Gertsamtkunstwerk

I must stop scrutinising my referral files

I was going to bring you "Sex and Body" but all the others have mounted up, you will have to wait, with breath suitably baited until Friday for those.

Instead, in no particular order, I bring you:

• why its crap living in scotland
• website for nebby people
• ww2 UK aircraft carrying submarines - I'm not sure if they were looking for subs that carried planes or planes that carried subs. Maybe I'm being thick, but either sounds daft
• did Tiberius know of the crucifiction? - there was a crucifiction? No one told me!
• american world cup football team 1979 - so it's not just World Wars they turn up late for!
• richard attenborough bird that does impressions - no, it's the David Attenborough bird that does impressions - the Richard Attenborough bird does strictly straight acting
• tim henman is shit - yes
• "tim henman" erotic - no!
• tim henman naked - never
• celebrities contortions
• How stuff works the internet - Fortunately, they hit the right place to find out it's not stuff but small woodland animals

And, in consecutive searches, both from google.com.mx:

• Celebrity Stalkers
• Rolando Villazon address

Online betting

Guess who put a tenner on Cristiano Ronaldo as first scorer at 11-1? Guess who's going out for a swanky dinner - possibly at a Portuguese restaurant (but probably an Italian...) at the weekend!

Divas

Two compilation albums: Ultimate Divas was bought on a sultry evening at Dupont Circle, almost exactly five years ago. An interesting range of singers, from Billie Holiday to Annie Lennox, and introducing me to some singers that were previously only names, names I really need to explore further. One of the songs is Gladys Knight's Midnight Train to Georgia. An indifferent song, but we had arrived in Washington on an overnight train from Boston, and later flew out to New Orleans, changing planes at Atlanta Georgia.

Highlights include Lena Horne's Stormy Weather; Dinah Washington's What A Difference a Day Makes; Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart and of course Judy Garland singing Over The Rainbow. Worst song of all is Aretha Franklin 'singing' Nessun Fucking Dorma.

Divas of Jazz was bought just over a year ago as a lunchbreak retail therapy. Fortunately, "Jazz" is a very loose term; instead it contains a range of good songs that are vaguely related to Jazz, and a few Classic Jazz numbers. Highlights are All That Jazz - Ute Lemper (from Chicago); Billie Holiday singing Stormy Weather (I think I like Stormy Weather...!), Peggy Lee singing Black Coffee (although I prefer kd lang's version...); Love and Affection - Joan Armatrading (you know, I would have hated this when I was a kid); Ella Fitzgerald's Manhattan; Erma Franklin's (Take A Little) Piece of My Heart; and Dinah Washington's Cry Me A River.

We joke that PP Arnold's Angel of the Morning is my theme song - because I don't do mornings, right!

A very special mention should go to Dinah Washington's Mad About the Boy, especially the words, which, I think, will strike a chord with all of us who indulge in Celebrity Crushes®

Mad about the boy,
I know it’s stupid to be mad about the boy,
I’m so ashamed of it, but must admit
The sleepless nights I’ve had about the boy.
On the silver screen,
He melts my foolish heart in ev’ry single scene,
Although I’m quite aware that here and there,
Are traces of a cad about the boy.
Lord knows I’m not a fool girl,
I really shouldn’t care.
Lord knows I’m not a schoolgirl,
In the flurry of her first affair.
Will it ever cloy?
This odd diversity of misery and joy.
I’m feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I’m mad about the boy.

Written by Noel Coward

The family tree

Various members of the family have put together a family tree. Looking specifically at the descendants of my great-grandparents, it is quite startling. My ggps had twelve children surviving into adulthood. The information suggests that six of these twelve produced 46 grandchildren between 1947 and 1977 (I am eleventh youngest), and so far at least 44 great-grandchildren, from 1979 to 2003. Of those 44 ggc, 16 are descendants of my grandparents (who also had 16 grandchildren) and 19 from my great aunt who emigrated to the US (who had 11 grandchildren).

If everyone had uniformly produced 2 children, there would be 48 in my generation, and 96 in the next - although that still has plenty of scope for expansion, and, with more than a dozen of them now adults, I would expect a further generation in the not too distant future.

My great-great-great grandmother was an Unwed Mother, the daughter of a Dr Murray. She gave birth to my great-great grandmother in 1821 in Co Clare, Ireland. The family had to wait 170 years for another Unwed Mother!

