Gertsamtkunstwerk

A bit fishy...?

I have just been looking for someone in the Staff Directory. This is a name that can be used either a first name or a surname, and kust to complicate matters has at least three deifferent common spellings.

So I did a search on each spelling in turn. Tedious or what. Until I came across, in one Regional office, one by the surname of Trout, and, in the next region, but it seems, the same job, is one by the name of Salmon.

You couldn't make it up!

Also in the course of search I encountered someone by the name of Jodie Marsh. Poor woman, imagine sharing your name with that mingeing model...

Speed Dialling

I mentioned to Jimmy the other day that he was Number 2 in my phone's speed dialling memory. He was a bit pissed off, especially when, in reponse to his question, I said no, number one isn't my mother or my sister or my brother or my manager. I eventually confessed that 1 is Voicemail, a preset in the phone - like most, I think...

When I rang him yesterday, I said "Hello, my Number 2 man...!"

"Don't start!" he said threateningly*. "I'm number one. Get it! Number one, moi."

*mock-threatening, that is...but he does a damn good imitation of a numbskull threatening Sarf London geezer

A me-me

Stealing from Clare at Boob Pencil.

I know, you're supposed to be asked, but I can't do the music one because I have very little music on my PC. And my music blogging is bigger than three eternal songs.

1) If you had to be on a reality show, which would you be on?

I'm going to have to go with Big Brother. It really is the big brother of Reality TV. Indeed, before Series 1, I watched the documentary and actually thought about applying. But didn't.

It's a Channel Four show and was meant to be a little bit left brain, off-centre, cultish. Shame it became required viewing for every 17 year old half-wit in Christendom, and the last series or two have become unwatchable, due to the homogeneity of vacuous self-obsessed youngsters.

I visualised it as a glorified student after-hours coffee party, not the sort I was evicted from, but the sort where it was possible to sit back and let minds roam over abstract subjects. Not 'the meaning of life' or those interminable politics things with no root in reality. The sort of conversation which accidentally probes the relationship of the individual to society, with lots of silliness and giggles in a spontaneous way. A chance to meet fellow misfits, a chance to challenge each others' preconceptions, a time for reflection. But I couldn't stand it. I need stimulation, even if it's just books and t'internet. And I don't think I could handle the forced intimacy.

Or sharing a bedroom.

I have a nasty feeling I'd turn into 'Auntie'. It's a tendency that's growing on me. I can't be 'Mother' but on our day trip from Taba to Jerusalem I did become a bit Auntie-like, lending money for the crossing of the border (I hasten to add that the guys and gals in question repaid me within twenty minutes of return to the hotel)

But in the end, I couldn't do it. Sure, I'd have a good wax before I went in, but it's a long time to spend exposing one's legs to the nation.

2) What author most influences your own work as a writer? Or, if you are an original, what type of writer do you think you will influence once you are published?

This is my problem as a writer. I am neither original nor of a genre. Sometimes I read a blog, and that influences my style. Probably Peter is the voice that plays in the back of my mind the most when I'm writing. But not always.

Non-blog writing. I would like to cite the great. Knowing I could never be great, I would love to emulate Marion Keyes. Freya North is my favourite in that stratum. But Marian Keyes is where I would want to be. I probably could if I applied myself. My problem is, I don't think that getting a novel published is as simple as being 'good'. It's a lot to do with who you know. So I'm cynical about the likelihood, and I just write for my own pleasure compulsion. And it's totally unpublishable. And I couldn't bear anyone else to read it. I have a wild imagination. But that's not healthy. And somebody might try some amateur psycho-analysis. The shame...!

3) If you had the opportunity to travel back in time and tell your 20 year old self all about your current life, what would your 20 year old self be the most surprised by?

I always set great store by ambition and success. Looked at it objectively, at twenty six, I had it all. A qualified accountant, in the toughest of tough institutes, and an elected councillor. Actually, some bloody achievement at twenty-six, not many people achieve that. A year later I bought a house. On my own.

Yet, ten years plus on, I am a lot happier - a job that pays way too much for old rope. Hours of leisure. No drive, no ambition. I would not be happy now if I hadn't had that whole mid-twenties success (on the surface) anyway. My twenty year old self would be deeply surprised at my life of lazy contentment, even though my twenty year old self was as lazy as fuck!

4) What's your biggest frustration?

My own limitations and shortcomings. It took me a long time to realise that my biggest fault was my laziness. It's a funny sort of laziness, I don't spend a lot of time doing nothing, even my TV watching is outcome oriented. Maybe it's not laziness but a 'jack-of-all-trades' mentality. I could never be single-minded, because I do want it all. And if something's difficult, I don't push to master it. I settle for adequate, or I give up.

5) What's in your purse right now?

In English, well, it took me two minutes to find it was I that drunk on Friday night?. Switch and Boots and Smiths cards. A book of eleven first class stamps. A five pound note, a slip saying there are no toilets at Westminster Abbey and my seat has no view. Receipt for Oyster Pre-pay Top-up. A fifty pound note and an M&S receipt. £1.77 and €1.01 - mainly Spanish but also Portuguese and German - in shrapnel, and two passport photos of me. My handbag is totally empty; much of the handbaggy stuff is in my rucksack.

Handel and Haydn

Simon's posting Westminster Abbey, Carolyn Sampson reminds me to write a review of a concert I went to at Westminster Abbey, mainly to hear Carolyn Sampson - I had booked the ticket after I had been alerted by Simon...

I had booked the ticket, then about ten days before the concert, an email circulated at work, saying that it was about time for a night out. If the concert had been at the South Bank or the Barbican I would have had to decline the drink-up, but the wonderfulness of working at the heart of Westminster Village was the ability to nip to the concert as an interval in the works' drinkies.

I was stunningly underwhelemed by Westminster Abbey as a venue. Indeed I had a rantette on Usenet:

I do not make a habit of going to Westminster Abbey...This evening I had a a £5 ticket, in the Quire Stalls, no view. Fine.

