Gertsamtkunstwerk

Twat

Bonfire of the brands

There are only three possible explanations of this article.

1. It's parody, to press home a point
2. It's been published by a sniggering editor so that bloggers can press 'Quick Post' and write 'Twat'
3. This narcissistic arsehole and his twunt of an editor think that this is news. For fucks sake, get a life. Buy a brand don't buy a brand. Who gives a shit.

I buy brands sometimes. Sometimes I don't. It's not a lifestyle choice. I don't have a 'lifestyle'. I'm not exactly alone in this. It's just sad twats who call themselves a 'style magazine editor' who need a lifestyle. And their sheeplike disciples. Useless shallow vacuous twat. Right now I'm having a cup of Yorkshire Tea and a Duchy Original biscuit. Are they brands or did I buy them for tried-and-tested quality? If you came round right now, you'd be offered a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit. If you said "What brands are they? Does that fit my lifestyle?" I'd say, "You know where the door is. Use it."

What he's basically saying is that he was too stupid to deconstruct the brainwashing and now he's telling us how stupid he was. But maybe not so stupid. Presumably he's got a nice little fee writing for the BBC. that's a brand, isn't it?

Who are these people who write for the meejah? Is stupidity a prerequisite of the job?

Celebrity comments

I have had two comments from someone giving the name Adrian Chiles and an email address (not published) that could potentially be Adrian Chiles. I once had a comment from Peaches Geldof. And Mike T-D once had a comment from a Lithuanian Eurovision entry.

Selina Scott's views on TV were covered in the TV go home, and will be aired on Five tonight.

I tend to agree with her, especially the part about

TV is, to her, ageist and sexist, run by paunchy male executives with a taste for cruelty and a lairy, childish idea of what makes entertainment; a place where reality shows encourage us to ridicule freaks, where everything is sacrificed to football, where news looks like a game show, where soaps have replaced character and warmth with midriffs and addiction, and where the best opportunities available to women in their fifties are to eat cockroaches in the jungle and be thought of as a good sport.

Thing is, though, that sort of TV gets a disproportionately high, if dwindling, share of a dwindling TV audience, and is a surefire winner commercially. People who watch intellectually challenging, iconoclastic and controversial* documentaries or dramas, do so because they want their thoughts to be provoked. This does not make them especially good at absorbing the guff in the adverts, because the adverts want to sell a range of emotions from guilt to envy to self-delusion, without people actually thinking "Will this lotion make me happy, or this food stuff that is packed full of salt make me thin or this leather sofa give me self-esteem?" And while we worry about consumer goods and thinness and not-ageing, and Victoria Beckham's handbag, we don't think about power relations, exploitation and capitalist brainwashing, so we don't have the knowledge or time to question them, thus ensuring that a self-appointed self-perpetuating elite continues to undermine our self-worth and our enjoyment of the things that matter. Add in the airheads in the newspapers who tell us what TV to watch - not because they have the capacity to make a critical judgement but because they lack the integrity to say they've been bribed to puff a show, and it all pays off as the newspapers advertise the TV programmes that hook people into the adverts that are created by white male 'creatives' in advertising agencies with the sole purpose of getting people to spend money on the High Street, money they can ill-afford so they borrow at usurious rates, which keeps the financial institutions happy.

* ie saying things that can be argued with, not just using swear words or revealing usually-covered flesh

Writing the dictionary

Certain terms have magically appeared in the Urban Dictionary:

tenorial rolling on the ground

chest hair fondling

Furniture Abuse

Studertroll

Barihunk is pending...

More about Tesco

The new Tesco opened locally in a damp squib. One Sunday Jimmy donned his false beard and burqa and ventured in for ready meals and came back empty-handed. Milk is more expensive than in the local, Asian-run, convenience stores. Whenever he or I pass the shop seems deserted of customers. Not that we pass very often; even though we live closer than just about anyone else, it's not a sensible way to get home. Except from the doctors or Post Office. Footfall past is, by my observation of eleven years, minimal.

There is a cash machine, which I have noted, as a cheaper alternative to paying £1.50 in a convenience store or walking to the erstwhile nearest free one.

Turns out that the man who goes to refill the cash machine has been robbed more than once. The Crime Prevention officer has advised Tesco to install CCTV but they can't be bothered. There's a gang who watch the machine. Perhaps they'll also be mugging people who use the cash machine. Or get cash-back in-store. No CCTV, no crime prevention.

Soon, Carphone Warehouse will open. And their customers will be mugged for their brand new phones.

When the rich move into their £300k jerry-built box-size flats in 30 Streatham Place, they'll be easy targets for the scrotey scumbags who have been decanted into the nearby area in order to prey on the superrich residents of Thirty Streatham Place.

The Regeneration Project are furious at the mini crimewave that has been visited upon our area.

Spacial mechanics and long names

A while ago on a course we were requested to write our names on a perspex nameplate. My classmates stared at me as I paused, considering how to do it. Mike and John had taken nano-seconds; I don't suppose it occurred to Norman and Andrew to plan the task ahead.

It's different for me. My proper official name has nine letters. I am nervous of running out of space. I have to visualise the midpoint and know that's where the 'L' must be. This is not helped by my very poor spacial awareness and grasp of spacial mechanics*.

I will readily concede that mine is not the only name with nine letters. Anyone called Elizabeth or Stephanie will confirm this. And I've had this discussion with the wife of a Christopher. Jacqueline also has ten letters.

When crossing into Egypt, I had to fill out cards to apply for a Tourist Visa. It requested one's first name and provided boxes, one box per letter. So I dutifully wrote 'G E R A L D I N E'. The border guard compared this to my passport, which also has my middle name, and said in a business-like manner 'Why not all your name?'. I started to explain, but he wrote quickly 'M A R G A R', then running out of boxes, he looked up at me, gave me a wicked grin and said "I understand..."

I've encountered people with three names adding up to nineteen, and know someone with three names adding up to twenty. She is not known by any of those, so has an additional five for her usual name. But can anyone beat seventeen from two?

* I believe - without being able to demonstrate - that this lowers my IQ by as many as 10 points, regardless of my excellent capacity at verbal and numeric reasoning, logic and memory. I struggled with spacial matters at O-Level Maths; by A-Level I had pulled myself up to O-Level standard. At University I started to grasp the basics of the A-Level syllabus (damn good thing I'm shit hot at algebra and theoretical calculus).

Carnival Sunday

Just come back from tonight's Prom, which, of course, was held in the Albert Hall. As it was a warm and sunny afternoon with a refreshing breeze, it seemed to make sense to take in a late lunch then sit by the pond in the park. I mean the Serpentine, it's not really a pond, it has ocean-going liners on it.

