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Oct. 3rd, 2007 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_elyanApologies this has taken so long to get round to - life keeps getting in the way. But now you're going to get it.
By the cartload.
Owing to the nature of the notes I kept, this may prove somewhat scrappy and impressionistic, but we shall see how it develops – it is, after all, the Tale, not He Who Tells It…
The journey down was comparatively pleasant, for being seven hours in First Class for a change. The journey from Ely to London, admittedly, was not vastly better or worse than any other time – indeed the people in First looked even more defeated than those in Standard. It took me a while to figure out why – whilst people in Standard are on their way to work, the people in First are already at work. For them, the laptops, the printouts, the bloody mobile phones are all part of an office which surrounds them from getting up to going to bed. Despite all of which, I still managed to wend up sitting next to some dickwit with his iPod on too loud, drumming his fingers on the table – thank God for my marvellous Sennheisers, even if I have done my level best to destroy the poor things.
The Tube, needless to say, was sheer blinding horror. I haven’t faced King’s Cross in the morning rush hour for years, and given that the abattoir-like passageway from the concourse to the Underground gates at KX is my least favourite place in London anyway, it was never going to be a joy. And no, before you ask, I didn’t march up and down the Tube train, asking where First Class was…
Paddington, however, was most pleasant, especially with the complimentary nibbles available in the First Class Lounge (Diet Coke and Duchy Original Shortbread – the Breakfast of Champions). I love Paddington anyway – of all the London termini, it is the one that feels most like a great railway station should, all fumes and clangour, and the sense of a lot of people living their lives at the same time. St Pancras is the only one that matches it for scale, and St Pancras always feels deserted of trains, although that may change once the Eurostar terminal opens.
I was a bit disappointed, however, to find that GWR have gone all modern with their First Class, presumably for the benefit of business travellers – gone are the big wallowing armchair seats, and in comes harsher lighting, and very straight leather-backed numbers which creak alarmingly. I had a couple opposite me who “hadn’t expected to be in First Class”, and were displaying the classic symptoms of Baffled and Infrequent Rail Travellers – the particular delight in such cases is watching people figuring out whether the steward has forgotten to charge them for their “purchases”.
[None of this, incidentally, is to suggest I habitually travel First – this is only about the fourth long journey I’ve done At The Pointy End]
Overall, the run from Paddington to Penzance is pretty rather than beautiful, with the exception of the stretch from Exeter to Newton Abbot, which runs along the Exe and the Teign, and is one of the most beautiful stretches of line in England. I got lucky in the reservations lottery, and was on the right side of the train to enjoy it.
The beauty of the run is kind of balanced by the journey around and through Plymouth. Plymouth is UGLY – sort of epic, but ugly nonetheless, with whole hills of grey houses rising up like monsters out of the Tamar. The Tamar Rail Bridge, meanwhile, is like a southern echo of the Forth Bridge, proudly announcing its progenitor as I K Brunel, 1859. Like the Forth, the rail bridge is a marvel of over-engineering – a gigantic infinity-sign span, beside which the suspension road bridge looks rather ordinary.
Truro is always something of a surprise – a grey town, with the three outsized spires of the cathedral rising up from the heart of it. There are few cathedrals, other than the obvious ones like Durham, Lincoln or Ely, which dominate their towns in the way that Truro does – Victorian melodrama in architecture.
In point of fact, Cornwall looks more populated from the train windows than much of Devon or Somerset. Partly this is because the trains go so slowly through Cornwall, but also because in a long, narrow land, relatively little humanity is needed to make an indelible mark on the surroundings.
I finally piled out of Penzance station at ten past three, one of a hardy bunch of pioneers who had made it All The Way – and, apparently, arrived at almost the moment a man in the middle of Woolworths in town was slitting his throat. Welcome to Penzance…
After dumping my bags at the B&B (which I will get round to describing in a bit), I set out to do the same thing I had done on my last arrival in Penzance, back in 1999 – walk to Mousehole (pronounced Mao-zell), around the bay. It’s a fine walk through the sprawl of Newlyn, and past Penlee Point, although my enthusiasm for following the beach as far as possible did leave me with a couple of uncomfortable scrambles up steep paths back to the road when the coast-path evaporated unexpectedly.
