GH950603-000000 GH950603-000000 950603 Embraced by Scots society ROSALIND K MARSHALL 3 32 FEATURE WEEKENDER, SCOTTISH MASTERS ILLUS 978075731 Sir John de Medina came reluctantly to Edinburgh, but found it so much to his taste that he remained for the rest of his life, reports Rosalind K Marshall IN 1694 Margaret, Countess of Rothes, sat for her portrait. A plump lady in a loose-fitting gown, she gazed from her canvas with a distinctly self-satisfied smile, for she had recently persuaded the artist, John Baptiste de Medina, to visit Edinburgh. Born in Brussels in 1659, the son of a Spanish army captain serving in the Low Countries, Medina studied with the Flemish portraitist Francois Duchatel, and by 1686 was building up a successful practice in London. Among his patrons were the Scottish Earl and Countess of Melville. The Countess of Rothes was Lady Melville's cousin, but Medina had been distinctly reluctant to take up her suggestion to visit Edinburgh. It would be folly to neglect his London clients, and he had no desire to absent himself from his wife, Jean Mary Vandale, and their children. Lady Rothes was determined, however, and a bargain was struck. In order to make his trip as brief as possible, Medina and his assistants would prepare his canvases in advance, painting in the bodies of the future clients. The heads would be done from life, in Edinburgh, and then, back in London, the finishing touches added. Lady Rothes had therefore to ascertain how each would like to be clothed. Men were no problem, for the obligatory suit of armour would suffice, but ladies would have to say how they and their children should be garbed, and decide on the size of picture. Medina finally travelled north with the Earl of Melville's son, Lord Leven, probably in the spring of 1694, and was an instant success. All the Rothes' friends and relatives flocked to his hired studio. All thoughts of a fleeting visit forgotten, Medina hurried back to London to collect Jean Mary and their children John, William, Gisberta, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Anne. He installed them in a comfortable three-roomed flat in one of Edinburgh's high city-centre tenements and there he spent the rest of his life. Usual clients apart, the Royal College of Surgeons commissioned him to paint an ambitious series of portraits for their new hall, he was naturalised by the last Scottish Parliament and he was knighted shortly afterwards. He died on October 5, 1710, a distinguished member of Edinburgh society, and was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard. To this day, his portraits can be seen in Scottish country houses. * Dr Rosalind K Marshall is Assistant Keeper at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. GH950603-000001 GH950603-000001 950603 Shocking secrets of a highly charged kingdom JIM HEWITSON 3 32 FEATURE WEEKENDER 978075732 Jim Hewitson tells why Fifers feel close to Paradise YOU won't get an argument from the citizens of Fife if you suggest that the promised land, God's acre, is to be found 'twixt the sparkling waters of Forth and Tay. Whether it might also be the location of a stairway (or more accurately a loft door) to Heaven is another matter. Fife has many mysterious traditions and secret corners, but is it possible that a tradesman's entrance to Valhalla lies directly above the Kingdom? Not as unreasonable a proposition as might appear at first sight. By way of explanation, let me take you first of all back over 20 years to my gipsy incarnation and to the slopes of Mount Olympus, Greece, where our encampment experienced the most spectacular thunderstorm a body is ever likely to live through in this or a hundred lifetimes. Let me refer to my dog-eared journals of August, 1973 -- ''Spent last night under the bulk of Mount Olympus. Zeus and his pals must have been throwing a party because during an eight-hour electrical storm thunderbolts were being chucked around to the accompaniment of rumbling thunder and torrential rain. No sleep.'' Additional recollections of that highly-charged night include little fishing boats silhouetted against the eastern skyline, sheet lightning dancing along the dark backdrop of the Gulf of Thessaloniki. It was easy to picture the gods partying up there on the Olympian summit, to imagine that they'd left the celestial backdoor ajar. Lightning activity has always been associated in tradition with mighty and mysterious forces at work or play. Here in Scotland we get our share of electrical storms. In Orkney, with our endless horizons, they can be impressive but are generally not long-lasting and well dispersed. However, sifting accounts of lightning strikes, particularly in the 1700s, central Fife seems to crop up again and again as an area of unusual activity. We can even narrow it down to the Cupar district. Let the facts speak. In 1733 Melville House, about five-and-a-half miles from Cupar, was struck by a bolt of lightning which achieved some strange effects. Although no-one was hurt, a section of mirror melted, huge splinters were torn from solid sections of wainscotting, a chimney-head came down, and stones were hurled 100 yards across the garden. Two years later in Cupar itself, a blacksmith was struck down by a bolt of lightning while shoeing a horse and ''expired immediately''. In the 1790s a servant at Pitcullo House had her bonnet singed and was knocked out when lightning descended via the kitchen chimney. In July, 1783, at Monimail, west of Cupar, a boy and girl caring for their invalid mother were killed by a bolt which again entered by the chimney. Strangely, a dog which lay motionless for an hour after the strike and was thrown out on a midden as dead, was later found strolling around, apparently none the worse for the experience. Finally in Cupar on September 20, 1787, four men were struck by lightning in the old correction house, which was being used as a wright's shop. Two recovered but their companions were found ''without any remains of life''. As I was saying, Fifers have always thought themselves nearer to Paradise than the rest of us. Perhaps they are indeed just that little bit too close to Heaven's door for comfort. * Shocking Footnotes: The mast on the Empire State Building in New York was struck 68 times during the first 10 years after its erection, and Roy Sullivan, a park ranger from Virginia, survived four lightning strikes. GH950603-000002 GH950603-000002 950603 No Headline Present 3 30 FEATURE 978075733 SCIENTISTS in Norwich have discovered something our mothers and grannies always knew. Fish oil is good for you. They've doen a study of fish oil in diets and dsicovered that it may be beneficial in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other disorders because it can suppress immune reacitvity. The old song about cod liver oil and the orange juice may soon be heading up the charts. GH950603-000003 GH950603-000003 950603 And there's no cell-by date JOE DONNELLY 3 30 FEATURE WEEKENDER,FRONTIERS ILLUS 978075734 Welfare groups will be pleased to learn of research on immortal cells, which could save millions of laboratory animals, reports Joe Donnelly. ANIMALS and their well-being have never been so prominent on our news pages and TV screens. When grannies ride shotgun alongside new-age travellers, assorted shaven-heads and tent-dwellers to preserve the comfort of calves, we can be assured that the steer-huggers are gaining political muscle. Body Shop beauty pedlar and Queen of Green, Anita Roddick, has come under scrutiny of late about the fortune she's made in the anti-testing policy of her chain of stores. Some reports claim that despite the boast on Body Shop products, some substances used in some of the preparations have been tested on animals after all, by researchers in other organisations. While it's clearly difficult to prevent tests being carried out by third parties on ingredients eventually used by greener companies (and in fact it's a legal requirement that products used on humans must be tested), anti-cruelty campaigners might be heartened to learn of a major Scottish research project that could eventually save the lives of thousands, possibly millions, of laboratory animals. Professor Caroline MacDonald is leading a project into immortality at Paisley University. If the work is successful, she could find her name lives forever. The immortality, however, is unfortunately for cells only, MacDonald assures us, though if she manages to achieve it for humans, then reservations for early treatment have already been accepted from Frontiers. Cell immortalisation, however, could massively reduce the number of animals needed by drug companies and clinical investigators for their own researches. About five million animals -- mainly rats -- are used for research every year. To find a new drug, a company may have to test up to 100,000 different chemical combinations, often using an animal in each test. The Paisley project, funded to the tune of #231,000 by the Biotechnical and Biolological Sciences Research Council, and scheduled for three years, is backed by a #150,000 collaboration with Dr Helen Grant of Strathclyde University. They hope to establish a cell culture that goes on reproducing itself while keeping its characteristics. The ''immortal'' cell cultures could replace up to 70% of traditional lab experiments on animals. Professor MacDonald, head of biological sciences, said: ''Cell growth is not a problem, but the cultures grown in a solution in plastic dishes tend to lose their characteristics. They tend to evolve into cells which like growing in plastic, rather than retaining the properties of liver or kidney cells. ''We are using genetic engineering techniques to immortalise mammalian cells by introducing viral oncogenes, complex molecules which cause cancers, into them. These oncogenes promote rapid multiplication of the original cells, but the new growth retains many of the original characteristics. They are also more stable.'' Basically, the cells are given a kind of cancer that makes them explode into growth, duplicating themselves time and again very accurately so that each cell is identical. ''This enables more accurate toxicity studies which would closely reflect human exposure to chemicals in the environment. ''If we are successful, the research would be of great benefit to pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries and all the others who are obliged by law to evaluate the safety of their products. ''One likely consequence includes a reduction in drug and chemicals development costs and several leading players in the biotech industry are showing keen interest.'' MacDonald said another potential benefit is that the immortal cells could be used as bio-farms to harvest specific vital medical products like Human Blood Factor 8. ''It's possible that in the future we will use liver cells to make the blood-clotting factor in substantial quantities which could benefit haemophiliacs.'' For the moment, though, the work looks like a benefit to the millions of lab rats currently used in experiments. In addition, experimenting on cells rather than animals could cut each test's cost from #10 to 10 pence, saving millions in development funds, and large numbers of chemicals could be tested at a time, in a cheap and automated process which will save more time and money. ''If we can benefit humans and animals at the same time,'' MacDonald said, ''then that can only be good.'' GH950603-000004 GH950603-000004 950603 OJ impresses His Lordship 3 31 FEATURE WEEKENDER, NIBBLES 978075735 * LORD HOPE, Lord president of the Court of Session, is hooked on the OJ Simpson trial, he admitted to Strathclyde University's Law School. The Lord Justice General is fascinated by the use of info-tech which allows evidence to be recorded instantly and by the videos and graphics used to assist in questioning witnesses. Opening a recent conference on information technology in Law at Strathclyde, Lord Hope said the school has played a vital role in the development of legal training in the field of computers. However, in comparison to the OJ high-tech court room drama, Scotland's courtroom technology, he said, was in the era of the air balloon. Slugs cause millions of pounds in crop damage each year, and because Scotland and the rest of the UK is so moist for most of the time, they're a bigger problem here than in most of Europe. Scientists at Long Ashton research station are investigating common carabid beetles which eat slugs to find out if they can be recruited as a crop pest control. One snag they've discovered is that slug pellets are also bad for beetles. SOME plants are spreading like weeds on deadly ground. Foresters working with a wildlife trust in Wales have made some remarkable discoveries on the spoil heaps of abandoned metal mines, land which is poisoned by copper and lead. They've found colonies of rare metallophyte lichens thriving where other plants would wilt, wither and die. Richard Thomson, district forester is trying to puzzle out whether the metal-loving plants need the contamination, or just tolerate it. Many old mine sites, and there are plenty in Scotland, are on exposed, open ground. The low density tree cover creates a humid microclimate, allowing a rich variety of ferns, mosses and liverworts to develop. A TEAM of researchers, backed by the Biotechnical and Biolological sciences Research Council, and the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food , are doing research into the problems of stress in animal transportation. Focusing on broiler chickens, the team at Silsoe Research Institute says that 650 million chickens are transported by road. Apparently, crammed 6000 to a lorry, the chickens build up a considerable level of heat which can cause severe stress. Studies have made it possible to define acceptable limits and durations for transporting the birds. To get accurate measurements the Silsoe team have developed a purpose-built and fully instrumented animal transporter