William Ewart Gladstone and Alfred Morgan

An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly Circus,
Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers
by Alfred Morgan

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) was British Prime Minister on four occasions as well as the country’s oldest serving prime minister at 84 years old. During his various ministries he introduced the secret ballot into the British electoral system, oversaw the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, and in 1886 tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill through parliament to allow devolution or Irish Home Rule. He was known by the appellation G.O.M., which stood for ‘Grand Old Man’ to his friends and supporters, and ‘God’s Only Mistake’ to his lifelong rival Benjamin Disraeli. Gladstone is also remembered for the bag that bears his name and for using the longest word in a British parliamentary debate: antidisestablishmentarianism.


Alfred Morgan (1862-1904) was an English painter. His extensive range of subjects included portraits, flowers, animals and landscapes, as well as historical and biblical scenes. In 1885 he completed a portrait of William Ewart Gladstone in a work entitled ‘An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly Circus, Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers’. The ‘ordinary passengers’, in fact, were the artist himself and his wife and children.

Théâtre Antique, Orange

Antique Theatre, Orange

"Have you ever drunk your weight in red wine in a restaurant while waiting for your meal to be served, staggered back to your hotel, fallen down in the shower while fully clothed, and spent the night lying in a crumpled heap on the floor in dripping wet clothes and a pool of sick and vomit?"
I posed the question to a fellow traveller who thought I looked a bit hung-over as we waited on the platform of Orange railway station in Provence.
"I haven't", he replied, "and I don't know anyone who has, either".
"It must just be me, then", I said.

It all happened too many years ago to recall, but I still have the leaflet from my visit to the town's Antique Theatre, the main tourist attraction. That's it above, a bit moth eaten, like its possessor, but still in one piece. The weather that day was superb, I still remember it, but the omens weren't good. I'd had an altercation with a French bureaucratic bank clerk while cashing some travellers cheques, but was in good shape notwithstanding and looking forward to doing some exploring.

Orange is situated in the Vaucluse region of Provence and is home to many well-preserved Roman monuments. According to legend, the valiant Guillaume au Court, nephew of Charlemagne, became its first Dream Lord, and his short nose is represented as a horn on the town's coat of arms, above three oranges. But it is self-evidently a legend, since I've travelled widely in France, and have yet to see a Frenchman with a short nose.

Roman Victory Arch
at Orange

I entered the town proper through the Roman Arc de Triomphe, built by the Emperor Constantine to the glory of Rome. It was constructed on the site of the battlefield of Aygue (105 B.C.) in order to efface the defeat and the ignominy inflicted on the Roman army by the Cimbri and the Teutons.


Orange is a small place and it didn't take long to track down the Antique Theatre. I thought it would be throbbing with tourists, but apart from a couple of teenagers billing and cooing on the terrace, the place was deserted. I stepped over the turtle doves and found somewhere to sit.


The monument dates from the first century A.D. and is the only Roman theatre that still has its stage wall. Gosh! The outer wall measures 103 metres in length and 37 metres in height. There are 16 bays at the ground level, of which four are for the use of the performers. It is still a working theatre in the summer months of July and August when it is a meeting place for artists and music lovers from around the world.


I spent about 30 minutes in the theatre and then made my way to the exit. Romeo and Juliet had passed the billing and cooing stage and were now into heavy petting. Another few minutes and he would be sending the colonel in, so I felt it was a good time to leave. Besides, it was already mid-afternoon and I hadn't eaten since breakfast.


It is at this point in the narrative that things started to go pear shaped. I found a pleasant restaurant but they had finished serving for the day. However, the waitress/chef/owner said that she could prepare a dish for me if I was prepared to wait. So I ordered a carafe of the house red, and then another. By the time the meal arrived (probably about an hour later) I had consumed the second carafe and ordered a third. An hour after that (or possibly two) I stumbled out of the restaurant and found myself in the main square.

