Let's Talk About Happy Things

Having moaned myself out for this week, ((or at least for the next day or two), I've reverted to cheerfulness. Something that has made me cheerful is the long walk we did yesterday. We saw many lovely buildings, but for today I will limit myself to the first one we came across.

It stands on Thököly ut in Budapest's XIVth district. Built in 1905, it is a classic example of the style called Hungarian Secession:

While it was a pity that just as I saw it, the lady in charge of such things decided to wheel out the rubbish bins and place them dead centre in front of what had been an uncluttered view, her presence did mean the front door was open and we could go inside. Here is what we found:

Isn't it splendid? Doesn't it make your day? The architect was Istvan Nagy and he built it for the chief inspector of an insurance company. Would you like to see some details of the outside, including the adorable cellar doors with heart shaped perforations? Well, here you are:

 

Wesselenyi Wandering

The day before yesterday, as I've already explained, I was inspired to go down Wesselenyi Utca, near where I live in Budapest, to look for Goldmark Hall. What I didn't mention was that on the way, I saw this nice man - (I do have a weakness for faces on facades, although I'm uncertain whether this is shared):

 who was gracing a building that also displayed these rather fine mosaics:

I thought it would be a bit flippant in the context of yesterday's blog post to suggest that this museum, next door to Goldmark Hall:

seemingly devoted to the first Hebrew woman to become a parachutist, might have a very limited audience, which is not entirely to detract from the subject's individual achievement, merely to question whether there is enough of a story there and whether, if there is, it is of deep interest to a huge range of people. But I suppose before making a final judgment, I ought to go to see for myself.

Patience

I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this but, when we were in Budapest a month or so ago, we remembered how, when we'd been looking for a house, a local architect had tried to persuade us to take one that was potentially lovely although fairly, (all right, extremely), battered. He assured us that it would be ready within the year (the year being 1999), which was fine as our lease was only running out in a year's time.

I was all for it, but my husband, while seeing the potential, was a bit hesitant. He wasn't entirely convinced by the architect's promises.

On a walk in April of this year, (i.e. 2015, some 16 years later), we found ourselves in the vicinity of that house. As we had always half regretted letting it slip through our fingers, we decided to go and see how it looked in its reincarnated renovated form.

As it happened, we had absolutely no trouble recognising it. Here is why:

I think the only progress made in the last 16 years is that the renovators have bought some better fitting bin bags for the windows. Meanwhile, the organisation for which we were seeking a house has packed up and left Budapest. It may return one day - perhaps in a decade or two. Who knows whether the house will be ready by then or whether it will remain frozen in its melancholy, could-be-lovely state.

De Little Birds

This makes Qatar look nearly as good as Budapest

No Decoration Please, We're Modernists

If Hungarian architecture is known for anything, it is

Too Punny

Years ago, some Serbian girls who'd

Abundance

There was a lot of twittering recently about a man from America who'd been at the Wheeler Centre  in Melbourne pointing out that food corporations make disgusting food. He was advocating a return to purer food sources, I think. What I dislike about both Australia and England in this context is the fact that, to buy food that farmers haven't been paid tuppence for and that doesn't come in sealed plastic boxes and so forth, you have to turn to trendy 'alternative' stores or get up at some appalling time in the morning and go to a so-called farmers' market.

Here in Hungary I've barely seen a plastic box containing food for weeks. That makes a change, particularly from Sainsbury's, where I used to shop when I lived in London - but Australian supermarkets are also pretty keen on putting stuff onto polystyrene trays and wrapping it all up in yards of clingfilm. These things may come, of course, but for now, despite the fact that Tesco's is engaged in a creeping invasion of Hungary, it has not yet conquered all before it.

As a result, for the time being in Budapest my choice is not limited to chain stores or upmarket 'wholefood' places. Here, I either go round the corner to the greengrocer - a kindly man with a moustache who is on such good terms with some of his female customers that, after hearing all the ins and outs of their family's ailments et cetera, as he measures out apricots and potatoes, and then carrying their groaning bags out to the pavement and ensuring they've grasped them firmly enough to get back up the street to their apartments, he receives  warm goodbye kisses - or I go to one of the local markets.

