In September 2022, after a wonderful time at the Sibelius Festival in Lahti, I stayed on in Finland for another week and moved to Helsinki, a place that everyone I know who has been there to told me that I would love it. I did.

I love the way it manages to be a capital city with all the things that I expect from such places – good facilities, interesting buildings, art galleries, a concert hall or two, good restaurants and places where you can just have fun – it has those things, of course, but it also has the feeling of a small town where you recognise people on the streets, where you won’t be overwhelmed by the infrastructure of city life. Maybe it’s the trams! They remind me of childhood toy railway trains, and Helsinki’s trams, are not only very efficient, but they are pleasant and homely, and they seem to be saying, don’t worry we know where we’re going and we will take you home again afterwards too. The trams have a nice life here, the roads are mostly straight and, like the trams, always seem to know where they are meant to lead us.

With the correct app on my phone, recommended by a helpful man at the tram stop, I soon mastered the way Finns buy tickets and check tram times. It made me realise how stressful public transport can be in other countries, less well organised than Finland. Almost immediately I felt at home.

I liked the buildings too. Finland has a great reputation for architecture, the original or unusual take on even more traditional buildings, like this art nouveau apartment building from 1907, just round the corner from where I was staying. Helsinki seems to reflect a knowledge of tradition but with a willingness to try new ideas – even amazing ideas, like some of the buildings I would see a bit later in my stay. But it was also good to see the recently restored 1891 Gothic Revival Johanneksenkirkko (St John’s Church), the largest Lutheran church in Finland, which also doubles up as a concert venue.

The organ was installed in 1892 but extended by the church’s first organist, the Finnish composer Oscar Merikanto, he maybe little known today outside of Finland, but he was the composer of a piano piece, Valse Lente, I used to play when I was a child, too young to know more than seeing the name Oscar Merikanto on my sheet music. Finding that he was organist here at this church, made Helsinki seem even more homely to me. Here is the Finnish pianist Janne Oksanen playing it, I am sure, a lot better that my schoolboy self did – but I remember enjoying showing off with that final flourish when I had to play it in a school concert.

The painting above the altar is A Divine Revelation, the Conversion of Paul the Apostle by Eero Järnefelt, 1932, the Finnish artist who was also composer Sibelius’ brother-in-law.

He painted a portrait of his friend and brother-in-law in 1892. He lived in the artists’ colony around Lake Tuusula, near the Sibelius family. I planned to go out towards Lake Tuusula during my stay, especially to find Sibelius’ House, Ainola, some 38 kilometres north of Helsinki. I wanted to see the quasi-mystical land where the grreat Sibelius found inspiration.

My apartment was not far from the centre of Helsinki, behind these imposing security doors with a handy electric scooter waiting outside.

Through the main doors there was a courtyard and a bicycle park, trams, bicycles and electric scooters appear to be the principal forms of transport in Helsinki.

Upstairs I found the apartment was modern and white like the apartment in Lahti and just as comfortable, with its own sauna too.

I enjoyed the civilised urban environment here in the Ullanlina district of Helsinki, a wealthy middle class district in the 19th Century, with its mainly Jugendstil, art nouveau, architectural style. It is close to the city centre but also to the waterfront.

While I was in Finland, my home country, the UK, kept creeping onto the news. On the 5th September, the television news told us that the British Prime Minister had been forced to resign over his less that serious handling of the Covid lockdown regulations. On the 6th September, the Finnish news told us that Liz Truss had just been appointed the new British Prime Minister. And two days later, on the 8th September, I was watching the regular evening news when I heard about the death of the British Queen, Elizabeth II. Even here, a long way away from the UK, the Queen was the main news of the day. It was a strange experience being a Brit abroad that week when Britain had two prime ministers and two monarchs. In conversations across Helsinki, I was obliged to hear about the sadness most Finns felt about the UK leaving the EU, then I had to agree with the jokes that were told about our apparently clueless politicians and then, finally, I was given heart-felt condolences from more than a few people who held the Queen in high regard. It was a common reaction during this holiday, that it appeared as if the UK was fracturing before our eyes.

The TV news told us ‘Queen Elizabeth II is dead’.

The UK’s troubles kept coming up on this holiday, but I tried to distance myself from the turmoil and, instead, headed down the street to Helsinki’s waterfront which was resplendent in the early September sunshine.

