Gertsamtkunstwerk

Warbling Belly Dancer

Euch!

From the Daily Mail

Although, in fairness, although her boobs look all squeezed, she seems not to have her characteristic four-boob look (two in the usual places an done in each arm pit).

To quote the 'Daily Mail Reporter'

the effect of the cut out panel on her stomach rather gave her the look of a belly dancer

She sang Parla Piu Piano accompanied by the cellist (Julian Lloyd-Webber)

She said: 'I was honoured to be part of this event and glad that Gary thought to include a classical act.

'It shows classical music is becoming more popular.'

ROFLMFAO

Stop deluding yerself, love. It shows that you're mates with Gary Barlow, that's all, and you will do literally anything for publicity. It really is stretching the definition of 'classical' to include the love theme from the The Godfather, with added words. Being in Foreign doesn't make it 'Classical'. And I bet she didn't sing without microphone. Bit beyond her core competencies that one.

And some great comments from readers:

• 'She is such a lovely woman, would be perfectly suited to peter andre, would make a stunning couple'
• A vain female who cannot live without publicity, and will do or say anything to get it.
• I just don't know what it is about this woman, but she makes my skin crawl!
• Urgh - she looks like a £1 shop christmas decoration.
• However I can't help but wish she would stop with the bleach blonde hair, layers of make up and tacky looking (although I'm sure not cheap) party frocks. She's such a natural beauty these just make her look like your everyday WAG.
• Elegant, c'mon? Her hair is bleached to within an inch of it's life, her make-up is overdone, and she's wearing a dress made from what looks like red polyester and tin foil, with a hole cut in the middle for extra classiness.
• Thing is, you can bet this look took a lot of money and time to 'perfect'. Reminds me of Dolly Parton" It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!"
• Yes she is beautiful, yes that is a pretty dress. But does anyone really care? NO. Publicity overdrive on this woman at the moment and it bores me. Why did I click on the article of a woman that bores me you ask? Because my job is that dull and I enjoy sharing my views!
• She always looks like a man in drag to me*.
• She screams of desperation. Enough of this media grabbing attention woman. She is plastered in make-up, fake tan, hair extensions, false lashes........this is not a true beauty.
• Maximum elegance ? That looks tacky as heck
• Class?! I think not. Overly made-up and plastic. Bring back the classic sophisticated ladies, men who like this woman have no taste and prefer the Barbie look.
• Oh, not that woman again!
• GIVE US A BREAK! She's tacky, crass and annoying! Give me Natalie Portman any day! This one looks like any old done up bimbo! Red arrow me and call me jealous. but I'd rather look like myself than that miss piggy.
• Just goes to show that money doesn't buy you taste or style. A truly dreadful dress. It's incredible what type of girl guys seem to think are 'glamorous' these days. Not my idea of 'glamour' - sorry!
• Much as I really like Katherine Jenkins, her attitude, voice, style and some of the things she has done for charity I am concerned that she should be slipping down the table of elegance, class, style and presentation with too much slap, some dresses that really do not do much for her and joining the 'chav' brigade of the sloppy, untidy, unshaven and scruffy types who now inhabit the world of pop.
• gorgeous from a distance but as you get closer and closer to her face you notice that her face distorts into a disney type character with a two dimensional appeal that is very attractive to men with no brain cells
• I'm getting a bit tired of her digitally enhanced recorded voice.....she's quite good at miming though!

Meanwhile, the Evening Standard has a different take:

Katherine Jenkins may benefit from a little sleep

Opera singer** Katherine Jenkins looks as though she may have had a little too much bubbly.

Contrary to her usual polished appearance, Katherine's eyes seemed to be looking in opposite directions as she headed for home (haven't they noticed that the glazed over expression is pretty much par-for-the-course)

* So it's not just me who thinks that, then!
** Remind me, which operas has she appeared in?

Singer Katherine Jenkins is on the couch with Piers Morgan

Singer Katherine Jenkins is on the couch with Piers Morgan.

KATHERINE Jenkins is set to open her heart in an emotional TV interview next week.

Ah yes, she'll remind us that she was the only person in the history of ever to lose a parent prematurely

The 29-year-old singer — who is usually very protective of her privacy — is set to give fans a rare insight into her life.

"Protective of her privacy?" Interesting...

The show is due to air two days before the release of Katherine's new album Believe, which she recorded in LA.

Katherine's got an album on 26 October? Gosh, why didn't any one tell me!