which allows them to monitor all the environmental conditions in transit. The study will expand to examine the stresses on other species including pigs and cattle and will hopefully make animal transportation as humane and stress-free as possible. EVEN holes in the ground need electronic solutions. The Centre for Enviromental Management Studies at Strathclyde University has produced a software package to improve the management of landfill sites. The program collects data which will warn of potentially dangerous gas build-ups and pollutant leakage. The project has been backed by Scottish Enterprise and has had successful field trials. GH950603-000005 GH950603-000005 950603 The time machine. FRACTAL GENERATORS 3 31 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075736 AT LAST, they've developed a time machine. It was switched on here at Frontiers and instantly, miraculously we were back in the sixties. It is true. Our resident computer technology experts told us they'd loaded a new program to the PC. Booted it up, they tend to say. It's a fractal generator, they said. Fine, fair enough. But what is it? Simple. It's a mathematical equation expressed in shape and colour. It had us beat. Simple it is not. They take long numbers, multiply, divide, add Pi and theta and all sorts of sines and cosines and go off at a tangent and what ends up on the screen is a complex and ever-changing pattern of light and shade. The mathematics was beyond our ken, but the resident experts booted the program into the machine, hit a key and the screen went blank for only a few moments. After that, five hours passed in a hypnotic haze. If the tech heads hadn't come back to switch off the lights, this writer could have been found still glued to the screen after the weekend. Sixteen million colours on this program, our experts had boasted. That's 16 with a stack of zeros behind it and every colour different from the next. Heck, I never knew there were more than 10 and out of that, only three were in the super league. Can anybody imagine 16,000,000 shades? There's magenta and puce and nearly blue and the colour of fun and the shade of laughter and velvet yellow. Even Leonardo would have been knocked flat by sensory overload. The cute little mathematical program goes on generating these shapes and colours, which swirl and grow on the screen.They say if you remember your sixties, you were never there. Spend more than 30 seconds in front of a fractal display and you ARE there. After five minutes, I believed I could hear Jimmi Hendrix hammering the frets all along the watchtower. Straight-leg chinos widened at the ankle into dreadful flares with striped insets. Every sentence uttered suddenly ended with like, man. The urge to grow a droopy moustache and sit in a lotus position was almost overwhelming. The colours swirled around on the screen, mesmerising, intoxicating, the kind of tones that haven't existed since the days of free love and petal power and only existed then because of illegal potions which turned the brain into a fractal generator all of its own, and also tended to short the circuits. Like the little girl in Poltergeist who heard voices in the TV set, one was jammed against the screen watching an infinity of patterns in constant mesmeric motion. It was impossible to move. The screen had stolen every vestige of volition. It had me snared like a rabbit in the headlights. Fortunately, the technical folk came back and found this poor bug-eyed hack jammed against a moving screen and switched it off before irreversible brain damage ensured. it took several hours and plenty of beer to recover. The fractal program has been removed from the machine. The memory has been wiped and not before time. If this kind of thing were to get around, who knows where it would lead. There are some things that man was not meant to know. Millions of living colours are some of them. Now we know where Lennon and McCartney got the idea for the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. They were either high as kites, or fractalled out of their skulls. If anyone offers you this program, just say no. There should be a law against it. GH950603-000006 GH950603-000006 950603 No Headline Present 3 32 FEATURE 978075737 A COMPUTER system capable of producing a printed form of sign language has won cash backing from TIDE, the Commisson of European Communities Technology Initiative for the Disabled and Elderly. Dundee University's Microcentre is working on the project which will provide a written system for the 20 million deaf people in the EC. Wearing electonically sensitive gloves, a message made in sign language is picked up by computer which translates and prints it out in a picture form similar to hieroglyphics. One bonus is that sign language does not have to be translated. GH950603-000007 GH950603-000007 950603 Life is just a bowl of cherries LADY CLAIRE MACDONALD 3 14 FEATURE WEEKENDER,LADY CLAIRES KITCHEN ILLUS 978075738 They are truly delicious but they are also rather delicate and it needs careful handling to save the skins of this juicy fruit, advises Lady Claire Macdonald. THREE weeks ago I was writing about asparagus and saying how short a season asparagus used to have -- I could say exactly the same about cherries. Cherries used to be a real treat, in the shops for such a brief space of time, until a few years ago. These days I think we could buy cherries all year round, but at a price. The very word cherry conjures in my mind large, glossy black cherries, but of course there are several different varieties. It's hard not to be attracted to the black cherries, whose very appearance promises juiciness, but some of the golden cherries are just as delicious as the black cherries. Black cherry jam sounds so utterly luxurious and seems to be connected in the minds of skiers, with Alpine holidays, French bread, and steaming cups of hot chocolate. And some makes of black cherry jam are very good, but jam made with the paler, red cherries I think has a more distinctly cherry taste. One of the easiest sauces for eating with vanilla ice-cream is made by heating good quality cherry jam with either brandy, or with cherry brandy -- take care not to let the sauce simmer, because this removes the alcoholic quality. Cherries make a centrepiece for a table which is perfect for an informal occasion. Pile them up on a dish with a steam or an old-fashioned glass cakestand.But you do have to be careful with cherries, quite apart from the fact that everyone tends to eat them who sees them, because they are fragile and bruise easily. They need to be stored in the fridge , and when you buy them look carefully to check that none have broken skins or bruising. Wash them just before using them, rather than washing them and then storing them. Cherries are very good in savoury dishes, as well as sweet. Cherries go especially well with almonds, and with chocolate. Cherry pie, or rather a cherry tart, made with pastry containing ground almonds in place of half the flour quantity, and with a couple of drops of almond extract (as opposed to essence) added to give a more dominant almond flavour, is sumptuous. Cherries make into a good sauce for serving with roast duck (of the domestic type, rather than wild duck) but it does need to have a sharpness added to the sauce, which I get with white-wine vinegar, otherwise the danger is to have a sickly sauce. A sauce like this is also very good with roast or char-grilled venison fillet. To make the sauce, enough for about six people, you just put [1/4] pint white-wine vinegar and two tablespoons granulated sugar into a saucepan over a gentle heat. Heat till the sugar dissolves completely then boil fast till you have a caramel-like syrup. Add 1 pint chicken (or beef, if for venison) stock, which will make a whoosh of steam as you pour it into the caramel syrup, so watch out -- let this liquid boil till it is reduced by about half. Slake 2 teaspoons arrowroot with 2 tablespoons cold water and stir this into the sauce, stirring till it boils. Take the pan off the heat and stir in [1/2]lb stoned black cherries. Season with salt and pepper. It's so simple! But here is a pudding which combines chocolate with cherries. It, too, is simple, and delicious. Chocolate and Cherry Meringue (Serves 6-8) Whites of 4 large eggs 8oz icing sugar, sieved 1oz cocoa powder, also sieved, but keep it separate from the icing sugar For the filling: [3/4] pint double cream, whipped fairly stiffly [1/2]lb cherries, stoned and chopped. Reserve 8 whole with stalks for decoration 3 tablespoons Kirsch liqueur, optional, to whip into the cream To make the meringue, first line a baking tray with baking parchment and mark out two circles about 8" diameter. Put the whites and sieved icing sugar (not the cocoa at this stage) into a Pyrex bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk -- easiest with an electric hand-held whisk -- until the meringue thickens and is very stiff. Take the bowl off the heat and sieve in the cocoa. Fold it in quickly and thoroughly. Divide the meringue between the two marked circles and smooth even. Bake in an oven 110[DEG]C, 220[DEG]F, gas mark [1/4] for 2[1/2]-3 hours - when cooked, the meringues should lift off the baking parchment. Cool them. You can store them in a tin or airtight container for several days, if that is more convenient. To assemble, keep about one-third of the whipped cream on one side, for decoration. Fold the stoned cherries into the main part of the cream, flavoured or not, as you choose, with Kirsch. Put a dab of cream on to a serving plate and put one meringue half on this -- it holds the meringue in place. Cover the meringue with the cherry cream. Put the other meringue on top. With a large star nozzle, pipe rosettes of whipped cream around the edges, and lay a cherry with its stalk on each rosette. If you prefer, just spread the whipped cream over the surfce of the meringue and dust with dark chocolate, shaved from a block with a potato peeler. Arrange the cherries around the sides, stuck on to the cream. GH950603-000008 GH950603-000008 950603 Through pint glasses, deftly JOHN LINKLATER 3 12 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075739 John Linklater finds his way to the other side of the bar for a day, and potential perks notwithstanding, decides it is a skill best left to the experts. HER first impression of me was not encouraging, for either of us. ''You're too tall,'' said Alison Traynor. ''You'll frighten my customers away.'' There was something else. Staff policy was for males to wear a collar and tie. I was wearing jeans with a T-shirt under an open-necked shirt. It was going to be an awkward baptism in my new position as trainee manager at the Calderwood Inn. I lasted one day. To be fair, that was always the deal. The invitation from the organisers of Scottish Pub Week didn't seek a long-term commitment. I was to manage for the day. That would make a change. ''Picture this, you are given the keys of your very own pub,'' read the letter. ''You are the boss, the master of all you survey. A full gantry, stocked with the finest wines and spirits. A cellar bulging with draught lager, heavy, stout and real ale. The till full of change, ready to serve your customers, male, female, old, young and families.'' Serve your customers? ''Help yourself'', was the way I interpreted the sub-text. Pour yourself a bath with the stuff. Get right in there and gargle. I could handle that. When I turned up in East Kilbride for the first part of my split shift on Friday morning, Alison Traynor let me in. She was the real manager. ''Are you nervous?'' she asked. It was clear as hell that she was. With every justification. My curriculum vitae in the field of barwork is not exactly covered with distinction. There was that job at North Berwick when I got sacked. Time has healed some of the grievance, but I still maintain that it was their fault for giving me my week's pay on Thursday lunchtime. Memory blurs, but there was a woman and a bottle of whisky, and when she chucked me out of her place there was a golf course between me and my five-o'clock shift. Almost there, I fell into a bunker and scored a triple bogey, without clubs, without ball, without a clue, without a job. Then there was my Tom Cruise phase as a cocktail barman at the Peebles Hydro. I worked for a brooding Spaniard called Joe Palaci, who reserved animation for serious money walking through the door, and only then would he open his repertoire of bar tricks and charismatic charm. It was all about tips. I learned to throw ice and unmeasured spirits into shakers, and developed an unhealthy penchant as an eighteen-year-old first-year student for knocking back neat triple vodkas. Follies of youth. It was with a studied effort at responsibility that I asked Alison to hand over her keys and take me to her cellar. With that same air of feigned expertise you try to impress upon garage mechanics when you lift the bonnet of your malfunctioning and completely incomprehensible car, I nodded sagely at kegs and drums, valves and feeds, gas cylinders and pressures. It was important to stage an early demonstration of competence and assurance. Then I asked her to show me how to change a barrel. From there on we came to an accommodation. Alison handed me a broom and I leaned on it. There wasn't much else to do at 10.30 in the morning. She had already performed a damage limitation exercise two hours before. She had unlocked the place, switched on the lights, cut the alarm, set up the bar, the ashtrays, the jugs and the ice, and stocked the till with change. She and her assistant, Evelyn, had everything under control. There were another two things I should know. She and Evelyn were a close-knit team. They were sisters. Also, they both took Kung-Fu. ''It gives you confidence in yourself,'' said Alison, a little pointedly, I thought. It would be better if I tried to look at it this way. The Calderwood Inn is a nice pub, a traditional local