ROAD MAP OF A MID LIFE CRISIS (11)

SPORTS DAY

It is the Office Sports Day and I am lining up at the start of the veterans’ 3,000 metres race. Anybody who has read my previous posts may be wondering whether they are reading the right blog. This opening sentence comes way out of left field and is the literary equivalent of turning on your TV to find Jeremy Clarkson hosting a late night discussion on gender equality issues. The image of me in shorts and running shoes will jar with the mental picture you have built up of someone more at home in the pub with drink in hand so let me rewind.

It is April when an e-mail drops into my inbox at work. “Wanted! Volunteers for the Compliance team on sports day.” My finger is poised over the delete button when I hear a low throaty chuckle from the desk opposite. It is Chuck Pangodje,  the Carl Lewis of Office Sports Day.  Every year he returns with a clutch of gold medals. “Are you going to enter?” he asks with a wolfish grin.

“Oh no,” I reply shaking my head in a sorrowful way which I hope will subliminally communicate to Chuck that I would dearly love to but  that matters far too painful to mention prevent my participation.

Chuck has many admirable qualities but reading subtle non-verbal communication is not one of them. “You should,” he says, “You would do well in the over 40’s races.”

“Really? Do you think so?”

“You could win a medal.”

As a child you are compelled to run around muddy fields in the cold in the name of physical education and whilst I would finish school races ahead of those of my classmates who suffered from morbid obesity, asthma and chronic lack of co-ordination, I was no athlete. But, as the years pass, memory fades and I find myself watching sport on TV and thinking, I could do that. Chuck is pushing at the open door of my self-delusion and so it is I find myself travelling by train to Sports Day with Chuck seated alongside me.

******

Back on the starting line; I am looking around at my fellow competitors. Some are built like racing snakes. Slim and muscled; they have all the right kit and complicated watches to monitor their progress. These people have obviously done this type of thing since leaving school and irrationally I feel that they are cheating. I mentally concede that unless I am lapped this is the closest I am going to get to these people. 

The starting pistol sounds and I start running. The true athletes effortlessly leave we lesser beings trailing in their wake. I settle into a kind of rhythm but the act of running seems laboured. As we round the first bend I find myself on the shoulder of a short, Asian man. He is a little overweight with a baseball cap covering his thinning hair. His shorts are knee length and khaki, his socks grey. This man has surely never run in his life. I will overtake him and he will feel deflated as I motor past and disappear into the distance. But whilst my mind is having this thought my body is sending out quite different messages. I’m breathing heavily and I find I do not have another gear.

Then the PA system bursts into life and I can hear the announcer’s tinny voice, “Ladies and Gentleman, if I can draw your attention to the over 40’s 3,000 metres which has just started on the running track. It would be great if you could give all the runners your support but in particular Hanif Butt…”   I look at the chap I am chasing. He is the only vaguely Asian looking runner and so I conclude that he is Hanif. He too has heard the announcement and he puts on a spurt when his name is mentioned leaving me panting as I try desperately to keep up. “…..it is two years since his heart transplant and this is his first race since the operation”. 

From across the field I hear a ripple of appreciative applause and I die a little inside. I finish the race well ahead of Hanif but he is without doubt the winner.

I wander across to the start line where Chuck’s race is about to start. I see that he is hobbling and wincing. “Problem?” I enquire.

Chuck nods, “I’ve strained my calf muscle warming up.”

I grimace to show I understand. “You can only do your best,” I say, “in the end the only person you are competing against is yourself.” I look off to the middle distance in a John Wayne sort of way to make sure Chuck appreciates the profundity of my words. He stares at me blankly but deep down I think he has a new found respect for me.

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (10)

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (10)
"IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME"

Its Saturday and I'm in the flat waiting for Emil and Oscar. I'm reclining in the folding chair which has now been joined by a sofa. You may well ask yourself why, if I have a sofa, I'm still making use of the folding chair. I will say no more than this; "IKEA".

I could have written a whole blog on the topic but it is not only the sofa that is new, I now have television. This is why I have not posted for two months. Every time I feel inspired to commit to writing some humorous incident in my life that illustrates a universal truth I find there is something unmissible on television; like the episode of Time Team where they unearth a medieaval cheese factory that had stood in the grounds of Sir Roger D'Airylea's castle or an episode of QI on Dave that I think I might not have seen.