In the interval we make to go out. Some silly Jobsworth questions why we want to go out; one woman suggests that she really doesn't want to be treated like a caged animal. Jobsworth insinuates that if we go out we might try and take over empty seats with a view. (I would have been angry if they existed; I would have been willing to pay, but they were all sold out)

I say "I need a cigarette; without a cigarette I can go really quite
mad" Jobsworth gets scared and lets us out. Halfway down the aisle, a woman turns to me and says "You know that man said 'Some people want to have a _cigarette_ during the interval'!" (reminiscent of Lady Bracknell's handbag). Yes, well, what of it? Some other people wanted to pee.

I stood in the courtyard and was told to go out the gate. I checked I
would be allowed back in. When the bell sounded for the end of the
interval and I made to go in, another Jobsworth snootily said "Yes?" I said I was going in. "To the concert?" he enquired with utter
condescension and snootiness. I felt like saying "Look, arsehole, I know I am fifty years younger than you , and obviously quite the wrong gender, and I'm wearing a fleece, and carrying a rucksack, but don't you dare condescend to me like that." Instead I just glared. I had a suit on, it wasn't like I really looked a student (perish the thought). I'm tempted to write, 'and I'm not young', but, frankly, that's irrelevant - if someone aged 14, or 9, had paid to be at that concert, they shouldn't be treated the way I was treated.

It made me quite angry. I'm going to be snooty. In the Quire Stalls (no view) we didn't clap in between movements of Haydn's Nelson Mass, unlike the corporate people in the £28 seats. I have never been treated with such utter contempt by any venue in my entire life.

People say that Covent Garden is snooty; I have never experienced that - in fact, the staff seem to like common people like me.

There are so many venues round London used for concerts, but the way we were treated by the Jobsworths at Westminster Abbey was just appalling.

I don't know what their problem is; I'm tempted to say, fear of women. I wonder just how much profit they got from tonight's concert.

There weren't even any toilet facilities provided, which is scandalous. I can hold it in, but I have not experienced multiple childbirths nor do I have a prostate, ageing or otherwise, to give me trouble. But when I rejoined my colleagues in the pub and went to the loo before ordering a drink, they all laughed at me.

It is the twenty first century, and it's about time these religious nuts started to understand that we have paid money to be in their sacred venue, and whilst they continue to treat middle-aged women with contempt, they are demonstrating why so many people have rejected Organised Religion.

So it was a good thing that the concert was so enjoyable. It would have been more enjoyable if I had been sat out front with the voices projecting towards me, but I accepted that limitation when I bought a 'Quire' seat with no view.

The performers were:

Carolyn Sampson (s)
Ann Murray (m-s)
James Gilchrist (t)
James Rutherford (bs)
Robert Quinney (organ)

The Choir of Westminster Abbey
St James's Baroque
James O'Donnell

The programme was Handel: Chandos Anthem 'As pants the heart for cooling streams HWV251c; Salve Regina HWV241; Organ Concerto in F, op 4. no. 4 HWV292

Interval

Haydn: Mass in D minor (Missa in angustiis, 'Nelson' mass) Hob.XXII:11

I wasn't overwhelmed by the Organ Concerto, but the rest was delightful. I still haven't worked out what I like about Handel. Logically, he's very predictable and samey-samey, but he just does something for me. I especially liked the Salve Regina.

But nothing like as much as the Haydn. I'm going through a bit of a Haydn phase at the moment. Currently an unfashionable composer, under-rated and underperformed. Possibly not epoch-making, and thus, not leaving the legacy of influence that Bach or Mozart or Beethoven did. But I don't, on the whole, listen to music to go pointy-headed about 'legacy' and 'influence' but to hear the music. If I could only use one word abut Haydn I would use the word 'lyrical'. But that would suggest that I was ignoring that bright clear soundworld.

Carolyn sounded gorgeous, as always. I won't comment on the other singers, because none of them sounded impresive from where I was sitting. But that highlighted phrase is the key - I really was not in a position to judge the fine details and nuances.

Westminster Abbey is a gorgeous building but I suspect I will not be visiting it again in a hurry, unless there's a concert that catches my eye grabs me by the scruff of the neck. Next stop, St John's Smith Square.

People on Transport

I got on the bus on Brixton Hill. There were no empty double seats, and no empty single outside halves. So I turned to a woman and said "Excuse me, please..", expecting her to shove over or stand up. Instead, grudgingly, she swung her legs round and glared at me. She was no thinner than me (and I'm being kind...). She obviously hadn't clocked my rucksack, sitting happily on my back, containing my handbag, a three-CD box set, a sandwich box, an A5 notebook, and my camera, as well as assorted ephemera. I just could not avoid clouting her in the face...

I alighted from the Tube at Vauxhall station. I have a slight problem at Vauxhall. I emerge from the Northbound platform, and have to cross over the path from the 'down' escalator to reach the 'up' esclator. At that time of day, people are pouring off suburban South Western Trains to hit the Vic line to head into Central London. I am amazed at how many of them run. I have some sympathy with people running for trains. If they are only once in fifteen minutes and you just miss one, it's an irritating waste of time.

But the Victoria Line? In the peak the trains are a minute apart. Two at most. I wonder how stressed these people are. I decided in my early twenties that I intended to spend the best part of forty years travelling to work. I decided to make the best of it, relax and enjoy the experience. Their stress is their problem. But when they lack the ability to anticipate people emerging from the platform and cannon into them, it becomes a wider problem. I am fairly steady on my feet and fairly solidly built, but I still don't like being barged into.

Going up the stairs to leave the station. I followed a man wielding a bright yellow golfing-umbrella-as-ski-pole. At about the level of my eyes. He was waving it around unpredictably. So, at the top of the stairs I pointed out to him that he was brandishing a dangerous weapon and he could hurt someone. He looked at me with utter contempt and said,

"Calm down dear..."

I thought - 'So, you wish to be patronising. You have summoned up all your intelligence and your experience of nearly twenty-five years on this planet and the best put-down you can come up with is a catch phrase from a universally loathed TV advert fronted by a universally detested Michael Winner for a product resolutely not targeted at you. '

What a shame I couldn't summon up a pithy soundbite to precis that. He was wearing an iPod.

