Gertsamtkunstwerk

Die Walküre in Berlin

Links from Faye, blogging prompted by Alice...

Simon Rattle probt in Berlin mit Placido Domingo die "Walküre"

Domingo zu Gast bei den Berliner Philharmonikern

Alt-Tenor Domingo lieferte Plácido satt

Den Ring schmieden

No photos, and I don't have the time right now to translate. But Babelfish can help with the gist.

One Five Nine

It's become rather strange.

The 38 has died and been reborn as a bendy.

Just one bus route remains as a Routemaster.

It's a little snapshot of my life.

When I was a child and lived way oop north, we would occasionally visit relatives in Thornton Heath - or Forn Eaf, as it's more properly known.

In those days, the 159 ran from Thornton Heath Pond to St John's Wood. Past the Oval, over Westminster Bridge, round Trafalgar Square, to Madame Tussauds, and I expect, to Lords and Abbey Road Studios.

Bu the time I moved to Streatham, the 139 had been invented and the 159 was running from Streatham Garage to Baker Street. Streatham Garage's closed, so the 159 is based at Brixton Garage, confusingly situated on Streatham Hill. However, there are too many buses for Brixton Garage and they were causing congestion on the A23. So there is now an overflow Brixton Garage, on Brixton Garage, in the old LCC tramsheds

When I lived in Streatham, near St Leonard's, to get the 159 often meant the day started well. It sped up Streatham High Road, and often stopped at the lights right outside Streatham Hill station, sometimes making the difference between catching that train or having to wait as much as 19 minutes for the next one. Conversely, how irritating is it to be on a 159 that decides to change its driver and guard at Brixton Garage, when all you want to do is pop down to buy a few things in Streatham.

Anachronistically, the ticket machine on a 159 cannot distinguish between peak and off-peak, so if you get that bus, as opposed to any other, before 9.30, your Oyster Prepaid only debits the off-peak fare. It all comes out on the wash by the end of the day, though, as Oyster caps my prepay to the Travelcard rate. I no longer even monitor my Oyster; every ten days or so, I get an email to say that £20 has transferred from my bank account to my Oyster Card. Cool, or what (I got a free tenner the first time I did this...).

A certain non-Observant newspaper claimed yesterday that the demise of the 38 was the end of Routemasters in London. Lazy journalism. Pretty much par for the course.

I'm angry that we have our residential Unit Conference on the days leading up to 9 December. Yes, I'll be home by the evening. But by then it will be too late. It will be a Big Day. And I shall miss it. The 159 is, technically, my home-to-work bus, although I rarely use it as such.

I don't know if we go bendy or double-decker.

Progress must proceed. The Routemasters are narrow, probably not fuel efficient, not especially accessible, and dangerous, it seems, as people fall off the back. Their advantages in easy-boarding and speed down the roads are being eroded, rightly, with the reduction - and, in the central area, elimination - of cash fares on board. With an Oyster prepay, there is no need to pay a cash fare. With improved bus lanes, especially on the A23 and over Vauxhall Bridge, there is a distinct advantage in travelling by bus, any bus.

But the Routemasters are iconic. My Grandad used to drive one in Salford. I have three toy Routemasters on display in my home.

Just 39 days to go

Diamond Geezer blogs the 38 by Routemaster and Bendybus

Mayhem and Mystery on the High Seas

The story is now complete. Perhaps, in the next few days, I shall go through it, correct grammatical and syntactical errors overlooked in my haste to post, and upload it to mmofm.

In episodic form, it can be found at rec.music.opera.

When the posts are sorted in date order, it is

Prologue: Post #1
Chapter 1: Post #7
Chapter 2: Post #18
Chapter 3: Post #30
Chapter 4: Post #47
Chapter 5: Post #65
Chapter 6: Post #82
Chapter 7: Post #101
Chapter 8: Post #110
Chapter 9: Post #112
Chapter 10: Post #119

It's very rude, definitely not worksafe, or suitable for Under-18s.

In the meantime, REG is writing Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Transposed Tenor. Chapter One, Chapter Two and Chapter Three.

The Tenor goes by the somewhat implausible name of Sunday Brunch.

TV alert

On Artsworld, next Saturday, from 8.30pm (Sky Channel 157) live from Vienna

Vienna State Opera - 50th Anniversary of the Re-opening

Exclusive UK broadcast of the gala held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the re-opening of the Vienna State Opera

An exclusive UK broadcast of a gala from Vienna, held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the re-opening of one of the world’s leading opera houses, the Vienna State Opera.

The opera house was severely damaged during World War II, when the stage was destroyed by Allied bombs and the building was gutted by fire on March 12, 1945, just months before the official end of hostilities. While the foyer, with its frescoes by Moritz von Schwind, the main stairways, the vestibule and the tea room were spared, almost the entire décor and props for more than 120 operas with around 150,000 costumes were destroyed. Happily, the building was painstakingly reconstructed, and re-opened in 1955.

This special concert, performed in Vienna and broadcast the same evening on Artsworld, marks 50 years from the grand re-opening, and is expected to be one of the most talked-about opera and classical music events of the year.

It features opera stars such as Bryn Terfel and Placido Domingo, as well as excerpts from well-known operas such as Aida and Don Giovanni, and is presented by Richard Baker, who currently hosts BBC Radio 2’s Your Hundred Best Tunes, and has introduced the Last Night of the Proms for 32 years. In addition, opera expert and journalist Charles Osborne - who, remarkably was at the original re-opening in 1955 - will also be on hand for additional information.

And don't forget, Artsworld is no longer subscription, and should be available to most Sky subscribers.

Blitz

We have just been watching this amazing two hour documentary from Channel Four about the Fire Storm that all but destroyed the City of London on the night of 29 December 1940.

I expect its viewing figures were miniscule; perhaps Jimmy and I were the only people under seventy, not connected with the programme, who watched it.

An extraordinary combination of eye-witness accounts, written testimony, and archive film footage from the Fire Brigade's Film Unit.

Reality TV, if you like, documenting the experiences of the voluntary firemen, those caught - and killed - in bomb shelters. Amazingly, the deaths were less than two hundred in that one night. And the lessons we learnt were later applied to the bombing of Dresden, now acknowledged as one of the most disgraceful episodes of the Second World War, when one hundred thousand people died in one night.

Very understated, no hysterical hyping up of emotions, just sparing story-telling, the impact greater for its calmness, for the constant soundtrack of roaring, aeroplane engines, incendiary bombs falling, fire roaring, and for the terrible beauty of the footage, the Dome of St Paul's illuminated by fires burning all around.

And the sheer futility. Lives ruined, the bereavements, the loss of livelihood, of home, the theft from people of their right to live in peace. We still bomb civilians, we still try and justify it for strategic means. It's barely news, it hardly scrapes the surface, our attention dims.

We study history to teach us about the present, and we study the present to learn about the past. But I'm not sure we ever learn anything.

The missing millions

The South London Press's take on the £3 million fraud scandal and Readers' Responses

Even though it's one of the biggest frauds in Local Government history, in a way it pales into insignificance beside the tens of millions of central government funding for local services rejected by the shower of Lib Dem/Tory incompetents who claim to run Lambeth Council.

Perfect Mozart

An evening at Cadogan Hall, to which I have never previously ventured.   A lovely compact little hall, just off Sloane Square, refurbished and opened as "London's newest concert hall" less than two years ago.

Tonight was the opening concert in The King's Consort season, an exclusively Mozart evening with soprano Carolyn Sampson, who I completely adore. Also in the audience was Blogger Simon - our diaries often coincide and we share a taste for singers.

