Operation Anthropoid: WWII Prague assassination - and after

There is a new movie,  'Anthropoid', about the assassination of Heyderich, Nazi architect of the Holocaust and  Gauleiter of the Czech lands.

The Orthodox 'nun in the world' and icon 'writer' (never 'painter'), Sister Iyonna Reitlinger, was in correspondence from internal exile in Tashkent with her spiritual father,  the late Father Alexander Men'.  Their letters, which I am slowly translating as time permits,  are published as 'Umnoe Nebo' (cover pictured).  'Umnoe Nebo' is the technical term used by icon 'writers' for the background of an icon.

Sister Iyoanna was commissioned 1947-56 to decorate the east wall of the Orthodox cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague.  The cathedral had been wrecked in a shoot-out between the British-trained Czech partisan assassins of Heyderich (architect of the Holocaust and Gauleiter of the Czech lands)  and the SS in May 1942. In the terrifying reprisals which followed the assassination, the whole Orthodox clergy team and their families were shot and a whole village Lidice eliminated – literally razed to the ground - after the inhabitants had been shot or deported to the concentration camp in Mauthausen.   Sister Joanna left the church, disillusioned by the unedifying manoeuvres of the Orthodox successors to those liquidated by the SS.

My tutor in Russian history 1962-65 was Sister Iyoanna's boyfriend in Paris. Small world, eh?  

For those interested, a paper I wrote for a conference some years ago about her life and work is in today's accompanying blog.

---

Four Scottish Journeys by Andrew Eames

In search of a Scottish identity

On a day when Nicola Sturgeon announced a national conversation about the possibility of a second referendum, it seems appropriate to consider Andrew Eames's book 'Four Scottish Journeys', subtitled 'An Identity rediscovered', first published in 1991.

The author explains that he has - or had -  a Scottish grandfather. I am in the same boat.  My Scottish grandfather,  my mother's father Willie Gordon, spoke with a strong Scottish accent until the end of his longish life.  He lived for most of his adult life in Kent, farming.  My father was at school at Alloa Academy while his father oversaw the engineering works to enlarge the naval dockyards at Rosyth before and during WWI.  My sister, brother and I had a Scots nanny from Kincardine.  Every week, a tin of supplies essential to survival would arrive from Toll Cottage, Kincardine, containing the previous week's episode of the 'Oor Wullie' cartoon, home-made tablet and a packet of Imperial mints.  My sister and I wore Fair Isle jumpers, mittens and tams.  We celebrated Hogmanay at home in north Kent. Our darkest-haired friend and neighbour, a Welshman as it happens,  first footed with a lump of coal. We identified strongly with the Gordon Highlanders.

Like many confused Brits,  including the author of 'Four Scottish Journeys' I feel very at home in Scotland, although I only came here to live in 1994 when I was 50 years of age. I said at the time that I felt like a salmon swimming up river to somewhere familiar.  I had already spawned so I suppose what I really meant was that I had chosen to come to Scotland to die.

The W&W World of Interiors (conclusion)

Yer wot?

...and so we near the end of our tour of the megalith known as The World of Interiors' Oct 2016 edition.

We have noted arch wordplay, winking at the absurdity of the whole enterprise while solemnly reporting on the existence of expensive, often ugly and uncomfortable-looking examples of home decoration.

There is a feature about braids called 'The Braidy Bunch', another on 'Hut Couture' ( incredibly expensive fabrics nailed to the walls of dilapidated sheds), and an ad for something I had not encountered before in a relatively long and  unsheltered life: the 'professional home kitchen'. This is presumably an artefact required by people who employ a chef at home, like the couple in 'Billions'.

On page 43 there is an illustration of a small pot with spout and handle reminiscent in design of something Roman, called 'a vinegar dispenser' (what ?) available at the knockdown price of £725.

On page 45 there is an advertisement apparently showing a female figure wearing roller skates being sick out of a window.

We are directed to 'the thrill of the purchase' (geddit?) on page 98.

On page 130, under the title 'Autumn Swatch' (there must be an elderly BBC TV watcher writing these laborious headlines) is pictured a fabric called by the manufacturers 'En file Indienne', depicting maharajahs in howdahs swaying along on elephants. Is this a clever mis-direction, a 'gottcha' or is it possible that the French manufacturers are unaware that the expression refers to the choreography of  Native American hunting parties, not people from the sub-continent?

