Gertsamtkunstwerk

The book meme

I was tagged....puts hand to throat, idly wonders whether self-strangulation would work. And be less painful.

Thank you so much Jams

1: One book that changed your life:

I can't think of a single book that changed my life, and I'm not really sure that there's any that even stand out as having a major influence on me. I could cite Business Accounting by Frank Wood, but it's so long since I've done any financial accounting I'm not sure even I even know my debits from my credits any more. There are books that stand out as being profound or enjoyable but they all go into the melting pot I call my brain, in a Hegelian dialectical process. Not that I've ever read any Hegel.

2: One book you have read more than once:

There's a lot of books I have read more than once, starting with Puppies and Kittens in about 1972, including many books studied over the years, and ones I keep going back to because of their greatness. But I will cite Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (I had to google to remember which Brontë...) as ones I go back to because of the sheer beauty of the language.

3: One book you would want on a desert island:

Assuming I get The Bible and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, I would opt for a history of political philosophy especially if it covered in reasonable depth all the philosophers I half studied in my Theories of Politics and Political Thought courses at University. Greatest regret? Going to University too young to appreciate the opportunity to study and using the time instead to hack. I would say party but I did more hanging out than partying...

If I could only have one book it would be the Bible. Probably the King James Version. Dunno, what do I know about the bible? Had the Jerusalem Bible at home as a child - not great; used the New English Bible at school (still sits in the living room now) - shocking abuse of language; and I also have a New International Version called the bible in one year, or something. Seemed like a great idea when I bought it. Never really got through it. Occasionally make resolutions to try again. I'd like to read the Koran, too.

4: One book that made you laugh:

Adrian Mole, the Cappuccino Years. I remember it well. Lunchtime RBKC. I laughed so hard I spat a prawn onto my computer screen. All the Adrian Mole books, really.

5: One book you wish had been written:

Archduke Franz-Ferdinand: The Forgotten Aristocrat

6: One book you wish had never had been written:

Round the blogosphere, the best answers have been Mein Kampf and A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. I can't really better those.

7: One book that made you cry:

Lots of books have made me cry. Generally late at night in private. But Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Grapes of Wrath had me crying in public. CCM on the District Line en route to Ealing Broadway. I got empathetic nods and smiles from sisters who'd been there. Crying at CCM, I mean, not Ealing Broadway.

8: One book you are currently reading:

More than one, and yet, none...Albion by Peter Ackroyd; Muriel Spark Omnibus; Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes; The Private Lives of the Three Tenors (two far less interesting than one....look I got it second hand, okay, yes it's badly written...) - by Monica Lewinsky's mother.

9: One book you have been meaning to read:

Fanny Hill; The Diary of Anais Nin

10. Tag 5 people. I don't tag, but what the heck, if you're not a blogger, my comments box is your platform...

Bedroom Prom Blogging

An idea copied from I Primi Divi, although technically I'm underneath the bedroom in what I quaintly call the Dining Room but might as well be called the Computer Room, or the Room With The Stereo In It or The Room Where We Fall Over Things. Although the bedroom did play a role (until 1920 hours, Prom 33 minus 10 minutes).

I've had enough  of summer. Could somebody make it go away, please. I want it to be Forever Spring but without the pissydownwithrainbit.

Surely, on paper, overall the best Prom of the entire season.  A 'must see'

M. Haydn: Requiem (41 mins)
interval
Mozart: Symphony No. 31 in D major, K297 ('Paris') (18 mins)
Mozart: Mass in C major, K317 ('Coronation') (28 mins)

Carolyn Sampson soprano
Hilary Summers mezzo-soprano
James Gilchrist tenor
Peter Harvey bass

Choir of The King's Consort
The King's Consort
Robert King conductor

Good thing they let Robert King out on bail. I was shocked, I tell you. One of my favourite conductors. Although I didn't like the pace of the Hosanna in the Mozart. Too slow.

Being at the radio is not as good as being in the hall. Carolyn sounded gorgeous, although I've heard her sound better. I've never heard James sound as good as he did this evening. 

Very nice, three gorgeous pieces of music generally well performed - although a noticeable duff horn note in the Mozart Hosanna. Definitely worth a listen again.

It's over and at least I don't have to travel back. But I was thinking of waiting for Carolyn outside the Stage Door. She's my favourite female singer and I've never met her, and I want to tell her how much I adore her voice. Ah well, another time.

