Where To See The Grave Of Grimaldi The Clown in London, England

The blue plaque giving Grimaldi's dates, 1778 to 1837.

 The grave of Grimaldi the clown is in a park in Islington. 

The name Grimaldi is Italian. The Monaco dynasty has the name Grimaldi.

Grimaldi was on the stage from childhood. from the age of two. He acted in pantomime as a monkey or fairy and all sorts of other characters.

 His first wife and newborn died in childbirth. To forget and recover, he performed on stage twice a night.

On stage he danced, like his dancer mother, who was in many productions with him. He was an acrobat, did sword fights. 

He was a great actor. He walked through the streets of London to observe characters to copy.

When he shot himself in the foot, his concerned mother engaged a young lady from the entertainment world to look after him and she became his second wife and mother of his son.

He was extremely popular. Two of his catchphrases have survived. "Here we are again." And, "Shall I?" was his phrase which involved the audience who shouted, "Yes!"

 His son also performed on stage with him.

What legacy did he leave us? When he started on stage the clown wore rags as a village idiot. He whitened his face and drew a big smile in red lipstick, the traditional clown face. He added to his costume circles and then triangles, in bright attention getting contrasting black and white, which have become the traditional harlequin costume.

He died in 1837 and Dickens re-edited Grimaldi's memoirs. Dickens was surprised that this work sold successfully. 

Grimaldi was remembered by those who had seen him and those who were born later. On the anniversary of Grimaldi's death each year all the clowns of London and afar gathered to remember him, wearing their clown costumes reminiscent of him, and do so until this day. When the church went out of service, the event moved to another church.

What can you see and do?

1 If you go to London you can see his grave in a pleasant little park in Islington,  Joseph Grimaldi Park.

2 The plaque on the house where he lived. Islington.

3 You can buy clown costumes from party shops and online from fancy dress suppliers. 

Useful Websites

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6531280/joseph-grimaldi

wikipedia

Joseph Grimaldi - Wikipedia

Joseph Grimaldi Park - Wikipedia

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

BHA

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee was by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

Next meetings will be on these dates (unless a national holiday in Singapore or worldwide)

Themes and word of the day are tentative

2021

JULY - JUBILANT JULY

Theme/WOD Jubilant

WORKSHOPS & EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS (based on level one of Pathways)

1 Your first speech or role EASY ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Articles A and The, Plurals, Tenses, Pronunciation, Singlish)

2 CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Wed July 7th 

Saturday 17th

July 4rh American Independence Day.

2021 AUGUST - AWESOME AUGUST

1 Pathway Level 1 Introductory Speeches

2 Evaluations

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2021 SEPT - SUPER SEPTEMBER

Wed 1st

Sat 18th SPEECH CONTESTS

Humorous Speech Contest

Table Topics Contest

2021 OCT - ODD OCTOBER

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

2021 NOV - NOVELTY NOVEMBER

Wed 3rd

Sat 20th Wed

Diwali Hindu Festival of lights Nov 4th.

Nov 25th American Thanksgiving.

Hanukah starts 28 Dec 8 days until Dec 6. Jewish Festival of lights, celebrated by Jesus.

2021 DEC - DARLING DECEMBER

Wed  1st (Hanukah if not previous month. Festival foods.)

Sat 18th

Speech on 

JAN 2022 - JOYFUL JANUARY

Wed Jan 5th New beginning - forget the past

Sat 15 Long-term plans = for the future/Chinese New Year (CNY for short)

2022 FEB FUN FEBRUARY

Theme Love and romance - Chinese New Year

Feb 1st and 2nd are holidays - do we move this Feb 2nd meeting date?)

Wed 2nd (Valentine's Day Mon Feb 14)

Sat 19th

2022 MAR - MARVELLOUS MARCH

Theme

Wed 2nd

Sat 19

March 1st is Christian Pancake day. 

2022 APR - APRIL'S AIMS

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

Muslim Ramadan 1-30 April.

Jewish Passover (Seder meal=Last supper) April

 16

2022 MAY - MODERNISING MAY

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2022 JUN - JUBILANT JUNE

Wed 1st

Sat 18th

Jul 6, Jul 16, Aug 3, Aug 20, Sept 7, Sept 17, Oct 5, Oct 15, Nov 2, Nov 19, Dec 7, Dec 17.

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

Bellanger Restaurant, Islington Green Has Closed - What next?