Ooh, good heavens, said great-great-grandmother had my great-grandfather in 1867 - at the age of 46! My granny had my youngest auntie at the age of 43, in 1936. Two aunts had children at 40 and 42, in the 60s, and my mother (no blood relation to all that lot) had my brother at just under 40 in the 70s.

Declining fertility at my age, 36? I don't think so - I have another ten years yet!

This is of course, only a quarter of my family, although the other three quarters are less extensive.

Weekend away

Lisdoonvarna, County Clare and back in 39 hours. A family reunion was organised. The descendants of my great-grandparents, who had thirteen children. I am not sure how many assembled in total - there were probably about 50 for dinner, plus various others who appeared just for pre-dinner drinks and/or for Sunday Mass. I had a sister and nephew; an Aunt, four first cousins, plus son; probably a dozen or more of my father's cousins, including some partners; god knows how many of my second cousins, plus some partners, plus three of their offspring. In addition, a descendant of my great-great-grandparents turned up with his wife for after dinner drinks. And to further complicate matters, the partner of the late cousin of one of my father's cousins came all the way from Australia! Various Australians and Americans sent apologies, as should have a temporary New Zealander. There was a sizeable contingent from Florida, and the Italians included Kevin the youngest of my generation, with his Spanish partner. One of my second cousins is married to a Spaniard and another to an Italian. Of course the majority were Irish or English, including Irish living in England. I think that's the nationalities covered!

In the long drive from Dublin to Lisdoon (thank you George W Bush for the diversion that added two hours to our journey and left us with no time to see the Cliffs of Moher - you have no Irish roots, and we planned our summit photo opportunity long before you did, Bastard. Note to all Irish-Americans - Do Not Vote Bush.), conversation included the "chav" concept. The word - and bling bling - was unfamiliar to Pauline and Joseph, but the concept isn't!

We descended into a mocking discussion of Chav names, which Joseph helpfully supplied from amongst his school mates. (I renamed his school St Richavs). However, the biscuit goes to my niece's two friends from down the road, Tegan and Keana. (Read it and weep!). Imagine our horror when examining the impressive family tree to discover that many of the children of our American third cousins (ie Joseph's fourth cousins) born since the late eighties have really chav names. But are they genuine chav if American? We concluded that at the second cousin stage, there were no chav names, although we are yet undecided about the very youngest member of the family, six-month old Trinity (girl). I think it probably counts as genuine exotic...!

A lot more on the party and on my general impressions of Ireland later.

And to Pauline and Joseph...found it yet?

Smoke and Strong Whiskey

Christy Moore is right up there in the Pantheon of Heroes® And it's so exciting to be playing this the day before visiting the Ancestral Home in County Clare. But, I have to say, even somebody so god-like as Christy Moore should be thoroughly ashamed of Fairytale of New York. I'm sorry but if this was the only CM I had heard, I would rank him beneath Cliff Richard and Daniel O'Donnell.

One of my most enjoyable evenings ever was in Blarney, in a room above a pub, where a guy, whom Helen swore to be Christy's twin brother, was playing. It was so weird, because the audience was nearly half Irish, nearly half British (he said you can spot the Brits because they always ask for Black Velvet Band...!) and the rest were Scandinavian.

Yet the next day, the Blarney Woollen Mills were over run by Americans. I'm not being funny, but exactly were they doing in Blarney of an evening if they weren't at Christy Moore's twin brother in concert?

And before you ask, no we didn't kiss the Blarney Stone. Like we needed to! Besides, it was the year that small boys found it amusing to be pissing on it.

What I really like about Christy is that he gives the impression of being a whimsical Oirish folk singer-songwriter, but, actually, most of his songs are pretty apposite commentaries on current affairs and history.

Googlers, Part 2

Some more of the search requests that brought people here:

Celebrities:

• Messiah Plácido Domingo - I'm a big fan, but even I wouldn't go that far...
• laura ingalls wilder windows media player - I seem to recall that the little house on the prairie was quite far from the nearest cinema or record store, and back in those days the Pony Express was quite unreliable for delivering goodies from Amazon, so, in, I think volume 3 of the books, Laura talked about how much the Ingalls Wilder family loved downloading albums and movies and using Windows media player to enjoy them
• billy and melvyn bragg brothers - sadly, not, but they ought to be. I have stood very close to both of them when they, like me, were consumers of culture

I haven't quite got the hang of this googling lark:

• you can be my toyboy i can be ur hunny u can be play play boy and i can be ur play
• show photos of the clinton arms public house in clinton road northampton uk
• dogs life books and dogs and fings all of dogs
• how Egypt looks like and how egypt looked like and any egyptian things th
• i need to find a greenhouse mr google search find me one now and not some stupid

