Fete des lumieres

There is no quarter given to vegetarians in Lyon. A city legendary for its meaty gastronomy, at times I was reduced to eating half a round of brie at a meal. Not even a mild piece of fish made it to some menus except for the Norwegian restaurant that had 20 different ways of serving salmon. Its only alternative was tartare of bison (although it's still a mystery why bison was on a Norwegian menu). Hot veal head and tripe was as hard core as it got. Well, almost. The tartiflette served on the street consisted of heart stopping chunks of lardon, cartons of creme fraiche and cheese. Mr and Mrs B-M, our sprightly retiree hosts were also pretty hard core - inviting us to join them for whisky and liqueurs before 11am. God bless the French and their arteries.


If the food is not enough to take you to Lyon, or the history of the silk trade, or the UNESCO listed old town with its gothic cathedrals and cobbled streets, then come ye pagans to worship mammon and light at the annual Fete des Lumieres. Banish economic crises and corruption and the demise of democracy by playing gigantic pinball on an entire courtyard. Wind down alleyways past floating elephants and walls that melt and twist and burn. Hard surfaces submerge into underwater worlds. Trees become kaleidoscopes. Bodies become candles. Hands become black from eating roast chestnuts and tummies become so warm from the vin chaud that you will no longer feel your feet. And just when you think it couldn't get any better ... someone will put Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas' on the sound system. So we dance and remember what enchantment feels like as fairy lights lead the way home.

Lines on a map ... Part I

It took seven years before I could summon up the will to go back to the Occupied Territories of Palestine. The memories of endless checkpoints and searches, being asked the same questions (where are you from? where are you staying? do you know anyone in the West Bank?), never being able to calibrate my emotions with colleagues because you never know what mood people will be in (was there a raid during the night? is money tight again? has a family member been arrested?), observing the relentless grind of life under occupation and the constant visceral sense of anger, frustration and violence that permeates the entire mass of land known variously as Palestine, Israel, Judea and Samaria ... and I was only there for two months and could at least run over the border to Al Quds/Jerusalem and sit in a pub and pretend I was somewhere else when I needed a break unlike a Palestinian who lives with it every single day of their life.  

But Dingo Baby was keen to find out why I keep shouting at the television every time the BBC roll out the lazy cliches of Palestinians in ski masks holding AK47s, or continuously interviews Mark Regev or an IDF spokesperson and never anyone from the Palestinian or Israeli peace movements. Not to mention their amnesia when it comes to previous Israeli governments denial of the existence of Palestinians (e.g. Golda Meir).

So earlier this year I found myself back in the queue at Tel Aviv International Airport, facing the same questions, only this time with the addition of 'how are you two related?', 'do you live at the same address?', and carrying what I hope is a greater sense of resilience to insanity. Given the current escalation in violence between Palestine and Israel, now seems like a good time to write it up. And Tel Aviv is a good start. It is more relaxed than Al-Quds/Jerusalem. It is Mediterranean in feel with a string of 21st century beach bars and cosmopolitan cafes extending out from 10th century BCE Old Jaffa. Grotty shopfronts hide cavernous restaurants, young couples slow dance in pop up outdoor clubs while football fans watch Manchester United vs Manchester City on makeshift billboard televisions. In the evening, along the promenade, Israeli and Palestinian families are at least in the same space if not exactly interacting.

Helicopters regularly buzz the air as a reminder that despite the relaxed veneer, Gaza is only 70 kilometres away. Although possibly another reminder is the contaminated water off Tel Aviv's beaches. We swam for two days before realising that what the lifeguards were yelling at us in Hebrew was to get out of the water.

We arrived on the 28th April, two days after Israel's 'Independence Day' on the 26th. On the 27th, an African refugee family were fire bombed out of their home by their 'religious' neighbours. Noone made much of a public fuss. The Israeli government is now building a wall along its northern borders, to keep out Hezbollah, its southern borders to keep out African migrants and Sudanese refugees, and along its border with the Occupied Territories. The State formed in order for the Jewish community to escape the ghettos of Europe is ghetto'ising itself instead. 