It was an exceptionally lovely concert, a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar. In full:

Regina Coeli, KV 127
Sancta Maria, mater Dei, KV 273
Epistle sonata in C, KV 278
Exsultate, Jubilate, KV 165
Symphony 34 in C, KV 338
Regina Coeli, KV 108

The Epistle sonata was extraordinarily familiar to me, and I was puzzled, because the name meant nothing, but a quick flick through my CD collection has shown that it is inserted into the Coronation Mass which features on my most favourite Mozart CD. The first Regina Coeli was slightly familiar, as if I might have heard it more than once previously. The second Regina Coeli and the Sancta Maria were entirely unfamiliar. I thought I knew the Exsultate, Jubilate, but when it started I realised I didn't, but then it progressed and I realised I did - a programme note states it is "the rarely heard Salzburg version of the famous Exsultate Jubilate..."

I sort of  know Symphony 34, although it is not in my collection. The Andante is reminiscent of my beloved Clarinet Quintet, the final movement reminiscent of the famous horn concerto. But the fabulous thing about Mozart is that it doesn't matter whether or not you can hum silently along.

The orchestra were fabulous. There was a small flub from the period horns - how precarious are modern horns, let alone old ones - but otherwise no criticisms. The sensitivity was moving. I think Robert King is a wonderful conductor, and I have rarely heard Mozart played with such delicacy and feeling, with some amazing contrasts not just in dynamics but in touch, if you get me. The orchestra was perfectly sized for the space  - interesting feature in the Guardian (and apologies to the couple next to me - this is where I read briefly about the history of the venue...). Bigger than a chamber orchestra, but not so vast as those wonderfully enormous symphony orchestras that fill the big halls.

The Choir of the King's Consort, small but beautifully formed, sounded just right, too. My only criticism was that I found their opening salvo to be quite difficult to understand, but maybe that was me adjusting to the acoustics of a new venue, because after the first few minutes, I thought them excellent.

If it had been a purely orchestral and choral concert, I would have come away delighted, but in addition to all that we were treated to a sublime performance by Carolyn Sampson, her of the crystal voice - "the leading British soprano of her generation" said the programme. There are so many aspects of her voice that I enjoy. Most of all the sheer clarity, and added to that the even-ness of tone from the very high to almost the bottom of her range. The ability to vary dynamics, the mezza di voce, and the coloratura she displayed. All this and a wonderful sense of music and the ability to project herself to the whole audience, when not singing meeting all corners of the audience with her eyes.

At the end Robert King mentioned that they would be spending the next three days recoding that programme and some other pieces in preparation for Mozart's 'big year' next year, and, if we didn't mind, they would practice one piece with us. This was Laudate Dominum, already one of my very favourite arias. The way it was performed tonight, especially by Carolyn, but also by the choir, the orchestra and conductor was something very special. And the final 'note' was a perfect appreciative silence by the audience, not under the direction of the baton, but because the music deserved it. I had experienced goosebumps at periods throughout. Laudate Dominum made the hairs on my arm stand up. I turned to the woman next to me and said "That's one CD sold, already". As I was walking up the gangway to leave there was an elderly couple behind me in tears. They had never heard Carolyn before and had never heard anything like her, especially that final Laudate Dominum.

As well as a perfect choir, orchestra, conductor and soloist, there was an almost perfect audience. At one point the woman next to me delicately rattled a packetof mints, but I suspect it was only me that noticed, and then only momentarily. Otherwise, perfect. Except that in the distance I spotted a man so repulsive that I once entirely resisted his attempts to seduce me despite his evil use of Plácido Domingo records and copious quantities of red wine direct from the chateau. I did consider taunting him about some other matter, knowing that I was surrounded by Lambeth residents (I'm such an earwigger) but there's no snappy way of saying "Where's the three million  defrauded from Lambeth Housing on your watch...?"

Traffic

I walked down my road yesterday morning just after nine and felt oddly disoriented. No traffic in either direction, and no parking either on the double yellows or in the 20-minute spaces. I thought maybe it was something to do with the events of last week, when people were being ticketed for parking for ten minutes in the bays, but the sexually depraved man who sells fireworks to small children and bribes traffic wardens was allowed to park on the double yellow...until the bribery was reported, a parking manager arrived and the van was towed.

I popped into Jimmy's cafe, normally heaving, but dead. Out onto Brixton Hill. Last week the traffic was stationery and bumper-to-bumper. Yesterday (and today) the occasional passing vehicle passed at thirty miles an hour.

It dawned on me. Half term.

Later, I caught the bus along Millbank. Norwegian flags flew from Millbanl Millennium Pier. Railings and traffic cones waited outside the Tate. I remembered that the King and Queen of Norway had been on Today discussing their State Visit.

Yesterday afternoon I came out of our the far side of our building after a meeting and paused to have a cigarette. I read a notice on a pay-and-display machine "This parking meter is out of order. Until it is fixed, parking is free. Please check back every two hours." Not one of those spaces contained a vehicle. On the other side of the road, every space was occupied and people queued to pay at the machine. I know it used to be the rule that if the machinery was broken, parking was suspended; it struck me as being ridiculous, petty and jobsworth. "Please check back every two hours" is a reasonable compromise. Yet no one wanted free parking!

At lunchtime I realised I had just a few pence in my purse so I went to the NatWest opposite work. Twelve people queuing for the machine inside; twenty queueing for the machine outside. So I walked down to Victoria Street, and saw queues even longer inside and out. I walked a bit and spotted a Lloyds in the gardens by Scotland Yard. One woman was just finishing her transaction. Then it was my turn.

When I had just emerged from the office and was about to cross the road, a flotilla of police motorbikes with lights flashing arrived to halt traffic at the cross-roads. We stood around with an air of slight excitement and curiosity. A conversation started, and the consensus emerged that it was "Norway". Half a dozen or so vehicles passed in convoy, two of them Rolls Royce flying flags that were definitely not Norwegian. They might have been Soviet, but I doubt it, being that the Soviet Union was dissolved quite a few years ago. They might have come from the back entrance of the Tate.

But I haven't a clue who they were.

Smoking ban unworkable

Cabinet clash derails smoking ban

I still have not yet seen any proposals as to how it will be implemented any better than the exisiting bans on taking Class A drugs in pubs or serving up food poisoning in restaurants are enforced. But that aside, it will be introduced eventually, I have no doubt about that.

I can't say I would want to go into a pub if I'm the only one not taking charlie.

Still, better than an incident I heard of the other day. One of Jimmy's friends went into the gents in a local pub and saw someone washing their syringe and needles in the handwash basin.

This particular pub has been reported many times for tolerating Class A consumption and dealing, but with no apparent consequences. It would be ironic if it tried to enforce a smoking ban; even more ironic if the authorities clamped down on adults smoking there whilst turning a blind eye to the drug dealing, including to minors.

But the British public want smoking to stop and, clearly don't want drug dealing to stop, so the powers-that-be have to prioritise.

shrug not my problem. There's always ways round it.

Die Walküre in Poland

Some very nice pictures of a concert performance of Die Walküre the other day in Warsaw.

via the lovely Julia in Poland

Gender differences in the brain

Your brain's sex can make you ill

All quite interesting, but one phrase leaped out at me:

She said that most of the drugs available today had been tested on men, which may mean they are not necessarily the best design for women.

Seriously?

Even in the 21st century we are still subject to discrimination based on paternalistically lazy science?

I know I shouldn't be shocked, but I am. We can argue until the cows come home about societal and cultural differences between women and men, but I don't think anyone would dispute that there are major inherent physical differences. Yet this has not been built into drugs trials?

Words fail me.

Contempt

I have sent the following email to the Philharmonia and to Westminster Cathedral after I returned my ticket and walked out half an hour before a concert this evening. (Names removed...)

I wish this to be drawn to the attention of , the Concerts Manager of the Philharmonia, or an appropriate equally senior manager, and the Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral. I expect a reply from both organisations addressing the issues I have raised.