I just liked 'em:

• headteacher retirement jokes - I imagine some poor stressed out Chair of Governors desperately searching for something amusing to insert into a speech, and conscious that time is running out
• audit slogan - they exist - I worked somewhere that proposed changing its slogan from "Helping The Nation Spend Wisely". Staff revolted, and wisely, they retained the slogan
• adrian means - delicious irony
• dangers of working with stupid people - too many to list here!
• musings on balls of wool - balls of wool are very therapeutic

Perspective

It is, however, somewhat reassuring that within minutes of the match ending, my Sitemeter page is full of searches for 'dogging' in various English towns.

I think it somehow displays the Blitz Spirit that all around England people are standing up from the sofa, draining the last dregs of piss poor lager (or, in our case, Chablis Premier Cru) and saying, "By 'eck England lost in a plucky fight against the Portuguese. Ay up me duck, let's cheer usselves up with a spot of exhibitionist random group sex in a car park. Let's see what Lush Gert has to offer us today..."

Robbed

If only...

Set your watches. Riots and carnage start in forty minutes.

Shit.

Fix

The referee's a fucking homer

Confused?

We have had so many *interesting* Search Requests this week that we have made an Executive Decision to present them in serialised form.

As I sit here wearing an England t-shirt, I thought for starters we would concentrate on sporting searches:

Drumroll

• footballers dicks pop out
• st george sequined handbag - classy!
• wayne rooney hairy chest
• wayne rooney cartwheel - which takes the Googler direct to a review of Faust at the ROH
• Gary Neville gay
• Gary Neville wife
• Michael Owen gay
• Michael Owen girlfriend
• Stephen Gerrard gay
• Stephen Gerrard girlfirend - I think there's a theme developing here!
• "tim henman" tosser
• tim henman gay
• tim henman circumcised
• tim henman penis - is it Wimbledon fortnight, by any chance?
• gary neville penis
• michael owen penis
• Wayne Rooney penis - ooh, another theme...
• johnny wilkinson why is he a famous rugby player - Just a hunch, but it's probably because he's famous for playing rugby

Update - we've just had "frank lampard gay icon". Ooh, the excitement!

Kick off minus 75 minutes - we've now been searched for "Beckham circumcised" It's gratifying that people are doing their pre-match research n such depth...

The Plumber

Ron is a plumber by trade, he has also made a small fortune on property deals. He has a 17 room house in Balham, not the cheapest postcode. There's no heating, or even hot water, but don't let that bother you. He also has a house in the Lake District although he hasn't visited it for two years. He made a third of a million in selling his late mother's house. Although he is 67, and, reputedly, a millionaire, he still goes to work every day.

Despite being a millionaire, he drives a clapped out old banger, and wears 'NHS' glasses. He seldom washes, and rarely changes his clothes.

Two years ago Ron developed a new hobby. Crack cocaine. Every night, he hangs out with the prostitues in their crack dens, spending up to £400 a night, slowly frittering the proceeds of his mother's house.

We expect that one day he will be robbed, beaten up and left for dead by the crackwhores or their pimps.

Modern Manners

I was at a bus stop in Streatham. I could see my bus coming. Three teenage lads leaped across the road and with scant regard to those around them, walked directly in front of me - pushing-in, without the actual 'pushing'. Inwardly I tutted and sighed - they were confirming my prejudices about teenage boys.

Then they stopped, and waited for a woman with a buggy, and three elderly people to board before them. They didn't take any of the available seats downstairs, yet they didn't obstruct the gangway by huddling in the aisle.

A woman with a buggy was coming out of the shop. The aisle is narrow, so I stood aside to let her pass. She did not look at me. I commented to the newsagent that it would be nice to get some thanks - nothing major, a slight tilt of the head, or a flicker of the eyelids, or a twitch of the mouth muscles. I don't expect eternal gratitude, or a formal thank you. But just a brief, subtle acknowledgement would be nice.

Sigh

The evils of gambling

Other Half had a bright idea - Online Betting. He doesn't use the Internet, arguing, why should he, when he has me.

I don't know any bookmaking sites, I whined. Fatally, I remembered Google. He was looking for 3-1 for Germany to win. All the well known bookmakers were offering odds-on. He couldn't understand it. I pointed out that come what may, Czech are top of their group, so will rest any players with a yellow card, a niggly injury, a touch of indigestion etc.

