People are Dying to Get In

Death and Taxes
This was the post title I'd originally planned.  Bill and I managed to bring back some sort of French flu and we have languished and coughed for weeks. Bill hasn't run more than around the block for ages. I'm just beginning to feel like a human with a future instead of a near corpse awaiting release.  



I've also been working on my US tax returns (we ex-pats get an extra two months).  Of course the computer rebelled, Microsoft having decided it didn't like the old files with important data.  



Thankfully, Bill is an able computer technician.  I'm probably tempting fate by saying this but the process wasn't nearly as painful this time.  Probably because I'd done a bit of ground work at the start of the year and my files were in better order.  

Touch wood, I won't have just provoked an audit or something.  I know I'm honest and well-intentioned, but I'm also a tightwad and no tax expert, so there is always the chance that I've erred in some way...  But let's talk about something pleasant, like visiting a cemetery.





Pere LaChaise 
The first I ever heard of this place was in reading about Nancy Mitford, who spent her last years in Paris.  Her lover, Charles DeGaulle's chief of staff Colonel Gaston Palewski (who probably didn't much love her), was upset that he couldn't be  buried in Pere LaChaise.  I'm not sure why he couldn't manage it, perhaps the rules were even more strict 30-40 years ago.  




I should have known this 110 acre cemetery was on a big hill; Palewski whinged not just that he couldn't get in, he couldn't get a good location overlooking the city.  People do have funny ideas about death, don't they?  

Given the number of people who have been buried there over 200 years, I almost wonder if it always was a hill.  Of course we did it the hard way.  I've just found we could have gone to a different Metro stop and started at the top instead of at the bottom.  Oh well...

Colette

Oscar Wilde's Grave
There is something a bit strange about a cemetery that doubles as a tourist attraction.  We bought a map at the newsagent next to the Metro station (Pere LaChaise).  It located the graves some of the more famous persons interred within.  I didn't know a lot of them, in fact I only recognise about 20 of the more famous names.  The problem of fame and tourists seems to most plague the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.  They have both been fenced off to prevent further desecration and sure enough we found groups of kids around each.




I was disappointed that reflection on the glass enclosure around Wilde's grave meant I couldn't read the inscription that appeared to give a precis of his life. I was electrified when Bill excitedly exclaimed 'Shelley, his bits!  His bits!  They've chopped his willy off!'  How embarrassing.  I've no idea what 'bits' an Assyrian angel on the grave of a gay man should have, but I didn't want to talk about it at that volume amongst strangers, and I certainly wasn't going to peer closely enough to verify the details.  I couldn't make Bill shut-up, he was having so much fun, so I just snarled that I didn't know him and walked off.  Humourless of me, I know; living in Britain hasn't completely changed me yet. As it happens, it turns out Bill was right.





Cemetery / Park / Gallery
I'm probably a bit weird in that I find many cemeteries beautiful and peaceful, particularly old ones.  That said, I really couldn't enjoy the British cemetery at Montecassino, Italy.  The markers give names and ages and, believe me, it is upsetting.  

Most cemeteries, though, have a longer history and a wider age range.  There are sad stories but also long lives to celebrate and large markers indicating some prosperity.  



People also demonstrate a wide range of ideas in their selection of monuments, from exquisite to egotistical, tasteful to trashy, laudable to laughable (I enjoyed that bit of alliteration).  



Visitors in cemeteries seem to walk - even with their dogs - more sedately, speak more quietly and seem generally more reflective than they do elsewhere. I've gone to Preston Cemetery, our 'local', on a couple of runs and found it made me feel more alive than usual, though I was careful to stay away from anyone involved in an actual funeral.  Did anyone ever see and enjoy Harold and Maude?  




At Pere LaChaise, there is wonderful dignity in these tiny little 'houses' with the family names engraved over the door.  Most seem to just have empty shelves inside, a few had chairs.  Some of the chairs were crumbling with age.  I couldn't help but wonder about the stories behind them.  Some of the statues are as much art as memorial.

