            

                                                Headlines like this are both inaccurate and unhelpful

 Sharp’s always been a tricky customer and her post race interview and the hugging of the other slim/ white females while ignoring the medalists (Semenya, Niyonsoba and Wambui). Somebody took a photography of Caster,  the gold medallist with an arm outstretched to the  three white athletes and from the look of the photograph, they blanked her and that is inexcusable. Caster is not cheating. She didn’t ask to be built that way. She  gets out her bed in the morning and trains just like the rest of them and she was a human being who just won a gold medal.

                                                         

                                                                 Margaret Wambui, Bronze medallist

I do think sport should transcend all; the black power salute, the  magic of Jessie Owen and his friendship with Luz Long ; 'find my son and tell him the way things should be between men,' wrote Luz in a letter to Owens just before he was killed in WW2.   The fact that a Serb and a Croat can hug each other after being punished over 26 miles in searing heat. There is unification in adversity. And I’m very glad that the Olympic officials hauled Judoka Islam El Shehaby over the coals for refusing to shake hands with his Israeli opponent, Ori Sasson. The rumour is he was on the next plane home.

And on a different note ,  experts say that there is no such thing as the Olympic legacy. Nobody gets inspired to stay fit. Venues fall into disrepair. Everybody thinks about being the new Jason Kenny, buys a bike, sticks it in the hut and goes off to the pub for pie and chips. 

Public Health experts suggest that the money would be better spent on projects such as cycle and walking paths which is the policy of the fittest nation in the world and they only scored a single bronze at Rio (Finland).

So in the true Olympic Spirit I would like to offer some more sports to really entertain the masses;

Synchronized swimming and javelin – the thrower takes a run and sees how many swimmers he can spear.

Taekwondo and trampolining – as they both like bobbing and bouncing up and down for no apparent reason they might as well make it more difficult for themselves.

Pole vaulting and shooting – I think you can see where I’m going with that one.

The high hurdles and the show jumping...

The gymnastic vault  using a real horse to vault from – a horse of the dressage variety

In my youth I have seen my dad and the Scottish cycling fraternity do a training thing which was basically table tennis on a bike. You had to have ridden to the  other side of the table to return the shot. Mark Cavendish eat your heart out.

All the Olympians, I salute you. From my sofa.

Caro Ramsay    26 08 2016 

Seventy two years ago this week Paris was liberated

Denise Damensztein is fifteen years old in this photo. It was taken at Leon, a Jewish restaurant, that operated during the Occupation. Denise worked serving here on Sundays and lived upstairs in the apartment on the first floor. In 1942, her parents and sister answered a knock on the door to the French police. Because they were foreign born in Poland they were on a list. Denise, fourteen at the time and born in Paris at the Rothschild Hospital, wasn't. Still the police wanted to take her. But her father bribed the policeman not to take her with a bar of soap. Denise lived in the apartment for two years by herself, thinking and hoping they would return. She went to beauty school, worked partime at a coiffeur outside Paris. Everyday she took a train and a bus, wore a yellow star as required by law but covered it with her shoulder bag. Downstairs, the family who ran the Leon bistro, fed her dinner and she earned tips on Sunday. Her family were close friends of Monsieur and Madame Bellalisse who ran a leather factory next door to their apartment. Monsieur Bellalisse was a Greek Jew and his wife, a German. The couple treated Denise as a niece during the Occupation. after her parents and sister were taken. Here is the remembrance of the Muguet, lily of the Valley, when the couple took They took Denise for her 16th birthday to the famous Pied au Cochon at Les Halles.

Here are the papers that enabled her to emigrate to the US in 1948.

At the end of the war, now 16 she received her Carte d'Identitie.

At Liberation in 1944 Denise learned her parents and sister had died at Auschwitz. But here she is, seventy two years ago during the week Paris was liberated, sitting next to a GI in his jeep in front of the restaurant Leon and below her apartment. She's the one smiling.

Denise loves chocolate. Here she is a few days ago topping off lunch with a dessert of chocolate mousse.

Cara - Tuesday

The Power of Letting Fuji-san Decide

-- Susan, Every Other Sunday

A Japanese proverb says: You cannot decide to see Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji decides who gets to see him.

