In January I attended the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, which quite apart from being in one of the most beautiful locations in South-East Asia also gives me an opportunity to visit good friends of mine there, currently in the process of building an estate at Naula, near to Dambulla. Also well read, Simon and his wife Pauline arranged the accommodation, a charming colonial bungalow on the beach, where we would retire to each evening and eat wonderful seafood. The Festival itself was fun – Galle being an ancient Portugese city fort, and a host of illuminaries turned up to either lecture about life in general (Stoppard) flog their latest time (Simon Sebag Montefiore) or persuade us all not to believe in God (Richard Dawkins and wife).

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Getting to Coigach requires a flight to Inverness, then a two hour drive west, beyond Ullapool and 40 minutes bouncing along a single track road to Achiltibuie passing numerous lochs and mountains on the way. Then the vista opens up – the Summer Isles, spread out in a panoramic view that extends all the way West to Stornaway, South to the Isle of Skye, and East down Loch Broom. I like to see where my whisky comes from, and the Highlands have it aplenty. Not for nothing did I pack a bottle of Laphroiag’s Quarter Cask

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I unashamedly enjoy my food and drink – in fact I cook a lot at home as well, where even my kitchen has its own library, its shelves stuffed with everything from the Silver Spoon and Larousse to a plethora of ethnic and regional cookery books from my travels around the world. Visiting somewhere, then trying to recreate the best of their cuisine at home is a regular weekend pastime. This means trips to the local markets, where Beijing often has a vast array of local fresh products, and near its Embassy district, a huge market with everything from anywhere all provided to keep the multitude of Embassy kitchens happy. Consequently, I often cook and eat according to the seasons – a diet of mainly fish during the summer, and white wines as would befit a city that can get positively steamy. During autumn and winter, Beijing gets cold, and more meat and red wines are consumed.

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The annual Capital Club Ball took place at the Capital Club – unbelievable its now in its 17th year – and I was a founder member! This years theme was “Shanghai Jazz”, and featured a pretty cool live band creating the, er, sounds of the twenties, plus the obligatory in-house casino. A great dinner, some 300 people, and some very fine Pinot Noir Burgundies coupled with a few courses from the White House Chef’s repertoire. The suit I had made a few years ago – actually out of upholstery material I purchased in Sri Lanka, while Meggie hat is even more interesting. Made entirely from dyed feathers, we picked it up in an antique store on Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. It turns out to be a Jack McConnell vintage ‘red feather’ hat from New York. The red feather, tucked into the label, denotes it was a bespoke item. They now fetch hundreds of dollars at auction, and we’ve no idea when it was last worn. I’m sure it enjoyed it’s moment in the limelight in Beijing – it was certainly the most admired of all the headwear on show!

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China’s National Holiday week pretty much coincides with the start of the Opera and Classical Music season, which is good news as most venues with a decent opera house or concert theatre usually begin the season with something of an extravaganza. I’ve spent this past week in Beijing (which is where I’m based, although I travel a lot, so it’s nice to be at home for over a week at any one time) which has a somewhat controversial, but nonetheless quite spectacular national theater just to the West of Tiananmen Square. In true Communist style, its officially named the rather pragmatic and tedious “National Center for The Performing Arts”, but to locals it is simply referred to as “The Egg”. Strangely enough, the architect responsible had intended to portray a Pearl – and it does look like one when lit up at night – but the oval, rather than round shape has changed the way it is perceived. Beijingers, not known for their romanticism, and being somewhat loathe to indulge in plaudits, dubbed it alternatively, and the name has stuck.    
 

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The Summer Isles from Achiltibuie

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One of the things about running a business with numerous offices across China, India and elsewhere in Asia is that it’s almost impossible to escape the huge numbers of people. Heaving masses of humanity – the great unwashed – in both China and India can, after a while, leave ones inner peace somewhat frayed around the edges. Also, as I intend to spend more time writing over the next few years, I need somewhere quiet. No dogs barking, no telephones ringing, and no constant traffic hum in the background. 

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The Choijid Tara (“Buddhist Goddess”) is a revered figure in Mongolian Buddhism, and a production of a new contemporary ballet for the State National Ballet of Mongolia – it’s first in over fifty years – has delivered a contemporary masterpiece. Based upon the Buddhist story of the young girl Choijid, this completely new commission, to music by Mongolian composer E. Choidog, scored for Western orchestra, and with choreography by B. Jamyandagva (libretto by Sh. Surenjav) represents the essential Buddhist beliefs of this deeply religious country, and provides what may well be the only Buddhist ballet currently in performance. As a devotee of Les Ballets Russe, I am always mindful of Serge Diaghilev’s famous words to new works by composers and choreographers – ‘Astonish Me!” The ballet Choijid Tara has astonishment, beauty and drama that really I felt was up there with the best of Stravinsky’s marriage of music to movement. Russian trained Jamyandagya himself is Mongolia’s first ballet master and the Father of contemporary ballet in the country today.

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It’s not everyday one becomes titled; and certainly not to a title that has existed for 500 years. Yet that is exactly what has happened, I’ve just been assigned the Barony of Coigach from the Earl Cromatie in the Scottish Western Highlands. Coigach itself is an estate of some 145,000 acres, with the Barony being created in June 1511. The assignation has been completed with the Scottish Barony Register and accepted by the Lord Lyon, the Queen’s representative for Scotland. Next step is I need to apply for a new coat of arms – these are granted to individuals so I cannot inherit the previous one. To that end I have employed the services of a heraldic expert in Edinburgh to assist with the design; it’s quite an art. Heraldry has specific rules over what can and cannot be displayed, and they should identify the individual. They also have to be submitted to the Lord Lyon for approval, who if successful will enter the arms into the Scottish heraldic registry. I’m working on this project now – rather different from the usual contract reviews and spreadsheets I have to evaluate !

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Les Saisons Russes du XXI Siecle (The Russian Season in the 21st century) is a ballet programme and tribute to Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, which for twenty years in its original format between the two world wars held the social season in London, Paris, Monte Carlo and other cities in its thrall. Bringing together the best of the Russian immigres fleeing the Bolshevik revolution, it introduced the classicism of Russian Court ballets to the new and avant garde. Ballet stars whose names still reverberate today –  Nijinsky, Balanchine, Fokine, Pavlova, along with set designers including Salvador Dali, Jose Miro, Leon Bakst & Pablo Picasso, mixed in with a dash of Coco Chanel, Natalia Goncharova and Henri Matisse. And that is without mentioning the music, often specifically commissioned. Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Debussy & Ravel, plus many others. Stravinsky’s works with the Ballet Russe especially are now considered genius – Firebird, The Rite of Spring are still in the repertoire today. 

The Ballet Russe closed in 1929 when Diaghilev died suddenly, and although a whole host of revivals, most notably “Les Ballets Russe De Monte Carlo” kept the name burning, by the Second World War it was all over. No films were ever shot of the performances – Diaghilev had forbidden this – and in the chaos of war much of the material such as choreographic notes, costumes and sets were lost. Les Ballet Russe, it seemed, was lost to remain a memory and faded programmes. Step forward, however, Andris Liepa, a world ballet star and son of one of Diaghilev’s choreographers Maris Liepa. In research that has taken over 20 years, lost ballets have been painstakingly recreated from old reviews, photographs and from interviews taken from the few remaining dancers still alive, many of them now in their nineties. Where gaps in the choreography have remained, this have been filled in with new work by Liepa and Jurius Smoriginas.

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