Dear ...

I am writing this at ten past eight on Thursday evening despite having purchased a ticket for this evening's Philharmonia concert at Westminster Cathedral. On my way in, I asked the volunteer doorman where the toilets were; he suggested that I went to McDonalds. I was shocked and decided that I had no further wish to attend a concert in this venue. I returned my ticket to the Philharmonia representative inside the cathedral explaining that I thought it was disgusting. I pointed out that I am relatively young (in my thirties) and I am not pregnant, nor have I ever given birth, nor do I have an ageing prostate. I did not add that I also do not have any bladder or bowel ailments which make it necessary to be near a toilet. That, therefore, puts me at an advantage over most of the audience, if it were to be any way typical of previous Philharmonia concerts I have attended.

I have severe concerns about people being directed to McDonalds. Not specifically McDonalds (although I do have issues there): I know other alternatives in the vicinity - House of Fraser and various pubs - because I have spent most of my working life within walking distance of Westminster Cathedral. I imagine that many of the audience were less familiar with the area.

My objection is that, in general, when I use the facilities of a commercial premise I feel a moral obligation to buy something. As it happens, there is nothing in McDonalds I would wish to buy; just to buy a cup of undrinkable tea is a very expensive way to spend a penny, and would exacerbate the problem. I do not know whether or not Westminster Cathedral or the Philharmonia informed the manager of McDonalds that hundreds of people were being directed to use their toilets, to the detriment of their customers. I dread to think what is happening in the interval. I also believe that, as the evening progresses and most working people have gone home, McDonalds on Victoria Street is not a salubrious environment, not one I would wish to enter, and certainly not one where elderly ladies from the suburbs and beyond would feel at ease. I do not know whether the toilets in that McDonalds are even accessible - it's not unusual for that kind of "restaurant", especially in prime city centre locations to have toilets in the basement. Even if they have a disabled toilet on the ground floor, this in inadequate provision for the many infirm people who frequent concerts on the South Bank and elsewhere.

I appreciate that the Philharmonia has venue difficulties whilst the RFH is being refurbished, but I do not believe that Westminster Cathedral is a suitable venue for a concert. I will be writing separately to Westminster Council to find out whether the Cathedral has a licence for public performances, or whether it has managed to find a loophole that exempts places of worship from such requirements. When I served on the licensing committee of LB Lambeth we never granted a licence for entertainment unless the organisers could demonstrate they would be providing toilet facilities. Even the most amateurish rock festival is obliged to provide toilet facilities.

However, I would not describe the Philharmonia, and especially, Westminster Cathedral, as amateurish. The latter is the Headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, which yet again, has demonstrated its cynical greed and total contempt for the basic dignity of individual people, not least the elderly and disabled.

I would be interested to know how much money Westminster Cathedral is receiving - from taxpayers, donors, and the ticket-buying public - to host this concert series.

I note that the websites of neither organisation nor the ticket contains any information about the limitations of the venue, which is indicative of both organisations' contempt for the public. I can only surmise that there were also no arrangements for even basic refreshments.

In a wider context, I am surprised that the Cathedral has no toilet facilities for worshippers and casual visitors. I would imagine this must be in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act - or do religious organisations believe themselves to be above the law? What was it that Christ said - render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's. I also recall an incident in the Bible when Christ ejected the money lenders from the Temple.

I shall be posting this on the Usenet groups rec.music.opera, and rec.music.classical, and on the Yahoo Group Parlour of Opera Lovers, as well as on my personal blog, (with names of individuals removed) - although the concert is not directly relevant to opera, many opera lovers are also lovers of choral music, especially of great opera composer such as Mozart.

I shall be contacting the Box Office in due course to confirm that I will receive a refund of my ticket price, and to return my tickets for the remaining concerts in this series. No doubt I shall be charged a handling charge. I trust there will be no difficulties regarding the refund.

Yours sincerely

Siegfried

Not for nothing is this known as "The Boring One", the least popular of the Ring tetralogy. Quite a few people gave it a miss, and, frankly, part of me wishes that I had done, too. In my singular opinion, it is my second favourite of the four to listen to on CD, because of the consistently complex high quality of the orchestral music. But it suffers from two much recitative-style monologue and dialogue. And the story is less compelling, and certainly less personal than the other three.

Still, the production was excellent in places, at least adequate in some, and poor only in a few. The woman next to me said that the singers could only be described as competent. "That's a good word!" I said. But that was before Act III and, on reflection, I am not sure I would go that far in some cases.

And the orchestra under Pappano were, well, competent. I wouldn't say they were exactly singing last night. I made some stupid note in the interval about Wagner performed Baroque-style; I didn't mean it, but it was terribly subdued and workmanlike. Overall, I would be struggling to give it more than two stars; if I did it would be because of the production.

The best singing performance was Gerhard Siegel as Mime, a stand-out performance, who has an extraordinary taxing Act I, and a fair share of Act II, and then gets killed.

John Tomlinson's portrayal of Wanderer (Wotan in disguise) was fine, although I did think he portrayed him as a bit of an ageing hippy. I think in his Act III duet with Erda, his body language poignantly conveyed a broken haggard old man. And his singing wasn't bad, it just was not to my liking. At its worse it was a Bayreuth Bark of the sort that would put one off Wagner for life; at its best, it still left me thinking how gorgeous Bryn had sounded as Wotan in Die Walküre and indeed in Das Rheingold, which I only heard him do on radio and TV (he mimed it the night I attended...).

Brunnhilde, sung by Lisa Gasteen, only appears in the final half hour or so. I did not think her voice was up to standard she demonstrated in Die Walküre, but her stage presence was the highlight of the evening. A consummate singing actor, with grace and dignity.

Jane Henschel as Erda, Peter Sidhom as Alberich, Philip Ems as Fafner and Sarah Fox as the Woodbird all handled their relatively small roles at least adequately if somewhat generically; singing wise, Sarah Fox was the best of the bunch, although not as good as Sarah Tynan at ENO last year.

As for Siegfried, I do not realy know what to say. It is an extraordinarily taxing role, with him on stage for three quarters of the four hour opera. Jon Treleaven acted convincingly, moving around stage well, using his physicality intelligently, facial expressions visible from the Amphitheatre, and is obviously a musical singer. The trouble is, I really really don't like his voice. To the extent it almost drove me to distraction. Far too nasally and whiny, bleating, neither Heldentenor nor Bel Canto, more Can't Bellow than Can Belto and rather too much approximation to tone, especially at the top and the bottom of the range. In the first interval I wrote "perhaps he's saving himself for later..."; just before Act II began the woman behind me said "I saw it two weeks ago and he got better as the night progressed" Last night he seemed to get worse. The couple in front exchanged glances on every flubbed, croaked or missed note, of which there were many. One passage of Siegfried's monologue seemed to be a musical vegetable soup with everyone all over the place.

His rendition of the gorgeous Love Duet was just so plain bloody awful that I was sorely tempted to walk out screaming "Just ask her out and end our misery, now..." But I didn't. Because one doesn't. I much preferred Richard Berkeley-Steele who sang the role at ENO.

There was a lot I liked about the production. During the overture it was amusing to see young actors portraying Siegfried growing up and repeatedly breaking the swords that Mime forged for him.

I was very pleased to see a crashed aeroplane in Mime's lair, from which emerged the Wanderer. After Das Rheingold I had queried on the Wagner newsgroup the significance of Wotan carrying a model aeroplane down to Nibelheim and someone basically said "No significance, no need to worry your pretty little head, he just did, that's all..." I absolutely loved the forging scene, where Treleaven was excellent - except for the singing. We were warned there would be pyrotechnics and they frightened me - remember I'm firework-phobic. I did think they did distract from the musical climax of the Act, which was a good thing because Treleaven simply could not hack that great declamatory "Nothung!"

