Gertsamtkunstwerk

The Rake's Progress

Picture from ROH website

I attended this last night at the Royal Opera House. I wasn't really sure about it when I booked and even less sure about it as I was travelling to see it. But at £22 for my ticket, I had very little to lose and don't even have the obligation of trying to look intelligent in my review.

I don't like Stravinsky. I know this because I always fast forward through The Rite of Spring on Fantasia, and I heard some ballet music I didn't much care for.

This is a stupid way to form and sustain an opinion, so I thought I would give this a go. It was a revival of a production from a couple of years ago, which I didn't see, but there was something about the casting this time round that I found tempting.

As I Twittered on the way home, I did enjoy it, but it did not capture me in a way that would make me want to see it again. I did try to  do some homework, by watching a version broadcast on Sky Arts (from Glyndebourne), but I fell asleep during it, because I was very tired when I sat down to watch it, not necessarily because of the work, and then I never found the time to try again.

This causes a dilemma. I think the best way to see and appreciate a work for the first time is to do so live, but the best way to appreciate a work is through getting to know it and discovering the depths and twists beyond the superficial first impressions. So, perhaps I would enjoy it more if I took the time to get to know it. I certainly found the WH Auden/Chester Kallman libretto excellent.

I enjoyed it because it was a truly splendid production well performed by a strong cast. A million miles from the 'Popstar to Operastar' parody of opera as standing on a stage in sequinned gown bellowing into a microphone.

The audience seemed very young, at least from my seat and interval wanderings, with possibly up to a half being younger than me, and the age range fairly evenly spread between about 12 and over 80.  The people behind me included two 20-something men, one on his first ever visit to an opera, and he was saying that he deliberately chose something modern. I didn't want to correct him pedantically on the definition of 'modern' because I thought it an interesting point.

I think even more salient is that for people already interested in theatre, a lively and intelligent production is going to appeal more than a staid traditional stereotypical performance of a warhorse.

For me, the least appealing aspect was the music, but I didn't dislike it so it didn't mar my enjoyment. I simply can't see myself ever listening to it without the visuals. And, let's be honest, how many operas were actually written as 'listen only' experiences*?

Robert Lepage's production was superb and Carl Fillon's set designs even better. Even so, a small part of me wondered whether I would tire of the gimmicks if I saw it repeatedly. This has happened with several productions I have seen more than once.

I particularly liked Lepage's trademark use of video. It's quite common to see video used for background, in place of scenery, and he certainly did that, but there was more. I recall the way he used it to light a big blue oblong to resemble a swimming pool, and a delightful scene where Anne Truelove was driving in her onstage prop car with a video behind her and how the two merged, especially as her trailing scarf blew away, Isadora Duncan style. I thought it rather beautiful.

The setting was 1950s USA rather than 18th century London, and a literalist would find problematic the apparent inconsistency between stage action and libretto; literalists shouldn't really attend operas. The characters were larger than life, although ultimately two-dimensional, and I enjoyed all the performers. The music doesn't lend itself to beautiful showpiece singing, the perfect antidote to the dinosaurs who assert that opera is only about vocalism and singing. 

Nevertheless I found all singers to be flawless**. Kyle Ketelsen (Nick Shadow), a greatly underrated and highly intelligent performer was the stand-out. Toby Spence (Tom Rakewell) did a delightful job of portraying a blond English public schoolboy on a downward spiral of decline. I enjoy his voice, and he's good on stage, but I do think his voice lacks edginess and didn't always project well over the orchestra (I have sat in the same seat before and find it to be very good acoustically). Patricia Bardon was in her element playing the OTT Baba the Turk and Rosemary Joshua was delightful as the sweet, innocent Anne Trulove.

The staging had some wonderful gimmicks, not least an inflatable caravan. I also enjoyed the sceen in Mother Goose's brothel where Tom Rakewell shags MG on a bed that shakes like a water bed, collapses around and sucks them down below stage through a narrow slit. The coverings removed, the bed is ostensibly heart-shaped but the intention was clearly to convey Tom being swallowed by female genitalia.

I was a little confused about which angle to take on this production as a feminist. When dramas are set in the past, be they operas, plays, TV dramas or indeed novels, I expect them to reflect the mores and attitudes of that time. A 20th century work  can legitimately describe 18th century attitudes and imply 'we are different now'.