It reminded me a few weeks ago I decided to take my chance and cross Horseferry Road. There were traffic light controlled junctions to the left and right of me , but I just could not be arsed to walk down, so I decided to dodge the traffic. Usually it works; on this occasion I got unlucky and had to wait on the white line. I was not frightfully bothered, just kept looking at the traffic to my left, and occasionally to my right. A white van drove past, and the man driving it decided to laugh at me in a sneering put-down way. I wondered what his point was. Okay, I had misjudged - hey not the end of the world. But he was driving a white van and wearing a Post-It Note coloured tie.

A few years ago I was at a friend's house and she was showing me a book someone had bought her, called How To Bring Up Boys, or somesuch. It was so bad it was comedy. It was predicated on an assumption of all fathers being emotionally illiterate and stunted (and omni-absent) and all mothers being paranoic smotherers, with no acquaintance with any men, and it said some really stupid things.

But amidst the almost total stupidity was one notion that made me think - the rule-proving exception - that many boys are arrogant and condescending because no one has bothered to take them down a peg or two. I have some sympathy for boys in their mid teens, with their adult-size bodies but poor co-ordination, their adolescent emotions, and their confusion about their role (child? adult?) and what it takes to be a man. Much of the cockiness is a mask for a lack of self-esteem and subtlety.

But when men in their twenties or thirties are wielding yellow umbrellas or wearing yellow ties and putting other people down, I reckon they have not left that adolescence.

Update: And if Sasha had trackback, I could link to a post which finishes

And they looked to me like kids whose parents had never said to them, "you know, son, you might sometimes be wrong."

Faith

This simply isn't as good as it ought to be. Just refer to my post on George Michael's Greatest Hits, and you will appreciate that I really like George Michael.

This album contains some wonderful tracks, especially Father Figure, One More Try and Kissing a Fool. I have actually played it three times. Once with Jimmy. We both agreed that George Michael is a great singer. And we're not using the word 'great' lightly. An artist and a mensch.

I am trying to work out whether it's a case of the Emperoro's New Clothes, or the misfortune of listening to a cassette-taped-from vinyl. Or maybe what mood I'm in. But, much to my surprise, when I go to tot up the scores at the end of blogging all my records (by forty), this will not be featuring in any Hall of Fame.

Cyrano photos

This and more at New York's Metropolitan Opera rather fabulous Database, which I have not yet given myself permission to peruse!

Curlew River

An opera in one act by Benjamin Britten. Actually, A Parable for Church performance...

It is based on a fusion between Japanese No-drama, simple and austere , and moral tales of the mediaeval church, set in the East Anglian Fens. As Ben himself wrote the tale is "the simple one of a demented mother seeking her lost child."

In following the story it is important to note that is men telling a women's story to maintain the existing patriarchal order. Anything else would be contrary to the mediaeval church and to Japanese No-drama.

I have a video I captured off the TV last year, the Birmingham Opera Group's performance at the Proms. I actually had a ticket to go and see this but it was one of those (relatively rare) extremely hot days last summer and I was already drained from spending a day lying in the garden. So I watched it on TV instead. I regret that I didn't go, but I also understand why.

Musically it is (must be) unique. Having had that No influence spelt out to me, I can hear the Japanese influence in the drums that provide a counterpoint to the quasi-plainchant of the vocal line. Thi s isn't so obvious in the CD that I have. Which raises an interesting question - can a performance nearly thirty years after a composer's death be actually more authentic than one directed by the Composer.

I was about to write that it's not a piece to fall in love with instantly; but, actually, I did. I'm not saying that everybody will, could. Musically it is guaranteed to shatter any preconceptions about opera as a genre, certainly any notion of a homogenous genre.

It is not exactly full of pretty tunes you would whistle as you  leave the theatre. But you have to take it as a through-composed work, and one where the story is at least as important as the music.

In this performance the Abbott and the chorus of Pilgrims are dressed as police officers. A review appeared in the Guardian last summer.

The CD liner notes say that this should be acted in the Japanese No-drama style, with precise and rehearsed movements of the body, and no expression on the (masked) faces. But in this TV production the Madwoman conveys extraordinary emotion using his face.

As far as the actual story is concerned,  I cannot express it sufficiently eloquently in words.

In the original production, on the CD, the Madwoman was played by Peter Pears, Benjamin  Britten's partner and muse, and this is definitely the strongest character.

It's not a CD I would sit down and listen to for escapist enjoyment, nor is it really ironing music, but it holds a strange fascination for me and I keep returning to it.

A matter of regret?

I have a sneaking feeling that I might have an allergy to beer. I think it might do weird things to my legs.

I floated this idea yesterday; Caz said 'would it be the sort of allergy that makes your legs buckle under after 28 pints?' No, I said, my joints felt really stiff and achy after just one pint on Monday lunchtime. Not too good after two pints on Friday (although that was clouded by the half bottle of wine and three Irish coffees), and not good at all after three pints on Thursday.

Last night I had copious quantities of wine - about three glasses before half six, and three or four after half nine. I felt decidedly squiffy, but my limbs are not achey.

If it is a beer allergy, it would be nice to have foundd a root cause. But if that means foregoing beer for the rest of my life, not nice.

Hmm, I seem to have imbibed like a fish over the past week...

Kylie

I heard on Radio 4's eight o'clock news that Kylie Minogue has breast cancer

My immediate reaction - stunned, taken aback, upset.

We all love Kylie, don't we.

She's my age.

Let's all send out some virtual hugs to Kylie.

Sound of the Suburbs

A compilation of songs taken from the Golden Age of Pop. To be honest, some of the tracks are, on their own, really quite mediocre and forgettable, but put in an intelligent compilation add up to greater than the sum of their parts.

I have to conclude that after twenty six years of familiarity and careful listening, I still do not have a clue about what Oliver's Army is about. And I will state publicly that this is one of perhaps only three or five songs by Elvis Costello that I actually like. I liked it all the way back when because it has a nice tune and a good beat. I actually like the lyrics, even though I haven't got a clue what they mean. I went through a phase in my teens of thinking maybe they were very right wing, but now I can't remember why.