The furniture abuse was especially good in the Forging Scene, with a chair being broken up and thrown onto the furnace to use as firewood.

Act 2 was the musical highlight. The prelude was the orchestral standout of the evening, sensitive and beautiful. The drama was compelling and wonderfully staged. Most impressive was the slaying of the giant Fafner in the form of a dragon. There was an enormous dragon on stage with its face humanoid. Siegfried killed him and we were left with a headless corpse, the head being a good few yards forward on stage, and that was alive and singing. First time I have ever seen bodiless head sing! Some bits were deliberately funny; when Siegfried was trying to play the Woodbird's tune on his pipe he hammed it wonderfully and we laughed. But we also laughed when a deer and a stag were - literally - wheeled on to demonstrate the difference between male and female and Siegfried was deliberately wheeled off on one.

Act 3 was staged wonderfully. It opened with Wanderer lying on a slab of rock, together with pre-abused chair. As clouds soared overhead, the slab revolved and revolved, at an angle, and eventually became a wall containing, symbolically, the door to Brunnhilde's rock, perhaps the same wall that had revolved in Die Walküre as Wotan condemned Brunnhilde to a deep sleep on a rock surrounded by the Magic Fir, until a man who knows no fear comes to rescue her (her nephew, Siegfried, the one who was incestuously conceived at the end of Act I of Die Walküre).

The Love Duet was staged and acted magnificently, just the two singers singing to each other, very plain set, at times their silhouettes projected onto a screen behind them.

No doubt I shall go and see it again in the Cycle in two years time, by which time Bryn will be Wanderer, and hopefully they will have found a better Siegfried. Or this one will have improved.

Celeb Spot: On arrival at the Opera House I walked in with Karl Jenkins and Mrs Jenkins. Whenever I see Karl Jenkins, I see the moustache first. In the first interval, I saw Simon Heffer who is a Tory journalist (Telegraph?)

Physical discomfort spot: I was sat behind the world's tallest man. Even though he was slumped low in his seat he was still head, and in some cases, shoulders above everyone in his row. So I spent most of the evening with my head cocked to one side. I decided to get a taxi home from Victoria Station. I was just about to fasten my seat belt when I was thrown forward as the driver slammed his brake on. He apologised and said he had been so busy watching the bendy-bus turn into the bus station he hadn't noticed some pedestrians step off the island and into his path. He kept asking whether I was all right, genuinely concerned and remorseful. I have a sore neck today and don't know whether it's whip-lash or the effect of four hours holding it an angle.

Bit where Gert cried: When I realised I'd lost my bracelet, my gorgeous garnet bracelet. I checked under my seat, and at Lost Property and at front desk, and I phoned Lost Property today. I think I've lost it for good. Jimmy's been nagging me since Christmas to get it valued and the clasp secured...I'm not happy.

Two hundred and one days to go

I really should have blogged this yesterday. But didn't. Ah well...

Yesterday I ordered tickets for two performances of an opera which I have never heard even in highlights form. 

Yessssssssssssss!

8th and 24th May

People

Last night, I was in the queue to buy a programme. When I got there, it wasn't yet a queue, but one soon built up behind me. This was because the man in front of me, in paying £6, decided to offer the odds in addition to the note he was tendering. Fair enough, I was about to do the same myself. The difference being that I was making the odd with a pound coin. He decided to see if he could do it with shrapnel, which he laboriously counted out with shaky hand. Being a nice person, I stood patiently with non-threatening body language. That my thoughts were not of a nice person is irrelevant.

To my right as I queued I noticed a man. One of those tall sunburnt types who would delight in the description "distinguished" and with a tendency physically to look down their nose. I clocked him move to the far side from me of the elderly couple counting out their shrapnel. As soon as they had realised it had come to 73p and the programme seller had persuaded them to tender just the note and recived four pound coins in the change, this 'distinguished' man moved in to buy his programme. Having already seen his intention, I glided sideways, and smiled sweetly at her as I handed her the right money and said "I was before this...not gentleman". She smiled back and gave me the programme.

Naturally, I wish I had thought of something a bit more eloquent than 'not gentleman'. And I was hoping that he would say something like "Why make such a fuss about something so trivial when you'll get served anyway?" because I had that response ready - if it's so trivial, why did you need to jump the queue - and stand intimidatingly by the elderly couple. My elbow was just on the level of his beer belly. Just because one looks distinguished doesn't alter the fact that it's a beer belly.

Later on, I discovered I was pretty much out of money so I went to the cash till in Victoria Station. There are three alongside, all run by different banks, but all taking most cards. I went to the middle one, but it said "Sorry, we are unable to dispense funds at the moment". It dawned on me that the woman in front of me had left the machine with no money and joined the next queue. I did likewise. I was just about to insert my card when I saw a chap go up to the middle one.

I said "That machine's not giving money at the moment" using my card to gesticulate wildly in the direction of the machine he was about to use (I wasn't drunk, but I'd had a few). He gave me a look of utter condescension and said in a very patronising tone of voice (ex public school) "You've got your card the wrong way round."

"No, your machine.." I said, in a very neutral tone.

"Oh, I'm sure I won't have a problem!" he exclaimed arrogantly; as I got my cash out he said, "Oh! It won't dispense cash at the moment...!"

I summoned up all my icy dignity and firmly said "Quite!"

Just because I'm just 5'2" and don't feel the need to dress for effect does not make me stupid; it shouldn't make me invisible. It does not make you a better person by ignoring or patronising me. I have a much quicker brain then you could ever dream of. I am (usually) fleeter of foot than you would think by looking at me.

I am woman, watch me roar. Or something...

Become a councillor and hire a cleaner...

Actually, it's not that straightforward. You have to ensure that the cleaner understands about paperwork; one councillor expressed a view that he and his house mate, a branch secretary and general activist needed a cleaner less than a PA. I found the cleaning to be a cinch once I have sorted the paperwork.

More seriously, Featherstone was trying to make a serious point and doing it incredibly clumsily.

The Ham and High reports thus :

Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone has hit back at critics after saying more women should become councillors - so they could hire a cleaner.

Ms Featherstone made the remarks to an audience of women at the Lib Dem's conference in Blackpool. She told the audience that the allowance of £10,000 allowed female councillors to employ a babysitter and cleaner.

Haringey Labour councillor Richard Milner claimed the remarks showed the millionaire MP was out of touch with struggling households, unable to afford such luxuries.

But Ms Featherstone told Broadway: "Labour has no idea how hard it is for women who get left with domestic responsibilities and children to get out of the house. Out of 57 councillors only 16 are women, which is 19 per cent.

The economics are not straightforward; many councillors on low earnings have found themselves caught in a poverty trap - annual income of £10,000 is enough - I think - to lose various benefits, including cash and the passported benefits such as Housing Benefits, free school meals etc. If someone knows the precise sums better than me I will stand corrected. But there again, £10,000 is an approximation rather than a stipulated amount.

A typical councillor, especially in London, Metropolitan and other Unitary authorities, has very many evening engagements. These include formal and semi-formal council meetings, including area committees, housing forums etc. Additionally, Residents Associations, Management Committees, User Groups expect regular councillor attendance. Many councillors are also school governors or nominated representatives to or trustees of council-funded bodies. It's reasonable to assume that every Monday to Thursday evening in term time is booked, often double or triple booked. A conscientious councillor will use weekends to visit sites and small informal groups to see the issues for themselves. Additionally, there are phonecalls to be made: it's no good returning a call to a working person during weekdays. But also, no point calling most people late in the evening. Add to that casework, reading Committee papers and the incessant information and publicity from local groups, funded or not, being a thoroughly effective councillor is a fulltime job.

