Joyeuse Marche No. 4

No apologies for the French titling (the name is Chabrier's for the most gorgeously dotty and lopsided march ever; and that allows me to slip in a by now well-worn aperçu of mine about the connection between the opening of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 and Delibes' "Cortège de Bacchus" from the ballet Sylvia, which EE would have known as a player in Worcestershire 'pops' programmes). This is the fifth time I've joined a demo for remaining in the European Union in a year. I didn't actually march on the first one, only able to turn up in Parliament Square for the speeches in September 2016. The fair-weather progress started for me properly in March 2017, resuming in June 2018 and beginning the parade of the 700,000 in November. They've all been exuberant, polite (this should have been called the 'sorry/excuse me' march), friendly for dogs

and families,

humorous, sometimes carnivalesque (though for that the anti-Trump march took the biscuit). The band above was actually playing 'YMCA', to a big singalong, halfway down Piccadilly.

I gave up on several alternative plans to meet folk, including one to join the West London Group led by my MP Andy Slaughter, which turned out also to include the great Alf Dubs, and came straight out of Hyde Park Corner tube, which once again like the train itself was packed with others heading to make up the million-plus - including my nice young neighbours -

to find the streets closed to traffic. So I headed for a grassy mound at the east end of Hyde Park Corner and immediately got various coigns of vantage - towards Park Lane, where Mrs Mayhem was to be seen spearing the economy with her ever-growing nose

and towards Piccadilly and Green Park.

Only when I saw my neighbour clicking some counter or other did I look at his coat and notice this:

Thought of asking him very politely why he was joining us, but didn't want to risk souring the general sense of well-being which held, as before, throughout the afternoon. There were much more interesting signs and declarations to be read. Many need no explanation, though the first, for anyone who hasn't watched the best entertainment/artistry on telly, is RuPaul's catchphrase for the contestant of the Drag Race week who gets to stay ('sashay away' is the phrase to the loser, which is probably on the other side of the placard- rhymes well with 'Theresa May').

The fearless Speaker of the House of Commons makes his first appearance on a march.

and there's at least one learned reference (bit surprised to be asked who Hannah Arendt was by two friends. Recommended them the surprisingly good biopic based around the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem starring Barbara Sukowa.

And so to the ridiculous, referencing Dumb Britain as represented by Love Island, which I've never watched.

Here's the clip to explain it.

Eeeuw. Time to slip in (not for the first time on the blog) the aforementioned Chabrier by way of intermezzo. I posted my favourite performance, Ansermet's, before, so time for Beecham.

Consumerism wasn't conspicuous on the march, but our delightful friend Orfeuo, just over from the Netherlands, added some retail colours. We met him, appropriately, outside the Ritz, fresh from a shopping spree.

Then we joined the march down to St James's Palace. I had a nice chat with these people, who'd adopted the consummate posters highlighting the tweets of the hypocritical mini-horror clowns for their boards.

The poster campaign was run by the creative heart of Remain, Led by Donkeys. For this ingenuity alone, obviously not my pic as it could only be seen from above in Parliament Square (click to enlarge a bit), I gave something for their campaign - you can, too, here.

Now we approach St James's Palace.

And here the enticing notion of lunch at the ICA took us away from the main procession and along the Mall.

I haven't eaten at the ICA in over a decade. The cafe used to be run by a nice Italian family who served cheap and excellent plates of pasta daily. They were replaced by a table-service-only restaurant with pretensions, no good for fast-ish food. Now there's an excellent restaurant and a fine cafe downstairs, and you no longer need to belong to the ICA or pay for a day pass to get in. Our lunch was splendid, and I met an acquaintances of J, Trevor Horne, and his wife Linda Morris. She happened to be sporting the same Tillmans T-shirt as I was, a first in my experience on any of the marches since I got mine,

and he was bearing, amongst others, the Tillmans banner I wanted to make myself but in the end didn't (the one on the left about Putin, Trump, Le Pen and the now-superseded Wilders supporting Brexit).

Time passed quicker than I realised and I got to Parliament Square just after the last speech had finished. I regret it even more since Heseltine's was one for the ages, spelling out the strong message of peace from one who was alive when that was the driving force of the European project. Do watch all 12 minutes.

I still caught a couple of excellent posters - there are two more 'anti-saints' on the reverses; but can anyone remember what "Saint Theresa" is, and what she was/is to be crucified on? -

and the legendary unicorn just before I descended to St James's Park tube for the journey home. The bike was then sitting with a flat tyre in Berkeley Square; yesterday I got it fixed at the superlative Cycle Republic off Upper Regent Street and while I waited for it to be serviced took a big loop of a stroll up to Regent's Park, around and back on the most perfect of spring days.