This star pattern on the pavement became the site of my daily kungfu and tai-chi practice – an ideal spot to do tai-chi by the water.

This, my temporary do-jo had a handy coffee kiosk too, so every morning, after tai-chi, there was always a welcoming breakfast of coffee and croissants.

Helsinki sparrows were either trying to be friendly or they wanted to steal my croissant – they didn’t go hungry, but I got the lion’s share.

I was also just a tram journey away from the city centre, a daily journey to enjoy some of the attractions.

Helsinki’s art nouveau Central Station (Helsingin päärautatieasema) and clocktower was built of granite in 1919, designed by Eliel Saarinen (1873 – 1950) and its famous Lantern Bearers statues, (Lyhdynkantajat) were the work of Emil Wikström (1864 – 1942).

The Stockman Department Store, not far from the station, also has an art nouveau facade but a Nordic Art Deco interior – it was opened in the centre of Helsinki in 1930 and it remains a palace for high-end shopping in a Europe where the department store is mostly losing its gloss.

The original architects, the brothers, Valter and Ivar Thomé were killed in the Finnish Civil War between the Reds and the Whites in 1918. They were shot by the Reds in 1918 trying to cross to the White side of the line. A tragic fate for two of Finlands most talented architects.

Outside Stockman is the Three Smiths Statue (Kolmen sepän patsas) (1932) by Felix Nylund – the three naked smiths are hammering an anvil in an apparent celebration of labour with the figures modelled by wrestlers from Helsinki’s Jyry Gymnastics and Sports Club.

A modern ‘lighthouse’ street clock in central Helsinki makes a splendid vista against the jigsaw domed roof in front…I was constantly delighted by Finnish design.

Amazing as much of the design in the central city was, nothing quite prepared me for the beauty of the Kamppi Chapel (Kampin kappeli) – the Chapel of Silence in Narinkka Square – it has become one of my very favourite buildings.

People are encouraged to come into the chapel to find peace and to remain silent here in the middle of the bustling city centre. The interior would have made me speechless even without the silence warning. Heavenly.

I made my way, of course, to the Modernist home of The Finnish National Opera and Ballet, armed with tickets for their new production of Wagner’s opera Die Walküre, the second instalment of a planned complete cycle of his epic operatic tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung or, in Finnish, Nibelungin sormus).

Finland’s national opera company had to make do without a home for 120 years, mostly with touring opera companies supplying the repertoire, but, in 1993, this wonderful new building was opened, the work of architects Eero Hyvämäki, Jukka Karhunen and Risto Parkkinen, on Töölönlahti Bay with state-of-the-art technology and seating for 1350, as well as a studio theatre that seats up to 500.

As with other cultural institutions, like the Lahti Sinfonia and many other music and arts events in Finland, the government, with popular support, sees culture and education as one and the same thing, and they put their money where their mouth is. And, surprise, surprise, the result is not only superb architecture, but great art to put into it. It is now beyond surprising to read about innovative Finnish architecture and design, but also to find out that all around the world there are orchestras with Finnish principal conductors, and Finnish musicians and composers proving that blossoming talent and money are interconnected when a nation takes culture seriously.

No surprises either then that Finnish National Opera has now got an international reputation for excellence and no surprise either, that their new production of Die Walküre was a must-have ticket for anyone interested in opera in general and Wagner in particular. You can count me in on both of those.

I was thrilled to be there for this opening production of the second opera in their Ring cycle in yet another Finnish acoustic that did the musicians proud.

It was a sell-out, of course. I had booked early on the first day of ticket sales, on an excellent, fault-free online booking system that gave me a second-by-second account of where I stood in the queue. It was actually an exciting experience in itself to see the house getting sold-out on the day. Finnish National Opera, I decided, had definitely arrived and the world should listen. Here’s the on-line promo…..it gives you a taste of what was their fantastic but also edgy new production – with world-class singing and orchestral playing under the dynamic Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, with a ringing-voiced Joachim Bäckström as Siegmund, a lyrical Miina-Liisa Värelä as Sieglinde, a thunderous Matti Turunen as bear of a Hunding, and large-voiced magnificence from a bravely punk Johanna Rusanen as Brunnhilde and a charismatic Wotan from Tommi Hakala – with a troupe of punkish Valkyrie maidens to die for. So many terrific Finnish singers along with the German star, Joachim Bäckström.