Right now I'm watching Field of Dreams which taps right into the whole mid-life thing. The Kevin Costner character is decent and honest and hard working but that doesn't seem to be enoough. He is struggling financially and spiritually. So what does he do? He tears up one of his best fields and spends what little money he has building a floodlit baseball diamond. He follows his dream and because he believes in his dream it becomes a reality. "If you build it they will come." Dead baseball players emerge from the corn and start playing baseball in his backyard. And it is hard not to feel just a little bit emotional at that point because goddammit he deserves it! But the reason we feel emotional is because deep down we recognise for most people, most of the time, it doesn't matter how truly they believe or how hard they work to make their dream a reality, when they build it nobody comes. In fact they don't even call to say they won't be coming so I figure I should feel lucky that at least my phone rings.

It is Oscar. "Hi Dad, we're going to be late."
This is supposed to be my time with the boys. I have cleaned, I have tidied, I have made ready. "Not to worry," I say. "How long do you think you'll be?"
At the other end of the line I can hear Oscar shouting to his mother and I can hear ill humoured muttering in response. "Dad? Mum says we'll be there when we get there."
"I'll see you then."

Two hours later the intercom buzzes and I let the boys in. They have the sullen resentful air of children who have endured boredom of epic proportions. "What do you want to do?" I ask.

Oscar thrusts a large bag towards me. "We've brought the PS3 with us. Can we set it up?"

This is not really the quality father son time I had in mind but I go wiith the flow. "Suren help yourselves." Oscar busies himself plugging in cables.

"How's school been?" I ask.

"OK," grunts Emil.

"Do you want to give me a little more detail?"

"We had sex education," says Emil.

"How was that?"

"Stupid! They spend all this time telling you how to do it then they tell you not to do it. Waste of time if you ask me."

I find it difficult to take issue with the logic. "I suppose they just want to give you information to keep you safe. What kind of stuff did they tell you?"

"The woman who taught us brought in all these condoms and showed us how to use them." I can sense Emil is warming to the topic and even Oscar is surreptitiously listening in.

"Well that's good," I say, for the want of anything better.

"Dad?" enquires Emil. "Why do they make condoms in strawberry flavour?"

I silently damn the woman who has thought to introduce this complication into the lesson. It is the work of a nano second to decide that now is neither the time nor the place to begin an exxposition on the subject of oral sex. "Its in case you run out of chewing gum," I say but I can tell that Emil is not entirely convinced.

Oscar has by this time finished setting up the PS3 and the boys throw themselves onto the sofa, controllers in hand. I gaze at them indulgently and Oscar looks back at me as if he has something he wants to say. "What is it Oscar?" I ask.

"Dad, why is the sofa so hard?"

"Its a long story Oscar."

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (9)

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (9)

THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD

It’s that dead time between Christmas and New Year and I ‘m alone in the flat. With nothing better to do I decide to play one of the 2 war movies I received as Christmas gifts on my PC, but which should I chose. I study the covers. Rather implausibly both claim to tell “the greatest untold story of the Second World War”. The people who do the marketing for war films know that their viewers are the same sad acts who watch the Military History channel, can recite “The World at War” from memory and can tell you the names of Goebel’s children. They know their audience has a voracious appetite for fresh information and so every war film claims to be telling some previously untold story, which is patently rubbish. There can be no period of history that has been as painstakingly picked over, documented and analysed as WWII. Whole TV channels devote around the clock coverage to every conceivable aspect of the conflict. Somewhere my grandmother’s visit to the chiropodist in 1942 is captured and is showing on “Home Movies of World War II: Bunions and Barrage Balloons (In Colour)”. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if the story really hasn’t been told by now it’s more than likely because it’s not worth the telling. Rather like those magazines that promise to reveal 20 things you never knew about Jordan. (That’s Jordan as in Katie Price and not Jordan the country.) You know with a confidence that borders on certainty that these are things that no right thinking person ever needed or wanted to know.

