Homewards bound ?

 

I hope that the title is not tempting Providence, but I’m checked in largely packed and nearly ready to go. The last few weeks have been busy with all the usual teaching routines. I am very pleased with the enthusiasm of my students, and in awe of their ability to engage in a language which for quite a few of them is not their own. It’s nice teaching note to go out on.

          And, talking of ‘going out’, an Australian colleague sent me an article  in a prestigious English language marine science journal in Indonesia which was largely about me and which ended with a glowing obituary, because I had sadly died back in 2017, aged 76. I was also born in Manchester I gather. Interesting.

          So when I was taken out last night to

a Chinese restaurant by a couple of my long-time ex-students, I was pleased to encounter this which is basically a promise of a long life and lots of money. As you can see the décor was largely given over to gambling. Talking of money  my insurance company finally paid up my medical expenses last may which was a considerable relief.

I’m not as fat as I look in the picture it was just the way I was slouching in my chair. A lot of Ipoh noodles and fish balls to process. One of the reasons why the weight is under control before the fast approaching Christmas splurge is that I’ve been a regular hiker through the Botanic gardens. There are always things to see. Their collection of trees is fantastic and this time in a remote part of it that I had never got to before, I found some delightful parkland with a couple of bizarrely but attractive colonial buildings. One called ‘Iverturret’ which looked like it sounds and housed an interesting botanical museum with to my astonishment housed a collection of really enviable 15-17the botanical books. Surely they must have been replicas, but the notices didn’t say so.

    Another fun day was one out with the navy it was an occasion for naval families but I was shown round by a couple of my ex-students. We visited  a landing ship, dressed overall as they say, and I got in some more sea time by chugging round the harbour in a little landing craft around Sentosa island which Cherry and I liked to frequent for some swimming and beach time. Nice to see it again this time from the sea.

One the memorable events though was not Singaporean at all, namely a stupendous and very large exhibition of the Impressionists at the National Gallery. There were at least a couple of hundred of them. Must have been worth a fortune. They were nearly all from the Boston Art Gallery so I suppose I must have seen at least some of them before as Cherry and I visited the latter several times in our last ten years, but I couldn't  say I remembered any of them. But it did remind me of how much I liked Pisarro, radical revolutionary though he might have been.

         

Another treat was being invited to the Christmas party at the High Commission. It was packed and very British. Carols sung by a choir of little girls from the ‘Brighton School, ’ mulled wine and some really nice mince pies.  And so on that un-Singaporean note, this ends with the usual Season’s greetings, outside one of the shopping malls nearby. But somehow the sunshine and hot temperatures make this look all wrong !

Prowling in the City of Cats

 

My time away in Singapore certainly began with a bang. I arrived on Friday evening, settled in over the weekend, got some groceries, unpacked 3 suit cases and a big box, then packed for a departure on Monday. This was after a morning at work meeting my students for the first time. No time to register and get access to any of the office systems,  but straight off to a workshop on Maritime Law Enforcement  that was organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Kuching, Sarawak.

The clientele were about 60 officers from 5 Southeast Asian coastguards. It sounds tedious but was actually rather fun. I especially enjoyed being part of an inspection team going aboard a suspect vessel, and finding dodgy paperwork, 4 stowaways, three ill and possibly contagious, and the fourth carrying a bag of white powder. For me it was an eye-opener in how complicated all these procedures are, and how sticking to the letter of the law (in order to secure a conviction) makes things so difficult in a boat heaving about on the sea. (Ours wasn’t). The Trump administration’s approach is certainly simpler. Although the purposes were serious, it was fun all the same.

        My lot christened themselves ‘Team Geoff’ in my honour and very solicitously made sure I didn’t fall down any hatchways, There was lots of socialising and good eating, but of course since this was official business in a Muslim country no booze. Here's me at the podium, not wandering around as I usually do.

 However the foreign elder experts ( two ex-naval captains, one Spanish and one Colombian and me ) were recommended a restaurant in the city where we could satisfy any such cravings. It was excellent and so was the food. And then it was all over.