Always fun to people watch. Little girl, maybe four years old, having a right go at her father "But you said we'd go to a big park, where's the big park?" "Here, here's the big park..." "This isn't a park, I want swings!" I seem to recall that conversation thirty-odd years ago.

A group of five walk past. Four wearing brown tops. Not identical. Two in t-shirts with quite different logos, one in a wrinkly-crinkly girly top, one in a short sleeved top. Speculating, did they agree to wear brown, and why didn't the fifth. Or is it chance and has any of them spotted that four out of five are wearing brown.

Punk woman walks past, shaved head, but long pony tail. "That looks awful", says Jimmy. Doesn't matter I say, when she changes her mind, she can grow it back. It's not like her face and arms are covered with tattoos. They're for life. "I hate it when their bodies are covered with studs and rings," he says. Doesn't matter, I say, when they change their minds, they can take the piercings out and the holes will heal. Not like tattoos, if you're body's covered in tattoos, they're there for life.

A few minutes later a woman walks past with her arms, chest and cleavage covered with a very obvious large tattoo pattern. See, I say, look at that woman. she's only young, and she's going to regret that when she grows up. Oh wait a minute, it's a flesh coloured jumper with a pattern on. Hey, that's ace! It looks like she's covered in tattoos but if she changes her mind, she can take it off tonight. I want one. I want one. How ace is that! They'd be so shocked at work. Oh superb! I want!

Boom boom boom in the distance. Remember that it's Carnival. On the way home, we got the civilised end of the carriage. Quite funny in the Tube Station. Don't these people ever go out? Seemed to be a load of late-teens clueless in how to negotiate a Tube Station. You know the difficult bit, walk towards escalator; walk up or stand on escalator, keep going in a forward direction, use functioning Oyster Card to open ticket barrier.

There was a strange vibe on the bus, edgy, nothing I could put my finger on, except for the four loud smelly obnoxious Roma, who apart form being loud, smelly and obnoxious weren't doing anything wrong.

Walking up the road we see a BMW reverse into a Beetle. It's all very well people who buy big cars to show how macho they are, but they've learnt to drive - and park - in a Vauxhall Nova and they can't handle it.

Then I hear someone trying to start a car. Doesn't sound right. It's not coughing and spluttering. Jimmy says, it looks too decrepit to drive. I think, it's being hot-wired, but I don't know that, I'll sound stupid. The car starts, and roars off at speed, the driver flashing his lights and honking at us. "Oh," said Jimmy. "That's Arthur's son, just come out from ten years inside, lied that he'd reformed, already stolen wheels from a car on his road. No licence, no insurance..."

"Did he hot wire that?" I said.

"Probably. It won't be his.."

I thought, must get onto the police. Then I thought again. What a clever bastard. By waving at us he's letting us know he's seen us, so if we grass him up, we're in shit. It's bound to have his DNA on it, and we can be sure his DNA is in the database.

I'm never quite sure what to do when suspicious. A few months ago I rang up with a description of a man I thought was behaving suspiciously. He had clearly seen us somewhat pissed coming out of the curry house. Every time we paused to chat to acquaintances, he dithered and lurked. When he realised that I scrutinised him closely, he ducked abruptly down a side road, so I gave his description to the police, explaining that I was safe and home and no crime had been committed, but describing him and his behaviour, maybe they'll take a look on CCTV. They never got back to me.

Booster seats for pre-teens with attitude

Take your seats

The comments seem to fall into two categories.

1. How dare someone expect me to spend £20 to keep my child safe and who's going to enforce it, anyway? Your child, your decision...Stupid law what about adults under 150cm? Maybe they should consider the risk factors and decide whether, in the light of research, they may wish to use a booster seat. For their own safety. No one's told me Well, I knew and I don't have a child or a car. So go on, who won Big Brother? What's the latest must have 'designer' handbag. Priorities, heh! Poor done-down victim me. Get over it.

2. If it has been found to be a risk, what on earth are the car manufacturers doing about it? Bugger all it seems. Greedy grasping capitalist bastards. With their adverts for safety and 'family' cars.

A matter of weight

The 34-stone teenager really makes me think. I cannot begin to imagine 34 stone.

Supposedly I am two and a half stone overweight (about 15 kilos or 35 pounds). If I lost that amount you'd be able to see my ribs, at least according to people with whom I share that fact. When I was cycling all over the place, including up the hills on campus, or when I was at the gym/swimming pool four times a week, and was toned and without wobble I was a more than a stone overweight. But I could not imagine being twice my supposed 'target' weight.

I have seen people's weight balloon, often as a result of childbirth or medication eg steroids, or physical injury or depression. And indeed this article makes reference to the death of her grandmother being the obvious cause. To which my immediate reaction is 'many teenagers lose grandparents, indeed I know loads of people who lost parents in their teens, get over it'.

But that's unfair. It may have only been a trigger for a deep seated psychological problem. I can only assume as well that there were psychological problems within the family. She's not tubby, plump or even a lard arse. She was three times the weight of most of her contemporaries. I guess there comes a point in obesity where the effort involved to exercise, any exercise, is too much. When even walking down the road is impossible. If someone is a shut-in, living alone, it is so easy for the problem to go unnoticed.

It appears to me that her family did nothing. If she attended school, why didn't the school do something? If she stayed away from school, why didn't the Truancy Officer do something? Or her GP. Maybe her family couldn't cope "I'd throw a tantrum if mum didn't give me extra food" So presumably Mum gave her extra food. So the tantrums worked. That is not the way to parent. Not for nothing is it called 'spoiling the child'.

I can imagine how awful school PE must have been for her. I hated it. Well, actually, I liked hockey, badminton and tennis, but all the rest, netball and bloody volleyball, both designed to give a crick in the neck. And athletics, gym and rounders. Hateful hateful stuff. But not as bad as the torture that was cross-country through John Leigh Park. I am simply not designed to be good at sport. Bad hand and eye co-ordination. A doctor once told me I have floppy joints. I don't think it's a serious medical condition.

But if I had had a serious health- or life-threatening weight problem, I am sure that somebody would have tried to find some exercise I liked and helped me to do it. Swimming, football, dancing, walking, cycling. Even hockey or tennis. Most of the time I just couldn't be bothered. Still can't, mainly.

But because I don't have my umbilical cord attached to a car and because of my nervous energy 'too much, calm down' it has been said, more than once, I get by. PE was so geared towards glory, being competitive, glory for the school, boosting self esteem for those that couldn't hack it academically, in music or drama, or in community works. Nothing actually about fitness, or how to exercise correctly. No connection with nutrition lessons - which in any case were only for the third or so who did Home Economics at O-Level. And I suspect that my school was far better than most at that time, and our PE teachers were splendid human beings, shame about the subject.

