If not now then when?

Top Girls - Caryl Churchill's play popped up in conversation the other morning. I've just checked up when it was written. I couldn't remember.  Thirty years ago - 1982. Can't quite believe it. I've always enjoyed the device Churchill uses of mixing historical characters - factual, fictional and mythological with those of 'today', as a means of tracking the female condition/situation. And it coincided well with our group's conversation, during which we discussed and attempted to choose another period to live in, as opposed to our own time. 

The characters in Top Girls offered an interesting selection of time and place to give us a kick-start. Pope Joan a legendary female Pope who apparently was in the lead spot for a few years during the Middle Ages; Isabella Bird a 19th century English explorer, writer and natural historian; Dull Gret who appeared in a Breughal painting-I think in 1562; the concubine Lady Nijo from 13th century Japan and Patient Griselda who appears in Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale (Canterbury Tales), although P.G., seems to have been adapted from an earlier text by Boccaccio. None of us girls at the conversation fancied being concubines. There was something appealing about Isabella Bird who bore some comparison to Alienor of Aquitaine in terms of travelling about, and crossing oceans and vast landscapes. A French friend Bernard who regularly comes to the conversation sessions ( phonetic pronunciation = Bearnar) fancied being a Troubadour and seemed happy if a few of us wanted to tag along.  Mike volunteered. Difficult for me though, because probably women (as in early theatre) weren't allowed to perform. Then someone reminded Bernard he couldn't take his car, so the whole trip was cancelled.  

The idea of being a Time Lord was far more interesting at least as far as I was concerned. Being able to leap backwards and forwards, preferably without changing sex has always appealed to my imagination. Gender issues apart, the main drawback with the Time Lord c.v., is that you're saving the world 24/7, which doesn't leave much time for sight-seeing. So no easy answer to the question of 'If not now, then when?'. Rather than living permanently in another time, there are people and events I would truly like to see.  Quite a few of them are musical moments such as hearing Mozart play or if you believe the film, the moment Glenn Miller discovered his sound. There are all sorts of unanswered historical questions about the pyramids I'd love to resolve. What's the real reason dinosaurs are extinct? Far Side Cards would amusingly have us believe it's because they smoked too many cigarettes. Scroll down the link here - it's about the seventh image.

One region and period that intrigues apart from the Plains Indians in the United States, is Andalucia in Medieval Spain. I came across 'The Ornament of the World' by Maria Rosa Menocal a few years ago. It's riveting stuff, although academics/specialists of the period feel her writing is a little light-weight. But as an introduction it's terrific and describes a time when Muslim, Jew and Christian communities created a culture of tolerance which lasted for at least five hundred years.

Too many options. It's as difficult as trying to pick your eight favourite records for Desert Island Discs, which we tried to do one Christmas. Or if you really want your brain to go into overdrive - the ultimate dinner party - who would you invite to your last meal?

The whole conversation was brought to a close by one of Bernard's jokes. 
 What do you call a mad man who throws himself into  the river in Paris. . .?

InSeine. 

I think I'd better bring this blog to a close.