I Don't Like Mondays is undoubtedly my favourite Boomtown Rats song, coming in a run of bloody good singles that included Rat Trap, Diamond Smiles and Someone’s Looking at You.. I can definitely understand what the lyrics mean, good tune, good beat. Classic song! Indeed, it was put into my Top Twenty of the 20th Century that I carefully compiled on 30/31 December 1999, and later expanded to Twenty Two. I see no reason to remove it.

Sound of the Suburbs - great tune, great beat, great lyrics. Also responsible, initially, for my suburbaphobia; in the days when I knew nothing else, this song implanted an eternal notion.

Call Me has great lyrics but, actually, the tune and beat are only so-so. At the time it was out I thought it Blondie's best song thus far. Quarter of a century on I think it is weaker than many others. Still pleasant, though.

Happy Birthday is a wonderful feel-good song. Shame that Altered Images were a flame that flickered for just a short period before burning out.

Buzzcocks 'Ever Fallen In Love' is just fabulous, and much better than that awful cover that was done when I was a student...

No More Heroes is one of those Stranglers songs I like. I like some Stranglers songs. My favourite is Duchess. I don't have much Stranglers in my collection. I know somebody who has bought all their albums three times - on LP, cassette and CD. I don't know if he has any Stranglers DVDs.

In fact, I must conclude that all a good pop song needs is a good tune, a good beat and good lyrics. Perhaps I am being slightly disingenuous calling them 'pop'. Pop is light and fluffy; rock is serious with attitude. Yeah, right, protest songs by nice white middle-class boys (except, of course, for Martha Muffin, Clare Grogan and Debbie Harry. Martha Muffin I know nothing about but I think I can safely say that nice white middle-class girls wanted to be Debbie or Clare or maybe a mixture of both...!).

Tory Leadership

The Tory's best chance of winning the next election is Clarke: back me as leader

I think it can be safe to say they will not elect as leader a man who is liked and respected by those crucial floating/soft Tory voters who have withheld their support for three or four elections.

On Glazer

I've seen the future and it's Red

I have been criticised for not, thus far, blogging the Glazer take over of Manchester United.

Will Hutton has an article, and quotes a nameless minister

Football clubs have a special relationship with fans and with communities; they are part of the structure that makes us what we are. They shouldn't be bought and sold like commodities.

'Should' is not the same as 'is'.

Hutton finishes with an extraordinary claim

The growing wariness of America and resistance to the export of its values is part of a wider trend; it is Sky beginning to recognise that if it wants to win audience it will have to make television in Britain for the British rather than show tired US retreads - a phenomenon evident across British TV; it is the NHS warily guarding itself against criticism that it is opening itself up innocently to American healthcare companies preoccupied with the bottom line, however innovative their approach; it is to George Bush's foreign policy; it is the increasing tattiness of brands such as McDonald's and KFC; it is to the import of American casinos.

I happen to share his dislike of that sort of Americanisation, but I we are of a liberal chattering class middle-aged minority. I don't think that revulsion is shared by the McDonalds-eating MTV-watching hordes that are apparent everywhere from my immediate workplace to casual street encounters.

If we implement our policy to ban baseball caps it may well have the consequence of sending a big 'F*** off' to Glazer.

National Treasure

Sean O'Hagan meets Andrew Marr

When I got up this morning, Jimmy was watching Frost. After the obligatory 'Something of the Night' comment aimed at Michael Howard, I mentioned that Andrew Marr was taking over, and that, really, he is a National Treasure, so it was amusing to read

Marr's canonisation as a national treasure seems assured

More interesting is

something has gone radically wrong with print journalism'. The fault lies, he says, with an increasingly London-centric media, and with the current reliance on stories culled from the wires or from 'people relying on "Googling" instead of real research'.

What is needed, he insists, is 'a return to fresh air reporting. There's a vivid, interesting, unexpected, quite amusing Britain out there, but it just does not appear in today's newspapers. Why? Because we are all doing central London stuff, and celebrities, and lifestyle, and it's basically quite boring.'

Ages ago I read of an editor somewhere in Yorkshire who took over the local paper, and cut out all the lifestyle/television/celebrity stuff and instructed his reporters to go out and report. Sales soared.

Emergency contraception

Very interesting article Waking up to the morning after pill

I used to have a postcard above my desk saying "I'll be post-feminist in post-patriarchy" and people used to ask me what it meant.

This article illustrates the answer: despite this being the twenty-first century there is a whole raft of men who believe they have the right to dictate sexuality to a woman.

I went on the record about this five years ago

If this helps cut down on unwanted pregnancies: brilliant. It can be incredibly difficult to get hold of emergency contraception in the necessary timeframe. And it isn't just for teenagers: I'm sure few people in stable relationships can honestly say they've never had a broken condom or got their dates wrong. Of course women and girls won't start taking it like sweeties. Do the critics know that it is taken along with anti-emetic (sickness) tablets? I do not know any women who take it out of choice. Let's not forget that there are still dinosaurs around who oppose all forms of artificial contraception and presumably believe a woman's place is banged up every year.

Tony Blair to stand down (eventually)

I awoke in the middle of the night with one of those Eureka! moments.

Post-election, the clamour was, and remains, for TB to yield the reigns of power sooner rather than later, presumably to GB.

The question is asked - why doesn't he do so now, since, in the view of some, he is in danger of becoming a lameduck. Michael Howard, for example, has announced that he will stand down from the Tory Party in December.

And it struck me.

In less than a year, the Queen will be Eighty. Last month, the Prince of Wales finally married the future Queen Camilla.

In the wee sma' hours I felt utterly convinced that the Queen's Abdication is a foregone conclusion.

Of course, no monarch has ever retired: all previous Abdications have been in much less serene circumstances. But the genius of the House of Windsor and they multifarious nefarious flunkies is to invent a modus operandi from scratch and manipulate the gullible into believing it is a piece of long-established protocol whose origins are lost in the mist of time.

She will announce her Abdication at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in November

I do not believe that Queenie can abdicate on her actual 80th birthday, because this will be just two weeks before the Local Elections, which, taking in London, one third of Mets, many unitaries, and a disportionate number of shire districts is the biggest election outside of a General (bigger even than the Euros). There may be similar considerations in other nations of which she is Head of State.

