Published Friday 3rd October 2025 10月3日金曜日

One of the strange things about being self-employed is that you don’t have to feel guilty putting your feet up on a public holiday. Like today, which is “Day of German Unity” Tag der Deutschen Einheit 🍺. Unfortunately though, if you look at voting patterns across the whole country it is quite clear that West-East division is still there – mentally at least.

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⇒ I’ve just sung my first concert with the Frankfurt Figuralchor, in a concert venue I didn’t know existed, and a list of works which I had never sung in my life before. Starting in full German romantic (Sehnsucht /Franz Schubert) sung from the balcony with 2 tenor lines and 3 bass lines! “Those who know what yearning is will know how much I suffer” – oh how narcissistic can you get…..😅

And if that wasn’t enough we then launched into Wolf-Ferrari’s Rispetto for double choir and soprano solo. The concert was simply called “Süden” (South) and was meant to conjure up the warmth of Italy and Spain as we head into Autumn. Conductor Paul Schäffer had even asked Spanish composer Sonja Magias for a piece. A mystical, atmospheric piece of Mayan poetry Alzo aqui. Wonderful stuff.

Our accompanist James Guey gave us a wonderfully forceful performance of Bach’s Italian Concerto BWV 971 to divide the evening into two halves 🎹 Just as well, for after performing Carlo Gesualdo’s * strange Dolcissima mia vita (My Sweetest Life”) we were going for a real romp with Rossini and his I Gondolieri….

Venue? The Haus der Chöre (House of Choirs) in North Frankfurt. Sold out.

* Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa 1566-1613. An Italian nobleman famous not only for his unusual madrigals, but for killing his first wife and her lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto . Hmm.

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⇒ Yes, talking about Sehnsucht we’ve now entered that season of Autumn, with that faint sense of yearning for the past summer warmth, but a shift to new colours and energy…..

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In Japan it’s still T-shirts et al, though the bold red of the Higanbana Red tiger Lily (ひがんばな) marks the new season….

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⇒ This is all in stark contrast to being in West Sussex just over 3 weeks ago……..

Our last stop had been to visit family in Chichester. On the face of it a quintessential English cathedral town. The natural harbour nearby was used by the Romans, who also laid out the grid pattern of the main streets. The medieval marketplace is the sign of a prosperous past, and the ancient cathedral has an unexpected link with Germany.

⇒ In the 1930s, the Bishop of this cathedral was a man named George Bell. He stands out as somebody who repeatedly warned the British government about what was really going on in Germany at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bell_(bishop)

⇒ Without the benefit of the social media of today, he wrote strong letters to The Times, denouncing the German Protestant Church (D.E.K.) for accepting the “Aryan Paragraph” under the Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_paragraph.

⇒ During the war he became the international voice for the “Confessing” church in Germany…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessing_Church

⇒ Through his close friendship with Dietrich Bonnhoefer, he was fully informed about the details of the first plot to assassinate Hitler, and asked in vain for support for those involved.

⇒ He argued in the House of Lords against “area bombing” (sometimes known as carpet bombing) of German cities….In 1941 in a letter to The Times, he called the bombing of unarmed women and children “barbarian” which would destroy the just cause for the war, thus openly criticising the prime ministers advocacy of such a bombing strategy (It’s difficult not to think of Gaza today in this context)

⇒ His public intervention helped save Pastor Martin Niemöller from execution in Dachau in 1938.

An exeptional man. A pacifist. Knocking his head against a wall of indifference in British Politics.

In the Bishop`s Garden….

Goodbye to lovely Chichester harbour….

Thank you to Bruce and Vivien for looking after Tomoko and myself!

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⇒ When it was time to return to Germany I chose the Dover – Dunkirk ferry crossing. The white cliffs slowly receded behind me…..

I looked for art where where none was intended…………

What do they need Carbon Dioxide for? I thought there was enough on the planet already. And what’s this… some sort of shrine to the sea spirits?

Unlike most galleries, you can walk over the art here…

That is, if you have managed to open this door to get out on deck…..

And somewhere high above an Air India flight is heading for Haneda airport in Tokyo ⛩️ (it got there, but without any in-flight entertainment functioning) ✈️

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CONCERT

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“…Freude, Freude, schöner Götterfunken……”

Am singing in Beethoven’s Ninth in the Staatstheater Darmstadt on Sunday Oct. 12th (18:00 Grosses Haus) as part of the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck’s Concert Programme …

It would be fun to see you there…..Theodore Browne is singing the tenor solo and Liudmila Firagina is leading the `Cellos…….

Here’s a link for tickets…..https://www.staatstheater-darmstadt.de/spielplan/

As always thank you for reading, and I hope you find it interesting. Comments welcome below. Feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.

