La Trivialista

I present to you one William Thomson, someone Google reliably informs La Triv is an Ancestral Personage.  This 1886 portrait was painted by James Guthrie, and is part of the collection of Glasgow Museums — possible hanging right now beneath the dusty rafters of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.  It’s called “Old Willie, the village worthy”.

I love this picture for so many reasons.  One, it’s just a gorgeous example of portaiture.  Look how Signor Guthrie has captured every crag and crevice of Signor Thomson’s face!  (God forbid Signor Guthrie should ever have turned his attentions to the currently sleep-deprived La Triv — would need a truckload of Shu Uemura Stage Performer, a Princess among primers, to bear up to the laser-like scrutiny of the  portraitist’s eye).

Two, La Famiglia Trivialista has so clearly sprung from the loins of this man.  The auld cobbler is the spitting image of La Triv’s beloved Grandpa Sam, a native of Kirkcudbright before he answered an ad for fruit pickers and voyaged to the Wide Brown Land when Pappa Trivialista was a wee lad of two in 1951.  And Old Willie even has the same sloping snake shoulders as La Triv’s no. 2 brother, Sport Billy Superdad.

Most of all, I just want to reach into this picture and grab this man, cut through his dour Scotch exterior, and chat to him about his day, his life.  He would have been poor.  He would have been hard-working.  So what did James Guthrie, who was only 29 years old when he painted this, have to do to convince him to sit for a portrait?  Would Willie have thought that a trivial waste of time (gods forbid!)?

In 1898, the Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser published a piece about Old Willie, and it included these gemstones:

He is somewhat striking in appearance, and when arrayed in his apron, with an old soft hat on his head and a pair of ‘specs’ on his nose, he has the appearance of having just sprung from some old world scene of a century ago. Hard work has been his lot in life, yet he has never allowed it to blunt the higher aspirations of an active and superior mind…His private life he looks upon as his exclusively to use according to conscience and the dictates of reason. His tastes have lifted him above the sordid and commonplace in human life to the contemplation of the wonderful and beautiful in nature. 

Genetics — and history — are marvellous things.  As is Google.

For a long time, La Triv has been quietly fascinated by Daniel Johns.  Such a prodigiously talented — yet formally untrained — enigma wrapped in a made-to-order, super ethical and organic rock star sausage casing.

His new National Carrier* anthem, performed with the ACO, has been play-viewed many times here at the Triv Media Control Console.  Hope I don’t wear out YouTube’s tubes.

I think he needs to join Hany in the Spunk Yurt.

*This post and video should in no way be construed as Brand Trivialista endorsement of the National Carrier.  The recent trip to the Troubled Eurozone was taken down the back of the Q****s bus, and was an unparalleled experience in tiny seat pitch, grouchy service and long-haul hunger and thirst.  Based on the overall customer experience, Q****s’s new theme should have been penned and performed by someone more like, hmm, Peter Andre.  

Never let it be said La Triv is afraid of tackling Hard News.

This morning, en route to a pick-me-up solo breakfast, your correspondent passed this sight corner of Park and Castlereagh.

I popped on my sharpest, roving-reporter newshound-style elbows and pushed through the pack to uncover the cause of the cordon. But one copper was too busy yawning and the other so preoccupied with his mouthful of bacon and egg McMuffin that my probing, insightful questions went unanswered.

Stay tuned.

(Oh, and because I know my loyal readers so well [after all, at least one of you three is a blood relative], let me allay a fear which I’m sure is creeping in about now. Despite this recent move toward Hard News, LaTrivialista.com will NOT be going paywall anytime soon. Breathe easy…for now.)

The amazing Persephone Ooks — oops, I mean Books, on one of my fave streets, Lamb’s Conduit.  PB is an amazing champion of The Sisterhood.  La Triv had one of their diaries last year and I srsly loved it.

Greg Malouf is doing amazing things in Skye Gyngell’s place at Petersham Nurseries Cafe, including this divine dessert.  Miss A and I were very, very lucky that La Belle Ange flew over from Dublin to take luncheon with us.

Miu Mius + cobbles = danger.