The Commonwealth Games next March in Melbourne, so it would be inappropriate to abdicate before these.

However, she will abdicate, and there are as we speak high-level negotiations between Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and Soho Square to ensure that the Abdication of the Queen, of Tony Blair and of Sven Goran Eriksson are timed either to coincide perfectly, or to be sufficiently staggered so as not to appear haphazard.

Rumours that the BBC will cease to make Last of the Summer Wine have, however, been strongly denied.

Cosi fan tutte

  Zurich Opera under Nikolaus Harnencourt.

I saw this live last autumn in a performance that was superior all round.

I watched this last week, and wrote notes on my Palm whilst sitting on the sofa. I draft posted the entry with the intention of sprucing it up and making it cogent, but reading through it, I think the desultory, fragmented nature of the post reflects my rather uninterested attitude when watching this actual video.

My problem with this is that there seems to be acting and singing going on at the same time, but in a disassociated way. None of the male singers has a voice of any beauty - at least as they sound here. And whether it's inherent, or the way they're directed, but they just seem two-dimensional cyphers of characters.

When I saw it at Covent Garden, there was a lot of laughter.

Much too much standing around and bel canting, except that it isn't especially bel.

The music as written is really quite gorgeous, but in this video it sounds quite screechy. Except for Cecilia. It isn't the best example I have of her, but it's worth watching for her

Soave il vento - trio, gorgeous as written. Shame about Don Alonso. In fact, generally shame about Don Alonso who seemed to bark through it. Dorabella a ham actress. Or ham directed, I'm not sure. I don't think the singers were particularly helped by the tempi often been on the slow side. This was noticeable, for example, during Come scoglio, one of my favourite Mozart arias. Considering that she's basically singing about standing firm as a rock, a languid tempo seems nonsense. What should be a rallantado becomes a dirge. During the finer colaratura bits in the second part CB is struggling for breath. Still, she's get a good few cheers from the audience.

Whereas Mr Bland Pretty Boy singing Un'aura amoroso barely gets polite applause. This is another of Mozart's utterly gorgeous arias. By all accounts it's a bugger to sing, and he has an approximate relation with the pitch at times, partly again due to the funereal pace. A pace unsuited to the mood of the music and the meanings of the lyrics. Plus him frowning throughout.

Act 1 isn't over yet, and I'm groaning everytime Don Alfonso comes on screen. He's not funny, he's not manipulative, just boring.

There isn't actually a lot of dramatic action happening - much of the story revolves around the psychology. In brief, Don Alfonso bets the guys that the women won't stay faithful if they're away. So they pretend to go away, and come back disguised as Albanians and woo each other's women. When the women reject their advances, they pretend to swallow poison. The housekeeper, Despina, who's in on the joke arrives disguised as a mesmeritist and magically revives them.

Act 2 Another evening, another act

It's such gorgeous music that I've booked to see it next month at ENO. There is no way that the production can be worse than this one.

Philosophically, some people have a problem with this, assuming that it is misogynous - it translates literally as "How all women are..." I have two objections to taking an overtly contemporary feminist view against operas, or indeed, drama, literature or art from historic times. Firstly, their creators are the products of their time. Guess what, neither Mozart nor Da Ponte were Guardian-reading 21st century feminists. And, if for argumemt's sake they were reasonably enlightened for their times, they would still reflect the reality of their age.

You could find it offensive that the purpose of this is to illustrate that women lack the capacity to be faithful. Yet it mentions that men do, too. You could conversely take the view that women were forced by economics and mores to marry. How sensible to marry any convenient halfway decent man. No point sitting around pining for some chap who might or might not come back from battle. Or maybe, we could remember how easily it is for practical jokes to go too far. Or perhaps, it's a lesson about not being taken in too much by charm. Maybe a lesson not to put your love to the test, and not to complain when you find it wanting.

Me, I love the music, but would rather a different cast than on this video, which I doubt I shall watch again for a long time.

Don Alfonso is a crooner, Ferrando a barker, and Guillermo has an insipid voice. Dorabella has a boring voice, and Despina an ugly one.

six other DVDs available. Opera Nights recommends  La Scala and Glyndebourne, and that EMI CD looks like a must-have.

Wrecked, Trashed

The Department of Health are sweeties; they have compiled a website of drinking woes suffered by teens and pre-teens. Very worthy, if it anyway helps the youngsters to moderate their drinking. For us bloggers, it serves the double purpose of being able to laugh at them, or steal and adapt the stories to fulfill our purposes:

My faves are...

The horrible truth hit me. I confronted my ex with my evidence the next day and he confessed to having thrown-up and then had conveniently forgotten to tell me before kissing me again. Needless to say that was the moment he became my ex.

and

My brother had wet himself in his sleep (on the top bunk) and it had soaked through the mattress and was dripping onto my bed! Not too cool huh!

On the other hand, the DoH could just go round the blogosphere and steal our stories.

Have I mentioned the time I spent half the night sleeping on a lounger (without cushion or towel) beside the pool in Corfu...?

Gas update

Yesterday I took the day off work on Annual Leave, a sort of rest day. I was phoned by British Gas, apologising for last Friday's incident. I am being sent a £10 'service voucher' as compensation for the missed call.

Apparently, I can put this towards my annual payment. A sI pay by monthly direct debit, I expect that I then have to post off the 'service voucher' for it to be applied to my account and wait for postal confirmation that it has been so.

A £10 direct credit to my bank account would actually be more tangible in a perverse post-modern 21st century way. As for the amount...!

I don't think a telephone apology really suffices. The woman was terribly nice, and I actually asked her to stop apologising. But it just feels wrong.

This is not the end of the matter. Just one more matter to put on the to-do list.

Bach Choir

And here endeth my half-week residency on London's South Bank. And I still haven't properly looked at the World Press Photo 05 exhibition which is on until 6 June and deserves more than a perfunctory gaze...

Bach Choir and Philharmonia under David Hill.

Programme: Kindertotenlieder - Mahler (soloist, David Wilson-Johnson bass)
And so the night became (World Premiere) - Diana Burrell
A Child of Our Time - Tippett
Soloists, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (s), Jean Rigby (m-s), Andrew Staples (t) and David Wilson-Johnson (bs).