There's nothing especially exciting about any of the stuff on offer - it's not exotic like Brunei. However, I love the sheer abundance and the faces of some of the people behind the counters:

Uh oh, plastic boxes - whatever happened to those wicker punnets of my childhood

My husband likes this lady because she calls him young man - and indeed, if I go to the market without him, she asks where the young man is (I suppose youth is a matter of perspective)

London II

All right, so London's feeling pretty spiffy today, after its night of nights. And, sure, it is full of diversity and hospital beds and people with drums and tellies - but in which city in the world can you get onto a tram and have a man and his falcon (or possibly his hawk - there is some debate in our household about that at the moment) as your fellow passengers? Eh? Eh?

Not London, that's for sure - they don't even have trams. Plus, even if they did and you managed to get on one, someone officious would come along pretty soon to tell you that falcons aren't allowed on trams - or, indeed, any public transport - because of Health and Safety, innit.

In Budapest on the other hand (that's the hand not carrying the falcon, [or hawk, whatever]), we have true diversity:

Hungarian Singsong

Hungarians have more than their fair share of beautiful, melancholic sounding songs. Sometimes they will sing them for you, if you ask them nicely:

It turns out that Freddie Mercury decided to repay the favour, when he visited Budapest in 1986, by singing one of their own songs to the Hungarians. The result, I think, is one of the loveliest things he ever did:

Street Theatre

It was a wild night at our place in Budapest. After days of intense sun and no wind or cloud at all, thunder came rumbling in and flashes of lightning split the darkness. My husband's playtrack shifted with appropriately lightning speed to 'Stormy Weather', which is more his usual style than Joni Mitchell. I sat on our corner balcony and watched events in the two streets that converge directly beneath us.

Around midnight there was an explosion of shouting from one of the flats at the bottom of the building. It was so loud that people came running out from a nearby restaurant and stood before the windows behind which, presumably, the accompanying fight was taking place. From their reactions, plus the roaring fury of the voices, things were looking pretty hairy in there. There was talk of calling the emergency services. However, the obvious strength of our neighbours' rage was so great that it was almost certain to be unsustainable. Sure enough, after ten minutes, the howls of anger diminished to whimpers. Some pretty vigorous door slamming followed and then quiet descended once again.

But not for long. A taxi driver came hurtling round the corner next, racing down the street at frantic speed. When he saw an earthmover rising up in front of him, blocking his way (the street is being dug up and cobbled so that it will soon be a semi-pedestrianised zone) he braked violently. Then he threw his vehicle into reverse and started backwards at equally high speed, ramming straight into a heap of as yet unlaid cobbles that, presumably, he hadn't noticed.

After a pause during which he tried unsuccessfully to move the car forward and free of the stones he'd got caught up in, he leapt out, revealing himself to be a middle-aged man with a dyed comb-over (very Death in Venice but only in this solitary respect, to be honest) and rapper clothing - bright white shoes and similarly dazzling white shorts, a large black nylon sleeveless basketballer's shirt and lots of medallions and crosses on chains. Having assessed the situation, he passed his hand through his meagre hair and spat. Then he reached back into the car for his mobile.

For about five minutes he sprang about, gesticulating and yelling into the telephone and, almost before you knew it. a whole fleet of fellow taxis were gathered about him. Amidst more shouting and leaping, the stranded taxi was liberated. The other taxis melted into the night almost as quickly as they had arrived, and our man was left kneeling at the rear of his car, trying fruitlessly to reattach a broken piece of chassis to the back bumper.

All the while - indeed, since late afternoon, outside one of the classier cafes on the adjoining street, a drunk had been the centre of a different kind of narrative. For some reason, around five he had come staggering along and, pausing, the idea had come to him that this would be a pleasant place to spend a few hours. Having settled himself just beside the doorway of a cafe-bar and opposite the outside tables of the corner restaurant, he produced a bottle and began to drink. In between swigs he made announcements to the street in general, trailing off from time to time into little moments of interior reflection - or possibly falling briefly asleep. Various members of the cafe-bar's staff came out to look at him as he made himself more and more at home. When he started to sing, three of them all appeared together. Luckily, his attention was soon caught again by his by now nearly empty bottle, and, by the time he'd drained it, the urge to sing seemed to have passed.