The covers of the two films are both remarkably similar; a battle weary soldier with his back to the viewer gazes towards a horizon over which the unstoppable forces of mechanised warfare are advancing. We know from the image that he has fought against the odds and shown uncommon valour to safeguard the fate of nations. I notice that “Final Sacrifice” a European production is festooned with emblematic wreaths whilst “Pathfinders” a US straight to video affair has no such commendations. There was a time when the fact that a film had won awards would have swayed my choice but now seemingly every low budget European film has won some plaudit or another. On closer inspection the awards engender little confidence. “Official selection Frimley Film Festival” is not the Oscars just as “Shortlisted for Les Ballons D’Or de le Chien at the Ghent Film Festival” is not going to have anyone snatching the film of the shelf. Then I spot it. “Final Sacrifice” claims to have been 7 years in the making. This isn’t just another formulaic war flick this is a labour of love, this is art. I sit down and ready myself to appreciate this classic piece of cinematography.

Out of a sense of deep loyalty to those who follow my blog and because I’m sure Mark Kermode will not be covering this particular release, I will tell you what happened in the 81 minute film it took the Director 7 years to finish so that you don’t have to go through the same experience:

A small band of battle weary German soldiers are fighting a rearguard action in Northern Italy. They are being harassed by local partisans and American air raids which result in one of their number losing a leg. They are reinforced by a group of untried Italian troops led by a charismatic Captain Correlli type who appears to have spent the war in an eat all you want pasta buffet. The Germans and Italians do not get on and come to blows. They continue to be harassed by partisans and air raids until a messenger arrives and tells the officer commanding the German troops that the Americans are advancing, the rest of the German army is retreating but he and his men are to hold their position to the last man. The German officer who is demoralised by all the harassment he and his men have suffered asks for two volunteers and orders the rest of his men to join the retreat. One can sense that things are going to end badly when one of the volunteers is the one legged man who is at this point hobbling around on a crudely made crutch that looks like it was made by Fred Flintstone. The Italians form up and march off without a backward glance and the German officer and his two comrades ready themselves for their act of senseless sacrifice. At this point I prepare myself for scenes of heroic resistance against overwhelming odds as the Germans hurl back vastly superior American forces. Instead I watch as the heroes are speedily overwhelmed and killed inflicting minimal casualties on their attackers.

As the camera focuses on their dead bodies the final credits begin to roll and I am left thinking “how could this possibly have taken 7 years?” There is no narrative arc, no resolution, what were they doing? And then I think of some of the projects I have begun in the past seven years and I mellow. As I put the DVD in its case and earmark it for the charity shop I wonder whether I should put some laurel wreaths on my blog to entice readers. Perhaps not.

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (8)

CONFERENCE DIARY 2

WEASEL BLOUSE

For the benefit of those who did not read my last blog or for those who did but suffer short term memory loss I will recap. My boss has asked me to deliver a speech at a conference being held in Belgrade. My preparation has been far from ideal culminating in a late night drinking session with some of my fellow delegates. Read on.

Thursday morning in central Belgrade: The hangover from last night’s outing rattles through my head like a Siberian draught blowing in an empty room. Today I will represent the company and speak authoritatively on “Implementing a system of internal controls.” Word of my assured performance will filter back to the office and I will be marked out as a candidate for advancement. At least that was the plan but as I take my seat at the front of the hall the fear joins forces with the after effects of too much alcohol so that I am coated in a fine film of perspiration.

I look out at my audience who are equipped with headphones to allow for simultaneous translation from Serbo-Croat to English and vice-versa. They look like Cybermen. Through the double doors at the side of the hall I spy Eva and Carlos with whom I was drinking last night. They are giggling over cups of the thick black coffee that is being served to delegates. Towards the front of the audience I spot Xavier. He waves to me and I am relieved that he appears not to have taken to heart the jokes I made at his expense in the early hours of this morning.

All too quickly the audience are asked to take their seats and we begin. Our Serbian host gives a short introduction before handing over to the first speaker who is a Japanese Professor of Economics. He talks in English on the subject of “Reducing Regulatory Risk,” a subject that is quite as riveting as it sounds and enlivened only by the speaker’s inability to pronounce the letter “r” which emerges from his lips as “l”. As he draws to a conclusion I feel a rising sense of dread that is only partly eased by the audience’s polite applause. And then I am on.