Confusing Mahler

I am currently watching tonight's Prom on BBC4.

A transformed programme. Dawn Upshaw's cancellation meant that Osvaldo Golijov’s Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra was replaced by Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. A bit bizarre, it would seem, but that soloist and that orchestra are performing it tomorrow night in Edinburgh, so it makes logistical if not musical sense.

Now we have Mahler 5. An amazing symphony with a palpable sense of romanticism. Apologies to those for whom I have promised to flag up nice easy listening non-vocal music. Should have mentioned this one. It starts in a blaze of glory and hen gets wishy washy, before breaking into the most gorgeous lyrical passage of sostenuto increasing in volume and passion. I admit I had to consult the radio times, what are they doing after the Mahler Five - a bit of Brahms, a bit of Classic FM 'we'll give you a short extract out of context because you're stupid and we want to patronise you". This is also part of Mahler 5.

Can I just say that despite the ubiquity of this passage on all "Classic FM Mood Music for Dusting and Floor Mopping"-type compilation CDs, it is ace music. And so weird to have a Prom without a singer.

Ah well, it's repeated at 1.40 am. And will be on Listen Again for a week.

I have the same problem. Something kept coming up on non-random on my mp3 player. I assumed it was a light operetta. Eventually I peered at the screen and realised it was Das Lied Von der Erde.

Mahler is on my list of composers I want to get to know better. But he's queued behind Britten, Mendelssohn, and Haydn.

But I'm trying to make myself watch all the Proms regardless of what's on. After all, it's free. And I might learn something.

What humans do to humans

Police sorry for inquiry 'hurt'

A senior Scotland Yard officer apologised to the family for "any hurt" caused by the earlier inquiry...Labour MP for Poplar and Canning Town Jim Fitzpatrick said "When there is a violent attack, such as has been reported on Mr Woodhams in January, one would have hoped that steps would have been taken to make sure there wasn't a repetition".

Apologising for 'any hurt'. Isn't that the standard response for when feelings have been offended? I know the IPCC are investigating. I know that police have to prioritise but I can think of fairly few offences that should have a higher priority than a life-threatening violent attack by strangers.

People are sick and tired of the intimidation by these gangs of pointless aggressive teenage boys, posturing with their imagined masculinity and demanding 'respec', lacking actual role models from their absent fathers and taking their model of masculinity from the shit in low rent telly.

And then an extraordinary story from Austria: Austrian girl 'found' after years. Unbelievable. Imagine the overwhelming emotions her family must be feeling. The indescribable joy that she has returned. And yet the fear at the psychological damage. Scared to ask her what happened, knowing that she will be a desperately changed person, grief at the lost years. Knowing that healing will take eight years again, at least. But above all, irrespective of the qualms about the future, can there be a happier family anywhere tonight?

Duck and tree

Another in the occasional series of photos dredged up from the archives

An unseasonably warm March day in 2003.  Brockwell Park, Brixton. Old camera. A bit over-exposed.

Pain management

Long term readers will have been regaled over the years with varying details of my mystery illness*. More recent ones will be aware of the clinical drug trial I am currently undertaking.

The illness has two main manifestations, pain and tiredness, which exacerbate each other.

The two factors are particularly severe around the time of my period. To the extent that anybody keeping track of my sick absences would be forced to comment on how regular my cycle is**.

Having survived more than twenty years with little or no premenstrual pain, having even sat through exams and thought 'ow, that's a bit uncomfortable, now where was I?' it has been extra galling to experience debilitating pain so frequently. Admittedly, some of this is the ageing process, but the problems have been particularly acute in the past two or three years.

I don't get paid when I'm off sick. I am in the process of applying for 'pay at pension rate'. If this is only £10 a day it should wipe out my overdraft. So I don't want to take time off.

Yesterday, as expected, I felt the first grumblings of pain. I decided, and said to manager "I'm not feeling great, I'm good enough now but will be worse tomorrow. With your permission, I shall work at home. I don't know how much I shall do, Thursday and Friday, but if it's only five hours, that will be reflected in my time-sheet." I outlined the tasks I could reasonably do at home (like, writing three reports). He endorsed my decision without prying or querying or arguing (his attitude encourages me to be honest; partly because he has a unique insight into my condition and partly because he's a decent human being).

Bizarrely I don't feel too bad today, and know I will feel better tomorrow. I have not resorted to painkillers, although a warm bath has been welcome. And I shall take an afternoon nap. Because I can. But unless you have suffered the pain I have for the past two years or so, you will have no idea how good it feels to have a mild niggly pain rather than a doubling up in tear-filled agony overdosing on Nurofen Plus.

Is this the effect of the secret code-named drug? Or is it merely the psychological belief that it's making a difference? I don't know. That's why they have statistically valid double-blinds. But the evidence from the US and Japan is that it works. And I am inclined to think there is evidence from Brixton Hill Clapham Park that it works.

* diagnosed alternatively as CFS or fibromyalgia

** or else make an idiotic observation "Suspicious how she seems to go off sick on a four weekly basis. Must be malinger."

United United Top of the League

Played 2 Won 2 Points 6 Goal Difference 7

and Chelsea

Played 2 Won 1 Drawn 0 Lost 1 Points 3 Goal Difference 2

United have already scored eight goals this season....

Saha, Fulham og, Rooney,  Ronaldo, Rooney, Fletcher, Saha, Solskjaer.

Solskjaer? Woot yay! I don't care if he only comes on in the 82nd minute if he scores in the 89th!

Me, the ex-Minister and the Blue Rubber Gloves

It continued being exciting throughout the day as the two helicopters continued to hover. Being that I was in work mode, I thought "how long can a helicopter stay up just hovering without refuelling" and ...wait for it..."what is the marginal and full economic cost of having two of them do that?"

And that was how exciting it got, which, for an accountant, is very exciting.

Midway through the afternoon, I noticed a van being treated suspiciously. It had been parked there a long time, it was a grey van, like a white van, but grey, with two or three rolls of plastic on the roof, longer than the van. The passenger window was wound down, and a police car had drawn up alongside. Two officious looking chaps from a nearby government department stood and watched as a uniformed officer probed around the front passenger seat wearing blue rubber gloves. I was rather disappointed they didn't produce a mirror-on-a-stick. That's how we used to fight terrorism in the old days, with mirrors on sticks.

