The Mariinsky’s annual White Nights Festival takes in not just opera and ballet but also more intimate performances. Hence we have the wonderful mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk – usually to be seen on stage performing Boris Gudonov, the Queen of Spades, Valkyrie, Il Trovadore and so on, presenting some of the 19th century Russian salon romances.
Graduating from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St.Petersburg, she is one of the new batch of global operatic stars, and sang at Prince Charles wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Russian romances however are a different ball game – tales of doomed love, unrequited love, passionate love and odes to both the joys and despairs of life, they are often miniatures in cameo; a blend of piano and emotion that comes through in extraordinary clarity of nuance. It helps that Russian is a very powerful and romantic language.

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I’m a big balletomane and especially of the Russian ballet school; it’s one of the reasons I have an apartment in St.Petersburg. The Mariinsky is possibly the worlds greatest ballet troupe, and especially now the Bolshoi is caught up in political and financial scandals. Under Valery Gergiev the Mariinsky is a living institution; it commissions new works as well as offer tickets at a very reasonable price. The average age attending is 32 – at New Yorks Met it is 70. Hence it is common at the Mariinsky to see young schoolgirls and their young Mothers attending the ballet as well as elderly Babushka’s – it is art for the people, not just the elite as it has become in the United States and is in danger of doing so in London.

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I have arrived back at my St.Petersburg apartment, where true to form the White Nights are in full extension; this is the view from my balcony overlooking Maneznaya (Horse Riding) Square, with the Mikhailovsky Palace Stables just across the road. This photo was taken at 11pm.

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From March onwards the weather begins to build up along the southern coast of Sri Lanka, becoming progressively hotter and humid. These are electric days, the hum of not just the overhead ceiling fan but of the air conditioner hard at work. The sunlight is biting this far south, and the watery atmosphere although ideal for plants, is uncomfortable for mammals. So much so that between 11am and 3pm the garden is silent – nothing stirs and even the birdlife takes a siesta.

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Back in the Colonial days, Britain had about 10,000 civil servants in India (which then included Pakistan and Bangladesh), and another few thousand scattered around Burma, Malaysia, Singapore and Ceylon. They were augmented by the various traders, chancers, and adventurers – and their long suffering wives so memorably described by W. Somerset Maugham.  Scots dominated, then as now, meaning every colonial home and bar catering for this British diaspora had a regular supply of whisky on hand. Many blends of varying quality made their way from Scotland to the region; some of the ancient brands such as Black Dog, Old Keg and Bagpiper were actually distilled locally using know-how and equipment brought in from Scotland.

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Clutch Thorn (think “Axl Rose”) & The Tiananmen Squares were an air guitar heavy metal group who went on tour in Shanghai in September 2000. We hyped the city up with stickers, t-shirts and posters advertising a one-off evening of “concerts” around various bars and clubs around Shanghai, got dressed up in these absurd outfits, and accompanied by the gorgeous, pouting Tiananmen Squarettes….went out to party!

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I had one of these fellows fly into my Lounge the other evening, I am used to many strange and beautiful bugs coming in, but this chap tops the list. At about three inches long and an inch and a half high he’s a compact animal, and despite the fierce looks was rather docile.

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I have a troop of the exotically named “Purple Faced Green Leaf Langurs” regularly visiting my garden in Sri Lanka. They’re quite a rare monkey, so I’m lucky to have them, but are unpopular with the locals as they decimate the fruit trees. They are discouraged by the letting off of fireworks aimed at them. I don’t mind them though, I have plenty of bananas, jak and mango and it’s a small price to pay for having them regard my land as a bit of a sanctuary. So Purple Faced Green Leaf Monkeys are welcome to roam my property and they frequently do. The troop comprises a large male, who stands about three feet tall, and often makes a gorilla-ish sound. “Owo owo owo owo” in a dark guttural throat. With him are various females – perhaps a harem of about twenty, and various younger monkeys and infants. When males reach adult hood they are expelled and have to go off on their own – or fight the dominant male for the right to be King

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One of the wonderful things about Sri Lanka is living so close to nature, although often the natural cycle can expose itself somewhat brutally in terms of life and inevitable death. It’s no wonder the concept of reincarnation is so strong in the Buddhist beliefs here, daily exposure to the natural worlds recycling technologies means the underpinning of reincarnation is a viable way to understand the rather too quaintly titled “circle of life”. That’s only half the equation, the circle of death stands by opposing it.

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Udawalawe is the nearest national park to where I am based in Sri Lanka, sited on the edge of the southern plains just as the rugged mountains of the islands interior begin to appear. Adams Peak shows itself amongst the many crags, and this huge expanse of rolling mountains, carved in part from ancient volcanic rock allows Udawalawe its regular downpours, keeping the area lush. It is one of the best places in Sri Lanka to see wild Elephant.

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