Even from the third floor, it was obvious that the drunk was filthy. He wore a grimy blue-plaid shirt, its buttons undone, black smeared trousers and matching boots. His skin was that rusty colour that drunks' skin often becomes. Perhaps because I was looking at him from above, seeing the top of his sweaty head - that very first part of the anatomy that most humans thrust into the world - I found I couldn't help thinking about how, despite the state he was in, he must once have had a family. To someone, at least for a while, he must have been a beloved son. Yet none of the passersby seemed to notice him - and those that did steered a wide berth.

At least they did until a young man - not an especially attractive or caring looking type, just a bloke in shorts, flash trainers and a polo shirt - emerged from under the awning of a restaurant table and went up to the drunk and offered him a cigarette. The drunk accepted the offer and, after lighting his own, the bloke knelt down in a way that was oddly moving and, cupping his hands around the drunk's, lit the cigarette he'd given him. Once he was sure it was going properly, the Good Samaritan (and ,despite recognising that smoking is bad for you et cetera, I think the bloke was a Good Samaritan), stood up and reached out his hand and shook the drunk's hand warmly. They exchanged a few words, the bloke shook the drunk's hand again, I think this time slipping him some money, and then he went on his way.

The drunk looked after him, possibly as astonished and admiring as I was. He smoked his fag and, when he'd had enough, he carefully stubbed out the flame and stowed what was left behind his ear. He turned and at first I thought he was going to crawl across the pavement for some reason, but then I realised he was merely making an ungainly attempt to stand up. Eventually he managed this, collected up his belongings and set off in the direction of his mentor.

A snatch of music from the little record shop further down the street must have caught his ear, for, instead of walking, the drunk began to waltz unsteadily with an unseen partner. All was going well. I was thinking increasingly sentimentally about seeing the best in all humankind and doing good unto others. Then the drunk spun his wobbly way into our street and, perhaps registering the fresh cleanliness of the cobbles, remembered there was something else he had to do. Squaring up groggily to the wall of the house opposite, he undid his fly and began to pee. I went inside.

Nearly There

Most of the time I go around thinking that feminism is a done deal in the free world and our attention should be directed solely to helping our oppressed sisters who live in areas controlled by extreme adherents of the Muslim faith. Then I spot something that is so ridiculously, hilariously neanderthal that I'm forced to admit we're not quite there yet.

That's what happened to me yesterday in Budapest:

It's Later than I Thought

After reading George, at 20011, who was wondering if the word 'ersatz' will mean nothing to our children, I met up with a Hungarian friend for a meal. She was in Budapest recently and was surprised by an 11-year-old nephew who,after listening to the adults talking about what she had considered quite recent family history, asked,  'What does it mean, this thing you say Uncle Laszlo and Auntie Tunde did? '

'What thing?' the adults asked, trying to recall what exactly they had been saying.

"'Defect"- you said they "defected"- what is that? What does it mean?'

Mysteries of the Post Communist World

Wherever you walk in the  cities of post-Communist Europe, you pass buildings like these, where great chunks of the stucco have fallen off the facades:

Yet you never see any of it falling. You never come round the corner to find chunks of stone hurtling toward unwitting pedestrians. You never discover flattened citizens lying under lumps of carved ornamentation that have crashed down onto the pavement. Is this just luck or is the stuff disappearing invisibly, draining away somehow, like sand?

Who Were They

Once, when we lived in Vienna, we had two sets of rather grand Austrians round for a meal - one lot the arty but still at heart snobbish son and daughter-in-law of my godmother, a woman who I overheard uttering this carefully-learned phrase to the new, Czech nanny of her grandchildren: "How do you do, I am Countess X, but you don't have to call me Countess"; the other lot, our landlord and his wife.

When the first set - the godmother's son and daughter-in-law - arrived, we gave them drinks and chatted. The wife asked who else was coming to dinner, and I told her the name of our landlord, saying that he and his wife would be there quite soon. 'Who was she?' was the woman's immediate inquiry, 'Who was she before she was married?'

I often think of this question as I look up at all the myriad faces on Budapest's buildings. 'Who were they? Who were they before they were transfigured into stone?'