I am more comfortable with 18th/19th century pieces which use what we now consider sexism, racism, or support of judicial murder as fundamental to the tragedy than ones which imply that these are good, natural and desirable. Even without that, I can interpret it as being a strong piece of historical evidence to show how shit life was before feminism. (But there is a limit to how far one can accept odious attitudes as mere historical archive).

Being swallowed by a giant vagina was not the only scene open to several interpretations. The use of a buxom swimsuited blonde as auctioneers assistant was a more obvious parody of 1950s values. It's also difficult to say that women got a rum deal when Tom Rakewell was the anti-hero and Nick Shadow was the Devil himself. Nevertheless, I think that too many sexist images inserted in a knowing post-modern way can backfire and be normalised by an audience already bombarded by non-ironic sexism in the mainstream media.

I'm afraid I can't say anything intelligent about the orchestral playing under Ingo Metzmacher, but it would be ill-mannered not to acknowledge their contribution to an enjoyable evening.

How an opera cured me of being a rake -Toby Spence - The Times

Kyle Ketelsen- MusicOMH

Toby Spence on Stravinsky and Jacques Brel - What's on Stage

Interview: Patricia Bardon on The Rake's Progress at Covent Garden- Musical Criticism

The Rake's Progress: the TV vision of the world's greatest director - The Telegraph

The Rake’s Progress at Covent Garden, London WC2 - The Times

The Rake’s Progress at the Royal Opera House and Blessed Spirit at the Wigmore Hall- Telegraph (I still haven't written my impressions of Blessed Spirit)

The Rake's Progress - What's on Stage

London’s Rambunctious Rake - Opera Today

Royal Opera's Rake's Progress proves a Trial - Intermezzo

The Rake at Covent Garden: Too Spectacular for its own good? - Orpheus Complex

A trailer from the ROH website - with the 2008 cast. Not very good streaming media: it doesn't stream when paused, and when the 'play' overtakes what's streamed, it goes automatically to pause and then back to the beginning. Sigh

A Twitpic from Kyle's phone. Not a great photo but does show the on-stage cars wonderfully.

* except for certain 'oratorios' by eg Handel which were so written in order to comply with the ban on staged productions in Lent; in my opinion they benefit from at least a semi-staging

** a comment that must of course be qualified by my ignorance of the work

Happy Birthday Plácido: 69 today

I am sure that my many readers join with me in wishing my favourite singer and pin-up hero a very happy birthday.

He's singing Simon Boccanegra in New York tomorrow night, and I understand his party was last night: presumably taking it (relatively) easy today.

More later

Pop star to popera star

Well, I just watched it. In some ways it wasn't as bad as I dreaded and in so many ways so much worse.

It was literally, laugh-a-minute car crash telly. It sucked all the way from concept to practice via appalling scripting.

I do get annoyed when Katherine Jenkins is constantly described as an opera singer. Surely, she has veto over the scripts, but she just sits there and lets it go, even though in a subsequent interview, when it suits her, she'll deny ever having described herself as that.

Just for the record, Katherine Jenkins has never performed in an opera in her life. She has never appeared in a professional concert singing without a microphone. She has recorded and sings in concert a small number of arias from operas. Her technique and interpretation will not stand comparison against hundreds of lesser-known singers who actually do perform in operas.

The whole exercise is utterly pointless. I can see the idea behind it, but someone really needed to think it through properly. What are they trying to prove? Either that singing in opera is easy, anyone can do it. Or else it's so hard that despite intense coaching, even people with a track record of performing and in some cases with decent singing voices can't do it satisfactorily?

If you get some of them making a decent fist of singing an isolated aria into a microphone, so what? That's just the start of it. And in any case, I didn't notice any of them actually working from the score, just learning it by ear. If the point is to prove it's difficult, then the end result is caterwauling and anti-music.

If the objective is some stupid misguided attempt to bring opera to a ITV Friday night audience, that isn't going to work, either. There's no point saying that opera is about love, sex and death if you then get a bunch of amateurs failing to put any meaning into arias disconnected from their dramatic context and failing even to put surtitles on the screen. If you are sincere in that objective, you televise the very best singers performing well-rehearsed concerts, even if you're too scared to televise an actual opera with its sex and death and passion.