I shall be at my mother's when that airs. I am really not sure my mother will want to watch it. Besides, she'll just sit there tutting and sighing in contempt (my mother has less tolerance and patience than I do with shallow manipulative talentless bimbos).

But I don't think my mother will be a willing participant in downing a shot whenever Katherine claims to be an 'opera' singer or does her characteristic put down of opera singers for being fat and wearing horned Viking helmets when singing Carmen, Rosina etc.

Katherine turns up to ligg at yet another pointless red carpet event.

Katherine's album is out on 26 October

Video clips from Classical Brits

Classical BRIT Awards 2009 - ITV1 Tuesday 19th May 2009 - Katherine Jenkins Official Forum.

(yeah, but they're not on YouTube yet, which I can't access from work, and I haven't time to process my own recording)

The Una voce poca fa sung by Katherine Jenkins is good for laugh and nothing else; worth sticking out until the end. (Interesting how the compression required to upload to the net also takes some of the harshness off the closing note...)

Plus Plácido with Katherine. Doesn't make for pleasant viewing...

PS the Una voce poca fa is on YouTube

PPS Jonas Kaufmann singing La donna e mobile

YouTube clips from Classical Brits Red Carpet/Press Room

Interview with Plácido and José

Reportage

It manages to achieve what I thought was impossible, actually make the Classical Brits even tackier than they really were. Trite, irrelevant, industry back-slapping.

I wonder if that Welsh retard has ever actually engaged her (limited) brain before spouting her trite rubbish. Apparently, she makes it easier for people to buy Classical CDs. No she doesn't, she makes it more difficult, because her marketing campaign crowds out the market. And there is no logical link between buying a pop record and then buying a classical record.

I have to say, I thought she was bad before Thursday, but having heard/seen her live, she has actually gone down in my opinion. I can't believe that people can sit there, listen to her and actually think that her performance passes muster. Her Una voce poca fa was embarrassing.

All I can say she must be a champion sucker to get so far with so little talent.

How not to edit a photo

I had some pretty bad insomnia last night so got up in the middle of the night and started messing around with photos.

This photo was bad to start with, but I just made it worse. But, somehow, it makes me laugh. All that money and she ends up with a cheap home bleach job.

At least we know Katherine Jenkins was wearing knickers, this time

  The picture she wants you to see

  Meanwhile, another picture has emerged. I'm not sure what's worse, the bulging flesh or the visible knickers.

I thought I had read that she employs a stylist. You'd never know.

PS - for the frequent reader of this category from Surrey, there have been quite a few Barbie related posts in the last few days, not all labelled correctly, some in links, some in general stuff about the Crossover Brits

My spectacularly bad photos of the Classical Brits

Well, a few of them, anyway.

It was nice and comfy being in a box, but, ultimately it was too far away to get more than blurred, grainy photos. No worry; it will be on TV on Tuesday - well, brief excerpts, probably cutting the best bits and retaining the dross.

