Sharpe's Escape

For a change I thought I'd do a short book review.

Title: Sharpe's Escape
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Genre: Historical, War
Setting: Napoleonic Wars
Series: Sharpe
Published: 2004

I got interested in Sharpe via the ITV TV series, this novel is one of those written after the TV series.

It is 1810 and the French are making yet another attempt to invade Portugal, the Duke of Wellington leads a combined Anglo-Portuguese Army to defend Lisbon. Captain Sharpe commands the light company of the South Essex Regiment but has taken a disliking to his new second-in-command, Lieutenant Slingsby, the Colonel's brother-in-law. While implementing Wellington's scorched earth policy Sharpe makes an enemy of Ferragus, a Portuguese businessman / thug. Sharpe and his offsider, Sergeant Harper, get separated from the regiment during the retreat after the Battle of Bussaco and have a rollicking series of adventures.

Sharpe's Escape contains a couple of carefully described battle scenes, separated by some individual adventures and introducing a new, spirited and pretty girl to fall in love with our hero. The style of this Sharpe novel is pretty standard.  There is plenty of attention to military details, and a bit of social detail and historical overview thrown in. Sharpe is grumpy for much of the novel, which affects his decision making.  His confrontational nature and private vendettas with Ferragus and Slingsby drive the novel.

Unlike other British officers of the period who typically bought their commissions, Sharpe was promoted from the ranks and is a man who makes his way in the world due to his skill and resourcefulness as a soldier and inspire of his lack of social skills. This dependence on skill makes him more like a modern man and hence easier for the reader to identify with. It also makes him an outsider to the officer class, with a sergeant as his closest friend; allowing Bernard Cornwell to describe the life and concerns of both the officers and other ranks.

Sharpe also uses a Baker rifle rather than a musket or pistol. The rifle at the time was a relatively expensive high-tech weapon, issued to skirmishers rather than ordinary line soldiers. Skirmisher used tactics that seem more sensible to people from the 21st century than those used by line infantry at the time, and skirmishers also got more interesting jobs. Both of these give the author more scope for drawing the reader in and giving Sharpe opportunity to have adventures away from the Army.

Similarly Sarah Fry appeals both to Sharpe and readers because of her independence from and lack of fear of men. An attitude that probably wasn't characteristic of middle class young women of the time.

Sharpe's Escape is well paced, while there is plenty of description it rarely gets in the way of the action. A couple of passages stretch credulity but nowhere near as much as the average action film. This book kept my attention so I finished it more quickly than most books I have read in the last 12 months.

Transports Exceptionnels and Shapeshifter - Weekend Outdoor Culture

Sometimes going for a walk can be just a little dull, especially if you've been wherever you're going before. On the other hand, the weather has been so nice lately that its a bit of a pity to stay inside in order to be amused. So the fact that there's been some good entertainment in the great outdoors recently seems noteworthy.

On the last Saturday in February we went to see Transports Exceptionnels,which was a free event in Waitangi Park, part of the International Festival of the Arts. This event has been described as Dance with the Digger and it features two talented Frenchmen -one to dance and one to drive the digger- accompanied by Maria Callas singing Opera. The digger was sourced locally and was particularly shiny and splendid-looking

Philippe Priasso the dancer brought a cat burglar to mind, probably because of the combination of graceful movement and wearing black leather gloves. He hung from the digger bucket in every possible way, he posed on the digger arm, he ran in circles apparently pursued by the digger rotating and lay on the ground in its shadow. It was beautiful, daring and original, and the sun shone while the crowd sat on the grass in a circle and cheered and clapped.Top-notch entertainment and on the walk home we had local youth leaping into the harbour en masse as a bonus.


Last weekend we we went to Shapeshifter which is an outdoor sculpture exhibition that's also part of the Arts Festival. Not free, but the entry fee of $5 is completely reasonable. Most of the exhibition is in Lower Hutt's Civic Gardens and a few things are in the Dowse over the road. Civic Gardens (which we'd never visited before) is nice, with lots of big trees and a somewhat murky stream.

We had a programme which helpfully told us what each work was called and who had done it and how much it cost and then usually some art-speak about the artist's message and inspiration which seems pretty pretentious to a philistine like me but it added to the amusement we derived from the whole outing. The sculpture varied from the completely recognisable (a marble satchel) to quite abstract (twisted strip of metal) and it made for a pleasant stroll with interesting things to look at.

Rita Angus: Life & Vision

Now for something different in the middle of Film Festival. Anne and I went to the Rita Angus exhibition at Te Papa. Being a philistine, I knew nothing about Rita Angus and Anne found it difficult to describe her paintings which made it difficult for her to convince me to go with her.