Because the majority have to combine it with paid work and/or family responsibilities they are less than fully effective. Sorry, but that's why, nationally, the average of councillors is so high - when I started blogging, I was a 34-year old councillor at a time when the average age nationally was 57; 86% over 45; a third over retirement age.

I firmly believe that Local Government needs seriously to rethink the status of councillors. When I started I was almost a voluntary worker, getting paid sometimes -- but not often - nearly £100 a month. In my second term, this was raised to a whopping £5000 a year, which just led to local residents' expectations rising and complaining that it was money for old rope. During both terms, my fellow ward councillors also worked fulltime, in high-powered jobs.

I don't know the national statistics for the proportion of women councillors. I don't even know the London statistics. Lambeth has 63 councillors - currently 62 and one vacancy. Of the 62, 22 are women. You do the sums.

There is an argument that the best person for the job should get the job, regardless of age or ethnicity. Trouble is, politics doesn't work like that. The entire atmosphere of Party Politics is very masculine oriented. As it happens, this has rarely bothered me, personally, but I can empathise as to how it's a real issue for many women. In my experience the women that do progress are generally ladettes, or ruthlessly ambitious, or both. In general, men create a better impression at Selection meetings, having already honed their reputation by oratory at ward and constituency meetings. On the whole, generalising, women with children are less likely to be able or inclined to do the alcohol fuelled-networking in the after-meeting pun sojourn and less likely to be able to sacrifice every evening during a live election and three hours on a Sunday afternoon during the off-season. I generalise and people behave as individuals not statistics. But a man who can network and orate won't make a better councillor than the woman who can empathise and represent.

If you attend a councillor's surgery, or a community meeting, or read a councillor's mailbag, you soon realise that Local Government is overwhelmingly a female concern. When a typical couple divides up the household responsibilities and tasks, it's usual for the woman to take on the education issues, the health (not an LA responsibility) and other dealings with bureaucracy. 90% of single parent households are headed by a woman. It's often, although again not exclusively, the middle aged or older daughter who is managing the domiciliary or residential care of elderly parent or in-law.

Many issues within a Council's remit affect men and women equally, but are seen as more women's issues. Take street lighting. I'm not sure of the statistics about unprovoked random street attacks on men. They happen and they happen a lot, but it is, in my experience, more likely to be women who complain about the lack of (working) street lights; also it's more likely to be women who complain about rat-running cars and demand traffic calming (and more likely to be men who complain with their mates about speed bumps). Again, I stress, I'm generalising. Just because you, as a man, do X,Y,Z does not mean anything statistically.

In my first term, in particular, when there were very few women councillors I used to get casework from all over the Borough. Women would travel by two buses there and two buses back to get me to help them with matters that were well outside my ward. Housing matters, in particular, especially where a problem had arisen because of relationship breakdown, especially due to Domestic Violence. Perhaps they thought that as a young woman I would understand their circumstances better. Honestly, I don't know why. The Lib Dem in my next ward, a retired teacher, told me once she got a lot of cases about HRT, not that she could do a great deal about it. She also felt confident visiting elderly women in their homes, when her young male fellow councillors would have been correct to feel reluctant. I tried to avoid home visits, except to the very housebound; even then, I preferred to go with a fellow councillor  or with a housing officer etc.

The role of a councillor is to represent. I have sat in meetings filled with thrusting young ambitious types like me, thinking up grand plans that look great in theory, only for the lone black single Mum to say "Hold on! That won't work on my estate, in my ward, because..." And anyone with half a brain has thought "Aggh! Yes, good point. Bloody hell, good thing you said that." Without that black single mum we might have charged ahead making plans that were unrepresentative and not fit for purpose.

I shall conclude with a massive generalisation through which anyone can drive a Coach and Four. If you were to attempt to separate out male and female politicians, I would say, in general, men want to run the council well and deliver good services. Women want the council to be responsive to the needs of the local people in the local area. It's sweeping - I find the strategic and quasi-judicial much more interesting, some men have come up from the grassroots and have a fabulous instinct there that I lack. And there are those of either gender driven solely by Parliamentary ambition. But we'll gloss over them...

So, Lynne Featherstone should have said, "We need more women councillors; at present Haringey Council is unrepresentative of the community in Haringey. If you do become a councillor, it isn't something you do unpaid..." If I was making that speech, at Labour, not Liberal, conference, I would have directed interested people to an appropriate stall in the conference - perhpas the Association of Labour Councillors - blimey, if I had known all that in 1993 I would never had stood for election in 1994!

How the media works

I often assume that I'm a cynical dried up old hag, thinking I know every trick in the book.

But once in a while even I can be taken by surprise.

A few weeks ago Norman Lebrecht wrote some article for the Sub-standard about the Festival Hall. I was contacted by someone on the Standard inviting me to write a letter to the said Standard commenting on Lebrecht's article. He explained that he had seen me refer to the Festival Hall on this 'ere blog, and, not unreasonably, thought I might have an opinion. He didn't actually know that I had given the Planning Permisssion, but nevertheless he used his nous and gumption and found my number in the Phone Book (I know it's not difficult, but it's beyond the capabilities of many highly educated people...!)

He stroked my ego and I sort of agreed to writing something, then things got in the way, you know real life time-consuming mundanity, too banal to even recall now.

The other day I received the following email:

This is name removed emailing from the Letters page of the Evening Standard. Hope you've been well since we last spoke about the South Bank; just getting in touch the to ask whether you might be interested in responding our story yesterday about Lynne Featherstone MP and her advice to Liberal Democrats to become councillors so that they can hire a cleaner. Please let me know if you might be and I understand completely if you're not! I'm particularly interested in the social mores of her suggestion and Featherstone's response that it is all about the situation many working single mothers find themselves in.

Best wishes,
etc

I think there is a story there. And his approach was measured, unobtrusive. But why commission, unpaid, a washed-up former councillor to tell the story, when a novice reporter, on relatively low pay, could sit and work through the publicly available list of current councillors in London, phoning them, asking for a soundbite, and turning it into a researched story I'm shocked at this soliciting letters for a letters' page that I assume most readers assume is filled mainly with spontaneous unsolicitied letters from random readers as well as identifiable formal responses from named individuals in well-known organisations.

For the record, my response follows in the next post. In the unlikely event of any publication wishing to pay me for an article, my phone number is in the book, and I will discuss terms...

Fourth Estate

I've just been catching up with the first in the new series of Have I Got News for You. guest panellists, a pair of nobodies, who it seems, have achieved nothing in their lives, except fifteen minutes of fame on the TV.

Different people have different views of Blunkett the man, Blunkett the politician. Not the point of this post.

Apaprently, lacking the intellectual capacity to analyse the man's politics, it's fair game to take cheap potshots at his disability. And that of Stephen Hawking, too. Well done, Paul Merton, you fell in my estimation by quite a way.

One assumes that these vile little self-obsessed creatures have never had any difficulties in their sex lives. If that piece of shit alongside Hislop ever suffers any disablement remind me to send him a congratulations card full of gloating. Except that he was so singularly inept I really couldn't be bothered to note his name. I understand he was from some downmarket tabloid. Star, I think. Vile piece of shit.

So, the audience thought it appropriate to laugh at his jokes about Blunkett's guide dogs, and yet hissed Hislop when he called that estate agent a Slapper. Well done, children, for operating in amoral vacuum.

Can I ask a question, honest answers? If you have ever had a sexual relationship with anyone famous, infamous, C-list famous or not even that obscure, have you ever publicised that for money? Sure, I've read allusions on blogs to people and their passing fling with someone who went onto be famous. But, have you ever gone straight to Max Clifford for the sole purpose of money and, er, publicising one's singing career?

