I Know It's Here Somewhere

Heaven alone knows what's on this blog - I've long ago lost track. The same is true of my possessions out in the real world, not to mention my memories, plus what I've been reading and what exactly I know - or at least what I think I know.

Which is why it comes as some relief to at last rediscover the source of something I mentioned somewhere here - that is, what Auden regarded as an ideal system of government. I thought I remembered reading it somewhere, but shortly after I wrote it doubt set in. Had I imagined the whole thing, I wondered when, @Deniswright (I do hope they have Internet in heaven so that he can read this) told me he'd Googled to find another reference to it and all that his search had thrown up was my own reference, which, as I mentioned, is concealed somewhere in the depths of this untidy blog.

But it turns out I didn't make it up, Auden's idea did really exist as his own, rather than as a figment of my imagination. I found it at last, amid the chaos that inhabits my Kindle, while trying to ignore a man in Prague railway station who had decided it was his mission in life to ensure we did not miss our train to Budapest (had we made ourselves so unpopular in the few days we were there that we had to be run out of town?)

The reference I'd been looking for is contained within Auden's idiosyncratic and amusing explanation of what he expected from paradise or, as he called it, Eden. Here is the full text. I trust that Auden is enjoying himself in that wished for land now - and that @DenisWright is equally happy in his own private version of the same great garden:

Eden, by WH Auden

Landscape
Limestone uplands like the Pennines, plus a small region of igneous rocks, with at least one extinct volcano. A precipitous and indented sea-coast.

Climate
British.

Ethnic origin of inhabitants
Highly varied, as in the United States, but with a slight nordic predominance.

Language
Of mixed origins like English, but highly inflected.

Weights and Measures
Irregular and complicated. No decimal system.

Religion
Roman Catholic, in an easygoing, Mediterranean sort of way. Lots of local saints.

Size of capital
Plato's ideal figure, 5040, about right.

Form of government
Absolute monarch, elected for life by lot.

Source of natural power
Wind, water, peat, coal. No oil.

Economic activities
Lead mining, coal mining, chemical factories, paper mills, sheep farming, truck farming, greenhouse horticulture.

Means of transport
Horses and horse-drawn vehicles, narrow-guage railways, canal barges, balloons. No automobiles or airplanes.

Architecture
State: Baroque
Ecclesiastical: Romanesque or Byzantine.
Domestic: Eighteenth-century British or American colonial

Domestic furniture and equipment
Victorian, except for kitchens and bathrooms, which are as full of modern gadgets as possible.

Formal dress
The fashions of Paris in the 1830s and '40s.

Sources of public information
Gossip. Technical and learned periodicals, but no newspapers.

Public statues
Confined to famous defunct chefs.

Public entertainments
Religious processions, brass bands, opera, classical ballet. No movies, radio or television.

Not Moving Forward

While sometimes I am led astray by my instinctive conservatism, (for instance, I now realise that screwtop wine bottles are great and corks, although traditional, are on a day-to-day basis, a bore), I think, when it comes to the changes wrought on most of my favourite urban landscapes since the 1960s, that a bit more conservatism would have saved us from the many small, dull hells that now pass as town centres across England.

I was provoked into this vein of thought by a link about the King's Road that my brother sent me, showing that Starbuck's has invaded the realms of my childhood and that, since I was learning to walk and ride a tricycle and eventually even a bicycle in the neighbourhood, the place has succumbed to the British chain shop virus.

To make matters worse, I had just been to Vienna when I looked at the pictures of how things were and how things now are in the part of Chelsea where I grew up.

The Viennese are not always the easiest of people. Looking at the pictures posted in the window of the appalling Eden Bar:

 gives you a taste of their less attractive side:

and their passion for Trzesniewski's:

 egg concoctions, which they serve at every available opportunity, is baffling, (although the 1949 frieze on the front is interesting in the way it reveals the preoccupations of the time - pineapple, chicken, Italian wine and lobster, all just dreams for most people in post-war Vienna):

and their fondness for establishments like the House of Gentlemen:

frequented by natty chaps like this one:

who will persist in that naff continental habit of marching about with their jacket sleeves empty, so that they look armless, is also not exactly admirable.

All the same, I bow to the Viennese in one thing - their sophisticated understanding that, when you've got something right, there's no need to fiddle with it any longer.Thus, passing Cafe Braunerhof, I glanced through the window:

and was enchanted to see that, not only had they done nothing at all to alter the interior, but, in fact, even the waiters were the same as last time I was there some years ago.

At WH Auden's favourite restaurant, the Ilona Stuberl, all also seemed well:

at first.

But, oh no, even in Vienna the winds of progress are blowing. Look, curses, over in the corner, there's a bloody great flat screen telly:

and, even more distressing, next door do you see what's opened up:

We are all doomed, damn it. Nowhere at all is safe.

Woof Three Times if You're Fond of Auden

On my walk this morning, I got talking to a woman. With the woman was a dog. The woman said the dog's name was Sappho. Was the woman's choice of name an attempt to tell me something, I wondered. If so, was it related to her taste in poetry or to her preference for women? A grinning golden retriever seemed an odd medium for either message. What would Marshall McLuhan think?

The View from Here

A view has never been at the top of my list of priorities when choosing somewhere to live. While I'm certainly going to be sad if the mooted plans to demolish the building across from my apartment in Budapest go ahead and I lose my vista of uneven roof tiles, it wasn't that vista that made me choose the flat to begin with.

But I know a view is important to plenty of people. In fact, a number of my friends like nothing more than to show me theirs - and, as a result, I've often stood looking out through their various windows, pretending to have my breath taken away by distant mountains, panoramic landscapes or cross-sections of medieval cities. I'm aware that, for many people, what they see from the rooms they live in affects how they feel about the place in which they spend their days.

I have to admit though that, until today, I didn't really understand the satisfaction a good view gives. Then I read these lines of Auden's:

'...though one cannot always
Remember exactly why one has been happy
there is no forgetting that one was.'

I instantly agreed with Auden about happiness enduring in the memory, yet it seemed to me he could have gone further in what he said. Not only is happiness almost always remembered; it is frequently the actual remembering itself that first makes you aware that you felt the emotion.

At least, that's the way it's been for me on too many occasions - letting some forgettable worry  (did I lock the front door, did I leave the stove on?) dominate my attention, I haven't noticed the pleasure I feel. Only later, recalling the moment, I've recognised that I was happy. Peering through the window of memory, I've been thrilled by the distant view.