Strawberries Romanoff!

The mainstream press is circulating a story about the Bolshoi Ballet in recent times throwing parties for Russian oligarchs at which leading danceurs have been told that it was expected that they were sexually accessible to the rich supporters of the ballet. Recent past identities from the ballet company itself are quoted as saying that mainly it was the corps that were told to have sex with the oligarch-type people, but also leading danceurs were sometimes 'on offer.'

Reading these reports I noticed the 'backgrounding' of the report sources, that they were dancers who were fighting a weight issue, or that they were not able to really stay at the demanding heights of dance.

Oligarch's personal transport - and inside having Strawberries Romanoff

I believe that once or twice I have posted on people like Nureyev, and the 'style' of the great dance companies and their people. The problem I have with the mainstream press nowadays is that they are culturally illiterate. When a great artiste carries off a performance, just the one time, and it is seen by a decent crowd of knowledgeable people, it really doesn't matter after that what happens with their weight or their attitude or even entire whole rest of their life. Just to have been able ever, to reach that special height, is testament to all the work and the skill and the talent, as well as the training and support given by other special people. Nothing else ever matters; just that one time counts.

If the press is referring to Anastasia Volochkova, and I understand they are, then what I can say from personal knowledge is that she certainly attained the truly great performance level.

There has always been an undercurrent of sexual moral hazard in the endeavour. And what is of greatest concern, frankly, is when the lesser performer is chosen above the better one for any unworthy reason. Very good danceurs have strong and important careers beyond injury or other barriers, as teachers and choreographers. You see, if Lance Armstrong had the problem of sexual misstep, it wouldn't prevent him necessarily from being able to impart sound knowledge of cycling; as it stands though he clearly knows nothing of advantage that he could impart about cycling. Volochkova is no second-rate loser like Armstrong is.

It is entirely possible that two things are true at the same time: someone, somewhere along the line, encouraged danceurs to sleep with rich patrons of the ballet, and the ballerina(s) who are now being quoted about this were dropped because they didn't go along with the proposition(ing). But it is entirely unnecessary to say these tell-all ballerinas are now being commercially-driven and that they were in fact not good enough dancers to make it at the highest level. The world of professional ballet is very large and very well-found (an English phrase meaning 'has lots of support') and being weightier is not any kind of real problem in fact. Volochkova is, and was, a very good dancer, and I don't think she ever was that overweight, personally. The fact is there are too many today who are unhealthily, and badly, underweight. Bolshoi in the past never had too many extraordinarily thin dancers – I think of Ulanova, for instance, the template of the Bolshoi lead female, really. There were many tall thin female dancers who were tall and thin by genetics – but today, it's all about some weirdo pop-magazine idiom of the stick-person.

The nature of high culture is this – if you are wrong, sooner or later you will fall into the dustbin of history. If any ballet company is picking dancers exclusively because of their willingness to put out, then they will rapidly advance into oblivion. Every impressario of any experience knows how to adjust his troupe for the ingenui, and the ice queen or the militant virgin, and the ultra carnal... Nureyev's problem, so we are often told, was that he willingly slept around too much. Much to producers' torments.

Actual Strawberries Romanoff

'Strawberries Romanoff' was hijacked by a Hollywood pretend-Russian aristocrat restauranteur. But he did it well and everybody loved the guy and the 'fake' name he pinned on an Escoffier recipe has stuck. Besides, anything Russian is white and red like ice-cream and cherries. There's nothing actually that fake about Strawberries Romanoff; it is something from Hollywood – a place where things are made up in precise ways to convey entertainments about people places and things.

There is nothing bad about sex mixed up in ballet society. It is morally wrong for the managers to imply to someone that they will not advance in the company without sleeping with certain of the patrons. Er, but it is morally wrong like Strawberries Romanoff are actually anything to do with Russian strawberries. And therefore my point is that it is unnecessary for the media to suggest that people like Volochkova had weight problems or weren't good enough. Not only is she telling the truth but she was an excellent dancer who did not have weight problems and very likely ran foul of some bad producer or manager. Any good manager would have merely offered up another more amenable lamb to the sacrifice. And any oligarch who demanded 'but I must have that one or the deal is off' is just being a child.

Also, actual Strawberries Romanoff

Egos are an issue, yes, of course. But then so what? Volochkova had/has an ego, the company manager has an ego, the oligarch has both an ego and dramatically-large amounts of money. You mix it all up: Strawberries Romanoff!