Plácido and Barbie

Mylene, a knight, a dame and a duchess

The Crossover Brits - on reflection

No one goes to the so-called Classical Brits for great musical performances and I knew what to expect when I bought my ticket. It's all a big con trick, some poor ignorant saps being fooled into thinking that "prestigious award show" is somehow synonymous with quality. I bought my ticket full in the knowledge that I was being sold a turkey. So you have to take my comments in that context. I spent enough time moaning here and elsewhere about how I would be sacrificing a previously booked concert of Handel's Athalia because I knew that despite its musical superiority, I would not be able to enjoy it knowing that Placido was appearing just down the road. I am pissed off with Placido. Not in any sense that I've gone off him nor that he has been replaced in my affection eg by Jonas contrary to the impression I may accidentally have given last night. But irritated in the same way one might be at a friend or lover. No need to re-assess one's opinion or alter one's adoration, and I'll soon get over it. Placido has set extremely high musical and performance standards for a very long time. It would be unreasonable to expect him always to meet them. I also realise that he is motivated by admiration for Pope John Paul II, someone I have considered, for several decades, as a force of repression, someone whose example encouraged hatred, and someone with responsibility for millions of deaths. (NB I am from a devout Catholic family and attended Catholic schools). I have heard Placido live several times and am booked to hear him twice more this month. So I need no persuasion about his extraordinary gifts. But I bet there were people there who have never heard him before and who must wonder what's the big deal. People who must wonder if there is a difference between the greatest singer ever singing bland chuckaway music and a here today gone tomorrow mediocrity singing bland chuckaway music. What's more genuine - Placido Domingo phoning in an unmemorable pop song or Katherine Jenkins massacring Una Voce poca fa? Placido Domingo is an ambassador for opera and always has to live up to that, like it or not. Fortunately Jonas Kaufmann turned in a memorable performance and yet proved the pointlessness of these events. So much for Barbie's grand claims of bringing classical music to ordinary people and her inappropriate grand claims about Carmen. So many conversations overheard from her fans or from fans of wannabe fraudulent popera things. They had never heard of Jonas despite his masterful Don Jose being on TV about 18 months ago and for all their obsession with the classical charts they have failed to notice the recent commercial success of Madama Butterfly. So clearly Barbie and her lot are not bringing classical music to ordinary people but in fact relegating it to the margins as they mainstream their deadly crossover hybrid. No doubt Jonas will be flavour of the month until they realise he is too busy growing a serious career to pander to their provincial popstar parade and they'll drop him, like they dropped Rolando and Juandi before. I did enjoy the Crossover Brits, for the atmosphere the people-watching the cleb spotting. The musically boring bits - Faryl and The Priests - were inoffensive in their blandness; even though I didn't enjoy Placido's singing, I did enjoy his voice and very enjoyed lusting over him. I enjoyed the Lang Lang/Herbie Hancock Rhapsody in Blue. Such a great piece of music! And even Katherine Jenkins cannot ruin Rossini's exciting orchestral runs. Plus it was good for me to see her live and realise that she is, if anything, less substantial than on the TV. And I think I shall remember Jonas's E lucevan le stelle for a long time. He walked on to polite applause. He sang, showing a vast range of vocal colour and dynamics projecting Cavaradossi into the vast cavern of the Albert Hall, which for three minutes was a castle roof in Rome. From where I was, I heard The Voice not the amplification. He walked off to rapturous and sustained applause. A woman in my box was on her feet screaming like a pop groupie, would you believe! It's wonderful when you see a performance that changes an audience! I also have my memories of David "Hercule Poirot" Suchet and Aled Jones, but the cleb spotting is for another post. (composed on my mobile which is not a Blackberry)

Recent Tweets

• 11:35 wailing and gnashing my teeth as I try to decide what to wear this evening
• 13:47 withdrawing my desire to audit MPs' expenses: I'm not a qualified fraud investigator and thus unsuitable for the post
• 13:53 Someone I know has two free tickets for Crossover Brits. If you want them and know me, let me know by 3pm. FCFS
• 15:16 OMFG! The sun is coming out!
• 17:36 I'm messing up. Missed Placi and Josep at Stage Door. Saddos await Barbie.
• 17:37 My anxiety attacks are getting beyond a joke.
• 17:40 Jonas is here
• 17:45 Jonas you just failed in fan appreciation
• 17:45 Jose is on the red carpet.
• 17:51 The Priests. And Charles Mackerras
• 17:54 My camera batteries are playing silly buggers
• 17:56 Lang lang. God this is boring
• 17:58 David Suchet. I missed photo.
• 18:00 David Suchet. I missed photo. No I didn't.
• 18:01 David Suchet. I missed photo. No I didn't. Lovely wave. Lovely man. Gert camera fail
• 18:04 Mylene klass looks better without her curlers
• 18:07 Lawrence llewellyn bowen fail
• 18:11 Some peroxide tart
• 18:18 Blake look more boring and bland than they sound.
• 18:27 What a bunch of nobodies pretending to be important.
• 18:44 Faryl smith - another talentless nobody
• 18:48 Too much wine. I need to pee
• 18:57 Well the feeling of being slightly tipsy has diminished the panic attacks. But where is he?
• 19:46 I've just shaken Aled 's hand. I'm not a fan as such but he is lovely genuine nice guy.
• 20:01 Placi is only doing that crap duet with Barbie. Jonas puccini and Verdi. My man:-)
• 20:18 Placi is only doing that crap duet with Barbie. Jonas puccini and Verdi. My man:-)i
• 20:20 You ought to be ashamed of yourself Senor Domingo. That was disgraceful.
• 20:32 Faryl will be good in 20 years. Except she will destroy her voice first. Alison bolson is good. I hate David Mellor hypocrite.
• 20:37 The Priests amateurish woodeness put Placi and Barbie's professional crapness into perspective
• 21:07 It is fair to say that Sir is looking gorgeous and youthful. Yay for the beard.
• 21:10 Barbie is due to sing Una Voce Poca. Should be good for a laugh
• 21:34 Lang lang and Herbie Hancock. Rhapsody in Blue. Suddenly the night comes alive with real music.
• 21:39 Alison Balsom's dress. Oh dear.
• 21:45 Oh Jonas! A lesson in how to sing. OMG I'm in love. He's the man!
• 21:59 I just boo-ed a singer. Barbie gave an off pitch embarrassingly amateur botch up. Who the fuck does she think she is.
• 22:03 The scots guards have won the pop record award. Poor Barbie. That's what she lives for.
• 22:18 Camilla, Kiri and Placi
• 22:20 Camilla, Kiri and Placi have presented the lifetime award to Josep. Placi said he'll be supporting Barcelona against United:-(