Clearly, in the current climate, with a high security, high profile trial of ipod-and-vodka bombers happening just yards away, one can't be too careful, and, indeed another police car arrived and parked randomly, in a "we're attending an important incident, don't expect us to parallel park" sort of way. A crowd gathered, as tends to happen round suspect packages, vans &c. I gazed earnestly on, thinking, "David Cameron has served his purpose, I no longer need him as my muse" when, 'pon my word, Frank Field walked past. It must be gratifying when you are an obscure former minister of state for welfare reform to encounter a political junkie in the street gazing at a possibly-soon-to explode plumbers' van.

So that's the story of the ex-Minister, the Blue Rubber Gloves and me.

I returned to my post, and announced the exciting developments to my colleagues. I glanced out of the window and saw the van being driven off. "The person driving it's got white shirt sleeves, that'll be the police...". M'colleagues all gave me a strange look.

All a bit exciting

As I walked from river to coffee shop, the hovering helicopter and the photographers hanging round on street corners provided a clue.

It's always a guessing game. Last week, it was fascinating to watch the convoy delivering the German minister to our building for an Emergency EU meeting. "What cars were they were in - Mercs or BMWs?" asked a colleague. "Black." I said. I'm a girl.

Just a few weeks ago Tony Blair was convoyed along the road just past the postbox where moments earlier I had deposited two items of post. Sometimes it's royalty or heads of state from home or abroad. Not quite as exciting as when we were almost adjacent to the Palace.

I emerged from coffee shop and walked my normal backstreet route to the office. Often, one has to pause a moment or two for the prison vans to manouvre into place before depositing the culprits. This morning was different. A second helicopter was hovering overhead. Police vans and cars were almost outnumbered by TV satellite vans. Serious photographers with macho fuck-off equipment. And the public, poised with mobile phones, desperate for the moment of audience-generated-content fame for the photo they capture with Nokia 1234 that a pro can't capture with three grands of serious Canon and Fuji equipment.

Sirens began to scream, the sound of cars being driven at speed. I panicked, I have roads to cross, I need to get to work. I began to tremble, scared. In my hands I have a grande latte semi-skinned extra shot, a fag, and an mp3 player (hence no photos taken for purposes of blog). I did not want to be swept up in a media scrum. Cones were placed as roadblocks. A London Buses van acted suspiciously, clearly commandeered for covert surveillance. Three traffic wardens wandered the streets seemingly uninterested in issuing parking tickets. "Something massive is happening at the Magistrates Court,". I had a guess. For a moment or two I felt myself caught up in a global news story.

Is Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke the same person who used to be head of Brixton Police and still owes me a response to a Members' Enquiry from over a decade ago.

Steve Reich Prom

This review is well over due. So long overdue that it's gone right off the Listen again radar.

Excuses - it was a Late night one so I didn't get home until one, then the next day I ended up doing stuff. Just stuff, you know.

And I seem to have lost the ability to write.

It was bloody good! Is that a review?

Earlier in the evening I met up with Carla and Caro in Carluccio's Cafe at South Ken (try saying that pissed, fortunately I wasn't, for a very enjoyable meal and natter. That's what the internet does, brings together people who are wondering how to pass the time before the Late Night Prom.

There's a special atmosphere in a LNP quite quite different from the mainstream ones. Some of the best Proms I have been to rival football matches for fevered atmosphere. The very few LNP I have attended are mellow and chilled. Perhaps the music is deliberately chosen that way.

The programme was:

Clapping Music (5 mins)
Nagoya Marimbas (5 mins)
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ (19 mins)
Drumming (45 mins)

Programme notes

Actually Caro and I arrived moments late and were not allowed in. I was about to protest that we ought to be allowed on while the audience is still applauding, then I realised it was 'Clapping Music'.

I find Steve Reich mesmerising and fascinating. I was first introduced to his music back in my school days, by my percussion teacher, and instantly fell in love with it. This programme was very dominated by percussion; even when voices and a piccolo joined in, they weren't there to provide pretty melodies. I can't imagine Steve Reich getting much airplay on Classic FM with its safe, smug middle-England agenda. I explained it to somebody the next day as Classical meets Rock meets World, but that is an oversimplification of the fusion. On the Tube, Chemical Brothers' Hey Boy Hey Girl came up on shuffle and I developed a goofy grin as I recognised the musical links. I dont know very much about the Chemical Brothers, except for liking their music, despite its genre, so I wouldn't know if they are Reich influenced. They must be, I reckon.

His music isn't for everybody. I'm afraid I can't sit here writing deep intellectual twaddle about the psychological effect of the music, because I actually don't think there is any. It's about how rhythm is constructed, how rhythm dominates, and how a tune emerges out of the seeming lack of linear melody. And it draws you in relentlessly. No room for sloppiness from the players, it is very structured. You kind of want to dance, indeed some of the players were following the urge to dance, or at least to bop rhythmically.

Good fun. but thankfully, not fun that was headlined with great big banners saying "Recommended by Classic FM" or "I'm Titchmarsh and I'm going to assume you know nothing about music and talk down making irrelevant unfunny quips". It was about the fun being in the music and in the listener.

The Alan Parsons Project

I have three albums by the Alan Parsons Project, all of them taped off my brother-in-law and I have to say they are much of a muchness. I think I probably appreciated them more in my Twenties when I had this thing of sitting and listening to stuff that aspired to have a deeper meaning, and attempting to fathom the deeper meaning. But I'm not so sure now.

The tunes are mainly rather pleasant and bland and rather instantly forgettable. I've had these albums the best part of twenty years and you know, they don't exactly form earworms. It never occurs to me to consider Alan Parsons among my favourite artists, and yet, I can't think of anything really bad to say in criticism. I think Alan is most famous for being a producer for an impressive line-up of stars at Abbey Road, but ultimately the 'Project' albums are concept albums, and you know, I have an irrational antipathy to concept albums. Conceptually wrong wrong wrong.

Of the three, Eye in the Sky stands out as being nearly very good indeed.  I like the atmosphere of the album as a whole. There's a crystal-clarity in the wall of sound, even though this is a very old and often-played-on-dodgy-equipment cassette.  The title track has a certain anthemic quality. Silence and I is good enough to be short-listed for my top hundred songs of pop-all-time, and Old and Wise is a wistful ballad, providing a interesting contrast at the end of the album.

At the end of the day it's pleasant enough aural wallpaper, but I want a bit more for my two hours of listening. The voices in particular are formulaic, lacking any sort of personality, colour or drama, except for the times when they sound nasal,  hoarse  and ugly.