Place Clémenceau 

I say the main square, for in fact there are two, and I have no idea to this day which one of the two it was that I was falling down in. But it was either Place Clémenceau, on which the Hôtel de Ville is situated, and whose facade was modified and re-sculptured by Charpentier de Boliène in 1880, and whose bell tower was erected in 1715 and which houses three bells of which one from 1442 (Gosh again!); or Place de la République, with its fountain, trees and flower market. I somehow made it back to my hotel and up to my room, and the rest, as they say, is history.


The next morning it was pouring with rain and in addition the French rail workers were having a 'day of action', which is what they call 24 hours when they don't do anything. I wanted to get to Lyon where a friend was meeting me at the station. Finally a train arrived. It was crowded and I couldn't find a seat. So I went to the buffet coach where a young French woman was sitting with a BBC publication Advanced English Conversations. I struck up a conversation with her and she was able to practice her new skills as the train sped up the Rhône valley through the torrential rain.


Them were the days!

Isle of Skye - the magic island

Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye

“The sun, his golden helmet shimmering in his brow, has scaled the walls of the glittering east, and now, proud and majestic, hangs like a pendant in the welkin’s eye.”

So said a passenger (or words to that effect) as our ferry cast off its mooring in Mallaig and headed for the open sea and the short journey to the mystical isle of Skye.

“Not many people aboard”, the passenger added. “A lot less than I would have thought”.

“A lot fewer”, I corrected him.

I thought he was going to hit me, but he just walked away. I looked at a forlorn looking lady sitting in a corner. An unstamped letter, I thought, lost and abandoned in life’s sorting office.

We were quite a collection.

Skye is the home of the MacDonalds, most famously Flora MacDonald, who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape the isle after the failed Jacobin revolt.  

“Och, wee Charlie, hoots mon, dinnae tarry, will yu get yur wee backside i’yon boatie, mon?”

The journey over we clambered on a bus for Portree.

“You married?” the passenger asked me.

“She left me”, I told him. “Said I never listened to anything she said. At least I think she did.”

“People have been hung for less”, he replied.

“Hanged for less”, I corrected him, and thought this time he will hit me.

I got off at Broadford, bid goodbye to the passenger and wished him a long, prosperous and happy life (no I didn’t, why lie about it?) and headed for my hotel.

Broadford was small, a wee place, with a population of around 600 hardy souls some of whom still spoke Gaelic. But it was highly picturesque, the air was commendably breathable, and all around were panoramic views of the sea, the mountains, and still more mountains on the Scottish mainland in the distance.

I clambered up nearby Red Hill, and then went to a pub where I ran into two UFO-spotting Londoners who will remain nameless but whom I shall call Bill and Ben.

“Each man is his own divinity”, Ben told me. “All life is contained in a single grain of sand”.

“Macrocosm as microcosm”, said Bill.

“Ah, but you’re probably thinking: a grain of sand is composed of atoms and that 99% of an atom is vacuum”, said Ben.

“But what you don’t know”, said Bill, “is that every moment of every day billions of negative elements pass through the atoms of the brain and come out the other side”.

“And as they pass through they deposit information precasting the future”, said Ben.

“Short-circuiting the synaptic junctions between brain cells and planting cosmic information directly into the neurophysiology of the host”, said Bill.

“And they’re being used by the Saucer People”, said Ben, then added: “Because they’re all around us, you know, the Saucer People”.

“And they can travel great distances in their speed-of-light space craft”, said Bill.

“And even through time portals”, added Ben.

“They’ve got Anti-natal Clinics for Pregnant Computers”, said Bill.

“Cosmic Gymnasiums for Keep Fit Time Travellers”, said Ben.

“Technologies we could never dream up in a million years”, said Bill.

“I once dreamed up the name Zip Timmermims”, I said.

Bill looked at me, then at Ben. 

“Is he having a laugh?” he said.

Ben looked at me.

“Are you having a laugh, pal?” he asked me.

I looked at Ben, then at Bill, and tried to decide which one would hit me first.