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Unbelievable

Katherine Jenkins' new official publicity-biography.

They've managed to update it and yet it still has the same - if not more - conceitedness and dishonesty. Clever dishonesty, of course, not the sort that is an outright lie.

For example,

she...performs in rugby stadiums as much as opera houses

That is, of course, true. In fact, she performs in rugby stadiums more than she performs in opera houses. Her old bio used to boast of her performing in the Sydney Opera House; it failed to mention that this was as a warm-up act for Max Boyce for an audience of Welsh rugby fans prior to the 2003 World Cup.

But, you know, so much meaning is conveyed in the arrangement and context of words as much as the precise pedantic content.

The lies are many:

• Katherine Jenkins is the alternative opera star
  • this from the person who claims never to describe herself as an opera singer; the person who has never performed in an opera in her life, and, let's be frank, never will, unless it's a vanity project in the style of Andrea Bocelli
  
  
• rightly referred to as ‘Britain’s favourite singer’.
  • She won some poll of 'favourite classical singer' which was meaningless - there were no controls over multiple voting, and her record company-run fan-site organised a campaign to encourage its members to send in multiple votes. It's a bit like saying that Robert Mugabe is the most popular politician in Zimbabwe.
  
  
  • I wouldn't take 100-1 in a statistically valid, properly controlled poll in which 'Kylie Minogue' was an option
  
  
• Katherine has survived personal tragedy, classical snobbery and even insurgents’ missiles to become a superstar in a class of her own.
  • her father died when she was a teenager. My father died a month after I left my teens and a month before my brother entered his. This was and is something massive in our lives and that of our older sister. But it isn't the single defining thing about us, and not something any of us uses to gain money or disproportionate sympathy. Similar to the scores of other people I know who have lost a parent prematurely;
  
  
  • sweetheart, saying you're crap isn't 'snobbery';
    
    • it's based on listening to your risible attempts to sing music beyond your abilities;
    • it's motivated by a desire to expose the hypocrisy of someone who calls herself an opera singer or a classical singer but lacks the courage to stand up in front of an audience and deliver a recital.
    • She has not only never sang in an opera, there is no record of her taking a soloist part in any oratorio, Mass or cantata,  or ever having performed a solo recital of art songs with piano, chamber group or orchestra.
    • She's no more  classical musician than I am journalist, Member of Parliament or city banker.
  
  
  • I really detest someone who uses the deaths of non-combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of her Publicity Machine. She's making money out of the deaths of defenceless children. Nasty.
• Then there's all the usual stuff and nonsense about records sold, and pop charts, and pop albums in the so-called classical charts.

• Music, teaching and the Church are deep in her being
  • not to mention the Occult. Oh, she doesn't mention the Occult. Or the drugs.

• Katherine has spent the first part of 2009 going backwards and forwards to Los Angeles, recording and working on the yet untitled album.

• how long does it take to record an album? A day or two, week at the most. The way this reads, you'd think she's also the engineer, the manufacturer and the inlay designer, not to mention the writer of the songs.

Katherine Jenkins on Twitter

It seems that the Mezzo of People's Hearts is now on Twitter in her ceaseless mission to bring classical music to ordinary people and be down wiv da kidz.

There is also a fake Katherine Jenkins, which is rather well done (and has no connection with WLKJ).

It seems to have taken in the band "Blake" at least for a short while.

But long enough for The Band Blake to leave an interesting juxtaposition of tweets:

Not convinced that you're the real Katherine Jenkins - we know her rider well after touring with her for over 30 shows! - confess!!