The exhibition was laid out chronologically but, accidentally, we viewed it backwards (the first room was more crowded than the last room). So we started with pictures of Wellington (especially Thorndon), then moving onto her experimental / abstract works from the 1960s. Then her goddess pictures and portraits of herself and friends from the 1940s and 1950s, often with pacifist symbolism. Finishing with her early works of the 1930s. The way the exhibition was laid out showed how her painting styles changed through 40 years. Being a NZ painter (and having lived in Christchurch) there are lots of landscapes with mountains and clouds in the background throughout her career. In addition to her painting there were also pages from her sketch books (some of which had been framed!).

Some things I noticed about her paintings are that:

• She does wonderfully accurate flowers (which I would have thought would be much more difficult than landscapes or buildings).


• Her sketches are very good -- may be she should have made drawing more of a focus of her work?


• She emphasises eyes in portraits, giving people a slightly manic look.


• Anne noticed that she uses odd skin colours.


• In may of her water colours it looks like she has drawn the picture in ink and then painted the spaces in between like a kid colouring in book except done in water colour!


• In many of her landscapes the distance is painted in more detail than the forground.


• She drew and painted a lot of self portraits, presumably because it is cheaper than hiring a model. Though looking at her nudes she must have had a beautiful body (at age 34). But I think her best (least manic) self portrait was her first from 1929.

The painting I liked best and perhaps the only one I would give wall space to was one of her experimental works. A little bigger than A4, it had 3 blocks of colour (blue, yellow and pink) painted over detailed but more monochrome paintings of mushrooms and other fungi. I found this an interesting mix of representational and abstract art. Or maybe it was just because it was so different to most of the rest of the exhibition!

Central Otago Rail Trail

Once upon a time, in the twentieth century, a railway line ran from Dunedin to Cromwell, passing through tiny Central Otago towns and rugged river gorges.In the twenty-first century, the Dunedin to Middlemarch section of the line still lives, and a train for sightseers runs on it regularly. The Cromwell to Clyde section has disappeared under the waters of Lake Dunstan and the Clyde to Middlemarch section, now rail-less, is a motor-vehicle-free cycle route. This 150 kilometre route is called the Central Otago Rail Trail and it featured on Marcus Lush's TV series "Off the Rails". After watching the programme featuring the rail trail we were inspired to ride it and we incorporated three days on the trail into a two-week Central Otago holiday in February.

We began the rail trail experience by spending a night in the camping ground at Middlemarch, having driven there from Dunedin on a splendid sunny Waitangi Day afternoon. Middlemarch is 88 km from Dunedin and is technically an outer suburb - you don't pass the Dunedin City Limits sign until you get past Middlemarch, somewhere in the middle of nowhere on SH87. We had brought my aging mountain bike with us in the back of the station wagon and we hired a bike for Ian at the campground - the owners are agents for the Cycle Surgery in Dunedin who own the bikes, and also for the Catch-a-bus service which runs daily shuttles between Dunedin and Wanaka. We packed the panniers provided for 3 days of biking and went to bed.

On the morning on February, having been woken by an insomniac rooster well before dawn, we and the bikes caught the shuttle to Clyde. The day had begun cold and foggy, became bright and sunny but was cloudy and warm when we reached Clyde. The plan for day 1 was the 46km stretch from Clyde to Lauder, passing through Alexandra, Galloway, Chatto Creek and Omakau. I was a bit apprehensive because it included the steepest gradients on the trail.

The Clyde to Alexandra section goes through orchards and is semi-rural and pleasant. It seems designed to lull you into a false sense of security about your ability to cycle 150km. The route is flat, straight and the surface is hard and smooth. We left the trail at Alexandra and had lunch in a cafe in the main street.Leaving Alexandra again we crossed some nice bridges and were cheered by the markers every kilometre that helped keep track of progress. The first marker after Alexandra said 206 and we worked out later that this is the distance back to Wingatui where the Central Otago line branches off the main trunk line just outside Dunedin. Things to admire on this part of the route include typical Central Otago rocky countryside and distant hills, sheep, deer and wildflowers.

At Omakau we deviated onto the highway so we could visit Ophir, a nice old town with historic buildings, reached by a fabulous stone suspension bridge crossing the Manuherekia River. There was almost a tantrum as I contemplated the highway heading steeply uphill, but luckily the turn-off to the suspension bridge was just before the hill.
We arrived at Lauder at 5 o'clock with me feeling I had biked slightly too far for my liking, and having learned that headwinds are a much bigger enemy to the cyclist than the hills on the trail.We stayed at the Lauder hotel, which I can't enthuse enough about. The bed was comfortable, the shower was fabulous and cookies and cups of tea on arrival particularly welcome. We met some other cyclists at dinner so we were able to compare notes, and were too tired to lament the lack of night-life.