Along the way, I popped into the Newlyn Art Gallery, which is famous for something-or-other, and was staging a ferociously modern show called “With Practice” by Christine Borland, loosely based on surgery. Or, in the manner of most Art of the last fifteen years, about, y’know … Everything … but through the medium of surgery. If I was being honest, I liked the space a good deal more than what they’d put in it.
Mousehole is a splendid little place – a pocket-sized fishing port, full of little alleys with arresting names … and cats. Mousehole has a multitude of moggies, a positive plethora of pussification, which is always pleasing. I had dinner in the Ship, the pub on the Harbour, about which I was not 100% convinced. Though evidently old, and full of Genuine Cornish Punters, there was something which didn’t quite feel genuine – though that could have been the after-effects of seven hours of train travel, of course.
I walked back home via the hamlet of Paul, well known to Cam Uni G&S’ers, who I believe stayed in the church hall while playing at the Minack. I made it into the church, which was small, low, and severely attractive (especially in the fading light), and then struck out for home. Unfortunately, with dark approaching, and no compass to combine with my map, I suffered a certain amount of flapping about whether I was on the wrong road – I was certain that I didn’t want the road to Sheffield (but then, who ever does?). I was unsure both whether I’d taken the right road out of Paul, and whether the unmarked side-lane I had taken was the one which would drop neatly back down into Newlyn, but both guesses pleasingly proved to be right, and I survived a precipitous descent down a narrow, twisting and high-hedged lane (one of those ones where you might as well walk down the middle of the road, because if anything doing more than 10mph fails to spot you, you’re dead anyway), back to the welcoming lights of Penzance.
The B&B I stayed at in Penzance – which I shan’t name – was definitely at the lower end of Adequate, and shading towards A Bit Crap, Really. It was situated at the very end of the Prom, just after where the bright lights ended, which should have told me something.
In reality, the worst that could be said of it was that it was very old-fashioned – the radio above my bed, for instance, was a wood-lined number that can’t have been made any later than about 1965 (by a firm in Hove, no less), and the furniture could at best be described as Unprepossessing … apart from the surgical-appliance pink sink and plastic shelf-unit, which were defiantly Hideous. The room proved not to be En-Suite, which I was rather miffed about, and the non-ensuite bathroom proved to have no shower fitting, which didn’t help.
One incidental pleasure, however, was that staple of old-fashioned B&B’s, the Lounge. This is a throwback to the days (up to about 20 years ago) when “TV’s in all rooms” was unthinkable, and everyone gathered in the evening for that strange stripe of British democracy where you argued politely with strangers about which of the three (!) available channels to watch. The Lounge in my B&B was a classic – overstuffed, unexpectedly lumpy furniture, a pair of binoculars (for Enjoying the Splendid Sea Views), and the sort of books that seem to grow in such settings. I even saw a copy of the Thorn Birds… All it needed was a florid-faced Colonel to stump in and turn on One Man and His Dog at ear-splitting volume, and the picture would have been complete.
The biggest problem with the place, as so often in cheap B&B’s, was that the soundproofing was poor to non-existent. No arguing couples this time, thank God, but the people upstairs moving around did sound noticeably like a elephant attacking a water-hole.
Still, at least the breakfast was perfectly edible, and at £25 a night, one really can’t expect the moon on a stick…
I started Friday by walking to Marazion, which was about the same distance from Penzance as Mousehole, but in the opposite direction. A rather easier walk, along a clear path between shore and railway line, with a spectacular view across Mounts bay, and the Mount in question. I spent much of the journey pondering how I was going to get to a show at the Minack, given the way public transport works, and if I had to be brutally honest, was a bit glad when I gathered they’d completely sold out, as it relieved me of an obligation. I’m sure CUG&S were wonderful, but I daresay I can catch them in Cambridge with rather less hassle at some point.
