Gertsamtkunstwerk

Various bits of aural indulgence

This is the bit where I am going through my classical record collection to try and draw up a ''top twenty' (or whatever). This post has been hanging around for a few weeks now, but as I'm about to work methodically through all my Mozart CDs, it's probably time I posted it. (I intend to finish this project in time for my fortieth birthday).

Badiniere from Suite No.2 in B minor - Bach, although I prefer the version by James Galway that my sister had on record when we were kids
Intermezzo (First Movement) from Karelia Suite - Sibelius
Brahms's Second Piano concerto in B flat major op. 83 has long been one of my favourite pieces. This is perfect music to make one feel very sexy, especially the dramatic opening - and, let's face it, ultimately, that's the whole point of music*. Plus I have a fetish for Deutsche Grammophon packaging - its yellow is as evocative as a Penguin paperback.

Faure's Requiem. Tranquility. Every time I hear something by Faure I keep thinking I must get more into him. but this is the only disc in my collection apart from a few snatches on compilations. Especially, Sanctus, Pie Jesu and Agnus Dei

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64. I am currently listening to a version I taped off my Dad's record. I only have the Andante, with Yehudi Menuhin and the Philharmonia under Efrem Kurtz. You know, this exercise is demonstrating that Mendelssohn is the most underrated composer featuring insufficiently in my record collection.

And then I find a surprise in my collection, something I had totally forgotten I had, largely because I have different version on CD, and CD redundifies tape, especially a tape taped off an album from Nottingham Central Library in about 1989. Beethoven's ninth, a symphony much bigger than words can ever express, and quite possibly the one piece I would take on my desert island. And I'm having one of those tricky but fab - because I don't have to choose - dilemmas: was Beethoven, in fact, greater than Mozart?

Trumpet Voluntary by Jeremiah Clarke

* I jest

More Beatles

I bought an album called Beatles Rock 'n' Roll music in 1980. December 1980. (Significant date). Listening to it, now (for the first time in years) I realise that it's done by session musicians. It's difficult to tell when you are playing a vinyl on the crappiest second hand multichanger mono with a stylus that needed changing probably before I was born. I hate it when record companies do this, and flog their dubious products in Woolworths to unsuspecting pre-teens. But there you go.

The other side of the tape is Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace. I bought this with Christmas money in O-Level year (1983/4). At the time I really loved it. Now, I realise that every track, except perhaps the title track, is irredeemably forgettable. And the title track is barely mediocre.

I then listened to the White Album. I guess I was not in the mood to listen properly to it, but it did somewhat prove my thesis that The Beatles are rightly held by posterity to be great because such a high proportion of their songs are good or better, compared with, say Madonna or Queen, who produced some storming records but also produced too many mediocres or turkeys.

Updating

I really can't decide whether I am depressed or not. I have been taking the happy pills for over two weeks so I imagine that a feeling of...well-being...is due to them. Unfortunately, the *well-being* also seems to have removed my ability to rant or be moved to tears.

I don't think that it is depression. I am constantly tired - I slept eleven hours last night, disturbed only by an auto-piloted loo trip. And I lack the will to do anything. Doing anything - eg washing-up - leaves me exhausted. Then the thought of doing things sends me into an anxiety attack. And I ache all over but especially down my left arm and across the back of my neck. And in my left back. And at the bottom of my left rib.

Plus I get those horrible little twitches that leave me paralysed for thirty seconds and nauseous for five minutes. You know when your brain vibrates and your left foot jerks? And I'm not at work but I'm struggling to conquer the blogroll. And anxious about it.

The fat lady won't sing

Covent Garden drops Deborah Voight for being too large to wear a little black dress in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos.

As a side point the article contains the phrase

Nowadays, however, we expect Tristan and Isolde to look shaggable as well as sound it

I am fascinated by the evolution of the word 'shag', and its derivatives. I'm sure it's a recent development. For example, I think when I was a student (86-89) the mot de jour was bonk, which seems to have fallen out of usage. The tabloids use the word 'bedded' which I hate. In intimate surroundings I like to use the good old Anglo-Saxon word 'fuck'. I think, however, shag is acceptable in polite-ish company, although I don't think that it has quite the acceptability yet of 'crap' which I have encountered in formal work situations.

There are so many euphemisms for the act of sexual congress. I suspect if someone said "Let's have sexual intercourse", certainly if they said it without irony, I would immediately turn frigid.

