Battle of empires brings winter excitement to London's museums

Two of the world's great empires are facing off across London in a battle for cultural supremacy this winter. On one side we have Byzantium, spreading 1000 years of art and history over the Royal Academy's primary display rooms. A mile away, Babylon spirals around the top floor of the British Museum's reading room.

I don't know if the cultural supremos of London's museums get together to coordinate blockbuster exhibits, but this was a nice piece of synergy. The compare and contrast element of the experience is particularly fulfilling, especially if ... as I did ... you see the exhibitions in the same week.

Let's start with Byzantium. While still exotic, most people have at least a sketchy idea of the basics of the Byzantine empire. Most know that it was founded by Constantine when the Roman empire split into Eastern and Western halves, famed for its magnificently wealthy and art-laden capital city Constantinople (now Istanbul), was glittering and cultured while Europe went through the dark ages, had something to do with the crusades and eventually fell to the Arabs.

Very few people can go into any detail or have a real appreciation for the cultural legacy the Byzantines left behind. You're left in no doubt that these people did things on a grand scale from the first room, where perhaps the biggest chandelier I've ever seen greets you. It's copper, ornate yet a bit dark and brutal (aspects, I believe, of much of Byzantine art) and must have been spectacular glittering with hundreds of candles.

The next few rooms are magnificent. They give you an overview of the history of the empire, mostly based around the two blockbuster characters: Constantine and Justinian. The artifacts on display give you a rounded picture of Byzantine life, from grand monuments to home decor and tombs, jewelry to religious objects. In these early rooms I was most captivated by the virtuosity of the ivory carvers. There are multiple cases here of book covers and small chests made from the stuff. They're small, ornate, and the kind of thing I've walked right past in other museums while heading for the bigger objects in the room. Clearly, I should have stopped. The detail here is jaw-dropping. Saints no bigger than your finger whose faces convey detailed emotion. Animals an inch or two long so perfect they could jump out into life. Backgrounds of trees and architectural elements carved with such exactitude they're like photos of life in Byzantium.

Elsewhere I lingered over a large chalice once reputed to be the holy grail. The legend is fun but the ornate foliage of vine and grape that comprised its exterior was what really got me. There's a gold and cloisonne enamel icon of the archangel Michael, probably two and a half feet high, that stuns with its ornate detail. Cloisonne is produced by creating borders between the colours with tiny metal wires, filling the sections you've created with glass and firing it. It's detailed work, requiring enormous skill and and phenomenal manual dexterity. I've never seen enamel used to create such precision before, down to expressions on thumbnail-sized faces and details on minute items of clothing.

At room six the traditional icons start in. Not gold, jewel and enamel, but dark, brooding saints staring down at you from wooden panels with looks of pain and suffering suffusing every brow. I must admit, this is where I've never warmed to Eastern Orthodoxy. These people all look miserable. It isn't much of an inspiration to live a good life if my reward is to spend eternity in the gloom with these killjoys. Admittedly, religion was critical to the Byzantines and the icon is important. But did we really have to fill the last four rooms of the exhibition with them? I think I would have been more satisfied had I left mid-way through.

Byzantium was impressive, but left me unsatisfied. I wanted more historical perspective. More personalities and events. More architecture. More, generally, of a big picture about this empire. I wanted the excellent lecture series by Lars Brownworth I downloaded off iTunes brought to life. The Royal Academy of Arts, unsurprisingly given its mission, took a strictly art historical perspective and left my appetite stimulated, but unfulfilled.

What I was looking for, clearly, was the approach the British Museum curators took with Babylon. Here was my historical context. My mix of art, architecture, event and cultural legacy. The personalities. The stories. Sadly, there's much less to look at here. We don't have a heck of a lot left of Babylon to dazzle us. The backbone of this exhibit is old documents: cylinder seals and clay tablets. This is where the British Museum has always been great, however. They weave together a story from a variety of sources, making the most of what they have.

The most impressive stuff is in the first room. They've augmented their own fragments of the magnificent glazed tiles from the Lion Gates of Babylon with others from museums around the world, assembling them to give you some scope of the processional route that was one of the architectural blockbusters of the ancient world. A detailed architectural model in the centre of the room gives you a clear idea of what the whole thing looked like. Granted, it's a dim approximation of what you can see in Berlin (see blog for June 22 '07), but given that most people will never get there, this is a wonderful approximation.