The Bellanger restaurant at Islington Green is closed since around August 10th 2019. They said if you have a booking they will contact you.

I was wondering if they would open elsewhere, taking with them the paintings and pictures and furniture. If you want to buy something, now is the time to ask.

Or will they sell the place as is?

Sometimes the landlord asks you to remove everything or charges you for removing it. Sometimes you can offer to sell to the landlord the ovens etc so they can sell it as ready to go restaurant to another business. But other times the landlord won't pay or expects new tenants to be a brand with their own decor starting to renovate and old stuff simply gets in the way.

You can read my old posts about the about to depart restaurant and the locations of other related restaurants and what is nearby in Islington.

Their old address was:
Bellanger Restaurant
9 Islington Green
London N1 2XH
England

Update
Tues 20 Aug 2019. I looked on their website.
The Bellanger website says:
Other dog friendly Corbin & King restaurants:
Soutine in St John's Wood, Colbert in Chelsea and ZL Café at Brasserie Zédel in Soho
Your closest Corbin & King restaurant is now
The Delaunay in Aldwych or Fischer's in Marylebone.

I tried googling their address to see whether another restaurant had opened up on the site but just got referred back to the Bellanger website.

Useful Websites
https://www.bellanger.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islington

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Italian Coffee? Can you name a Coffee? Espresso. Lavazzo.

Can you name an Italian coffee? Espresso. Lavazzo. Lavazzo is the one I have seen most often advertised by their signboards on the pavement (US word sidewalk) outside coffee shops in NW London. At the Business Centre near the Angel station in Islington, one of the sponsors of the event was Lavazzo and they held tasting events in one of two talks areas.

Registering and Seating Mistake
My business partner and I arrived too early to register. After registering I wanted to take my place early, knowing that on previous occasions I had arrived late and got no seat. I made the mistake of allowing myself to be persuaded to use my time going to see a few stalls, and wandered like an arrow away from the  area instead of circling it and watching as the seats filled up and going in when half of them were full.

Although my business partner wanted to save me a seat, two people from the Lavazza company or area took seats which the organiser had allocated to guests. Despite registering, that was not enough effort on my part. The limited number of seats went to those registered on a first come first served basis. My partner phoned me but by the time I raced back along the hall no seats were left. I tried to ask a nearby stall holder if I could borrow a seat. He said he needed it for anybody who turned to talk to me. But I could sit on it until somebody turned up. I thanked him and sat down.

I had a seat. But I was too far to hear the speaker. So I went and stood on the side of the workshop.

Entertaining Talk Mentioned Croissants
I enjoyed the talk. I already knew the story of the Turkish invaders, who were supposedly discovered tunneling into Vienna, and thwarted, and the bakers celebrated by baking a croissant, in the shape of the crescent on the Turkish flag. (If the Turks had won, perhaps the canny bakers would have sold the croissant for the opposite reason. Since many people say the story is a myth, as somebody once said to me, quoting a common quotation phrase, why let the truth get in the way of a good story.)

About half way through this entrancing  entertainment my colleague signalled to me to swap places. As he left he told me that he was annoyed that the drinks were supposed to be paired but that was not happening early enough, nor in time to serve hot coffee with the food selection offered.

Hot and Cold Coffee
The solo drinks machine served three cups at a time, so the tables were given drinks one table at a time. It took at least ten minutes to serve all the tables.  (It was in plastic disposable containers the size of espresso cups and half full as is normal size for espresso in Italy.) By the time the speaker finished his lengthy introductions and suggested matching the first set of coffee with the food the coffee of those served first had gone cold.

Food Pairing
The food selection was liquorice, figs, milk and dark chocolate. The two big surprises for me were the food and the coffee.

I Applaud Iced Coffee
By the time I arrived the first three coffees, black coffees, originally hot drinks had been drunk by my colleague. What I got was a later serving of an iced milky coffee which seemed to have a frothy top. It was delicious. And it went perfectly with the liquorice. The liquorice was in cylinders like the sort which used to come in L i c  o r i  c e Allsorts.

Delights of Soft Liquorice
The brand name for the UK confectionary should be L i q u o r i c e  All sorts (only one space before the capital A). I am using spaces to defeat the spellchecker which despite my ignoring suggestions which flash up and flash off before I can click on the x to reject suggestions, has once so far succeeded in changing the word to Louise when I was not watching.)