'Going to bed with' or 'sleeping with' are way too euphemistic, and miss the point. 'Screwing' seems a little too aggressive. 'Making love' works in some contexts - you know, men who say "I don't have sex, I make love" (again, a slight sense of irony helps!). But, for example, in the novels of Jane Austen 'making love' has different connotations, perhaps somewhere between flirting and whispering sweet nothings.

And what is flirting? Does it always have to be sexual, or is it okay to flirt, for example, with colleagues, or shop assistants, or with child relatives, when there is absolutely no sexual intention.

I like the word 'shag'. It has no sense of obscenity, and enables one to establish the fact without going into details.

Whether Wagner intended Tristan and Isolde to look and sound shaggable is a whole other question.

Council tax protest

There are lots of stories about people protesting council tax rises - Council tax rebel stands in local byelection.

What amazes me is how many of them are pensioners.

It's a shame some of them, who clearly have too much time on their hands, don't scrutinise the finances of their local council (s). They will then discover that the biggest increase in council spending, certainly for all the time I was involved in Local Government at one level or another, was in Social Services. Especially in domicilliary and residential care for Older Persons.

I suppose if they insist on withholding part of their Council Tax, they won't mind if the Councils withhold part of their statutory services - you know, the bumwiping ones provided disproportionately to Pensioners.

What's Tony been up to?

Nothing, actually

All the newspapers seem to be carrying the gossip of PEter Foster, and all of them seem to be pointing out that a) he's a convicted fraudster and b) that he will soon have a book of memoirs to plug - ie the message from all the newspapers is 'don't believe a word of it'. Another subtext is, of course, it is not possible to have friends of the opposite sex - in the end it has to be sexual.

This story in the Sun cracked me up . You know, if I was a bloke, and I was Prime Minister, and I was 'happily married', and I was having an extra-marital affair, I really think that I would use condoms.

Graham

Graham was a trainee on the section. He was a simpering sop with a military obsession. Not as in being a member of the Territorials, but just obsessed by military. He was the only person outside Defence Divisions on the circulation for Jane's Weekly. And was proud of that fact. He had applied twice to be on Defence Division, the biggest in the office, and had twice been turned down. (I on the other hand specifically stated that I didn't want to be on Defence).

Graham had a fiancee called Helen and they were due to be married in the December. Repeatedly, he would simper, "Helen's so looking forward to the wedding; it's going to be her Big Day." I got the impression that neither Helen nor Graham were at all aware that marriage isn't about the Big Day, but about lifetime (give or take) of commitment.

He was also obsessed by public schools. Repeatedly, he told me that Haileybury was his 'favourite' public school. Eventually, I said, "So you went to Haileybury, then?" Turns out he had been to some good-enough comp in Hampshire.

He decided to leave and go and work for one of the firms. Our manager really couldn't understand why. He would have to delay his P2 for a year, and have to study in his own time, rather than on block release. And for no better money. John did suggest he should complete his training at our place and then move to the firm for much moolah on qualification.

He asked John for a reference. "Sure," said John, "you write it, then email it to me." Rather than emailing it to John, he emailed it to the whole of Unit B, some two hundred people - he thought he would find John's email address by looking in the Unit B 'menu', which was actually the Unit B group address. Panicking, he ran into me, asking what he should do, so I showed him how he could retrieve the email. It was absolutely hilarious watching people gradually sending read receipts as the system slowly chugged away at deleting it.

Later in the afternoon various people smelt wine on our section and discovered various spurious reasons to visit us. Each and everyone asked John for a reference, on the basis that he had given Graham a really nice one.

Team Squirrel

Has anybody caught that programme, World Famous for Dicking Around? I saw it the other night on FTN channel, whatever that is. The basic premise is these young blokes (and, to be honest, it would have to be blokes...) living in a tiny village in a remote part of Scotland, where the only thing to look forward to is...DEATH...so they form a team that does stunts. Oh, you know, launching into space using only a traffic cone and some fireworks, and a tupperware bowl and swimming goggles for protection. Then there was the ski-jump - a piece of blue plastic laid down a fell, soaked with ten litres of washing up liquid, where the objective is to slide down on your bum.

Sort of thing that makes one proud to be British...

Why I hate technology

No 361 in a series

I'm having trouble with CDs. The CD/DVD drive of my pooter appears to be broken. It appears as far as I can see to be a purely mechanical fault. It sticks out priapically. I suppose I should take the box apart and see if I can cure it magically with WD40 or something.