community pub, in a conservation area of East Kilbride. There was a homely feel about the place. The bar has a fireplace, wally dugs on a ledge and a grandmother clock on the wall. Alison called it her ''sitting room''. Describing her as house-proud would be a slight exaggeration, but she runs a tight shop. During bar stock-taking we discovered that a single can of Irn-Bru could not be brought to immediate account. Further inquiry revealed it to have been served the day before to one of the draymen when the beer was delivered. It was at about this stage that my last illusions faded of a libertine orgy with the contents of the gantry. There were three men waiting outside when we opened up. Pulling pints for the first time in 25 years proved a remarkably untraumatic experience, once you mastered the little technique of producing a late head on a flat delivery, or subduing an over-lively gush at the beginning. The whole business suggests a wonderful mystique of control at the pump, but I suspect that it's really so easy that you ought to struggle to go too far wrong. I couldn't remember Guinness being so easy to pour, or cider. Was lager always so submissive, export so equable as it trickles into the glass with an obliging nod of its head? Still, I managed an awkward moment with a dead pint of heavy, before having a sudden impulse to collect glasses from the tables and leave it for someone else to sort out. During the course of the day we had only one complaint about pints. As manager-for-the-day I felt duty bound to deal with it: a Guinness that had settled a fair quarter-inch below the rim. Rectifying the situation, I inquired: ''Who served you this pint, sir.'' ''You!'' was the fellow's impertinent reply. ''You must have been pulling for the brewery.'' Possibly I am not best temperamentally suited to service industries. My mother, who ran a guest house for a while, remarked on a passing resemblance to Basil Fawlty the day I volunteered to do breakfasts. It was the scrambled eggs that threw me. Still, I did them so badly that the next morning the two old dears in question opted for the safer option of the house mixed grill. I offered to pay mum #10.50 a room if she kept the house clear for my next visit. It would be outwith my means to suspend Friday night trading at the Calderwood Inn, so there was nothing else but to get on with it. In truth, the clientelle was an easy group to deal with, patient and tolerant. There is nothing that alerts you more to the basic decency of people than to observe the benign way in which they respond to a complete amateur taking their orders and fiddling away at the computerised till to rehearse the counting out of change before ending the protracted transaction. We didn't have any fights. Alison says that it is the football on the television that has to be dealt with tactfully. She settles disputes over which game should be shown by democratic shows of hands. The Calderwood Inn proved, as Friday evening moved on steadily to its midnight last orders, a smooth machine with an agreeable atmosphere. I have to admit that this was the most sober I had remained at this stage of an evening in quite a number of weeks. Alison, it emerged, was no drinker. ''The last thing I'd want to do with a day off is sit in a pub,'' she remarked. Inevitably, perhaps, she met her taxi-driver boyfriend, Jim, in the pub. A regular, he took up position at the bar midway through the night, with his mates demanding free drink of the new manager. I had been told to expect the arrival of the ''baldies'' on the stroke of 11, but there was no appearance from the Calderwood Inn's own Jimmy Reid. He has given his initials to his own preference, a speciality J.R. that has caught on. It is a Pale Ale tops, with Guinness instead of lemonade. Otherwise, tastes at the inn are straight down the middle. I imagine that if the regular staff that night, Carmen, Suzanne and Kenny along with full-timers Alison and Evelyn, had ever considered that I might have any potential whatsoever, it would be in helping to clear the bar at the end. Suddenly, I got a bit coy about this prospect, explaining that I did not want to interfere in the relationship between the bar and its regulars. I retired for a smoke, but sneaked a glance or two at Alison and Evelyn doing a grand job, without once resorting to even a hint of Kung-Fu. The Scottish Pub Week is a promotion to illustrate the range and diversity of bar-life in this part of the world. The week begins on Father's Day, June 18, and at the Calderwood Inn they will be having a pool tournament. Activities will be going on at your local, with the invitation to check it out. No doubt I will too, but this time sticking to this side of the bar. Best for everyone concerned, I think. GH950603-000009 GH950603-000009 950603 L'Ecosse est belle et vive La France LESLEY DUNCAN 3 12 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075740 Lesley Duncan goes Gallic for celebrations which will involve bagpipes and claret. THE Marseillaise will be ringing at least symbolically (and maybe on a few bagpipes, too) round Scotland this weekend as the centenary of the Franco-Scottish Society is celebrated. It is a younger manifestation of the Auld Alliance, itself 600-years-old when the new body was set up in Edinburgh in 1895, and in Paris the following year. The society's aim was, and remains, to maintain and promote friendship between Scotland and France. Every school child used to know (do they still?) about Scotland's historic pact -- dating from John Balliol's reign -- with the much larger and more sophisticated country. It suited France for the nuisance value on England's northern frontier. It gave Scotland a benevolent counterweight against the bullying of its big southern neighbour. The effects could be tragic, as in Scotland's involvement at Flodden at France's behest. On the other hand, the nation's vocabulary and culture were enriched over the centuries by the Gallic association. In return, such Scots as the philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith, made their impact on French intellectual life. Sir Walter Scott influenced French romanticism. And of course, French was the automatic first foreign language for many generations of Scottish school children who could lisp their Verlaine or de Vigny with varying degrees of aplomb. Events in Edinburgh come to a climax this weekend. A delegation from France, and a Canadian representative, will attend a centenary dinner this evening in the august surroundings of the Signet Library. The French Ambassador, Monsieur Jean Gueguinou, will be guest of honour. Medals, however, will not be worn. This -- explains the society's honorary general secretary, Mrs Elizabeth Laidlaw -- is in deference to their French visitors who would otherwise have been burdened with bringing formal clothes. There is, predictably, a strong representation of lawyers, archivists, civil servants, and teachers in the French group. Their number includes Monsieur Georges Dickson, OBE, president of the French branch, and his wife. As the name suggests the Dicksons have Scottish connections -- with Forfar and Dundee. Sadly, the splendidly titled General Guy de Cockborne, a former luminary of the French Foreigh Legion and also with Scottish antecedents, will not be attending. A Protestant minister, Monsieur le Pasteur Christian Mazel and his wife, are in the party. They are unusual, points out Mrs Laidlaw, in that the French society is mostly strongly Catholic. The French delegation, as well as their Scottish friends, will no doubt be attending this afternoon's Landsdowne Lecture, an occasional series instituted by the Marquess of Lansdowne, a former president of the society. Today's talk will be given in St Cecilia's Hall at 2.15pm by a Scot, Judge David Edward of the European Court of Justice. His theme is ''Justice in Europe''. Will he refer to Thomas Muir, the radical Scottish advocate who was fired by the ideals of the French Revolution and deported to Australia for his pains; or mention how Robert Burns was inspired by French views of egalitarianism? Previous Lansdowne lecturers have included Monsieur Michel Duchein, Inspecteur General des Archives de France, whose theme was Mary Queen of Scots' mother, Marie de Guise; Professor Sylvere Monod of the University of Paris who gave a French perspective on Johnson and Boswell's tour of Scotland in 1773; Monsieur Luc de la Barre de Nanteuil on the artist Louis David; and the Scottish architect Charles McKean on the rediscovery of Scottish Renaissance architecture. From tomorrow the focus shifts from the capital to other parts of Scotland with their own branches of the Franco-Scottish Society. Tomorrow the French group visit the Perth centre and Lord Lansdowne at Meikleour House. On Monday they go to St Andrews and at 6pm there's a centenary film event at Edinburgh's Filmhouse, where Bernard Chardere, director of the Lumiere Institute in Lyon, presents what is described as ''an exceptional selection of very early short films''. Tuesday is Ayrshire day and includes a visit to Culzean Castle. A tour of Burns Cottage is naturally de rigueur. On Wednesday the French visitors reach Glasgow and Helensburgh, with a civic reception in Glasgow City Chambers and an organised trip to the Faslane submarine base. On Wedneday evening Cappella Nova give a public concert in Glasgow Cathedral at 8pm. The programme is entitled ''Music for the Marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin'', though Cappella Nova's director, Alan Tavener, explains that it's really providing a focus to celebrate the Auld Alliance. Mary's first marriage perished, with her teenage spouse, within months. Her subsequent return to Scotland ended in debacle and death. But though there are ''pre-echoes and a slight tinge'' of that sad future, the programme, Alan Tavener says, is generally celebratory. Different groups of singers will alternate secular and sacred music. The latter includes no Carver (too early in period) but does involve a French mass written in the appropriate year, 1558. There will also be Scottish court songs of the sixteenth century (including the rollicking Oh Lusty May) and Parisian chansons. Tom Fleming will be the narrator in this third outing for the programme, already performed at the end of last month in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Thus culturally fortified, the French group will head for Aberdeen for their final two days, with sorties to Balmoral, Lochnagar Distillery, and the Total Oil Marine gas terminal among their activities, as well as a civic reception. By the time they return to Paris next Saturday, they will have new insights into Scotland and the Scots. Pleasant new connections will have been made. This was just what the founding fathers of the Franco-Scottish Society intended 100 years ago. And now, as they say, un peu d'histoire: in spite of the formal 1895 date, the society's origins really stretch back to the great international exhibition in Paris in 1889. The celebrated town planner Patrick Geddes was a moving force and Louis Pasteur a member of the organising Comite Franco-Ecossais. From the beginning, the Scottish and French branches of the society have been responsible for their own organisation and finances but maintain close contacts. The two branches were originally much concerned with the welfare of students and financed prizes and bursaries. This has a modern equivalent in the Lansdowne Prize, established in 1986. Until 1991 it was given at university level. Since then it has been awarded to outstanding candidates in the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies French exam. Its first winner, in 1992, was Euan Pinkerton, of Bearsden Academy and Hermitage Academy, Helensburgh. Elizabeth Laidlaw says the society would like to encourage the setting up of a network or register of employers in Scotland willing to offer work experience placements to French students. And what of young Scots going to France? ''Ideally,'' Mrs Laidlaw adds, ''it would be travel in both directions.'' The eight local centres of the Scottish end of the society keep in touch through their council but organise their own annual programmes, blending cultural, social, and linguistic activities. The Franco-Scottish Society also has close links with the French Institute for Scotland in Edinburgh and Glasgow. As French and Ayrshire youngsters used to sing at summer school camps in West Linton and Versailles, L'Ecosse est belle et vive la France! GH950603-000010 GH950603-000010 950603 Glittering Ruby KEN GALLAGHER 3 11 REVIEW WEEKENDER,JAZZ 978075741 CORNETTIST Ruby Braff has never been able to achieve even the limited fame that has come the way of many less-talented jazz musicians. There are several reasons for this -- his uncompromising attitude towards his music, and his often querulous offstage persona which has dragged him into conflict with promoters. On some occasions, Braff can be a highly amusing raconteur. On others, he can be extremely difficult, often best avoided. But no-one should ever avoid the music he makes. At the moment Braff is enjoying one of those rare spells in the limelight that at times have been denied. Within the past six months or so we have been able to hear him on three CD re-issues from the fifties, and two more albums made recently. Thankfully there are still more to come. During his career, which has now spanned almost half a century, Braff has been blessed with a series of fairy godfathers to help him find work and record dates. In the 1950s, the legendary talent scout and record producer, John Hammond, chose the then relatively unknown cornet player from Boston to take part in the Vic Dickenson Septet recordings which helped launch the Mainstream revival. Then there was a spell when George Wein took over and Ruby became a key figure in the Newport All Stars. In the seventies, Carl Jefferson was the man who featured Braff on a series of albums for his Concord