Easter seascape…

CHRIS BENNETT reflects on the beautiful autumn holidays.

VISITORS to this stunning coast, of which there are currently many, must marvel at the ruggedness of the shoreline, especially those areas where the dunes abut the black volcanic boulders, the product of millions of years of pounding, thunderous seas, and eternal battle between rock and water which seems to be destined for an infinite stalemate.

Perhaps one of the aspects of the sea that most appeals to me is its sound: the rocks on the sea's edge below my cottage glisten in the sun with an insular arrogance; seemingly uncountable centuries have failed to dim their brutish, sullen presence.

Grinds, bumps, crashes and bangs affright the air, tearing the quiet asunder; I hear all manner of things in this magnificent jumble: buses crashing, houses falling, the noise sometimes defies belief. Sometimes, in my cottage, I can hear the pulse of the lower register of the sound, booming like an old memory. It must be thrilling to those new to it. The sound of the sea is my companion, my muse.

The past two weeks have been particularly stentorian. However, in contrast to the rocky shore and shining beaches we have some less pleasant sights, of which one is particularly awful, largely because it is amid beautiful surroundings. .

The drive from the Southbroom robot into Ramsgate (turn inland at the robot), a drive that is pleasing and pretty along the old main road, crosses the Bizana River, a boulder-strewn stream that becomes the majestic lagoon at the golden spit of beach in Southbroom.

As you cross the modern bridge you will see, on the left, the old steel lattice girder bridge, used now for pipes; an interesting relic of quieter days of horse drawn traffic and spindly motor cars.

The river bend at this junction is pastoral and quiet, but it is marred by an eyesore of a building on the right that seems to have been out of commission for ever. It is tatty, ugly and crumbling, and it spoils what otherwise would be a lovely place and, indeed, would make probably make a very pleasant park.

All it would take is a coat of paint while someone, somewhere, decides what on earth to do with it. It is an affront, especially to visitors who must think that South Coasters don’t care. But they do. Don’t they?

A little further on is the eccentric Pistols Bar, with its endearing menagerie of domesticated animals. The donkey and the pig are also entertaining, or at least they were when I last visited, which is admittedly a while ago. On the verandah of this pub you can sit with a cold beer and admire the idyllic beauty of the Bizana river, a good way to spend some time with friends.

This Easter weekend saw the arrival of the two wheeled hordes, welcome visitors who enliven our rather staid little world with much bravado, devilish speed and noise, noise, noise.

Many visitors will enjoy an extended break this year, which is very nice but I can’t help wondering who is running the show.

I plan to go to the Cape soon and managed to book a flight in mid-May which avoided all holidays. My calculations produced some interesting figures. If you add together the days of the months of April and July they come to 61. Forty of those days are school holidays, public holidays or both.

I wonder how much this costs the country.

CB

Pebbles in the rain…

CHRIS BENNETT reflects on words and music.

I HAVE been savouring the sound, the sight, and the smell of the rain.

From my Morris chair in front of the French windows the raindrops, fat as grapes, clatter and rattle on the quivering banana leaves; they splash into the birdbath, huge drops, slow and lazy, as if a thunderstorm is on their minds. They sound like pebbles; come to that they look a bit like them.

Most of my life I have thought of Natal, as it was formerly called, as a province with a climate not unlike that of New Zealand, only warmer. I remember when I was young a visitor from England stayed with us at my parents’ home in Auckland; he commented to Dad on the richness and greenness of New Zealand.

Dad countered with, “Well it would be rich and green; the sun shines 365 days of the years and it rains 365 days of the year”.

Here we have a little more variety, although the cane and banana farmers are probably not all that pleased with the quantity.

Picking a dry and sunny day I recently browsed in Ronnie’s delightful bookshop in Umtententwini, where I came across a copy of one of my favourite books, Lawrence Durrell’s Prospero’s Cell.

It was an early Penguin edition in fair condition. I was tempted to buy it but hesitated because I already have a copy. The temptation arose because the book on the shelf had belonged to Edgar Cree, the musician and conductor, who retired to Durban and in his last few years broadcast a pretty programme called From My Window: the Sea. His crisp and elegant signature on the title page of this edition of Durrell’s memorable book denoted his ownership. Dr Cree was an SABC colleague with a most likeable nature; for a non-musician like me anyway.

That moment in Ronnie’s opened a floodgate of memories and a slight whiff of nostalgia, memories of the Johannesburg City Hall, and M1, the great broadcasting concert hall* in the studio block of the Auckland Park complex; not quite a longing for the past, which afflicts all of us at times and in various ways, but more a remembered journey, a happy and long one.

Although I didn’t know it at the time I would not have been displeased with the destination of that journey: retirement on the wonderful South Coast, arguably the most agreeable corner of Africa.