All the traveler can do is show up and hope the mountain wants to be seen.

During my travels abroad, I've always tried to prepare a careful itinerary, but also keep myself open to whatever experiences the trip and the country might also have in store for me. I don't believe in coincidence, and I do believe that keeping your eyes, mind, and heart wide open often result in experiences we never could have planned on our own account.

Last year's research trip to Japan is a perfect example of what happens when you decide to "let Fuji-san decide" what you should see.

Six months before that trip, my son sent photos of coffee jelly he enjoyed while studying in Kyoto. I'd never tasted coffee jelly, and envied his experience--especially when he told me how delicious and refreshing coffee jelly was with cream.

I hoped to taste it in Japan, but neither he nor I knew how to track it down (he had it in his college cafeteria, a place I could not go). On our first morning in Kyoto, we went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, and guess what I found waiting for me in the buffet line?

Coffee jelly. With cream.

It proved exactly as delicious as my son had said that it would be.

While in Kyoto, we walked the Philosopher's Path, a road that runs along a canal in the northeastern part of the city. The path is famous for its lovely scenery, as well as the many shrines and temples that lie along the way. My son and I visited each of them, including a little temple called Ootoyo Jinja that lay about five minutes' walk from the beaten path. (In fact, we almost missed it.)

There, I discovered the shrine is dedicated to Okuninushi--a Japanese god whose story I first read and loved as a child, when my mother gave me a book of Japanese myths. In the story, a field mouse saves Okuninushi's life and helps him win the hand of his true love, Suseri-hime, daughter of the storm god Susanō. (If you want to hear the entire story, I blogged about it here.)

Guardian mouse at Ootoyo Jinja.

The shrine even has two statues of guardian mice, symbols and messengers of Okuninushi. 

But for my willingness to step away from the path, I never would have seen this childhood favorite come to life.

While climbing the slopes of Mount Inari (at Fushimi Inari shrine), I once more left the beaten path to follow an unmarked trail into the trees. Though clearly meant for visitors, it wasn't the pilgrim trail up the mountain, and I was the only one who took the route.

A quarter of a mile ahead, through an old-growth bamboo forest:

The road less traveled, Japanese style.

I discovered a hidden dragon shrine I didn't know was there.

Dragons are excellent hiders.

It was clearly set up for visitors, but none of my research and no one I spoke with told me it existed.

The "coincidences-that-aren't" continued to follow me throughout my trip, from the crows that appeared ahead of me when I approached important spots (in Shinto belief, the crow is a messenger of the gods and a harbinger of their favor):

Waiting for me at the entrance to Kasuga Shrine (where I plan to set a novel).

To my tearful arrival at the base of Itsukushima Shrine's Great Torii on the eve of my mother's 70th birthday (she went to Japan with me last year)--where I'd reserved a once-in-a-lifetime evening for us without fully realizing which night I'd booked it for...

... to the magical moment the following morning, when I arrived at Itsukushima just after dawn, as one of the Shinto priests began his morning meditations by playing a shakuhachi (flute).

(I tried to upload the video, but Blogger wouldn't let me - so I posted it on Facebook instead)

The Great Torii at dawn.

Some people may call these random events, but I see a larger plan. Each of them gave me something I had always wanted, but didn't even realize I did. Each of them added magic to an already spectacular trip, and gave me memories I will carry for a lifetime.

Even without these experiences, my journey to Japan was amazing, but remaining open to the adventures that might come along (instead of gluing myself to a plan that left no room for improvisation) the journey itself truly became more important than any given destination.

Sixty-four days from today, I'll board a plane to return to Japan. I'm teaching at the Japan Writers Conference in Tokushima (on the island of Shikoku) October 28-29 and then spending 17 days traveling across Japan to research the next four Hiro Hattori mysteries. Although I'm going with "things in mind" and a detailed itinerary of places to do and things to see, I'm also determined to remember that, when it comes to travel, amazing things happen when we release our grip on "the plan" and just let Fuji-san decide.

(And, since I'm actually planning to visit the Fuji region on this trip, here's hoping Fuji-sama appears for me, for real, this November. If he does, I promise to bring back pictures.)