Robin Ellis

In Oscar Wilde’s incomparable comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest, John Worthing’s prospective mother-in-law takes him to task for truthfully admitting that he has lost his parents.

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Lady Bracknell would certainly apply the same ruthless judgment to my losing two Tilley hats in the space of 14 months–both losses confirming in her mind that society was about to break down and…

“…reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”

It’s appropriate then, that my latest display of carelessness should have occurred in Paris.

When I realised three minutes after getting off the 69 bus at St Gervais Church in the Marais district on Saturday afternoon that I didn’t have my Tilley with me–and must have left it on the bus–I felt an urge to break down myself.

What made it doubly frustrating was that I knew exactly where the hat was. My seven-and-three-eighths broad-brimmed Tilley–faithful protector against the harmful ultra-violet rays of the sun–was still there on the seat where I’d been sitting. (I put it there to make the hard seat more comfortable.) But the bus was gone on its unstoppable way, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. 😩

My wretchedness was increased by the knowledge that this was not the first time it had happened–on a bus.

I left my first Tilley–purchased at the Grand Canyon and much-treasured as such–on a 24 London bus on my way to pick up my new passport.

The Tilley company was founded in Toronto in 1980 by Alex Tilley, a keen sailor, who wanted a “proper durable hat”, that would float, stay on the head, be unshrinkable and look attractive.

Their motto: Designed for Nature. Built for Life. 

Durable they certainly are, and wherever my first two Tilley’s are now–I wish them and their new owners, well–though that may be a curse as they are no defence against Carelessness Compounded.

Footnotes:

Lost property at RATP (Paris public transport) told me NO hat like mine had been handed in.

Postman arrived today with a package–with the NEW Tilly hat in it. 

Ordered online Monday–miracle of modern life–arrived two days later.

Meredith suggests I write my name and email address on the inside of the hat. Good Idea!

Brother Jack wants to open the betting on how soon I lose it.

I’m wondering what number bus it will be.

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The Dickens Museum has recently acquired some fascinating Dickens memorabilia; reading about it reminded me of my TV debut in 1967.

Mr. Dickens of London was a part-dramatised tour of the great writer’s big city haunts.

The conceit would have appealed to Dickens’s instinct for self-promotion .

It starred Sir Michael Redgrave as Charles Dickens and Juliet Mills as a tour guide whom Dickens befriends and offers to show her his London.

The first stop on the tour was 48 Doughty Street–the family’s home for two years from 1837–when he was 25 and where he wrote The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nickolas Nickleby .

“And this is Boz, young me, hard at work writing,” says Sir Michael/Charles Dickens, pointing at me! 

And there I was–sitting at Dickens’ real desk, twiddling a quill and spilling the ink, no doubt. It was directed by actor Barry Morse–who was big presence at the time on ITV as the detective pursuing David Jannsen as The Fugitive in weekly episodes. The Daily Mirror had opened a book, taking daily bets, on when Morse would track him down.

We were filming in Covent Garden–still operating as a fruit and vegetable market and an authentic Dickens location (he’d had an office in Wellington Street nearby). The porters were about to knock off work after a hard day’s night and were standing round watching the action. One of them spotted Barry giving me directions and quick as a flash shouted at him:

“You won’t find ‘im ‘ere mate–long gone!!”

The job was well timed for me. I’d been out of work for some weeks after sharing the stage for six months with another star-studded cast in a production of Sheridan’s The Rivals at the Haymarket Theatre.

A baptism of fire–straight from playing Idle Jack in Cheltenham Theatre’s Christmas pantomime.

I took over the leading part, Captain Jack Absolute, from Dan Massey.

Ralph Richardson played my father, Sir Anthony and Margaret Rutherford, Mrs Malaprop.

I was paid £35 a week and by the end I was hard up!
So this Dickens job was a gift and then more….

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson chose the night of transmission to give a major TV address to the nation. Our show went out–but the ratings persuaded the network to show it a second time.

Thus I got paid a repeat fee–which paid the rent for a few more weeks!

There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick’s hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide.

from The Pickwick Papers by Boz (young Charles Dickens)

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It informs me that because I am longer a European citizen, I am not entitled to vote in either the Municipal (local) elections in March or the European elections.

First fall-out from the Brexit vote.

You must be a citizen of La France to vote in the national elections–but at least these other elections offered foreign residents an opportunity to show solidarity and involvement with their community.

It’s also fun to be part of a small town elections–the visit to the Mairie to cast our votes, joining the steady stream of familiar faces.