The next day I hired a bike and pedalled to Loch Slapin which Bill Brandt had visited in 1948. The great photographer took many pictures around the island, most notably the gull’s nest. He died on my birthday in 1983, so maybe there was something to Bill and Ben’s macrocosm-microcosm theory after all.

Later on I went to Lord Macdonald’s Forest, tried (unsuccessfully) to see a golden eagle, and two days later was back on the bus for the ferry to Mallaig.

On the boat I was standing aft watching the sun setting over the island, when a man in a kilt came and stood next to me. We watched Skye as it drifted into the distance, and then he said to me: “It’s a magic place, all right”.

“It is”, I agreed.

“I come here every year”, he said.

“Is that right?” I said.

“Every year”, he said.

“Gosh”, I said.

The sun finally set, casting red and yellow and orange streaks across the night sky.

“So will you ever go back?” he asked me.

“Oh yes”, I said, “I’m sure I will”.

“I’m sure I shall”, he corrected me.

I hit him.

La Promenade des Anglais, Nice by Raoul Dufy

The French artist Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) painted colourful, cheerful pictures of the French Riviera including the Midi's most beautiful avenue, the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Some of his paintings are on display in Nice's Fine Arts Museum. The artist is buried in Nice in a grave close to that of his fellow fauvist Henri Matisse. Here are some of his depictions of the la Prom and the Bay of Angels....

Double Dutch with a Dutchman, or The Mystery of the Missing Euro.

Luncheon of the Boating Party
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Travelling once on a train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam I recounted the following riddle to a Dutchman….


Three men have a meal in a restaurant (more of a snack, actually, a cheese sandwich and a milk shake) and the bill comes to 30 euros. Each man gives the waiter 10 euros and the waiter takes the money to the head waiter. But the head waiter notices that the bill should only be 25 euros. So he gives the waiter back 5 euros and tells him to return the money to the men. But on his way to the table the waiter thinks to himself: “Hang fire a minute. They don’t know that the bill was only 25 euros. I think I’ll just give them back 3 euros and keep 2 euros for myself”. So he slips 2 euros into his back pocket and gives 3 euros back to the men, 1 euro to each. Therefore…


Question: How much did each man pay for his meal?
Answer: 9 euros.
Question: 3 times 9 euros equals…?
Answer: 27 euros.
Question: How much did waiter slip into his back pocket?
Answer: 2 euros.
Question: 27 euros plus 2 euros equals…?
Answer: 29 euros.
Question: But the men gave the waiter 30 euros. So where’s the other euro?


The Dutchman thought about it for several moments and then said: “I give up. Where is this other bloody euro?”
I smiled an inscrutable English smile (forget the Chinese, if it’s inscrutable you want there’s no one to touch the English) and left him to ponder The Mystery of the Missing Euro.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline : grand écrivain français

-- Vous vous dites en somme chroniquer?-- Ni plus ni moins!...

                                                       [Nord L-F Céline]

Pour avoir un tableau complet d’un homme il faut tout considérer, ses contradictions aussi, une tâche formidable lorsqu’il s’agit de l’écrivain français Louis-Ferdinand Céline, homme à la fois de droite et de gauche, pacifiste qui s’est engagé volontairement à deux réprises, et philosphe et pamphlétaire sans aucun message à déliverer.

Céline est devenu célèbre en 1932, l’année de la publication de son premier roman Voyage au bout de la nuit. A travers une langue virulente et plein de colère il raconte les aventures de son héros, un nommé Ferdinand Bardamu, de 1914 jusqu’au début des années 1930. A mesure que son voyage avance, d’abord à la guerre, qu’il considère une «vaste universelle moquerie», puis à la colonie de la Bambola-Bragamance, où il observe le fonctionnement pervers de l’administration coloniale, ensuite aux États-Unis, le royaume du roi Dollar, et enfin à Paris où il poursuit son métier de médecin dans la banlieue pauvre, Bardamu commence à se dégôuter des hommes, de leurs niaiseries et de leur monde. Il devient anarchiste, pacifise, pessimiste et misanthrope. Céline aussi, car il s’agit d’un roman autobiographique.