The standard recipe for Strawberries Romanoff is refrigerated Grand Marnier-soaked strawberries, a little orange juice, a fine dust of sugar, and vanilla ice-cream. But a better modern recipe that few know about is to have the strawberries soaked in botrytis-effected wine instead of the Grand Marnier. The result is a quantum leap advance in flavour on the original recipe.

Personally, the question I would hypothetically pose in an article to a hypothetical modern era Bolshoi producer or manager is 'if Lindsey Vonn were a dancer, could she make it in your ballet production?'

Calling Andy Garcia

Some of you here have read stuff that I have been posting from a long long ways back now – and you know, that long before anyone else said Osama bin Laden (or whatever the real name of this identity was...) was in Pakistan, you know that I said it.

You know it.

And sooner or later you knew that I would be pointing out something once again that more or less was er, ahead of the publicly-known information.

1.Andy Garcia - celebrity, good man, Ocean's Eleven actor. 2. Don't know...

Drifting in and out of some of my conversations here have been my occasional references to gambling, and to social clubs involving wealthy people inside of which data was being mined surreptitiously from members, and also certain networks of medical practitioners – in particular in the IVF field – that quite possibly contained scandalously criminal elements.

You may or may not recall that I have spoken of these things in the past.

Ah well, my friends in the Australian Federal Police and the various State Major Crime investigative bodies could do well to go back into their files concerning statements I had made to them not so very long ago.

Of course, in recent times the Australian Intelligence entities and the Australia Police have had fairly marginal success even with understanding simple things like Mossad stealing Australian ID's and passports and using them for launching assassinations here and there. Frankly, I'm not critiquing Mossad here – rather the spineless, gutless, under-funded and of course rather stupid Australians. They seem to have this unhappy knack of 'not knowing' anything.

James Packer

Like how it was possible for one of the world's richest men, James Packer, to be ripped off by a high roller cardplayer in one of his casinos to the tune of at least 32 million dollars. The local press is characterising it as a real life Ocean's Eleven incident.

But let me make it perfectly clear – Australia contains commercially-oriented private social clubs which are in fact organised and run by rogue elements of the British Foreign Service, in league with wealthy playboys and well-connected personages from Singapore and Indonesia, and these places are vipers' dens where conversations are bugged, brief cases are rifled through and documents copied, and covert financial scams are run against the unsuspecting.

Far be it from me to point to idiotic affairs like Rowan Gunaratne from Singapore giving advice on Tamil Terrorism to the fools in Canberra, or the fiasco about the stolen Aussie passports, or the HIH Insurance share float scam that was 'cleverly' blamed on Rodney Adler, or the crash float of now recently-bankrupted Nathan Tinkler that was run by other, more, 'clever' people in Noble Group from Hong Kong, or the stunning 'cleverness' of some young Parsee youth associated with Cisco Systems who took the ASX for a multi-million dollar ride with their simply amazing HFT programs...

No indeed.

Typical British private club items - not clues, really!

Apparently no one can see these things coming ahead, not even Alex Allen, the head of a UK Intelligence body who SOMEHOW MANAGED TO BE WORKING AS A PAID CONSULTANT TO THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN STATE GOVERNMENT, and living here while he was also the top Intelligence Officer in the United Kingdom. Apparently no one has told the Western Australian government that it is no longer part of the United Kingdom. Oh no, but these are of course all honourable men. The fact that six or seven people have dropped dead after being in this private club is apparently of little significance to the absolutely stunningly amazingly idiotic fools who run the Australian Security Intelligence agencies and the Federal Police. And these sudden deaths including, dare I say it, one particular Adam Rankin-Wilson, the relatively young and I do know, on the surface quite fit, personal lawyer of James Packer here in Western Australia.

But of course, these are all coincidences. Just like when I suggested bin Laden was almost certainly in Pakistan. Not to mention that he had also been in and out of England without anyone stopping him. Although admittedly, I use alien intelligence from UFO's and thus may have an advantage...

All the same, boys and girls of Caper Cops, let's face it, there is an old saying in Chicago – according to Ian Fleming – once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action.

I personally think the situation is already out of hand, but you know what, let's just keep waiting around until something REALLY BAD happens out of this private social club that Andy Garcia from the Ocean's series of casino scam movies has never been to as far as I know – but has his photograph displayed in.

Johnny Can't Dance



Tango dancers in a London show

“Every Saturday night when the sun goes down

Poor li'l Johnny goes down to the town

Well he can't dance, no he can't dance;

Poor Little Johnny he just can't dance.”