Hall barely half full, if that, ironically considering that it was better than the two sell-out performances earlier in the week. In my opinion.

First of all, let's get the new piece out of the way. I am not really sure what to say. Tosh? Rubbish? Noise? All of these and more and less. Simulataneously.

Oh I know, it's new music, it's challenging, the public is unreceptive to new music until they've heard it a dozen times over two decades. Except that I would argue that I am very fond of at least four different pieces of twenty-first century music by four very different composers. I justthink that gimmickry and noise is not music. When I am wincing in pain at the screeching of violins, and when I notice that half of each of two verses (of fifteen) have something that approaches harmony and melody, it is really awful. I applauded the orchestra (who looked somewhat embarrassed) and I applauded the choir, but I could not bring myself to applaud the composer. And when I was leaving, I had to brush past her, surrounded as she was in the aisle by a group of admiring students from Guildhall SOM I felt patently unable to meet her eye.

Very poor choice to set alongside the other pieces.

I am not sure that Iwould have selected Kindertotenlieder of itself. PRetty morbid stuff - Songs of the Death of Children. A year after its premiere, Mahler's five year old daughter died. So to say it was enjoyable would be a poor choice of words. But it was meaningful and beautiful and quite moving.

I actually booked for A Child of Our Time, having been to ENO's rather strange staged version in January

It was particularly interesting hearing it after the dreadful preceding piece. Tippett uses dissonance, but it sounds like music. And it can't just be due to familiarity, because I would hardly say that I'm familiar with it.

Overall a very satisfying performance. My main quibble was that the tempi of the spirituals was wrong, in my opinion. the conductor introduced some rubato, but what it needed was soem syncopation. You either got the rhythm or you you don't. All I can say is that we had more at Primary School in the Seventies. With the caveat (a rather big caveat, admittedly) that I don't especially know the piece, I couldn't fault the orchestra or the choir. Perversely, it struck me that I would have appreciated the experience even more if the lights in the auditorium had been extinguished - because that was how I experienced it at the Coliseum, and listening in darkness to a dimly lit stage is profoundly moving experience.

As for the soloists. Well, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers and Andrew Staples were late replacememnts for the indisposed singers originally billed. Gweneth too late to get her name on the front of the programme, although she is inside.

Jean Rigby gave a competent and technically acceptable performance, but her voice seemed generic and her delivery unexciting. I've found her disappointing before. Once I can forgive, twice I draw conclusions.

David Wilson-Johnson was competent throughout. I have to say there is nothing in his voice that particularly draws me, but it's a good solid reliable bass.

Gweneth-Ann Jeffers reminded me for all the world, vocally at least, of Renée Fleming but without the idiosyncratic swoops and scoops. A good strong voice, able to penetrate the orchestra and choir, rich and mature. I would definitely want to hear her again. She seemed to have a stage presence when she was singing, and seemed to understand the meaning of what she was singing. Also, at the end, I took a photo and she smiled warmly in my direction - she'll go far, you know! She has a website but it hasn't been updated in a long time.Under other circumstances, I'd be raving about her, but, despite the fact that I have just become a fan, in my view she was upstaged by

Andrew Staples. When he sung his first few notes I just sat up and listened! What a sweet and beautiful voice. He must be quite young, but his limited web presence suggests a career that is starting with a flourish.

Theer was one point where the sheer beauty of his tone actually brought a tear to my eye. He is far from the finished article, and lacks colouring and drama. But I was so amazed at the sheer natural beauty, and conscious of his youth (mid-twenties, tops, I'd say) and inexperience, that I am overlooking them.

Baseball caps

Mall bans shoppers' hooded tops

I have to say that the nearest I have ever got to shopping at one of these new-style out-of-town 'malls' is some god awful nausea-inducing claustrophobic place in Bromley, and the old fashioned Arndales etc.

Living so close to the West End, wild horses would not drag me into such a sterile shrine to commercialism. I moan about the pavement congestion and maelstrom of Oxford Street, but there's something organic about it, there are plenty of places to escape, and the shops are more diverse and comprehensive than anywhere else. Plus, you don't get told how to dress.

I think banning baseball caps and hooded tops is a hammer to crack a nut. You don't get marauding gangs of threatening chavs in Oxford Street and environs, which merely adds to my theory of anomie about the artificial places.

I actually think that Bluewater will enforce the ban partially. If I happen to go there wearing my M&S hooded jumper I do not suppose I would be banned. They'd probably ban me for smoking, which seems yet another good reason to stick to 'traditional' High Streets.

But I do think that baseball caps should be banned wholescale, merely on the grounds of taste. If that is fashion, forget it. Don't people realise they look stupid. Jimmy has one, which he wears when the temperatures top 80 degrees and there's not a cloud in the sky; even then, he never wears it indoors (because men shouldn't wear hats indoors) and even outdoors, only at beaches, parks etc.

I have a straw hat. It's been a while since I've sported a winter hat, but I often used to. It did attract attention, admiring attention, because I looked stylish and distinguished. Not some tacky cheap thing swearing allegiance to something of which I know nothing.

Diva Worship

Angela Gheorghiu at the Royal Festival Hall, last night

(I'm already getting search requests for a review. Patience, folks...!)

Concert sold out, of course. Buzz of anticipation around the foyer, terrace and bars beforehand. A real superstar, appearing, one night only etc etc (apart from three nights in La bohème in June), promoting her new CD of Puccini arias.

Appearing with the Philharmonia, under the baton of Ion Marin. Programme in the extended entry.

It would be very naughty of me to say that the highlights of the evening for me were orchestral pieces. The Tchaikovsky is a piece I have known for very many years, and would have said that I knew well. I'm not sure if I have ever heard it performed live; if I have it was probably twenty or more years ago. I just loved it, feeling transported to another dimension.

I have a troublesome relationship with the Cav intermezzo. God knows how many different versions I have on various formats, in context, out of context, with words. And I never know before I listen whether I am going to love or hate it, and this bears no relationship to which version. Last night, was definitely a 'love' experience.