label. Now a new producer, Mat Domber has taken up Braff's cause and two fine CDs have been issued recently on his Arbors label. Four more will soon be available. The two we have been able to hear feature Braff in two different settings. The first is a quartet which brings to mind the wonderful group he co-led with guitarist George Barnes about 20 years ago. The other is with a larger group featuring pianist Dave McKenna and tenorist Scott Hamilton. That same group has another album ready to be released and there is also a reunion with pianist Ellis Larkins in a series of duets. These will be on two CDs and another duet meeting with pianist Dick Hyman has been recorded. Now, approaching 70, Braff has retained all the melodic freshness of his youth. When he was learning his instrument, be-bop was the fashionable jazz sound. Braff turned his back on that and went the way of Louis Armstrong. When he talks of Armstrong you realise that for Braff, as for so many others, there could never be any other musical road. There have been other influences, of course. When he swoops into the low register he can, at times, sound like Red Allen. The new CDs demonstrate Braff's undying love for melody. Listen to his duet with McKenna on What's New or catch It's Wonderful on the other live album. There were fears that Braff would move into near retirement when he left New York to live on Cape Cod sometime back. Luckily Mat Domber has made certain that is not going to happen. Last year he survived a serious illness which put him into a coma, and he maintains to this day that it was the music of Armstrong which helped him recover. ''I heard Louis and that was enough to make me well again.'' GH950603-000011 GH950603-000011 950603 A beginners' guide DAVID BELCHER, MICHAEL TUMELTY, ROB ADAMS 3 10 REVIEW WEEKENDER,HOME ENTERTAINMENT ILLUS 978075742 The Herald's regular team of reviewers listen to the best sounds around. Wasted Volume 1, various artists (Volume) * THOSE perceptive folk who run the Volume label have been issuing indie-oriented CD collections -- each accompanied by a chunky booklet -- since 1991. Now they've come up with a 30-track, two-CD compilation of indie-minded, dancefloor-focused music, accompanied by the mandatory chunky booklet. Among the best-known names, you'll find Massive Attack (with Karmacoma); Bjork (One Day); New Order (Confusion); Stereo MCs (Elevate My Mind) and the Shamen (Hyperreal). Despite the presence of one or two hip underground names -- Autechre, Moby -- this isn't a collection for the cognoscenti. Rather, it's a pleasant and instructive beginners' guide to modern modes of rhythm-transmission. The Complete Stone Roses, The Stone Roses (Silvertone) * HAVING recycled the Roses' work more than once before, Silvertone now seek to charm the few remaining shillings from your pocket by parcelling up two hitherto-unreleased tracks on a bonus CD alongside another CD containing the band's enduringly-awesome six-year-old debut album, plus their singles and B-sides. I am without Shoes is 1min 23sec of non-specific backwards guitar and oblique vocalising. Groove (Black Magic Devil Woman) is a lumpy guitar work-out. Both would have been better left unreleased. Welcome To The Real World, Frankie Knuckles featuring Adeva (Virgin) * BUSY, deft, and pop-oriented, this assembly of sophisticated housey-housey music may be a little too soft-centred to set dancefloors alight, but it sure will add some tone to your living-room hi-fi. The Best of Barbara Lynn: the Atlantic Years (Ichiban/Soul Classics) * THE heroine of many a northern soul all-nighter, Barbara Lynn is a vocalist with a sweet and smoky tone. She also wrote many of her own songs as well as playing guitar on them. This 20-track collection documents her work in the years between 1967 and 1973. If you enjoy an amble down soul's dusty by-ways, then amble Barbara Lynn's way. Branded, Isaac Hayes (Pointblank) * WIZENED critics who should know better -- and I do mean you, Tony Parsons, of the Daily Torygraph -- have been getting michtily enflamed about this, hailing it as Mr Hayes's return to the soul peaks he last scaled with his alleged classic, the half-mile-long Theme From Shaft. In fact, Mr Hayes is doing what he always did as a solo artist: indulging himself way too long for the good of the song he's supposed to be presenting. Paradoxically, nowhere is this clearer than on a song which failed to survive the jump to CD from advance review-tape: a grossly extended, slowed-down 9min 6sec version of the Blue Nile's Let's Go Out Tonight. What was it John Shaft said all those years ago? ''Shut yo' mouth.'' That goes for both Isaac Hayes and Tony Parsons. All Platinum Funk, various artists (Charly) * TWENTY dollops of bouncy, user-friendly pop-funk from some of the sundry artists on the All Platinum label in the late seventies. Brother To Brother's version of In The Bottle out-grooves that of the song's originator, Gil Scott Heron. But best of all are the little-known Communicators And Black Experiences Band with Is It Funky Enough? It certainly is, hot diggety. Jiving Jamboree, various artists (Ace) * ELVIS? Who's he? The rock started rolling for sure in 1949 with Louis Jordan at the Saturday Night Fish Fry. You will discover many jive-worthy tunes by solid-gone daddios -- Daddy Cleanhead for one, but Clarence Henry and the Mills Brothers, too -- and rockin' mamas ranging from Big Mama Thornton to Etta James. Mussorgsky/Ravel, Royal Philharmonic; Khatchaturian, Royal Philharmonic; Delius, Royal Philharmonic (Tring International) * THE latest batch of new releases in the series by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra -- contracted by Tring International to produce a major set of recordings at economical prices -- continues to challenge the market. The price difference is phenomenal; whereas you might pay around #14 for a full-price CD, Tring are putting this lot out at #3.99 each. In general the recording standards, as I have written before, are high. The Khatchaturian set -- Dances from Gayane, Spartacus, and Masquerade -- with conductor Yuri Simonov, is a firecracker of a recording. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (Jean-Claude Casadesus on white stick) is a bit less competitive -- it never really smacks you between the eyes -- though the Ravel couplings (Daphnis and Chloe and La Valse) are markedly more sensitive. Sketches of Dreams, David Sanchez (Columbia) * THE second album by one imminent visitor to Glasgow International Jazz Festival features another, trumpeter Roy Hargrove as a near-scene-stealing guest. Sanchez plays tenor saxophone often with a lightness and mobility more associated with an altoist and is equally fluent and inventive on soprano as he confirms his Puerto Rican roots and pays homage to Rodgers & Hart and Jackie McLean. Not a startlingly original voice but an engaging one none the less. Steal Away, Charlie Haden and Hank Jones (Verve) * ONE of the year's more offbeat releases finds Haden and Jones enjoying a bass and piano stroll through a not-altogether predictable collection of spirituals, hymns, and folksongs. They play them straight, tempting no accusations of deconstructing We Shall Overcome, say, and with all the solemn grace that Haden brought to his work with Keith Jarrett, although surely even that polymath wouldn't have anticipated Haden soloing on Danny Boy. GH950603-000012 GH950603-000012 950603 Maturing passion ANN DONALD 3 9 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER,BOOK BEDTIME 978075743 Artist David Mach tells Ann Donald his favoured nocturnal reading. WHEN I was a kid I was a voracious reader, into anything I could get my mitts on: lots of rubbishy things like comics, adventure stories and loads of Enid Blyton. I was kind of obsessed by things Jewish. From a very early age I was reading about the Holocaust. One of the reasons being that my dad is Polish and we travelled through Eastern Europe when I was a kid and I think the romance of all that stuff got to me. I've been reading James Michener's Poland. He writes these big epics about Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands and that's right up my street. It's sort of made-up, slightly accurate history which can be kind of dangerous, I think. He uses names of very famous families in Poland and embellishes certain characters within them. But he's invented one family which goes right through the whole book from the fourteenth century up to the present day tracing their lineage. Another one I'm reading is one a friend gave me by Rory McLean called Stalin's Nose. It's a great book and very funny. It's like travel writing in a way, as he's making a journey with two eccentric aunts through eastern Europe to Moscow. The characters are huge, really quite bizarre because they're coming to terms with moving through an Eastern Europe that's really changed, where walls have come down and there are less restrictions. I buy a lot of my books at airports. I find airports really fascinating because they bombard you with writing and authors from all these different countries that otherwise I wouldn't seek out. With so many nationalities travelling you've suddenly got access to Indian, Spanish and Venezuelan writers who are well known in their own country, or perhaps in literary circles here, but that you'd never ordinarily come across. I don't buy art theory books if I can help it. The only art theory I come across is from thinking about it, which is maybe how it should happen. I don't think I'd be able to draw a direct line between reading a particular book than creating a particular work. It's much more convoluted or hidden if you like -- it travels a long and strange route before it turns into a sculpture. GH950603-000013 GH950603-000013 950603 Exploring the sound of fury HARRY REID 3 9 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075744 SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. David Guterson. Bloomsbury, #14.99 DAVID Guterson's first novel is a beauty. The most remarkable thing about it is its assurance. The story is a thrilling one, but Guterson refuses to be hurried and tells it at his own leisurely, thoughtful pace. He is a painstaking writer with an exacting eye for physical detail, yet the novel is never hard going; there is a beguiling, almost mesmerising, quality about his prose. It is not as if he can muster only one pace, either; at times he builds strong narrative momentum -- in some of the courtroom scenes, in a particularly brutal flashback to the Second World War, in his vivid description of a nightmare journey to a Japanese internment camp in California. Guterson has an extraordinary sense of place. The novel is set on an island in Puget Sound in North-west America. It is an unhurried, inward-looking place, a community of strawberry farmers and fishermen. There is a tourist season in the summer. The winters are long and harsh. There is ethnic tension; there is a significant Japanese community. This tension lies at the core of the book. In all of this there are resonances for Scottish readers, for the parallels with certain communities in the Highlands of Scotland are undoubtedly there, although too much could no doubt be made of them. Suffice to say that the book evokes an uneasy sense of familiarity, though its setting and its time (most of the action takes place in 1954, though there are several flashbacks to the war and even earlier) is so far away. The plot is built round the mysterious death of a fisherman in Puget Sound. One of his fellow fishermen, a Japanese, is arrested for his murder; the book begins and ends with scenes from his trial, and indeed the courtroom sequences hold the book together. The novel operates in part as a thriller, and it would be wrong to divulge anything more of the very intricate and gripping plot, which Guterson unfolds with craft and cunning. If there are caveats, they are minor. There is no humour in Guterson's writing and the one episode describing action from the Second World War jars, although it has considerable narrative power; the author seems to adopt a different voice here, more strained, more macho, less assured. Snow Falling On Cedars is a first novel of beauty, conviction and power. It is not a masterpiece but its author will surely write one. GH950603-000014 GH950603-000014 950603 A distinct lack of direction KEITH BRUCE 3 8 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075745 POWER PLAY: THE LIFE & TIMES OF PETER HALL Stephen Fay. Hodder & Stoughton, #20 THEATRE directors make lousy interviewees. OK, that is a daft generalisation, but compared with other associated professions and with some notable exceptions, directors are not fertile ground for the feature writer. Performers -- even the notoriously difficult ones -- are almost always good copy. Actors have to want to be loved. It goes with the job. Especially the notoriously difficult ones. Writers have a confidence in their own ideas that comes from the isolation of their profession. They have mastered the art of joined-up thinking while directors have to be masters of sequential compromise. Even the ones who have been very articulate in putting their own thoughts and theories down on paper -- Peter Brook and John McGrath spring to mind -- are often a complete waste of time in a face-to-face situation. They are only happy when they control the agenda and the best interviews always come when both the journalist and his subject are prepared to let the conversation find its own subject. A biography of a theatre director therefore presents particular difficulties, unless he has some identifiable style or is larger than life. There has never been a Sir Peter Hall style of theatre, because that somehow suggests operating at the margins, as Brook does with his international company and continental base. Hall has been at the centre of English theatre for 40 years, since his production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, but he saw himself as