My mother was a professional dancer... But I don't dance at all. I may look like the great Pablo Veron if a stylist went to work, but hey, I definitely just can't dance!

A thing looks like something, but then, sometimes, it isn't what it kinda looks like it might be.

I'm the same age as Madonna. And I can fence.

Die Another Day

The song above is a New Orleans song about Jean Lafitte the pirate – the point is, he can dance; he's just not allowed to go into town as who he really is and dance in his identifiable way and get found out.

I'm doing – have been - doing my best to steer away from some of the depressing stories unfolding all around us. Shane Todd's death in Singapore is something that is very disappointing to me. But it is something about which I have decided to leave to the Financial Times and a small handful of decent reporters to cover and they have been doing a tremendous job. I mean, let's face it, if governments want to bury stuff and hide stuff, even Jean Lafitte would have a hard time dancing - that is to say, if he didn't feel he could dance to the miserable tune being forced upon him.

Myself, I am independent and I have gold hidden down in the bayou, but today, I'm not celebrating with any of it. I don't feel like dancing.

But then too, I remind myself of the film short called 'Milonga' in which a patient old man conspires with an Italian waiter to assist – I'm not too sure – either himself at a younger age, or his daughter, to get with the future love of their life in some apocryphal tango salon somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=P6JYeEcxnUU#t=53s

The reason there is a strong connection between wine and the gods is because good wine gets better over a long time – and some wine, over the longer the better.

Madge and Tony Ward and Debbie

Johnny (can't dance) Ward

But those of you who have been here watching for a long time now, will realise that if Johnny says get off the dance floor it's probably time to prepare to duck for the flying bullets as well.

The truly great Pablo Veron

Miracles Of Life

Okay there's Danica Patrick. And there's now also Lauren Stojackovic. She's the 30 year-old female (very 'mature age' for an apprentice!) apprentice jockey who just won the million-dollar Blue Diamond Stakes which is the richest Australian race for Two-Year Old Race Horses. And it was an outstanding, and a clever ride, notwithstanding the horse is a champion.

I have to admit I've been 'riding' this horse for several months now and I always believed that it could, and would, win the Blue Diamond.

Stojackovic on Miracles Of Life

Perhaps you are someone who cares neither about diamonds nor race horses but if you have an open mind let me explain very briefly a few things:

There are horse and then there are HORSES! Same goes for diamonds too. Today there are too many tricks and simulants and fakes and there are also drugged athletes and (there is) cheating at sports. All that kind of thing frankly takes away the inherent thrill and excitement in rare and unique performances. A diamond - a cut diamond - is a performance; the way the edges throw fire and the way the crystal ricochets light is how the diamond 'performs' after it has been through an artist's and an engineer's hands.

There were tears aplenty at the race track today. The rider's father was on course and he couldn't stop himself as his daughter flew across the line in front. The trainer was a battling virtual unknown against some of the world's best international trainers.

A natural, mined blue diamond;
can't get this out of a test-tube

And the horse is rather small...

And that's about the only diminutive thing I can say about this thoroughbred. One thing you should know about all race horses is that they get their speed from the mother's side (what's called the dam's side) and this particular animal's mother was by one of Australia's greatest ever speedsters - Rory's Jester. Rory's Jester is one of the top three or four all-time greatest sprinters in Australian racing history. It was a brutally efficient, undefeatable hulk, although a show-pony style of reddish blonde-coloured thing.

And this modern version 'Miracles Of Life' looks visually similar and destroyed her rivals today in the same contemptuous manner, racing up to the leaders authoritatively at the final bend and muscling ahead and then blasting away into the pages of illustrious history. This is a great horse. The jockey is reported to have whispered to the horse just before the start that there was about a minute for them now between being a really good horse and a truly great horse.

If you know anything about horse racing then you know that race horses think, and feel, and have a warrior spirit and enormous courage and incredible will to run fast and a generous pride in winning which they share with everyone who cares about them.

Okay you might not have the same sentiment about horse racing and the animals and all of that racing folklore - not everyone is into this game... But you can't know about life unless you know things that are somewhat similar - peculiar, almost unscientific, sentimental things that seem to defy logic. Except they never ever do. People just don't want to believe reality, however; they are so hell bent on defining the world in some way they think will be able to be put in a test tube no matter what.

Best,
Calvin J. Bear

That Colourless Stone

Someone walks into a big empty shop – there's nothing on the walls, very limited furniture, smooth neat bare stone floor, a little bit of light coming through a single not-too-large window pane.