Why on earth should anybody without prior knowledge have a clue about the debauchery and cynicism of the rapist Duke of Mantua just from hearing a tune that's used for pasta sauce adverts? How can an audience judge whether the singer has conveyed the meaning of the song if they don't have any hint about the meaning? How can anybody fall in love with a song of any genre when it's badly sung? It wouldn't have taken much effort to have a brief description of the context; sub-titles would definitely have been a good thing.

I think, like Maestro, it may eventually demonstrate which of the contestants has innate musicality and which has a poor sense of pitch. But so what? They have their careers and their fans and they have demonstrated that they are good, or at least, successful, at what they do.

As for the panel, what can I say? Katherine Jenkins was out of her depth, even though she's pretty good at pretending. It's like someone's told her about her poor breath control and dodgy phrasing and it's now embedded in her head. And that's what she's going to keep going on about. She came over like a not-very-cool prefect on display at Speech Day and wanting the assembled parents and governors to know how seriously she takes her responsibility for the younger girls.

Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen's comments were bland and inconsequential. Meatloaf is on something. I found him very entertaining even though he really was talking total nonsense. Rolando Villazón was trying to be fair and critical at the same time; he had the 'audacity' to criticise Danny Jones from McFly (who was probably almost the worst of the lot) and got booed by a crowd of demented hysterical McFly groupies who don't have a clue. The trouble is, Rolando is speaking from the heart and from years of experience, but in the end, what does it matter?

And as for the pop singers. Darius came over the most instinctively musical although with zero personality. Alex James was the only one who seemed to care about the character he was portraying - and did a splendid tuneless patter. As for the rest, some clearly have decent basic voices, but in general I think they all did worst in the areas where they ought to have done best - keeping to the tune and on pitch, and projecting some sort of personality, some sort of stage presence, that je ne sais quoi where the performer connects with the audience, irrespective of what the performance is. But it's all relative: not one of them sang in a way that could honestly be described as adequate.

Alan Titchmarsh was less annoying than I feared he would be. Jimmy's admitted to a sneaking admiration for Mylene Klass even though he didn't know who she was when he met her last May.

But the single most annoying thing, even more annoying than Katherine Jenkins was that for each singer, they were permitted to sing the opening phrase of their aria or song, and then the audience broke into applause and cheers. What was that - tune recognition? Do people seriously have to shout out loud if they recognise a tune? Bizarre. And as for those McFly fans, oh dear. I'm sure it said on the ticket application that no one under sixteen was allowed in. The way they screamed, I'm sure it was a bunch of 13-year-olds.  And he wasn't any good. Bland, below pitch, and far too pleased with himself.

And then to cap it all, we had Camilla Kerslake singing. She is some 'soprano' discovered by Gary Barlow. I hadn't heard until I caught some of the Titmarsh show in the doctor's waiting room the other day. I have to say, dear reader, she actually makes Katherine Jenkins look polished; her high notes are thin and wavery, and although I suspect she was singing in English I simply couldn't tell a word she says.

Next week, Katherine Jenkins will be performing. The sado-masochist in me hopes it will be Una voce poco fa

Rolando's got Talent

I love this!

Una furtiva lagrima

The real reason for going to Rosenkavalier at the cinema

I am shameless. I read a few weeks ago that this transmission would be hosted/presented by Plácido, presumably because regular presenters Susan Graham and Renée Fleming were otherwise engaged, and he's in town anyway, due to conduct Stiffelio and sing Simon Boccanegra. I understand that he also presented the Thais last season. Of course, he is not associated as a singer with either of these operas; I'm not sure it would be a good idea to get him present something like Otello, Die Walküre or Tosca.

I'm not going to pretend:  I bought my cinema ticket specifically to see him presenting. I know it seems a bit petty and adolescent on my part; if you think that, you've got me bang to rights. However, I didn't cancel any alternative plans.

When I booked the ticket, I knew that Jimmy would be working, I knew that I wouldn't have been out for ages beforehand, I'm not due at another live performance for over a week. Although Der Rosenkavalier isn't my favourite opera, it's not like I was facing the prospect of Pelleas et Melisande or anything by Rossini that isn't Barber of Seville. So, although my motives are shameless, I did savour the prospect of the actual performance, too.

So, there I was sitting it Screen 2 at Brixton's Ritzy eagerly awaiting the start. the thought had occurred to me  - just because I read several weeks ago didn't guarantee that he's still going to be doing it: I wouldn't blame any singer for dropping out of a talking gig if they had a bit of a sore throat, for example.