I give my presentation aware of a nervous tremor in my voice and an unsteadiness in my hand as I turn the pages of my speaking notes. The bored thousand yard stares of the audience only add to my discomfort but suddenly I find myself on the last page and a wave of relief sweeps over me as I finish speaking. There is a slight delay as the translation catches up and then there is a round of applause. I take a sip of water and sit back triumphant. The host turns to me and asks whether I will take questions. I can hardly refuse and so I nod as if it is a matter of no consequence to me one way or the other. The invitation to ask questions meets general indifference until Xavier raises his arm and is invited to put his question.

“Can you tell us please, what is your policy for weasel blouse?” asks Xavier.

The audience look at me expectantly as I flounder. “Sorry can you repeat the question?” I ask.

“Yes. How do you deal with weasel blouse?” asks Xavier deadpan and then I get it. This is some sly Iberian revenge for the sleights suffered last night. Xavier wants to humiliate me in front of this audience. Well I have news for you my cunning Spanish amigo, I do not buckle under pressure. I smile to let Xavier know I am onto his little joke and then I say, “We are very relaxed about blouses for weasels and we also permit waistcoats for ferrets”. I am feeling pleased with the rapier like speed of my riposte when I note the look of horror on the faces of certain members of the audience and the total bewilderment on the faces of others and as I register all of this it suddenly occurs to me with an awful clarity what in fact Xavier was asking. Xavier wanted to know how we treat whistleblowers.

The host intervenes and voices some perfunctory thanks for my presentation and we break for coffee. As I leave the stage nobody wants to catch my eye and with almost indecent haste a taxi is found to take me to the airport. The car is small and of Eastern European origins so that the engine noise is deafening as we travel along the main road to the airport. I feel like I am fleeing the scene of some terrible crime and I welcome the distance I am putting between myself and the spot where doubtless people are shaking their heads in disbelief at my crass stupidity. I pray that Newman does not get to hear of what has happened and I mentally shelve my plans for a leather executive chair.

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (7)

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (7)

CONFERENCE DIARY Part I

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man." So wrote Frederich Nietszche a man who knew a thing or two about life’s disappointments.

I am at my desk when I get a summons to the top floor. As I travel up in the lift I rack my brain trying to think of what I might have done wrong but I needn’t have worried. As I enter his office, Newman cracks what for him counts as a smile. It seems that I have been selected to represent the office at a compliance conference to be held overseas. My mind struggles to compute what impact this will have on my prospects for promotion whilst simultaneously imagining a host of potential far flung, exotic venues. I am to give a presentation on the snappily titled subject, “Implementing a system of internal controls”. Newman spends a lot of time impressing upon me the significant opportunity he is presenting me with. I nod dumbly. By the time he is drawing to a close I am mentally packing the sun tan lotion and choosing the décor for my new executive office, so it takes a little while for it to sink in when Newman announces that my destination is Belgrade.

I land in Belgrade at midday and take a taxi to the hotel. Goran, my driver, is a valuable source of local information despite his limited English. From him I learn that Serbs love Chelsea football club, that it is difficult doing business in Serbia because of interference from corrupt politicians and that as I have no wedding ring I will have no trouble attracting one of Belgrade's many lovely women. I thank Goran and decline his offer of help on this last matter. He charges me 3000 dinar (roughly £25).

After checking in at the hotel I have four hours to kill. I decide to explore my surroundings and heading out with no particular plan I find myself at Belgrade's fortress which houses the military museum. Having paid roughly 80 pence I learn that Serbia has experienced many rulers and invasions by foreign powers. The Romans were followed by the Celts, the Slavs and the Turks. All of these peoples brought with them large pointy bits of metal to kill the locals. I also get a crash course in Serbia's 20th century history and conclude that the military museum is much better value than Goran.

On the way back to the hotel I am on the lookout for replica football kits to take home for Emile and Oscar. Tucked away on a back street I find a stall that has counterfeit Red Star and Partizan tops. The stall holder who has a lit cigarette surgically fixed to his lips tells me that he visited London for 2 weeks in 1976 and that he loves Chelsea. I buy 2 Red Star tops and he throws in 2 pairs of shorts for good measure.