Except for me. I had arranged to stay on a couple of days as I wanted to redo Kuching which we had visited and much liked I guess about 20 years ago. It's supposed to have an association with cats and you see cat motifs all over the place,

statues, restaurant names, pictures etc etc. Staying on was a very good decision and I really enjoyed myself goggling at temples, doing all the museums, finding all the old colonial buildings left over from the extraordinary and amazingly enlightened times of the three famous British Rajahs called Brooks (whose family home I think was near Sheepstor in southern Dartmoor, as different as different could be) who ran the place until the Second World War. Quite a riposte to the all-pervading anti-Empire tropes of today. One price of this which, incidentally comes over very clearly wandering around the memorials in the Anglican cathedral in Singapore. Hardly any of them lived beyond 50, though I suppose that's partly because they would normally have gone back to the UK on retirement. Even so the poignancy is noticeable.  Certainly to judge by many of the street names, the locals have no problem with their colonial past. How about this as the colonnade of the general post office. The only corinthian columns in Borneo.

The best of the museums was the ultramodern Borneo Cultures Museum which certainly had things to goggle at, like this carved head. Talking of heads, the remains of that of the so-called Niah Lady who had been formally buried in a cave  with some rock art of boats an incredible 35,000 years ago was a real eye-opener.  Still on the subject of heads, some of the locals were head-hunters, of course. One of the museum’s displays had 5 of them suspended from the roof of the replica  ‘head house, ’ all blackened by the smoke of countless files, but still just about  recognisable. I presume they were real !

Anyhow enough of Kuching. I have a big class for my elective, the biggest ever in fact. Here are some of them. All very keen and so far at least bright. Very varied, a senior Malaysian policeman, a Chinese naval officer, civil servants from Singapore, a contingent from India and a young lady from Honduras. Etc etc.  The fees here are not negligible, so they must really want it ! Otherwise I have been settling back into the university routine, getting my residency permit that kind of thing.

Not that much sight-seeing so far. settling means getting supplies,doing my bit for King and country with some patriotic cheese,

setting out my work area etc. All outings for a purpose, but I have patronised my favoured locales, got some more tea from the Wang San Yang Tea Merchant, bought some books inevitably, pottered around antique shops and off to meetings in the British High Commission tomorrow. I managed to get a bit more sea-time with the Navy going out on one of the tank landing craft on a day reserved for naval families. I tried to find candles to light for Cherry but nothing doing at either of the Cathedrals or even the Armenian church.

Many of these outings do enable one to get little pleasures like coming across this charming mix of interwar shop-houses with what looks like a 1937 Art Deco cinema squashed in the middle.

But being right next to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, the natural tendency is to take the soft though usually very hot option of having a poke around there. You never know what you’ll spot. It might be working out why the denizens of the ponds are called red eared terrapins. 

Last time I was looking a bit vaguely at a bunch of flowers but became aware of something big buzzing around and managed to get an excellent shot of the culprit hovering above a big flower before diving in so deep only a little bit of black bottom was visible. I am told it was a broad footed carpenter bee. He was about 4 centimetres long. Quite a sight !  

Farewell and adieu

 

The title seems appropriate, even though there are no Spanish ladies in sight. Beth would get the allusion. After an unusually long time at home I am on my travels again – in fact typing this on the plane to Singapore. Although it’s split in two by a short flit home for Christmas, this will be the last long trip away, as I have definitely reached the end of the road as far as this sort of thing is concerned. It’s not that being away in itself is bad, it’s all the opportunity costs that accumulate and await one’s return like assassins in the dark. Quite apart from missing out on precious family occasions, it’s all the domestic business disorder, the garden on the verge of going completely wild and the house on the edge of potentially uninsured collapse. It’s not that my part time gardeners an cleaning ladies have been slacking at their jobs. They have no more spare time to compensate for my absence than I do – a condition that seems to afflict  all of us these frenetic days.