After Wagner, a tranquil walk by the water back near my temporary home looking over the Baltic Sea, in the part of the world where Wagnerian epics were almost certainly born.

I was perfectly content to watch the sun set over the harbour and to listen to the evocative sound of riggings rattling masts in the sea air.

The post A week in Helsinki – homely art nouveau city by the water. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

This was in June 2022, my first foreign trip after Covid decided to keep us all home for a couple of years. I had been going on holiday to Italy annually for ten years. I love the place, the culture and the language. Cerco di fare uno sforza per parlare italiano ogni volta che posso. (I try to make an effort to speak Italian whenever it is possible). I don’t always get it right – far from it – but I get great pleasure trying to speak to Italians in their own language. I think I began to understand Italy a whole lot more after I managed to hold conversations about more things than ‘excuse me where is the station?’ ‘a beer, please’ or ‘can I have the bill?’ One day, I hope to understand everything Italians say to me.

So I missed the place during the pandemic and was impatient to return to this wonderful country at the first opportunity. Apart from the culture, the people, the landscape and the language, I feel so much better in the Italian sunshine. The coffee tastes better there too.

So, in June 2022, I packed my bags with hot weather clothes, a Panama hat, and my kindle loaded with Italian fiction, and made the journey to Tropea, in Calabria in Southern Italy, determined to relax and absorb Italy’s healing vibes.

Tropea is a small town by the sea in a part of the Italian south that hasn’t been so over-run as some of the other more famous Italian seaside resorts. Consequently perhaps, amiability, humour and relaxed hospitality are still important here, where a favourite restaurant or bar can soon become home.

I know I’m sounding like a brainless hedonist, maybe that’s who I am. In all honesty, it’s one of the many attractions of coming to Italy every summer. Forgive me, everyone, for I have sinned. No, it’s not a sin to appreciate the good things about the world, it’s a duty, I believe.

Tropea isn’t Rome or Naples, but it has most of the essentials for a quintessentially Italian experience.

Tropea is a beautiful place, one of the most beautiful in Italy, according to its award as one of I Borghi più belli d’Italia (‘The most beautiful villages of Italy’). The town itself sits on the cliff tops over-looking the Gulf of Saint Euphemia, part of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

There were a number of concerts here while I was in Tropea, at the medieval Auditorium Santa Chiara – a recital of operatic arias by the Calabrian composer, Francesco Cilea (1866 – 1950), performed by the sumptuously voiced soprano Lenny Lorenzani with pianist David Boldrini, a part of the Tropea Summer Music Festival

There was also a saxophone quintet concert with the Argentinian saxophonist and composer, Javier Girotto. (Javier Girotto – who played a variety of saxophones with Mattia Catarinozzi – soprano sax Alfredo Santoloci – alto sax – Maurizio Schifitto – tenor sax and Giovanni De Luca – baritone sax)

There’s a legend that Tropea was founded by Hercules, no less, when he was returning home to Greece after completing his ‘twelve labours’ – I don’t expect to rival his super-human strength, as in the Farnese Hercules that I saw in Naples in 2020…

…but I do my best to keep as fit and as strong as I can – even when I’m on holiday. The apartment in Tropea had a large terrace, over-looking the town and the bay and, every morning, it became my own private gym for exercises suggested by Gyles Abbott, my personal trainer, and my kung-fu and taichi practise as drummed into me by Kungfu instructor supreme, my friend Neil Johnson.

There was even a handy impromptu pull-arm bar in the bedroom.

At night, the terrace took on a considerably more relaxed mood, a look-out post to watch the festivities below accompanied by a vigilant moon, a glass of wine and a cooling breeze from the Tyrrhenian sea.

It wasn’t all about sun, sea and sand, but I have to confess, after two years away, I felt like Adam and Eve might have felt if they had been invited back to the Garden of Eden.

This blog, with its obligatory Tropea sunset, brings to an end my record of my Italian holidays between 2017 and 2022 – in Puglia, on the Amalfi Coast, in Naples, Sorrento and Milan. I planned to write them at the time but managed to neglect doing so while my website was being remastered. My apologies to those readers who missed the fact that these were separate past trips….if only I could have done this just now as a grand tour as some of you imagined.