This is silly, either you've had a few drinks, or you're playing a very silly game, are you, or are you not Katherine Jenkins? SB

(I'm reading between the lines here, folks!)

Then the fake KJ (perhaps more real than the Real KJ) retorts  with

Ha, you guys are just a young IL DIVO knockoff anyway, so what if you won a classical brit award I'm the star, I'm in America!

I LOL'd slightly!

(nineteen days til I see her 'live')

Bad start to the day - clouds with silver lining

This wasn't the way I wanted to start the day.

The thing is, several weeks ago, I booked a ticket for Athalia at St John's Smith Square . What could be more enticing than an evening listening to a delightful Handel work, just minutes from my office, with my favourite counter-tenor included in the cast?

Sequence of events this morning. For some reason I had to fiddle around before my supposedly always-on internet sprung to life. I had to change the battery in my mouse. I checked my emails, including Google Alerts.  Several minutes later I'm on hold on an 0870 number waiting to report my Debit Card as lost (hasty careless stowing in Sainsburys last night).

In the meantime I have booked, using Jimmy's credit card, not one but two tickets to go to something that means I will miss out on Athalia.

What have I booked to see? Katherine Jenkins, The Priests, Faryl Smith. Well, at least I can blog about it, make sure the camera batteries are all charged up. José Carreras will also be performing, which would be nice, if he wasn't in a state of irreversible vocal decline. And not nice enough to warrant missing Athalia.

But the silver lining,as well as discovering my card is missing sooner than I would otherwise have done, is that I get to see Plácido sing...probably one of those Papal Poetry songs.

How much of a silver lining is that, I really don't know. If I don't go, I won't be happy. I wouldn't enjoy Athalia, notwithstanding favourite counter-tenor (how ridiculous even having a favourite counter-tenor - and one whose Facebook status at the weekend was 4-1). But, it's not like I'm actually going to enjoy the Classical Brits.

Fuss and palaver with cards...I don't even know if it's a valid transaction, on account of me having given the billing address for Jimmy's card in my name (fuckwittery on my part). And my heart is still racing. Is this  Post Ticket Acquisition Stress Disorder.

But I have a spare ticket, so am looking for a companion...

And I get to hear Warbling Barbie 'sing' live for the first time ever. Be afraid, be very afraid. Oh god, please let it not be a duet.

Faryl Smith

I have been quite bemused this week by the amount of hype this child is getting. Apparently, she appeared on one of those dumbed-down TV shows, one of those whose sole raison d'etre is to get gullible members of the public to call premium rate phone numbers to subsidise the otherwise sinking ship that is ITV. Seemingly, she didn't even the programme or even come as a runner up, and in the natural order of things one would expect a precocious child to return to school and grow up and be normal.

Story is, though, that this was never going to be a Will Young moment, anyway. It wasn't like she just turned up for auditions for this talent show; she was already under the guidance of the Katherine Jenkins Publicity Machine, who advised her to enter every talent show going. And now Katherine Jenkins is her 'mentor', which is a laugh. I mean, seriously, what can the parents be thinking? It reeks of chavdom, Broken Britain and, oh, greed, to allow a schoolgirl to be mentored by a drug dealer. Of course it isn't real mentoring, just a PR stunt.

Apparently this child an album due to be released 'for Mother's Day'. How great is that, encouraging a child and her ghastly mentor to be complicit in a cynical misogynist capitalist venture that assumes that because someone is a Mother she is exactly everyone else who is also a mother. A money-making machine that assumes that all Mothers have the same insipid bland middle-of-the-road taste for manufactured singers. Just about everybody I know who is a mother would be insulted by anyone who thinks that their musical taste is dictated by them being a mother.

Because of this 'mentoring' I am being spammed by the record company. I got one spam because of my membership of the Katherine Jenkins Sycophants' Board; fair enough, I suppose. I then got another spam via YouTube, which I can't say I welcomed, anyway.

But I got to thinking - why did they spam me? I have never been spammed before by a record company, so I am guessing it's because they got someone to trawl through YouTube looking for people who are Katherine Jenkins fans. And they picked me, presumably because of my upload of Barbie's hilarious Una voce poco fa even though I thought I made it fairly clear that I was singularly unimpressed.

I have never liked this pop music business thing of thinking that because you like one artist you'll like another, in my experience it really doesn't work like that. But it seems that this brat's PR campaign is being built around targetting Katherine Jenkins fans (perhaps because they are so gullible and lacking in taste to part easily with their money).