Marazion is a pretty but very small market town, with long roots (market chartered 1595, but town much older), which exists mainly to serve as an anchoring-point for St Michael’s Mount, half a mile across the bay. The tide being in, I ponied up £1.50 for the five0minute boat ride across the bay, and (unlike last time I visited), actually decided to go up to the castle, ancestral home of the St Aubyn’s, whoever they might be. This was prefaced by a very British interlude, where the first wave of arrivals waited for the ticket office to open – we didn’t exactly queue, but all watched each other, so that we knew exactly what the pecking order was when the doors finally opened. I bounded straight up the (very rough and ready) path up the Mount, so was the first arrival of the day at the house (or rather, castle, with added monastery church), and initially had it to myself, trying to remember which bits of it I had seen in the film of twelfth Night, which was filmed around Cornwall. It must be a pretty bleak and windswept place to live, but the views from the battlements are so fabulous that you could put up with a few draughts. The main dining-hall is known as “Chevy Chase” – I’m sure there’s a reason why a 1970’s US comedian would choose to name himself after such a thing, but I’ll be damned if I can work out what it is.
I got back to Marazion over the now uncovered causeway, playing the usual games of Dodge the Ditherer (not easy on a 3-foot wide causeway with wet rock to either side). A brief potter round Marazion, and then on the bus to St Ives, which turned out to take the longest of long ways round, through Hayle, up to a caravan park up on the cliffs, then back the way it had come before turning up the other side of Carbis Bay. On the way, we passed a pub called the Bucket of Blood, which struck me as a bit rich, even for Cornwall.
Also along the way, we passed the St Ives Holiday Village. The public building at the front of this was covered with a large bedsheet, Magic-markered “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULES – 40 TODAY!”. There was also a very large pair of pants, with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” stencilled on them. St Ives Holiday Village is unlikely to be twinned with Hampstead any time soon.
St Ives is a place about which I have slightly mixed feelings. It’s a fine town, right enough – interesting maze of alleyways with pretty houses, some good scenery, and plenty of Art – but it doesn’t seem to quite add up to enough to justify the vast hordes of tourists that the place gets. Even on a Friday in mid-September, every space on the benches surrounding the harbour was taken – I’d imagine that in August you have to put your name down a week in advance.
I suppose that the main attraction of the place is something which is not high on my list – the beaches. These really are as advertised – golden, sweeping, and shelving away under clean(ish) blue sea. Of course, this being Britain, there was a stiff breeze and intermittent drizzle, which brought out much of the best of the British behaviour on beaches. One man had erected a tent at right angles to the shoreline, another had a palisade of windbreaks around three and a half sides, like a little walled city. I cannot for the life of me see the point of travelling all the way to St Ives (which isn’t the most accessible place in Britain), getting onto the beach, then erecting stuff round yourself so you can’t see the sea or the town. Presumably the important thing is to be On the Beach, regardless of how much of it you experience once there.
One thing I should have remembered about St Ives is that to set out with the express intention of reaching the Tate Gallery merely angers the gods of Cornish navigation, who then sneak up and move it out of your way. He best way to get there is to give up, wander aimlessly for a bit, and then its grey bulk will materialise out of the mists…
Of course, being a properly Modern gallery in a big tourist spot, Tate St Ives exists largely to disappoint people. Like Tate Modern in London, a lot of people go there because they feel they ought to, and hope to be inspired. Modern art can be inspiring, there’s no doubt about that, but it tends to need a lot more time, and a lot more context, than most people are willing to sacrifice. The exhibition on while I was there was inspired by the works of Brian Wilson, and immediately knocked down a tiny pillar somewhere in the depths of my subconscious, when I realised I’d been mishearing the first line of “Surfin’ USA” all these years (it’s “an ocean” not, as I rather tweely thought, “a notion”). There were several interesting things in there – in particular, I was taken by the work of Sister Corita Kent, whose work mixes traditional Sixties pop art dayglo design and idealism with an explicitly Christian message. I was also interested to see one of John Cage’s original manuscript scores for his work, which makes you suspect that perhaps the problem with Cage is not his fault, but people taking him too seriously when he was actually slyly taking the piss. One of the directions on the score required “[blow a] DUCK WHISTLE IN A BOWL OF WATER (as long as breath holds)” – surely the tongue must have been at least somewhere near the cheek there…
Having said all of which, there is some modern art which lives up (or down) to all its detractions. One piece in the gallery – a distressed piece of Perspex with lights shining on it – was called “The Inconsolable Wailing of the Damned (Red-Greenish)”. Welcome to Bullshit Central – change here for the Chin-Stroker’s Line…
I can however forgive much of a gallery which hangs a piece which is simply the slogan “I PLEAD INSANITY BECAUSE I’M JUST CRAZY ABOUT THAT LITTLE GIRL”. And which has a piece dedicated to a work called Free Beer.