I have mentioned Enrico Caruso a lot in these posts, so it seems right to finish them with his voice. In 1902, when this recording was made, Enrico Caruso had just created the role in Maurizio in Calabrian-born Francesco Cilea’s most famous opera, Adriana Lecouvreur at the Teatro Lirico in Milan (1902). Here is Caruso fresh from one of his early triumphs.

A reminder too of Francesco Cilea, whose operas are not performed as much as they deserve.

The post Tropea – taking it easy in Calabria appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

The hot days of the summer lockdown here in the UK have passed but now it’s second time round for the covid-19 precautions and, in classic English autumn style, it has been raining and, more importantly, it has got cold. No excuse to stop my fitness regime though. Back in July I started doing 25 pressups a day and I have carried on ever since – rain or shine.

I do a different variation on the basic pressup every day each week – now I have seven favourites which target different muscles. I plan to do a blog about these some time soon. For now, just let me say that pressups are perfect for daily no-nonsense fitness-training and I can really feel the difference since I’ve been doing them.

I’m a member of a martial arts club here in Lewes, White Crane Fighting Arts http://www.whitecranefightingarts.com/ but the club has had to close down during lockdown. At home, I have continued my daily 66-moves Tai-chi practice which in our White Crane form is really a soft form of kungfu known as Shuang Yang Bai Hè Rou Ruan Quan or White Crane Soft Boxing. The aim is not just to look gracefully elegant (unlikely in my case) but also to use the soft martial techniques not just for self-defence but for fitness. It is a method I have been doing for a long time now and, hopefully, I will be able to carry on (and improve) for the rest of my life, even into extreme old age.

I am not allowed to do Kungfu full-contact sparring any longer because of the brain haemorrhage I suffered 12 years ago, but I have continued to practice my four White Crane Kungfu patterns and hope, one day, to learn a few more. I go through them every morning after Tai-chi and my 25 pressups. I have never been much good at it, but I have done it and enjoyed it for so long now, that it is a permanent part of my self-image. It is still useful too – a few years ago, I used a lower crane block to dispatch a pick-pocket on the Pont du Nord bridge in Paris.

I end my morning sessions with a set of fourteen moving-meditation exercises said to have been invented by a 5th or 6th century Buddhist monk known as Da Mo (or Bodhidharma) who is said to have brought Buddhism and martial arts from India to China. These exercises, are a bit like Tai-chi in that they are supposed to look calm and gentle but they are, in fact, really difficult and what your muscles would recognise as hard work. The fourteen exercises involve doing various stretches and moves which use the whole body, in horse stance, knees bent, whilst regulating the breath and letting the mind focus on abstraction. I’m far from getting the posture right, but I’m still trying. One day, I might get to the abstraction bit, but, for now, it’s enough to get through them in a state of calm while those leg muscles are screaming stop this madness now.

These morning exercises are a supplement to my two hour-long personal trainer sessions a week with Gyles Abbott of Soul Fit in Lewes who has been putting me through a custom-built fitness routine which has grown incrementally now for nearly three years as I have got fitter. https://www.wearesoulfit.com/personal-training During lockdown we are meeting either in the park or on Zoom. It is really enjoyable if you like to feel your body performing in the way it was designed. I am getting there, I think.

When each morning session is over, I promise you, breakfast and coffee taste better than you can imagine. And I don’t feel so guilty about spending so much time writing at my computer these days…the other advantage of lockdown, is that there are few distractions from getting on with the 5th draft of my fourth novel.

The post The second Covid-19 lockdown here in the UK allows me to work at staying fit. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I’ve been trying to get back to full fitness now for twenty months, nearly two years, after a difficult eight or so years of ill-health. A brain haemorrhage in 2008, and a pulmonary embolism a few years later, in 2013/14, left me pretty winded and it’s was often effort enough to walk, let alone run, but I was determined to fight back even though the going has often been tough.

There were three or so years when I struggled but managed to keep going with my Tai-chi form even though I didn’t go back to my Kungfu Club on a regular basis until last year. The doctor said I shouldn’t return to Kungfu because of the post brain haemorrhage risk, this was a blow, as I owed a lot of my pre-haemorrhage fitness to my martial arts training. But, I still practice my Kungfu patterns and Tai-chi has been always been there, like a helping hand leading me onwards. For over a year now, I have been going back to Neil Johnson’s White Cane Fighting Arts Club, http://www.whitecranefightingarts.com/ in Lewes, for Tai-chi classes. OI have been a member here, with a few dramatic interruptions, for over fifteen years. It was quite a struggle at first, but recently, I have started to get back to somewhere like ‘not bad’.