The upshot is that the last three months or so, have passed not with relaxed time sitting about in a sunny garden that I had been half expecting (or at least hoping for) but instead with a blur of activity in all three domains (personal business, garden and house) interspersed with one trip to Sweden and several family occasions in which I could do none of them ! On top of that there was a super-abundant harvest to cope with. In carrots, just as the apples, greengages and potatoes mentioned earlier. My best ever production of copious numbers of carrots that looked just as they should – unearthed the day before my departure, and demanding preservation. 

And in the background of course the unending task of keeping up with the news, lest it embarrassingly invalidates the judgements arrived at in my forthcoming book, now with publishers. So far so good ! Anyhow, by teetering about on the top of ladders painting window in the top story of the house or sawing off the tops of overgrown Thorn trees, endless trans-Atlantic business phone calls (now embargoed by the US shutdown), digging extra flood defences, etc, much has been achieved.  But it was decidedly not a rest cure.

It was not, however, all unremitting hard labour. There were quite a few family occasions to remind me of what really matters. There was the opportunity to participate in the primitive fire banner processions of Sussex with the Cross-in-Hand gang and, more recently, a stay with Team Powell in Burgess Hill with a tour of the fort and port of Newhaven, on a bleak day which made the whole area look like the end of the world. I had thought it was another Martello tower built to keep Napoleon at bay. Actually, it was an extensive late Victorian coastal artillery fort which morphed into a naval base for fast boat operations in the Channel during World War II. It was certainly big enough to have room after room of miliary displays of the whole period. A great place for small boys - with long corridors to run through, spectacular views of the sea down below and any number of mysterious nooks, crannies and rusting bits of aggressive looking military kit.

I also played host to an ex-student from Newport days over here for a course. Now a Captain in the Chilean Navy he presented me with a  bottle of wine, commissioned by the submarine he commanded. It’ll take some resolution to drink something so special. In return I gave him my de luxe special Wiltshire weekend – a guided tour of the Caen locks and Devizes, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral including the Magna Carta, the doom painting in St Thomas’ church, the watermill, lunch in the top floor of he Antique centre, Old Sarum, West Kennett long barrow, Silbury Hill, the stone circle, dovecot, old barn, manor gardens and Church at Avebury ! I had a whale of a time. Even being presented with the first picture of myself outside the front door of the Arts building of my school in the Cathedral close !

I think he enjoyed himself, too. He certainly took lots of ace pictures. I really like this picture of Stonehenge though it’s a pity about the people on the right.  At least he went away knowing a lot more about Wiltshire, than he started with. 

Very interested in the house, and that weird stuff on the roof. He seemed  pleased about all this at least since with a name like Green, he is of British/Italian extraction. Chileans keep the surnames of both parents,  but normally follow the male line). His English is impressively fluent. Altogether a high-flyer. The tour was over 2.5 days and there were more restful evenings at the Peppermill and the Kings Arms of course where  the steak supper for two was good enough to impress a Chilean which is really saying something.

There was, though, a sombre side to my time here with two particular friends bravely battling through a cancer diagnoses and my needing to attend the funeral of a close naval colleague. He was another ex-student, brilliant, and going on to become a law professor, after leaving the service. Much younger than me and a real shock. I suppose I have reached the age where one must expect that kind of thing. I was also struck by the announced death of Shirley Abacaire – an Australian zither player of all things  A bjg name in the 1950s, (how innocent that sounds !) but not thought of for decades and certainly one  that means nothing to anyone now in the family, although it does to me.  The transience of things.  Such news, though reminds me how lucky I am especially after my fun and games in May. It certainly puts an overgrown garden and administrative hassles into their proper perspective.

…and finally here is proof that I made it to Singapore ! The black case, though wasn’t mine. It was brought in from store by mistake by the very nice people running the apartment block. Even I don’t travel with four large suitcases, a big cardboard box full of kitchen paraphernalia and two carry-ons, heavy with laptops etc.

Bonkers in Brussels and elsewhere

  

I was pleased but not surprised to see that the stuffed horse was still there next to the stairs at the back of the King of Spain an old-fashioned pub/restaurant on Brussels’ Grande Place.