Now the CD changer on my downstairs stereo appears to have given up the ghost. Again, I suspect it's mechanical. It suddenly stopped playing. Just like that. The trays won't open, which is a bit of bugger, because inside are trapped two CDs from the Best Album in the World...Ever series. A bloody good album, too.

So I think I want a new stereo. Definitely one with a multi-changer. I am wondering whether to get an SACD player. It's probably premature to own one now, but I understand that SACD is the future, at least for classical music. So I may regret in a year or two not having an SACD. On the other hand, I doubt any of my usual hit-and-run outlets have them. And I want a new CD player...now. Okay, I have the upstairs one, which is incredibly beautiful, and I suppose I can play CDs in the DVD player, through the TV. But I want instant gratification.

This Sporting Life

I don't know why, but it seems impossible for all matches to go the way you want. Swings and roundabouts, rough with the smooth, some you win, some you lose.

Frankly, Manchester United have been dire throughout February. Hopefully, we are now beginning a long March to glory. But forgive me if I show little faith. Nevertheless, it is nice that we beat Fulham on Saturday. And nice that we are in our first FA Cup Semi Final of the century/millennium. I have no memory of United ever losing an FA Cup Semi Final, and memories of glory days in (can I do this entirely from memory...?) 1976, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1999. And we won seven out of ten of those finals, which is no bad thing. Say what you like, the FA Cup is past its glory days. But, hey, what memories of Cup Final weekends, culminating in watching the boys in their open top bus parade down Washway Road in Sale.

And looking at the semi final line-up, you have the two biggest clubs in the Premiership, alongside a First Division Team and a replay scheduled bringing D1 against D2. Pretty glamorous, I reckon. All that remains to be seen is how the FA fix the draw - to have the United-Arse showdown in the semis, or hope that this will be the final. Maybe there's an advantage in going for the United-Sunderland (Northern) semi, with them banking on Millwall meeting Arsenal in the London semi.

We shall see.

As for England Rugby. What a load of rubbish. Losing to Ireland. At Twickers. Terrible. And let's face it, they played badly - all those line-outs they lost. Plus, considering they had two tries disallowed by the fourth official, and another one where the Irish defender just got to the ball more quickly.

Jimmy, who spent the weekend suffering with a heavy cold, decided to watch it indoors with his father. His Irish father. His unrepentantly patriotic Irish father. Who now believes that Ireland is the best team in the world, and England only won the World Cup by mistake.

Let's just hope that we beat Wales. And France. It's one thing beating Italy and Scotland, who are competing for the wooden spoon. But France ought to be our only rivals for Northern Hemisphere superiority, and Wales appear to be rapidly improving.

*Sigh*

With the Beatles

Sometime in the early nineties I decided it would be really good to expand my Beatles collection. Lo and behold, I find the next tape to be played includes Revolver which contains some classic songs - Eleanor Rigby, which is an amazing poem with quite a pleasant tune; Here, There and Everywhere, a sweet little love song; Yellow Submarine, a sweet little nursery rhyme (I remember in my first week at Primary School we had a wet lunchtime and one of my classmates had the bright idea that we were all going to draw Yellow Submarines); and For no one, a sweet song about a love that 'could have lasted years', but didn't.

And then you get Sergeant Pepper, which destroys my thesis that the Beatles produced a lot of pleasant tunes but nothing special. What is special about the Beatles is embodied in this album. I was a student when the media were doing "It was twenty years ago today..." and the music sounded fresh then. Sixteen years on, it is still revolutionary, mind blowing...

Listen to the words of She's Leaving Home - the tiny details of domestic mundanity, and the poignant "She's Leaving Home after living alone for so many years..." Or When I'm 64...

Now, I'm betting that somewhere in your collection you have Sergeant Pepper, and I'll also bet that it's a while since you played it. Go on do me a favour, do yourself a favour, take that vinyl out of its sleeve. And th einner sleeve. Blow off the dust. Put it on the turntable. Listen to beautiful music (And sing along - you know the words...). Then come back here and tell me whether your day just got a little bit better!

Observing Rhinegold

Messing about on the river and calling for surtitles.

Funny how every review mentions the Pole Dancers...