Tai-chi has become one of my three weekly fitness sessions, the second class is a vigorous hour with a personal trainer at Soul Fit, https://www.wearesoulfit.com/the-studio also in Lewes.

I started to get back to aerobic fitness by taking on a personal trainer, Gyles Abbott, in January 2018, who has been putting me through my paces once a week for an hour a session. I am amazed, even if no one else is, by the results I (or rather Gyles and I) have achieved in that time in his well-equipped torture-chamber.

The third of my weekly sessions is more recent – for five weeks now, I’ve returned to running, an old enthusiasm that I feared will now be beyond me. Well, ‘not bad’ is probably how I’d describe my progress so far. Actually, I’m doing much better than I dared predict.

My last run, on Sunday, had me running 3.487 kilometres in 30 minutes without stopping. It might not be Olympic standard, but, for me, this is mercurial. See my mobile phone’ app record below. It was all going swingingly until the last minute just as I was going for my finishing point. Then my legs started to complain and I should’ve stopped. Only a few steps to go, I heard myself say, and then my legs ran out of control and I went crashing onto concrete. Look away, if you don’t like the sight of blood – the result wasn’t a pretty sight.

It was truly surprising how much you can hurt yourself by falling while running – I have a grand collection of cuts and bruises as well as an unpleasant sensation in my head. I’m feeling better today but the doctor says I’ve have a mild concussion.

I hope, I’ve learnt an important lesson about knowing when to stop when you’re pushing yourself towards a goal.

I shall be back. Don’t laugh, but under these minor injuries, I’m feeling great! I haven’t felt as fit for over ten years.

The post Hitting the ground running appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

As some of you know, I haven’t been too well this year so it was a great idea to spend two weeks in Venice this summer. I got back a couple of weeks ago and, even though I can’t report a miracle, I feel that I’ve been for a cure.

I was staying in a rented apartment on the Lido, the island that faces the Adriatic on one side and the Venetian lagoon on the other, ten minutes away from San Mark’s Square by the Vaparetto water bus. It was home from home and after two weeks I was beginning to feel that it actually was home.

It didn’t take long to get into a new routine and a new rhythm. It’s strange how quickly I can adapt to other people’s decor. Especially as there was a large wrap round balcony where life could carry on almost entirely alfresco.

Rest was the name of the game and I spent a fair amount of time reading while lapping up the Italian sun. Even though I was in one of the most beautiful cities in the World, there was something enjoyably decadent about spending time up here in my own private zone.

It was the perfect space for my morning kungfu practice which soon became a habit.

Chinese martial arts demand that you develop a sense of space and, quite quickly, it became my space.

Up there above the little town, life caried on beneath me and I wasn’t at all embarrassed being watched by the man installing the air-conditioning next door.

It was relaxing doing my exercises while the people of the Lido went about their morning routine.

Being high up but near to water felt very Zen and I’m convinced that this ritual built a connection between me and my surroundings.

As with all the other Venetian islands, everything has to get here by water and there was always something interesting to watch down there on the canal.

Where there’s water, there is always something to watch – the light itself is drama enough.

My view was still interesting at night with little boats about their business ferrying party-goers to and from the small outdoor bar across the road.

There was a bar next-door to my apartment too and it was one of life’s essentials to make it down there for coffee every morning. I particularly liked the fact that it was frequented by Lido residents and not just holiday visitors like myself.

The Lido is more “normal” than the rest of Venice. The houses are mostly late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century and even though motor vehicles have to be transported here by ferry, some people actually do drive cars or, more commonly, travel by bicycle. If I lived here permanently, I’m not sure that I would bother with a car. The Lido is still very tranquil and reminiscent of the days before motorcars changed the environment. For centuries this island has been where Venetians go when the city gets hot and humid.

The art nouveau style houses are wonderful – they lack that rotting-around-you look of Venice’s much older buildings. They are little Italian palaces with all mod cons.

I envied those gardens with their palm trees and scented hedges and wondered why anyone ever bothers to grow geraniums if they don’t have an Italian balcony.