Back at the hotel I smarten up for the evening reception. I consider adding the finishing touches to my speech but think better of it. I meet with the other delegates in the hotel lobby and we are taken in a convoy of coaches to the Royal Palaces on the outskirts of Belgrade where we receive a guided tour. The palaces were built in the 1920's by King Alexander and following the Royal Families exile in 1941 were used by Yugoslavia's communist leaders. We see the damage caused by NATO bombing in 1999 (an obvious sore point) and I am surprised to learn that the Serb Republic still has a Royal Family. Even more surprisingly His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and his wife are present to meet us. I line up for the group photo with HRH. I am really impressed at the trouble our Serb hosts are taking to make us welcome. There is only one problem. It is now 9 o'clock and there is no sign of food other than the trays of rather uninspiring cocktail snacks circulating around the room.

At 10 o'clock coaches arrive to pick us up and drop us back in the centre of Belgrade. I consider an early night so that I am fresh for my big speech in the morning but I’m persuaded, rather too easily, to join a group who are having a drink in a bar. My companions are a cosmopolitan bunch. Pieter is Dutch, Eva is German and flirts outrageously with Carlos who epitomizes the stereotype of hirsute, Argentine machismo. The final member of the group is Xavier, a Catalan whose English is heavily accented. As the drinks follow one after the other into empty stomachs inhibitions recede and soon we are laughing and joking like old friends.

I would like to be able to say that from our time together we each learn something valuable about the others’ culture and background. Unfortunately, and I’m not proud of this, I find myself, in imitation of Xavier, doing impressions of Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Xavier appears to take this in good part and the others present seem amused but it may well be they are simply embarrassed on Xavier’s behalf. Whatever, we finish up at about 3 am and make our way back to the hotel parting as friends. The finishing touches to the speech will have to wait until the morning. (To be continued..)

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (6)

RMOAMLC (6)

OTHERWISE OCCUPIED

It’s Monday morning and joy of joys I have an out of office meeting in Ludgate Circus. I have left myself plenty of time to spare and exit the tube at Bank to walk the remainder of the way. As I walk along Cheapside it occurs to me that I haven’t met up with Julian for a while so I call him.

“Hi Julian, its Olly.”

“Olly, I was going to call you.”

“Well what do you know I’ve saved you the trouble. I was wondering if you wanted to meet up this week.”

“Definitely. Love to. What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we could have a few beers and get a curry,” I venture.

There is a definite pause at the other end of the line. It is pregnant with unease. “I’m not sure I fancy that,” says Julian.

I’m taken aback. “Well what do you want to do instead?” I ask.

“I’m not sure really. I just don’t fancy beer and curry.”

It just goes to show you never really know another person. Julian and I always have beer and curry. Sometimes if we're in a rush we might skip the curry but I thought we held a shared belief that beer and curry represented the zenith of human social interaction. “What’s wrong with beer and curry?” I ask unable to keep a slight edge of petulance out of my voice

“There’s nothing wrong with it as such,” says Julian sounding defensive.

“’As such?’ ‘As such?’” I repeat, “We always have beer and curry what’s changed?”

“Well if you must know,” says Julian, I’m tired of waking up with a thick head and a bad stomach.”

I’m forced to pause and consider these points. There is more than a grain of truth in his objection but before I can acknowledge this Julian goes on, “And I’m fed up of waking in the middle of the night with a raging thirst because of all the salt…..” This too is something I am familiar with but there is more, “..And we always end up talking shit…”

“But its entertaining shit,” I interject hoping Julian will laugh and realise how petty his objections sound but he is warming to his subject and is not about to be deflected.

“…And the last time we went out I fell asleep on the train and woke up at the end of the line. It cost me £50 to get home by taxi…..”

“Well you can’t complain if you have to pay the idiot tax,” I joke.

“…And Tamzin made me sleep on the sofa when I got in and didn’t speak to me for 2 days.”

“Well that’s marriage for you,” I say in what I hope is a sympathetic tone.

“Oh it’s alright for you. No wonder you’re separated.”

This last comment brings the conversation to a juddering halt as we both realise that Julian has crossed an invisible line.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that last bit.”