But no amount of wall-building can contain the divisions within the country. Not only between Palestinian and Israeli, but between Israelis and the growing number of migrants (nannies and cleaners from Southeast Asia, construction workers from China, refugees and sans papier primarily from Africa), and between Israeli and Israeli (secular vs religious; the peace and 'occupy' movements vs the government; Christian Jewish vs Jewish Jewish; the Mizraheen/Arabic Jewish community vs the Ashkanazi/European Jewish community vs the Russian Jewish Community vs the Ethiopian Jewish Community; American Jewish retirees vs Middle Eastern Jewish culture). This complexity in Israel is another part of the story rarely discussed in European or US media and government departments. To really understand the conflict in the Middle East is to understand these tensions and that requires a road trip and lots of cups of black tea with fresh mint and sugar.

The plan was to drive around Israel first and then head over the border to visit the Occupied Territories. The first day of driving on the wrong side of the road is always guaranteed to ensure a good night's sleep, especially if it's hot, if Israelis don't sign post their roads, and if the Hebrew place names are spelt differently to the ones in the map which wasn't detailed enough as it turned out. And it seemed I was doing something wrong as I was constantly honked at by other drivers.

Not withstanding the challenges of contemporary way-finding, it is impossible to travel in this part of the world without being reminded of the passing of civilisations that too, at one time, thought they were indestructible; that too built walls that eventually came down. Caesarea is marked by Sidonians, Romans, Byzantines and Crusaders. Susita, Jericho, Masada among many others, are the ruins of empires that rose and fell as a palimpsest, one layered on top of the other, leaving traces for the next generation to figure out. One would think that this would be a humbling environment for the incumbent State but it seems hubris is a universal condition.

These traces of empire include the stones and chants of the religions of the book that create contemporary arguments over authenticity and possession. Ambiguity ultimately dominates a landscape that desperately tries to assert fundamental boundaries to contain it. Everything and nothing is apparent. It is possible, for example, to be Jewish and Christian, according to Hannah, our host in Tiberius. Yet Christianity sits uneasily in the Holyland. Given the history of Christian persecution of Jews in Europe she prefers to keep a low profile, citing a passage from the bible to illustrate that it's okay to live quietly with your neighbours and then noone minds or notices. Her community refer to themselves as Messianic Jews rather than Christians. Hannah corrects me when I ask how other Israelis feel about her practicing Christianity. She is not practicing Christianity but rather she is a believer in Christ. She doesn't celebrate Christian holidays and reaffirms her Jewish identity. But there are fears that organisations such as Jews for Judaism are gathering evidence to have Messianic Jews expelled from Israel for not being Jewish. Hannah believes she has had her phone tapped and her mail checked. On the other hand, there is an uneasy alliance between the State of Israel and USA based Christian fundamentalist organisations, such as Christians United for Israel. CUFI is alleged to raise millions of dollars each year to support, for example, the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Christianity's origins are centred on the Galilee as the region where Jesus Christ lived and preached. We stand among the faithful in a place that for 100s of years has heard the prayers, the wishes, hopes and desires of the believers. And they come from Nigeria, Fiji, India, Brazil, as well as Europe and the USA, to stand, to heave, to sweat in Tabgha and Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes. They add to the impressions in the mosaic before the altar that signifies the weight of the faithful over the years. And just as they leave their own mark here they also look for the mark of God: the footsteps of Mohammed in Al Aqsa mosque; Jesus in the Church of the Ascension; Buddha on Sri Pada. The believers stand where they are sure Jesus once stood, immersed in chatter and camera clicks and bible readings from evangelist preachers, and then, imperceptibly, there is silence. Prayers rise with the heat while bodies slow down.