But what made me laugh most in this marketing campaign was this article

Katherine vetoes Faryl's clothes

Katherine Jenkins has been acting as a wardrobe consultant to classical star Faryl Smith...Katherine has been helping her pick out suitable clothes...Faryl also said she hoped to be a role model to other young people and is giving singing lessons on her website

I'm just not sure what's funnier, the idea of Katherine Jenkins - who invariably dresses like a high-class hooker - giving anyone, especially a child, advice on appropriate clothing - or the idea that appearing on an ITV talent show and recording a pop album (with a couple of ersatz 'classical' tracks) makes the child a classical star. But probably funniest of all is this child offering singing lessons. On her website!

The whole thing just stinks of insincerity and Get Rich Quick, with not a concern for art, for arts' sake. Like her mentor, This child can call herself a classical star when she has stood up in front of an audience at a recognised venue and performed an entire work, without a microphone and received popular and critical praise for doing so. In the meantime, she's another unoriginal act who would fail to get any notice in the pop world so is colluding in the pretence that 'classical' means singing pop songs and hymns with an orchestra.

2009 BAFTA Awards - Worst Dressed

Red Carpet Fashion Awards: 2009 BAFTA Awards - Worst Dressed.

Another hideous chavtastic* dress form the Pointless Pop Tart.

Not that I actually care about what she or anyone else wears. And in a surprise move, this dress only seems to be one size too small, as opposed to the usual three or four sizes-too-small she is normally seen falling out of.

Other than ligging, what exactly was her purpose at the BAFTA Awards. Why doesn't she just fuck off to California and spend the next three months recording her next stupid album.

* I don't suppose the dressmakers actually intend them to look like something cheap-and-nasty from New Look, but that's how they seem to look on her

'Pure' classical chart launched

A new chart for "purely classical" music has been launched, the Official Charts Company has announced.

This seems like not a bad idea to me. It certainly makes no sense to have a 'classical' chart which is dominated by pop singers singing pop songs. There have been questions asked about a precise definition of classical, which is a fair question.

In many cases it will be obvious. In many more cases the 'walks like a duck' test applies.  I don't believe that you can turn a donkey into an elephant by calling it an elephant.

The 100% rule makes it easy to eliminate many quickly. Personally, I would not class hymns as 'classical' even when they are set to classical melodies (such as Be Still My Soul, which uses Sibelius's Finlandia) but I would include the various Ave Marias (Bach-Gounod, Mendelssohn, Mascagni etc), and I would include excerpts from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Requiem.

I would generally exclude 'Musical Theatre' although that creates problems with Bernstein and, I think, Sondheim, for example. I think I would also exclude specifically composed Film Soundtracks, on the whole, but I suppose if they were arranged into an orchestral suite I would have to include them. Therefore, would I also include an orchestral suite of, say, Abba or Queen tunes (which exist!). Probably, because they are, in form and structure, quite different from a pop singer singing a pop song translated into Italian and accompanied by orchestra, which remains a pop song.

It has been observed that right now, number one on the Pure Classical chart is the Best of Gilbert and Sullivan, which, naturally, has created questions. Although I detest G&S with a vengeance I think that they, with their Verdi rip-offs, are as classical as the J Strauss family. Whereas Andrew Lloyd Webber's Puccini Plagiarism isn't.

All that having been said, ultimately, this chart has been invented for one reason only.

Opera snobs stick the knife in

Boos as singer opens Harrods sale

Fake vegetarian Katherine Jenkins scoops a million pounds from Britain's only fur importer

I have mixed feelings about campaigns against fur farming and fur products.

On the one hand, I do think it is an ethical matter. Just because it made/makes sense in primitive societies to wear animal pelts for warmth doesn't mean there is any reason other than vanity and ostentatious display of opulence to wear them in Western urban society.

That having been said, it is somewhat inconsistent to condemn the fur trade and not the leather trade.  However, many leather traders state that their products are only from animals reared for meat. So I suppose if you don't object completely to raising animals for meat  (I don't; it's a complex matter with many subtleties), you have no need to object to leather as a by-product.

Fur farming in banned in Britain. Harrods is the only shop that imports fur farmed overseas. That is, animals, mainly mink, farmed overseas for the sole purpose of making fur clothes and accessories.