About me

I stole this from Chaucer's Bitch

1. Have you had sex in the past 24 hours? No, it's not the weekend yet. But I do think about sex quite often

2. Are you gay? No, but if I was a lot younger I might be bi, but only in that 'straight girls doing straight girls' way

3. Do you have hairy legs? Yes, doesn't everybody? Actually, they are currently in need of attention. And my toenails need cutting.

4. Do you smoke anything? Cigarettes, constantly

5. Do you like monkeys? I'm indifferent. Except to gibbons (sorry, there's a joke there that only a very few readers will get)

6. How many fillings do you have? None. Bitch-dentist-woman said that if I don't give up smoking I'll get cavities. I said "I'm 36, how many other 36 year old filling-less patients do you have (the observant will notice how long ago it is I went to see bitch-dentist-woman.) She said a lot of people give up smoking when they see the TV ads, I said I don't watch TV ads. She said that most people give up when they see the TV ads. I said I'm not one of those people who sit watching TV ads in order to be told what to do. I fast forward through them. So much for preventative health. I keep meaning to find a new, not-bitch-woman dentist.

7. Would you rather swim in the ocean or a lake? This must be of American origin. I love swimming in the sea. I've only swum in the 'ocean' on two holidays. I've never swum in a lake.

8. Have you ever licked one of those square batteries? I couldn't imagine why I would want to!

9. Have you ever read the Bible? Bits. Mainly the bits that get read at Mass. Although I've only been to Mass about four times since I've been blogging. And two were funerals.

10. Did you ever go to Sunday School? No, it was very much an Anglican thing, where I lived when I was that age.

11. Do you wear a lot of black? Quite a lot, but not in a 'I wear black' way. If try to match a black suit with non-black tops. Or wear black tops with grey or cream trousers/skirt.

12. Did you ever bring a weapon to school? As you can imagine, there wasn't a great need for guns at a Cheshire convent grammar school in the Eighties. Do drumsticks count?

13. Have you ever hugged a tree? No

14. Do you know what a sphincter actually is? An unmarried woman with a liking of anal sex?

15. Describe your hair? Recently cut-and-dyed stylishly messy; in need of a wash. Short. Has a 'just got out of bed look.

16. Are you a wild beast? No, I'm a sweet angelic ickle girlie.

17. Do you like to have fun? By definition. But I don't like doing things that are "FUN". In fact, I steer away from things so promoted. I decide what's fun, for me.

18. Do you like drama? A bit. I like to go to a play every couple of years. And I like drama on the telly. I mean proper drama not so much crappy formulaic stuff. I also do Drama Queen quite well.

19. Have you ever taken a bong hit? No. Although I have smoked the odd joint, and also smoked from a Shisha pipe.

20. Do you like mayonnaise? Definitely, especially with prawns, tuna, or chips.

21. Are you afraid to die? Not especially. I try not to think about it. I do occasionally wonder what it would be like to die a slow painful death, either lingering for weeks, or else in an accident untreated.

22. Do you like playing in leaves? I like scuffling through them. I would be a lot happier if I could be sure they didn't contain dogshit. You know, if humans shat on the pavement there would be uproar in the Press. So I don't see why it's acceptable for dogs to do so. Or cats. In my garden.

23. Have you ever peed your pants as an adult? There is a blog post about this somewhere.

24. Have you ever thrown up on somebody as an adult? No, thankfully. but I am a regular vomiter. Hey, I haven't thrown up for months and months. What's going on?

25. Are you an adult? Yes. Most definitely. I also try to act my age. I don't want anybody to think I'm in my Twenties, heaven forfend

26. Ever won a spelling bee? This is American. I'm not. Considering my excelent speling I no that I wud have one menny wen I woz a child. Not so sure now, computers have destroyed the spelling genius in me.

27. Do you ever eat because you’re depressed? No. But often when I'm melancholy or lethargic. Which is not the same as depressed. Melancholy and lethargy are a natural part of life's rhythms and we don't help ourselves by denying them.

28. Are you a television addict? No. I go for days without watching TV, and I only watch what I've chosen to watch. Often, I watch a lot but always dictated by active selection not just by the need to 'watch telly'.

29. Do you think OJ was guilty? I actually don't give a shit. Someone I worked with at the time called this the most important trial of the century. I asked "More important than the Nuremberg trials?" She hadn't heard of the Nuremberg Trials. Far better to be taught what to think by low-rent telly than to actually know about important stuff.

30. Do you enjoy spending time with your mother? Not especially. We're not exactly soul-mates. I've got nothing against her. But I couldn't go on holiday with her.

31. Have you ever had sex in a hot tub? On a swing? No and no. This comes straight after the previous question? Talk about juxtaposition!

32. Do you like Elvis? A bit. Great voice. Some fab songs. I have a real problem with Elvis impersonators. It's all very well to get up to look like him and sing those songs, but, mate, you don't have the voice.

33. Do you enjoy watching animals "do it" on the Discovery channel? No, not especially. If it's important for the documentary I don't mind but if it's just shown for gratuitous sex, no. Not that I watch animal documentaries. But Himself does.

34. Have you ever had sex with a total stranger? Not a total stranger. I mean, I try to find out their name first, and spend at least a couple of hours chatting with them. I've never been in that situation of meeting someone, eyes connecting, and next moment, banging. It sounds quite attractive as a fantasy but I think it would be - for me - a deeply unsatisfactory experience that would just leave me feeling empty.

35. Do you enjoy the calming effects of turkeys? No. I don't know what this means. I don't eat meat. Even when I did I would have rated turkey well below any other sort of meat.

36. Does your mom [sic] think someone is hot? I don't think my mother would ever use the expression 'hot'. But she does seem rather keen on Simon Keenlyside, and gets annoyed when I call him Shirtless.

37. Are you a sugar freak? Not a freak. But I do like toffees and chocolates and cakes and puddings. And sugar lumps.

38. Ever been arrested? No. I have tried. Half-heartedly, I have to confess.

39. Ever commit a crime and get away with it? Yes. Once I rode a bike down a footpath with a 'no cycling' sign and came face to face with the Chief Constable, a certain Sir James Anderton. He was very nice and greeted me warmly, as he usually did. I got prosecuted for accidental fare dodging in 1997. It was a stupid tedious mistake. What's frustrating is it wouldn't be a crime now, because I boarded a bus in Zone 3 with a Zone 1 and 2 travelcard. I live literally in the border of Zones 2 and 3 so over the years I have varied what Travelcard I get depending on plans.

40. Do you like orange juice? Yes, but I prefer cranberry juice, apple juice, tomato juice, pineapple juice. And prefer other fruit type drinks like Smoothies and Lassi.