The rest of the exhibit takes the logical approach of myth and reality. Most of what most people know about Babylon, if they know anything at all, comes from legend. And much of that from the Bible which was, let's face it, spinning furiously against their Babylonian enemies. So while the ancient Greeks give us the charming hanging gardens of Babylon, our Hebrew sources contribute the Tower of Babel, the Babylonian exile and the collapse of empire under a God-sent invasion. Rooms explore all these things, supplementing the authentic Babylonian stuff (scrolls, tablets, wall fragments) with paintings, books and items from European history. The European tradition has been endlessly fascinated with the Babylonians, and it's put to good use here.

I was particularly impressed by the Tower of Babel room, which combined medieval manuscripts, Dutch paintings, a model of a real Babylonian tower and descriptive text to examine the legend through history and give you an idea of the truth that probably stood behind it. The end of the exhibit is also a highlight, with a room showing how modern culture continues to be influenced by, and borrow from, this bit of the ancient world. As you leave there's short film showing Babylon today. It's been a challenged site recently: first thanks to tasteless and archaeologically insensitive rebuilding by Saddam Hussein, second by the American army who but a military base here at the start of the war. (Someone finally clued in and moved it, but the damage has been done and toxic waste has been added to the problems of working here.)

I remember marvelling, when I saw the Babylonian artifacts in Berlin, that I was actually there. As a child I never thought I would get behind the iron curtain to see that magnificent museum. As an adult, it's hard to believe I will live to see a day where I can safely travel to Baghdad and wander out to the ruins of Babylon.

Though both exhibits fell short of perfect, they each inspired me to want to learn more. And that, I always figure, is what a good show should do. I may not be able to get to Baghdad, but Istanbul is open and waiting. Thanks to London's imperial battle, that trip has moved up my wish list.

In praise of poets and exotic food

When you get down to the national level, there are some mighty odd holidays in this world.

If I asked you who would set aside a night to revere a poet who'd been dead for hundreds of years, a strange culinary item that most people won't eat once they know what's in it and the poem the first wrote in honour of the second ... which nationality would you suspect? Without advance knowledge, you'd probably opt for the French. Baudelaire and the andouillette sausage? Or maybe the Italians. Did Dante mention coratella d'agnello (lamb's intestines) in the Inferno?

Any of you with prior experience and a glance at the calendar, however, will know that it's time to talk about Burns Night.

For the uninitiated:
Robert Burns is the most iconic of Scots scribes. He lived in the second half of the 18th century and wrote in native lowland Scots, making him unique in a nation where most of the famous writers opted for English. Even if you think don't know him, you do. You've sung "auld lang syne" at New Year's Eve and probably muttered something about "the best laid plans of mice and men". Both phrases come to you via Burns' pen. On the 25th January, in celebration of Burns' birth in 1759, Scots around the world host dinners in celebration. There's a lot of variety in the running order but several things are essential: you must eat haggis, neeps and tatties, someone must read Burns' address to a haggis and you need a glass (or more) of fine single malt to toast the great man and your hosts.

I was toasting my friend Iain Halpin this year. The company, food and drink in his Shepherd's Bush kitchen was just as good as anything a laird could have laid on in his highland castle. Iain was suitably kilted and read the address with proper Scots inflection. A bit like Shakespeare, you can understand Burns much better when someone comfortable with the lingo speaks it to you. Burns' address to the haggis is wonderfully musical, and though you're unlikely to understand all of it, the assertion that brawny, haggis-fed Scots boys make the earth tremble with their powerful tread is sure to bring a smile to your face. As will the bit during the poem when your host is supposed to stab the haggis with fervour. (Iain's skillful attack reminded me of just how good he once was as a violent psychopath at one of my murder mystery parties.)

And the haggis? Imported from a Scots butcher, organic, very tasty. The recipe calls for chopped up lungs, liver, and other less prime cuts of meat, mixed with lots of fat and oatmeal. Then boiled in a sheep's stomach. It sounds absolutely vile. It looks even worse: a wobbling balloon of grey, from which a black mass speckled with white surges when your host does the ceremonial stab. But a good haggis is surprisingly tasty. Meaty, rich, practically melts on the tongue. The glass of Balvenie whisky on the side was a perfect complement. I could have drunk a lot more, but I was driving to this celebration, so kept all things in moderation.