The Lido is green and decidedly leafy so a gentle stroll down the avenue to the sea is enjoyably shady.

As with most holidays I have been on, there was a house for sale that would have been the perfect fulfilment of my vacation daydreams. Oh what joy to have responsibility for that rambling Italian garden.

Five minutes walk from the apartment was the public beach with its flights of engineering fancy, raised walkways and an open air night club for when the season gets going in July.

I was happy enough with the restaurant on the beach where it was, naturally, still possible to get a cup of very good coffee.

Here everyone could get on with whatever they like to do on the beach on a hot Italian morning.

No one seemed to notice when I got on my with my tai-chi. The coffee must have revived my dormant energy.

The Lido really is the place to cool down – the sea was warm and clear and decidedly welcoming.

The public beach was free and perfectly enjoyable as long as you could find yourself a bit of shade. A short walk away, under another avenue of trees, there was a much more expensive option.

Just down the road was the Grand Hotel Des Bains, the most fashionable Lido hotel in the early Twentieth Century. I visited here in 1972 but could only afford one drink inside its lush interior.

Sadly that is no longer possible as the hotel has closed and is being refurbished as an extremely expensive set of apartments. While I was there, it was well and truly locked up.

Once, of course, it looked very different. I’m told that the main halls are to be restored to their original glory but I hope that the likes of you and I will still be able to go and have a look inside.

I am sad that this memorable and historic building will now be closed to the public even to people like me who only ask for a drink served with style.

It still looks fine from outside and I was delighted to be able to see it from the beach. This is the hotel where the Russian ballet impresario Diaghilev not only stayed but it is also where, in 1929, he died. Dying in Venice has always been trendy. His friend and protégée Igor Stravinsky came here too and, when he died, in New York, he left instructions that he too should be buried in Venice next to Diaghilev’s grave.

The beach is still there and I was lucky enough to be able to spend a truly memorable afternoon feeling that I had walked straight into the film.

Like Gustave von Aschenbach, I hired a beach hut with my own deckchair, sun-bed and canopy – all set out, as in the film, by a bathing attendant, or bagnino, called Tomaso.

It didn’t take much imagination to feel oneself a part of Thomas Mann’s and Luchino Visconti’s world.

The sea was as wonderful to bathe in as it looked.

The light was a film-makers dream.

The old hotel smiled benignly on my indulgence and put on its show almost as if it knew that it was preparing for its farewell performance.

I didn’t die in that deckchair, phew, but I did feel like whispering, “ready for my close-up, Signor Visconti.”

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then read the book and see the film. You won’t be disappointed. Here’s the trailer:

Next time, I’ll show you what I saw in the great city of Venice itself. Ciao!

 

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STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20lovefeature=mhee

COLIN BELL’S PUBLICATIONS:

Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love
Ward Wood Publishing
October 30, 2013

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

Genius Floored: Uncurtained Window
Soaring Penguin Press
June 15, 2013
Poetry anthology


http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Genius Floored: Whispers in Smoke
Soaring Penguin Press
June 6, 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Reaching Out
Cinnamon Press
December 2012
Poetry and short story anthology

http://www.cinnamonpress.com/product-item/reaching-out/

Tic Toc
A Kind Of A Hurricane Press
June 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/2014/06/tic-toc-is-now-available.html

The Blotter
The Blotter Magazine Inc.
November 2009
Three pages of poetry in the American South’s unique, free, international literature and arts magazine.

http://www.blotterrag.com/back-issues/2009-11.pdf

The Fib Review
Musepie Press
My Fibonacci poetry has appeared in this journal from 2009 until the present

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/writers.html

Shot Glass Journal
Muse Pie Press
My poetry has appeared in various issues of this short form poetry journal

http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/writers.html

Every Day Poets Magazine
Every Day Poets
I have various poems of the day published in this 365 days a year poetry magazine.

http://www.everydaypoets.com/?s=Colin+Bell

In The Night Count The Stars
Bittersweet Editions
March 1, 2014
An “uncommon anthology” of images, fragments, stories and poetry.

http://www.bittersweeteditions.com/in-the-night-count-the-stars.html#%2EU8ZFXY1dXoo

 

The post Not so much Death In Venice as Life on the Venetian Lido appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