41. What sign are you? I think I am the uneven road or Woman struggling with umbrella. The favourite I have seen is "! Llamas" And I have never seen this one, either in Real Life or in the Highway Code. I wonder how many people haven't seen this one

42. Where do you wish you were right now? For a few moments this morning I did wish I was at work. I want to be progressing my audits. That didn't last long. I want to be somewhere hot and faraway, but I don't want the hassle of getting there. I could name a place but people would only laugh. It begins with an 'A'...

43. Did you enjoy this? Alrightish. Like a lot of these memes, you shouldn't take the questions at face value. It's got to be better than the ones that say 'Have you ever kissed someone? Have you ever got drunk? Have you ever slept naked? Have you ever pulled a sickie? Have you ever been to a foreign country?'

Albert Camus said Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

I'm making that up!

But I have a Philosophy Football T-shirt that says:

All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football

I would twist that and say much about what I know about politics, I learnt from football.

Perhaps more specifically, the way the media covers football and politics. Focusing on personalities rather than what they do.

I go back a long way. I remember Don Revie and Jim Callaghan. I was born under Harold Wilson and Alf Ramsey.

They're all the same...Thatcher, Greenwood, Robson, Taylor, Major, Hoddle, Blair, Erikson, McLaren, BrownReidMillibandAlexanderMcDonnell...

They arrive in a blaze of glory, the new Messiah, Churchill, and Big Phil rolled into one. A new start, fresh hope for the country, at last a change to the tired old failed ways.

Then, bang! they are Judas Iscariot, Chamberlain and Hoddle combined. From extolment to excoriation. No balance applied along the way.

I mean we all hate Sven Goran Erikson as much as we hate Tony Blair, right?

Thank goodness Steve McLaren has ushered in a new era for English football. In fairness, the Guardian is fairly balanced (are their journalists those blog commenters on popular blogs that get orgasmic pleasure from yelling "First!". Not here. It's not difficult being first commenter here. Chunner, chunner)

Were he not so ambitious, Steve McClaren might almost wish that his career as England manager could end on the night it began. There cannot be too many nights better than this in his life. A 4-0 win, with all the goals struck by the interval, was the best result recorded by anyone in their first outing in the post since Walter Winterbottom's men crushed Northern Ireland 7-2 60 years ago.The hard-hearted will retort that it is merely England's best win since beating Jamaica 6-0 in June.

I can imagine the tabloid headlines tomorrow: Shagger McLaren Beats Greeks; Saint McLaren Urns Greek Victory; Princess Diana Anniversary Not Far Away; London Man in Saucepan Boiling Over Disaster.

Come June, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth as we scrape a nil-nil draw away to Estonia after the team, again overpaid and useless, go on a drunken rampage through the streets of Tallinn. I shall remind you when it happens.

Although, funnily enough I was seriously thinking of giving up blogging until I saw David Cameron and thought "I'll blog this..." So in a very real sense, David Cameron is my new blogging muse and it can be safely said that this post on football has been inspired by politics, quite a reversal from my opening Camusian assertion.

Cleb spotting

Walking past Conservative Central Office - or as it seems to call itself these days Conservative Campaign Headquarters - as one does, who should I spot but David "Dave" Cameron. He was talking into his phone, but his eyes were moving rapidly from side to side. Either he is a crazed lunatic with swivelling eyes or else he was rapidly checking to see if anyone noticed and recognised him. He was wearing the "Yes I really am that man off the telly..." look as perfected by Michael Portillo. He was looking tanned enough to be mistaken for a terrorism suspect. Not that I would advocate shoot-on-sight-to-kill, not even for Tory leaders. Especially not future footnotes to the footnotes of history.

I loved that clip they showed on Time Trumpet when he was meeting with Asda staff ( man of the people...) and ostentatiously fiddled with his sleeve in order to reveal his white plastic bracelet with "England" printed on it, just underline his man of the people credentials. I expect it was made with the fingers of tiny children in a Far Eastern sweatshop.

No, I didn't get a photo. I couldn't be arsed.

Pictures from Denmark

Thanks to Raffe!

Rigoletto at Holland Park

I went to this over a week ago and it is much remiss of me not to have reviewed it.

Very very enjoyable. A good solid cast in an interesting production. As I have said before, you wouldn't applaud the scenery at Holland Park, and the chorus blocking strikes me in general as being a little bit amdrams.

But I stress again that this is carping at the edges, rather than a basis for a critiqueing. Royal Opera House it isn't, but then, nor is anything else.

Good orchestra. Got the tunes over in an exemplary fashion.

Cast mainly in modern dress. Some of the Ladies gowns were lovely, and were worn properly, with, on the whole, no underwear visible. Except for Maddalena. But her display of underwear under a fur coat was merely proof to my point that it's loose women who display their underwear. Rigoletto did put his jester's costume over his jeans and t-shirt where necessary.

Rigoletto is an opera I would heartily recommend to a newbie wondering what to risk seeing as their first opera outing. Packed from start to finish with bloody good tunes. Just as you think one is finishing, another one starts up. There's barely any bit in that loses my concentration. I sort of think that the initial encounter between Rigoletto and Sparafucile is a bit drawn out, but I suppose it's necessary for the dramaturgy. Even so, it's worth listening to the cello in there. Some of the bloody good tunes are the show-stopping arias - Care nome and La donna e mobile being the most obvious - and the amazingly wonderful quartet, Bella figlia dell'amore, but throughout there are less obvious and less famous numbers that are just exquisitely gorgeous to listen to.

Although the set was sparse and regardless of it being in modern costume I thought that it was a gripping and intelligent presentation of the story.

The tale focuses on Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court jester to the Duke of Mantua; his official jocular persona is sharply contrasted with his tragic and obsessive protection of his daughter Gilda. When Gilda falls victim to the Duke's seduction, the hunchback decides to have his revenge, but Gilda's selflessness leaves her father with the wrong corpse on his hands. Brimming with popular arias such as 'La donna è mobile' and 'Questa o quella', Rigoletto is sure to provide one of the highlights of the 2006 Opera Holland Park season.

The main cast members were:

Rigoletto – Olafur Sigurdarson
Gilda – Gail Pearson
Duke of Mantua – Paul O'Neill
Sparafucile – Paul Reeves
Maddalena – Heather Shipp

although Heather Shipp had a cold so mimed on stage whilst Rebecca du Pont Davies sang the role from the pit.

Not a weak link among them. I was most impressed by Olafur Sigurdarson whose voice had a good stage presence and he acted the role with conviction. Gail Pearson has a lovely voice. It was probably a good thing that the role was conceived by the director as being like a clockwork doll, because when she subsequently damaged her ankle her limping fitted into the conception! I thought that Paul O'Neill was at least as good as the Duke I saw at ENO, although not on a par with those I have seen on DVD or at ROH. But he's young.