The rain, mean and scarce though it has become in recent years (I keep a journal) was nevertheless very welcome, and pleasantly cooling after a few sticky wickets, or maybe I mean weeks.

* Studio M1 housed a platform big enough for a full symphony orchestra; a concert pipe organ, as big as some in European cathedrals, with two consoles, one under the pipes in the traditional position and another in the auditorium; the hall had raked seating and held (and this is a guess) two or three hundred people. The recording desk was built by Rupert Neeve of England. It was the rehearsal room of the National Symphony Orchestra, highly rate around the world. Edgar Cree was its conductor. Sadly this facility has been mothballed, or so I am told.

CB

22/4/11

Exchange and Mart…

CHRIS BENNETT has been checking the progress of the lower South Coast.

I AM most grateful to a kind reader in Munster who, in response to my observation about the lack of knowledge of our continent among young black people, sent me a fine, large laminated map of Africa, showing the political divisions that comprise the continent’s countries.

As someone once said, more or less, you can’t do much about where you are going if you have no idea of where you have come from.

I gather that the map is now displayed on a wall of a classroom in the high school at Nzimakwe, near Munster. I also heard that the teachers were as fascinated as the pupils to learn where Libya, Egypt and Tunisia are; but maybe that was wishful thinking.

I have always been fascinated by history; it was one of the few subjects at which I did tolerably well at school. The others were English and geography.

Much of history, of course, is trivial; but much is not. On the trivial side an interesting article caught my eye in the London Telegraph this week.

In the City of London, the small area (one square mile) from which the great metropolis of today grew, and which is today the heart of the world’s biggest financial exchange, there is a number of very old alleys, or small, narrow passageways, in which you will find financial offices and, occasionally, wine bars.

The wine bars of today are the successors to the coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This point was made in the Telegraph article:

“Change Alley was once home to a number of fashionable coffee houses, including Jonathan's and Garraway's, both of which are commemorated by plaques. Speculators often met at a coffee house to buy and sell - so many, in fact, that it was eventually suggested that Jonathan's should be re-named the Stock Exchange. And so it was.”

For me it is gems of this kind that are the sparkle of history. Who on earth would have asked from whence came the term stock exchange?

Also this week the economics commentator Mike Schussler, interviewed on etv, made a number of considered observations (he had clearly stated that he was not a specialist in education) about the lack of technical training in this country. His implication was that it has now reached problem status. Not, you will note, issue status.

He claimed that the teachers of maths and science in Zambia were of a higher calibre than those in South Africa. That should get a few educators (another buzz word; the word teachers had no issues) on the South Coast sitting up and taking notice. It should; whether it shall is another matter.

There seems to be a bit of a flutter in the dovecote in this part of the world, the lower South Coast.

I gather from the more informed of my moles that work has started, albeit quietly, on the conversion of the R61 into the N2, a not inconsiderable task.

Much has been made of this project in recent years’ editions of this newspaper. My colleague Judi Davis has worked assiduously to keep readers informed of whatever progress may appear to be taking place.

Now, I gather, the work has started. Disruption is inevitable; but then so is progress. Perhaps we should not get too worked up about something which, for whatever reason, is also inevitable.

CB

15/4/11

The great human memory…

CHRIS BENNETT has been looking at libraries

I VISITED the Southbroom library for the first time and was delighted with what I found.

Housed in a charming building, probably around fifty years old, maybe more, the library has two main sections.

A small side room holds the non-fiction books, a very useful idea. The main part of the collection is neatly catalogued in alphabetical order and has a good variety of books.

The library is now privately run by volunteers, and during my hour or so in this delightful and tranquil place there was a steady stream of people returning books and looking for others; very much a living library.

The people of Southbroom are lucky; libraries all over the world are closing.

Writing in the Telegraph in London last week the columnist Ed West had this to say:

“Even attempts by some libraries to lure in kids, the poor and other officially favoured demographics by filling their shelves with DVDs have made little difference. The roots of educational and cultural poverty at the bottom of society go far deeper than that”.

Food for thought. The saving of the Southbroom library from closure was a bold effort and the institution is much appreciated by the village’s residents.

However, it has to said that the role of the small reference library is fast loosing ground to the internet, especially in the form of the globally popular Google search engine and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The rise of the smartphone is making access easier all the time.

Some interesting statistics show that even those extraordinary resources have not led to further reading. A recent survey of a well-known UK university’s history students revealed that 66 percent did not know who was on the English throne at the time of the Armada, and 69 percent did not know the location of the Boer war.

This trend towards a lack of interest in history seems to be another world-wide phenomenon.

And what will happen to all the books? Their biggest drawback is probably the amount of space and the controlled conditions in which they are kept.

Will the time come when all the world’s books are on computer, virtual places like the remarkable Gutenberg Project? I suspect no one knows, but I don’t think so.

