March 2026 Update

It’s been a month of travelling after the first half in London. Even there, however, we took the train to Eastleigh to have lunch with Claire and Caroline. Claire is now 93 and has gone almost completely blind about three weeks previously but is still impressive and amazing. The second half of March has included Amsterdam, Aachen and Paris.

For museums this month, we saw the Hawaiian & Samurai exhibitions at the British Museum. In Amsterdam, we managed to get to the Rijksmuseum with Gin for the Rembrandt Zacharias and the Ovid Metamorphoses exhibition. Both were terrific. Richard & I also visited the Stedelijk Museum for the Erwin Olaf ‘Freedom’ exhibition. This was remarkably moving and touched on a great range of subjects and situations. And finally in Paris we walked to the Grand Palais for a most splendid Matisse presentation.

For music, there was a thrilling programme by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the South Korean Sun Kim. First was Lili Boulanger’s Marche gaie. A lovely piece, and Boulanger died when she was only 24. Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Moldovan Alexandra Tirsu seemed as if it could not be topped. But the evening’s second half was Rachmaninov’s “sweeping” Symphony No. 2. All in all this concert was an absolute highlight. In addition, at the Wigmore Hall, there was from Ireland, the ‘Ina Boyle: A Rediscovery’ concert with Ailish Tynan soprano; our Paula Murrihy mezzo-soprano; Robin Tritschler tenor; and Iain Burnside piano. All was lovely, and then Paula invited us to the reception. With Gin, Richard & I then had our caffeine at the John Lewis café. In Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, we enjoyed the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Sibelius’ 7th Symphony in C Major, Rautavaara’s 1st Piano Concerto (Yuja Wang pianist), Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and Debussy’s La Mer. This was super, super, super, an incredible programme, the performing soloist in stunning & astonishing outfits, and a most enthused audience, standing ovations and multiple encores.

For reading, I finished Virgil’s Aeneid. This left me wondering if it is something only people nearing the end of life should read. We fight much more cowardly today, but even the combat the poet elucidates is graphically brutal even if a poetic fantasy. Where do javelin after javelin after javelin and the rest continue to come from in slaughter on the field after slaughter? Beside the Aeneid, I managed to read Rex Warner’s Men and Gods: Stories from Greek Mythology. And now it is Gwynne’s Grammar: The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English.

For health, I had two rolfing sessions with Alain. I forgot my scheduled blood test at the Surgery but was able to get another appointment before leaving London. I also had a Sands End Health Clinic appointment, being examined by Phil with Chris in attendance. But the possible injection for sciatica needs to wait until the return to London. And Richard was able to have his dental work with Nick.

Still in London, I phoned Elisabeth who had a bad virus in January & has been struggling since on many fronts. Our family zoom occurred on the 6th. And shortly before leaving the UK, Carlo, Jean-Christophe and Sergio stayed with us in the flat. The first night after Richard and I came back from Eastleigh was dinner at home with Carlo & Jean-Christophe. The following evening at Vardo the five of us had dinner with Ray & Brett. The final evening, Carlo treated us to dinner at the Club. The next day the lads left, but Jean-Christophe’s

father died that night in Marseilles.

For the rest in London, we ran into Simon on the street and then went to his Beaufort House and had cappuccini which was then ‘on the house’. On another occasion, with Marion & Leslie, we had coffees at the Club where I also received two hugs from Lucas. Finally, for this month’s Soteria, it was on F.R. Leavis which was interesting in Leavis’ critique of T.S. Eliot. For me, it was shades of Hugh Kenner at UCSB.

We got to Amsterdam on the 12th. The dinner at De Kas, my favourite restaurant, was with Erdem and was splendid with plenty of negroni. After taxing back to the hotel, Alpay joined us – equally as interesting and captivatingly attractive. The next night, we went to Jimmy’s. Amir was there. Then we all went to the WG Café where we met Benson who is much different than I had ever been led to expect. On the 19th, Gin arrived, and I gave Pierre (Hotel Seven Bridges) flowers for his 80th birthday. With Gin we enjoyed a dinner at the D&C restaurant which was amazingly excellent. The night after this, Richard & I had a perfectly lovely dinner evening with and at Jan & Margit’s place. In Amsterdam, I did manage to pay my Forsters lawyers charge of £9,600 and also to close my ING Bank account. So now I have only two banks in Amsterdam. When visiting one of them, spontaneously we dropped in on Stephan & Koen where we were served coffee. And on our final Saturday evening in Amsterdam, at Jimmy’s, we had our remembrance of Vicky and Santima with Amir, Stephan & Koen, Faye, Zelda and Carole. After this, we trammed to Caramba for an outrageous Mexican dinner with Michael joining us. Our finally night before leaving The Netherlands, Gin came upstairs to us for a paling 5:2 dinner.

