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Scroll.in
19-05-2025
- Health
- Scroll.in
‘I am still writing for the lonely soul': At 91, Ruskin Bond looks back at his literary life
A plentitude of pickles Anglo-Indians grew up on chutneys. 'Sugar and spice and everything nice' – and it was only when I was in my teens that I discovered the pleasure of those 'pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked'! Mango pickles are probably the most popular to set the tongue on fire, closely followed by lime or lemon, sharp and sour. But I have a weakness for the Punjabi shalgam-gajar achaar (turnip-and-carrot pickle), preferably home-made. It was first introduced to me by my Punjabi landlady some seventy years ago, and I am always on the lookout for it when turnips are in season. Another home-made pickle that I enjoy is jackfruit. Jackfruit is an all-purpose vegetable that can be served up as a curry, pickle or even jam! There is an array of pickle jars on my dining table, including lotus stem, green chillies, garlic, ginger and haldi. Yes, haldi makes a great pickle. Spread a little on your breakfast toast or paratha, but don't overdo it. The other day, a doctor friend dropped in to see me, took one horrified look at my collection of pickles, and exclaimed, 'But all that salt, Mr Bond! It can't be good for your blood pressure!' 'Just a peck of pickle at breakfast,' I said. 'They say garlic is good for the blood pressure.' 'And so it is. But all that salt!' He insisted on taking my blood pressure. It was a bit on the higher side. 'More leafy vegetables,' he advised, 'And don't pickle them!' But cabbage leaves make a great pickle. They call it kimchi in Korea! Laugh and be fat! 'Laugh and be fat, sir!' This remark was attributed to Ben Jonson, the Elizabethan playwright – not to be confused with Dr Samuel Johnson, the chap who wrote the first-ever dictionary. Both were men of ample girth (we are told), but Ben was fun, and the good doctor was inclined to be grumpy. Classical literature has its quota of portly men, most of them good-natured souls who have found a place in our affections. Mr Pickwick, the Cheeryble brother (in Nicholas Nickleby), a host of Dickensian characters, comic or choleric, and, of course, Shakespeare's Falstaff, stealing the show in Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. English literature is full of loveable buffoons, strangely absent from American literature; those early pioneers and gunslingers were usually dead before they could put on weight. The Americans did better in films. My favourite actor was Oliver Hardy (partner of Stan Laurel) who took all the hard knocks in their comedy films. And there was no finer villain than the suave Sydney Greenstreet, the fat man in Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and other classics. The novelist Rex Stout created a detective called Nero Wolfe, who grew orchards, drank gallons of beer and never left his apartment. He had a fabulous cook. All this must have been wishful thinking on the part of Mr Stout who, in spite of his name, had a trim figure, or so we are told. Why this special interest in fat men? Well, I'm a little on the stout side myself, and while I can still climb the steps to my rooms (no easy task for anyone), I can no longer climb mountains or even the Qutub Minar. But then, I'm in my ninetieth year, and I see no point in fasting or jogging around Camel's Back Road (in Landour) in order to lose a few kilos. So, am I on the side of Ben Jonson or Dr Johnson? I have my grumpy days, but, by and large, I'm still a cheerful soul. 'Laugh and be fat, sir!' The loneliness of the writer As a writer, you tread a lonely path. There is no one to hold your hand. That pen is yours and yours alone, and only you should decide what to do with it. Basically, we write for ourselves. An author is his own best audience. After all, his little masterpiece may not find more than a handful of readers, so he must be content with the satisfaction that he derives from his creative effort. My first book of poems sold twenty copies. I gave away a few copies, hoping for some kind reader's approval. When I asked one of them if he liked the book, he said, 'Terrific! The illustrations were great!' When you set out to be a writer, you must be ready for heartbreak. There will be many disappointments. Not every editor or publisher will fall for your literary style, the appeal of your characters (if you are a fiction writer) or your great thoughts, if you aspire to be a great thinker. There are all sorts of writers. Some are thinking writers, some are instinctive writers and some are lyrical writers. They work alone, sometimes in lonely places. It's only the formula writers who are immune to the anguish of failure. These are those writers who churn out a thriller a month while also being part of the party circuit and a member of the local yacht club. But they aspire to fortune, if not fame. The great works of literature were often created in adverse circumstances: Wuthering Heights, while Emily Brontë struggled with tuberculosis; the poet John Keats, dying in his twenties from the same disease; Stevenson writing such diverse works