Jimmy says that someone was on the Andrew Marr show this morning. I was still in bed, obviously. According to Jimmy, this person said that everyone between twenty and sixty takes drugs. They weren't talking alcohol, nicotine, cigarettes but drugs that are, rightly or wrongly but factually, illegal.

Does this just confirm that the entire media is entirely up is own arse in a coke-induced stupour and is just further evidence that we should, as a nation, resolve entirely to pay them no attention whatsoever, whilst getting on with our useful lives and letting them screw up their overpaid futile existence?

I mean come on, what the fuck do these tossposts actually know. Most people I know between twenty and sixty are either carefully balancing
a budgetthat will enable four or five people on one-and-half incomes to pay the bils, buy food and clothes, run a car or two, have a holiday or two etc; or are fitness fanatics preparing for a half-marathon; or so scared of losing control they won't even go on a roller coaster; or health freaks who will barely touch alcohol and eat only salad as part of their fad diets; or religious nuts who regard drugs as immoral; or world-weary people who've witnessed too many other people's lives destroyed by drugs.

Thinking about it, it's suddently occurred to me that I'm a heavy coke user. Or at least, a typical coke user. I'm sixteen months younger than David Cameron, but unlike him, I have no children. I am statistically a high earner. I'm urban, living in an area so synonymous with drug use that the spoilt brats of Surrey and North London come here as Drugs Tourists. I'm a former high-achiever who's slipped into easy complacency. I know exactly who to phone in order to get an evening or weekend's supply of coke, nod and a wink, no questions asked. My own personal Dealer, you might say. I'm far from being a health freak, caring little about my diet and less about exercise, a heavy user of legal drugs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce: I am a typical cocaine addict.

With just one detail worth noting. I've never taken cocaine in my life. But, otherwise, you may as well assume I spend every Saturday night snorting a good few lines...

Manners

If you want a helping hand, ask a hoodie

There's an element of truth in this. Good manners isn't really about which artifical rules of etiquette you obey, but how you treat others.

Trouble is, like so many journalists, it's lazy, it's self-centred and it leaves one thinking 'so what...'

But try telling this to the ever-vigilant rude police. I was recently harangued outside my house by a woman of about 60, who insisted I had double-parked on purpose to inconvenience her (I was unloading the boot with a sleeping child in the back).

Tough titty, sod the 60 year old bitch. But there is never ever any excuse for double-parking unles you can entirely satisfy yourself and interested parties ie everyone else that the road is so wide that a fire engine can pass without having to slow down. Otherwise, you're a menace that shouldn't be allowed on the road. And yes, I know it's difficult: I had casework from a woman who had a specially marked out parking place outside her home, with specially lowered pavement that enabled her to move her wheelchair from specially adapted car to specially adapted house. Other, selfish, people kept using her parking spot - what was she to do?

Look a bit more closely

Whenever my toddler is attempting to engage people on trains in admittedly demented conversation ('Peepo, man, lady, choo-choo'), hungover Asbo-dodgers respond good-naturedly while Home Counties ladies visibly resent the intrusion

Who's at fault there - the people who resent the intrusion or those that impose it? I'm not Home Counties, I'm not a lady and I rarely travel by overground train. But when I do, I don't especially want to be intruded upon. If I don't respond to you on the Tube, it's probably not because you're a toddler, but most likely because I've had a hard day at work that has left me physically and mentally exhausted and I am literally struggling to make that journey. I'm sorry if it comes over as 'rude', but I think you're rude for expecting otherwise. You might try talking to your toddler. I saw a woman do that on the Tube the other day. She was speaking in Portuguese so I couldn't tell what she was saying, but for the entirety of that journey (I got on at Pimlico, we all got off at Brixton) she was communicating with her baby, talking, cooing, pulling faces, rocking it, and she generally looked as if the baby was the most important thing in her life. I found it deeply shocking, because it was such an unusual sight.

A few months ago I was at the Festival Hall, queueing to buy a programme. The couple in front of me had left a gap to enable people to pass from the door through the queue to the bar or auditorium. Time after time, other people decided that that was the place to join the queue, and time again the woman said "Erm, the back of the queue's back there..." Finally she turned to me and asked, perhaps rhetorically, "Am I doing something wrong?"

Never one to resist a rhetorical question, I replied, "I don't think so, but the same thing happened a few nights ago, only, in your place were two teenage boys. I was upset at how they were treated - it wouldn't surprise me if in future they decide to react with utter disregard for others, and could you blame them...?"

She nodded and smiled knowingly.

Earlier this week I got on the bus at my stop which is just four stops from where the route starts. There were a lot of people standing downstairs, but knowing that route at that time of day, I suspected it was not full upstairs. I asked the man (my age) standing on the stairs "Are there any seats upstairs?" "I really don't know" he said in a posh voice, disdainful tone and sneering look. I went upstairs, where just ten people were sitting. When it became obvious to those downstairs that I had not returned, another five joined us.

I really don't give a shit about whether or not men should take flowers to dinner parties (can women? Are women allowed to go to dinenr partie without men?). It really doesn't matter. If someone brings me flowers, I accept them in the spirit they were given. If I buy flowers, I do it as a token of thanks, one that will not embarass the recipient by ostentatious over-generosity; if they don't like them, they can compost them once I've gone and not worry about having to get them out next time I visit. But before I take flowers to hospital, I will check with the hospital. Actually, I no longer take flowers to hospital, having had my knuckles rapped by a stern ward sister a good few years ago.

The Good Housekeeping guide to 21st century etiquette says good manners is

saying 'mwah mwah' instead of kissing people properly

'positively evil', says the writer of this piece. And I agree. I greet some people with hugs and kisses; others I greet with a handshake; others with a smile; others with a grunt. I don't think that I am particularly sensitive to nuances, and I suspect that I am rather poor about the convention of greetings. But a smile and/or handshake seems to work; the 'mwah mwah' can only be done with a very few people and in only in a self-conscious parody. Certainly at work, neither the grunt nor the hugs are appropriate, but nor is the mwah mwah. We had a couple of new people start this week. They were taken around and introduced; everyone stood up and shook hands, except in one case where the new bloke did a two-cheeked kiss with a woman who's been with us a couple of months. I assume they go back years and were surprised and pleased to be working together again.

I think that worrying over etiquette, feeling obliged to obey arbitrary rules, is a poor substitute to being attuned to the needs and sensibilities of others, and shows a lack of understanding of custom-and-practice in whatever context you find yourself. I'm not saying there is no place for a rule book, especially when encountering unusual situations. I like to know what's custom when I go abroad, I am unfamiliar about the niceties of funeral arranging, before people meet Royalty they are told there is no obligation to curtsey. But is there any place for a book that tells us the rules on how to interact with our friends. For all I know, when you go to your friend's house you might have a ritual of lowering your trousers and mooning at each other. That's exactly the right thing for you and them to do. It's not right in my house, and please don't expect me to do it when I visit you, but you know that already, without a book telling you.

Cameron and Drugs

Keep quiet on drugs, Portillo tells Cameron

As a member of the Labour Party, any utterings of mine on the Tory Leadership campaign should be taken in that context.

I will say that I am virulently anti-Class A Drugs, and have never taken any. I suspect that makes me relatively unusual. It just wasn't done - too expensive - in my circle, at the age when I might have been tempted. Subsequently, I have seen too many lives fucked up - people who thought that the occasional Saturday night dabbling wouldn't do them any harm.

David Cameron has not admitted to taking drugs. The fact that he appears not to have issued a categorical denial has led commentators to assume and speculate that he probably has.