I fear the world’s history is in danger of disappearing.

There will, I hope, always be places like the Bodleian in Oxford, and the Wren in Lincoln.

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford, one of the oldest in Europe, and in Britain second in size only to the British Library. The Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and, in general, documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.

Another great name from the past is that of one Michael Honywood, who bequeathed his 5,000 books, including one of only 250 manuscript versions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, to the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral; these are still in the building built to house them in Lincoln. It is one of only two of Sir Christopher Wren’s surviving libraries. Michael Honywood was made Dean of Lincoln at the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

Closer to home we have the libraries of the major universities of South Africa and the Brenthurst Library in Johannesburg, all housing priceless collections of well preserved chronicles of our county’s past.

If you have a local library, support it.

Reseach: Wikipedia and the Telegraph UK.

CB

1/4/11

How to clean a catafalque…

CHRIS BENNETT enjoys a memorable cataclysm.

I AM sitting a cat; to be more precise I am sitting a kitten. That is to say, friends have gone on holiday to the North Coast for a few days and have asked me to take over the life and times of one Millicent.

Now why anyone would want to go on holiday on the North Coast, leaving a lovely home on the South Coast, is quite beyond me.

Maybe it has something to do with the tempo of life. My friends have lately been the recipients of the slings and arrows (not to mention complaints) that accompany a major earthworks exercise. Which is enough to make anyone want a holiday. Anywhere.

But to return to the feline distraction.

Millicent is my name for the cat, although I was tempted by Magnificat and Oedipus; whether or not there is another name has not been discussed.

My cottage has been appraised, weighed in the balance, so to speak, and has been found wanting; but not too seriously.

Clearly there are not enough things to play with, but being of an inventive inclination, that has not stopped Millicent from assuming that everything, especially if it moves, is to be played with.

There are of course certain things that move because they are sentient beings; like me. My extremities (fingers and toes, in case you were wondering) are seriously inviting as claw and teeth sharpeners, but they don’t move enough.

As for the bee that had the misfortune to buzz through the sunshine of the French windows and investigate the reading room, little could have been so amazing a source of fascination.

I am not sure that Millicent had seen, or heard, a bee before, but on this occasion, morning one, the event was a revelation; a marvel to behold. Not only did this thing move and buzz – it flew in circles, arabesques and sweeping glissandos. Or maybe that should be glissandi.

It had to be caught. After a few minutes of dancing on hind legs, shadow boxing and flying in circles, arabesques and sweeping glissandos, Millicent fell off the settee. There was a moment of quiet nonchalance and a brief, rather self-conscious, cleaning of paws. This, obviously, is the feline equivalent of profound embarrassment.

The bee, clearly annoyed to a hereto unknown pitch of buzz, flew out the French windows.

Back on the settee, Millicent gazed out of the slightly open widow. One of the little wooden knobs on a string that operate the Venetian blinds shivered in the breeze. Millicent bristled. Clearly this was going to be even better than the bee.

A few perfunctory grabs, and misses, were performed; then Millicent, who has quite obviously been reading the papers, decided that what was needed here was an end game. I should add that it is also quite obvious that she is a dab paw at chess.

What followed happened rather too quickly for a detailed description, but after a quick shot at decision making the offensive was launched. Millicent leaped onto the Venetian blind; the Venetian blind, on the other hand, was quite prepared. It flipped; literally.

Millicent was floored: her strategy was manifestly even more flawed. She returned to the subject of clean paws as if she had never left off.

Millicent impinges on the tranquillity of my life, and I can’t help thinking that it is about time something did.

I have on occasion related a bon mot that I read long ago, “Dogs have owners; cats have staff”.

Well, I was looking for a job anyway.

CB

25/3/11

Say cheese…

CHRIS BENNETT has been thinking about the ultimate comfort food.

A SMILE is always in order when anyone says “Say cheese”. It was a photographer’s device, especially in the early days of the art when the subject had to be still for a few seconds, to evince a smile and relax those being photographed. Now that the awkwardness of posing for pics has gone out of fashion, thank heavens, we see more natural images.

I have always been very partial to cheese, as are most in my family. Its uses are endless, almost, and its variety is astonishing. We have a fine range of locally made cheeses here on the South Coast, most of which are widely available, although some supermarkets seem unaware of what we make. There is at least one that has a very limited selection of South African soft cheeses, but most are fairly good. Perhaps the most comprehensive selection, both imported and local, is to be found at the supermarket in the Hibiscus Centre.

Number one for me is a good cheddar, and number two a good camembert.

We make brilliant camembert in this country, in the Cape winelands; the best to my mind is the Simonsberg cheese with green peppercorns. It is not all that easy to find, but the major supermarkets sometimes have it. Like several of the canoe farms they have an attractive website which is worth a look. Google it.