But why would anyone want to stuff a horse ?? It’s absolutely bonkers but I have been giving that horse a comforting pat for decades from the first time I visited the city with the Royal Navy staff course back in the 1980s. There must be real story .  He’s still hanging in there a bit more part-worn and moth-eaten perhaps.

A bit like me, I suppose, giving my 20^th (?) little annual maritime strategy package to a bevy of two dozen or so NATO naval officers and associated academics and researchers. I have enjoyed it and found their questions and comments as challenging and illuminating as ever always. It was a very convivial occasions with quite a few repeat punters from Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and so on – but of of new people as well – including one very bright chap from Poland who made his views of the Russian threat very clear.

Also who wouldn’t enjoy Brussels with its food specialisations and Leffe Brun beer. For me there’s always the option of taking along my little laptop and getting some useful work done sitting there in one of the little window seats in the King of Spain looking down at the tourists in the main square and enjoying its stupendously attractive buildings.(I was at one of the small round windows between the ground and first floor of this 1652 building. The other alternative is the fin-de-siecle Grand café next to the Bourse). On both my free evenings,  I spent a happy couple of hours plus doing exactly that. The third evening was a jolly occasion where we all dined and chuntered in the Brasserie St Hubert. It was quite a walk back; associated activity in Brussels and before may explain the otherwise incomprehensible absence of more than a negligible weight increase, after stuffing myself silly on Brussels food and drink for three days….

This trip followed on directly from a weekend at Cross-in-Hand initially to see the annua; parade of the Sussex bonfire societies. The huge devotion to their cause of the members of this society through the year is completely bizarre, so much concentrated enthusiasm for such a weird and potentially dangerous event. Great drumming though !

From Cross-in-hand we went to see a Battle of Hastings re-enactment, which was great fun, extremely well attended and actually interestingly informative. Needless to say,  we were impressed by the dedication, dare one say fanaticism of the re-enactors.

Another set of perfectly sane and reasonable people doing things that looked absolutely bonkers. Like sleeping out the night before in role in a site they said which was as spooky as it was cold.

Needless to say we all cheered on the Saxons. In our case,  this made sense since ancestors of ‘our lot’ were  most likely to  have been living in the royal estate of (King) Harold Godwinson in West Sussex. Either they kept their heads down and gave the call to arms a good ignoring, or they didn’t make it to the battlefield in time like so many others, or they were lucky enough to have survived the collapse of the ‘shield wall,‘  and subsequent slaughter. It must have been one of the three - otherwise we wouldn’t be here !  In the evening Team Powell, minus Barney already at Lancaster Uni came for a jolly evening together. [I missed getting a fuller house of family that weekend because Christopher’s Eurostar train for Amsterdam left before mine to Brussels, but he was at least able to transmit the comforting info that the new entry regulations to the EU were not yet in place at St Pancras and things were quieter than normal.]

All this this followed another busy week in London, when I stayed in a hotel on Tower Hill for a workshop in the magnificent Trinity House where at the last minute I got drafted in to fill in for the key-note speaker on the Protection of shipping.

Trinity House and its immediate vicinity is steeped in history has spectacular views of the Tower of London.

I also managed to ‘do’ four local historical churches, one where the great Samuel Pepys  and his wife were buried. The area was badly bombed of course and this means there are contrasts between old and new to be seen - not least this spectacular view of the Shard looming over the little street and protruding bracket clock  of St Mary-at-Hill.

A bit more unusually I was invited to go to the International Maritime Organisation on the Thames and help the Peruvian navy celebrate  its 204^th anniversary. Here's me with some of  our hosts.

 Lots of chat (mainly with Brazilians !)  small eats, 4 splendid Pisco Sours and some folk-dancing – who could want for more ? Three hours on one's feet though !