The relief when you show your registration card and it’s confirmed you are indeed on the register–yes, you belong here (and we have been here full-time for 20 years–30 in all).

A sense of pride when you are given an envelope and the ballot papers of all the lists–and pointed towards the voting booths.

Doing your best to remember for whom you’ve decided to vote!

Placing chosen ballot paper in the envelope, signing the register of voters, putting the envelope in the transparent ballot box–glowing with a sense of duty done.

No longer!

It is doubly sad for Meredith, who had been invited to join one of the lists and had already attended a couple of meetings.

It’s apparently hard to find people willing to stand in the countryside–here’s someone who is by nature public-spirited and willing to do the work–and is now excluded.

Seems crazy.

But we are trusting that by the next set of elections 2026 (My! Seems a lifetime!) we will add French citizenship to our tally—thus qualifying to vote in the national, local and European elections.

Allons enfants de la Patrie!

Allez les Bleus!

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Europe becomes ELSEWHERE–“over there” again, at midnight, as the UK ups anchor and sails away (or free falls from a ship in the sky!)

I was born in January 1942, so for two and half years I lived in a Europe torn apart by war,  blissfully unaware of the horrors that were happening.

I was lucky. “Elsewhere” featured strongly in my life in the 1950s. My parents were outward-looking and liked to travel, using Dad’s concessionary travel permits (a perk as an employee of British Rail). I took it in my stride; never felt scared of the idea.

My first trip in 1951 was to Paris with a school party.

We traipsed through the streets in crocodile file–two abreast.

Blissfully ignorant of what being occupied had meant for people we were passing on the pavements.

My recall is minimal but I do remember the hot chocolate in cafés and the scary view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Two years later (summer of 1953), on our way to a beach holiday in Lloret del Mar on the Costa Brava, I remember feeling shocked seeing young boys begging on the street in Barcelona, just fourteen years after the end of the Spanish Civil War,

I remember Franco’s sinister police with their winged black helmets and machine guns keeping the beach “decent”.

I discovered the taste of an egg fried in olive oil, too.

I remember my first trip to Germany–1957–twelve years after the end of the war. I took the train to Flensburg near the Danish border and had my wallet stolen.

I remember the generosity of my German host family, who replaced the precious money I’d lost.

I remember in Spring 1961, on a nine-week tour of Europe before University, bashing steel for a week in a factory in Dusseldorf to make connecting rings for pipes and being astonished how quickly the city had risen from the ashes–just sixteen years after the end of the war.

I remember in 1961--(twelve years after the end of the Greek Civil War)–picking mulberries from the tree at a corner of the road leading into Delphi and feeling guilty, trying to wipe the purple stain of mulberry juice from my arms.

That same year, The National Youth Theatre toured Genoa, Florence, Perugia and Rome with a modern-dress production of Julius Caesar (I played a shouty First Citizen). In Rome,  Caesar dressed in a garish uniform may have been an uncomfortable sight for some in the audience. One performance finished at 2am. The producer had run out of money and refused to pay the electricians, who went on strike in the interval. None of the audience left. This was definitely “elsewhere,” we learned that night.

I remember my mother beside herself with worry that brother Jack (six-years-old) was drowning on the beach at Marina di Campo on Elba in summer 1961–146 years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars!!

“There is a world elsewhere”, I pronounced as a defiant Coriolanus–banished from Rome. A college production this time on a tour of Norway, Denmark and Germany.

By now I knew there was and I thrived on exploring it.

I was lucky.

All these early remembrances of times past and many more in the years that followed –experienced in the war-free zone of newly uniting/united Western Europe.

Increasingly and quickly, war became inconceivable within the EU–and has remained so.

Unlike the twenty years after the end of the Great War, a stabilising and unifying  organisation had emerged from the rubble.

And let’s not forget what erupted on the doorstep of the European Union in former Yugoslavia in the mid-nineties.

It was brutal, it was tribal. Neighbour killing neighbour.

A genocide in Srebrenica–8000 men and boys, massacred.

Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley last Sunday:

Now Foolish Albion is sailing away, jumping out.

That is why I’m sad or if I’m honest–mad as hell.

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This elegant creature arrived last Monday on the dot of 10am, as promised by the delivery company.

Pianos are heavy and I expected at least four sturdy removers.

Two sufficed–with barely a puff or red face.

They installed it in ten minutes and even fingered a little tune–taught to the removal man by his granddaughter, he said.

It’s a demi-grand Erard, made in 1914.