It was interesting that characterisation of Gilda as a mechanical doll, because I'm listening on CD (Giulini 1979, of course) as I write this and suddenly, I can hear it in the music. Who says a modern production is designed despite the composer? When the modern production shows what the composer wrote it enhances our listening? And Gilda was a doll, kept a virtual prisoner by her father, unable to make proper judgements about people because of her lack of contact with people.

There was furniture abuse - The Duke threw one chair at another and a leg came off; later Rigoletto systematically threw all of a dozen or more chairs that were assembled on stage. There was very little action at floor level, except for dying Gilda in a sack. Indeed, that would be my other criticism of OHP - insufficient rolling around on the ground of characters.

As it neared the end, I had a sudden thought that I was not going to cry. But I did. Not in a getting salty tears on my glasses way, but definitely a few sniffs and palpable dampness round the eyes.

Weird search requests

Examining site stats someone came here with "Vengerov orgasmic faces"

Turns out Maxim is just doing Prom right now

BBC - Proms - Prom Events by Day

Maxim Vengerov, the heir to Heifetz's bow, returns to play and direct an all-Mozart programme comprising two violin concertos, the collegial Sinfonia concertante (with brilliant British violist Lawrence Power) and the eloquent symphony that Mozart wrote aged only 18.

Most excitingly, This concert will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC ONE and BBC FOUR

So, the veracity of the search term will be able to be investigated.

Robbie Williams

I was thinking of opening this post by saying "Anybody who says they don't like Robbie Williams is either a liar or has cloth ears" but I decided that that is far too confrontational, so instead I would welcome comments from people who don't like him saying why.

He was one of the real highlights of Live8. "Let me entertain you" he said, and boy, he entertained us. One of the three best performers I saw live in 2005 (and he's half the age of the other two...). After I had seen Neil Diamond, I thought ''there aren't many pop stars around now who will be doing in thirty years what Neil did that night, but Robbie might". It's up to me whether or not you believe me, because I didn't include it in my review, and you'll just think I pinched the thought from Mike T-D.

I wasn't a Take That fan - I was way too old for Boy Bands, although I do have their Greatest Hits. But Robbie is in an elite group with George Michael and not very many more people.

  To be honest, this album is better than the sum of its parts. It contains no turkeys but there are a good few tracks that I'm indifferent to. I'm not in any hurry to wipe them off my mp3 player but if and when space becomes critical, they may be on a long list.

But at least one song on this album - Heaven From Here is a dead cert for my Top 100 pop songs of all time, and She's the One is a contender.

Heaven From Here is everything a good pop song should be. (I try to distinguish between 'pop' and 'rock' but don't really get bogged on genre beyond that). A tuneful tune, intelligently written. I don't know what key it's in, but listen to the music, and it's a sunny bright key. Nice poppy acoustic guitar. The words are nice too, surely words we can all identify with: saying that relationships aren't perfect, but that love conquers all.

And I've been caught with nothing but Love on my mind
We are love don't let it fall on deaf ears
Now it's clear we have seen heaven from here

I can play it over and again.

She's the One has similar characteristics. Perhaps not as tuneful, that piano is heavily influenced by John Lennon's Imagine. The key is more melancholy, or wistful. I think the middle passage lets it down a bit, but it's nevertheless a fine song.

And all of them feature Robbie's voice. Which I like. The boy can sing, he can vary the colours in what he's singing. Any hesitations I have about him are not really to do with his music, but about the whole PR/tabloid stuff, which is tedious and I would not be surprised if it poses a barrier to his music for more people than just me.

And then I play Life thru A Lens, and to be honest, there are an awful lot of fillers on this album and it must qualify as a waste of money on my  part - which I'm sorely tempted to say is a cynical rip-off by the record company.

Old Before I Die is okay; an attempt to reply to The Who - but you know, The Who's opening salvo was much better - and I'm not a Who fan.

Let Me Entertain You actually has little going for it objectively. Crappy song, indifferent lyrics, but it works because of the energy in it. And Angels, well, it's one of those songs. It will not be played at my wedding or funeral or any other occasion because it's a soppy sentimental superficial pop song. However, I do find it quite pleasant to listen to. All together now, light your cigarette lighters. Or in these post-Puritan times, wave your mobile phone around, making sure the screen is illuminated. It's not quite the same...!

The rest is rubbish and not fit to go on my mp3 player.

Get voting

Early and often...

The Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2006

Is Canadian Gerald Finley in danger of being taken for granted? His fame does not begin to approach that of the other great bass-baritone of the day, Bryn Terfel. But again and again Finley delivers. It was no small task to take on the memory of Benjamin Luxon's classic 1982 Stanford sea songs but his new version is a triumph. Finley's laser-like precision and swashbuckling swagger (though he doesn't neglect the quieter songs) confirmed that not only is he a marvellous artist but he has as much star quality as anyone. His recent disc of Ives songs had Gramophone's critic remarking that “if he is not by this time universally recognised as a singer of the front rank, this should leave no doubt of it”.

Except that he's not a bass-baritone...

Panic?

We were talking this morning. What will be the medium term impact of the security measures.

If you were booked to fly on 16 August, would you continue with your plans? Are you booked to fly on 16 August? If so, how do you feel?

Jimmy reckons that people will be cancelling left, right and centre, but I'm not sure it's so straightforward.

If I had plans to travel to Western Europe I would be reconsidering them. I'm not sure about a package holiday/charter flight, but if I wanted to be in a certain place at a certain time, I would just think maybe it's quicker to get the train and change at Paris or Brussels rather than spend the same time in Gatwick Chav terminal. I flew to Manchester last year because it was cheaper and quicker (weekend engineering works) but I got the train this year £25 return and travelling Friday and Monday.

Jimmy reckoned that on Thursday lots of people would be avoiding the London Underground. I said, unlikely, because life goes on. I don't think people generally make mass panic decisions, but often people allow factors subconsciously to influence decisions that are often taken on balance at the best of times. The inconvenience, delays, cancellations and uncertainties of air travel at the moment are a factor to tip the balance.

It's like last August, when we went into town the Tubes and streets were noticeably empty, but the Proms we attended were filled to capacity. As it happens I don't recall going into town except for already-booked events (Proms). But not once did we make a conscious decision not to go. It was, like, what shall we do this Saturday. Let's go to that nice restaurant in Clapham, or let's eat in the garden. Not let's avoid London because of security.