like an orchestral conductor rather than as a creator. Leading both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, he could not become larger than life because he was, for a long time, exactly the same size as the English theatre. That is the tragedy of both. Stephen Fay is a vastly experienced journalist who began his working life on this newspaper and was deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday until 1991. This biography is the result of many years' work, which makes the purposelessness of it doubly depressing. The sloppy editing is one thing (mis-spellings like ''establishement'', repetition of uninteresting facts like the exact amount of Hall's car allowance at the National), but the lack of any clear intention on Fay's part makes for a frustrating read. Certainly he balances Hall's account of certain key events, as published in his own writings, with the recollections of others, but you won't catch Fay coming down on one side or the other. Even more annoying, from this reader's point of view, we learn little or nothing about Hall's work. We are told, for example, that some regarded his production of Love's Labour's Lost while at Cambridge as his finest work, yet we learn nothing at all about the show. The background to the enormous undertaking of The Wars of the Roses at the RSC is described, but little is said of the result. Fay is also given to irritating journalese (''Tynan praised with faint damns'') and some absurd generalisations (''Hall got a 2.2, an average degree. But the class of the degree matters only to teachers and professors''), and even manages to combine the two faults (''It is an inflexible rule of theatre that, no matter how much rehearsal time there is, it always chaos at the end. The Wars of the Roses was chaos at the beginning and the middle as well.'') In fairness, Fay is very good on facts and figures. Sometimes this can be silly -- the exact model of car is usually mentioned -- but in the machinations of the National's move to the South Bank it is fascinating. Most of this appeared in the press at the time, but gathered together it is a horror story that should be required reading for those intent on establishing a Scottish national theatre. Worryingly it is a horror story that continues to this day, and I speak as someone who rather likes the National. But then that is the other depressing thing about this book, and one for which Fay cannot be blamed. The recognition factor: how little things have changed. In an interview on leaving Cambridge, Hall spoke of trying to attract a new audience of ''people in their twenties who were more inclined to go and see a foreign film than a play'', and theatre administrators speak of the same target group today. Nor has the perception of the attitude of that group changed significantly, what Hall described in a programme note to his mid-sixties Hamlet as ''a sense of what-the-hell-anyway -- You might sleep with everyone you know, you might not. You might take drugs, you might not.'' Hall might be a great director, he might not. This biography will not lead you to any conclusions, but personally I doubt his greatness. He had some successes and a lot of failures. He has been a deft politician and a manipulative administrator. His personal life has been publicly fraught, but not appallingly so, and he made a lot of things happen that probably needed a man of his energy to push them through. I bet he still gives a lousy interview though. GH950603-000015 GH950603-000015 950603 No Headline Present 3 8 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075746 SALLY Soames is one of Britain's more distinguished professional photographers. She has worked for the Sunday Times for many years, and for some reason she has a particular empathy with writers of fiction. She has been highly praised by, among others, Noman Mailer, who contributes a neat and upbeat preface to her collection of author portraits, simply entitled Writers (Andre Deutsch, #20 paperback). The only disappointment in a very fine collection is that there are so few studies of women writers. But the few that there are in the book are exceptional, and we reproduce here her stunning portrait (shot two years ago) of Ruth Rendell. GH950603-000016 GH950603-000016 950603 One of those things that are worth writing home about ALAN BOLD 3 6 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER 978075747 JOY STREET: A Wartime Romance in Letters: Mirren Barford and Lieutenant Jock Lewes. ed Michael T Wise. Little, Brown, #13.99 LAST LETTERS HOME. ed Tamasin Day-Lewis Macmillan, #17.50 LETTERS become literature when they are preserved in print for whatever reason. One reason is to add to our understanding of public figures who, aware of their own importance, posted their letters to posterity. Another reason is the pleasurable invasion of privacy for we enjoy intercepting guided missives, hence the appeal of Joy Street and Last Letters Home. One month before Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Mirren Barford met Jock Lewes at a wedding in Oxford. Born in India in 1920, she was then a student at Somerville College. Born in India in 1913 and educated at Christ Church College, he was then a member of the British Council. Given peace in their time, Mirren had to wait while Jock helped create a commando unit that became the SAS (Special Air Service). Jock joined the Welsh Guards and wrote to Mirren from his training camp in 1940: ''Persuade everyone you meet that we will and can fight not to the end but until we win.'' He was convinced that ''to give one's life and one's happiness in a cause like this is to win for oneself in a future life which certainly awaits us all -- even Hitler -- such ecstasy as we in our wildest dreams wot not of.'' Jock was killed by a cannon shell from a German fighter in December 1941 while returning from an operation against Nofilia aerodrome, Libya. Mirren married Richard Wise in 1943. After her death in 1992, her son Michael discovered her collection of letters in her desk. He decided to publish because Mirren responded so enthusiastically to one of Jock's letters in 1940: ''It was a fine letter; one day I hope my great-grandchildren will take the trouble to have them published for many people would read them gladly if they had the chance.'' Now they have the chance they should take it. Wise by name as well as nature, the editor has allowed Mirren and Jock to speak for themselves by keeping his distance from their dialogue. He provides a few factual annotations and briefly speculates on what the mysterious Joy Street meant to his mother and Jock. Transcribing the letters, Wise came to the conclusion that Joy Street ''described Mirren and Jock's individual meeting''. Judging from the passionate tone of the correspondence, Joy Street was more about mating than meeting. ''We have a chance to rank with the world's greatest lovers,'' wrote Jock to Mirren in August 1940 after their seventh meeting which gave him a glorious memory of ''No 7 Joy Street''. Thinking of No 8 Joy Street (the eighth meeting), Jock asked: ''Do I or do I not wish to attempt the seduction of Mirren?'' And he answered in his own lyrical way: ''It was with perfect confidence that I approached No 8 Joy Street . . . We stepped out of our clothes and slid together into the lake . . . We ourselves were outlined in every detail of our proud bodies by a million tiny points of steadfast light, not spattered or haphazard, but, like a mezzotint, picking out the form of nature's beauty.'' Pressurised by the business of war, Jock enjoyed the pleasure of writing erotic prose. The tough commando, who earned a reputation as the most fearsome fighter in Tobruk, kept going by going on about Mirren: ''Oh God, how I desire you! How I crave and groan in spirit for that sensual touch . . . How my lips burn for yours and the heat of your tongue in my mouth and the smooth taste of your spittle and the warmth of your breath in my nostrils!'' Jock wrote poems as well as prose for Mirren but never managed to rise to the occasion in verse. As Mirren noted in October 1941, it was an extraordinary affair. She had met Jock only 10 times yet knew ''Joy Street was made to be lived in and not merely the figment of dreams''. She knew Jock as a lover yet did not want to blackmail him into marriage: ''I believe I'd marry you tomorrow (but) remember too that I'm not asking you to belong to me; you are as free now as you ever were.'' She was content at that time to wait for him to come back to Joy Street, but, of course, he never did. And he never could tell Mirren exactly what he was doing in the war. An aside in a letter of September 1941 -- ''I have thrown in my lot with David Stirling in a new venture'' -- can now be read as reference to the formation of the SAS as Stirling is synonymous with the SAS though he insisted: ''Jock could far more genuinely claim to be the founder of the SAS than I.'' Jock's letters express his love for Mirren and, for all his fighting spirit, he comes across as a lovesick solder longing for the war to end. Mirren was obviously an inspirational figure. Many will be moved by the way they come together in Joy Street, an intimate account of an amorous adventure. Joy Street concentrates on one couple. Last Letters Home show how common it was for combatants to feel that fighting to win a war meant losing out on love. Eric Rawlings, killed in action with the RAF, left a letter to his loved ones: ''Love is such a very difficult thing to express here and now on paper . . .'' Kenneth Stevens, captured by the Japanese, wanted to comfort his wife as he drifted towards death: ''Oh Pen, I love you so -- all I want in the world is to see you happy.'' Curly Oddy wrote to Irene Grundy three days before he died: ''I want us to be married officially so that our combined love, as you put it, can get together and we can have what you want.'' Wishful thinking in wartime. The pity of war is made poignantly clear in Tamasin Day-Lewis's sensitive selection of letters written by folk emotionally wasted by the daily experience of dwelling on death. Read both books under review and you will realise what was lost in winning a war. GH950603-000017 GH950603-000017 950603 Treasure beyond our shores LESLEY DUNCAN 3 18 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075748 Scots melodies greet visitors privileged to see a fabulous collection of Scottish art, which boasts virtually every name of note. But, reports Lesley Duncan, it is housed in London and is closed to the public. AMID all the controversy over the siting and contents of a national gallery of Scottish art, one ironic point has been missed. There already exists a superb collection of Scottish paintings, housed in a building of impeccable architectural credentials. It is not, however, in the public domain or in Scotland. You will look for it in vain in Edinburgh or Glasgow. You have to go instead to a quiet corner of the City of London where, within hailing distance of the Bank of England and the gleaming obelisk of Lloyd's, Robert Fleming Holdings Limited goes about its global business. The international investment banking group traces its origins to 1873 in Dundee, when Robert Fleming formed the first investment trust in Scotland. Its collection of Scottish paintings has more recent beginnings. Bill Smith, the Keeper of Art, explains the background. ''The catalyst was really moving into a new building -- new for us that is -- some 27 years ago. The building had a tremendous number of bare walls. One of our directors, David Donald, suggested brightening the place up by buying a few pictures.'' He was left to get on with it. The only guidelines were that the paintings had to be by Scottish artists or of Scottish scenes by any artists. The main object of the Flemings collection, Smith emphasises, is to make the bank's headquarters ''a more interesting and invigorating place to work''. It has surely fulfilled that purpose -- particularly since the bank moved to its present custom-built base -- designed by Fitzroy Robinson and Partners -- nine years ago. Clients and visitors entering the marbled entrance hall are confronted by an atrium, six storeys tall, lit from overhead by sunlight and lamps. Semi-tropical trees, hanging plants, and arum lilies flourish in a controlled green environment in this most urban of locations. Only birdsong and the flash of colourful wings seem to be missing. For birdsong, Scots melodies substitute. Three mornings a week piper Jimmy Banks greets visitors on the bagpipes. As for colour, that's there in abundance on the corridor walls of the atrium on all floors, and in the offices beyond. It comes from an exhilarating display of Scottish art, ranging in period from the early 1800s to the present. The artists involved form a litany of Scottish creativity, from John Knox and John Fleming, whose early panoramic views of the Firth of Clyde are full of historical and sociological detail, through David Wilkie, the Glasgow Boys, D Y Cameron and the great McTaggart, to the Colourists, the new Glasgow boys, and virtually every contemporary name of note. Everything from painstaking classical painting to the purely abstract is represented. This outpouring of talent surely puts paid to stock ideas of the Scots as a dour, unaesthetic lot. There are some 800 pictures in the collection, at least 90% of which are always on display, either in this building or in the bank's overseas offices, in cities ranging from Paris, Frankfurt and Milan, to New York, Toronto and Vancouver. They adorn not only public areas and directors' suites but more lowly offices, too. Open the door into any modest room and you may be faced with an exquisite still life by Anne Redpath or Peploe; a covetable Borders landscape by William Gillies. The collection has particularly strong holdings of the Scottish Colourists, especially Peploe. His still lifes, with their heavy, outlined flowers and fruit are characteristic images. But what