章の終わり。 読んでくれてありがとう！。ご興味がある方にはお気軽に転送してください。

See you またね 🚢

nigelwruddock@gmail.com

The End

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終わ

Published > 26th September 2025年9月26日

👉 I think I will let Marcie introduce London. For she is a London cat. She lives in Walthamstow E17. Getting on in years, (13 I think), friendly and always looking for a warm lap. She suggested that we got on the Victoria Line at Walthamstow and head for the Tate Britain Gallery.

No, this isn’t the gallery in the old power station opposite St. Pauls cathedral; this is the original Tate Gallery, 🏛️ just down the road from Whitehall and around the corner from St. John’s Smith Square, home to many a top notch concert 🎼 Amazingly, the gallery is free! The rooms act as a sort of potted history of Britain, as illustrated by the painters of the time. I learned more here than any history lesson at school.

Here is Hogarth’s famous take on the musician trying to practise in 18thc. London……

The Arrival, by Christopher Wynn 1913……

Meredith Framton’s Portrait of a Young Woman 1935….(I don’t like the way she has left the bow on the table – that could be an expensive repair if it fell to the ground)

Which room next?

Just outside the gallery, you get this classic view of Westminster…

👉 And if you hop on a double-decker bus it will take you all the way around Parliament Square and up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.

It all looked very dignified and civilized…as it should do of course.

👉 But the people in the theatre on the right (otherwise known as The Houses of Parliament), are as often as not, responsible for clouds of hot air, which must escape through the Victorian roof somehow. In the Reichstag in Berlin it is collected in a huge glass dome.

Same place, different atmosphere.…. An Instagram post a few days later…..Our bus had sailed serenly around this peaceful lawn, anointed with statues of Winston Churchill and Mahatma Ghandi…I wonder what the latter would have said about this….

👉 Or about the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s conductors speech on 11th September at the Proms……..https://www.facebook.com/646295806/videos/pcb.10161501796275807/1243373267544095

👉 Buckingham Palace, true to form, looked suitably stately in the doubtful sunlight….

👉 The BBC Proms 🎵 were still on in our two days in London, so we took the chance to go and hear the Irish Baroque Soloists and Chorus give a performance of Handel’s “Alexander’s Feast”…..

It was a fantastic concert..👏👏👏. Above us, the acoustic shells gleamed down from the dome…

👉 A side note here: Thanks to delays on the Victoria Line we were late for the concert. 🚉 Emerging from South Kensington tube Station we were allowed to take the underpass which leads directly to the hall. I say allowed, because they had closed it due to overcrowding. Result? The three of us (Rachel, Tomoko and myself) walked the whole way with one other concert-goer and a man in a hi-vis jacket. A bit eerie to say the least….It took us a long ten minutes to walk this through this underground cavern…👻

When we reached the other end it was locked. But the man in the hi-vis jacket (who had been trailing us all the way) nonchalently pulled out a key and pulled back the gridded doorway for us…..Phew 😮‍💨!

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👉 On the face of it, the London borough of Walthamstow looks like any other piece of North London.

It is highly multi-cultural, with many a mosque…(I found a parking space in front of one, having driven all the way from Langen)

many an Indian restaurant……

abundant street art….

including Banksy-esque murals like this one….

..and all easily accessible from central London with an Oyster card (although most people just use their phones these days)

👉 Walthamstow also has a gem. The home of William Morris.

Rather like the designs of Edo-era woodblock prints, his patterns (which were also printed from woodblocks) have reached the four corners of the globe. He lived in the 19thc, and, disdaining the heavy Victorian fashions of the time, set out on his own path, eventually setting up his own manufacturing business. Here is a good example of one of his fabric patterns….

In his house…..

He is still very much there today….

Well worth a visit!

Here’s what Wiki says….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris

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👉 The train to Sussex leaves London via Blackfriars bridge…

…..and weaves its way through the backyards of Southwark…narrowly missing Southwark Cathedral…..

…passing modern offices in Victorian buildings, chimney pots of 19thc. tenements turned chic, and a fleeting glimpse of St. Pauls cathedral dome…….

👉 Sussex is my homeland – my Furusato, if you like. Happily our stay at old friends Lucilla and Graeme coincides with my birthday. It must be many years since I was treated to a real cake and candles – not to mention the cornet solo to accompany it 🎺!

👉 What is there to see in Sussex? Well you would not go far wrong on a rainy day than explore the bizarre town of Brighton. You arrive on a curve at the station. The site was a challenge for Victorian engineers, but of course they managed it….

Stepping out from the forecourt you are met by the cry of seagulls and a stiff wind from the sea. But before descending into town…. what is this?…not another one….!

Underneath the station a rather dubious tunnel reveals a secret : The Brighton Toy and Model Museum. What a treasure trove! All those toy cars and games from my young days..Meccano…Lego….trains….costumes from TV serials…Here are a few impressions….

👉 Descending the hill down to the sea we find another quirky place. A palace that Queen Victoria did not like and wanted pulled down. The marvellously extravagant and decadent Royal Pavilion, built by her predecessor, George IV, in the early years of the 19thc. This was the era of colour – new pigments were available, notably Prussion Blue from Germany and Chrome Yellow from Australia.