I met with one argument that ran along these lines: soft cheeses, camembert and brie, have limited appeal here. I think that is nonsense. I might agree that they are an acquired taste, but it doesn’t take much acquiring.

Cheddar is not so easy to buy, not a good one anyway. Some makers freeze the cheese which tends to increase its crumbliness and make it difficult to grate. Most makes are adequate.

For my taste cheddar and parmesan make the most useful cooking cheeses. If you want to make cheese sauce, and I do quite often, then a local cheddar is perfect. Use butter to make the roux and add a teaspoon of English mustard to the finished sauce, stirring it thoroughly. A splash of bee does no harm either.

I buy parmesan in a lump and grate it myself. I find the ready grated stuff doesn’t keep. And let’s face it; if you can’t be bothered to grate a bit of cheese then you shouldn’t be in the kitchen.

Like so many foods, likes and dislikes abound when it comes to cheeses. I am not fond of the rubbery cheeses from Holland, but, when I can get it or afford it, I will use Emmenthal or Gruyère, both of which are Swiss. They have a rich, tangy flavour, and in winter make a beautiful fondue, for which a dry white Cape wine does very nicely.

Cheese has been around for a long time.

Because of a lack of evidence there is no agreement on when and where cheese first appeared. History tells us that it was already a well developed craft by the time the Roman Empire came into being some two thousand years ago.

Some boffins have out the emergence of cheese making as far back as 10 000 years ago (there is nothing quite like a well aged cheddar).

It is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach.

But maybe that is a little more information than you really needed.

Research: Classic Cheese Cookery: Peter Graham; Penguin, London, 1995; Cheese Cooking and Entertaining: Jill Croxford; Pelham Books, London, 1975; Wikipedia.

CB

18/3/11

Food for words…

CHRIS BENNETT looks back on a couple of old books…

I HAVE a small collection of cookery books. It is housed in a purpose-built bookshelf on one side of my kitchen, far enough away from the hob and the kitchen sinks to be safe.

Cookery books have been a very important part of my life since early childhood, and they remain so to this day. I suppose it is just another aspect of my voracious appetite for reading, which is at least less fattening than a voracious appetite for food.

Last Friday, doing duty in the little library in my village I spent the two hours listening to the Mozart C Minor mass, a most glorious ensemble of notes and voices, and reading the obituaries in the Telegraph.

There is nothing odd in this; a tad unusual I will grant you, but not odd.

Obituaries are startlingly revealing when well written; needless to say, in the Telegraph they are very well written.

I reread, with huge pleasure, the obit of Keith Floyd, the English TV chef who died in 2009, a year with special association for me.

I also read the obit of Jay Landesman, a rather notorious American who longed for celebrity “but forgot to do much that merited lasting fame”.

When I got the part that described how, at 14 years old, he had had a nervous breakdown triggered by a plate of prunes, my heart was won.

Years later there was an occasion when he had waited long enough in a steakhouse for the waitress to bring his pudding.

When she eventually arrived Landesman said to the waitress, "Madame, do you realise your aggressive delay in bringing my Black Forest gateau has undone 32 years of psychoanalysis? If I relapse into a pre-oedipal stage, it will be your fault!"

There appears to be no record of the good woman’s reaction, but a nervous breakdown might have been in order.

Browsing the cookery bookshelf last week I came across a small volume that I had acquired at a Volks auction* years ago as part of a mixed lot. It was the Book of the Frying Pan by Phillip Harben, published in 1960 by The Bodley Head.

Mr Harben was the first TV cook of which I was aware; that would have been sometime around 1958. A few years later, as a newsreader and announcer with the BBC in London, I was to work with his daughter Pippa, a studio manager, a most exalted role in broadcasting.

The book is simply illustrated, quite practical and down to earth. I tried the soda bread recipe and found his timings a bit wide of the mark; otherwise the bread was OK.

Books about food have come a long way since 1950, when one of the most important of the 20^th century was published.

I say most important because the war had ended only four years earlier.

Moods in Britain were low and when a recently repatriated Mrs E. David released A Book of Mediterranean Food (John Lehman; 1950) it was well received. The book was an expression of her experiences with the food of the Mediterranean, where she spent the war years in Greece, Crete, Alexandria and Cairo. That highly respected Sunday paper The Observer said in its review, “Mrs David has assembled as potent a bundle of spells as ever made a culinary Witches’ Sabbath … (the book) deserves to become the familiar companion of all who seek uninhibited excitement in the kitchen.” And it did.

To her overwhelming delight Elizabeth David received a letter of glowing praise from one of the greatest of British novelists, Evelyn Waugh.

*The Pretoria auction house Volks conducted some magnificent book sales in the days when I was a bookseller; maybe they still do.

CB

11/3/11