We shifted to the shores of the Sea of Galilee for some respite. The African cleaners ambled through the haze, the only movement apart from a swimmer, a guitarist, a card thrown on a picnic table in the shade among friends, a sparrow after the remains of my dried mango, and the sonic booms of the Israeli air force. It is the somnolent air of summer on a divine afternoon in which even as an aetheist I find it impossible to deny the potential of a state of grace, given and received. I took comfort also in learning from Hannah that a Galilean accent is the Israeli equivalent of someone who is known in Australia, derogatively, as a bogan. Jesus was a bogan. Fabulous.

The complexity of Israel's identity crisis is exacerbated by intergenerational cultural change, exemplified in the reorganisation of Israel's once communal Kibbutzim. In Ein Gev, a farm that relies on fishing, bananas, dairy and tourism, a recorded voiceover with an Australian accent recites the history of struggle in establishing this kibbutz. It is explicit in stating that this was part of creating a 'new identity' for Jews: one based on physical, manual labour; one that can then claim ownership of the land that it has worked. This is not the effete identity of the past that some blame for acquiescing to its own death in Europe. But while this muscularity is still reflected in the contemporary politics of Israel, the idea of creating the nation is no longer what holds Israel together.  From 2002, like many other kibbutz, Ein Gev has slowly succumbed to privatisation and the end of the collectivist model.

War has also been used in Israel's nation-building project. In the Golan, another voice-over reminds us of how the Occupation is keeping the area 'clean' as well as celebrating the achievements of the IDF that have occupied this part of Syria since 1967. The UN in no-man's land keeps a token eye on things and gives the cafe on Mount Bental its name: Coffee Annan. For the best Shakshuka in Israel, eat here. Four villages in the distance sit uneasily beneath Mt Hermon on top of which, on the Israeli side, is a listening station known as 'the eyes of the State' (says the voice-over proudly). These are Druze villages which, according to the voice, 'chose to stay and integrate' after Syria withdrew. Other sources suggest that integration may not have been quite so successful as many refused Israeli citizenship.

Hannah, born in the USA originally, was nostalgic for the nationalism of past decades and its common project. When she came 22 years ago everyone worked together and left their doors open. Her fear is that of previous generations the world over: now people are more materialistic and there is nothing left to hold the nation together.

While Hannah may not be so confident about the future she did at least reassure me not to worry about the honking. It's a language in Israel. We cross the country from North to South, from soft hills to harsh light, from desert to sea. On the way a side trip to an oasis in the middle of the Negev finds a psy-trance party for Israel's well-heeled youth. Tanks line up in the desert to practice war and occupation. At Maktesh Ramon, a great gouge in the desert, another disembodied voice reminds us that civilisation, defined in terms of controlling nature, requires a strong government, beginning with King David, ending with Muslim rule, coming again with the State of Israel. The control of nature includes intensive dairies in the middle of the desert, where cows are milked three times a day and showered six to keep cool. Finally we arrive at a city with an airport in the middle of it, a clear sea, blue not red, and another flag just over the water.

In response to Buddhist teachers who are troubled by those of us who collect degrees

Going on retreat is my annual detox but I'm starting to notice some disturbing patterns within the cannon of current Buddhist teaching that give rise to a couple of questions. First, are we really engaged in some consuming, desperate search for happiness as a means to avoid 'the wasteland of life and what it can do to people' as one teacher recently described it? Second, is there really no joy to be found in my thinking self? Must my critical faculties become redundant, to be replaced by a sturdy gaze at my own navel?

I understand that so much of what we think of as suffering is self-inflicted but I come away from a retreat again with the feeling that a whole week of teachings have just ignored the structural. I could be missing something but sometimes it's not just our emotional habits that need looking at. I would imagine that the pain of a woman who has to now negotiate with her partner because suddenly she is doing all the childcare and house work and helping out on the farm, is more about patriarchy and lack of affordable child care than a lack of understanding duality.