Some show the person themself or give an idea of their life's work.  Others express the grief felt at their passing or hope at meeting again in heaven.

This photo enabled me to find more information, just in case you wanted to know:

Rest with Jim Morrison, Federic Chopin or Molière has a price:  2329 euros for a thirty year concession.  3441 euros for fifty years.  And again, this is a base rate with a concession of two meters by one meter.  Concessions are traded in perpetuity from 10,911 euros.

Concession 10 years:  € 688
Lease 30 years: € 2329
Concession 50 years: € 3441
Perpetual concession:  €10,911

Source:  http://www.journaldunet.com/economie/enquete/concession-cimetiere-les-plus-cheres/1-pere-lachaise.shtml

Jeanne Beaudon, AKA Jane Avril

Ossuaries
Where I come from, people get buried and there is plenty of space to do so.  I gather this is less common in Europe and increasingly less common here in Britain where land is at a premium.  Most folks here appear to be cremated and their ashes scattered.  I've not made any decisions about this for myself.  As a kid I always though cremation sounded horrific and being 'scattered' seems very impermanent.  Sounds like I haven't actually got my head around being dead, eh?  

Sarah Bernhardt

However, if those ideas are a little unpalatable, I find the concept of an ossuary entirely chilling.  I first met this idea in John Connolly's excellent book, The Black Angel, which talks about a very famous ossuary in Prague.  Though I've been to Prague several times, I haven't visited and don't plan to.  I have been to one of the old cemeteries there, and it's impressive.

Moliere

What I didn't realise when we were in Paris - and perhaps it's just as well - is that Pere LaChaise also has an ossuary.  Nancy Mitford apparently knew this.  

She teased and comforted Palewski by telling him that it was just as well he wouldn't be buried there.  She said that was where Chanel went to find old bones to ground up and put into her cosmetics.  So, that gives me other than my original tightwad reason not to splash out on Chanel make-up.

If you want more pictures of the amazing sights of Pere LaChaise, here is a video.  I suggest pushing the 'mute' button.

Houghton

Thank you, Google Maps!

UK Roads 
The first day of our trip we set off and drove - well, Bill drove - about 200 miles.  In the old motorhome, that's about enough.  

US readers will think that's quite wimpy, perhaps, but British roads are nothing like those in the US, and aren't likely ever to be.  

I think that's meant to be a herb garden.

 
Small roads that pass farm houses by a few feet have gradually grown into massive main roads.  I often wonder about the air quality it some of those houses and how do the residents sleep with the noise and the worry that some lorry might come crashing through their bedroom one night?  

I just liked how they did the front door...

At one place on the M62 in Yorkshire there is a whole farm in the 'central reservation' of the motorway.  

Terraced cottages with thatched roof covered in chicken wire.

Roundabouts at junctions both facilitate and slow the traffic.  At really large ones with nothing coming, a car can almost zip straight over, but anything like a lorry or camper van has to slow to make the curves.  We were travelling mid-day.  The best that can be said for UK roads is that billboards aren't allowed. 

Another version of the scarecrow?

North and South
In a previous post I mentioned Gaskell's book of this name and Susan Partlan commented on having seen a BBC TV production.  The book is about attitudes in 1855 concerning social class and about manufacturing in particular.  The world has moved on considerably in the past 150 years or so, but there are still significant differences in the North and South of England in work, wealth, weather, health, politics, religion, you name it.  

Romantic window on the Water Close cottages... If it had been 'closet' it would
have been a romantic loo...

I expect the North would love to still have that 'stigma' associated with manufacturing...at least they could have jobs.  Hard to believe that such a small place (England is roughly 500 miles NE to SW) could have such differences.  Just remember all roads lead to London.

Bill commented on the tiny stones that made up this wall.
This isn't really a photo of a Norman church.  It's
actually a photo of BLUE SKY!