The Scots can claim a lot of success in this world. In fact, there's a book about that makes the case we owe them for most of modern Western civilisation. I don't deny the inventions, the political theory, the financial magnates, the great explorers. Every January, however, all that takes a back seat to poetry, strange food and a nice little dram.

Want to feel better as the world crumbles? Try Puccini.

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!

One of the most famous lines in Western literature. You probably know it as "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here", the lines carved over the gate to Hell in Dante's inferno. You have to admit, it's even more sinister in Italian.

Three weeks in, I'm wondering if that was also carved over some symbolic portal into 2010. Mom's illness dominates all. Meanwhile, my company just issued its second profit warning in four months and we're all jittery about the future. The pound continues its plummet, today worth just $1.34, every fall making my responsibilities in the States more challenging. The vet heard a heart murmur in my beloved dog's chest for the first time today; it's the way most cavaliers eventually go. And with the exception of Obama's inauguration, every newscast is a parade of horrors. I haven't spent many waking moments since leaving that cruise ship without stomach and forehead clenched in stress.

Except, that is, for last night, when I spent two and a half hours with people in far worse shape than me. Thank you, Turandot.

I'd never really appreciated the "schadenfreude" capacity of grand opera before. You get to sit there, like a disinterested God in his high heaven, watching miserable people make stupid mistakes and drown in horrible luck. Bad guys win, innocents meet bitter ends and nobody ends up happy. Yet everyone does so in great costumes, to soaring music that wrings tears and angst out of you like water out of a dishcloth. Not only am I emotionally sated, but I know with a certainty that life will never be so grim that I feel the need to hurl myself off Castel Sant'Angelo. I will never be locked in a tomb to suffocate horribly, cheated out of my kingdom. And, best of all, I will never be an irritating little French woman with no backbone coughing her life away in a Parisian garret. I just wouldn't feel half as good about my own life if Opera served up a bunch of happy endings.

Turandot, it could be argued, does end happily. (Warning ... spoiler alert) But that's definitely a matter for debate. True to form, the only character you really like, the faithful slave girl Liu, kills herself in a supreme act of unrequited love for a man who doesn't deserve it. Our hero Calaf, recipient of Liu's devotion, is a smug idiot who screws over all the people who really care about him. Though he does get to sing "Nessun Dorma", which buys anyone some sympathy. Turandot, meanwhile, is either a bloodthirsty bitch who deserves to die, or an emotionally traumatised victim whose story encourages some very dangerous myths about women needing to be dominated. So yes, you get the happy couple of Turandot and Calaf embracing at the end while the lovely strains of nessun dorma reprise, but you're left thinking that this really is a messed up world with a good soundtrack.

Bloody brilliant escapism. Thank you, Signore Puccini. I didn't worry about a thing for hours.

And thanks to the Royal Opera House for a brilliant production. Although I expected no less.

The stunning set let you to imagine you were amongst the crowd gazing into the courtyard of a Chinese palace, with marvelous lighting effects coming through the Oriental screens. The oversized heads of Turandot's slain suitors, designed as theatrical masks, poured red streamers instead of blood down onto the stage. Set pieces like the executioner sharpening his blade on a giant round stone were eye-popping. Costumes were lavish. The voices, as you would expect, of the highest quality.

We were sitting in the cheap seats (£30) near the top. You have to book these very far in advance, but it's worth the effort. There are few places in the world (The Met? La Scala? Verona?) where Opera is this good. Who knows. Maybe as more banks and companies collapse, all those corporate boxes down below will open up and the prices will start to tumble. Hope springs eternal.

In the mean time, I may expand this "schadenfreude" idea to further combat current stresses in my life. A bit of Greek tragedy may be just the thing. Antigone, anyone?

Musical discovery is the highlight of our cruise

Though this was our third mother-daughter cruise, we'd never really exploited the amenities on the ship beyond the standard restaurants and the pools. Mom usually tucks in early, so I'd spend evenings reading. This year's circumstances, however, called for a good deal more sucking the marrow out of life, and Mom rose admirably to the challenge. Teaching both of us a lesson: You can have almost as much fun on the ship as you have on shore.