Unlike the UK confectionary, which had hard liquorice, the one served by Lavazzo was sort. Unlike the hard one which I did not like, the soft one was wonderful. I would like to know where to buy it. When I find out, I shall tell you in a post on this website Travel with Angela Lansbury on blogger.com

Look for Lavazzo Cups
My colleague had noticed and taken a goodie bag under the table containing information on Lavazza, samples of coffee and one small porcelain coffee cup, Italian espresso size. I was disappointed not to get a complimentary cup. It means at a break from work only one of us gets the cup, or we use it in succession. But he said he likes a larger espresso serving anyway.

Espresso All Day in England
Another interesting finding from the talk by the chef promoting Lavazzo, was that although in Italy it is still the fashion to have espresso only as an after dinner pick me up in the evening, in the UK espresso in drunk earlier in the day, after lunch and even at breakfast time. (In coffee shops as well as at home.)

Coffee Shops Make Good Business
We also heard the history of coffee shops. When they started, as is often the case now, people met to have business over coffee. One of the coffee shops, Lloyds, became what is now still the biggest insurance company in the UK. Another coffee shop became Sotheby's selling, auctioning antiques and high price furniture and furnishings.

Coffee Eclipsed By Tea
Tea was introduced and took over as the drink of choice, as you will see in British WWI and WWII films where in time of trouble or dramatic comedy the heroes and heroines of the day sit down to chat and recover over a 'nice cup of tea'. But in our era coffee has again become a favoured drink after dinner and throughout the day.

Coffee Revival
To my surprise I did not like any of the sweet chocolate or fruits with a strong coffee. They seemed to me to match a sweet coffee. You should try this at home. Match up your dark and light and strong black or weak, sweet white coffees with dad and light chocolate and figs and soft liquorice.

To sum up, the things I learned were:
1 The Italians still drink espresso after evening dinner in tiny cups. Lavazzo produce small Italian size espresso cups so look for them when Lavazzo put on a promotion.
2 The croissant is supposedly an imitation of the crescent on the Turkish flag when Viennese bakers celebrated surviving a threatened invasion.
3  Arrive early at workshops.
4 Look around or ask for a take home 'goody bag'.
5 Taste and buy soft liquorice.
6 Make at home or order in coffee bars and restaurants a cold, frothy sweet white coffee made from Lavazzo coffee.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Italy promoting wines, breads, oil, cheese and coffee

This event was a trade only show on Sunday and Monday. It is open to the public on Tuesday. At about 10.30 a bottle of wine will be arriving outside. I suggest you arrive and collect your badge earlier. I have several posts on what I enjoyed.

First the food and drink: Events: I went to a coffee tasting organised by Lavazza, a wine tasting on Prosecco. Stalls: I saw many more coffees and wines, salamis, and tried sausages, cheeses including blue cheese, pizza, tomatoes, several varieties of panettone (bread with sultanas in a dome shape, popular at Christmas time and all year, the most delicious Sicilian pastries with fruits and almonds, and pistachio ice cream. 

As for novelties: my favourites were silver covered almonds and presentation packs of a six bottles and a scarf or tie. I'll do separate posts and pictures of my favourites.

After the show, whether you are an importer, restaurant, caterer, or just an individual, you can order several of the foods and drinks which were displayed, and you can use a discount code. 

If you can't make the show in London, you have more chances in Amsterdam in November 2016; or in Warsaw, Poland; and Chicago, USA in 2017.

Open in London at Business Design Centre, Islington,Tuesday 19 July 9.30 am-4.30 pm.

More details from: 

www.bellavita.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. 

Birthday Meal at Bellanger Restaurant, Islington, London

The Bellanger Restaurant in Islington was recommended by AA Gill in the Sunday Times (the English one, not the Singapore version). The cuisine is from Alsace, an area of France which shares some history and wines with now friendly neighbour Germany.

I took along my own large birthday badge which you can pin on your front or place on the table, using the pull out tab at the back.

We started with pink Champagne.

Birthday message from the restaurant.

Affogato is ice cream with espresso coffee poured over it. The walnut tart was recommended by AA Gil. (I never got to taste the cheesecake since the diet police told me I was too overweight to indulge in cheesecake. Since we plan to go back, that's something to look forward to trying.)

Bellanger
9 Islington Green, London N1 2XH
reservations@ballanger.co.uk
www.bellanger.co.uk
Tel:020 7226 2555.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.