So instead he suggested Michael Ballack to score first. A tenner at 5-1. Guess what, Ballack scored first.

Quids in! I exclaim.

I go to check my account. I spent so long registering - whilst un poco squiffy - that the bet was never placed. Instead of �50 winnings and my stake back, I just have a deposit of �10. I've not told His Lordship yet.

Stil, at least he didn't back Germany, who join Spain and Italy on the yahboosucks plane home.

Hey kiddos, I'm going to be jingoistically tabloid for a moment. Germany are out and England aren't. We've donebetter than Germany and Italy - and Spain, who always do rubbish.

If we beat Portugal, we're up against Greece...or France in the Semi-Final, but would avoid Czech until the Final. (As if...)

France 13/4
Holland 5/1
England 11/2
Czech 13/2
Portugal 15/2
Sweden 12/1
Denmark 15/1
Greece 41/1

I'd take Czech at 13/2.

But remember:

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
...The game's afoot!
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry, "God for Harry! England and Saint George!

Competitive arias

Okay, a bit of silliness on my part - I have various arias sung by multiple singers. I want to do a sing-off, and I want you to choose whom between. It's interactive blogging - you choose an aria, or, alternatively, choose a singer, and let battle commence. And you might as well choose, because I'm going to do it anyway, but i want you to be in Partnership in this deal, to feel a sense of Ownership and Empowerment...!

Your choices are:

• O Mio Babbino Caro from Puccini's Gianni Schicci - soprano (from A Room With a View)
• Casta Diva from Bellini's Norma - soprano (Ford Mondeo)
• Che gelida manina from Puccini's Boheme - tenor (from Moonstruck)
• E Lucevan le stelle from Puccini's Tosca - tenor (from, er, Tosca)
• La donna e mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto (it's my theme tune - literally translated, it means "The noble woman is on her cell phone...")
• Un bel d� vedremo from Puccini's Madama Butterfly - soprano (from Fatal Attraction)
• Donna non vidi mai from Puccini's Manon Lescaut - tenor (literally, "The woman who forgot to set the video today")
• Ebben? Ne andro lontana from Catalina's La Wally - soprano (from Diva)
• Lamento do Frederico from Cilea's L'arlesiana - tenor (trust me, it's nice this one...)
• Lascia ch'io pianga from Handel's Rinaldo - soprano (Harrods advert)
• Questa o quella from Verdi's Rigoletto (from Verdi's Rigoletto)
• Una furtiva lagrima from Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore - tenor (another nice one)
• Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci - tenor (Caruso's signature - but I don't have any Caruso...)
• Vissi d'arte from Puccini's Tosca - soprano (do choose this one, I really like it...)

The singers you have to choose from are: The thre Tenors - Ensemble; Cecelia Bartoli; Montserrat Caballe; Maria Callas; Joseph Calleja; Josep Carreras; Jose Cura; Victoria de los Angeles; Plácido Domingo; Renee Fleming; Mirella Freni; Lesley Garret; Nicolai Gedda; Angela Gheorghiu; Alfredo Kraus; Luciano Pavarotti; Joan Sutherland; Renata Tebaldi; Kiri Te Kanawa; and Rolando Villazon.

Or throw in another aria and see if I can oblige - anything, except Nessun Fucking Dorma...!

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Concert performance by Zürich Opera at the Festival Hall last night. Not an opera I had previously heard before, but one said by many people to be amongst the greatest. It's long - it started at 5pm and finished at 10.30 with two intervals just short of half an hour each. And it's difficult to maintain concentration for the entirety of that time. Towards the end of Act 1 I found myself nodding, and in the beginning of Act 3 I was distracted by the need to update my Wap page to see how England were doing vs Croatia...!

The acoustics are not good at the RFH, so I was a little disappointed that at times the singers were drowned by the orchestra, especially Peter Seiffert, who played Walther, the main tenor role. The programme notes describe him as 'one of the world's leading tenors'. I can't say I've heard of him, but, despite the lack of volume (and I'll blame the RFH for that - but you do know that it will be refurbished, don't you, as a result of the enlightened decision of Lambeth Planning Committee in Spring 2002! Have I mentioned my legacy to London, the World?), I did very much enjoy his warm rich voice.

It's a lovely story. The translated dialogue was on a Dot Matrix indicator above the stage, so no trouble in following. It's by Wagner, so I didn't notice any instantly hummable tunes, but I just adored the lush orchestra. Special mention to the triangle player, who was outstanding.