Value for £3.99

I browsed round WH Smith yesterday and ended up buying Classic FM magazine. On it is a CD. 'Essential Opera' they call it. I played it last night, and again this morning, and there is one track that stands out as sublimely beautiful - L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from Bizet's Carmen, sung by Maria Callas. Remember that this recording must be at least forty years old. I know they can do wonders with digital remastering these days, but they are still working on the raw, relatively, poor quality analogue recording. Yet, to hear the clarity of that voice - wow!

So, if you have £3.99 to spare, I suggest you get this magazine/CD, which also includes Verdi's Anvil Chorus, Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, Sempre Libera and Celeste Aida; Bizet's Pearl Fishers Duet; Puccini's Se come voi, E lucevan le stelle, Che gelida manina, and Vissi d'arte; Handel's Volate, amori; Beethoven's O War'ich schon mit dir vereint; Mozart's Un'aura amorosa; Delibes' Flower Duet and Leoncavallo's Vesti la giubba.

Bizarrely, although it claims to be Essential Opera, it omits anything by Wagner or Strauss, perhaps as being too taxing for the Classic FM listener. Still, I'm not claiming it to be the Best Opera Album in the World...Ever, but good VFM for �3.99.

Actually, looking on my CD shelves I have another CD called "Essential Opera" (my, these titles are imaginative...), (next to the Essential Music of England) and that contains no Wagner or Strauss. Mm. Strokes chin and wonders why that should be so.

Old Labour

Oh heck, am I getting old, or is he? I agree with Denis Healey...! Now Lord Healey says it is time for Blair to make way for Brown.

Actually, it's extraordinary how many politicians from that era are still alive, and healthy. Healey is 86, Callaghan celebrated his 90th a while back, Barbara Castle was 91 when she died a couple of years back. Edward Heath is 87. Add on people like Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher (who, of course, is increasingly loopy, but when wasn't she?), both 78, and the Queen at 77, and I just wonder whether they are proof of the benefits of an active old age.

I don't know about you, but I have noticed how quickly people go into decline when they retire - except those who deliberately choose a new occupation. Like my mother, after she retired aged 63 she went from middle-aged to elderly in less than a year.

Gielgud's letters published

The Telegraph will be serialising a collection of the letters of Sir john Geilgud, including his fear of being blackmailed.

Geilgud was the toweringly great actor of my lifetime (along with Laurence Olivier). What is extraordinary is that five years before I was even born, he referred to "Really, at my time of life".

So, he was in his sixties when homosexuality was legalised in this country. I can barely imagine the feeling of being prevented from living ife as one should wish, especially being such a public figure.

The Rhinegold

The Guardian reviews last night's production of The Rhinegold at the Colisseum, which I attended. (As a parenthetical comment, I realised a few months ago that, apart from Ride of the Valkyries, I know very little Wagner at all, and determined that I was going to learn, so I have booked for the first three in the tetralogy).

On the whole I agree with the conclusions of the critic.

More general impressions. I am unsure about the performance of opera in English - unless it is written in English. Perhaps because, by chance, the first opera I went to was also the first time supertitles were used in this country, which probably influenced me. As a student, we often went to Opera North, who perform in English, without supertitles. My friend used to mock me, saying that supertitles are a gimmick that will never catch on. I wrote a cheque to her (actually for Evita tickets), where I inserted into her name "I want to see an opera in English".

Despite the multi-billion pound refurbishment of the Colisseum, they didn't install supertitles, instead, are looking for £20 million to install a seatback system. Not sure how that works, apparently they have it at the Met, but I would have thought that you would be constantly changing your view from seatback to stage.

However, for better or worse, ENO perform in English. And actually, despite my prejudice, I soon got accustomed to it and think it's no bad thing. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that all the words are intelligible, so I still think supertitles would be a good thing. And it can't be that expensive to install, because when I went to Figaro back in 1985 they had installed them for a very limited run at the all-purpose Palace Theatre in Manchester. When BBC4 broadcast The Tempest, they used subtitles, despite it being in English.

I'm not sure, either, of the modern setting of the opera. Considering that the main point of the Ring Cycle is ancient mythology, and considering, as the programme itself commented:

Today's generation, weaned on Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy and fantasist computer games, will recognise The Rhinegold as the prototypical action-packed story of gods, demons, giants, cunning tricks, deadly curses and magic spells

, it seems a bit - patronising? - to remove the ancientness, especially in a week where LOTR picks up 11 Oscars.