The funny thing is, if airport security is stepped up semi-permanently, it will be a good thing for the planet. More people will video-conference rather than travel to talking shops. It won't be so attractive to commute from Barcelona to London. That stag weekend in Tallinn won't be so much fun.

I think we're supposed to feel sorry for the airline industry because this will cost them money. On the other hand, until recently most people only flew once or twice a year at most. Whereas increasingly people of relatively modest incomes don't think twice of getting on a plane as frequently as I got on trains fifteen years ago.

Airport security alerts

Suddenly, a cycling holiday in Norfolk seems very appealing...Forget your Spanish beaches or Nile cruises. Bike hire, B&B it. The no-hassle option (unless there's a rail strike...!)

Obviously, I don't want to make light of the situation but am not going to comment directly on the substance. Except to say that I had some clues yesterday that something was afoot but I am too thick to put the clues together and produce a blogpost saying "Exclusive: Something about to happen..."

All I can say is that I'm jolly grateful I'm not flying today, or for the foreseeable future. It's probably not so bad if you're doing supershorthaul, but imagine if you're on a flight of more than an hour or so and you have absolutely nothing to read except the inflight mag, and you can't have your personal entertainment gadgets. Imagine if they tried to separate me from my camera. It sems that even toddlers ca n't take on teddy bears or colouring books. Okay, you're allowed prescription medicines but suppose you really need cough syrup, indigestion tablets, travel sweets, superstrong painkillers. Or are participating in a drugs trial with tablets that are only identified by code number. Water and stuff. Suppose, suppose, suppose...

Overheard conversation: someone was due to fly from City to Manchester and is stuck at City unable to get on a plane but unable to head for the trains because his hand luggage is checked-in. Mind you that's only business travel. The media are making out that business travel is somehow essential yet leisure travel isn't. Hello, life quality...Obviously some business travel is always essential but much can be rearranged. Actually, as an individual, or a member of a group, if you have made all sorts of arrangements at enormous cost, you tend to see it as essential. You might lose your hotel booking if you don't check in by tonight. Maybe you've got connections at the other end, a cruise or some such. A wedding - or a funeral - to attend. Or the birth of a child (I'm thinking birth partners rather than about-to-drop mothers). Maybe you've got a much anticipated sports or ents event to attend. None of these are essential but then, nor is most business travel.

We have vague plans to do a day trip to France soon by private plane. I wonder if Biggin Hill Airport is subject to the same security levels...

Excrutiating celebrity couples

Conversation at work today about a hotel and specifically the bedroom with a pulpit in it. I said I couldn't possibly have a dirty weekend there, notwith my catholic upbringing giving me a guilty conscience.

R. said - there's guest book and lots of famous people have been there. I said,it would be all right if it was someone you really liked, but imagine if it was, say, Jimmy Tarbuck.

M. said Or Judith Chalmers.

And I had this thought of Jimmy Tarbuck and Judith Chalmers having a night of pasison in a Gothic rectory.

But I'm sure you could think of something worse...

The comments box is open...

Randomness

One of our early forays into the world of statistics is the concept of probability and chance. In Maths lessons they are demonstrated bytossing a coin or throwing a dice. And we know intuitively that there is an equal probability of it being heads or tails, or any one of the dice faces. We learn this by observation long before we even know we are learning.

We learn about normal distributions in Infant school when we learn that some of the children are relatively very tall and some are very small but that most are pretty much the same height , in between. We learn that design is rarely random - that certain first names are more common than others. Throughout my life the Catherines and Helens and Stephens and Davids have outnumbered the Geraldines.

Later as we study statistics in more depth, we use random number tables, and we learn about different ways of sampling. As an auditor I have selected judgemental samples (that one looks interesting or important, that one is big), random sampling...random number tables are useful in this. In Monetary Unit Sampling every pound has an equal chance of being selected, thus biasing the sample to the larger items.

Except that in 2006 everything is computerised. My life is filled with computerised randomness. I mainly have my mp3 player on random. I have a screensaver that sends photos from my hard drive randomly across my screen, so one moment it could be a nepling looking cute, the next a hillside in Scotland, followed by flowers from the garden at Gert Cottage. The main page of this blog will kick you up a random photo taken from a folder on the server called 'random'.

But it troubles me. I do not believe by observation that the selection is purely random. On my mp3 player I sense that certain albums get featured over a short period. This week it seems to be Der Rosenkavalier and The Best of Nanci Griffith. On 4th May en route to the Crossover Classical Brits all but two tracks were from Plácido Domingo or Rolando Villazón, both of whom I was looking forward to seeing that evening. Of the remaining two, one was from Gerald Finley whom I had seen twice the previous weekend, and the other was Ideology by Billy Bragg - and it was election day! Now, I realise my mp3 player could not have known these facts.

But in any case it was not a random selection. A long time ago I used to play occasionally the Lottery and chose my numbers by using the random number generator on my calculator. (It's the sort of thing auditors do...). And yet they never appeared to be random. I know that the lottery is a perfect illustration of Permutations, with each permutation standing an equal chance. Each number standing an equal chance. But my calculator always seemed to bunch them. So I would end up with three single digited numbers and three in the Forties. That could not be random, it didn't look random. At least they never kicked me up: 1,2,3,4,5,6 because everybody knows that that sequence will never win the Lottery. It's like Double Six is special on the throw of the dice.

My photos are not random - try it and see, refresh the front page, see how quickly the same picture recurs, although the folder contains 127 images. If I had patience, I would make notes of my observations and see how they compare to what we would predict using pure probaility theory.

And then I would know whether I am blinded by my identification of random digits as things (photographs, music tracks) or whether computers select random numbers by first breaking the population into sub-populations and then concnentrates on just one segment. If I could prove the latter, it could have major implications for audit and other disciplines that use computerised sampling techniques.

It's depressed me now.

Armchair Proms double

In  a few moments a very promising Prom is due to start on the radio  - BBC - Proms - Prom Events by Day. A Mozart Piano Concerto. I do Mozart by numbers, and as it's a high number it's probably worth a listen. After the interval is Schuman''s 3rd - Rhenish - Symphony. Listen to the depiction of the towering grandeur of Cologne Cathedral. Also the statutory new work by an obscure male composer.

It finishes at 9.30 which gives meover an hour to heave my carcass into the next room for the all Mozart special on the TV. Sadly, it will be introduced by Alan "At least he's not Jade Goody" Titchmarsh, but a feast of singers singing songs. Got rather mixed reviews; some members of the mmofm crowd were there, including a token SOSSLED-er on duty at the Stage Door, whilst some of the others were Terfeling on Hampstead Heath