It is interesting that there is always a predominance of women at these gatherings (or maybe it's just the ones that I go to). The examples as a result centre on family and child rearing but not women as managers, as negotiators, as leaders, as individuals that may possibly have a life outside relationships that define them (wife, mother etc). And there is a sense of genuine loss and despair for some, caught between rocks and hard places; finding themselves in impossible positions not of their own making in which something has to give, most likely them; women trying to find a solution that doesn't (or maybe does) involve imploding relationships, repeating cycles of dysfunction, trying to find skilful ways of dealing with life.

But it's not enough, in addressing these challenges, to just turn and face our fear of rejection/failure/our parents didn't love us enough. It's about turning and facing violence, poverty and politics. I know I cannot live only in my head, but I still need to use it. And if cognitive knowledge is not what we need why do I hear teachers now consistently referring to neuro-psychology and quantum physics to justify the ancients ... athough I really wish they wouldn't. The Quantum and the Buddhist are two different ways of seeing the same world and one does not have to be authenticated by the other. I know I'm just a novice in this journey towards, or back to, enlightenment, but I'm pretty sure there should never be, in one or consecutive sentences, the words:

Jung, neuroscience, energy essence, yin nor yang, meridian, Chi, Taoism, Buddhism & electrons.

I know that electro-magnetic force is one of the four that hold our existence together, I'm just not sure that doing my yoga outside on the grass is necessarily going to have much effect on my ions, free radicals or electrons. Must I really wade through any more layers of sweetness and happiness and new age gurus before finding that resonating nugget that I can actually hang onto? Must I really be talked at for hours at a time while in the lotus position, regurgitating memories of being dragged off to Church and made to sit and listen to a sermon foreveeeeer? Where's my interactive powerpoint?


I do have the empathy to realise that I am not one of the walking wounded this time for which I am grateful. And who am I to denigrate anyone else's search for a life worth living which if nothing else demonstrates the grace to pass the tissues around the circle without a word to reach the person who needs them. But I'm not sure I need any more pop-therapy, any more blaming of the family for all eccentricities (some yes, but not all). I'm not sure I need any more affirming aphorisms or Californian songs telling me to 'get it together'. I'm definitely sure I don't need any more love stories. We are saturated with love; true or not, authentic or not. What I need, my teachers, is quiet. Peace. Skillful reflection. Enough with the talk. Just let me be with my cognition, my distractions from time to time. It's good for my soul.

 

Big Blokes

Mz Kitty has finally succumbed to the pleading of the Olympic Games organisers and bought tickets ... to the +105 kg weightlifting. Don't blame Dingo Baby. I talked him into it. I know it's wrong. It's like watching Game of Thrones. I can't help myself. Big blokes lifting weights until they throw up is exciting.  

I can't remember when or why it started but it has something to do with Christmas. There is one thing above all others that I look forward to at that time of year (apart from mini champagne puds from the Co-op) ... the World's Strongest Man competition. This has become as much a part of the annual festivities as 'It's a Wonderful Life' and the 'Dr Who' Christmas special.

I have reached such a state of groupie-dom that I found myself making running commentary on Travis Ortmayer's form this year (had to pull out of the qualifiers - had a shocker). Where else would you hear sporting terminology such as 'jacking it up his thighs', or see grown men, very grown, running 100 metres while carrying a car, or eyes popping and noses bleeding in the deadlift (also involving a car).

I admire their absolute dedication to lifting, carrying, pulling and loading ridiculous amounts of weight. Biological limits are overcome and forced to endure by a mind that exposes the body's nature as merely a vessel of blood, muscles, nerves and chemicals. It's a beautiful thing ... like kavadi's hooks in bear flesh, saddhus bathing in glacial waters, and the bloodied feet of endurance runners.

On the passing of souls ...

My Nan passed away a few weeks ago. I can't say I knew her that well having lived chunks of my adult life outside of Australia. I couldn't even tell you how old she was. I think I stopped counting when she turned 95. But I do remember fantastic summer holidays with her in her trailer park home in Wollongong. I remember her teaching me to knit. I remember her teaching me how to place a bet on a horse at the bookies. I remember her quiet observations in the background of family dramas, noting the repetition of history. So this story from Varanasi is for her. She would have hated the place but I think she would appreciate the sentiment that death is just transitory.