Leona Lewis turned down the £1 million offered by Harrods to open their sale.

Make-believe vegetarian Katherine Jenkins,  who claims to care passionately about animal rights, cares even more passionately about money and conspicuous consumption.

To be honest, I will start worrying about animal rights when we achieve global human rights, but it's always fun to point out more mendacious greed from this pointless waste of space. And, frankly, £1 million, or £10m, or £100m would be inadequate compensation for being touched by Al Fayed. Euuw. Makes my skin crawl even to think of it.

"Florence Foster" Jenkins sings Una voce poco fa from the Barbie of Seville

I uploaded this onto YouTube with the intention of blogging it, but then got distracted by leg etc waxing, phone calls, swimming, household chores, TV watching, and woke up this morning to find that my policy of passive/silent delegation is reaping dividends!

I bring you Katherine [Florence Foster] Jenkins: Una Voce Poco Fart and una voce poco feh

both with more comments than I could ever muster. Which, of course, makes me cry. But crying is cathartic, so it's probably good for me that I don't get too many comments.

Time to snort a line

A wonderful tribute to Katherine Jenkins, complete with sub-titles (frankly, we could do with a few more sub-titles whenever she sings...)

Festival of Remembrance and 90 Years of Armistice

I did not watch last night's RLB Festival of Remembrance, although I have recorded it and played  a few of the musical highlights. The musical highlight for me was Russell Watson (at which point certain readers faint...)

I have never been a fan of Russell "The Voice" Watson. Whenever I have heard him sing classical music or hymns, I thought he sounds like a nightclub singer out of his depth. On last night's programme he sang That's Life, the old Frank Sinatra number.

I thought he sounded really wonderful, it seemed to suit his voice perfectly. Much more pleasant to listen to than Sinatra. In some ways, not really that appropriate for a Remembrance Service but, actually, in a strange way,  it did seem right. I have subsequently done a bit of research (well, you know, Wikipedia) and I discover that it is on an album he released last year, packed with songs of much the same genre. If he sings the rest like he sings that one, I am pretty sure it is a damn good album. If you like that sort of music. I don't especially, not to the extent of buying records, but I find it tolerably pleasant in the right context on TV or in a bar.

So I ask myself, why is Russell Watson being marketed as a classical singer? It makes no sense. He isn't a classical singer: his business model is pop, his background (and lack of training) is pop, his concert performances are pop, the music he sings is pop - be it modern pop, Sinatra-ish type crooning, or old-style Neapolitan songs and the like - combined with a few dodgy renditions of the most popular Italian arias that were standard rep for every Italian pub singer in the late 19th and early 20th century singer. His album to be released next week is full of covers of pop classics.

He claims to have invented 'classical crossover' (obviously forgot to consult with Signor Caruso) but I don't understand why he doesn't market himself as a gifted pop singer. I don't understand why Classic FM had him on their short-list of best 'classical' singers. I think there is a massive market of people wanting to buy decent pop songs by decent pop singers, so I don't know why he calls himself a classical singer nor why he calls himself a 'tenor', when he could totally mint it by being a bona fide pop singer.

Part of the reason I didn't watch the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance (apart from being out) was the disgust I felt at last year's. There's always an uneasy co-habitation between the Remembrance of the First World War, with its iconography and poetry (verbal and visual), and glorification of current conflicts. I have been watching several TV programmes broadcast or repeated as part of the season to mark the (rather odd) 90th anniversary of WW1. In any case, it is a subject I have studied in some depth for quarter of a century.

I was appalled on the news the other day to hear children parroting the lines 'they died so we could be free'. Exactly the same lines that children were made to recite at the RLB FofM last year apropos of Iraq and Afghanistan. In WW1 the willy-waving generals and politicians led millions of young men and some young women to be slaughtered for nothing, other than 'pride' - yes, I know about Belgium - but just as Sarajevo was merely the flame that lit the bonfire, Belgium was just an excuse for Britain to go to war, a war savoured by the jingoists. 

I still haven't worked out what benefit the Iraqi War has brought to anybody, anywhere in the World. Certainly not in Iraq, and I do believe it has served to make Britain less free. (And don't even mention the recession). Afghanistan is more complex; there was a strong argument for hunting down Bin Laden, that required getting rid of the Taliban, but we abandoned it halfway through when we decided to go for Iraq instead. I don't think that my 'freedom' is improved by the slaughter of non-combatants nor of 'Taliban' militias who are, in reality subsistence farmers who signed up to feed their starving families.  I feel it is quite insulting when the propagandists - yes, Huw Edwards - talk about dead service personnel as having chosen to make a sacrifice for their country. Oh yeah? Well, start putting that in the Services' recruitment adverts rather than 'See the World and Learn a Trade'.