February 8th, Ian's Birthday, dawned grey and gloomy. The day's agenda was 64km from Lauder to Waipiata, via Oturehua, Wedderburn (the highest point on the trail) and Ranfurly. We set off about 9am and since the route goes through the Poolburn Gorge which has tunnels and viaducts we had lots of photo stops and only travelled 6 km in the first hour.After the gorge there's a downhill section through the Ida Valley and passing the Idaburn dam which was speedy and exhilarating.We stopped for lunch a few kilometres past Oterehua at Whiskery Bill's Cafe and Bar which is handily postioned in the middle of nowhere to sustain cyclists. Lunch was delicious and proved that you can get good lattes even in the middle of nowhere. It started to rain during lunch, luckily not heavily, and the negative flavour of the afternoon was exacerbated by Ian's bike getting a puncture (a birthday treat,no doubt). Next stop was Ranfurly, and one of its claims to fame is cute art deco buildings, which we admired in addition to the contents of the art deco gallery.The final 8km of the trail for the day from Ranfurly to Waipiata was gruelling. It should have been a pleasure, being straight and slightly downhill, but a stiff headwind put paid to the pleasure.

Peter's farm hostel, where we had elected to stay, is supposedly 3km from the trail but it felt suspiciously like 5. It is a very pretty mudbrick farm house with lovely timber interiors and original fireplaces but the musty smell was unattractive. The good shower was a redeeming feature and we got acquainted with it immediately.

We got back on our bikes (ouch!) to go back to Waipiata for dinner at the pub where we met more fellow cyclists. Meals there come in "town" and "country" size and the house wine (which wasn't out of a cask) was $4 a glass.Amazing! A variety of scrumptious desserts, which almost all featured chocolate, led Ian to say that the chef must be female.

Day 3 was sunny (hurrah!) and we had breakfast outside with magpies singing to add to the rurual ambience.Unlike Day 2, we met lots of other cyclists on the trail. The route goes through the Taieri Gorge,

which is particularly pretty and unlike the other sections it has lots of trees. The surface was probably the roughest we encountered, with large stones, ruts,plenty of sheep dung and a scattering of pinecones. Roughly halfway between Waipiata and Middlemarch is the Hyde cafe, where we had lunch outside with all the other bikers. Hyde to Middlemarch was a pleasure - all downhill and going fast.
The scenery is on a grand scale with the Rock and Pillar range on one horizon and the Taieri range on the other, with a fertile plain with poplar trees in the middle. There is a slight sense of comedown when you reach the end - nothing that couldn't be overcome by a cheering crowd. Perhaps they could pay the natives to spend a few hours there each afternoon.......

So should you cycle the rail trail? I think you should, as long as you don't hate bikes. It's an opportunity to spend time in the great outdoors in a very scenic part of the country that most of us don't go to often. And you get to cycle somewhere with no cars, take great photos and meet lots of people. As to the great debate over which end to start at, I think the Clyde end is the one. Either way you're going uphill on day 1, but the Clyde end has lots of pubs and cafes to sustain you, whereas from Middlemarch its going to be a sustained long uphill with only the Hyde cafe in the first 50km. And going downhill from Wedderburn to Alex, you may speed past some bridges and scenery that deserve closer attention. Anyhow, enough from me - you can go and start planning now.

World of Wearable Art

Rachel pointed out recently that since we had called the blog "films and more" there was scope for writing about things other than films. So I thought I'd write about going to the opening night of the Montana World of Wearable Art Award Show last Friday.All the shows for 2005 are booked out but anyone reading this should definitely put it on the list of things to do next year.

This show has the kind of universal appeal that a fireworks display has because it's so good to look at. It's not a coincidence that its called WOW for short because it has loads of flair and panache and excitement. The costumes are just amazing and the choreography is great. You couldn't not like it - an hour and 45 minutes just whips past.

My favourite part was the bizarre bra section. An Elvis imported from Las Vegas stood on a podium in the centre of the stage and sang several numbers while the models jived. The girl had 3/4 length black trousers to complement their bra) and the guys wore jean with big turnups with theirs. I noticed there wasn't a hairy chest in sight,so they must have waxed - such devotion to duty! The winning bra was a pair of kiwifruit which opened up into a concertina of slices. You can check it (and other winning entries) out at http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dominionpost/0,2106,0a15076a207146,00.html

Other sections were almost as enchanting. The pacifica section began with a volcano, out of which a model erupted and ascended to the ceiling in a swathe of orange silk. Another section had costumes which were designed to be viewed in the ultraviolet lights that lined the stage. There was opera music, pacific music, classical music. There was a troupe of male dancers with billowing red silk skirts and bare chests. There was a section which began with upside-down dancers in what looked like tutus, but turned out to be luminous silver dresses.Models descended from the ceiling and sported amazing tights and hats.It made enchanting viewing and it made me proud that such a creative idea was home-grwon in New Zealand.

Friday night was the actual prize-giving so famous personages (like the PM) handed out the cheques. While this was mildly diverting, I'm sure the show on other nights would be equally worthwhile.

I know this wasn't a film but it rates 5/5 anyway.