Now, onto the subject of the post - Diva Worship. Angela came out to tremendous applause, and performed her first number. Delightfully, of course. With perfect timing, as the final note died away, the first (of many) 'brava' was heard, from a box high on the right.

To be honest, I did not think very much of her performance in the first half. There is no doubt that she has a lovely voice, musical and sweet, light but with colour. But I felt that in the first half she was phoning in the performance. I think I'm supposed to mention what she was wearing - a simple black dress. Straight skirt. Spaghetti straps. I think. I'm not very good on remembering clothes.

In the second half she emerged wearing a flowery number with more diamante than a Pearly Queen. Very nice. She's an all hips and no boobs woman, with a prominent bone (between throat and 'cleavage') visible even from Row G of the Rear Stalls without binoculars.

The Salve Regina was, on the whole, very nice, but she seemed to get a bit lost about halfway through. The Un bel di vedremo was probably her best aria, when she displayed her beautiful voice to its maximum and actually seemed to feeling the role. During Chi il bel sogno I remembered how much I had enjoyed her in La Rondine, indeed how much I had enjoyed La Rondine. I may be the only person in the entire world who prefers La Rondine to Madama Butterfly, Turandot and La Boheme, indeed I may be the only person who has La Rondine as their second favourite Puccini Opera (after Tosca but before Fanciulla and Manon Lescaut). So shoot me...

Vissi d'arte was technically excellent, and beautiful, but bizarrely failed to engage me, to the extent that as it was nearing its end, I had a sudden distracting thought about some domestic trivia and even more bizarrely, "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" from Annie flashed through my brain.

Applause and encores followed, always the time for the audience to let its hair down, clapping, cheering, brava-ing, and, of course, all the camera flashes going off. Ms Gheorghiu graciously obliged us with   four or five encores. You know I'm rubbish at naming tunes, even songs, even when I know them perfectly well, but they did include Granada. A bad choice, I have to say. It's a tenor's song, and didn't sound right from a soprano, especially one only going through the motions of being involved. Musica was much better, this is a Romanian song, known to many because she sang it at Covent Garden's Gold and Silver Gala in 1996 (available on DVD and occasionally broadcast on Artsworld).

I thought it was very nice that she was obviously aware of that section of the audience in the cheap seats of the choir stalls, who spend the concert watching the backs of all but the conductor, and she graciously performed much of one encore facing the choir stalls, only turning round to the main auditorium at the end to let the money notes ring out and fill the space.

Afterwards she was doing a signing session. I was thinking of hanging around, not to get an autograph, I am not an autograph collector, but  maybe to get close to get a photo. Instead, I sat down for a cigarette at the bar, and then wandered round the foyer people-watching. I'm sure she was there, I just didn't get to see her. And I could have been hanging around all night. The queue was enormous - three or four deep across the width of the Festival Hall foyer -  and I suspect that many more people were hanging around, waiting to join the queue when it subsided. Some serious Diva Worship going on, possibly more queens on display than a Sunday at the RVT. I'm just so amateur...!

My evening had got off to a rather unfortunate start. I had bought a rather nice soup - Pea and Mint - from Eat and went to sit on the padded bench in the bar area. I am not sure what happened, but I managed to knock over my soup, over myself and over the woman sitting next to me. I was deeply embarrassed, and, of course, offered her my name and address, which she refused. On the off chance that you are reading this, I have to say that I was deeply touched and humbled by your calm, sympathetic, forgiving reaction, something I will not forget in a hurry, and only hope that I may emulate one day.

I'm with stupid?

Have you ever been in a situation with a group of people where you feel that one of that group is very stupid?

Forgetting momentarily that you think that that person is stupid, you light-heartedly repeat something that they said, with no malice intended?

Someone says 'that's a really stupid thing to say...'?

Looks are exchanged, and you know that everybody else thinks that person stupid, but everyone is too polite to say?

It's funny, I really don't like the stupid person. Ask me why, I have to shrug and say, I don't like them. If I tried to give a reason, it would make it seem that they were a bad person, or, at least, to blame. They're not. I just don't like them.

I just don't know whether my dislike is based on their stupidity, or whether I am contemptuous of their stupidity because I don't like them

Chance meeting

Last week I mentioned in passing an old friend, Jim. Wehn I was descending from the District to the Victoria Line this evening, I saw a chap ascending who looked the tiniest bit like him, but not very.

I got on my Victoria Line train, and didn't so much do a double take but a triple or quadruple. Sitting there was Jim...! We chatted, mainly about the election of course, but I learned that since we last met, he's acquired two children.

Cyrano gets a nose...

Placido Domingo is getting a bigger 'nose' for his role Cyrano de Bergerac at the Metropolitan Opera.

Requires Real Player

And an article in the New Yorker

Reviews and photos

Ruth Elleson's monthly Letter from London features Twilight of the Gods and Un ballo in maschera, which I saw, and Lulu, which, in the end, I didn't.

Britten's War Requiem

As soon as I saw this in the programme for the Royal Festival Hall, I knew I had to book it. I glanced at the date and thought, "Oh, that's VE Day." Two hours later, the penny dropped...

A good line up - the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Kurt Masur; Christine Brewer (soprano), Anthony Dean Griffey (tenor) and Gerald Finley (baritone), and the London Philharmonic Choir and Tiffin Boys' Choir.

It's wonderful music. "It grows on you," said my mother sniffily. Well, yes, but much great music is not instantly accessible: if it was it would be shallow and disposable. As the programme notes state

the fusion of the words of the Latin Mass for the Dead with the poetry of the First World War poet Wilfred Owen is in itself an achievement of genius

It's a great piece of work.

But the performance failed to move me. Perhaps it was me, who knows. I heard it last year at the Albert Hall and it was definitely one of my performance highlights of the year. I suspect I shall forget tonight's very quickly.

No doubt the Boys Choir sang beautifully, but they were positioned in the Balcony, whereas I was in the Stalls with the Balcony overhanging my head so they were faint and distant. I mostly found the chorus to be insipid, the Ladies in particular. Okay, I wasn't expecting masses of passion, but they left me indifferent. The orchestra was fine, but there was a never a time that I felt deeply moved by their playing. The percussion is interesting to watch in this. If I recall correctly, there were six percussionists and two timpanists. It was slightly strange when the 'chamber orchestra' was playing, the timpanist also played tam tam. I know it's supposed to be a chamber orchestra, but I thought it strange that she executed a few notes on the timps, then put her right timp stick into her left hand to take the tam tam beater in her right and beat the tam tam, over and again, when there were seven perfectly competent percussionists sitting there counting.