The cast was, I think, on the whole good. Matti Saminen was the most famous; he sang the small but important role of Veit Pogner. Michael Volle was excellent as Sixtus Beckmesser - even in a concert performance he conveyed strutting blustering arrogance. Petra-Maria Schnitzer as Eva was beautiful; Brigitte Pinter as Magdalene had a sumptuously rich voice and fiesty portrayal. But the real star was José van Dam as Hans Sach, whose singing was always impressive and his portrayal dignified.

It may seem somewhat contrary to say so, but I didn't particularly notice the orchestra, well conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. The music, yes, but not the orchestra. Which, I think, is a positive statement.

There are some exquisitive momemts - for me the highlight was in the first (or second?) scene in Act III. The programme says "In a moving scene it becomes obvious that Sachs too has feelings for Eva but, recognising Walther's unique qualities, blesses her intended union with the young knight".

I found the finale to Act III both deeply disturbing and intensely moving. A stirring chorus,

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:
if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,
under a false, foreign rule
soon no prince would understand his people;
and foreign mists with foreign vanities
they would plant in our German land;
what is German and true none would know,
if it did not live in the honour of German Masters.
Therefore I say to you:
honour your German Masters,
then you will conjure up good spirits!
And if you favour their endeavours,
even if the Holy Roman Empire
should dissolve in mist,
for us there would yet remain
holy German Art!

Listening to the music, I thought "Nuremburg Rally". And it troubled me.

In one of the interval, I penned the following vague thoughts:

Sometimes I think it would be fun to stop people and ask 'Why are you here?' The people I tend to talk to at Opera tend to be passionate or fanatic or both - it's an addictive costly habit. I look at other people and think - you don't look capable of passion. You look humourless. You probably think that Wagner was vulgar. Is it an intellectual pursuit, because you don't look intellectual - right, like I know.

From feeling old at Carmen, I'm feeling young again. Is it Wagner, or is it merely the logistics of the 5 pm start deters the thirty-something working parent?

The concert hall was only about two-thirds full, a shame. But it suited me, because my proper seat was behind a very tall person, so I was able to sidle along to find the optimum viewing position.

I did a quick escape at the end to answer a pressing call of nature, and when I emerged from evacuating everything I had drunk all weekend, the enthusiastic applause was still going on, so I rejoined it

Quite a lot of people - especially the very elderly - were dressed up, but many more had clearly come straight from work. I wore a blouse and semi-smart trousers. There were quite a few people in jeans and t-shirt. No one in a football shirt, though!

This living together thing

We have always joked about shift-sleeping. Yesterday afternoon he retired to bed in order to stay up late to watch Portugal-Spain. At 7pm he sent me to bed, because he could see that I was fading. As promised, he came to wake me up. "It's eight o'clock," he said. "Morning or evening?" I asked. The next thing I knew it was 9.15 and I had missed most of the game. Of course, he went to bed at 9.45.

My mobile rung, but before I could answer it, it had stopped ringing. Caller display said it was Jimmy. Then the house phone rang, so I went downstairs to answer it. All the clocks said it was quarter past five. I'm panicking, I'm supposed to be at the Festival Hall at five. Then there's a knock on the door. "Who is it," I shout. It's Jimmy. I warn him I'm entirely naked, and I open the front door. He's left his keys in the house. "What time is it?" I ask. "Quarter past five," he says. "Have I slept all this time? I'm supposed to be out before four." "In the morning," he says and leaves me.

I go to have a shower. Next I hear his voice. I nearly fall down in the shower with shock. He's shocked at seeing me naked again. Coming into the house and hearing no reply, he assumes I'm asleep upstairs, so goes to the shower room to rinse off the worst of the bacon smell. Despite the sound of running water, he didn't expect to find me in the shower...

He's decided to give up smoking. Today. Bastard. I got him reading the evangelism of Naked Blog. He's cleared off down the pub. It won't last. Not on a day that England play Croatia.

Somebody should do a doctoral thesis on why Spain never live up to expectations. Maybe they should learn that football isn't played on paper...

Faust from Covent Garden

Last night's TV. I had been building up my internal hype all week, reaching nearly fever pitch yesterday, assisted by numerous relevant searches to this site, and an increasing number of posts on rmo. Mother phoned about midday, worried about the apparent lack of interval flagged in the Radio Times. I told her to get a downstairs loo installed before 6.30pm. Sister phoned at 6.31 pm fretting about the spanner in the works to our logistics for our Irish reunion next weekend - I told her it was a bad time to phone.