So perhaps we're all bonkers in our different ways

Notaries Public and Other Challenges

 

A nice quiet period, allowing some time for a catch-up of business and maintenance issues disgracefully neglected over the past several years. Some of these have proved quite serious and difficult to sort out in retrospect. One was suddenly realising that I had never had a response to my insurance claim for flood damage in February last year. Fortunately, my tendency to hoard things just in case, allowed me to resurrect all this and the insurers have duly paid up. It was much the same reviving a bank account in the US that I had allowed to go dormant, which the bank then had handed over to the State of Rhode Island about the same time as the flood.

Claiming it back from them isn’t straight-forwards. One aspect that ruined a recent Friday was having to have one’s signature witnessed and checked by a Notary Public. They do quite rigorous identity checks, discovering whether one is a ‘sanctioned person’ or not, etc. These turn out to be as rare as hen’s teeth in rural Wiltshire. There was one in Devizes but she was on maternity leave. There were rumours of another in Malmesbury and a definite was known in Salisbury, so after a morning trudging around solicitor’s offices in Devizes, I sped down to Salisbury not realising my quarry was to be found in Castle Road not, as I had gathered, Castle Street – and of course neither of my phones would cooperate. With the help of some very nice people in an estate agent to which I resorted in sheer desperation I managed to locate and contact her and sped off again, leaving my bag (with documents, wallet etc) behind ! It all got done in the end of course, but with some stress !  I was struck though by how very kind and helpful everyone was to me. Perhaps they feared I might otherwise expire as well as perspire (it was a hot day) on the spot.

The other big event was chasing up my medical claim for the fun and games in Singapore in May. It was discovered that their portal hadn’t been able to open up one of the zillion forms they needed and no-one had told me. These people have to be constantly harried I realise, just the kind of thing I don’t normally have time for.

Anyhow enough of that. The other major consumer of time was dealing with the apple crop. ‘Cider to the power of Ten’ the Guardian has called it. Huge crops of apples a bit smaller than usual but much sweeter and juicier. I had major help from most of the family who produced a very efficient apple-juicing combined task force.

The process and the product were on an industrial scale. The result was 60+ litres and we only called a halt because I ran out of bottles and other containers (which included plastic boxes once used for fat balls for birds, milk and wine bottles intended for anti-mole garden edging purposes, and so forth). As much to the point, I and all concerned ran out of storage space. There’s so much in my main freezer (together with greengages, stewed apple and plums) that it started to flash over-loading lights, and still hasn’t recovered. So on top of everything else I had to move dangerous things like meat and fish out into the inside freezer plus two fridge compartments. And there’s still three trees completely untouched !  I have pegged old sheets under them so when the apples fall they can be hauled away straight to the compost heap. Eventually they will markedly improve garden soil, I hope.

Such tasks apart I enjoyed a

Church visit in Somerset with Wilts group, and have now got the hang of how best to avoid excessive rush and competition for often very limited parking space. It’s all about advance and careful preparation !  There’s a moral there somewhere I expect. I like supplying the magazine with photos. I thought this one of the great abbey church next to Downside public school was weird but spectacular, though I must admit entirely accidental ! 

I also like views through open doorways to another different world – like 17th century Dutch interiors. Nearly always there’s something not quite right about my pics – usually not handling the camera properly – so my challenge to Henri Cartier-Bresson may be a bit delayed.

Another treat was a consoling trip to the China ceramics gallery at the British Museum. I say consoling since I had got up at 0500 to catch the first 0615 train to London, only to park offsite (free !) get my oldie ticket in the machine ( for me a real achievement) and find the train was nearly an hour late. I caught the 0640 instead (surprised at the number of passengers) but missed the first 45 minutes of my session on the dark fleet. A light breakfast in the BM members’ room and several hours in the very well organised China gallery restored me and was a real delight. (It’s much better done than at the V&A). Dynasty after dynasty. Terrific. First potters 16,000 BC. Some of their ceramics were as thin as eggshells. Also glorious meticulous glazes like these Tang dynasty Buddhist ceramics 1200 years ago. They could well take back the world, I think. Food for thought. 

  

The final treat of the period was a flying visit from S and V. She is tackling the stone age at school and the intent was do some fieldwork in the Avebury area. Here she is doing some careful measurements at The Sanctuary.