At first impressions Varanasi is not so much a holy town in north India as a very dirty, crowded one; the accumulation of 3000 years of pilgrimage and industry. It is famous as a centre of learning and for the rituals of death that have been carried out here on the banks of the Ganges for much of that time. Flowing from the hair of Shiva, the Ganges is holy, created in mythology as a sacred site to which over a million people come each year seeking absolution, to bring the ashes of loved ones to be released in the river, or to be cremated by the river itself. To die and be cremated in Varanasi is said to end the cycles of rebirth and to set the soul free. 

The river bank is lined with over 100 ghats, bathing areas with wide steps leading down to the water. One section is reserved for cremation, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, some 150 to 200 each day. The dead are first washed in the river to clean away the past, wrapped in a cloth that is colour coded depending on age and gender, and then placed on a pyre lit from a constantly burning eternal flame. The further a pyre from the water’s edge the wealthier you probably were. Cremation here is expensive by Indian standards according to my ten year old tour guide, Raj Kumar, mostly because of the price of wood. Behind the ghat are stacks of lumber and the constant sound of axe-men at work. Also behind the ghat are hostels for people who have come here to die.

The presence of the burning ghat has made for a voyeuristic tourism. Note the man with telephoto lens capturing the face of a dying woman as relatives remove the cloth to bring water from the festering river to her lips. It is strangely compelling, probably because the public nature of death here is so different from my English traditions that are marked by a fear of the end of time and a judging god. 

My first viewing of a cremation South Asian style was in Kathmandu. On one pyre a tall man was being cremated; too tall for his pyre as it turned out. As a part of his leg burnt through and fell off, the caretaker of the fire hooked his second leg up and over to prevent it falling off the pyre as well. At another pyre, the flesh of small feet melted and burned through, to be swept further into the flames by the keeper. The coffins that brought bodies back on Qatar airways are stripped down and reused. The clothes of the dead, removed by mourners so that we leave the world as naked as we entered it, are gathered up by the urchins, the lucky one with the bag outracing the others who’d like a share. People washed, laundered, and played next to the pyres, that continued to burn as the ghats were repaired and the river dredged around them. The tourists with digicams captured posing Saddhus and a very good Hanuman lookalike;  the going rate should get them to Nirvana, just around the corner I’m sure. Women weep and keen as an audio backdrop to the guides chatting up tourists before they know they’re being chatted up. Monkeys scavange, their red tumourous arses swaggering over the temple stone. And pervading it all is the smell of burning wood and rushes; the smell of oily BBQ. I have never thought of death or the human body in quite the same way since.  

However, the burning ghats are just a fraction of Varanasi’s attractions. The old city itself is a series of narrow, crowded alleyways with the secular and divine piled on top of each other. There are temples of all persuasions, and the usual stalls selling the usual puja material - flowers, incense, candles, brightly coloured cloth - next to the tailors, haberdashers, sari, pots, pans and stationary shops. There are two ‘German’ bakeries run by young Nepalese migrants where the backpackers shelter from the heat of the day. There are the ubiquitous cows that have right of way and will none too gently shove you out of that way should you be in it. I’m pretty sure it was a puddle of cow pee I stood in after one such encounter but consoled myself that it was sacred.

Adding to the melee is the main Shiva temple. It sits next to a mosque that Hindu fundamentalists believe was built on top of the original temple, resulting in a constant heavy police presence to prevent communal trouble in the name of god. The temple itself is crowded, noisy and slippery thanks to the litres of milk presented to Shiva each day. There are so many lingams inside (stone phalluses representing the deity) that never have I left a religious place feeling quite so irreligious.