George spared no expense and employed these colours in his fantastical scheme – to build a crazy palace with an Indian exterior ……

and a Chinese-themed interior.

Thank goodness the City of Brighton bought it in 1850, allowing us to stroll through it today……

There is also some genuine Chinese art…

You can have a bit of fun here too…..

…exploring colours….

It took a hint from one my young people to get the obvious reference here…….🎙️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKNxeF4KMsY

👉 As you can see from this old print, the palace used to have a view of the sea…..

👉 In the 1840s, a writer visiting Brighton observed that it was a lively, showy and carefree place, with lots of ballroom dancing. His actual words are displayed here in neon pink. The English language may have changed in the meantime, but his message fits the Brighton today 100% ☺️.

The old prints give a hint of the seas experienced here. That has not changed….

And there is still one pier standing….

After the rain a rainbow graces the sky……

….a stroll along the seafront……

and down to the beach….

There is no sand here, but the pebbles make a nice crunchy noise underfoot, with deposits left by the waves…

And here is George again….reappearing in the Lanes…..

Aaah!….Brighton…….

And so ends an August in England…no wait…next week we finally wrap up with Chichester. A beautiful old town in West Sussex.

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Well, that’s all for now. Thank you for reading, and feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.

読んでくれてありがとう！。ご興味がある方にはお気軽に転送してください。

See you またね 💥

nigelwruddock@gmail.com

The End

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終わり

Published> September 19th 2025年9月19日

👉 Hello there! This week I write one last post about the South West of England. Not Cornwall, where all the tourists go, but the quieter counties of Somerset and Devon. After all, if you look at the header at the top of the page you will see that I am sticking to the original description of this blog : ……“life in Germany as an expat, with excursions to Japan and the UK….”

I thought I’d add a little map. It’s all happening around that red pin.

👉 The coast is very steep here, but there is a lovely walk down from a place called Watersmeet (where two rivers do actually meet) to Lynmouth, a harbour town etched out between the hills and the sea. The river looks idyllic, but has been very violent in the past…..notably in 1952 when much of the town was destroyed in a flood.

The teahouse at Watersmeet. Expect china teacups here.

The path is easy terrain, and we met many a local walking the dog…..all gave us a friendly greeting…..☺️

The sun peeps its way into the steep wooded valley…..

….a mini waterfall…..

Moss-covered trees line the route….

Now and then a bridge offers a crossing point to the other side…..

“London Pride” adorns the banks……

The river at times quiet, at times more hurried….

A bottle marks the site of an old mineral water works……

You eventually reach Lynmouth at the sea…a sleepy place with cafés, a fudge shop (so sweet!) and a pier. There is also a steep funicular railway up to Lynton village at the top of the hill.

View along the coast from the pier…

…….down in the harbour in the early afternoon….

But what is less well-known is the remarkable feature just over the next hill – the Valley of the Rocks. A valley plunges down to meet the sea, leaving a skyline of magnificent rocks in its wake….

The base of the valley is flat, and it is here that a quintessential English scene unfolds…..a cricket match….

We climbed up high above, scrambling between bracken fronds and briars, with that sweet smell of rabbit droppings 🐇everywhere…..

….to where a vast vista opens up…..with the land plunging down to the sea….scary!

Good grief. my legs turned to water…..I’m not good at heights, and clung to the rocks in desperation….

I don’t know how they got this bench up here, but you wouldn’t be forgiven to expect the credits of a film to start scrolling over the screen at this point………..Over the horizon lie Cork and Clonakilty in the south of Ireland.

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👉 Time to leave the quiet South West and head for London. We stop at Matt & Sarah’s place in Bristol to return the Ordnance Survey maps, and are soon on the M4. The lashing rain and frantic windscreen wipers soon forced up to stop. And what better time than to take a detour to mysterious Avebury, a World Heritage site similar to Stonehenge. Vast rocks placed in three concentric circles are witness to an ancient civilization…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury

All sorts of strange sights abound here. Burial mounds, a conical hill, and energy lines that connect up to Stonehenge. There seems to be a vibe in the background. People walk up to the rocks and hug them.

The chalk of the Wiltshire Downs reveals itself…..

👉 Well, thank you for following this blog so far. Next week we find ourselves in London and West Sussex …….

さて、これまでこのブログをご覧いただきありがとうございました。来週はロンドンとウェスト・サセックスに行きます……。

See you….Matane….👋

nigelwruddockgmail.com

THE END

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終わり

14th July 2025年7月14日

Note: As I am in the process of leaving WIX, the company which hosted this blog until now, some of you may not have been able to access my last post. In fact you still can if you click on this link https://thetowers0.wixsite.com/blog

To launch my new weblog version I have reached back to the words of “The Bard” as we call him in English.

“…Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

👋Matane / See you!

nigelwruddock@gmail.com

All photos by Nigel Ruddock