Somewhere else in the labyrinth of St Ives, I stumbled upon the Hepworth Sculpture garden. Unfortunately it was drizzling by the time I got there, and rather crowded with and exceptionally lively bunch of art students, but the magic of the place was still palpable. In a town as cramped at St Ives, it’s amazing that a garden of that size could exist – one almost suspects there’s some sort of private arrangement with gravity and the entire garden is stacked vertically, because I can’t imagine how there’s room for it otherwise. Hepworth’s sculptures are moments in time, and an improbable garden provided a perfect setting for them.
As the rain intensified, and the crowds shifted uncomfortably into my way, I found the appeal of St Ives waning – even a proper Cornish Pasty did little to warm me. However, I was lucky enough to find my favourite street name in the town of silly street-names – “Wheal Dream”, a name redolent of lands that never were and endless voyages. Tucked away behind it, I found a tiny bay with a little beach, and sat on the rocks watching the tide come in, always a marvellous way to relax. I love the way that the tiny advances and retreats of each individual wave form part of a more general motion, which one can track given some time and patience. Someone, presumably at the younger end of the spectrum (at least at heart) had built a motte-and-bailey sandcastle on the little stretch of beach, which had been left to withstand armies, lightning blasts, and a thousand years of war. I watched the tide slowly overwhelm its defences, and return the sands to the state of the previous night, like a reboot of the beach. Thinking about it, a small plaque saying “MY NAME IS OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS” might not have gone amiss. As a pastime, it was far enough out of the ordinary (especially in the rain) that I expected to be led away by a smiling but insistent policeman.
One last point of interest about St Ives was getting the bus going out. Bus driving in Cornwall, and particularly in St Ives, is an art bordering on magic – the bus station (improbably called Malakoff) is the tightest, most awkwardly-shaped, and generally inappropriate bus station I have ever come across (and that includes Drummer Street in Cambridge). Nonetheless, it’s still probably about the largest patch of level tarmac in the town.
The evening was taken up with a Thai meal, and watching Michael Wood enthuse about India, which filled it up nicely.
By the cartload.
Owing to the nature of the notes I kept, this may prove somewhat scrappy and impressionistic, but we shall see how it develops – it is, after all, the Tale, not He Who Tells It…
The journey down was comparatively pleasant, for being seven hours in First Class for a change. The journey from Ely to London, admittedly, was not vastly better or worse than any other time – indeed the people in First looked even more defeated than those in Standard. It took me a while to figure out why – whilst people in Standard are on their way to work, the people in First are already at work. For them, the laptops, the printouts, the bloody mobile phones are all part of an office which surrounds them from getting up to going to bed. Despite all of which, I still managed to wend up sitting next to some dickwit with his iPod on too loud, drumming his fingers on the table – thank God for my marvellous Sennheisers, even if I have done my level best to destroy the poor things.
The Tube, needless to say, was sheer blinding horror. I haven’t faced King’s Cross in the morning rush hour for years, and given that the abattoir-like passageway from the concourse to the Underground gates at KX is my least favourite place in London anyway, it was never going to be a joy. And no, before you ask, I didn’t march up and down the Tube train, asking where First Class was…
Paddington, however, was most pleasant, especially with the complimentary nibbles available in the First Class Lounge (Diet Coke and Duchy Original Shortbread – the Breakfast of Champions). I love Paddington anyway – of all the London termini, it is the one that feels most like a great railway station should, all fumes and clangour, and the sense of a lot of people living their lives at the same time. St Pancras is the only one that matches it for scale, and St Pancras always feels deserted of trains, although that may change once the Eurostar terminal opens.
I was a bit disappointed, however, to find that GWR have gone all modern with their First Class, presumably for the benefit of business travellers – gone are the big wallowing armchair seats, and in comes harsher lighting, and very straight leather-backed numbers which creak alarmingly. I had a couple opposite me who “hadn’t expected to be in First Class”, and were displaying the classic symptoms of Baffled and Infrequent Rail Travellers – the particular delight in such cases is watching people figuring out whether the steward has forgotten to charge them for their “purchases”.