Cruise aficionados will be astounded that it took me three years to get to the blindingly obvious. I shrug and admit guilt. I never really wanted to cruise and, even after being talked into it, never saw the ship as much more than a floating hotel to get me to the "real" holiday. I now appreciate the ship as a destination in itself, especially as an entertainment venue.

My nautical Damascus moment came thanks to a remarkable entertainer named Bryant
Olender, who performed nightly in a sophisticated, Italian-themed lounge high in the aft of the ship. He is your perfect piano bar entertainer: honeyed, resonant voice; a masterful skill at the keys that belied his classical training; an impressive ability to improvise and create lovely transitions between songs; a delightful personality, building a rapport with his regulars and playing your favourite tunes for and to you; a capacious memory that could play most requests without ever referring to the music. He reminded me of Michael Buble with added maturity and a master's piano skills. A logical association, it seems, as I learned post-cruise from his website (www.bryantolender.com, from where I also pinched his photo) that he was Buble's musical director. Which leads you to ask, what the hell is a guy this good doing entertaining on a cruise ship? Because, frankly, he's better than Buble ... and the play record on my iPod would prove how much I like that kid.

Whatever the answer, we reaped the benefit of Bryant's career choices, settling into the lounge on most nights for a show I would have happily paid for. If you're a fan of mellow jazz and old standards, do check out Bryant's web site or download him off iTunes.

We did take in a few other entertainments, including a couple of comics and one of the ship's Broadway-style musical numbers. The quality here wasn't nearly so high. In the musical performances, particularly, you could see why these people were performing here. Very good, but not professional quality yet. Still, there was a lot to keep you engaged, and all of it free, so who's complaining? I was also intrigued, as I paid a bit more attention, to the way the ship seemed to organise tracks of entertainment. While we were indulging in the more classic end of the range, I appreciated that there was a heavy drinker track, a country western route, a pop/nightclub stream, etc. There is, undoubtedly, an art to keeping a few thousand people of diverse background engaged and happy, and the people at Princess seem to have cracked it.

This year we also tried the "added fee" restaurants. I had resisted them on principle the first two years. The included food is supposed to be one of the highlights of a cruise, and I resented the suggestion that you should then have to pay something more. But to someone who lives in a culinary capital and eats out as much as I do, Princess' food isn't that impressive. Good, but beyond its staggering quantity, nothing extraordinary. So we went for the upgrade.
Was the approximately $20 each worth it? In both cases, there was an obvious leap forward in both quality and presentation from the standard dining room food. The Crown Grill offers steak and lobster in a rather strange environment that is half posh American steakhouse and half Aurthurian legend stage set. It was as if the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood had moved to New York and gone into catering. (That's a copy of the famous Round Table from Winchester behind us in the photo.) The service here was a bit spotty ... too slow, mixed up orders, but genial ... but the food was excellent.

The real value for money came from the Italian Sabatini's, where we dined on our last night. The decor here was tasteful, posh Italian, in seamless company with the food. The food was authentic and you were left in the hands of the chef for multiple courses (having to choose only your main and your dessert). A procession of cold antipasti and warm appetisers reminded me of one of my favourite places in Rome, and getting to try two small portions of pasta rather than settling for one was a happy bit of hedonism. The wine list was particularly good, stunning me with the inclusion of a schioppetino. This dry, complex red, made from a grape variety almost driven to extinction and now unique to the Northeast of Italy, was one of the big discoveries of the Northwestern girls' trip to Venice in 2001. The name means "little explosion", and that's exactly what happens to your tastebuds when you drink it. I've only seen it on two winelists since discovering it (Kemoll's in St. Louis, Locanda Locatelli in London), so finding it here was like hitting the jackpot.

We consumed this perfect meal sitting against the windows at the back of the ship, looking out at a full moon gilding the serene sea. Stuffed to the gills, we wandered over to the cocktail lounge next door for a few last requests from maestro Bryant. And then, sadly, it was time to retire and prepare for the return of reality.