In the centre of the room is a four foot high plinth with a small square of cream-coloured ceramic tile set in it like a kind of a built-in serving plate.

In the middle of this serving plate square of plain, cream-coloured ceramic tile, sits a single rather small colourless chunk of crystal much like a little translucent rock.

What are the feelings, the ranges of emotion, that rush or flow through the visitor?

Most likely absolutely none!

Cynics say that diamonds are all about the marketing. Which can also be a way of saying that in the absence of other things that connect with the crystal to render its meaningfulness to the observer, and in the absence of specific context, the thing itself has little or no intrinisic function, and otherwise might even have little or no intrinsic value either.

And I think Western jewellery shops make that kind of mistake – they tend to have this austere, almost brutalist and stark style about them, which is to do with contemporary ideas about architecture; but I feel this does not serve the expression of what diamonds are about too well at all.

Inside the Chow Tai Fook store, HK

However in Asia, particularly in Far East Asia and also specifically in Hong Kong and modern China too, the whole style of diamond vending shops is characteristically very different to the style that obtains in diamond shops of the West. And personally I find I can only buy a diamond in a Chinese diamond store or one which is similarly arranged. Even in South Africa where I spend time regularly and know one or two authentic diamondaires, the feel of the diamond galleries tends a little toward the Western style. Let me describe to you the difference between the two:

You walk into a Chinese jeweller and you are greeted by rows and rows of glass cabinets at waist-height stocked with rings and bangles and necklaces and loose stones too - though mainly just rings – all winking out and reflecting light from the powerful downlights and cabinet lights that are simply everywhere. The whole place is hot and bright. And from here you are swept away into the Aladdin story, really, because it consists of first noticing one fantastic, bright and enchanting stone, only to be thrown into confusion upon next seeing another, even as much as five times more attractive than that first. And on and on it goes and eventually you find yourself being taken up into the heights of glittering expense and even to a kind of selfish, ego-driven Luciferian grandeur. If money is no object to you, there is almost no limit to the hubris which you can indulge in by simply paying for it. But that is really about the moral dubiousness of money itself though.

Well, I can't tell you that there is an absolute rule that you must only ever buy a 1 carat or greater D IF with an exceptionally-good aesthetic cut quality...

I can tell you whatever personal scheming reason you have for buying a diamond is in fact the only truly significant thing you should think about as you make a purchase: sitting with a very well-groomed woman in a slightly darkened dinner room in which there are other rich and self-important people, it will benefit you to have a diamond on your friend somewhere visible that possesses a lot of scintillation and grabs the squinting eyes of the big-headed. If that's what you want to do. Nowadays of course diamonds are worn in all sorts of places; not necessarily only those visible ones...

Ultra wealthy people in history have bought or acquired enormous and otherwise fairly stupid stones all of which carry some folkloric aspect with them wherever they go – and mostly they went underground somewhere along the line among very very very private people. I have a piece of the old Sancy but therein hangs a tale and I certainly wouldn't admit to such a thing publicly, so here, I am telling you a lie of course...

But I like to go to Chinese shops to buy diamonds. I like to see just what an amazing diversity of mindsets there can be, and I like to use the diversity of the small colourless stones as symbols of the myriad biases and prejudices that can almost insanely grip the minds of individuals and force them even to part with significant money as responses to mere folklore, nonsense, and otherwise virtual nothingness imbued with 'brilliance dispersion and scintillation' through manufactured human complication.

The new Faberge Campaign by Mario Testino

My own fantastical biases and prejudices are not particularly odd: I imagine it is true what they say that diamonds are the only stones that reproduce sexually! To me diamonds are about money power and sex. These are things that are rarely found to be completely understood by humans anywhere, but are in fact exercised almost everywhere and rather indescriminately too by all people, and who almost universally each individually also assume they are at very minimum, the world's ultimate leading expert on these matters, and if only someone else noticed it, or if only they had but an extra ten million dollars to lord over everyone else, then no doubt the clarity of the situation would also be observed by others!

Oh boy. Only a certain sense of humour saves the human spirit from being as direly unbearable as it might often be. I don't have those 'set' jokes that go with demonstrating a sense of humour, but I sure do laugh ironically when I think about paying big money for decent diamonds – it isn't that I couldn't do it or haven't done it; it's the fact that the surrounding context and all the other stuff that goes with the scintillations in the darkened restaurant are all the rest of the necessary personal expenses to me that the salesperson isn't thinking about when they give me the steep price on the stone I'm looking at!