I can't help thinking: what's the big deal? Granted, it won't go down too well with the Blue-rinse matrons in the Shires. But for the Tory Party to succeed electorally, they have to appeal to a demographic of under-45s who were brought up to be Conservatives, and are reasonably prosperous, although anxious about housing costs, education and pensions. Many of them have not been voting Tory. Many of them will have been, or may well still be, occasional Saturday night cocaine dabblers. They are exactly the sort of people who would vote for a Cameron-led Conservative Party. Not because of a drugs history, or even despite it. I suspect, for many of them, it would be of no more consequence than learning that he had pre-marital sex. (Whether he did or not I don't know and don't care, and obviously the media knows it would be a laughing stock if it even asked that question.)

I do find it profoundly sad that Portillo says that his acknowledgement of a homosexual past was the beginning of a media witch-hunt. I am not a fan of Cameron or Portillo, but I am appalled at the media coverage of their (pre-politics) private life. It was clear from the Kate Moss business that large swathes of the national Press regard drug taking as 'normal'. The hypocrisy is staggering. What the British public needs is a robust examination of David Cameron's philosophy, policies and track record as an MP, not scandalmongering about the night he had one pint too many and walked back to his student digs with a traffic cone on his head, or whatever.

And of course, many of those blue-rinse matrons of the Shires are the mothers of the prosperous cocaine-dabbling urbanites who 'ought' to be voting Tory and are not.

It's not an issue that will go away. At the moment the spotlight is on Cameron. I would guess that it probably won't yet fall on Labour Politicians of the same age group - Milliband, Kelly etc - because they would probably have been like me at Uni, not mixing with the super-rich, not being able to afford cocaine in those days, when it was expensive. But it will fall on the next tranche, including many not yet even on the candidates list.

Despite what Portillo says, I think, if Cameron has taken hard drugs, he should say so, and move on. My issue about Portillo and the homosexuality was the years he spent denying it (his business) and the years as Defence Secretary he spent refusing to legalise homosexuality in the Armed Forces (many people's lives ruined). When a friend was PVd for MoD work, her Vetter asked me one question about her drugs use and asked me in a dozen different ways, verging on pervyness, whether there was any hint whatsoever that she might at any time have harboured the slightest passing eensy-weensy homosexual urge. She got the PV despite admitting to occasional pot smoking. I suspect one drunken same-sex snog would have been the kybosh. This was when Portillo was Defence Secretary.

PS Am I getting old or is Norman Tebbitt getting old. For the first time, ever, I agree wholeheartedly what he has to say

I think it matters very little if it's merely a question of having tried the odd bit of cannabis at university 20 or 30 years ago. If it's any deeper than that, then the public should know, because that might affect their attitude towards drug control. A prolonged time using a Class A drug is a matter that might reflect on the individual in a way that isn't the case with someone who experimented at university.You can't make a general rule on whether it makes them unfit for office. A friend of mine received treatment for cocaine addiction some years ago and is now a model citizen. People have been down the road and dug themselves out of it. Were that to be true of someone in public life, people tend to admire rather despise them.

Or is it that Tebbitt and I have not changed, but the answer is so self-evident that people as disparate as he and I can agree on it?

Don't panic

Stay Calm, did you hear me stay calm. DON'T BLOODY PANIC

Avian flu. Or, what it's now mutated into, Bird Flu - on the basis, no doubt, that the British public can't cope with a word like Avian - too many syllables, doesn't pass the Sun test.

I have to confess to being slightly less than interested, so this blogpost is coming to you from a position of uninformed ignorance. So, probably representative of 95% of the population.

These things I know: it's only catchable by humans from birds. Unless it mutates.

Flu's a funny thing. It amazes me the number of people who come to work with "flu". And expect their doctors to treat it with anti-biotics.

I've had flu twice in my life. On either occasion I was knocked out in spectacular fashion - twelve to sixteen hours a day sleeping, the remainder flopped on the sofa watching the most appalling pap of Daytime TV (second time around - daytime telly didn't exist the first time). Unable to walk because of jelly legs. No appetite whatsoever.

For basically healthy people, flu isn't the end of the world. You have it, you get over it, end of story. For the very old and the very young, and for the myriad of people with compromised immune systems, it is a lot more serious.

I heard on the radio yesterday if there is an outbreak, concerts and horse races will be cancelled.

I fell to thinking how that would work in practice. I suppose the Government has Emergency Powers to prevent mass gatherings, especially those of an organised nature like Sports and Ents. Jimmy reckons that if there is an outbreak people won't want to go out, anyway. To which I replied, undoubtedly true of a great many people; not so of all. The post-bombing period was interesting. We travelled on half-empty Tubes to sold-out Proms, and all the emerging evidence is that people continued to attend planned events, but, perhaps subconsciously, didn't spontaneously do ad-hocs in Central London.

Health staff will have to congregate in mass in hospitals. Then there's the transport staff to get them there. There's the electricity, gas and water staff. If everyone's stuck at home, telly had better be good. If the streets are nearly deserted, chancers will take the opportunity to riot, loot and run amok, so that's all police leave cancelled, and Specials, CSOs, Street Wardens and troops drafted in to retain civil order - and cover for those down with flu.

I said - they can't stop people going to the pub; Jimmy said, what barstaff will want to work in an outbreak of flu? I said, those that won't get paid unless they go to work. Then we thought of all the jobs, particularly the small businesses and self-employed which the government would only get away with shutting down if they offer compensation. People have still got to eat.

Oh, and that's another factor. Panic buying. When do we start it? Would it best to do what I did for the millennium, surreptitiously panic buy - I spent all of 1999 sneaking extra tins and other longlife food into my trolley when I was sure no one was watching. Have you even thought about what essentials you will need in the event of Avian flu? Is this where we get in water, candles and radio batteries, or are we looking at baked beans, savoury biscuits, and longlife milk and loo rolls?

Or will it be like the last flu epidemic where statistics showed an increase in deaths amongst the frail, and my observations indicated increased absenteeism from work, but, otherwise, life went on pretty much as normal?

Hero

Time Magazine (Europe) got its European correspondents to name their heroes of 2005. Quite an eclectic bunch encompassing the obscure and the famous: The Voice of Compassion: Offstage, Opera Legend Plácido Domingo is a One-Man Charity Band

Tenor Plácido Domingo received the Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in a ceremony at the Hungarian ambassador's residence in Washington.

Mayhem And Mystery on the High Seas

If any of you are following the fortunes of Blue Collar Donna, Chapter Five is now online - Message #65 if sorted by date.

She has not yet hijacked the ship and demand to be taken to Nicosia for the concert on 19 October. But it seems that the lass form Tooting Bec might not be the brightest button in the box. With the proceeds of five numbers and the bonus in Lotto, she would have been far better taking herself off to Washington, Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, Montreal and Los Angeles, all before Christmas...

Names

There are frequent surveys that link academic success with have sensible names, and academic failure with having chavvy names.

Yet, namewise, the England football team today lies up: Paul, Luke, James, Steven, John, Sol, David, Francis, Peter, Michael, and Joseph. The only 'unusual' name out of those 'boringly' English names is Sol, which is short for Sulzeer, a name whose origins I would be hesitant to comment upon.

The subsititutes are more exotic: Ledley, Rio, Darren and Jermaine alongside Christopher, Shaun (I don't like that spelling...) and Keiran.

I dread to think what the England team or ten or twenty years will be called. But if names are the key to success, it might well be Paul, Luke, James, Steven etc etc.

I'm going gay

This isn't anything to do with sexual orientation, physical attraction or any of that peripheral stuff.