Jimmy was supposed to be going to some blokes do, but Bobby never got back to him on it. If the weather had looked better I would have proposed going to the Covent Garden Piazza. In the event, it rained there, but not here...!

My initial thoughts were posted elsewhere last night and this morning:

But my opinion of Alagna has increased exponentially - if, for no other reason, the way he flung himself around stage.

If I just wanted to hear high 'C's I would go to a recital of...high Cs. But
I want the total experience, which is why I go to opera - or watch it on the
telly. Fortunately, I have my opera-ignorant-novice fiance to explain the
story as we go along...(we make a great team...!).

And I just lurved Bryn Terfel's evening gown...

And Angela's blond wigs.

Excellent entertainment for telly - I was surprised that I knew all the
tunes, even though I thought I didn't know the opera. If I were being picky,
I would find lots of minor flaws. But trying to look at it through the eyes
of someone who's tuned into a terrestrial TV programme by chance, or was
wandering through the Piazza, I would say it was a fun spectacle. And we
felt that RA's cartwheel was at least the match of Wayne Rooney's (England
football star).

But my fave bit was the ballerinas in tutus - I'm on the wrong NG here,
aren't I?

Okay, to be serious, I am not a great fan of Roberto Alagna's voice. I
always think of him as competent - highly competent? - rather than 'doing it
for me'. There wasn't anything in the singing that stood out as a show
stopper, and in the duet with Mephisto at the End of Act 1, it was obvious
even to me, that Bryn was seriously outsinging RA volume wise - unless it
was poor miking.

I also thought that BT took a while to warm up - in Act 1 he sounded flat
(even though I don't know the opera - but had read the reviews). Even I
could work out that AG's French was rubbish. She had moments of pure beauty,
and was generally competent throughout. I don't rate her acting, but I do so
like her voice.

I've just remembered - Alagna as the old Faust was, to me, absolutely
startling - certainly on TV - how it would have come over in the cheap
seats, I'm not sure. But very very impressive - and with the make up he
actually looked at least, ooh, forty...

And I've also just remembered a startling homoerotic interplay between RA
and BT, in IIRC, Act 5.

It was an extravagance of entertainment, an excellent story, some sterling performances, not just from the three principles but also from Simon Keenlyside in particular.

Bryn was marvellous as Mephistopheles. Perhaps a bit of a pantomime baddie - but it worked. I just adored the fact that everytime something was about to happen, he appeared. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the different costumes.

Roberto was marvellous - opening as the old Dr Faust was amazing. And I did so like the way he flung himself around stage. I do not agree with what that woman from the Evening Standard said in the interval about him being the 'best acting singer around' but I will concede that he is one of the best. Jimmy said that the silly woman didn't know what she was talking about.

I'm tempted now to get ticket(s) for the Autumn revival - although it will be without Gheorghiu, Alagna, Terfel and Keenlyside.

Essential Music of England

One of those little gems from Decca. CD 1 is called The Spirit of England; CD 2 is The Pastoral England. Performers include: Sir Georg Solti, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Neville Marriner, Benjamin Britten, Joseph Cooper, Sir Winston Churchill and Dame Vera Lynn.

You can stop laughing now. At the Winston/Dame Vera, I mean, the rest are gods and not to be laughed at under any circumstances.

The composers include Elgar (x8), Holst, Britten (x2), Walton (x2), Alford (Bridge on the River Kwai aka Colonel Bogie), Coates (Dambusters), Parry (Jerusalem), Vaughan Williams (x5), Grainger (x2), Delius (x2), Warlock and Butterworth. Probably music for my parents' generation.

And yet - Elgar is fixed in my pantheon of heroes; Britten, Walton and Vaughan Williams are at least hon menshes. And Britten's Playful Pizzicato is one of the Great Tunes of all time. I listened to Disc One the night before England played Switzerland, and it fair stirred the soul, especially to hear Walton's "The Battle of Agincourt" - with an actor (sadly not Kenny Branagh nor dear Larry) reciting:

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger...
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot!
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry, "God for Harry! England and Saint George!

Although, I have to say I prefer

Ladies and Gentlemen

The Best of George Michael

I know as soon as the first notes of the first track - A Moment with You, on random play - begins that this is undoubtedly one of my favourite albums.

George Michael, arguably the ultimate icon for Eighties Pop Tarts. Once upon a time, he was the singer in a trivial, if deeply pleasant, pop group. And, somehow he developed into a sophisticated and talented writer and singer of songs for grown ups. I never fancied him. And, like many of my friends I was utterly shocked and confused when he came out. We all assumed he had done so years before.