Houghton Village
We stayed just the one night at Houghton.  Bill was pleased to learn the caravan site managers were thrilled to see our ancient bus; apparently ours is a rare breed.   

And I complain about the maintenance costs on our house...

The caravan site sits behind a National Trust property, Houghton Mill.  We didn't go inside as the outside was sufficiently attractive for us.  

Another sideways front door.

We took a walk as the rain had abated and found people behaving in a village-y fashion, having a BBQ fundraiser for their church.   On the village 'green' under the old clock tower (with a thatched roof).  You can't get much village-y-er than that!

Yes, I still get excited about fonts...

This is one of the main attractions that the Womens Institute holds for me, being about to walk over to the parish hall and do something village-y.  

Ahhh... the smell of sausages!

It would be better if I'd known everyone in the room for 30 years.  That will of course take time; I just hope everyone stays put (as if...).




The Norman (Anglican) church was of particular interest, not just because of the tiny stones that were used in its construction, but because the spire was of two separate periods, the top part obviously (to him) having been added later.

Houghton is in Cambridgeshire, which though not one of the Home Counties of vernacular geography (I learned a new phrase there) is about an hour on the train to London.  On our return stop there Bill commented that most of the residents at 8pm seemed to either be cycling home from work or going for a jog.  That's what affluent folks do down South, apparently.   

Part XXXIX - War and the Leisure Class

This is part of a series about Theory of the Leisure Class, a book by American Economist Thorstein Veblen.  We are now in the tenth of fourteen chapters, which is titled Modern Survivals of Prowess.  

The leisure class lives alongside of, not as part of, the industrial community.  When Veblen says the relationship is pecuniary rather than industrial, he’s talking about the financing, or the ownership or maybe a position on the Board of Directors.  

"Admission to the [leisure] class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes – aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability."  

He suggests that the population of the leisure class changes through ‘selective sifting of the human material’ but that the overall scheme of their lifestyle continues to be a heritage from the past, embodying ‘habits and ideals of the earlier barbarian period’.  These ideals are also passed on to the lower orders to a greater or lesser extent. 

The most obvious aptitude from the barbarian age is that of fighting, of making war. 

“In cases where the predatory activity is a collective one, this propensity is frequently called the martial spirit, or, latterly, patriotism. It needs no insistence to find assent to the proposition that in the countries of civilized Europe the hereditary leisure class is endowed with this martial spirit in a higher degree than the middle classes.”

Veblen says that war is honourable and confers honour and the admiration of all men.  Enthusiasm for war and the predatory temperament are found largely among the leisure classes, but particularly among those of the hereditary leisure class. 

“Moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation.”

The only class which can match the ‘habitual bellicose frame of mind’ is the ‘lower-class delinquents’.   

Somehow that phrase about the occupation of the upper class being government and all this talk of war - not to mention the use of the term 'patriotism' - caused me to flash back to my last year of high school, my junior year, 1972.  My peers were nearing draft age and the threat of going to Vietnam loomed large.  A few enlisted as they became of age, just to exert that little bit of control.  Others hoped to get into college to avoid the draft, but how to pay for it was a mystery.  I remember feeling helpless.  

There is a bit in one of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher novels, set in the 1920s, just after World War I.  Some old gent says to another "Why don't young people listen to their elders any more?"  The answer was "Because we told them all to go and die."  

  

Of course in the usual times, most of the industrial classes are averse to any other than a defensive fight and perhaps even a bit reluctant then.  The more civilised a community, the less aggressive they are, but they can eventually be roused to assert themselves martially.  Veblen believes that the more ethnically homogeneous a population, the less distinction there is  between classes, and the less war-like they will be.  It could be that any resentment about class differences may fuel the fighting spirit.  Europe, consisting of many nation-states and different tribes, of course is quite war like.  America, being the melting pot that it has prided itself on being, has of course followed suit.