exuberant brushwork is shown in his early Luxembourg Gardens. Green Sea Iona must be a definitive view of the island -- almost a little pat through familiarity. A west-coast scene with fresh charm is Cadell's The Dunara Castle, which shows a white yacht nestling up to the little steamer on the kind of blue sea which occasionally graces Scotland, while the rump of a paddle-steamer vanishes to the left. The collection of Anne Redpath canvases is perhaps even more impressive. It ranges from the early landscape Frosty Morning, Trow Hill to the recently acquired Window in Menton, showing Redpath's daughter-in-law looking out beyond a window-ledge of cacti to a hillside both two-dimensional and full of atmospheric detail. Whirling round this permanent art show by way of the glass-sided lifts that glide up and down the atrium, one is soon in a daze of appreciation. Some paintings particularly haunt. The strains of The Skye Boat Song could not have been a more appropriate accompaniment to John Watson Nicol's Lochaber No More. This study of a husband and daughter facing the desolation of the Clearances is the more poignant for its understatement. The elderly man, with plaid and flat bonnet, looks out bleakly from the ship's deck on his former haunts, while the woman's grief is indicated rather than shown by her averted head. Their faithful collie licks her hand in attempted comfort. The painting communicates its message more effectively than thousands of words of historical analysis. A mirror image of this scene, Thomas Faed's The Last of the Clan, showing the despair of those left behind, is also held by Flemings (a bigger version is in Kelvingrove). This is the tragic face of Scotland's past. Most of the pictures are much happier in feeling, even when depicting the untamed Scottish landscape, as does McNeill Macleay's The Head of Loch Eil. Among other covetable nineteenth-century landscape paintings are Sam Bough's typically vigorous Bruce's Stone, Glen Trool, Galloway and Joseph Farquharson's When Snow the Pasture Sheets. In the latter, sheep plod through snowdrifts while birch trees cast long shadows in the winter sun -- a tour de force in off-white. And then there are McTaggarts, with their impressionistic sweep and tantalising child figures; the heavily decorative oils of the younger MacTaggart; a covetable Joan Eardley, showing a sullen sea hitting a bay in a froth of white; lots of atmospheric landscapes by D Y Cameron, including The Boddin, Angus, where lime kilns assume something of the presence of the temples at Karnak; and James Pryde's The Unknown Corner, maybe located in Venice and full of ambiguous shadows and menace. The young Turks are here in force too, for this is a constantly expanding collection. On the ground floor, the first picture visitors are likely to encounter is by Peter Howson. It is not of a heroic dosser but a kneeling woman. The Brink depicts her both on a literal precipice and in a frame of mind. Steven Campbell, Stephen Conroy, Alison Watt and Craig Mulholland are other contemporary names to conjure with. For those who like them, there's a clutch of John Bellanys. The brown eyes of Ian Hughes's Franz Kafka gaze over the investment management office with melancholy and the grace of a Greek icon. Portraits are thin on the ground (or rather the wall). Bill Smith explains the reason. ''So many paintings are available, why commission? If you don't like the finished article what do you do?'' Flemings has ''felt no reason'' to commission portraits even of its chairmen. The only banking personality portrayed is, appropriately, David Donald, founder of the art collection, in a study by David Donaldson. David Donald built up the collection for 18 years. On his death in 1985, Hawick-raised Smith took over. ''I'm really a banker rather than an art person,'' he says, though he has written a study of D Y Cameron. He looks after the collection in conjunction with Robin Fleming, the company chairman. ''I normally do the ferreting,'' explains Smith. This involves his visiting exhibitions, dealers, auctions, and degree shows, though ''now we're so well-known that we're offered a number of pictures''. Nowadays the main thrust is towards the contemporary, though there are still gaps in the collection (no Ramsays or Raeburns, for instance) and areas which they hope to upgrade. And of course, there is always the possibility of adding works simply because they like them. This explains the recent acquisition of Eve of the Battle of the Somme, James Gunn's view of soldiers bathing and relaxing on the edge of oblivion. ''One factor we have to bear in mind,'' says William Smith, ''is that this is a corporate collection, being seen by people who are working. The subject matter has got to be one we feel we can hang. So sex and violence we just simply couldn't consider. Political comment, yes.'' The collection has no large Ken Currie works (just one head). Nonetheless, Smith says they would certainly consider buying a political painting. ''We wouldn't be antagonistic towards a vehemently communistic picture hanging in a capitalist bank -- not at all!'' The collection also includes some sculptures. Among these is a miniature version of Paolozzi's Master of the Universe -- a powerful figure at once human and mechanistic, his brain stripped of covering, his bolted joints reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster. (A full-size version is in the grounds of the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.) It's a pleasant paradox that the collection, though belonging to an international financial company, is not regarded by it primarily as an investment. Rather, says Robin Fleming, it remains a means of promoting ''a pleasant, stimulating and occasionally challenging environment for both staff and visitors'', as well as fostering Scottish art and encouraging young Scottish artists. Flemings is unwilling to talk about the collection's theoretical monetary value. Outsiders may speculate enviously. It is perhaps better to view it simply as a priceless testimony to the creativity of Scottish artists over succeeding generations. In a real sense it is a national collection. * THE general public will be able to sample the Flemings collection themselves this summer when some 60 of its paintings will be shown at the National Gallery of Scotland at Edinburgh Festival time, alongside works from the national gallery's own holdings. The initiative came from the national gallery. Flemings, says Bill Smith, was delighted and felt very privileged by the invitation. In return, Timothy Clifford, director of the national galleries, describes the collection as ''exceptional'' and says they are thrilled to have pictures from it on show in Edinburgh. Reciprocal civilities apart, what will be on view? The National Gallery of Scotland is doing the choosing to complement its own pictures. The period covered is from 1820 to 1920, taking in the Glasgow Boys, the Colourists and D Y Cameron, but obviously excluding Redpath, Gillies, other mid-twentieth century figures, and contemporary artists. Mungo Campbell of the national gallery has been working on the exhibition with the principal organiser, his colleague Helen Smailes. For him one of the joys of organising this show is to say of painters such as Wilkie and McTaggart, ''Here is something different''; in other instances, there's a chance to see painters not represented at all in the national collection. Where the Glasgow Boys are concerned, the national gallery's holding is ''not as full and complete'' as it might be, and the Flemings pictures will add considerably to their presence. ''The most stunning pastel by George Henry of a woman reading'' is among the prime attractions here. Other pictures coming to Edinburgh range from Lochaber No More (one of the exhibition themes will be emigration) to Gunn's Eve of the Battle of the Somme. The exhibition, appropriately titled ''Hidden Assets'', will run from August 3 to September 24. GH950603-000018 GH950603-000018 950603 The best way to avoid being left out of the picture JACK WEBSTER 3 7 BOOK REVIEW WEEKENDER,WAY WE WERE ILLUS 978075749 Jack Webster reveals an opportunity to be written into Glasgow's past ARUMMAGE through the picture library of The Herald and Evening Times is one of those fascinating experiences which remind you how soon the commonplace events of our daily lives take on the hue of history. The longer you live the more astounded you become to see those events which were so freely taken for granted assuming a significance in the tapestry of life which you would never have imagined at the time. Having just completed such an exercise, I found myself warming to the sight of great Scottish entertainers like Dave Willis, Tommy Morgan, Benny Lynch. My emotions stirred to the pictorial record of the Empire Exhibition at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, in 1938, the greatest spectacle I have ever seen. Who could forget that last night when 365,000 people linked arms and sang and danced The Lambeth Walk, ignoring the deluge of the night and the gathering clouds which would soon bring the Second World War? Equally, I found myself chilled by some tragic events to which I had been a personal witness. As a journalist I had been there, for example in 1960, when 19 firemen died in the whisky warehouse blaze at Cheapside Street, Glasgow. Just a short distance away I was there again in 1968, standing outside an upholstery factory in James Watt Street as the screams of 20 victims faded into the eerie silence of a dull November morning. How could I forget the Rangers-Celtic match of January 1971, as I left Ibrox Park at the moment when 66 of my fellow spectators were being crushed to death on Stairway 13? Tragedies and triumphs throughout the century, all the way to the Garden Festival of 1988 and Glasgow's place as European City of Culture in 1990. Now, with the latest accolade of UK City of Architecture due in 1999 -- and a new century beckoning -- there was surely a decision to be made about this vast treasure of pictures lying within this Herald building. Since the history of Glasgow and Clydeside throughout this twentieth century was there before our very eyes, in all the richness of black-and-white as well as colour, it was time to share our pictorial archive with the readers. The result is a book called Images of Glasgow, quite the most splendid record of the city and its surroundings ever to hit the bookshops. It is not on general sale until September but there is a certain urgency for those who would like to have their name, or that of a friend or company, printed in the subscribers' list, which will appear in every copy. For that privilege, it is necessary to act before 10 June by sending #15.99, with the name of the subscriber, to the address given below. It is an added attraction to a book in the creation of which I have been very happy to play a part. * If you wish to have this personal link with Images of Glasgow, just send your cheque or postal order to: Breedon Books, Breedon House, 44 Friar Gate, Derby, DE1 1DA -- by June 10. GH950603-000019 GH950603-000019 950603 Those favourite things KEITH MOORE 3 11 PROFILE WEEKENDER,FIDELITY INSPECTOR ILLUS 978075750 Keith Moore talks to a book lover, whose passion for the written word is matched by an amazing record collection IT IS a lucky man who can indulge his passions in the workplace, and Jamie Byng is one . In common with the Fidelity Inspector (and the person who originated the phrase), a few of Byng's favourite things are books and music. Having been promoted to joint MD at Canongate Books less than a year ago, he recently launched the Payback Press imprint, specialising in black American music writing. Of his record collection, it must be said it is one of the finest I have ever seen, and although they say size doesn't matter, Byng's vinyl addiction and past life as a club DJ has ensured an extensive collection oozing quality and style. Storage has always been the serious record collector's classic dilemma. In the Byng household, jazz, reggae, soul and hip-hop lie in alphabetical order on three specially constructed, high-specification glass shelves. His wife Whitney, however, preferred the records lying on the floor, growing out from the skirting, as she could see the covers (granted, she is an art student). As the youngest of a family of four, Byng suffered the classic Big Brother syndrome. ''I had three long haired brothers who foisted their music upon me: Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Bowie: classic rock I suppose.'' Of his earliest memories, however, there is one that pre-dates his first vinyl purchase, and indicates what was to come. ''Every child likes The Beatles, and my parents had the blue double album. I remember coming home from holiday, running in the front door, making for the stereo and putting on I Am The Walrus. It was like a fix -- I'd been deprived of my favourite song for two whole weeks.'' Needless to say, he has never since gone cold turkey for such a lengthy period. Of great lost records, he reckons his is Burning Spear's 70s classic Garvie's Ghost, which was stolen. He has sold records in time of desperation, but not valuable ones. ''I remember trying to sell a batch of records and being left with a pile no one wanted,'' he says, and although he insists the Stones were not a formative influence in his life, he threw the unsellable ones out of a window: ''The best game of frisbee ever.'' His first records were an early 80s trinity: Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger, Come on Eileen by Dexy's and The Stranglers' Strange Little girl, but (thankfully) the musical watershed came when he met his brother-in-law-to be, Charlie. ''I had to go through one of those 'interviews' that all young people are bound to in order to get a room in a flat.'' Charlie had this brilliant record collection which had a devastating effect on me: rare James Brown cuts, Roy Ayers, Syl