“Don’t mention it,” I say magnanimously. “So let me just summarise where we are. You are suggesting that just because it gives you a headache, bad stomach, disturbed sleep, makes you talk nonsense, renders you incapable of alighting from a train at the correct stop, costs you £50 and damages your relationship with your wife this somehow outweighs the positive sensations you get from the complex matrix of delights that is created when you mix beer and curry.” I’m confident that striped down and stated starkly like this Julian will see the folly of his position.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” says Julian seemingly blind to the obvious flaws in his case.

I try another tack. “So what do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t know,” says Julian, “I haven’t given it much thought.”

I seize on this. “Well you seem to have given an awful lot of thought to the negatives,” I pause to let this well made point sink in, “I simply thought that if you were going to suggest that beer and curry  was somehow deficient as a night out you might have taken time to consider how we might improve on it.”

“We could have a coffee,” proffers Julian apologetically.

I snort derisively, “Oh yes, let’s buy Vespas and pinch young girls’ bottoms while we’re at it.”

“Well, like I say I haven’t really given it much thought,” says Julian.

“Obviously!”

“Surely as two mature adults we could conceive of some alternative way of spending the evening,” implores Julian.

“The floor is all yours,” I say, “You name it and we’ll give it a go.”

“Oh I don’t know,” sighs Julian with a resigned air, “how about we meet at the Red Lion?”

“Great idea,” I answer triumphantly and as I approach St Paul’s Cathedral and ring off I can almost taste the chicken biryani. Out of idle curiosity I decide to visit the collection of tents that house the Occupy London protest. On my inspection it appears that capitalism can sleep safely in its bed. The tightly packed tents seem to significantly outnumber those visibly protesting. A young man is labouring energetically to produce a sound from two small hand drums and another man is producing a very proficient depiction of St Pauls on the pavement using chalks. Neither of these two exertions seems likely to bring the existing world order to its knees so I turn my attention to the sheets of agitprop taped to every available wall in the vicinity. I’m reading a fascinating polemic against the global conspiracy of bankers and have just reached the point where I‘m invited to consider the works of David Icke for further information on the subject when I am approached by a woman wearing a woolly hat. “You a banker?” she asks.

“No,” I reply. The woman seems a little disappointed. “Would it matter if I was?” I ask helpfully.

“Course it would. Bankers are why we’re in the mess we’re in.”

I suspect that Woolly Hat could talk at some length on this topic and so, hoping to throw her off her stride, I launch a pre-emptive strike. “Surely bankers are not solely responsible,” I say. She looks at me with a mixture of pity and dismay and emboldened by her evident surprise I go on, “Our current problems are symptoms of far bigger issues; it is a feature of our economic system that there will be cycles of boom and bust.”

“Exactly!” says Woolly Hat and now it is my turn to be surprised. I’m not quite sure how I come to be in agreement with this woman. “The whole system is corrupt, it needs to be changed,” she asserts stridently.

“So you are advocating that we do away with capitalism are you?” As I ask my question I am confident that Woolly Hat does not realise the rhetorical trap I’m setting for her.

“Most definitely,” she responds.

“Right, and what do you say we should put in its place?” I ask.

I haven’t given it much thought,” replies my interlocutor.

“Ha! I thought as much,” I comment and as I head to my meeting I congratulate myself on not one but two victories for cool headed reason over the perils of woolly thinking in the course of a single morning.

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (5)

RMOAMLC

LIVES OF THE ARTISTS No. 1

Listen to the news, read a paper or speak to friends and you would believe that any time you go on-line your personal information is available to anyone who cares to see it; millions of people just sitting in front of their screen waiting on your every key stroke. Fear not, I have the answer to your internet security concerns. Publish all your personal data in a blog and then be assured that nobody will be remotely interested in it. If you are reading this congratulate yourself on being part of a select band. I appreciate that blogging is very noughties and that I ought to be Tweeting but when I started I had hoped that my audience wouldn’t all fit in my car.

Not that small can’t be beautiful; I am very grateful to my American readership and would like to thank you both for your loyalty. It has occurred to me that perhaps you are sitting in some CIA reading room like Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor. If you are, let me assure you that I have no plans to subvert the world order but please don’t let that deter you from continuing to read this blog. I need all the followers I can get and there are more laughs in this than in an Islamist chat room.

Appreciating what it is to be ignored I have decided to pay homage to other artists who were unappreciated in their own time in a series of profiles entitled “Lives of the Artists”.