I didn't think the organ was anything special. Admittedly, the RFH organ is hardly the RAH, but it's not a bad organ. I've heard it a few times and liked it, but I'm struggling to remember whether I actually heard it. I certainly didn't feel it, as I did at the Albert Hall.

It seemed strange, as well, to me that the chamber orchestra had a different conductor, Neville Creed, Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Choir. but other than being strange, it wasn't an issue.

The position of the soloists was bizarre, with Christine Brewer already ensconced next to the organist before the concert began, and Anthony Dean Griffey and Gerald Finley walking on with the conductor. to go and sit behind the chamber orchestra, in front of the percussion. It made the bows at the applause a bit strange.

As for the soloists. People rave about Christine Brewer. I must be missing something. I found her shrill and rather unpleasant at the higher end of the range, although towards the lower register she has a rich and sonorous timbre. Anthony Dean Griffey I wouldn't go out of my way to hear again, although I wouldn't especially avoid him. I found his voice bland, without any colouring or nuance, and some of his pronunciations were downright odd.

So it was with some relief that Gerald Finley proved to be the highlight of the evening. I very much liked his voice when I heard him in Traviata, and if someone gets back to me, I shall be booking ticket(s) to see him in Eugene Onegin at ENO. I think his voice is noble, mellifluous, rich and with a good range of colours.

At the end I took some photos. Each time my flash went off a man in front of me turned and gave me a Look. I ignored him. I have a very wide peripheral vision (it partly compensates for my lack of spacial awareness), so he probably doesn't even know that I saw him glaring. Of course, the programme says "Photography is strictly prohibited in the auditorium" but every venue I go to (except the Coliseum for some reason...) has camera flashes as an integral part of applause. And none of them appears to mind in the slightest. Woe betide if you use flash during a performance - it's off-putting to other audience members and most of all, tot he performers. I read some venue somewhere or other which said "Flash photography is permitted only during applause" or similar wording.

I was a bit disappointed that the man in front didn't say anything to me, because I had two - not one, but two - answers at the ready "You need to get out more, dear..." or "Oh, I have all the stars on this  Compact Flashcard...Steve Reich, Barbara Bonney, Angelika Kirchschlager, Jonas Kauffman, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Thomas Quasthoff, Daniel Barenboim, Plácido Domingo...jealous, are we?"

All the photos I got of Christine Brewer are with her turned away from the audience. I got a few of the male soloists; in all of them, Gerald Finley is pulling dorky faces...!

Anthony Dean Griffey and Gerald Finley

Gerald Finley and Anthony Dean Griffey

The Art of Criticism

When I go to a concert I like to write about what I liked or what I really didn't like. Usually they are fairly easy to pin down. What I usually don't write about is what I find okay, mediocre, adequate, generic.

It's a funny thing anyway, subjective. One man's meat another man's gravy etc. I suppose the professional critics must also suffer this, too, although they would never admit it. They are always right. So many factors influence one's opinion. The actual music being performed, the quality of the performance. Ooh, that's a difficult one anyway. If you know a piece extremely well, perhaps through regularly listening to half a dozen or more different recordings, having performed it, having studied the score, perhaps you are able to be more objective. But then, you are only saying that the interpretation coincides - or doesn't - with yours.

More election results

Ignore what I wrote yesterday. I've gone back and checked that Spreadsheet, and made quite a number of corrections.

Acccording to the Spreadsheet, Kenneth Haigh, the Veritas candidate in City of Chester got no votes. Catherine Taylor-Dawson, Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket, got one vote in Cardiff North. Let's hope she voted for herself. aLthough she also stood in two other Cardiff constituencies. Martin Kyslun, Independent picked up a stunning five votes in Derbyshire West.

Strange party names include Build Duddon and Morecambe Bridges - in Barrow and Furness; Death, Dungeons & Taxes, in City of York and Edinburgh East; New Millennium Bean Party in Cardiff Central; Publican Party - Free to Smoke (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch Strathspey and Sally Magnusson's Ceilidh); Removal Of Tetramasts In Cornwall (Falmouth and Cambourne; S O S! Voters Against Overdevelopment of Northampton (North and South); Save Bristol North Baths Party (Bristol West shome mishtake surely, Ed; Telepathic Partnership (Wokingham); Tiger's Eye - the Party for Kids (Wimbledon) - presumably advertising; Virtue Currency Cognitive Appraisal Party
(Skipton and Ripon) and Xtraordinary People Party in Bolton West.

The most votes (32,717) were got by Andrew Turner, once a boss's boss's boss of mine in that overlarge constituency, Isle of Wight. Norman Lamb in Norfolk North got 31,515.

The Conservative in Taunton got the most of losing candidates. Angus McNeil in Na h-Eileanan an Iar got the least (6,213) of winning candidates followed by Alistair Carmichael (9,138) in Orkney and Shetland and Elfyn Llwyd (10,597) in Meirionnydd Nant Conwy. England's smallest winner was Emily Thornberry (12,345) in Islington South & Finsbury.

Joe Benton in Bootle (75.5), Peter Kilfoyle in Liverpool Walton (72.8) and John Cummings (71.4) in Easington got the highest percentage of the vote; Gordon Banks in Ochil and South Perthshire (31.4), Nigel Griffiths Edinburgh South 33.2, and Claire Ward, Watford (33.6) were eelcted on the lowest percentage.

Tim Collins, Westmorland & Lonsdale (44.9) and Caroline Nokes Romsey (44.4 ) failed to get elected depsite getting a goodly share.

David Miliband, Future PM?

I have decided that, as David Miliband has an interesting portfolio, about which I know quite a lot, but not via work, and that he is tipped as a future PM, it might be quite interesting to track him through the news.

He's already in tomorrow's papers - Meteoric Miliband Continues to Rise .