I really must find a bottle of schioppettino somewhere. Next full moon, perhaps I can head to the garden, have a glass, put on Bryant's CD and channel myself back to the Caribbean.

Virgin Islands are jewel in bright crown of Caribbean destinations

The northeastern Caribbean is easy on the brain and the eye. It lacks the variety of last year's southern destinations. No dramatic volcanoes, no lush rain forest, and the natives seem a little less exotic. But it delivers the stunning beaches and breathtaking blue expected in the region, and it's blessed to be within easy striking distance of Florida so requires little logistic effort. Our seven-day cruise combined the convenience of a Ft. Lauderdale departure with four ports of call: the Bahamas, St. Maarten, St. Thomas and and Grand Turk.

This was my fourth visit to St. Thomas, so perhaps I am artificially pre-disposed to like it, but I have to say that the Virgin Islands (British or American) remain my favourite destination in all of the jewels in this shining sea. Mostly because they look so good. There are scores of Virgins; the big ones you know about (St. Thomas, St. John, Tortola, Virgin Gorda), surrounded by little ones. Almost any vista here takes in beaches and numerous islands and coastlines. All of which gives the water an incredible range of colour as the depths vary from beach to channel to beach to deep sea. European discoverer Columbus was clearly impressed by the beguiling number of islets as well, since he named the chain after St. Ursula's legendary 11,000 virgin companions. The vegetation here admittedly isn't lush, but when you can tear your eyes away from the sea you'll find it's green enough for a nice juxtaposition, and the hills add to the view.

On the convenience front, St. Thomas also comes with the added benefit of being an American territory. While it's still a bit ramshackle and laid back, on the whole this place is freshly painted, solidly built and humming with American efficiency and cheerful customer service. While there are other candidates for best shopping in the Caribbean, I will cast my vote for Charlotte Amalie with its helpful sales people, well-maintained shops and efficient shuttles going to and from the cruise port. (Though I, needing exercise, opted for the very pleasant two-mile walk.)

We spent the afternoon on an expedition to Turtle Cove aboard the sailing ship Doubloon (see www.doubloon.com), probably the best Caribbean tourist excursion I've experienced. The two-masted sailing ship offered the romance of pirate legend, but was fitted out for modern comfort. The crew was wildly entertaining as well as being very knowledgeable about the area; one was a marine biologist. We motored three nautical miles out to the cove, dropped anchor and snorkeled in a protected area where green sea turtles graze contentedly on a field of sea grass about 15 feet below. If you get tired of the turtles (which would be difficult as they are endlessly diverting) a reef populated with a wide variety of life, including some magnificent black spiny sea urchins, curves around one side of the snorkel area. It was heavenly. Even better was the cruise back to the ship under full sail, rum punch flowing and Jimmy Buffett tunes on the sound system as the exquisite shorelines around Charlotte Amalie slipped past. Life doesn't get much better than this.

In second place on this year's destination rankings comes Grand Turk. We had a great time here last year and then heard with dismay of its battering by two hurricanes last fall. Reading of almost complete devastation, I thought we might be diverted elsewhere. But rebuilding carried on at high speed and the giddily-painted cruise centre looked just as festive and well maintained as last January. Only a few roofs still to be completed hinted at all the rebuilding that had taken place. Otherwise the place was pristine and so new the paint was hardly dry. A collection of shops curve around a series of courtyards leading to a giant Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville bar, which overlooks one of those massive, winding pools you find in luxury resorts. Well-maintained beaches fringed with palm trees (newly-planted) and featuring startlingly blue water edge the whole complex. It's one of those delightful ports where you can get off the cruise ship and find all you need within walking distance. Which is exactly the Princess corporation's intent, of course, since they own the whole place.

We bought into some more snorkeling, however, so left the Princess oasis for a drive through the real Grand Turk. And here the hurricane damage was still intense, with perhaps half the homes roofless and derelict and lots of people still living in tents. Not surprising, but perhaps a fine testimony to the long-term thinking of the natives, the cruise centre and the hospital got rebuilt first, now it's the school's turn. Individual housing is taking a back seat to general employment and welfare. Our snorkeling here wasn't as good as on St. Thomas, though it's hard to say if that was because of reef damage, because we were out in the slanted light of late afternoon, or because it just wasn't as good a snorkel site. I did see some particularly impressive tiger fish, so that made my afternoon.