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Claude Beaudaire

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder,” is perhaps the best known of

Beaudaire’s many bon mots. The man whose passion for life was exceeded only by his capacity for vast quantities of industrial strength alcohol is little known now but in his time his light shone as brightly as any of the famed artists of the Paris demi-monde. A voracious and undiscerning lover of women he was a habitué of the Moulin Rouge and friend of the artistic elite. Paul Cezanne said of him “He sees the world through the eyes of a child and paints it with the hands of an arthritic blacksmith.” Toulouse Latrec is said to have commented, “I look up to Monsieur Beaudaire”.

Born in 1854 in the tiny hamlet of Oublie in the Loire Valley, Beaudaire was the youngest of five children. His father an accountant died in a freak accident while  sorting the tax affairs of a local land agent. This incident is seen by many biographers as a defining event in the life of the young Beaudaire. The art historian, Clough, in his work “Bad Impressions”, claims that the painting “Les Livres Sur Mon Pere” was an attempt by the adult Beaudaire to come to terms with the childhood trauma. 

The death of his father left Beaudaire in a female dominated household. His four older sisters and doting mother are said to have dressed the young Claude like a doll. Whatever the emotional consequences of this upbringing, it is plain that as a man Beaudaire was never happier than when in the intimate company of women. In his most famous series of works Beaudaire gives us an uncompromising representation of the female form in a variety of poses. “Tournebroche” (literally translated as “Spit Roast”), as this series of works is generally referred to in artistic circles, was painted between 1880 and 1882 while Beaudaire was at the height of his powers. Many commentators have been struck by the bold application of oil on canvass to create images that are both visceral and visually arresting.

Undoubtedly his unashamedly sexual representation of women meant that Beaudaire’s work never enjoyed a wide audience. While he enjoyed a good deal of fame if not notoriety within the permissive confines of Paris’ artistic community the wider world was subject to a far stricter moral code and his paintings struggled to find an audience.

Beaudaire’s ability to polarise contemporary opinion can be seen in a cutting from the London Daily News from September 17^th 1888. It is reported that a small exhibition of impressionist paintings was held in the Stubbings Gallery in Whitechapel. Beaudaire was among the artists whose work was selected for display. After only a single day the exhibition was picketed by a cross section of local womens, temperance and church groups all professing outrage at the images portrayed in Beaudaire’s work. After some public disorder the gallery suffered fire which was extinguished before it could do serious harm but nevertheless it resulted in the closure of e exhibition.

This event appears to have been a turning point in Beaudaire’s life. Thereafter he struggled to exhibit or sell his work and his life began a downward spiral. He found himself living in a brothel in one of Paris’ poorer quarters. He used the establishment’s employees as models and his paintings reflect the seedier and less glamorous side of life. “Elle non perspirant bien pour une grande femme,” is a striking example of his work in this period. It is interesting to note that much of Beadaire’s work from this time was exchanged for the necessaries of life and his paintings from this time have surfaced in some rather bizarre circumstances.

In 1892 Beaudaire’s health began to deteriorate. This was almost certainly as a result of excessive drinking. He moved to a hospital just outside Paris catering for the long term sick and run by the Sisters of Constant Virtue. Very few paintings from this period of his life remain. Whether Beaudaire was simply unable to work at the same rate as before or whether his work was destroyed after his death cannot be said. The few pictures that we do have suggest Beaudaire, whilst physically unwell washappy in his surroundings. His use of colour at this time is reminiscent of his earlier work and his choice of subject is certainly more spiritual than his previous work. “La Novice,” depicting a young woman in a shift nightdress is thought to be a picture of a novice nun involved in Beaudaire’s care. Whilst chaste in comparison to other work there remains a hint of surpressed carnality that reassures us that Beaudaire’s appetites had not entirely deserted him. Beaudaire died in 1897 and was buried in the small burial ground attached to the hospital in which he spent his final years. There was little interest in his work after his death but in the late 1960’s he enjoyed a brief renaissance his work being favoured particularly by those who espoused free love. His rehabilitation was short lived. Feminist commentators objected to his depiction of women and his work was one more consigned to oblivion. Beaudaire’s work is not on show in any major museum but some examples can be seen in the Town Hall in Oublie, his place of birth.