.....And examining the

pagan offerings left in the centre of the stone circle. 

It’s the first time I have been there for decades and looking round the rolling scenery on a grey, damp and chilly day, I had one of those moments of euphoria thinking what a wonderful county Wiltshire actually is, even if Notaries Public are rather thin on the ground.

GREENGAGE SUMMER

 

It’s not that I am a particular fan of Rumer Godden, but I do like greengages. This summer has been hot and dry. Despite the paucity of rain the apples  and plums are both early  and seem to be in prodigious quantity. Fortunately I had a small granddaughter to help one weekend, here she is crab apple picking.  Of course I should have been on the other side of the ladder but her father was close by just taking a quick picture !

That weekend Christopher, Elowen and I did Avebury, a bit disappointed that the Manor was closed after severe flooding earlier this year.  I got some more relief from the oppressive presence of so much that needs or will need picking by retreating to Cross-in-Hand for Violet’s 7^th, a great gathering of the families. This was great fun and a sterling indeed heroic performance by our hosts. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Bateman’s which I haven't been to for decades.

But the presence of stuff to be picked from the garden couldn’t be entirely ignored. On the last evening before my departure for Sweden, I decided to go and see how my poor old greengage tree was doing. I say ‘poor old’ since while I was away in Singapore there must have been a great wind in Wiltshire which blew over  one plum  tree and the greengage tree, the latter so badly that the main root is half out of the ground. Normally I might get a couple  of dozen greengages from  it but only when they drop to the ground as the tree is so big and the fruit well out of reach. So I really wasn’t expecting to see literally hundreds of them lying on the ground with more to come. I have been so busy rescuing the rest of the garden from neglect hat I just hadn’t noticed that part of it.  Sadly, it was late evening the night before a crack-of dawn (in fact at 0300 pre-dawn) departure for Sweden but I just couldn’t leave them there to rot and so collected a couple  of trug-fulls instead of doing the final packing. Not  ideal. Into the freezer they went to be sorted on my return. But I just don’t understand how so  little rain produces so much fruit ! An article in the Guardian said the earlier ripening was because of everything racing through its stages before its winter 'senescence' because of the drought. But that doesn't explain the incredible volume of fruit. Nathan thought it was because this had been a very good year for pollinators. 

            Despite that unexpected last minute distraction, the trip out was completely hassle free, unlike the experience of two of my colleagues with whom I was going to meet up in Copenhagen airport. Their Air Norwegian flight was cancelled and they only arrived 9 hours later, one without his suitcase which he hopes to collect on the way back. So I got the train to Helsingborg and go picked up several hours ahead of schedule from the station there and taken to Viken. This charming little seaside village of old ‘captain’s houses’ – many thatched- around a small marina of enviable yachts – was the same venue as last year’s talks.

Later summer season, sunny weather with a brisk breeze to keep all the Swedish flags and pennants flapping. So I made  myself at home and roamed around until the others arrived and there was the expected welcome dinner. One of our hosts is a really big wheel in the shipping world, and a naval history fanatic. He has one museum stuffed with naval memorabilia and lives in another with a heroic wife whose only revolt is to set aside an ‘Abba’ commemoration room, which one of our number stayed in, a bit uneasily I think.  I stayed in a converted hen-house and made myself at home in the garden for reading diary writing etc.

           

The talks were great – mainly about what to do about Russia of course- I was a bit surprised by the level of scepticism there was about Russian naval prowess, but the Swedes in particular, having abandoned their  centuries old tradition of neutrality are really energised about the threat. The most memorable events, however were the three dinners.. Stupendous food, loads of Aquavit and lots of the drinking songs that all Scandinavian navies seem to like. One went finally to bed in the (ex) henhouse in the back garden usually a touch worse for wear. Weirdly I had the best three nights’ sleep I have had for ages. There’s a moral there somewhere. 

            The last stage of the gathering was for five of us to drive back to Copenhagen airport via two spectacular castles and three maritime museums interspersed with good meals all the way.