Johnson. I moved in and have much to thank Charlie for. Aside from introducing me to Whitney, he taught me the art of secondhand record buying.'' After Charlie's crash course in music over, Byng quickly became a disciple of Gramophone Emporium, a CD-free haven for vinyl junkies in St Stephen Street, and other secondhand shops. A scan over the immense collection of dance-floor and front-room pleasers reveals Miles Davis, Timmy Thomas, Nirvana and Augustus Pablo, side-by-side with Etta James, Horace Silver, Bob Dylan and an extensive collection of Gil Scott-Heron, whose two 70s cult novels: The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, he is currently preparing for summer publication. The initial trio of Payback books has been a major success, and if Byng continues to allow his musical taste to influence his business sensibilities, you can guarantee that Canongate will once again establish itself an enviable reputation in the world of independent publishing. GH950603-000020 GH950603-000020 950603 Loneliness of the first wrinkly in space JOHN FOWLER 3 4 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075751 John Fowler looks forward to the first of several Atlantis trips to Russian space station Mir which takes place later this month. CLUNK! The satisfactory sound of spacecraft docking -- in this case the American Atlantis orbiter berthing with the Russian space station Mir. This event, pictured here by Mark McLellan, is due to take place later this month, probably on Monday the 19th. On that date an American spaceman will ease himself through the port to join Mir's Russian crew. It will be the first of several Atlantis trips to Mir designed to provide astronauts with experience of lengthy spells out on that lonely frontier. In the longer term it may also pave the way for possible manned missions to Mars in the twenty-first century. There will be plenty to do both on board and outside the space station. Some complex operations outside the hull are designed to prepare astronauts for the next major step in space technology, the construction of the international space station which will replace Mir early next century. Mir has been out there a long time. But inevitably this veteran piece of space apparatus is beginning to show its age. Mir is now the first wrinkly in space. It's not certain how many times Atlantis will call on Mir. Ten dockings were originally planned but the number has been reduced to seven. Also, it's likely that one of the five expected long-term stays by Nasa astronauts will be cut from the programme. Cost, as always, is a crucial factor. The planet Jupiter was ''in opposition'' on Thursday, which means that on that date the earth, Jupiter, and the sun lay along the same line. Theoretically this is the best time to view a planet, but Jupiter has been too low on the southern horizon for best results. At the moment the planet is in the constellation Ophiuchus, moving later into Scorpius. Jupiter has several remarkable features. For a start, it's gigantic. Its mass is more than twice that of all the other planets put together. You could cram them all -- including our own earth, of course -- into Jupiter and there would still be plenty to spare. It spins on its axis faster than any other planet, whirling round the full circuit in less than 10 hours. It is also very stormy, swept by bizarre weather patterns. Bands of weather moving in contrary directions whip over its surface. Prominent amid all this mega-turbulence is the famous Great Red Spot, a vast cloud of rising gases thought to be mainly phosphorus. Among other planets this month Mars, too, will not be seen at its best. Early in the night Mars disappears below the horizon, so end of story. Come the dawn, Saturn emerges, but as it climbs into the sky in the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces, it fades tantalisingly from view in the brightening daylight. The main interest within Mark's constellation of the month, Serpens Caput, is a globular cluster known as M5. You will require binoculars or a telescope to see it. No problem, however, in spotting shooting stars in the neighbourhood of the constellation Lyra towards the middle of the month. These meteor showers, blue in colour, should be at their peak around midnight on the fifteenth. GH950603-000021 GH950603-000021 950603 PRETTY ANNOYING STEWART FRASER 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS 978075752 THOUGH some weeds can be pretty, they can also be an intolerable nuisance. Indeed, really obnoxious weeds such as horsetail, couch grass or Japanese bamboo can be the bane of a gardener's life. I have even known of people to move house to get away from them. Attitudes to weed control vary enormously. Some try to work by hand, mowing, hoeing, pulling or mulching. They don't like the idea of using chemicals, on environmental grounds -- or because they have pets running around. Due to persistent nature of perennial weeds, however, manual effort can be a lost cause. Annual weeds and some mild perennials can be effectively controlled on a programme of constant hoeing. It requires extreme persistence. Chemical control can work out, if the right killers are chosen. Apply them carefully, and dispose of any unused portions properly. You may have to use both manual and chemical control. Information on various types of weedkillers is a useful starting point. Contact killers desiccate the leaf area on which they are applied. Typical are Murphy Weedmaster or Weedol -- excellent for short-term control. Systemics are absorbed by the whole plant, including the roots. Typical examples are glysophate-based Roundup and Tumbleweed. They are useful against deep-rooted perennials and can be applied on a spot basis, among mixed herbage, for example. Weedex is typical of long-term root-absorbing chemicals based on simazine. Ideal for paths. A large group of weedkillers, used on lawns, are hormone types. The active chemicals are absorbed by the leaves and they literally grow themselves to death. The danger here is that drifting vapours can find their way to flower beds or into greenhouses. The merest whiff can ruin a budding tomato crop. GH950603-000022 GH950603-000022 950603 A HORTICULTURAL MASTERPIECE STEWART FRASER 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978075753 FOR those who admire the elegant formality of the big-house garden, a visit to Drummond Castle Gardens near Crieff is not to be missed at the moment, writes STEWART FRASER. Box hedges, regular plantings of trees and shrubs -- and the magnificent castle overlooking it all -- make for an impressive visual experience. And adding extra romantic interest these days is the fact that that some of the filming for Rob Roy took place here. The pictures above show (from top left, clockwise): The dramatic perspectives of the hedging; the castle overlooking the gardens; the meticulous care taken over the box hedging; and a distant view that emphasises the intricate geometry of this horticultural masterpiece. GH950603-000023 GH950603-000023 950603 Shirley's a rogue IAN WALLS 3 10 CORRESPONDENCE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS,ASK EXPERT ILLUS 978075754 * ONE of my tomato plants has started to throw side shoots all over the place. It looks distinctly shrubby. It is the variety Shirley and I am wondering why this should be so. * It sounds very much as if you have a rogue tomato. This can happen quite frequently with F1 hybrid varieties. It is caused by a genetical upset and it is pointless to retain the plant. It will not produce any worthwhile crop. Replace with a normal plant. * I am plagued with annual meadow grass. It invades my lawn, laid with top quality turf a year or so ago. I am told there is now a chemical which can take out the meadow grass and leave fine grasses unharmed. * I have been inquiring about this with some top greenkeepers. Apparently, chemicals are being developed but are at the trial stage. I have been in touch with a large chemical firm and there is certainly nothing available on the amateur market. You can be sure I will keep a look out for this. In the meantime, regular cutting, ideally with a comb or rake on a cylinder mower, will improve the general appearance of the lawn. * My flowering cherry is showing a lot of distortion and crinkling of leaves. Is this caused by air pollution? * This is usually caused by sucking pests. They can be seen if the leaves are unfolded carefully. Spray with an insecticide like malathion. The problem is getting effective coverage. You may be able to concentrate on leaf tips. * I am about to invest in a good rake. Do I need to know about differences? * Rakes come in various sizes and can perform a multitude of operations. Their prime function is on soil to prepare it for sowing. Novices tend to let rakes dig into the ground and make it uneven. Getting a flat surface is possible only if you support the weight of the rake while working with it. With large areas to cover it takes a lot to beat a wooden hay rake, though a lightweight aluminium one can be easier to use. Rakes are also useful for garden paths. Wire ones are not intended for soil but for leaves or loose organic matter, and raking lawns, especially when moss has been killed off. GH950603-000024 GH950603-000024 950603 The beauty of cafe society MARGARET HUGHES 3 15 REVIEW WEEKENDER,PEOPLES PALATE, ILLUS 978075755 THERE has been something of a boom in theatres opening cafes and restaurants during the past few years. This is good news for both theatre-goers and the theatre owners. An evening at the theatre is now easily extended to include dinner, and theatre owners are finding that it can be a lucrative way to attract people to their establishment when there are no performances. Choice varies dramatically. In some cases all that is available is a basic menu of soup, sandwiches, and coffees. However, there are restaurants with three-course meals, plus wine. In Glasgow, the Tron Theatre has built a good reputation for its cafe and restaurant operations. The cafe serves a selection of typical bar food, such as baked potatoes and sandwiches. The resaurant has a larger menu. Starters include soup, mussels in a white sauce, wild mushroom and hazelnut pate and nachos covered in a variety of melted cheese combinations. The soup changes daily with potato and leek served when I visited. Main courses are the best illustration of the international flavour of the menu. Scottish staples, such as salmon fishcakes, are served with imaginative accompaniments like salsa chutney. There is also a good choice of vegetarian dishes and salads. The grilled aubergine and sun-dried tomato layered loaf sounded very good. I opted for the pan-fried fillet of pork served in cajun sauce. The pork was well-cooked. It's delicate flavour was overwhelmed, but not unpleasantly so, by the spicy cajun sauce. The accompanying salad was more than generous topped with a sharp vinaigrette dressing. My companion chose one of the best value choices on the menu, half a pizza and salad at #3.95. It was fresh, filling, and hugely enjoyable. Desserts are less inspirational. They include a typical selection of passion cake, caramel shortcake, and chocolate fudge cake. At the other end of town, the Theatre Royal's Cafe Royal is a much smaller operation. Sited at the top of Hope Street it can be very quiet when there are no performances. The restaurant has a more formal feel to it.Again the menu displays international influences. Starters include Stilton-stuffed mushrooms, oriental spare ribs, and fries with dips. I rarely eat chips, but decided to try the fries served with a cream-cheese and bacon dip. The fries were large wedges of deep fried potato. Well-cooked and not at all greasy they were wickedly satisfying. The cream-cheese and bacon dip was luxuriously thick and equally tasty. Scottish ingredients are included on the main course menu, and are served in a variety of ways. Grilled fillet of salmon is served in a teriyaki style, while lamb's liver is pan-fried in port and ginger. I chose the vegetable en croute, which looks like a large bridie. The pastry was light and the slightly spicy filling made of mushrooms, courgette, onions, and tomatoes. It was very good. The international theme continued to dessert, but less excitingly. There is a choice of tiramisu, profiteroles, and lemon miroir. The lemon miroir is a glazed mousse-like cake, which was by turn sharp and sweet. Edinburgh boasts two of the most modern, but very different, cafes at the Traverse and the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. The Traverse Theatre's cafe is run by Henderson's, who operate the hugely successful, and very good, restaurant in Hanover Street. The cafe and bar is in the basement. A wrong turn in the entrance hall and you could find yourself in the award-winning restaurant, The Atrium, run by Andrew Radford. The downstairs bar is almost as aesthetically pleasing as The Atrium, and offers a choice of snacks, such as filled rolls and cakes. In the restaurant an extensive menu is available all day. Not surprisingly, being run by Henderson's, the menu is vegetarian, with the inclusion of at least one vegan dish each day. To supplement the regular menu, daily specials are chalked up on a blackboard. Regulars include spicy nachos, baked potatoes, and pizza platters. On a recent visit leek croustade was the daily special. It was a huge serving of leeks in a white sauce sprinkled with breadcrumbs. The leeks were well-cooked and full of flavour, the white sauce fresh and creamy. The crunch of the golden breadcrumbs gave it a good texture. The accompanying salad looked a little tired. The choice of dessert included cheesecake, trifle, and fruit tart. I opted for the trifle. It was a colourful mix of sponge, cream, fruit, and custard. A smaller operation is run at the Festival Theatre. Cafe Lucia, on the ground floor, serves soup, filled rolls, croissants, pastries, and cakes. There is no choice of soup available; you