[None of this, incidentally, is to suggest I habitually travel First – this is only about the fourth long journey I’ve done At The Pointy End]
Overall, the run from Paddington to Penzance is pretty rather than beautiful, with the exception of the stretch from Exeter to Newton Abbot, which runs along the Exe and the Teign, and is one of the most beautiful stretches of line in England. I got lucky in the reservations lottery, and was on the right side of the train to enjoy it.
The beauty of the run is kind of balanced by the journey around and through Plymouth. Plymouth is UGLY – sort of epic, but ugly nonetheless, with whole hills of grey houses rising up like monsters out of the Tamar. The Tamar Rail Bridge, meanwhile, is like a southern echo of the Forth Bridge, proudly announcing its progenitor as I K Brunel, 1859. Like the Forth, the rail bridge is a marvel of over-engineering – a gigantic infinity-sign span, beside which the suspension road bridge looks rather ordinary.
Truro is always something of a surprise – a grey town, with the three outsized spires of the cathedral rising up from the heart of it. There are few cathedrals, other than the obvious ones like Durham, Lincoln or Ely, which dominate their towns in the way that Truro does – Victorian melodrama in architecture.
In point of fact, Cornwall looks more populated from the train windows than much of Devon or Somerset. Partly this is because the trains go so slowly through Cornwall, but also because in a long, narrow land, relatively little humanity is needed to make an indelible mark on the surroundings.
I finally piled out of Penzance station at ten past three, one of a hardy bunch of pioneers who had made it All The Way – and, apparently, arrived at almost the moment a man in the middle of Woolworths in town was slitting his throat. Welcome to Penzance…
After dumping my bags at the B&B (which I will get round to describing in a bit), I set out to do the same thing I had done on my last arrival in Penzance, back in 1999 – walk to Mousehole (pronounced Mao-zell), around the bay. It’s a fine walk through the sprawl of Newlyn, and past Penlee Point, although my enthusiasm for following the beach as far as possible did leave me with a couple of uncomfortable scrambles up steep paths back to the road when the coast-path evaporated unexpectedly.
Along the way, I popped into the Newlyn Art Gallery, which is famous for something-or-other, and was staging a ferociously modern show called “With Practice” by Christine Borland, loosely based on surgery. Or, in the manner of most Art of the last fifteen years, about, y’know … Everything … but through the medium of surgery. If I was being honest, I liked the space a good deal more than what they’d put in it.
Mousehole is a splendid little place – a pocket-sized fishing port, full of little alleys with arresting names … and cats. Mousehole has a multitude of moggies, a positive plethora of pussification, which is always pleasing. I had dinner in the Ship, the pub on the Harbour, about which I was not 100% convinced. Though evidently old, and full of Genuine Cornish Punters, there was something which didn’t quite feel genuine – though that could have been the after-effects of seven hours of train travel, of course.
I walked back home via the hamlet of Paul, well known to Cam Uni G&S’ers, who I believe stayed in the church hall while playing at the Minack. I made it into the church, which was small, low, and severely attractive (especially in the fading light), and then struck out for home. Unfortunately, with dark approaching, and no compass to combine with my map, I suffered a certain amount of flapping about whether I was on the wrong road – I was certain that I didn’t want the road to Sheffield (but then, who ever does?). I was unsure both whether I’d taken the right road out of Paul, and whether the unmarked side-lane I had taken was the one which would drop neatly back down into Newlyn, but both guesses pleasingly proved to be right, and I survived a precipitous descent down a narrow, twisting and high-hedged lane (one of those ones where you might as well walk down the middle of the road, because if anything doing more than 10mph fails to spot you, you’re dead anyway), back to the welcoming lights of Penzance.
The B&B I stayed at in Penzance – which I shan’t name – was definitely at the lower end of Adequate, and shading towards A Bit Crap, Really. It was situated at the very end of the Prom, just after where the bright lights ended, which should have told me something.
In reality, the worst that could be said of it was that it was very old-fashioned – the radio above my bed, for instance, was a wood-lined number that can’t have been made any later than about 1965 (by a firm in Hove, no less), and the furniture could at best be described as Unprepossessing … apart from the surgical-appliance pink sink and plastic shelf-unit, which were defiantly Hideous. The room proved not to be En-Suite, which I was rather miffed about, and the non-ensuite bathroom proved to have no shower fitting, which didn’t help.
