Clannad at Warsaw Stodoła (Evening Show) 10-02-13

Was honoured to see Clannad at Warsaw Stodoła for their Evening Show yesterday (many thanks to whoever put the above video on Youtube so quickly).  Earlier on, due to ticket demand and a huge fount of human kindness, the band had played an Afternoon Show for all the people who failed to get a ticket for the Evening Show.  Yes, Clannad are truly tremendous people.

First saw Clannad in the late1980s at Manchester Apollo, and caught them at the same place in the mid-1990s on the 'Lore' tour.  However, last night, they were possibly better than ever doing a perfect balance of their early Traditional Gaelic songs and later English tunes.

The highlights of the night for me last night were 'Dulaman' (the 'Seaweed' Song) and 'The Theme From Harry's Game'.  Really surprised to be saying this, as I have more favourite Clannad tunes than these two, but last night, the band just seemed to 'nail' these two songs perfectly.  Also really liked the 'Robin Hood' medley which is also not my favourite Clannad material. 

Another nice surprise was that I was about seven rows from the front in the audience (I had expected to be seven rows from the back) so I was able to have a crack at getting some (semi-) reasonable shots on my mobile.  Love doing this because you never know how the things are going to turn out until you get back home on the computer.  Was really happy with the shot below in particular:

Good to see that someone has put their video of Clannad doing 'Closer To Your Heart' from the Evening Show at Warsaw Stodoła on Youtube:

Despite doing two shows in one day, the band spent quite some time afterwards signing CDs; posters; programmes etc., and this wasn't just a case of selling their stuff, as they went out of their way to have a genuine good few words with everybody who came up to them.  Thus, finally, below, there is a side-on shot of Maire and Pol Brennan chatting with members of the audience afterwards.

Yes, being a bit of a sociologist, I was really happy to get this shot, less so the woman on the right whose job it seemed was to 'growl' at anybody trying to get a shot of the band members (guess that this was just part of the protocol).  She doesn't look 'best happy' though, does she?

Warsaw Powiększenie and The Old Town Castle

The picture above is taken in the upstairs bar area of Warsaw Powiększenie, the latter being down a little alleyway on the Nowy Swiat.  Downstairs, there is an interesting sweatbox of a basement, where I saw Thieves Like Us play live last month.  The Powiększenie seems a kind of 'in-place' for students (and the like) to watch bands in the basement.

From December onwards, there's been a lot of snow in Warsaw.  The pictures below are of the Christmas Tree in front of the Warsaw Old Town Castle.  Not bad for mobile shots, I think.

Yeah, the Christmas decorations, which stayed up for some considerable time after Christmas, were a credit to Warsaw.

The Old Latin Mass Rock: Near Bantry, West Cork

Was absolutely thrilled to find this place.  I'd read about the Society of St. Pius X doing the Old Latin Mass on a Mass Rock in county Cork, and think that this may well be the actual place.

Yeah, for me, all the Mass Rock adornings and small statues look like the work of the Society of St. Pius X.

It's great to see that such places can still exist, especially when it is often claimed that we're living in a 'post-religious age'.

Would've absolutely loved to have seen an Old Latin Mass here, but I guess that they're few and far between.

Found the Old Latin Mass when I was 17 in about 1983, and felt truly at home imagining it being said here, near Bantry in West Cork. 

Absolutely love this place:  it is a place set apart, a sacred place where Catholics once secretly said Mass during penal times, and a place of refuge now, in our God-less, politically 'correct' times.

Watching Billy Connolly's 'Route 66' and Walking the Dog over Christmas

Szczebrzeszyn in eastern Poland (on the way towards the Ukraine) over Christmas is always quiet and peaceful, offering five days rest from my regular dose of Warsaw workaholism.  Having said this, there is an opposite problem of finding things to do in Szczebrzeszyn. 

Thus, Billy Connolly's 'Route 66' series, which a good friend sent me recently, was a real godsend over Christmas:

Ended up watching Connolly's journey on the old (and often underused) Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles twice over.  Along the way, Connolly meets a host of fascinating abeit 'different' characters, including a couple of guys who worked on the American (World War II) atom bomb and some female rodeo stars.  However, for me, its the 'real eccentrics' who steal the show, such as the long white-bearded Elmer who builds trees made from old bottles which he finds through travelling away from home at the weekend to do digs.  While Elmer does each dig, his wife quite simply reads a book in the car.