The Ganges is also a source of livelihood for local fishermen who launch their boats and nets in the evening to carry out their secular duties. Not that I would recommend eating anything that comes out of the Ganges. Despite its holy status, it’s not a clean place and I couldn’t bring myself to jump in like a good devotee should. I’m hoping that a dip of the hand is enough for my redemption. The Ganges has now made the World Wildlife Fund’s ten most endangered rivers list as a result of years of neglect. Over one million people live in Varanasi alone, a small city by Indian standards but now bursting at the seams. Both up and down stream there are innumerable other cities and villages that use the river as a source of water, food and waste disposal. There have been various schemes to clean it up, including the bits of bodies that don’t quite get the full cremation. Unfortunately, the flesh-eating turtles introduced to take care of the latter were soon eaten themselves. Cycles of life. Saddhus in the pilgrimage site of Rishikesh, upstream of Varanasi, have begun to lobby the government in earnest to take action before the river dies altogether.

It’s well worth visiting before that happens. Varanasi is a sound and life show; a place to just sit and watch the constant noise and busyness that surrounds the peacefulness of death and devotion. Pilgrims come to the banks at sunrise and sunset for puja that at the main ghat is marked by loudspeakers and crackling pre-recorded music. While some bathe to wash away their sins, others simply wash off the day’s dirt. Dobhis beat clothes to within an inch of their life expectancy next to the herds of buffalos also getting a wash. There are plenty of yoga schools for those wanting to brush up on postures, but note to the young woman who was trying out her asanas on the steps of the ghats: there are some positions that just shouldn’t be done in tiny hot pants in public. It’s guaranteed to get too much attention and I’m sure Parvati, Shiva's consort, would not approve. 

All day and into the night, Bollywood songs mix with Sanskrit chants, drums, dogs, bicycle bells and honking geese. The dull sounds of building boats and pyres mixes with cows, goats, touts, tourists, voyeurs and crowds of people seeking salvation. In all the rampaging cacophony it’s hard to distinguish the divine from the profane, the holyman from the conman. I was blessed so many times by saddhus seeking baksheesh in return that I’m sure I’ll live forever along with my family and anyone else I could think of at the time.

But just as the noise seems incessant, move away from the ghats and there is no peace like that found by the river banks at dawn, where there are more rituals as the burning sun crawls out of the plains. Thousands dip their hands or their entire bodies into the water to thank which ever god they choose to believe in that they are alive another day. And there is no peace like an evening boat ride, even with a hundred other boats doing exactly the same thing, reflecting on the meaning of life and death. Tiny tea lights are placed in the river representing the prayers of hundreds wishing to let go of the past and have a brief respite of redemption before the cycle starts again. The lights are carried away down the river, taking our hopes, regrets and wishes with them. Nothing is possibly more representative of the Hindu philosophy of unity between the individual and the universe than to see my single tea light join hundreds of others to become part of a collective sea of souls, including my Nan's.

God Bless America

Say what you like about the USA ... and let's face it, we all do (it's overweight, it's unequal, it's imperial, it's a state of exception, it slavishly clings to a American Dream that has long since died in the arse if it ever did exist, its super-PACs make a mockery of the last vestiges of democracy, and none are so blind as its religious fundamentalists) ... but they really do make the best pancakes.

Cafe Rage

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a gentrifying neighbourhood, with an increasing number of cafes out-competing the greasy spoons despite charging £2.50 for a cup of tea, will very soon attract an increasing number of baby buggies. Now my friends with kids know that I am ambivalent at the best of times when it comes to procreation. I love their kids as long as I don't have to manage them. When they are old enough to have a proper conversation I will take them on long walks in the mountains but until then I have to confess that I just don't find them interesting. And the sky has not fallen in and as far as I can tell my womb has not shrivelled up.

So it should come as no surprise then that when I'm having lunch with a friend in a new cafe on the towpath, and the waitress comes up and asks if we can move, even though we've started eating, because a woman wants to park her buggy next to her table, and it is the equivalent of an SUV for babies and therefore requires our space as well, I'm not going to be impressed. Could the buggy not be folded up and put in the corner? Could she not move to another table (of which there were plenty on the other side of the cafe)? No ... apparently the only solution was our removal.