The second scene, where, amongst other things, Wotan uses his mobile phone, caused a certain amount of titters where I was sitting. In front of me were two opera queens; one shook his head negatively throughout the modern scenes.

Just as they were about to cross over into Valhalla, they walked across a bridge that was, surely, the Big Brother bridge, surrounded by paparazzi - I half expected Davina McCall to appear. Yet, when they actually crossed into Valhalla, they did so across a gorgeous rope suspension bridge suspended in the sky through clouds of mists that was truly magical.

As for the music - well, Wagner didn't write pretty tunes, but there is something about the richness of the orchestration that is compelling.

At the end, one of the opera queens in front of me, booed the Director, Phyllida Lloyd, and called out "Rubbish, rubbish". How exciting, I thought. It's terribly fashionable to boo the Director.

In the bar beforehand, I overheard someone saying to their friend, "I started coming here in the Seventies because I hated Covent Garden. It was full of people who knew nothing about the music and were just there to be seen and be pretentious."

As for the much-talked-about refurbishment, well, it looked absolutely gorgeously sumptuous. Very effective air conditioning. there were all sorts of people wandering around saying "Oh wow! It's wonderful! Fabulous!" The excitement in the Ladies loos was barely controllable - apparently there used to be only three cubicles and now there's maybe twelve. The wash hand basins are interesting - a porcelain bowl, into which the water pours from a wall-mounted button-operated tap. I didn't go to the Star Bar which is said to have one of the best views in London. I shall leave that to a light summer's evening.

April Update Just discovered review from Gay.com.

Bookish book-keepers

Apparently accountants are the most well read. This is, presumably, because they lack the personality to make friends or go out places, s they read as a substitute for having a life.

(I am an accountant...)

Brahms's beard

I noticed this programme billed in the Radio Times. One of the luxuries of being at home and lethargic is that after you have struggled the ten yards to the newsagent and back, to pick up (ssssh) 60 cigarettes, a King Size Mars Bar and a Radio Times, there is nothing else to do but recline on the sofa eating said Mars Bar, chain smoking said cigarettes andreading the Radio Times in minute detail. Still, I think a whole programme devoted to whether we would change our perception of Brahms if he hadn't had a beard is going a bit far. Like, in those days, all men had beards, didn't they? More interesting is the Simon Rattle phenomenon, otherwise known as Classical Music Hair

Snogging

It's one of those words, isn't it?

We are snogging. I snogged him. I want a snog.

Ooh, look at those people snogging.

What is a snog?

The Oxford English dictionary says

snog

Brit. informal

• verb (snogged, snogging) kiss and caress amorously.

• noun an act or spell of kissing and caressing.

Google comes up with a strange definition:

snuggle and lie in a position where one person faces the back of the others

And there's some tips here on how to get a snog -

The average person will spend approximately two weeks of their whole life snogging!

So, what, to you compromises a snog? Is it a snog if it is merely a prolonged kiss on the lips? Or is it a snog if the lips are parted? Must it involve tongues? And how important is it what the rest of the body is doing - is a long lip kiss with groping a snog, or does it have to involve tonsil licking? The Urban Dictionary seems undecided whether tongues are essential or not, or indeed whether a snog is

A French version of the hot-dog. Is eating with mayonnaise and grease.

Electoral fraud

I always like to follow the fortunes of my fellow former councillors. That Tory group of 1994 were a rum lot; another one was jailed for mortgage and housing benefit fraud. Tory poll forgery scam and Tory councillor rigged election ballot papers.

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

It's been a while since I went to straight theatre, and tonight's trip to the Almeida was the smallest theatre I have attended since that distinctly weird one above a pub in Turnham Green. I was sat next to the woman with the snorting foghorn. She laughed when other people didn't, especially when homophobic comments were being said that weren't actually funny. Every time she honked inappropriately people turned round to look/glare, only I was convinced they thought it was me, not her, honking.

Anyway, the play is about a man who after twenty years or more of happy/faithful marriage falls in love with a goat, and tells his best friend who tells his wife and son. This is the entire premise of the play. I wonder how it would have played if you didn't know beforehand that he was having an affair with a goat.

In between scenes I reflected what I would blog, and decided that I would say "What shocked me was not that I was disgusted that he was having sex with the goat, but that he had fallen in love with it; that seemed a perversion too far. What does that say about the stuff I have read in mainstream books eg by Nancy Friday about people having sex with animals, that it no longer has the power to shock? But the 'falling in love' is an anthromorphism too far."