The first was Sofiero, in Sweden where the  gardeners amongst us were very impressed by the banks of flowers on display this late in the season. It reinforced my determination once back home and with no book to write finally to get to grips with the garden which has suffered years of partial neglect. Although I say it myself things have already improved a lot. 

Egeskov in Denmark was quite different, ridiculously spectacular though with lots of duckweed in the pond ! Basically mid 17th Century but obviously tarted up a lot in the 19th Century. Unusually we were allowed to clamber around in the roof space. Renovators found an undateable doll concealed up there. Ancient retainers apparently reported a half forgotten legend that were it to be removed disaster would follow. 'Stuff and nonsense' said the 'Duke I'm going to send the doll away to find out how old it is.' There followed a major water leakage which exposed the 2000 oak piles the castle was built on. They immediately started to crumble away. The castle tottered. The doll was hastily brought back and the rains came saving the day. They still don't know how old the doll is. 

After this extravagance of buildings, we ended up in a guest house in  the bleak apparently deserted uncompromisingly modern little maritime settlement near the dockyard that was the basis of our new host’s fortune. It was a far cry from the romantically decayed Swedish castle in a wood last year. But you can’t have everything. I was reminded of those horror films when people arrive in a mysterious town in the middle of nowhere, with no-one about, that has been taken over by aliens ! We couldn't help but wonder if it was like this bleak in late Summer, what on earth would it be like to live in the place in February. The saving grace though was a small hotel with a very good restaurant.

            Appropriately the area is infamous for naval battles and shipwrecks The following day there were two stupendous museums to be guided round, one largely devoted to the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 in which I have always been interested. What was special about it was  that it was profusely illustrated by objects recently brought up from the battle site sea-bed splendidly contexualised by first class research and with a strong focus on the stories of the people involved. Quite enthralling. I got all inspired by this and decided that my next lot of students in Singapore don’t realise it yet but they are going to get an extra lecture on the battle. After yet more fish and chips, to the other museum. This dealt with virtually everything else from a gruesome exhibition on whaling, to the recovery of V2 rockets that fell into the sea on their way to England. it centred on diving on wreck sites. There's an interesting issue here. Should the artefacts be displayed as found, barnacles and all, or cleaned up so the public can really understand what they are looking at. Here's us and the entire museum staff. Real enthusiasts and restorers full of secrets to reveal about their trade.  It was fascinating but a bit overwhelming. After a while we couldn’t take anymore. Overload. After a matey supper with them in the museum,  an evening wander around the Jutland memorial in the wind-swept sand dunes restored the capacity to reflect.

            And then the following morning to the last museum 30 minutes away – the so-called ‘Strandings Museum’ which was almost exclusively focussed on the wrecks of HM Ships St George and Defence which foundered here in a bad storm on Christmas Eve 1811, with only 17 survivors from a combined crew of 1300. It was dramatically displayed and the view of the rudder post was quite amazing. It’s so tall they had to build a 3 storied tower to accommodate it. Lunch with the museums enthusiastic curators and that was that, a three hour drive to Copenhagen airport where we bomb-burst and went our separate ways after a very convivial few days. Back to grim reality and all those greengages.

To the East and Back- for quite a while

 

I’m not superstitious but I admit to having had a slight sense of trepidation about returning to Singapore after my last somewhat harrowing trip there back in May, but this time (so far, at least as I am drafting this in the departure lounge at Changi on my way home)  all has been well.

The fact that ultimately it’s all about shipping strikes you immediately you approach Singapore with the approaches to its several docks absolutely crammed with merchant shipping. No shipping, no shopping indeed.

I find myself getting increasingly interested in all that side of the ‘maritime affair’ now that Edition 5 of the Seapower book is consigned to the hands of the printers. For once I was really pleased with the cover design that Routledge came up with. I got the original picture from the German manufacturer – of one of their frigate designs but the cover designers were really imaginative in what they did with it. I think though that it’s going to miss the Christmas stocking market unfortunately.