This album is forever associated with my 31st birthday. It was on my 'wish list', but I set off to Geneva to spend my birthday weekend with my friend Helen. On my actual birthday, it was snowing too heavily to ski, so we drove to Annecy in France. We drank cafe au lait and cheered on Ireland in the rugby - against France. Then we browsed record shops, and she bought this album. I so wanted to, but didn't dare, because I suspected it would be sitting on my doorstep when I got home (in actual fact I received record vouchers).

Driving back from Annecy to Geneva, it again began to snow heavily. Helen slowed to approx 60 kmh and pulled into the inside lane. She commented that it was possible to tell who had chains on their tyres, because they continued to speed along over 100 kmh - she merely had snow tyres. Then the car began to make a funny noise, which worried - panicked - Helen. "Don't worry," i said soothingly, "it's not like we're in the middle of nowhere."

"Gert," she said. "We are crossing the Alps. In the dark. In February. They are the highest mountains in Europe."

But what has this got to do with George Michael? I am tempted to list the very very good tracks, one by one, as they come on, but won't. I am absolutely certain that you have it in your collection. But I do especially like Different Corner, You Have Been Loved, Father Figure, The Strangest Thing (I could dance all night to this...) and Outside.

Careless Whisper stands out. To me, it marked George's transition from teenybopper to maturity, although, ironically, but perhaps tellingly, he wrote it whilst still at school. It reminds me of my summer holiday in 1984. Following O-Levels, there were no jobs to be had anywhere I (half-heartedly) looked, so I just lay in the garden working on my tan. Most of all, it reminds me of our family summer holiday near Brixham in Devon, which despite my occasional teenage moods, I actually really enjoyed and remember fondly, espeically for the company of my family.

Adrain 'Slaezy' Sevitz Rools

I thought I would tally up who has made the most comments on this site. Of course, I come top, with 594. but for you lot, the Real Stars are:

Mike 101
Daisy 102
Bluewitch 110
Jane 118
Vaughan 151
Zed 160
Karen (in her many personae) 180
Gordon 194
Scaryduck 233
Lyle 235

And the out-and-out winner is Adrian with 251.

Could we have predicted that?

(If I had included the old blog*spot comments, there would have been some additional names there. And I must give hon menshes to Lynn, and Lionel, who've been with me since Early Doors, and also to Jon, Paul and Stuart

Surprise twins

Woman goes to hospital with stomach ache, gives birth to twins

These stories occur on a perennial basis. Okay, this is me being really ignorant. But how can somebody not know that they are pregnant? Someone from my Primary School class gave birth at fifteen without knowing she was pregnant, but, to be honest, she was never the brightest button in the box, and, maybe, at fifteen, there's a whole element of denial.

A colleague had constant stomach upsets, and blamed the canteen at the Food Science Laboratory (yeah...?). Three of the chaps knew she was pregnant by looking at her face, but didn't like to say, assuming she wanted to keep it quiet. But even she knew at three months. I asked her why she hadn't realised earlier - she said she had very irregular periods, so didn't notice a missed one.

But, seriously, how can someone carry twins to (more-or-less) full term without knowing?

I'm not having a go - I'm simply baffled and curious.

Well...

...bugger me backwards with a traffic cone.

I turned off Croatia France at half time. My early rising other half was off to bed; I was getting fidgety on the sofa. Assumed that France would win. No, they and Croatia drew 2-2.

This bit's a local post for local people - there's nothing for you round here

A draw will be good enough for England on Monday. But they have to draw. I'm assuming the best we can hope for is second, because I'm assuming that France will beat Switzerland - although if our result against Croatia is better than Frnace's against switzerland, we would finish top. But, either way, it could be anyone of Greece, Spain or Portugal we play in the quarter-final.

My head hurts. It always hurts when just one group match remains...

Rooney

We had a bet. If Michael Owen scored more goals, Jimmy would do the washing up. If Wayne Rooney scored more, I'd be washing up.

sigh

But hey, we played crap, and we won. Engerland Engerland Engerland rep. ad nauseam

Switzerland aren't such big cheeses now, are they? Cuckoos.

Sorry, but despite a three-nil victory, England have yet to capture my imagination.

Group B

Switzerland has a set of brothers.

Croatia has a set of brothers.