Hanging Out

When I was very young, Mom and Daddy liked a local bar where they could play shuffleboard (that would be deck shuffleboard, I believe).  This practice declined when I got older and couldn't be content with stacking beer caps; I think laws got a bit stricter too.  

Tea with Lucy

 
When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in dance studios, either taking classes or waiting for my parents (who were photographers) or my dance teacher (Mom's best friend). 




I spent quite a bit of time at friends' houses playing in their rooms or in the back yard.  As a child, my entire street was populated by young families with children and we all rode bikes up and down our street, with cars having to give way. 





When I got slightly older my friends from dance class, and somehow the same aged kids of my dance teacher's other close friends too, took turns holding parties that involved a lot of dancing.  Mom let me paint anything I wanted on my bedroom walls and so my friends would come over for a 'slumber and painting' party, sort of an 'at home graffiti' thing.  





Before school some of us hung out at a donut shop near our bus stop.  In the summer, my girlfriends and I walked our dogs a lot, stopping at the regular haunts, usually convenience stores, for cold drinks - Slurpees, I think they were.  




When I was older, my best friend and I practically lived at a pool hall where her big brother worked. My mother was right to worry about this place, I'm grateful to have been left unscathed.  Most of my spare cash went into the juke box, but I learned a lot from my people watching there.  I left them all behind when I started university.





In the summers, we spent every day we could cooking ourselves at the local pool.  For a couple of years my best friend's father managed the local YMCA and I found myself there a lot.  Our local shopping mall, a square with the library, the dry cleaners, a donut shop, the supermarket, a shoe repair shop, a coffee shop, a Mexican restaurant, a few dress boutiques and a convenience store was a gathering place for kids.  

Here in Britain kids seem to hang out in parks after dark or at local football (soccer) club houses, sometimes at Metro stations or a skateboard park. Most are glued to their electronic gadgets, so I'm not sure it matters much where they congregate, since they largely seem to ignore one another, but I'm sure this is not actually the case.  I read about a shop owner who was tired of the kids hanging out around his place and he played a high frequency sound that older folks can't hear to drive off the kids; another just used classical music. 





When I joined the running club, a bunch of us gathered at the pub afterwards one or two nights a week.  I couldn't keep up with their rounds any more than I could keep up with the running; fortunately I didn't need to.  When retirement gave me my precious gift of spare time, it became one of those challenges again to figure out where to hang out.  



The local community centres in the villages up and down the coast all have groups that meet for all sorts of reasons:  dance, exercise, crafts of a wide variety.  I hang out with sewers and knitters and crafters.  Mind, I quite like hanging out at home with Bill, just pottering around, cooking or gardening or going for beach walks.



I know other ladies do coffee mornings at their church or visit stately homes, take bus tours around the region. When I meet up with friends for lunch or a day out, we tend to hang out by visiting charity shops, museums, galleries, coffee and gift shops and lately sewing and craft shops.  

Simply Fabrics, Wallsend High Street

As Womens' Institute members we can visit WI meetings most nights of the week throughout the month and we've enjoyed visiting a couple of other groups to see what they do. 



  

As much as we like the posh places, I find loads of history and interesting things in the not-so-posh places as well.  You know, where you're happy during the day with lots of people around but wouldn't like to be alone after dark.  I do feel that only staying in one's comfort zone leads to a very one dimensional life.  One day Lucy and I visited Wallsend, a mixed bag of a place (birthplace of Sting).  We went to the coffee shop at Wallsend Hall.  It is the former home of Sir G B (George Burton) Hunter, a Tyneside shipbuilder.  It's now an NHS hospital, but I've no idea what goes on there.  We just went for tea and teacakes.  We liked the mismatched tea cups; the vintage vibe is quite popular these days.

Lunch with Vivien

Then we went to find a small fabric shop that has moved around a lot; I loved their window display. Another day I took Vivien there to show her a possible source for remnants.  She and I also went to North Shields for lunch to a very quiet restaurant with a fun lounge area by the bar.  



Where did / do you like to hang out?