One incidental pleasure, however, was that staple of old-fashioned B&B’s, the Lounge. This is a throwback to the days (up to about 20 years ago) when “TV’s in all rooms” was unthinkable, and everyone gathered in the evening for that strange stripe of British democracy where you argued politely with strangers about which of the three (!) available channels to watch. The Lounge in my B&B was a classic – overstuffed, unexpectedly lumpy furniture, a pair of binoculars (for Enjoying the Splendid Sea Views), and the sort of books that seem to grow in such settings. I even saw a copy of the Thorn Birds… All it needed was a florid-faced Colonel to stump in and turn on One Man and His Dog at ear-splitting volume, and the picture would have been complete.
The biggest problem with the place, as so often in cheap B&B’s, was that the soundproofing was poor to non-existent. No arguing couples this time, thank God, but the people upstairs moving around did sound noticeably like a elephant attacking a water-hole.
Still, at least the breakfast was perfectly edible, and at £25 a night, one really can’t expect the moon on a stick…
I started Friday by walking to Marazion, which was about the same distance from Penzance as Mousehole, but in the opposite direction. A rather easier walk, along a clear path between shore and railway line, with a spectacular view across Mounts bay, and the Mount in question. I spent much of the journey pondering how I was going to get to a show at the Minack, given the way public transport works, and if I had to be brutally honest, was a bit glad when I gathered they’d completely sold out, as it relieved me of an obligation. I’m sure CUG&S were wonderful, but I daresay I can catch them in Cambridge with rather less hassle at some point.
Marazion is a pretty but very small market town, with long roots (market chartered 1595, but town much older), which exists mainly to serve as an anchoring-point for St Michael’s Mount, half a mile across the bay. The tide being in, I ponied up £1.50 for the five0minute boat ride across the bay, and (unlike last time I visited), actually decided to go up to the castle, ancestral home of the St Aubyn’s, whoever they might be. This was prefaced by a very British interlude, where the first wave of arrivals waited for the ticket office to open – we didn’t exactly queue, but all watched each other, so that we knew exactly what the pecking order was when the doors finally opened. I bounded straight up the (very rough and ready) path up the Mount, so was the first arrival of the day at the house (or rather, castle, with added monastery church), and initially had it to myself, trying to remember which bits of it I had seen in the film of twelfth Night, which was filmed around Cornwall. It must be a pretty bleak and windswept place to live, but the views from the battlements are so fabulous that you could put up with a few draughts. The main dining-hall is known as “Chevy Chase” – I’m sure there’s a reason why a 1970’s US comedian would choose to name himself after such a thing, but I’ll be damned if I can work out what it is.
I got back to Marazion over the now uncovered causeway, playing the usual games of Dodge the Ditherer (not easy on a 3-foot wide causeway with wet rock to either side). A brief potter round Marazion, and then on the bus to St Ives, which turned out to take the longest of long ways round, through Hayle, up to a caravan park up on the cliffs, then back the way it had come before turning up the other side of Carbis Bay. On the way, we passed a pub called the Bucket of Blood, which struck me as a bit rich, even for Cornwall.
Also along the way, we passed the St Ives Holiday Village. The public building at the front of this was covered with a large bedsheet, Magic-markered “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULES – 40 TODAY!”. There was also a very large pair of pants, with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” stencilled on them. St Ives Holiday Village is unlikely to be twinned with Hampstead any time soon.
St Ives is a place about which I have slightly mixed feelings. It’s a fine town, right enough – interesting maze of alleyways with pretty houses, some good scenery, and plenty of Art – but it doesn’t seem to quite add up to enough to justify the vast hordes of tourists that the place gets. Even on a Friday in mid-September, every space on the benches surrounding the harbour was taken – I’d imagine that in August you have to put your name down a week in advance.
I suppose that the main attraction of the place is something which is not high on my list – the beaches. These really are as advertised – golden, sweeping, and shelving away under clean(ish) blue sea. Of course, this being Britain, there was a stiff breeze and intermittent drizzle, which brought out much of the best of the British behaviour on beaches. One man had erected a tent at right angles to the shoreline, another had a palisade of windbreaks around three and a half sides, like a little walled city. I cannot for the life of me see the point of travelling all the way to St Ives (which isn’t the most accessible place in Britain), getting onto the beach, then erecting stuff round yourself so you can’t see the sea or the town. Presumably the important thing is to be On the Beach, regardless of how much of it you experience once there.