as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Suicide Club and A Child's Garden of Verses (among others) before dying on his island in the South Seas in his forties. Great works often emerged from great suffering: Dostoevsky in prison; Victor Hugo in prison and then in exile; Jonathan Swift in the stocks; Virginia Woolf struggling with depression; Ezra Pound combating madness. But the greatest anguish, the desert of loneliness, comes to those who have achieved much and then lost it: Scott Fitzgerald's falling from favour and his descent into alcoholism. Hemingway's despair and suicide. Wilde's persecution and exile. Some writers fall from grace. Others are forgotten. Better not to be read at all than to be forgotten! The literary life can be cruel. So, we must write for ourselves, and then we won't be disappointed. Here I am, sitting at the dining table, putting down these thoughts, while several unrelated activities go on around me. They have nothing to do with what I am writing. Siddharth is shouting at Gautam. Gautam is shouting at Shrishti. Shrishti is on the phone, shouting at someone. Two little girls walk in through the open front door. It's someone's birthday, and they have brought sweets. The flow of my writing has been interrupted, so I help myself to a ladoo. This is not a lonely scene, and mine is not a lonely life. But sometimes, when evening falls, and no one is in the house, I remember times when I was alone and lonely and writing just for some other lonely soul, someone I would never see or know. And I am still writing for that lonely soul.
North Wales Live
17-05-2025
- North Wales Live
I went to one of the oldest pubs in Wales and the 'small' fish dwarfed the plate
The Owain Glyndwr Hotel in Corwen has been around in one form or another, since before the 1400 Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England. The main structure of the hotel dates back to 1740, with some parts going back to the 14th century when it was a former monastery. The OG (as it is known locally) was the site of the first ever National Eisteddfod in 1789, but there were real fears that the historic Grade II listed building would be lost to the town, after it had been on sale for three years with no takers. However, the local community stepped in with a fundraising committee raising £164,000 through sales of shares, a figure boosted by a grant for £452,700 from the UK Government's Community Ownership Fund. Volunteers helped to get the top bar ready and the hotel reopened to the public last year with Daf and Pam Morris in charge. There is a small snug bar is to the right of the entrance hall with an open fire and room for two tables. To the rear of the hotel is the larger 1329 restaurant area with extra tables situated in the wide hallway. There is also a bottom bar with two televisions, a pool table and a darts board. Framed pictures of Owain Glyndwr are displayed proudly on the wall along with old saddles and a yard of ale glass. We were sat on old red cushioned benches underneath dark oak tables with a sense of history pouring out of each knot of wood. You can even see Corwen church directly through the back windows. The menu has an emblem inspired by the great seal of Owain Glyndwr, the last native prince of Wales, a symbol of resilience, leadership and Welsh Heritage. The menu is small but is packed full of Welsh spirit with starters such as Leek and Potato soup for £6 or Breaded Perl Wen creamy brie style cheese with a cranberry compote for £9. There are six choices in the mains section with some available as a smaller portion. All the usual pub grub classics are listed with rib eye steak, pie and mash and a hand pressed beef burger and chips. Corwen butchers G.R Evans, well known for their top-quality meat, provide the pork sausages for the O.G. So, it was a no brainer to order the bangers and mash. Three huge juicy sausages were nested on top of a mountain of perfect creamy mashed potatoes with some cabbage on the side. It was all served in a big red bowl with the mash soaking up a delicious rich stout and onion gravy. The succulent sausages were the best I had tasted in ages and this was true pub comfort food at its finest and very filling. My wife went for a small portion of fish and chips for £12. Despite being the smaller version, the fish still dwarfed the plate. It was encased in a crispy bubbling batter with huge chunky chips and mushy peas. She had a wedge of lemon on the side with a portion of tangy tartare sauce to spread on top of the meaty white fish. We washed it all down with two halves of Wrexham Lager but there were plenty of other beers and spirits available. The wine list had Jack Rabbit red or white wine from £4.50 a glass or £16 for a bottle. Desserts included sticky toffee pudding, chocolate brownie, lemon posset or the local chilly cow ice cream for around the £8.50 price mark. There was also a Welsh cheese board with a handpicked selection of three Welsh cheeses served with crackers, grapes, celery and crisp apple slices for £12. The O.G serves up a really popular Sunday Lunch at the weekend but you need to book in advance to guarantee a seat. There are plenty of open mic dates in