Last week, while I was staying in Paris, I visited the Tuilerie Gardens every morning to practice my Kungfu and Taichi – see Monday’s blog. I have been unable to commit to my White Crane Kungfu club for some time now http://www.whitecranefightingarts.com/ but I try to keep on with practicing my patterns.  I try to find somewhere to do this whenever I am away from home and would now miss it if I couldn’t find anywhere suitable. Not only is it good exercise but these complex Chinese movements also create a feeling of rootedness for the place where they are practised. They also helped me see off a pickpocket on Paris’ Pont Neuf so it is  practical exercise in many ways. For me, a little bit of the Tuileries, a small corner of France, feels like my space. Somewhere where I have established a personal relationship or, put differently, where I feel that I have planted roots. I’ve done this all over Britain and Italy as well as in Greece, China and the United States. In a strangely comforting way, I feel just that little bit more a part of Planet Earth this way. Paris’ Tuilerie Gardens have now joined that list.

On my last day in Paris, I was thinking about Claude Monet (1840-1926), for many people if not for me, the star of 19th Century French art. He’s easy to love but easy too to underestimate and even to take for granted.

Monet, famously, connected with his own sense of space and the effects of light on familiar and often observed places. Nowhere more profoundly than in his garden at Giverny where he made his lily pond.

Just a small distance from my new kungfu practice ground, stands the Orangerie Museum http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/ where two rooms were specifically designed to take two groups of Monet’s final water lily paintings, 

Sitting there and enjoying at least a tiny sense of what the old painter was attempting, I thought I hadn’t been so far removed from that mental state when I was standing outside lost in my own no matter how clumsy attempts at Chinese martial arts. It was an appropriate way to conclude my visit to Paris.

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This was my Santa Margherita Ligure home for two weeks on my recent Italian Riviera holiday – I shall miss it. All thanks to my landlord Attilio De Pascalis who showed me round the town in so much detail on my arrival that i felt like a local before I had even unpacked my case.

I shall miss the Palm House’s view up to the hills,

its shy but charming lizards

and the  balconies that acted as windows onto Ligurian life.

I shall often think of its garden too….

..the setting for my regular morning martial arts practice.

 There are many advantages in having the limited kungfu skills that I have learnt over recent years but one of them must surely be the way you can practice it almost anywhere. You have all the equipment you need for a daily workout without having to pack anything apart from a pair of shorts.

In Santa Margherita Ligure, I stuck to my hour of early morning exercise as the sun rose from behind the neighbouring buildings and I am not shy enough to be put off by the occasional audience from some of the surrounding balconies.

I begin with the Da Mo moving meditation sequence…

..then on to my 66 move taichi form, known as Suang-Yang…

…then three repetitions of all my kungfu patterns…

finishing with the weapons patterns shown here with the handy broom that deputised for my seven and a half foot staff.

There is something about the concentration that goes into these exercises that establishes a relationship between practitioner and place. I shan’t miss that garden because it has become a part of me just like all the other locations where I have been lucky enough to keep up this routine.

I returned to England revived, inspired and relaxed only to find that heavy rain and strong winds had had their evil way with my own garden destroying part of the fence and sending some of my pots crashing to the ground and onto delicate plants beneath them.

My first job on my return was to gather up the damage and to restore order and tranquility out there.

The clear up with its subsequent pruning and planting pulled me from my Italian adventure and re-climatised me to my life here in Lewes, UK.

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Tomasz Gudzowaty’s photographs of Shaolin monks bring together two of my passions – the awe-inspiring skills of kungfu and the inspirational nature of art photography. These pictures are from his book Shaolin Temple  and they are without question magnificent visual images.  This Polish photographer, who is based in Warsaw, spent time with the Buddhist martial arts monks at the legendary Shaolin Temple in Henan Province, China and captured that intoxicating marriage of meditation and movement that is the heart of kungfu. The monks were  happy to be his models and to show that there is also an unabashed show-biz quality to their discipline. Truly inspiring.

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Even though I have been lucky enough to have spent most of the last weeks abroad on holiday, first in Sicily and just recently the USA, I have been on a determined bid to get back into my martial arts patterns (taught to me by my instructor Neil Johnson of White Crane Fighting Arts – see links) as a primary way of getting, and trying to stay, fit.  Luckily, the friends that I was staying with in rural New Jersey had an excellent and large garden that was perfect for my early morning routine.