The way I see it, if I lived with and shared my life with a woman, she wouldn't:

• take over three quarters of the wardrobe space with her clothes
• have ten times as many toiletries clutterng up the bathrooms as
• keep buying clutter and useless junk
• interpret "I might need you later on to assist with tightening the screws" as "Stand here lamely holding one bit of the thing I'm assembling and pull macho faces while questioning my ability to slot a few Meccano-style tubes and actively hinder my assembly of same"
• interpret "if you see anything of yours in the wrong place, I wonder if you could put it in the right place, please" as "Pick up copies of BBC Music, Gramophone and Public Finance and despatch them to recycling"

Mind you, she probably wouldn't go off in a sulk to the pub either. So, maybe living with a man has its advantages...

Squirrels on crack

Squirrels on crack

I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds...it knew what it was looking for. It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot but it kept on desperately digging...

...An RSPCA spokesman said he was unaware of squirrels taking crack in Brixton

Stan

Hundreds missing after Stan storm

You have to look for this on the BBC website, and it gets mentioned in the round-up of 'other news' on the TV and Radio.

News values?

Lives are always more valuable when there are English-speaking eyewitnesses in a country with lots of TV news companies.

I think it's obscene that the news media are practically ignoring this, in contrast to the blanket coverage that was given to Rita, and to Katrina in its early stage - by the middle of the week it became obviosu that the news story was about the callous incompetent lazy racism of the Bush 'small government' administration, and thus a different news story altogether.

When I was younger I used to think that news editors based their coverage on the relative importance of stories. I used to think that the celebrities who received coverage were the oens that mattered to the public, whereas I know mow that it is those with th emost proactive PR machines. Butit doesn't really matter.

Yet where it matters, in matters of human life, the British news media are attributing importance on the basis of entertainment value.

And I can't work out whether it's immoral or amoral.

Bolshie me Part 2

Approximately ten feet from my front window is a building site. It used to be a car showroom. In a year or two it will be hundreds of overpriced jerry-built yuppie flats. In the meantime it is a building site.

This morning they erected a two storey portacabin directly outside my window. Photos will be taken tomorrow...

When I came home at seven o’clock there was diesel generator (we think) running, directly outside my neighbours' bedroom window and audible, above the TV, from my house. At ten o'clock it was still running. At five past ten I phoned the Noise Patrol. They should be here by eleven.

To be honest, I do not know what they can do; I am fairly certain that it probably isn't a statutory nuisance. I shall be onto Planning in the morning seeking advice about what we can do about inconsiderate builders.

I am of no doubt they will pass me to another department. I do not expect to get very far very soon. The building work began in earnest this week. I shall be watching them like a hawk. Unfortunately, there isn't much one can do during normal working hours, except grin-and-bear it, but if they dare take liberties, I want them to know we will not tolerate it. Hopefully, by being proactive from the outset we will send a clear signal to the builders that they mess with us at their peril.

I fully expect that this, together with the sauna that is my workplace, will send me into a nervous breakdown. So I thought I might as well blog the process and you can watch me fall apart, car-crash bloggery.

I shall then have to decide whether to sue my employer or to sue the developers. Or both. Or you lot, for watching it happen, car-crash style. (This is where I'm supposed to insert a smiley to let you know I'm just kidding...)

Update: At quarter to eleven the noise patrol arrived and agreed that it was loud; agreed that we mustn't let the builders take liberties. They offered the view that it might be a pump, which would make sense because there are artesian wells dotted all round the area, a minor tributary of the Effra is said to run under the site, and the last two sets of yuppie flats that went up had terrible problems with sub-ground water. There did used to be a brewery and tannery very near here decades ago. And I wouldn't really know whether the site was properly cleared before it was built on following the demolition of the houses by a V1, or was it a V2, I don't remember.

The noise patrol said I should contact the office tomorrow, so that the daytime officers can visit the site during working hours, but they agreed it was sensible to call them out to vouch for the fact that it's running. Then, as he was leaving, one of them said "Are you a councillor?"

I laughed "I used to be - nearly four years ago now - I'm history, we select the next candidates next week." Prospective candidates I meant, of course. They don't become candidates until the nomination papers are submitted in April.

(I was, of course, Britain's first blogging councillor, but the archives from that period are no longer on this site...)

News snippets

I just walked past a TV screen. Tony Blair was on it.

The caption said "Taliban Visit"

This surprised me somewhat. I just can't quite see Tone doing a joint Press Conference with the Taliban.

Then I realised that it was Talibani, President of Iraq.

Slightly unfortunate name, all things considered...

Then I flick onto the BBC Front Page and notice that a picture of Sale is lead story, as police storm IRA properties throughout Sale, Stretford and Bowdon. In some ways it seems a bit bizarre; in other ways perhaps unsurprising.

I don't think my mother would appreciate a phonecall instructing her to be blogger's assistant on the spot. I just hope that today's not an adult education class or else I shall be told all about the road closures in complete detail.

Don Carlo

Another in my occasional series of opera reviews. I really ought to speed up the process or else it will take me twenty years to get through my existing collection, let alone anything I may acquire in the future.

In my defence I will say that I have been studying this rather carefully. About a month or so ago, I commented elsewhere on the internet that I didn't really 'get' Don Carlo(s), even though intellectually I could think of dozen reasons why I ought.

Since then I have played the DVD three times  and the CD-set probably ten times

I can honestly say I am now totally smitten with this opera, and it has catapulted into my top ten.

I would say that in just about every aspect the CD is so vastly superior to the DVD as to be almost embarrassing. The DVD has the advantage of having the visuals, which of course helps in following the story. There is nothing intrinsically interesting or wonderful about the production - it's safe and traditional, allowing the singers to stand and deliver. It has a certain car-crash quality as you observe voice after voice collapse.

I would even say that the tenor on the CD is exponentially better than the tenor on the DVD. I would say that on the CD he is quite possibly at the best he is in my entire record collection, whereas on the DVD, although he is one of the few saving graces, he isn't at his best. To be honest, he doesn't even look that great (relatively speaking...).

Both versions are the Five Act 'Modena' version, although the DVD has an expanded Fontainebleu scene. It was written in French with Five Acts (1867), and then reduced to four for the Italian premiere (1884), with Act 1 being restored in 1886. But just to confuse matters, the liner notes for the Met DVD manages to describe the five acts as three.

This is based on the play by Schiller. There is little evidence that this has any great historical accuracy, being more a reflection of Schiller's Enlightenment ideas, which were largely shared by Verdi. There is no hint that in fact that the real Carlo was weak-minded and deranged, a result of inbreeding.

It has a compelling storyline and strong, believable characters.

It is difficult to find within the entire opera any music that is less than beautiful. Watching some of the DVD with Jimmy, he observed that it is difficult to listen to the orchestra with Domingo commanding the stage. But that is absolutely what one must do. I would be hard pushed to identify any Verdi opera with such superb orchestra writing. I'm tempted to say, this is Verdi demonstrating that anything Wagner can do, he can do better. I have this unnecessary battle in my head over who is better, but then I remember that there doesn't have to be a 'better'. Different, just different.

Whilst I was listening and watching, I kept jotting down notes about arias and duets, terzettas etc which were my special favourites. But the list just grew and grew, so I have decided not to reproduce it here. And, as I say, it's not just the singing, although on the CD, that is of an exceptionally high standard. Domingo and Caballé are incandescent. Verrett is excellent. Sherrill Milnes is never my favourite baritone; in this is above average (although he does benefit from comparison from Quilico, who is simply dreadful with no redeeming features whatsoever on the DVD). It would be interesting to hear a truly gorgeous baritone in this role. Raimondi is also excellent. On the DVD, Ghiaurov is one of the strengths, and has a commanding, imposing, imperial demeanour. However, I just happen to prefer Raimondi's voice. Freni suffers poorly in comparison to Caballé, really quite squawky at times. Bumbry looks amazing in the DVD, but Verrett's singing is better. Eboli is probably the most compelling character in the opera, a total bitch