Dès le début le «Voyage» a connu un succès considerable, et Céline, en raison de sa diatribe contre la guerre «imperialiste», et sa dénonciation de la vie coloniale, est devenu l’enfant cheri de la gauche. Mais la liaison fut de courte durée et fut rompue irrévocablement  à la suite de la parution du pamphlet de Céline «Mea Culpa», écrit après une visite de l'écravain à l'Union sovietique en 1936, et dans lequel il dénonce le communisme soviétique, constatant que l'âme communiste ne s'exprimait nulle part en U.r.s.s.


L’immédiat avant-guerre a vu un autre aspect du caractère de Céline, celui de Céline l’antisémite. Et pendant l’occupation il a resté à Paris et même collaboré. Donc, à la libération, craignant pour sa vie, il passa en Allemagne et ensuite au Danemark. 

En 1950 il fut jugé par contumace par la Cours de Justice de Paris, les accusations visant des «actes de nature à nuire à la sûreté de l’État». Le verdict fut annoncé en février 1950 : 50 000 francs d’amende, confiscation des biens, un an de prison, et indignité à vie. Céline, qui resta au Danemark pendant le procès, fut amnisté en 1951 quand il retrouva la France.


Le 1er juillet 1961 Céline mourut d’une congestion cérébrale. Les années depuis sa mort ont vu la réhabilitation de sa réputation en tant que novateur littéraire, et malgré toutes ses déclarations politiques et sociales, on doit admettre qu’il y a du vrai dans sa déclaration d’être «Homme à style et non à idées».

Place de Clichy, Paris

Place de Clichy, around 1930

I first heard the name of the Place de Clichy, or simply the Place Clichy, in Louis-Ferdinand Céline's celebrated novel of 1932, Journey to the End of the Night, which begins on the square in 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War.


Ferdinand Bardamu, the novel's hero, is sitting in a café with fellow medical student, Arthur, discussing President Poincaré, who is due to inaugurate a dog show. (The French presidency in the Third Republic was almost entirely ceremonial.) Arthur calls Ferdinand an anarchist, and Ferdinand responds by reciting a poem he has written, 'a kind of prayer of social vengeance'. They discuss the unsuspecting war slowly creeping up on them, and Arthur declares that if his country asks him to shed his blood then his is ready to do so. Ferdinand is less enthusiastic, but when a regiment comes marching past rounding up recruits, it is Ferdinand and not Arthur that joins the procession. They march on to the cheers of the crowds bombarding them with flowers. Ferdinand has never seen so many patriots in all his life! But then it starts to rain, and the patriots begin one by one to drift away. Ferdinand wants to drift away, too, but has left it too late. They reach the barracks, the gate is shut behind them, and he's trapped - like a rat!

The square is a hub and a meeting point of Boulevard des Batignolles, Avenue de Clichy, Rue Caulaincourt, Rue de Clichy, Rue d'Amsterdam and Rue de Saint-Petersbourg. At its centre stands the statue of Marshall Moncey (1754-1842). On 8 January 1814 Moncey was made Major General of the Paris National Guard, and on 30 March 1814 fought heroically at the Clichy gates in the defence of Paris against the Allies. For an entire day, although ten times outnumbered, he fought back the assaults made by Russian forces. While many other of Napoleon's marshals betrayed their emperor during this period leading up to Napoleon's first abdication, Moncey remained loyal throughout, and indeed was the last to fight at the Clichy barrier.


In 1899 nearby Rue Caulaincourt became the location of the Gaumont Palace cinema, which could seat 6,000 spectators and was billed as the largest cinema in the world. It was an attraction until 1973 by which time it had seen its day and was demolished. Also nearby is Parc Monceau, one of the most beautiful parks in Europe. And the Place Clichy is now the home of many hotels and restaurants, as well as being one of the liveliest intersections of La Ville-Lumière, the City of Light.

La Place Clichy by Eugène Galien-Laloue
(1854-1941)