Photos from Trondheim

This is such a wonderful set of photos of Plácido Domingo, Sissel Kyrkjebø and Virginia Tola live in Trondheim, that I just can't resist posting a link. 222 in all - and note the drop-down box that allows to resize from 640x425 (best screen width) to 1024 x 680 (significantly bigger...!). Twenty five pages in all, by page 24 it looks like Sissel and Virginia are having a catfight over their man - and who would blame them...

via

Oh, and I've just got myself a little YouTube lifehack - I've subscribed to Jolanta's Favourites...

What people wear

It's a wonderful subset of people-watching. It's only about clothes and is no basis for making any sort of judgements about the person. At all. Except that they are unable to look in a mirror...!

The majority of people you see out are dressed neutrally. Plain or bland. In something that suits them, fits them, is appropriate to the occasion and the weather, and does not seek attention. Dressing for comfort. I'm only interested in those whose outfits are deliberately put together to "be fashionable" or to attract attention. People who have made the effort to put on a nice black dress and ruin it by having half of a white bra visible beneath.

It started before we had even got to Brixton. A woman got off our bus. Pink leggings down to her knees. Over them something that I assume was a skirt. At the sides barely beneath her hips, but dangling to a V that reached her knees.

On the Tube numerous examples of the wrong-coloured bra - if I was wearing an electric blue top, I probably wouldn't wear it with a green bra. I certainly wouldn't do so if the entire back strap was about two inches higher than the back of the t-shirt.

If I had a teenage daughter with a nice black halterneck top I would suggest that black bra straps would look a lot better than white. She might not listen, but I would suggest that if she wants to look good, she should listen. But then I wouldn't be the mum ruining a rather elegant trouser-and- top two-piece by a pair of knickers at least two sizes too small. A small diagonal canyon was cleft across her cheeks.

There comes a point where you have to think - if I have breasts of such significance that I can only get bras with wide straps, maybe it's not wise to wear a top with spaghetti straps. Alternatively, why shouldn't I? Yeah, I'll wear beige spaghetti straps over a red bra with inch wide straps.

Trust me, if you are so conscious that your strapless top (I say top, I mean strip of material tied round boobs) may fall down that you are hunching your shoulders and stooping, it defeats the objective of looking good.

That is a really nice black dress you're wearing. Good material, well cut, fits perfectly, if I look very closely I realise it disguises the slight curves of incipient middle-age. You have a great haircut, nice skin, understated make-up, a nice smile, lively eyes, classy minimalist jewellery. You are attractive and elegant, and not short of a bob or two, so why wear bright green scuffed plastic 'ballet shoes'?

That is a nice dress, a deep plum colour with a slight, not obvious, repeating pattern. It would look great on you if it were three sizes bigger. Oh, it's meant to be low cut. Obviously you're uneasy displaying your cleavage to the world. It's probably not a good idea to display three inches of nylon petticoat instead. Still, the purple colour of the petticoat is reasonably close to the plum of your dress so it almost doesn't clash.

Now dear, you really shouldn't have made an effort. It is never sensible to team a white blouse with blue polka dots with a pink skirt with border print. True, the blue jesus sandals do match the blue of your polka-dots and of course are comfortable, but really look a bit silly with tights. Because you've tucked your blouse into your skirt my partner thinks you're pregnant, but I say you're well the wrong side of 45 to be pregnant. The wrap around nature of the skirt emphasises that. Maybe you should take a tip from the man you're with. Is he your father? Maybe your grandfather? He's eighty five if he's a day, and he's very unsteady on his feet, needing a stick to walk just a few paces. He's wearing cream trousers, a pale blue shirt and a grey jacket. All well made, all perfectly fitting, elegant. Eye-catching at eighty five.

Again and again I concluded, those that looked the best were those that aimed for simplicity, who wore clothes that fitted, that resisted the temptation to show their underwear (there's a clue in the word), who avoided patterns, or wore just one pattern, if wearing patterns kept the accessories neutral, who'd looked in the mirror before they went out, and regarded their shoes as part of their outfit, not a minority report.

And me? Off-white top with old lace, not a peek of white bra, with red skirt so long it didn't matter I was wearing DocMarten sandals (with socks). Or maybe you saw me and thought "No, no that's all wrong." I don't generally check shoes in the mirror - shoes are downstairs, long mirrors upstairs...