Besides, Connolly's 'Route 66', I also found some Christmas relaxation through taking my wife's parents' pet golden retriever, Mieszek', for walks on the farmland beyond their barn.  The pictures below show Mieszek around the barn and back garden of my wife's parents' farmstead:

After the barn, the first stop for Mieszek on his walk out is the small apple orchard, after which there is the open farmland and a small Christmas Tree plantation:

In particular, it is always the Christmas Tree plantation that interests an inquisitive Mieszek: 

The two pictures of Mieszek below show that he was born a maverick:

As I passed the end of the Christmas Tree plantation, in the distance, I saw the object of Mieszek's interest:  a couple of fine deer.  Of course, poor Mieszek was nowhere near fast enough to catch them, but he enjoyed the chase and exercise, anyway.  Sadly, never had a camera on me with a decent zoom lens, so it was impossible to get a shot of the deer in the distance.

Zwierzyniec, Eastern Poland

Zwierzyniec lies about 7-10 miles away from my wife's hometown of Szczebrzeszyn in eastern Poland.  I usually visit Zwierzniec during the summer, as its a peaceful and scenic kind of holiday place with gentle woodland treks and small lakes where people go swimming.  Thus, it was interesting to visit this small holiday place at Christmas time when it was full of snow:

The pictures above are of the 18th century Baroque 'Church on the Lake'.  During the summer, brides can be often seen arriving by traditional horse-and-cart to get married, as this church provides a perfect Romantic setting for a wedding day. 

Just around the corner from the 'Church on the Lake', you can see the now sadly closed brewery at Zwierzyniec:

In summer, there is a beer garden usually open here, where you can drink both Zwierzyniec and Perła on tap (like Perła, I think Zwierzyniec is now brewed in Lublin).  Moreover, if you enlarge these pictures and look carefully, you'll see the crucifix on the front of the building, a positive sign that this part of the world is still Christianised, and still remains largely untouched from the drab disenchantment and meaninglessness of Western politically-'correct' ideology. 

Further up the wooded road away from the brewery, there are the small lakes and wooden lookout point for trying to spot the 'Koniky' (wild horses found in this area of Poland:

Unfortunately, the 'Koniky' weren't visible on Christmas Day, as they were probably in the forest looking for food.  However, it looked like another wonderful animal had been at work nearby:

Yes, it looked like the industrious beaver had been hard at work over Christmas, but my wife suggested that this may've been just set up as some kind of joke by somebody.  Still, it was nice to believe that the beavers had been hard at work, and were just having a short break for Christmas Day.

The Children's Concentration Camp, Zwierzyniec, Eastern Poland

On Christmas Day, me, my wife and father-in-law visited a church commrmmorating a Children's Concentration Camp from the 2nd World War in/near Zwierzyniec in eastern Poland:

Yes, it's difficult to get your head round, but the Nazis actually had a concentration camp for Polish children in this area of Poland.  From many Western politically 'correct' accounts of the 2nd World War, you get the false impression that only Jews were killed in the concentration camps in Poland, something that many Polish people quite rightly feel angry about, as many Poles and other Slavs (non-Jews) were slaughtered in the Nazi extermination camps.

Inside the church commemorating the children's concentration camp, there is actually a small model of the camp blocks that housed the small (often infant) inhabitants:

Just above this model of the concentration camp for children, there is a painting of the Catholic martyr saint of Auschwitz, St. Maximilian Kolbe:

When I visited Auschwitz I at Oswięcim, I was shown both the underground chambers where the Jews were gassed, and the shooting range where many Poles and other Slavs were shot.  What particularly shocked me were the many empty blocks and massive lists of names devoted to Serbs who were slaughtered at Auschwitz Oswięcim (I'm talking about Auschwitz I here, not Auschwitz II at Birkenau), something you never hear of in Britain.

Still, this was Christmas Day after all, and there was a manger inside the church to remind us all of this:

Always loved the story of the Three Wise Men of the East.

The Jewish Cemetery, Szczebrzeszyn

When in Szczebrzeszyn, I always find time to go in the Old Jewish Cemetery, as it does have some kind of presence: still and serene with the odd brown squirrel darting about above:

Just in front of the sign above, there is some other information introducing the place as one of the best kept Jewish cemeteries in Poland.  Like the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, the place is more on the rugged than the (strictly) neat side, but, apparently, this is the way the Jews like their cemeteries to be kept.  Even though I only had my mobile camera on me here, I was luckily able to catch something of the colourful and ornate design of the gravestones, as you can see below:

From out of this, I can't help but like the fact that the Jews put some effort into their gravestones, showing that they care for their dead.