I realise I am sitting in my armchair pontificating. Put myself in danger? Not likely. Every year, we have this television spectacular celebrating those who have been killed in military service. Many of the casualties of the two World Wars, and Korea, were conscripts, little more than prisoners, treated worse than convicts, with their liberty and then their lives taken away. But all subsequent conflicts have been with a volunteer army, who signed up for the danger. Nowadays the service also includes the Bevin boys, Metropolitan Police, St John's Ambulance, London Fire Brigade and London Transport in a direct recognition of the Home Front in World War II.

But there is never anything so grand to mark public servants who have died in the line of duty serving the public, or who face danger daily. Because of work, I am aware of National Police Memorial Day, but they are not so far removed from the military.

What about fire-fighters and health workers, Customs Officers and Prison Officers?  I accept that few die directly in the line of duty but many face stress and danger and are invalided out with little media attention.

What about the transport workers, especially minicab drivers,  and Post Office and Betting Shop workers, for whom danger is daily but without whom we wouldn't have 'Freedom'? Or the very many injured in industrial accidents or suffering chronic industrial illnesses. Like the modern armed forces, they signed up, not really thinking about the dangers.

Without them, my easy life as a pen-pusher would not be as comfortable or tolerable, or as Free. I see that War Veterans (under 60) are now to get free travel on London Transport; I don't see that being extended to those people forced onto benefits by illness,injury or violence at work.

Those of us in low-risk jobs are being bullied into a sentiment not far removed from the propaganda that sent the millions of cannon fodder to die in 1914-18. This time it's the armchair journalists doing it. Not the ones like Frank Gardner, injured as a civilian employee and paralysed when doing his job, shop by Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. But the ones who mislead the public when they stand outside government departments reading a prepared script to camera and kidding us that they have been doing some in-depth investigation when they're just quoting a Press Release and could do so just as easily in the studio.

Oh, and as for Katherine Jenkins. It was a low key performance, at times significantly lower than the key of the orchestra. The dress was relatively modest, almost completely covering her breasts. I did think that I had learnt another bit of Welsh vocabulary - you know how some modern Welsh words just mimic English, like coffi, smokio,  parkio. I thought desolation must be another one. Until she got to the chorus and it slowly dawned on me she was singing in English. I started to recognise half phrases, but only because it's such a familiar poem: They Shall Grow Not Old.

I was well impressed to see yet another example of Barbie not knowing and not giving a flying fuck about the words when, at the line 'At the going down of the sun' ...no, you have to watch it to grasp the sheer stupidity...

Fast forward to 3.05 for the start of the stanza, and 3.30 for the phrase...

Lying Barbie the Drug Dealer

The vice of an angel: Shocking pictures show opera diva Katherine Jenkins 'under the influence of drugs' |

Looks like Warbling Druggie also supplied drugs, not only the cannabis cookies but handing round MDMA. That is quite a different league from what she implied last week - that she had been led astray by other people offering drugs at parties. Which I think we can all understand and forgive - no, not even forgive, it's not mega enough to need forgiveness. Supplying is serious, endangering the life of another is serious (a friend of mine ate a cannabis cake at a party, not even knowing what it was, and ended up in hospital and ill for several days).

This piece in the Daily Mail is a splendid hatchet job with 'friends' - former friends, I would say! - calling her lying, manipulative, diva, rude and obnoxious.

And of course, the killer fact: her already shaky claims that she merely dabbled with drugs as a teenager, somewhat contradicted by her claim that she instantly gave up when she signed the record deal in 2003, have been blown apart by evidence that she continued her heavy drugs use - and dealing -  into 2004. I would not be surprised if she continued at least until she split up with the Boy Band Boyfriend in 2006. Although, of course, I have zilch evidence to support that.

It seems that my work on this earth is almost done.

There is not one sniff (or snort) of this on her Official Bulletin Board, the discussion group controlled by her (soon-to-be-former) record company, where any criticism of the Druggie Liar is censored, and where the poor deluded suckers continue to post on how brave and honest she was to come clean about her youthful mistakes to sweet Uncle Piers