While my lunch companion, who is younger and clearly less self-righteous than me, offered to move, I have to confess I heard the taut strings of patience snapping inside. It is for just such situations that I have perfected a look that could freeze Santa at 20 paces. As someone who has always had problems coming up with witty retorts at the right moment (usually it's 3am the morning after it's needed), the beauty of the ice stare is that you don't  need to say anything. Needless to say, the hint seemed to have been taken, the baby with its buggy was moved to another part of the cafe out of everyone's way, and even more sensibly, eventually removed from the buggy so it could sit quietly in its mum's lap and cause no problems for anyone. Sorted. 

Explaining Mr Darcy

It is a truth universally acknowledged that once a year, no matter how many times I've seen it, I will sit through the entire 6 hours of the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and wonder, yet again, will Lizzie and Mr Darcy get together at the end. I will go through the agonies of his refusal, her critique, his growing affection, her rebuttal, his acts of redemption, her growing affection, and the final declarative  snog.

What is it about Mr Darcy? Is it the fact that he fulfills a female fantasy of having our bad boy but only under our own terms? Is it because he's loaded and able to supply Elizabeth with the 18th century equivalent of a Bergdorf account and Jimmy Choo shoes? I'm defaulting to sexual selection and strictly biologically induced behaviour and therefore it's not my fault. As psychology studies among university students repeatedly show ... women prefer wealthier men, or at least men 'with prospects', and men prefer attractive women with child bearing hips. Makes perfect sense. Women have to invest in child rearing so we need men who can invest in us, just like a fish needs a bicycle.

So we shouldn't feel guilty about making him pay for dinner. It's just testing his capacity to pay the rest of his life for fish and bicycles. And we shouldn't feel guilty that thousands of us objectify poor Colin Firth, as he dives into a weedy pond to emerge the other side a dripping sex god.

Finnish Saunas and other of life's necessities

After any more than an hour skiing north of the Arctic circle the only way to defrost is to use the sauna. Forget cellulite, sagging flesh and modesty. If you're in Finland, get in, get your gear off and stop worrying. There are of course, basic hygiene principles to follow ... none of which I managed to work out on my first attempt even with helpful instructions in English posted in several prominent positions in the chill out area. (Tip 1: bath towels are out, but the stack of paper towels in the corner are very important).

It's not just the cold that is arrested in the sauna. It's the point at which daily velcro wars, when outer fastenings meet inner fleece, can be forgotten (Tip 2: always put your gloves on last!). It's the point at which the damp sheep smell that comes from merino thermals can be removed for the evening. It's the place where no-one can see me ski, thereby avoiding the look of compassion that comes into the eyes of the Finns when they do. 

I am nothing if not the triumph of hope over experience, or cowardice, when it comes to skiing. To me, a bump on a blue run seems to generate stellar speed. And while the idea of having a nice machine make tracks for me to ski in everyday is very comforting, it was not until the last day that I realised I could in fact step (or skate if you're one of those show off ski skater types who deserve no space in the sauna as punishment for the ungodly grace that was given to them) out of them and snow plough, rather than tumble anarchically, down a hill. (Tip 3: the great advantage of skiing in the off season is that it reduces the chances of such descents causing damage to anyone but myself). No matter how graceful or ungainly the skiing, though, everyone on the trails has the possibility at some point in their day to come to stillness in a landscape that has the quality of silence that only comes when the world is wrapped in snow.

Just as I managed to give up on braking and turning when on skis, hoping that the run ahead would eventually even out and there would be no corners in the meantime, so too with my sled driving abilities, where my dogs adopted the same look of compassion as the Finns. Huskies, apart from having to put up with dodgy drivers, also suffer from a beauty myth. On every postcard in every Arctic gift shop in Lapland are the familiar grey and white, blue eyed standard models. But most in my crew were just a motley bunch of mongrels with a one-dimensional love of running. They really do. As we approached launch time their barking reached the dog equivalent of a jet engine before take off.

