DIARY
ALEXANDRA ARTLEY One evening this week, when pave- ments in central London had become almost painful to walk on, we found ourselves sipping icy lemon vodka in Not- ting Hill at a very jolly Russian party given in aid of the Georgina Tolstoy Family Fund. The interesting suite of rooms in- cluded a red tent room and columns tactfully painted to suggest malachite (the startling green marble of the Urals). The whole thing was an eye-opening example of the novel mixture of austerity and exoticism in Russian Neo-Classical decora- tion. In front of a tall, elegant, burnished- steel stove (mercifully off) a popular trio of balalaika players set about their work, occasionally fortified by very cold wine and plates of piroshki, caviar and other deli- cious fishy things to dip in dill sauce. The music had such charm that one guest eventually drew close to the band and quite spontaneously sang 'Moscow Nights' very beautifully in Russian. When floor-space permitted it, and the balalaikas later began running at breath-taking speed, it was impossible to resist a bit of improvised Ukrainian twirling.
The balalaika trio (called Triangle) has been playing at London parties for almost 11 years and the name comes from the sharp triangular shape of the instruments. Wonderful as these performers were, it was said that no one has ever played or understood the balalaika like Vasily Andreyev, who died in St Petersburg in 1919. Just as Cecil Sharp noted Cotswold villagers jumping about with antlers tied to their heads (and then began to re-invent morris men) Andreyev brought the bala- laika to town, wiped the mud off it and set about 'improving' it. From time to time, some virtuoso players need mechanically to improve their chosen instruments, liter- ally to bear the weight of their genius (like Liszt and his pianos). After he had got the balalaika tinkling to his satisfaction, Andreyev had it manufactured in six sizes, ranging from very small to enormous, and in 1886 formed a Russian folk orchestra in St Petersburg to refresh the ears of the Tsar and of musical people in general. He composed 40 balalaika waltzes and his book, Les instruments nationaux en Russie, anciens et perfectionnes (published in 1900), is still the fountain-head of pure
facts on this subject. Strangely enough, the musical prowess of the Red Army zips along because Andreyev also set up bala- laika ensembles throughout the pre- revolutionary Russian army and in schools.
In any case, this very enjoyable evening in 1990 was in support of a principled English family still very much with us, and whenev- er the balalaika is played well, the spirit of Andreyev runs free.
What a blessing it would be if the looming oil crisis, plus some politicians' need for greater personal security, com- bined to bring back the bicycle in public life. Unlike cars, a bicycle is much more difficult to sabotage with explosives and, in any case, as conspicuous consumption goes out of fashion, the London public would have infinitely more respect for politicians who got to work by bicycle, tube or bus. This government creates the same impress- ion as the American rich. Having bolted together a ramshackle laissez-faire hell for everyone else, our leaders then take them- selves out of it by cruising calmly about in what Hyman Kaplan (the classic 'little man' of New York humour) called 'fency automobiles'. The most endearing political images in my early days were of Ernest Marples and Tony Benn gliding about the business of the nation in bicycle-clips. For present-day Ministers of State whose digni- ty does not permit them to drive them- selves, a 'man in Luton has invented a bullet-proof tandem gracefully to convey these Great Ones from one end of Whitehall to the other.
0 n Monday, a report in the Indepen- dent that many homeless children are not being enrolled at school was not news to those of us who have for years profes- sionally watched the plight of homeless families in Britain with pity, shame and horror. About 164,000 British children are involved and it was stated that in London, 'Get me a lawyer.' for example, one boy was so exhausted by the noise and squalor of his hotel-room 'home' that he spent each day asleep on a school bench. Purely coincidentally, I looked out this week across the Thames from the tiny balcony of a council flat in the Isle of Dogs, now the new home of a hotel family I wrote about almost exactly a year ago in this magazine ('Living from hand to mouth', 19 August 1989). An eighth-floor flat in a severe, though very well-run, Sixties high-rise block may not sound ideal for a couple with three chil- dren, but after living for three years in five different hotel rooms with no cooking facilities, to them it is heaven. Helen (her real name) still has the distracted air of someone recovering from a nervous break- down, but she came to life when showing off the new second-hand stove (which cost £89). Tom (his real name) who was de- moralised by squalor and hopelessness now enjoys working again and is a London Underground station foreman. They still cannot afford much for the children but borrow books for them every week from a mobile public library and encourage them to draw on old rolls of wallpaper. Until the desperate housing crisis in this country is tackled with serious public money, any further government prating about The Family deserves nothing but measureless contempt.
The Bagehot column in the Economist gleefully predicts that in Britain 'the next [general] election promises to be the dir- tiest and most personalised for years'. Ghastly though it is to reduce politics to this sad level, the biros of many young print journalists can scarcely wait. Take the Prime Minister's great 'scientific mind', for example, which has enabled her to pronounce — just like that — on every topic from the future of the planet to whether a district hospital should invest a fortune in some dubious radiological de- vice. Perhaps, like Marie Curie, stirring her great Pandora's vats of pitchblende, the PM once also stood in the eerie light of radium and polonium. Or perhaps like poor old Lister (sweating in the blood, sawdust and screams of the Victorian operating theatre) she made some self- effacing contribution to medical science? Alas, neither of these endeavours will fit the bill. It seems that from 1949-51 the great scientific mind of the Prime Minister was bent over the research benches of J. Lyons & Co at Cadby Hall, Hammersmith, devising squidgy ersatz fillings for shop- cake. Whenever Neil Kinnock's perfectly honest BA is again said to disqualify him from 'intellectually leading the nation', there will be a great universal cry of, SWISS ROLLS.
Previous page