Regular readers may or may not be aware of La Triv’s insatiable obsession with vertical giardinettos — and this is a fab example of the species at Anthropologie on Regent Street.

I pilgrimaged to Scarlet & Violet, current florist to the stars.  Vic Brotherson is a legend — I honed my amateur floral craft, such as it is, with her at Wild at Heart back in the day.  She deserves to have people like Kate Moss and Nigella raving about her fleurs.  I bought this for the Senior Seriousimos, at whose castello we were dossing and leaving all kinds of underwear and mess strewn about the historical floors.

Gods I love Regent’s Park.  If I was the Regent, I’d live there on a full-time basis.

Now, on the coffee front, this was a FIND and a half.  Run by lovely Aussies 1000 times groovier than I could ever have hoped to be when I was living in London at 22, with amazing food and off-the-charts-great coffee.  Trust me, they give good bean.

*Sigh*.  There are no words.

The amazing wit and eye of Monsieur Jonathan Adler knows no peer.

The male JCC alarmed me greatly by suggesting he would quite like one of these.  Thanks, Mr Conran.

More Conran genius.

Tried to stalk some celebs in Primmy Hill, but found nowt but this cute battery-op pup.  Both JCCs highly satisfied.

Was loving my Sugarsole electric bleu pumps, til the unceasing rain turned them into a trainwreck.

A much-missed fave of Seriousimo’s and mine.  Tell Ashley we sent you.  But whatever you do, don’t go with children — Ashley doesn’t even try to mask his hatred of them.  But once you’ve tried the man’s wares, you’ll forgive him anything.

Gods, I’m so scared when I go into Ottolenghi that I will suddenly shed all shame and literally dive into one of their carefully orchestrated gourmet displays, motoring in with a mouth as wide as Moby Dick, disgracing myself in front of various Notting Hill glams and their accompanying Russian oligarch sugar-pappas.

But this time I exercised restraint.

La Caravana Famiglia is returned from the Troubled Eurozone.  La Triv is happy to report that, despite economic woes, the macarons are still delicious and the Parisiens still replete with ‘tude.  Would we want either any other way?  They’re nothing if not plucky, those Frenchies.  Vive La France.

This is probably what you shouldn’t let your male JCC do when in Paris.  Pacifists, look away now.

A display of airborne military might on La Fête Nationale, viewed from the safety of La Triv’s spiritual home, St Germain.

Simplement belle.  Love a grape vine arbor.

Just what we all need — a cardi festooned with various pieces of delicate furniture.

Suffices it to say, La Famiglia Trivialista-Seriousimo won’t be booking its next hol with this lot.

Signor Seriousimo and La Triv pulled on the glad rags and headed off to dinner at the legendary Grand Véfour, the establishment that claims to have invented the modern concept of eating out.  I claim they have invented a serious millstone for the famiglial wallet, as Seriousimo — full of joie de vivre and Pomerol — declared that, from now on, no trip to Paris would be complete without a meal there.  Yiiikes.  Better start generating some traffic on this blog so I can flog some loot, or rent out significant space beneath the dusty rafters of La Maison Trivialista to foreign students.

La Triv and both the male and female Junior Cost Centres (JCCs) decided to travel to the Troubled Eurozone via America.  In transito, Male JCC became ill.  What would normally be a very happy happenstance — an unexpected stopover in La Grande Pomme — is now a very strange stance, as all La Famiglia Trivialista (minus Signor Seriousimo, who can’t depart the Wide Brown Land just yet) have seen of NYC is the inside of an albeit very nice hotel room, and a paediatric medical centre.

It’s all out there on my doorstep…so near and yet so very, very far.  I literally cannot believe I am here, and sorta kinda not here.

Like, in transit.  Or purgatory.

We are now armed with antibiotics for Male JCC, who’s happily showing signs of improvement.  He needs to be “back to himself” to fly, i.e. cheeky and ably channeling his inner rapscallion.  Looks like La Triv could be up for a battle with the Faceless Men of the insurance world on our return home; I’ll be ready to whack them with sheafs of hotel bills and airline change fee receipts.  Really looking forward to that.

Grr.