Slight spoiler to comeThen, at the end, the main protagonist is kissing the blood-spattered carcass of Sylvia (the Goat) and I thought 'How vile, he's kissing the a dirty animal, that is physically revolting' - I had previously been dealing with the bestial act as an abstract. Then I thought, lots of people who have cats and dogs slobber and kiss them, which is pretty disgusting, too. Perhaps we often hover on the edge of taboo.

Incidentally Who Is Sylvia is a poem by Shakespeare with music by Schubert

Blogging the pop music

I have a tape. On one side is a Beatles Greatest Hits taped off my sister who taped it off a friend. Many years ago. On the other side is some of the favourite singles (7" vinyls) that I found in my collection at about the same time.

I’m never really quite sure how to feel about The Beatles, really. They had split up by the time that I became aware of them, so I never had the experience of feeling something fresh and new. There are no Beatles songs I hate and few that I dislike, or leave me indifferent. But I am not sure that there is any Beatles song that affects me emotionally.

However, I am playing my tapes alphabetically, so there's plenty more Beatles to come...

'The Other Side' includes:

• Waves - Blancmange: one of those songs that I spent weeks going round saying 'ooooooh' everytime I heard it. Wonderful to hear it again.
• Sensitive -Mick Karn: one of the most obscure singles I have, and time has not diminished the pleasure of the tune and the melancholy "If you shake their hands and stab them maybe they'll become sensitive"
• Memory - Elaine Paige. OK, I'll admit, I actually do like this. It might have been written for my voice - a belt it out loud, and not too high, except for the "Touch Me..." at the climax, which has a swoop-up to help. Elaine Paige subsequently made a career of appearing on Pebble Mill, and, really, isn't very good. Still, the words are better than most Andrew-Lloyd Webber's songs. I have tried and failed many times to get into TS Eliot. (My mother met him once in a dry-cleaners near Gloucester Road Tube, at about the same time she Flanders and Swann live in concert. We went on pilgrimage to that dry-cleaners about ten years ago.)
• Waterfalls - Paul McCartney I really liked this when it came out; indeed I bought it, but I later worked in a pub called the Bulls Head and this was on a tape that played about four songs on a constant reel throughout the summer and Christmas vacations of 1987. It bugged the life out of me and I realise still that I actively dislike it. We visited that same pub on New Years Eve afternoon. It was a most weird experience, partly because they had changed the layout. Still, I had a pleasant glass of light mild and remembered never to go back to the past
• Crying - Don McLean. I subsequently bought the kd lang/Roy Orbison version which is superbly excellent, but this is good. Many years ago I tried my hand at writing stories based on songs ie what caused the song to be written, or what happened next. This was really quite inspirational. Shame that I threw out that notebook in a fit of *I'm grown up now so don't need the fiction I wrote at age 13*
• Joan of Arc/Maid of Orleans - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Two of the prime examples of the beauty of 80s electronic music. And two incredibly ugly geeky guys, who would never make it now...
• It's My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To ) - Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin - one of the best intros of any pop songs...EVER! And absolutely loaded with teenagey angst
• Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler. A gloriously OTT Jim Steinman (best known for his work with Meatloaf) creation
• No Regrets - Midge Ure - see comments for OMD. Although Midge isn't ugly or geeky

What have I been doing with my life?

Cocooning, I guess is the word.

Watching an awful lot of TV. Everything from the Scotland-England rugby match (yay!) to the Porto-Manchester United match (no!).

Being depressed and that, I thought it would be a really fab idea to while away my hours watching total tear-jerkers such as Otello and La Traviata. In fact, on Friday night I put on my DVD of Otello that Mummy got me for Xmas. I said to Jimmy, 'If you don't like this, say so,' and he later said that he thought he would try for twenty minutes, and ended up thoroughly enjoying the whole two and a quarter hours.

Then yesterday we watched The Sound of Music, which, unbelievably, he has never seen before. And yes, although I have seen it thirty zillion times, I cried. Oh, and on Saturday we watched Hope Springs, which was enjoyable and probably worth ££3.75 from Sky Box Office, although wouldn't have been worth £20+ in the West End.

And I am simply not discussing the fact that it appears that Manchester United appear to have thrown away all hopes of the Championship - February seems to have been the longest month to watch one's favourite football club slowly imploding.