The church–constructed fifty years before the piano–exulted in the vibrations.

Sebastien Erard (1752-1831} built his first piano in Paris in 1777. He went on to build them for Kings and Queens and a impressive list of famous composers: Beethoven, Chopin, Fauré, Haydn, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Verdi, Ravel, among them.

His invention of the “double escapement” action–allowing notes to be repeated more easily–enabled these ambitious composers to challenge performers to astonishing heights of virtuosity.

Here is an (overlong) explanation of how this works on a piano made for a Queen and her Consort…

Ours is a considerably less ornate version–in beautiful light brown walnut wood.

We are its guardians, not its owners.

Brother Jack’s partner, Claire Béjanin, is the proud owner, inheriting the piano from her grandmother, who used to play duets with her husband on cello.

We must wait for the moment when Claire, a talented performer, teases the ivories and baptises it with a sweet air.

Until then, it will be covered in cotton sheets and wool blankets–no plastic–against the damp.

We need violins, violas and cellos; flutes and clarinets, and my favourites–oboes and bassoons, to make up a chamber orchestra.

Sopranos and contraltos, tenors and basses–baritones too.

Hold, hold, my heart–’twill come–all in good time.

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A Monday morning to cherish–for once–a beautiful blue sky and a crisp white frost covers the back meadow.

It’s the first Monday of the new decade and Twelfth Night to boot.

“If music be the food of love play on–give me excess of it.”

We are in need of some good news; so “an excess of love” in these troublingly, divided times would be good news.

So.

Our friend, Keith Richmond on whose olive farm south-east of Florence we have “laboured” at harvest time, is 80 today.

Three-score years and twenty–as a friend of his observed this morning.

Ten more than the traditional span.

Good news!

Buon Auguri, Keith!!

May you and your olives trees continue to prosper for many years to come!

(The olive oil from Boggioli is gorgeous, by the way, and Keith is an expert at export!)

The second piece of good news we awoke to this morning:

Our friend, Brian Cox, won the Golden Globe last night for Best Actor in a TV Drama Series for his role in Succession.

He’d told us a couple of weeks back that he didn’t fancy his chances. That Tobias Menzies, as the Duke of Edinburgh, opposite GG winner Olivia Coleman’s Queen Elizabeth, would be a worthier winner.

Separating two such stunning performances is invidious but hey! This is showbiz and we are rejoicing at Brian’s deserved triumph. His portrait of the media mogul monster–Logan Roy–has delighted and disgusted us in equal measure and left us panting for the third series, which he says starts shooting late Spring.

Good news!

Just for a moment I’ve been able to park The News–from the Middle East, Australia, No 10 and Mar-a-Largo.

And like the besotted Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night believe that love “can purge the air of pestilence!”

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I like to cook with the seasons and when possible, with local produce…

Our neighbour, Alice Frezoul gave us a medium cauliflower freshly cut from her vegetable patch last night.

Meredith had worked with her in the beautiful late December sunshine on the essential exercise of de-miting the bees.

This recipe is in the Winter section of my new book:

Robin Ellis’ Mediterranean Vegetarian Cooking

Available for pre-order on Amazon UK

I also like both the convenience and look of gratins.                                             

They often involve pre-cooked ingredients so the final stage is a simple matter of heating through, which means you can do an assembly job beforehand, heat the oven and hey presto!

The juicy black olives lend depth and an exotic twist.

For 2

1 medium cauliflower–broken up into bite size florets

3 tbs olive oil

1 medium onion–chopped

2 cloves garlic–pulped with a pinch of salt

a dozen or so, juicy black olives–stoned and halved

2 tbs parsley–chopped fine

4 tbs parmesan–grated or 2tbs each of parmesan and pecorino romano (if you use pecorino, keep in mind that it is quite salty.)

2 tbs wholewheat breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 190c

Steam the cauliflower florets to your taste in tenderness–I like them a bit firm.

Set aside.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion until soft and browned a little–about five minutes

Add the pulped garlic and the parsley and cook for another couple of minutes.

Turn off the heat and mix in the olives.

Add the cauliflower to the pan and turn it over in the mix–seasoning as you go with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle over half the cheese and turn it over.

Taste for seasoning.

Turn this into a shallow gratin dish.

Mix the remaining cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over a tablespoon of olive oil

Place in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes.

It should come out sizzling quietly and nicely browned on top.

We had it with sautéed Brussels sprouts.

Not the most photogenic dish, but scores high on taste.

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