For over a month now, I have tried to do a daily session consisting of the moving meditation system named after one of kungfu’s founding fathers, the revered Da Mo. Even though it looks gentle enough, it is actually pretty demanding especially on the legs. It stretches the body gently and subtly, trains the lungs and puts you, if you can control those wandering thoughts, into an inspired state of oneness with your surroundings. It was wonderful doing this here in a woodland New Jersey garden with the sun rising above the trees and a chorus of unfamiliar and exotic-sounding birds and insects.

It was pretty challenging doing my Taichi and Kungfu patterns too as the strong summer sunshine racketed up the temperature.

It was a great deal cooler when I started this regime at home in my small town garden in Lewes, UK.

The great thing about having these patterns to perform every day is that you can really do them anywhere giving you no excuse for not keeping your body strong and flexible even if like me, you are not particularly skilled at them.

Unlike team sports or visits to the gym, you can take your exercise regime with you wherever you go and over the last year, I have done just that. As I now approach the third anniversary of a major illness, dare I say it,  the gradual recuperation and exercise is beginning to pay off. The after-effects of my brain haemorrhage now seem to be near to disappearing all together and the seizure-caused broken back too has benefited all through this period from my regular use of my White Crane Kungfu 66-move Taichi form which I began to practise again, against doctor’s orders, on the hospital ward and that has meant that I needed no physiotherapy as my spine repaired itself. So even though I can no longer take part in those highly enjoyable sparring sessions, I have been able to keep my patterns going – even my weapon patterns – in some unlikely places. All you need is the determination and a certain lack of feeling embarrassed doing the stuff in public places.

Straight sword with a purloined garden cane,  Paros, Greece.

Straight sword with a strip of plastic on a hotel roof, Santorini, Greece.

Seven and a half foot staff pattern with a plastic ventilation pipe, Santorini, Greece.

Sword pattern with a mountain walking stick on the summit of Mount Rigi, Switzerland.

Taichi by the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

Kungfu in Florence.

Da Mo Meditation on Mount Etna, Sicily.

Kungfu on the beach at Cefalu, Sicily….

and finishing with some Chigong exercises just a few days ago in Princeton, New Jersey. It may seem strange to say this but doing these intense but also at times profoundly contemplative exercises in different lands gives me a deeper sense of the places and, don’t laugh, a feeling that I have connected with them in a special way. It all began in 2008 when I practised early morning Taichi in a park by a lake in Fujian Province, Southern China with a roaring lion breaking the morning silence in a nearby zoo.

The important thing now is for me to keep it up now I am back in old England.

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I had breakfast with Neil Johnson, my kungfu instructor (see links for White Crane Fighting Arts) this morning, as has been usual now on a Monday morning for nearly two and a half years. During that time I have gone from being nearly dead to being very much alive and some of this is due to him and some of it is thanks to White Crane Kungfu, the martial arts system that he has been teaching me now for over six years. Today though it was decision time after two months of annoying ill health and injury and, between us, we have agreed that I will carry on with the Taichi form, the soft style, and also with my Taichi sword training but that it is time to hang up my kungfu uniform.

Ever since my brain haemorrhage, I have known that the “glory days” of kungfu sparring were behind me because I don’t really need another head injury. I am not claiming that I was ever that good at sparring but I did love the all-out, in-yer-face sparring bouts that seemed to match my more obvious wolf-like characteristics. However, it was Taichi that got me going on the hospital ward, against medical advice, within a week of my brain haemorrhage when I was also recovering from a fractured spine and it has been Taichi that has been my only form of physiotherapy ever since. Knowing that, and regardless of the fact that I really enjoy this deceptively peaceful-looking but gentle set of movements, I would be an idiot to give it up now.

Since my visit to China in 2008, I have now practised this form all over the World – a complete fitness regime that requires no packing and which can be performed wherever there are a few feet of space.

The Taichi sword pattern is also something I love without necessarily being good at and I am really happy that Neil thinks I should continue with it as an add on to the Taichi. There is still so much to learn in this lifetime study and now that I have put the other disciplines behind me, I plan to give it renewed concentration and focus.

Sometime ago I made this little photographic movie of my time doing White Crane fighting arts, it seems an appropriate time to repeat it with thanks to Neil for a good time and in anticipation of more good times to come.

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