their calendar along with live music from various Welsh and Folk artists. We decided to walk off our calories by going up to Pen y Pigyn afterwards, which is a beautiful half a mile uphill stroll just behind the hotel and the church. The legend says that Owain Glyndwr is believed to have hurled his dagger from the top of Pen y Pigyn, a point overlooking Corwen, and it struck a rock, leaving an impression now incorporated into the church's south porch. I am not sure if that story is true, but the walk is worth it for the beautiful views alone, and you might even hear the hoot of the Corwen to Llangollen steam train as it huffs and puffs its way into the newly built station on the edge of the town. A group of loyal Owain Glyndwr supporters once proclaimed him to be the true Prince of Wales at nearby Glyndyfrdwy, Now, with the help of the people of Corwen, Owain's spirit lives on in the teeming pub hub of the local community. The Facts Fish and chips £12.00 Sausages and mash £15.00 Wrexham Lager x 2 Total £33.45 Opening Times Bar Monday Tuesday 5pm to 11pm Wednesday Thursday 11am to 11pm Friday Saturday 11am to 12am Sunday 11am to 10.30pm Food Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 9pm Sunday lunches from 12-6pm. Other Atmosphere- Hub of the community Car Parking- Large car park by the Corwen to Llangollen steam train station Disabled Access- Some steps to the entrance and narrow corridor to the toilet Service- Table service with a chat and a smile
Evening Standard
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
House of Games at Hampstead Theatre review: an efficient, tense piece of work that never quite sings
Both film and play rely on multiple plot twists and shifts of perception over who is exploiting whom, and on the idea of an upstanding figure energised by a walk on the wild side (see also Henry IV, Equus, 50 Shades). The film seemed arch and stagey back in the day but this does not make it a natural fit for the theatre, where the audience is more complicit in the suspension of disbelief.
Telegraph
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Mr Burton, review: Toby Jones is affecting as the man who changed Richard Burton's life
Before Richard Burton became the most famous actor Wales has ever produced, he was Richard Jenkins, a nondescript miner's boy from Port Talbot, who nearly didn't finish school in the early 1940s. How he would transform and flourish into the Burton of legend is down to the man who gave him the surname – or so Mr Burton, Marc Evans's affecting, almost soothingly staid new biopic has it. This other Burton, variously known as Philip or 'PH', was an English teacher, mentor, de facto stepfather, and provider of the career encouragement a brooding youngster sorely needed to have any confidence in himself that didn't come from the bottle. Toby Jones plays this guardian angel with a meticulous sadness. His acting is so gathered and precise – important, given that he's here to dispense performance notes, on elocution, bearing, and all the other basics. In voice coaching sessions on Margam Mountain, we watch him sculpt Harry Lawtey's Richard from slovenly raw material, dropping his aitches, into a princeling who can project. Both know there's more to acting than aspirating, of course. The uneven fist that Lawtey (star of Industry) makes of Burton actually fits the story: he's a little prone to winsome pouting at first, but we start with Jenkins at an embryonic 17, and an upfront impersonation would be jumping the gun. There are later shots, when his cheekbones are lit just right and a forelock flops just so, when the resemblance is uncanny, and a few flurries of rage when he lands that percussive snappishness quite well. Even so, it's squarely Jones's film. He's playing a confirmed bachelor with a lonely streak a mile wide, and yet coarser speculation begins and ends here with the wagging of tongues at the pair's domestic arrangements. Before bribing his pupil's hard-boozing father (Steffan Rhodri) to make the young Jenkins his legal ward – cue a switch of surnames to help him into Oxford – PH paid for the lad to co-habit at a boarding house, which his landlady (an obliging Lesley Manville) warns him is guaranteed to look fishy. The film wants us to believe in the older man's altruism – a commendable choice to take the high road in the absence of evidence to the contrary, but the script hardly flatters him by portraying him as an implied closet case whose protégé left him behind. Before Richard was the toast of Stratford with his Hal in the RSC's 1951 Henry IV, the film imagines him spurning his real-life father figure in a drunken strop – an inverse entwining of art and life that asks us to believe he found special pathos in that role. It also makes us wonder whether Burton's internalised homophobia – well-attested in biographies – sprung from the friendship, explained it, or both. He never thought acting was a manly profession, and seemed to be involved in a tug-of-war against himself, tangled up by his roots. To have half explored these themes, as Evans' film does, means we're left wanting more, but there's a pleasing ache to the experience as a platonic love story.