Our elderly caption -writer has a last little joke with us by calling a review of a book on (men's) suits on page 229 'Suits You', a clear reference  - don't you think -  to the character in the  The Fast Show.

What can overseas readers of the magazine make of it all?

The one item I covet from this issue is on page 168:  a Polaroid photo taken by Andrei Tarkovsky while making his film 'Nostalgia' , to be auctioned by Bonham's.

The W&W World of Interiors (conclusion)

Yer wot?

...and so we near the end of our tour of the megalith known as The World of Interiors' Oct 2016 edition.

We have noted arch wordplay, winking at the absurdity of the whole enterprise while solemnly reporting on the existence of expensive, often ugly and uncomfortable-looking examples of home decoration.

There is a feature about braids called 'The Braidy Bunch', another on 'Hut Couture' ( incredibly expensive fabrics nailed to the walls of dilapidated sheds), and an ad for something I had not encountered before in a relatively long and  unsheltered life: the 'professional home kitchen'. This is presumably an artefact required by people who employ a chef at home, like the couple in 'Billions'.

On page 43 there is an illustration of a small pot with spout and handle reminiscent in design of something Roman, called 'a vinegar dispenser' (what ?) available at the knockdown price of £725.

On page 45 there is an advertisement apparently showing a female figure wearing roller skates being sick out of a window.

We are directed to 'the thrill of the purchase' (geddit?) on page 98.

On page 130, under the title 'Autumn Swatch' (there must be an elderly BBC TV watcher writing these laborious headlines) is pictured a fabric called by the manufacturers 'En file Indienne', depicting maharajahs in howdahs swaying along on elephants. Is this a clever mis-direction, a 'gottcha' or is it possible that the French manufacturers are unaware that the expression refers to the choreography of  Native American hunting parties, not people from the sub-continent?

Our elderly caption -writer has a last little joke with us by calling a review of a book on (men's) suits on page 229 'Suits You', a clear reference  - don't you think -  to the character in the  The Fast Show.

What can overseas readers of the magazine make of it all?

The one item I covet from this issue is on page 168:  a Polaroid photo taken by Andrei Tarkovsky while making his film 'Nostalgia' , to be auctioned by Bonham's.

The Weird and Wonderful 'World of Interiors'

What's in, what's out

Today I will continue with the deconstruction, or detailed examination, of the colossal 437-page Oct 2016 issue of 'World of Interiors'. The first thing to note is that the editor's partner is Alan Bennett.  This means that some of the captions and turns of phrase in the text are suspiciously playful, in the manner of Bennett. There are puns and mischievous allusions, literary devices not found in - for example - House and Garden.

The October 2016 issue opens with a double-page spread advertising Ralph Lauren's home fabrics and wallcoverings, all shades of grey in a grey stone building with a 'distressed' wooden floor. So  far, so conventional. The reader gets a real shock on the next two pages, where a dishevelled androgynous figure  dressed in baggy clothes like a clown, stares out vacantly opposite a page featuring a block of rushes topped with what looks a bit like a black bin bag with handles.  The advertiser is Celine.

The next few pages are similarly portentous, evoking in the sceptical reader a bark of disbelieving laughter. Another purveyor of handbags, for example, chooses a closeup black and white photograph of an open mouth, dispaying a few uneven teeth, tongue  and lip curled back in a snarl.

The first sly Bennettism we encounter is in the caption on the Contents page : 'To witness her (an interior decorator) palette's impact, head gingerly to page 378'.  Further, we find 'Tables to dine for' 'Lights fantastic' 'It's a stick up job' (about wall paper); 'he's reinvented the wheel (of a potter) - and so on.

World of Interiors

A pink library in Wiltshire, World of Interiors cover,  October 2016

The October 2016 edition of World of Interiors magazine is worth looking at carefully, all 437 pages of it.  On page 393 there is a floor mat in Henry 'Tarka the Otter' Williamson's writing shed, made from an old sack bearing the place name 'Stiffkey'.  Not everyone knows that this is pronounced 'Stewkey'.  I do, simply because I did a story for the Sunday Times in 1969 about an eccentric vicar from Stiffkey who ended up as an end-of-the-pier attraction.  More tomorrow.

'Light on Dumyat'

This is the children's book I have been asked to review for 'The Bottle Imp', organ of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies.  It is a new edition, a paperback from  Rowan Tree Publishing, of a book first published in 1982 by The Saint Andrew Press.