Some of the more affordable houses in the vicinity are said to have been bought up by a Tooting Housing Association, into exporting its clients before such activity got as much into the news as it is now, with the likes of Wandsworth choosing to export its less deserving clients far greater distances. Always been a tricky point ever since Camden Council tried to defy the laws of gravity by popping council blocks into the middle of posh areas in order to try and preserve some social balance. Not a risible objective, but certainly an expensive one and I doubt if they are still at it. But perhaps my apprentice gang members have brought their youth culture with them from Tooting? Certainly the inhabitants of the less affordable housing in the vicinity were very vocal about this possibility when the Tooting scheme first saw the light of day.
The loaf gets illustrated because of the strange bulge, front left. Not particularly striking in this image, but striking enough in real life. Was it the effect of some failure to mix the dough properly or was it some failing of the fan in the fan oven. Maybe cold eddies at the back left - which is where this bulge grew. Tastes fine despite the bulge, perhaps even finer for using Waitrose Canadian Red Wholemeal instead of Waitrose Organic Stoneground Wholemeal. Easily distinguished on the shelf as the one comes in a reddish and the other in the bluish bag.
Broken mugs and brown bulges apart I have been browsing 'Borzoi' by one Igor Schwezoff, recently purchased from the Sanctuary Second Hand Bookshop at the bottom of Broad Street in Lyme Regis. A splendid emporium from which one rarely emerges empty handed. There was even a small stash of green Berylware, but sadly a stash which did not include the particular soup bowls that BH was after. But he did have two copies of 'Borzoi', so I gallantly selected the dearer one, pre-owned by Hermione Rea, whom we understood to have been some sort of a local celebrity, but not so much so that I can find a reference to her in Google, other than in the catalogue of this very same establishment.
It turns out to be the autobiography of said Igor Schwezoff, at least until he heads out from China on the way to France at the age of 30 or so. He was born into an archetypal, old regime bourgeois family of St. Petersburg, where the family was ruled by the long service cook, Olga Martinovna, who, amongst other things, made the most wonderful pascha (or paska. Presumably a relative of the Paschal Lamb) which I have now learned is a sort of bread with a cream filling made at Easter. Igor was clearly very fond of the stuff which he used to eat to the point of bursting. He was also, on his own report, a rather difficult child. But a child who reformed through the discovery that he wanted to be a ballet dancer.
So much of the book is a tale of becoming a dancer at the end of the old regime and then moving on into rep. with the new regime, eventually being worn down by said new regime (partly because of the taint of being from the old regime bourgeoisie) and making a rather hair raising escape via Vladivostok and Harbin. I had not realised what hard work it was to be a (classical) ballet dancer with even established, famous even, dancers still doing hours of lessons every day, with microscopic attention being paid to important moves. Over and over again. All rather exhausting. And on top of that one might well have one's own lessons to give. Along the way he takes a few lines to be rather rude about Isadora Duncan, whom he saw dance rather past her prime. Semi naked, overweight and with a body into which she was quite unable to impart any kind of expression. Not classically trained you know, just pratting about pretending to be Grecian. Interestingly, he also takes time to appreciate the way in which the new regime was trying to take ballet to the masses, ballet not being something that they had gone in for much before. To educate the masses about ballet - even though that meant adding tutorials in factory canteens to an already crowded schedule. I dare say that in later life, despite being established in the west, there must have been mixed feelings about abandoning what became one of the showcase activities of the Soviets.
Sweaty ballet rep. did not sound that different to the theatre rep. which we used to have in this country. Lots of big egos, bad digs and staying up all hours discussing the shows and scandals of the day. Lots of fags and booze. Lots of travel from one dusty provincial town to another. Lots of the time without enough money to live decently. Lots of bad managers and lots of people getting jobs for the wrong reasons.
All in all a good read. Well worth the £3.50.
PS: relevant green Berylware now been sourced in ebay. But no auction involved, just a purchase which is slightly puzzling. I did not know that ebay were into straight shopping. As they say, one buys and learns.
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