have to take the soup of the day. However, there is good choice of fillings for sandwiches. These include tuna and mayonnaise, humus, and turkey breast. The tomato and lentil soup served on my visit was totally lacking in flavour. The filled baguette, on the other hand, was good. A wedge of poppy-seed bread stuffed with turkey breast and salad was fresh and tasty. It was a huge serving of both salad and meat. The choice of cakes and pastries include popular favourites such as chocolate-chip muffins, fruit tarts, and the sweetest pastries. Service in each of these theatre cafes was good. Most of the staff were young, friendly, and certainly some of the most exuberant waiting staff I have ever encountered.In addition, each of the places served an extensive selection of beers, spirits, non-alcoholic beverages, and wine. * Tron Theatre Cafe & Restaurant, 63 Trongate, Glasgow. Tel: 0141-552 4267. Open Monday to Friday for lunch from noon until 3pm and for dinner from 5pm until 10.30pm, 11pm at weekends. Food is served all day Saturday and Sunday, with a brunch menu available on Sundays from 11am until 4pm. Average cost is #12 for three courses. * Cafe Royal, Theatre Royal, 282 Hope Street, Glasgow. Tel: 0141-332 1370. It is open from 11am for coffees, lunch is served between 12.30 and 3pm. Dinner is served from 5pm until 10.30pm when there is a performance in the theatre, but closes at 6pm otherwise. Three courses cost around #15. * Henderson's at the Traverse Cafe, Cambridge Street, Edinburgh. Tel: 0131-228 1404. Open seven days. Monday to Saturday from 10.30am until 8pm and on Sundays from 6.30pm until 8pm. Costs around #10 for three courses. * Cafe Lucia, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 13-29 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh. Tel: 0131-662 1112. The cafe opens at 10am every day and serves food throughout the day until around midnight. Average cost is about #5. GH950603-000025 GH950603-000025 950603 Borrowers face daunting choice GILLIAN BARTON 3 22 FEATURE ILLUS 978075756 THE mortgage market could be shaken out of the doldrums this summer -- perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Against a background of employment worries, fears of interest rate rises and cuts in tax breaks for homeowners, mortgage lenders are having to work very hard to tempt new customers. The range of loans on offer is now mind-boggling with fixed rates, discount schemes, capped mortgages and cashbacks all jostling for attention alongside the more familiar repayment, endowment and pension mortgages. The trouble is that recent lending figures suggest that the choice for borrowers is daunting rather than appealing. Experts believe that mortgage lending by banks, accounting for about a third of the UK mortgage market, plunged by 30% or so between March and April this year. If recent poor building society figures are added in mortgage approvals last month were down nearly a quarter on the March totals. Those figures could see an upturn over the summer months as lenders unveil more incentives, although increased take-up of loans could well be due to defensive rather than positive reasons. In October the Government plans to shrink the safety net now available to homebuyers who lose their jobs through sickness or redundancy. But there are fears that the Government by changing the rules could lead to a short-term surge in borrowing, only to create an even bigger housing slump in the future. Anyone who takes out a new mortgage after October will have to wait nine months before income support pays any of their mortgage interest. ''I believe insurance for this nine-month period will be readily available,'' said Peter Lilley, the Social Security secretary. ''Indeed, I expect that many lenders will incorporate it in their loans at very modest cost.'' Potential and existing homebuyers who don't share Mr Lilley's optimism may consider taking action now if they are to make the most of what limited State aid there could be if Government proposals go ahead as planned. Homebuyers who arrange a new mortgage before October -- whether to finance a house move, replace an existing loan through a ''remortgage'' package or to raise extra capital -- won't have to wait so long for help if the new rules are in place by the autumn. Those eligible for income support will qualify for help with their mortgage payments after two months, against a nine-month wait for loans taken out after October. At a time of sluggish demand for mortgages some lenders may use the October deadline as an opportunity to push business. And while there could be plenty of good reasons to arrange a new mortgage -- particularly for existing borrowers paying the normal variable rate of around 8.4% at the moment -- the chance of claiming State benefits should not be a major consideration. Nearly 70% of homeowners can never qualify for income support and help with their mortgage because their own income or savings -- or those of their spouse or partner -- are too high. The benefit changes are being fiercely attacked by mortgage lenders. But the row over their introduction may already be doing a very useful job in highlighting the dangers for homebuyers who lose their jobs through illness or unemployment. Borrowers who do decide to take on a new loan during the summer should consider using some of the savings to be had to fund a private insurance policy for income replacement -- cover that may not have been available, affordable or even a consideration when they originally took out their mortgage. Mortgage protection policies can usually be taken out alongside a new loan and there are a handful of policies available to existing borrowers. These include Protect Direct from Perth-based General Accident Direct. GA has a free leaflet explaining how these policies work (telephone 0800 121008 for details). Both critical illness insurance and permanent health insurance are also worth looking at, particularly for the self-employed. As the range of discounted and fixed rate loans expands the appeal of remortgaging your property becomes even greater, especially now that the standard mortgage rate is high relative to bank base rates. Borrowers currently paying well over 8% for their home loans should certainly take a look at rates as low as the 2.95% available from National & Provincial and 3.55% from Nationwide, for instance. But watch out for unavoidable costs such as land registry fees and hidden extras such as valuation costs (often refunded by your new lender), arrangement fees and the cost of a mortgage indemnity premium for large percentage loans. Beware, too, of the costs of paying off your old mortgage and potential penalties if you want to switch again in the future. Although many of the biggest discounts apply only for a year or so, you could be facing penalties for up to five years after the discount period has ended. Some lenders try to make you take out life or household insurance as part of a cut-price interest deal which could be more expensive than if you shopped around. And don't forget that if, as an unmarried couple, you took out your original mortgage before 1988 you may still be getting double Miras tax relief which you'll lose if you switch to a new mortgage. GH950603-000026 GH950603-000026 950603 Lifetime relived in poetic memories MARGARET RIGILLO 3 8 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978075757 Adrian Henri didn't take much notice of poetry in school thinking it was all about daffodils. Years later he is world renowned for his poems, and also thrives on his artistic talents. Margaret Rigillo spoke with the jack of all trades in Italy about his latest book WHEN I met Adrian Henri, he was tucking into a hearty plate of what he referred to as ''Spaghetti on the Rocks'', the seafood speciality served on Fridays in Franco's on the Via Cassia, Rome. This is a gargantuan-sized platter of steaming pasta topped with a heap of assorted shellfish, which actually features on the menu rather more prosaically as ''Spaghetti of the rock''. Henri was taking a well-earned break on a busy Italian tour, where his programme had included the presentation of his newest book of poems Not Fade Away at the British Council in Milan, and a three-day stint at Rome's top English-speaking school, St George's, introducing classes of enthusiastic teenagers to The Haunted Disco and Rover of the Oyster. He recalled: ''When I was at school, I always thought that poetry was something to do with daffodils. I didn't realise you could write poetry about inner cities and street lamps and newspapers blowing across waste ground -- not till I chanced upon a poem by T S Eliot in an anthology. It was a revelation -- a really exciting discovery.'' He considers his readings enormously important. ''It takes the poem off the page and makes it alive. I hate listening to other people reading my poems. Actors, in particular, don't value the words. They are only after emotional impact.'' He chuckles as he refills our glasses with Franco's best vino bianco: ''A couple of years ago, at the end of a poetry reading, this middle-aged couple came up to me and said, 'We think of you as the godfather of our children.' When they were courting they had quarrelled and split up. He had copied out this poem of mine, Love Is, and sent it to her and because of that they'd got together again. I think that's wonderful -- to know that you've influenced someone's destiny.'' Henri's own destiny has always followed a zigzag course, full of unexpected developments. The overweight, bespectacled child from dole-ridden Birkenhead -- the name Henri is not a nom de guerre, as some people think, but comes from his French grandfather -- fighting his own private war at school in Wales during the war years (''I could draw airplanes. That saved me from being bullied by the other kids!'') went on to take an Hons BA in Fine Art at the University of Durham. ''I only ever wanted to be an artist.'' Before he settled down to a steady job as an art teacher, progressing to lecturer at Manchester and Liverpool Colleges of Art, he was a scenery painter and a fairground worker. The cabaret turns on Monday nights were just a bit of a lark on the side. But Henri met Roger McGough and Brian Patten and the Liverpool School of poetry was born, to the great surprise of the protagonists -- as well as the rest of the world. ''It changed my life,'' said Henri, ''it'' being Penguin's Modern Poets 10 -- The Mersey Sound, a bestseller from the start, which has now sold more than three-quarters of a million copies world-wide. ''From being Adrian Henri, painter, art teacher and occasional poet, I became Adrian Henri, poet. In three years I went from being a college lecturer to a minor pop star, touring with my band, sitting in a Ford Transit going up and down motorways.'' ''We did some amazing things,'' he reminisces, still with a note of wonder in his voice. ''Within a year, 'The Liverpool Scene' had risen to being chosen as support group for Led Zeppelin's first British tour. We were billed at the Isle of Wight Festival along with Bob Dylan.'' When the band broke up in 1979, Henri opted to go freelance, as he terms it. ''I could have formed another group, but I realised there were a lot of other things I'd rather be doing. So ever since then I've been a freelance poet/painter, art critic, and performer.'' He also writes for the theatre, leads creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and ''does the odd thing with music''. But, first and foremost, he sees himself as Adrian Henri the Artist. It is in his studio back in Liverpool that he feels most at home, and when his poetry reading tours take him too long away from painting, he admits to getting ''really frustrated''. The Entry of Christ into Liverpool, which he painted in the 60s, features on the cover of Not Fade Away. It's a suitable complement to his poem, Winter Ending -- also in the book -- which was published in the Labour Party's election manifesto in 1992. ''The height of my career!'' he remarks jocularly. ''But then -- Labour lost. All my friends said it was my fault.'' These days, he says, he is painting landscapes: ''For want of a better word. They're very much about memories of places, so they're not direct topographical likenesses. Straightforward landscapes would be really boring, I think. I'm fascinated by the emotional evocation of places. Poetry, too, is very much about memory.'' Memories are, in fact, the leitmotiv which underlies the verses of Not Fade Away -- ''I took the title from the Buddy Holly song'' -- and an earlier volume called Wish You Were Here. ''These titles,'' he explained, ''have a double meaning. In both cases they are about people whom I knew, dying.'' Wish You Were Here was dedicated to his ex-wife. ''We were amicably divorced years ago, and we remained very close friends. She died six years ago. Not Fade Away opens with a poem in memoriam to Sam Walsh, an artist friend of mine. My poems are about memories -- places and people who don't fade away. Somehow by writing about them, you keep the memory.'' The other poems capture impressions, fragments of experiences, Henri's highly individualistic view of favourite works of art, foreign travel, childhood recollections, love. The book is dedicated to Catherine, his present companion, who has accompanied him on this trip. The coffee arrives, a demitasse of double-strength black espresso. Henri and Catherine are keen to put in a little sightseeing before they return to Liverpool, where Adrian is booked the following day to give a reading in the Art Gallery. ''The only thing I'd like to change about my life,'' he says, as we go out into a wet Roman spring afternoon, ''is to delay the passing of the years. I was a very slow developer. I never did anything much till I was in my thirties. I feel as if I'm entitled to a bit of credit from Time. I'm still growing. Still learning.'' GH950603-000027 GH950603-000027 950603 Every dog has its day KENNETH WRIGHT 3