The  2.5 weeks I was away were very busy with maritime things, the centrepiece being presiding over a large course for local coastguard and naval types  the naval base at Changi. 140 of them indeed. It was all very matey. Loads of selfies etc, but this one shows us all. I’m in the white coat. Otherwise it was a series of small seminars and workshops in Vietnam and Indonesia. I think the word had got out about my health adventures. Everyone was extremely solicitous to the point of my beginning to get a complex about it. Such things as a senior Indonesian naval officer insisting on holding my hand as I walked down some steps after a meal. I can see why Joe Biden tried to dispel such perceptions by bounding up stairs in public whenever he could !  

That apart it was  nice meeting up with innumerable friends and colleagues from around the region and former students who still seemed quite pleased to see me, which is always encouraging. I hope it’s not just seeing that I am still alive !

But, of course, it wasn’t all work. I packed my time with going round all the Singapore sites I like in my spare time and getting a bit of swimming in whenever possible. The highlight has to be joining in Singapore’s 60^th National day celebrations one extremely hot Saturday evening. The real thing is in August but they put on a couple of preview/rehearsals for the general public. The (free) tickets are like gold dust. The Navy sent Jane, my boss sort of, 4 of them and she added me to the family. I must say it was fantastic. Everything from fly-overs, parachutists to parades of Leopard tanks [curiously for all my military interests I have never seen tanks on a road in a parade before- we don't do that kind of thing]

and an extraordinary sound and light show about Singapore’s multicultural character. A cast of thousands. They impressively emphasise the sense of community that distinguishes the place from other countries in the region. Also the notion of ‘total defence’ – i.e. everyone has a role to play directly or indirectly in national defence, whether as part of the serried ranks of the military services, or as firefighters, police, educators etc. They were all represented by the large numbers of civilian organisations that marched along behind the military.  There’s a lot of talk about we Europeans now having to revive this kind of thinking in the light of the Russian threat. I think the Singaporeans have a lot to teach us one way or another, but I do wonder about how receptive or for that matter anyone else in Europe is to that kind of thinking. Let's hope we don't suffer the consequences.

The other highlight had no such strategic overtones. It was a grand son-et-lumiere about the maritime history and legends of Hoi An in Vietnam, that the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam arranged for us to go and see. If anything, this was even more spectacular. One element I found particularly striking was a very long procession of girls in illuminated conical hats and ancient court dress walking past in darkness to the beat of a distant drum. Somehow they all seemed to be leaning backwards. It was mesmerizing. I just couldn’t see how they did it.  I managed a video of it, but it failed to capture the magic of the occasion and  any case I need instruction on how to attach videos to transmissions like this. This wasn't it, but it gives a taste of the whole thing.

 

Otherwise I did things on my own, at the weekends. Taking advantage of the need to go back to my old and future apartment to collect a suitcase I left behind last time, I popped in the botanic gardens to goggle at strange plants, and have a Tiger at the Bee's Knees..

Of course I revisited my favourite bar on Emerald Hill in front of the old ship-houses. I sat and beavered away on my lap-top in the historic Fullerton Hotel, the old Post-office building, Fish and chips in the Cricket Club, lighting a candle for Cherry in the Armenian church and  a fascinating couple of hours in the nearby National Archives, reading old copies of the Straits Times. I did the first week of 1931 and chanced across two stories that struck me as being more than a touch apposite, both about America. The first was of a Republican congressman suggesting in all seriousness that Britain pay off its war debt to the US by selling them Canada. This elicited the pained response that didn’t this ignorant man realise Canada wasn’t ours to sell ? The other story was about a ban on illegal migrants being allowed to return to the US after leaving to spend Christmas at home. Generally, the US needed to rid itself of these unwelcome and often criminal guests. Some things, it seems don’t change. Instead these stories  tend to support the notion that anyone who imagines that Trump’s eventual departure will ushed in an new age of enlightenment  is likely to be sadly disappointed. Trump is a symptom of the problem, not a cause.

To end on a happier note, I was amused to come across this in the loo in an Indonesian restaurant. Strange to find I have been doing it wrong all these years.