England has a set of brothers (although Phil Neville hasn't played yet)

According to my better half, one of the teams has a father and son playing - which is quite something. It takes three quite separate conditions - for the father to be fit enough to play at International level in is mid thirties; for the son to be precocious enough to play in his teens; and for there to be a relatively small age gap between father and son. Which team is it?

What's the Fiction down In Brixton?

We've just been watching a bit of Balamory "What's the story in Balamory?"

We think there could be a version set in Brixton. We particularly like PC Plum who cycles around rescuing wildlife - I can see the Brixton equivalent now. I have to say I panicked when he returned Miss Hooley's handbag - I thought there had been a crime wave in Balamory (but worry not, she'd just lost it).

Rather than the brightly coloured houses, we could have the graffiti-daubed sink-estates. Rather than bright happy children turning up to nursery, we could have zombie children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties due to their appalling diet turning up to the Pupil Referral Unit.

What's The Fiction down in Brixton?

Eng-er-land

Don't forget, kick off is at 5pm

Naomi pops out

Calling all you red-blooded men - Do you find these pictures of Naomi Campbell a turn-on?

I'm curious, because, despite my liking for breasts, I don't.

But there again, I'm a straight woman...

(May not be work safe, but, there again, it is The Sun, and even my workplace has a link to The Sun on the intranet)

Serious Shit - Live

The problem with playing my entire record collection before forty is the fact that honour dictates that I actually play every item. And playing includes listening - not just putting them on the stereo with the volume pianissimo and then sneaking upstairs to lie in the bath and 'sing' fortissimo.

You've guessed it - it's Phil Collins time. In my defence it is a Scotch tape, with the tracks listed in my brother-in-law's handwriting.

It's so frustrating because some of the songs are quite good, even very good eg One More Night, Separate Lives, even In the Air Tonight. But there is something about the singer that just grates. He should so have stayed as a drummer. And some of the songs are, to put it mildly, dire - Don't Lose My Number, Do You Remember? And the cover versions - Can't Hurry Love, Groovy Kind of Love - are poor imitations of better versions.

I ought to bin this tape. It will never be played again, except if I repeat this ridiculous stunt, but it just goes again my grain to bin any records, tapes, CDs until and unless they are broken, at which point they get replaced.

I worked with this guy, we'll call him Bob, because that was his name. He was such a weird guy. When Nicky, divorced with a child, announced her engagement, Bob said, "Nicky's very lucky to find a man, being that she has a child..." He used to bring his girlfriend along to the post-Christmas lunch drink - which nobody else did, not even people whose partners were colleagues, except for a quick drink on being collected. Everyone used to studiously avoid Catherine, and I ended up being lumbered with her.

One year stands out; she was awaiting the results of a mammogram, having found a lump. Now I'm not a heartless cow, I can't just stand there and say "I really don't give a toss," as she chooses me as a shoulder to cry on. Even though I was, unsurprisingly, inebriated, and just wanted to lark and josh around with the lads.

They always pontificated on how much they disagreed with marriage, and how they thought that having children was an act of irresponsibility. A few months after I left that workplace, I heard they had had a hurried marriage because he had accidentally got her up the duff.

One year he told us all, smugly, how he was taking Catherine to a Phil Collins concert as a surprise for Valentine's Day. He sat there expectantly, as we were supposed to say, "Oh Bob! That's so romantic! What an amazing guy you are." His face fell as we shifted uncomfortably with looks of disbelief verging on the repulsed

You know, this 'music' is really bad. And being 'live' there is soundtrack of people cheering.

The only consolation is that this isn't a video tape...

Co-habiting update

So far, it's been interesting...Monday was our first proper day. So he went and got drunk. Actually, because he was upset. But I then had to put up with him being drunk. Later he thanked for me my patience and understanding; I didn't have the heart to tell him I was doing it to demonstrate that I am the indispensable good girlfriend.

The last two days have been pleasant. He has come home and we have sat in the garden eating and drinking in moderation - today I had a bottle of Isle of Arran blond, with my meal.

After eating we potter in the garden - watering, feeding, trimming. Today he taught me how to water the garden, until it dawned on me I have been watering this garden since the summer of 1996 and for four summers previous to that I maintained a planter garden on my balcony. I actually learnt to water a garden in the 60s, when I had a little red watering can with a little yellow rose and a picture of a little girl watering a garden etched in relief...

He watches the TV, I sit on the computer, and wander in for bleeding chunks of the match or the news. With him on the sofa and me at the computer we can see each other and talk to each other. It seems to be working. Except, for some reason, I keep excusing myself to go to the loo, rather than just going. That will start annoying me soon!