And he conducts, as well

Main Rheiner · "Eine wunderbare Gruppe junger Menschen" - Weltstar Plácido Domingo studiert in Mainz mit der Europa Chor-Akademie Verdis "Requiem" ein

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf RIP

Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf dies, aged 90

Aged 90 makes it dificult for me to grieve. And there is that difficult Nazi past. And every UK obituary will mention she

entered British folklore when, asked to appear on Desert Island Discs, she chose eight of her own recordings.

A great great singer 'arguably the greatest soprano of the postwar years' says the Guardian. Difficult to argue against. I do feel that sopranos are dropping like flies - in the past year or so we've lost Renata Tebaldi, Victoria de los Angeles and Birgit Nillson.

I shall have to decide what to play in tribute.

The increasingly dumbed-down BBC website carries nothing but does have some gossip about some forgotten pop star. shrug

Update: The BBC manages to put the story up only two hours after the Guardian; at the time I read, it's the fourth most read story - Soprano Schwarzkopf dies aged 90

Lovely links from the Frozen North

Thanks to Raffe for links to a couple of video clips from Norwegian TV, as highlighed in the comments box on the previous entry. Raffe attended the concert in Esbjerg, Denmark the other night but sadly is unable to attend the Trondheim concert. She claims to have an excuse to do with work but I think it's just a cover for the fact that she'll be attending the Andrea Bocelli-Katherine Jenkins Tristan und Isolde in Pyongyang.

And there's more (although I have had trouble streaming...so much for my early night tonight...) here at about 7:05 and here at about 1:50. Enjoy...!

Thanks Raffe

And some more links - thanks to "Anonymous" who also supplied one of those!

Guilty pleasures?

ELO top 'guilty secret' song list

The BBC seem to be all over this non-story today

ELO's 1976 single Livin' Thing has topped a Q magazine list of uncool records it is okay to love.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone's perfectly entitled to release a compilation CD, call it what they like, and the punter can take it or leave it. And indeed, this bloke did do so two years ago, too

Today covered the story this morning, and I turned away in disgust. A series of vox pops of men decreeing what people should or should not like. It came over as adolescent willy-waving. And dogmatic. Surely, anybody's entitled to like whatever they like. And why be embarrassed about it? You can't be particularly secure in yourself if you fear that people will judge you for liking a particular song, or even a handful of songs. The sad thing is that the type of bloke who was on the radio telling us what we should dislike are probably the same ones who twenty years ago were telling us that to be hip and cutting edge it was imperative to like that certain song or band. Which says nothing about musical taste and everything about a desperate need to project an image. Most blokes get over it by about age twenty.

I am careful in using the word 'like'. Like is intensely personal and subjective. It's not the same as saying 'greatest' or 'better than'. Just because something's popular doesn't make it good. Or bad. Although sustained enduring popularity with a wide range of people, including those with expertise or experience is probably the closest we can get to an objective standard for matters of personal taste. But if you like something, enjoy it and don't be ashamed of it, and don't be afraid of saying "I like this because it reminds me of a time and a place or there's something about that tune". But don't tell me that I have to accept it to be a great song. And don't tell me what I shouldn't like, on the basis that it isn't cool  to like it. Cool - in that context - is generally doing what some self-appointed opinionator has deemed to be worthy of attention.

Oh, by the way, it's not too late yet to participate in the Troubled Diva Which Decade for Top of the Pops.

Things that are sent to try us

I mentioned a minor Oystercard saga a week or two back. We have replaced our Oystercards and I finally this morning got round to setting up Auto Top Up. All fine and dandy until I went to enter my Switchcard details. Card refused because it is due to expire within three months. As they do, eventually - something I have been aware of for a while (mainly the thought that the best way to get duplicate tickets for occasions when one inadvertently leaves them at home cough cough is to produce the card by which one paid for them).

I can kind of see Oystercard's logic - no point in attempting to do Auto Top Up on an expired debit card. But my card isn't expired. There's a whole two months left on it. Potentially an awful lot of travelling in that time. If I hadn't have lost my Oystercard, I would be happily using ATU on the soon-to-expire Switchcard. They must have some mechanism by which, come 1 October, something triggers a refusal to ATU on an expired card, which would have affected me in the status quo ante, so I am not impressed by their unnecessary control being imposed at this premature stage (or indeed, if applicable, any time in July). I expect that the arrival of a new card in the post, followed at some point by the email from keithprowse@oyster would have triggered a process in my brain to update details on the ATU page.

I rang up my bank and they said they don't normally send replacements out until a week or two before they're due to expire, which makes sense to me. Although they decided to make an exception in my case.

I just get irritated when things which are supposed to be lifehacks end up causing more hassle.