Forbes
25-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Art Of CEO Coaching: The Role, Soul And Context Of CEO Life
Dr John Blakey is an author, keynote speaker and CEO executive coach. The CEO is a particular species. I have spent the past 20 years studying this species "in the wild" and coaching the best to be even better. It is a fascinating assignment, and I have learned much about what makes the CEO tick. It helps to have been one myself in a previous life. I empathize with the restlessness and the ambitious pursuit of challenging goals. I share the temptation to take responsibility and fix the problem. So how do you best coach the CEO? What is different from coaching other leaders in the organization? Is it simply the same formula of 70% active listening and 30% asking powerful questions? In my experience, this challenge is best answered by considering the CEO's role, soul and context. Unique to the role of the CEO is that the buck stops here. Many of the board leaders I have coached have eagerly stepped up to the CEO role and then confided to me quietly that "I never realized it would feel like this." There is a weight of responsibility that comes with the top job. As Shakespeare said in Henry IV, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." The CEO crown is heavy and lonely. With it comes much privilege and also the occasional sleepless night. That said, some thrive on the pressure. I worked with one managing director who visibly glowed in situations that would have destroyed a more gentle soul. They relished going "all in" to pitch themselves against daunting odds. I guess that's where the CEO needs to be brave. How do you coach for that? Well, you have to be brave, too. You have to know how to speak truth to power clearly yet respectfully. As Ian Day and I said in our book Challenging Coaching, you need to be able to enter the ZOUD—the zone of uncomfortable debate. I was once asked by a budding CEO coach, "How do you get comfortable entering the Zone of Uncomfortable Debate?" "You don't," I replied. "That's why it's called the Zone of Uncomfortable Debate! It never gets comfortable and neither should it." It sounds grand to talk about the soul of the CEO, but equally, it is necessary because the soul harbors our deepest desires and fears. Most CEOs desire recognition, respect and a sense of achievement. They fear the opposite—being ignored, ridiculed and ineffective. We could speculate on the childhood conditioning that creates such drivers, but CEOs will likely find such introspective, backward-looking musings of little interest relative to the excitement of creating a new world that accelerates them away from whatever they regret. The CEO coach must mirror this restlessness by stretching the CEO's vision and being careful not to trigger the fear of the counselor's couch by indulging in too much therapeutic musing. Does this mean that the CEO coach is not psychologically adept and incapable of digging deep? Not at all. It is a matter of building trust and waiting for the invitation. When the invitation comes, it can be profound. I'll never forget bending down to pack my bags at the end of the first coaching session with a new client who was a commercially focused corporate managing director and hearing him say, "... and there's one other goal I've not mentioned," to which I replied, "Oh yeah, and what's that then?" "I want to find God" was his deadpan reply. That was the start of a fascinating coaching journey. Regardless of the CEO's role and soul, no leader can ignore the context in which they operate. The context of the CEO role is unique in several ways. Firstly, although the buck stops with the CEO, there is always a higher accountability to which they answer. That could be a PLC board, a board of trustees, a regulator or a politician, a private owner or a private equity backer. The CEO needs to develop a high-trust, mutually respectful relationship with their masters, and this can often require the diplomatic skills of a United Nations peacekeeper. Many coaching sessions with CEOs will focus on the challenges of building these relationships and the CEO coach needs to be adept at helping the "big cheese" manage their ego and sometimes their temper. Alongside this personal relationship-building, the CEO is the chief evangelist for the organization as a whole and needs to be a proficient spokesperson inside and outside the organization. Many CEOs I have coached did not think they had applied to be film stars but soon found themselves on the big stage of corporate life. In my experience, CEOs typically "fake it until they make it" with this aspect of their role, and the coach is required to provide feedback and best practices on the many ways to engage often skeptical and cynical audiences. If all else fails, my best advice to CEOs, whether discussing their role, soul or context, is, "Remember, before you were a CEO, you were a human being." This comment always breaks the tension and gets a chuckle, but it is also a powerful truth. As we climb the ladder, imposter syndrome can increasingly kick in. The job starts to shape us rather than us shaping the job. We begin to appear inauthentic and wooden as we measure every word and second-guess every decision. The human being retreats amid the pressures of the role. The CEO coach must also remember to stay human by not putting the CEO on a pedestal, not saying "yes" when the honest answer is "no" and by instinctively gauging when real help is either an arm around the shoulder or a poke in the ribs. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