Marching for togetherness, with optimism

I've never been on such a good-natured processional (in fact I haven't been on nearly enough protests in my lifetime, but I'm beginning to catch up). You could argue this one was about many things: a celebration of 60 years of peace in most of Europe, on a significant birthday for the EU; about remembering what happened close to the end of the route on Wednesday, and showing what the undaunted spirit of those who came from all round the country for the occasion is all about; certainly about our anger at the Brexit railroading of May and Co, with attendant ingenuity in the more indignant banners. But one thing's for sure - our experience of it was wholly positive, including the delight in walking the closed-off thoroughfares of the West End.

We were lucky to turn up at Hyde Park Corner about 40 minutes after the official start; nothing had moved, and we were ushered to what turned out to be the front of the march. All these pics were taken on J's phone, as my beloved camera had crashed to the ground while I was trying to photograph Bunyan's tomb a couple of weeks ago, and is in for an expensive repair to the zoom lens.

And so round into Piccadilly

where the rise gave a good view backwards

and down towards St James's Palace, where a good shot of J in his yellow waistcoat can't be used here, alas, though this one of three ladies will do,

then along to Trafalgar Square. We hadn't been able to meet up with my goddog Ted and his owners, who as it turned out had gone home after waiting for an hour and a half at the start, but it was good to see so many canines present or represented - note the banners to the left, including 'this cavapoo is pro-EU'.

Funny how few folk we met whom we knew - just a couple we'd become acquainted with last Saturday over Ted's owners' first 'Shakshuka Club' lunch, just after this heading into Whitehall

where although the space for walking became much more generous, we could still see the procession behind stretching back as far as the eye could see, and led by this most vocal of groups

and forward to Parliament Square,

where, securing a place on a traffic island rather than in the Square itself, we heard a policeman saying that the tail-end of the march was only just leaving Hyde Park Corner. And oh, the hosts of golden daffodils, such a nice touch on a glorious spring day.

Couldn't hear the speeches, starting with Alastair Campbell, and from memory of the last lot, they didn't promise to be too inspiring - and very short on the diversity/women front - though Nick Clegg, by all accounts, did a good job. In any case, we had to head off to the National Film Theatre cafe to meet our friends Nats and Danni, who'd come up specially from Bournemouth. Glorious to sit in the sun; happy thereafter and in one's sleep to thrive on the memories of a togetherness which will survive whatever happens next. Estimates of attendance range between 100,000 and 500,000: not bad. We are Europeans first, citizens of the world second, Brits third, and nothing's going to change that. Fingers crossed for the French and German elections - it's looking hopeful.

29/03 The Day of Wrath is here. What better to counter the sending of Article 50 than this magnificent one and a half minutes of what Europe stands for?

Flag-flying on Europe Day

No. 10 Downing Street, it was baldly reported, wouldn't be waving the gold stars on the blue background, as apparently it had under a different regime the previous 9 May; only Vince Cable's lot would set a good example. Cameron's cravenness seemed to be a concession not only to the anti-European wing of the Tory party but also to those dismal organs of supposed popular opinion the Express and the Mail. Not to mention the thousands, it seems, who hate the idea of Europe so much they want to put a bomb under the European Commission Representation in London (as gleefully reflected in a dodgy Telegraph article which I won't give the benefit of a link).

Fortunately, I'm told, the Europe Day celebrations in St John's Smith Square, which has Europe House - the former Thatcher HQ - as neighbour, were marred last Monday by not much more than a stink bomb. I was far too Fotherington-Thomas in mood to notice, having skipped down Whitehall after my first Verdi Macbeth class looking for blue flags, not finding one but then coming across Parliament Square, where Westminster Council had done the 9th of May proud by flying the banners of all the member states as well as their symbol of unification. And how good they looked in the declining sun of a perfect Spring evening.



The light was also picking out the tower of the original Westminster Abbey, so often overshadowed by the Wren-Hawksmoor west end:


And so, past the Slovenian Embassy proudly waving the blue-and-gold as it always does, to Smith Square and its upturned footstool.


Very well, so Dickens thought it was some 'petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back, with its legs in the air', but I like it and have so many fond memories of fine concerts there. The Europe Day concert, performance-wise, was certainly in that happy league, and the 13-year-old Liszt's one-act opera Don Sanche, wisely abridged for the occasion, occasions a bit more than amazement at the competence of its young master, chiefly a memorable tenor aria which I reproduced at the foot of my Arts Desk 'buzz' piece about the event and am happy to regurgitate here. No credit's given to the tenor, but he's good.



Catchy, no? More so than the duffer output of Donizetti, at any rate. For more detail, see the TAD article; I'll leave you with a shot of the excellent young soloists from the European Opera Centre along with the beaming players of the European Union Youth Orchestra - whose cellos and basses found fun even in their endless V-Is - conducted by Laurent Pillot (no, I wasn't snapping during the performance; this one's a publicity shot commissioned by the hosts).


Worth reporting that, although I don't much like standing for anything except a great performance, the EUYO's pure rendition of that orchestral portion of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony serving as Europe's 'Ode to Joy' brought many people not only to their feet but also to the brink of tears. Not me, but still I could see the good in welcoming an anthem that celebrates not narrow nationality but universal brotherhood.