The recuperative power of the sauna is complimented by the Finnish buffet. (Tip 4: it is not stealing to make nutella and cheese sandwiches from the breakfast buffet to take with you for lunch). Finland isn't known for it's vegetarian friendliness but luckily I'll eat fish because somehow they don't count. Put it this way ... it's either compromise on the fish or eat reindeer and it will be a warm day in the Arctic winter before I eat Rudolph. This did not stop Chemical Elvis from tucking in however. It is slightly discomforting to be sitting in a restaurant enjoying the bucolic scene outside of reindeer grazing while Chemical Elvis eats one inside. I made up for it with a 'pint of cream with a hint of mushroom' soup, followed by lappish cheese in a sweet cream sauce and berries. If it can be made with berries the Finns have done it, including the lovely sounding cloudberries, bilberries, arctic brambles and sea buckthorns.

If any further solace is needed after the sauna and food, there is that great scientific phenomenon of the Arctic guaranteed to bring comfort during the long winter: the Finnish love of karaoke. Forget seeing the aurora - most tourists spent their evenings sitting out in -20 degrees, under cloudy skies, still thinking they're going to see something, and missing the most fantastic renditions in Finnish of  'Almaaz', 'Walk the Line' and 'Crocodile Rock' in the local bar all of which seem to have karaoke machines and remain at a steady +20 degrees (Tip 5: the bar man will sing the male parts if you need to duet). Unfortunately no-one chose to sing Bowie's 'Space Oddity' while we were there. I would like to have heard that version while sipping on the pint of gin and something (yes that's a PINT) that they serve on tap .... Perhaps a sauna might be better.    

Fiddler on the Roof

As I relaxed into my post-NYE position on the couch to watch one of my all time favourite films, 'Fiddler on the Roof', cup of tea in one hand, remote in the other and Indian take-away in front, I realised that I had probably wasted about 5 years writing a book on managing cultural change. You just need to watch Tevye struggling with what is happening in his family, his village and in Russia at the turn of the 20th century to know everything you need to know:

First, what keeps us balanced on the roof, happily playing our fiddles, knowing our place in the order of things ... TRADITION .... TRADITION (deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee) TRADITION!

Second, what happens when you unpick a thread? Things start to unravel and it can cause great personal anguish resulting in Tevye's wrenching appeal to god and TRADITION ... TRADITION (deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee) TRADITION!

Third, dreams and myths are created to enable small changes to be accommodated - Tzeitel gets to marry the poor tailor Motel instead of the butcher without the help of a matchmaker, and Hodel gets to marry Perchik without asking Tevye for permission.

But fourth, there are limits. Tevye expresses the universal fear that if he bends too much he will break and will not accept his third daughter, Chava's, wish to marry the Russian other.

Fifth, then there must come the inevitable EXPULSION .... EXPULSION (deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee deedle de de de dee) EXPULSION of both Chava and Tevya's community, both of whom now represent fear and the threat to order that generates a tendency to homogenise space and demarcate difference so as to maintain a sense of control and restore the balance.

All this and great music, dancing, and Topol. Save yourself £50 and watch the movie.

Notes to Self for the New Year 2012

1. Remember that the world will not end ... It will just be different.

2. Remember that we have survived numerous governments in the past who have replaced spine with political expediency or which have been held upright by torrents of irrational venom. They too will pass.

3. Remember that said spineless or vengeful governments do cause injury to those vulnerable to their Manichaean world view and, while they will pass, the damage they wreak in the present must be challenged at all times. Occupy, reappropriate, land, words, hearts and minds.

4. Remember that all real dissent takes time ... Patience really is a virtue and real change is not fast food.

5. Take the 66 days holiday owing to me ... Work will not fall apart if I'm not there.

6. See more live music (I know I say that every year but have just discovered the very funky jazz cafe in Camden, and the uber-funky 'tortured soul' from Brooklyn, NY, not to mention Jazzie B as the late night DJ - my feet hurt from the dancing).

7. Make more chutney.