Third favourite comes Princess Cays, the cruise operator's private resort area in the Bahamas. There's little here besides the beach ... but a lovely beach it is. Four artificially scalloped bays are separated by the dock at which the tenders from the ship land, and by little outcroppings of stone manned by lifeguards. On shore there are abundant beach chairs and umbrellas, a few shops, bars with wait staff ambitiously patrolling the beach chairs for orders, snorkel rental, a live band doing the expected mix of steel drum classics, Buffett and Marley, and an outpost of the ship's restaurant that serves up a big beach barbecue. The weather was perfect, the colours intense and the novelty of the ship in the distance at anchor, rather than at a land-based dock, made for a pleasant view. My only complaint? We pre-booked snorkel hire for $35 per person and really shouldn't have wasted the money. There's a limited reef here and few fish. We should have just soaked up the free amenities and the sun. That said, I was perfectly happy to substitute a "real" port for Princess Cays. It was a beautiful, hassle free day at the beach.

Coming in a distant fourth was St. Maarten, which I have no desire to ever set foot upon again. I think of the Caribbean as a region characterised by cheerful, laid back people dedicated to customer service. The denizens of St. Maarten make the worst New York stereotype look pleasant. They are truculent, disinterested, silent and seem incapable of cracking a smile. I thought this might have only been the guy who handled wheelchair assistance from the boat. But upon my fifth native who refused to make eye contact or engage in anything resembling conversation, I had to conclude there was something going on with the whole population. That was reinforced when we were ripped off royally on beach chair rental. Mom, close to exhaustion, really needed to get off her feet. So we headed for the first spot on the beach and the attendant told us $20 for two chairs for the afternoon. Cushions extra. That seemed ridiculous, but I needed to get Mom settled so I payed up. Later in the afternoon I saw the sign that said $20 for two chairs, two pina coladas and two cushions. I had to chase the attendant mercilessly to get the drinks, and then he expressed his irritation when I didn't tip him. (The $20 was all I had.) Despite multiple requests he never did bring the cushions, so I finally liberated two from their premises myself.

They might be excused, or at least forgiven, if they lived in some sort of paradise. Sorry. The beach near the port was good, but the shopping street behind it was a run down, tacky version of St. Thomas filled with rude shop keepers. Clearly, if there is a God he is paying no attention to the Caribbean, because nobody with any sense of justice could have let a hurricane wipe out the lovely people of Grand Turk and leave these hostile natives untouched to rip off every visitor. If I ever cruise back here, I will take a tour to the French side of the island, where the welcome HAS to be better. And that, coming from someone who is not often a fan of our Gallic cousins, is saying a lot.

A grim New Years Eve heralds difficult 2009

My family has never been much for New Years’ Eve celebrations. I grew up with everyone staying home, having a nice dinner and watching the coverage from Times Square. While I don’t do wild partying in glamorous venues on the big night, I have a pretty good track record for preparing gourmet meals, popping a bottle of good champagne and seeing in the New Year with my Mom, either on a beach someplace or in my own home.

While the company was the same this year, the venue and the circumstance were very different. New Years Eve and Day this year passed in St. Luke’s hospital, where my mother was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer.

Clearly, 2009 is going to be a year of great challenge. Chemotherapy lies ahead. Lending strength. Organising a life. Mobilising friends to help. Providing emotional support. Learning more than I want about the medical system. Commuting as frequently as possible between St. Louis and London while still doing my job and staying solvent. Organising a house full to bursting with 30+ years of beloved stuff. Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

My own successful battle with breast cancer established “carpe diem” as my personal motto. None of us know how long we have; all of us should savour the beauty of each day as if it is our last. Most of us forget that fact in the stresses of everyday life. So much of what occupies our attention is glaringly unimportant when faced with the looming end of things.

So what are we going to do? For the immediate future, we’re still going on our cruise. The best place I can think of to suck the marrow out of life and throw one defiant finger up at the grim reaper is on a Caribbean beach. Preferably with an extremely potent drink in a coconut shell in the non-gesturing hand. We are going off to remind ourselves of what’s worth living for, in preparation to fight for life.