When leaving the next day, we got an earlier train to Heerlen but then the train from there to Aachen had been cancelled due to problems in Germany. The train station was huge but no service at all, only automatic ticket machines. Finally, someone told me that there would be no trains to Aachen, so we lugged everything to the bus station (as had happened our last time there because of snow). But the bus station informed me that they only have buses to Aachen once the train station informs them that they have no Aachen-bound trains, and they had not been so informed. So we lugged everything back, went to Platform 1 to wait for the next listed Aachen train. There was another train 3 minutes before ours which arrived & finally left and only then did we see the Aachen train that had been sitting behind it on Platform 2. So we missed that one as well. We got one finally even though the broadcast announcement said that the trains were being suspended indefinitely but at least knew this time to look for it on Platform 2 even though it was still listed for Platform 1. A disappointing finish for what could be my last visit to NL.

In Aachen, we were able to get a taxi to the hotel. We then went to the Dom before having cappuccini. After this, with some difficulty, we found oranges to have with our Monday

night’s 5:2 meal. The following day, we had a good session with Nicole at the bank and then went with her to lunch at Elisenbrunnen Gastronomie. We left Aachen the next day and had no problem with the train, just a wait at the station and on the platform since the train was slightly delayed. I slept a little on the train and then wrote a recommendation for Brandon Taylorian & sent it to Lancaster University.

At the Gare de Nord, my cane got us a taxi after the long and exhausting dragging of my suitcase to the taxi stand. Then as we were then dragging our luggage from the hotel I

thought I had booked in Paris (Hotel de Seine) to the one I had actually booked (Hotel Left Bank), we asked a waiter (Gaea) for directions, and he just picked up my suitcase and

carried it to our destination. This last was absolutely thrilling and delightful. We dinned that night at Le Procope, presumably Paris’ oldest restaurant, founded in 1686 and just next toour hotel. The next day, we visited Saint Sulpice followed by Apple and then with cappuccini at Deux Maggot before entering L’Église de Saint Germain des Prés. After returning to the hotel, we walked to Anahuacalli and Bron had just arrived at the same time. Richard & I had

our usual chile relleno. Bron’s mole was also delicious. Florence, Mona and Anne-Laure completed the table, and we had only two pitchers of margarita. But it could not have been better unless the restaurant could have been a bit less loud. The next night, Richard & I dinned at Les Éditeurs. We meet Florence at the following day at the Tea Caddy.

Our last two days in Paris were completely low-key. We did them as 5:2s, worked online on projects, had some walks, rested and had coffee. My overall wish is that we could develop a greater cultural union – one that would also include Russia as European. For me, it seems as if the world today is in fundamentals a repeat of the feudalism of the Middle Ages. There is the billionaire elite on one end and the rest of us on the other. While the decimation of the peasantry because of the bubonic Black Death plague and the replacement by strong monarchies of the manorial economic system were major contributing factors, it was ultimately the emergence of the business-oriented capitalist middle class that brought about the end of the aristocracy-peasant division. What could serve that purpose today? My

own feeling is to place my hope into a new emerging spirituality – one that is nature-oriented, environmentally conscious and pagan. Although spoken by a villain, Edmund’s opening words in Shakespeare’s King Lear are ones I wish to affirm: “Thou, Nature, art my goddess / To thy laws my services are bound.” Maybe the law of the jungle is the intention here, but the words themselves suggest something viably organic in a greater sense. And, too, there is music. While Richard claims that Baroque music just goes on and on but has no climax, I see it instead as primarily mathematical music. It certainly is not program music such as that of Ravel, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov or Gershwin. But whether absolute or program, each has its own appeal. And even if there can be with musical composition an extra-musical idea or something hedonic, perhaps by contrast mathematical music satisfies the desire that some have for the transcendental. The absolute or mathematical may be its own domain of appeal. The only other thing I can add at this point is my feeling that as a liberating oblivion is probably how an epicurean realist accepts death to be. In other words, the end of life is not just an escape let alone a possible entrance either to transcendence or eternal torture in hell. Along with compassion and the wish to be generous, I do endorse a hedonism that does not violate the sanctity of the earth and nature.