One thing I should have remembered about St Ives is that to set out with the express intention of reaching the Tate Gallery merely angers the gods of Cornish navigation, who then sneak up and move it out of your way. He best way to get there is to give up, wander aimlessly for a bit, and then its grey bulk will materialise out of the mists…
Of course, being a properly Modern gallery in a big tourist spot, Tate St Ives exists largely to disappoint people. Like Tate Modern in London, a lot of people go there because they feel they ought to, and hope to be inspired. Modern art can be inspiring, there’s no doubt about that, but it tends to need a lot more time, and a lot more context, than most people are willing to sacrifice. The exhibition on while I was there was inspired by the works of Brian Wilson, and immediately knocked down a tiny pillar somewhere in the depths of my subconscious, when I realised I’d been mishearing the first line of “Surfin’ USA” all these years (it’s “an ocean” not, as I rather tweely thought, “a notion”). There were several interesting things in there – in particular, I was taken by the work of Sister Corita Kent, whose work mixes traditional Sixties pop art dayglo design and idealism with an explicitly Christian message. I was also interested to see one of John Cage’s original manuscript scores for his work, which makes you suspect that perhaps the problem with Cage is not his fault, but people taking him too seriously when he was actually slyly taking the piss. One of the directions on the score required “[blow a] DUCK WHISTLE IN A BOWL OF WATER (as long as breath holds)” – surely the tongue must have been at least somewhere near the cheek there…
Having said all of which, there is some modern art which lives up (or down) to all its detractions. One piece in the gallery – a distressed piece of Perspex with lights shining on it – was called “The Inconsolable Wailing of the Damned (Red-Greenish)”. Welcome to Bullshit Central – change here for the Chin-Stroker’s Line…
I can however forgive much of a gallery which hangs a piece which is simply the slogan “I PLEAD INSANITY BECAUSE I’M JUST CRAZY ABOUT THAT LITTLE GIRL”. And which has a piece dedicated to a work called Free Beer.
Somewhere else in the labyrinth of St Ives, I stumbled upon the Hepworth Sculpture garden. Unfortunately it was drizzling by the time I got there, and rather crowded with and exceptionally lively bunch of art students, but the magic of the place was still palpable. In a town as cramped at St Ives, it’s amazing that a garden of that size could exist – one almost suspects there’s some sort of private arrangement with gravity and the entire garden is stacked vertically, because I can’t imagine how there’s room for it otherwise. Hepworth’s sculptures are moments in time, and an improbable garden provided a perfect setting for them.
As the rain intensified, and the crowds shifted uncomfortably into my way, I found the appeal of St Ives waning – even a proper Cornish Pasty did little to warm me. However, I was lucky enough to find my favourite street name in the town of silly street-names – “Wheal Dream”, a name redolent of lands that never were and endless voyages. Tucked away behind it, I found a tiny bay with a little beach, and sat on the rocks watching the tide come in, always a marvellous way to relax. I love the way that the tiny advances and retreats of each individual wave form part of a more general motion, which one can track given some time and patience. Someone, presumably at the younger end of the spectrum (at least at heart) had built a motte-and-bailey sandcastle on the little stretch of beach, which had been left to withstand armies, lightning blasts, and a thousand years of war. I watched the tide slowly overwhelm its defences, and return the sands to the state of the previous night, like a reboot of the beach. Thinking about it, a small plaque saying “MY NAME IS OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS” might not have gone amiss. As a pastime, it was far enough out of the ordinary (especially in the rain) that I expected to be led away by a smiling but insistent policeman.
One last point of interest about St Ives was getting the bus going out. Bus driving in Cornwall, and particularly in St Ives, is an art bordering on magic – the bus station (improbably called Malakoff) is the tightest, most awkwardly-shaped, and generally inappropriate bus station I have ever come across (and that includes Drummer Street in Cambridge). Nonetheless, it’s still probably about the largest patch of level tarmac in the town.
The evening was taken up with a Thai meal, and watching Michael Wood enthuse about India, which filled it up nicely.