So, the lights dim, blah de blah the titles roll, all the usual stuff, and this voice "Hello, I'm Plácido Domingo!" and more than half of the cinema went "ooh, ahh, sigh" (I kid you not!)

He introduced the opera and said "It stars two of my favourite ladies - Renée Fleming and Susan Graham as the lovers" (gasps from a decidedly non-Brixtonian* audience momentarily adjusting to the concept of two women being lovers!) "they there are looking very comfortable on the bed" to giggles all round.

I don't know if he does it on purpose. I think just about everybody who has ever met Plácido will attest to his flirtatiousness. He has this knack of saying things that, from  someone else would sound vanilla and inconsequential, but from him sounds laden with suggestion. He manages to couple this with an innocent, almost little boy, look.

He was looking good. In some ways he's showing his age - layers of make-up for the camera can't hide that his face looks weather-beaten, and he's not really greying so much as greyed to whiteness. But he's vibrant and energetic and enthusiastic, his eyes like pools you want to melt into. Looking trim and fit, dressed impeccably, in a shiny black suit and shiny royal blue tie.

At the end of Act 1 he interviewed Renée Fleming. As I tweeted, he's not a natural for reading off an Autocue and pretending he's ad-libbing. It's an art that few people can do convincingly. I can do it pretty well (but only in my native language!) - but you know, I don't think that makes me a better performer than Plácido Domingo!

He is a natural, however, for women positively throwing themselves at him. She really couldn't keep her hands off him. The interview was perfectly inconsequential. I don't like straight-off-the-pitch interviews in football, and I don't think they are any better in opera! I was amused when she was explaining how the Marschallin realises that she will have to let Octavian go, and it can be difficult when one realises that, but it has to be; he's nodding and empathising, and I'm thinking "Plácido, you've been married forty seven years..!"

Before the second act he interviewed Susan Graham, whom he introduced as one of his most favourite ladies. From some people it would just sound like showbiz gush, but it didn't from him. They were discussing her various roles, and he said to her "You've played my daughter in Idomeneo, my sister (in Iphigenie), when is it going to be more?" (at which point there was a general exclamation from the cinema: he's a tease, which some people get, but, obviously, others don't!). She deftly side-stepped the question by commenting that - dressed in her silver suit for presenting the rose - she doesn't look much like his sister!

Susan commented that she spends most of the opera on stage so at this point she gets jealous of Renée who gets to spend two hours in her dressing room 'typing emails'. There were splutters of laughter, perhaps as this sounded entirely incongruous coming from someone dressed in sumptuous 18th century attire.

At the end of the second act, someone from the Met broadcasting machine interviewed Kristinn Sigmundson. I thought "Oh, I see, Plácido doesn't get to interview men, cos he can't flirt with them like he can with the women!"

This broadcasting  person ("wardrobe by Valentino" - gah!) was more adept at reading from the autocue but had been scripted some pretty cheesy lines. Exclaiming her surprise that Kristinn has studied Biology at University (perhaps it's unusual in the USA but in Europe it's pretty common for people to study something that isn't music before turning to singing as a post-grad), and then asking him to say hello to people watching in the cinema in Reykjavik, like it was some 70s audience participation light-entertainment show!

Then she turned to interview Plácido, largely about Simon Boccanegra (which will be in cinemas on 6 February, my birthday - I've already got tickets for Clapham Picturehouse). He repeated what he has said elsewhere, how he had planned to sing this role at the end of his career but this doesn't mean his career is ending; that he doesn't pretend to be a baritone, but he is singing it as a tenor, pointing out that certain tenor roles such as Otello combine light notes with dramatic notes; how the role enables him to age twenty five years from the Prologue to Act 1, and how it's about the father-daughter relationship which was so important to Verdi, having lost two young children at about the time he wrote it.

He made reference to Verdi's intentions to write King Lear, and implied that Simon Boccanegra has echoes of Lear. The interviewer also mentioned that he is conducting Stiffelio; what is it he likes about Verdi. He mentioned how prolific Verdi's writing was, several operas written in a short period, and mentioned the melodies that Verdi wrote. The interviewer suggested that with singing and conducting he is the busiest person at the Metropolitan Opera, so he looked straight into the camera and said "I think when you arrive at the Met in the morning it is better to stay until the evening" - which caused a few 'oohs' among my local audience. 

Before Act III he interviewed Elina Garanca as a preview to next week's cinema transmission of Carmen. That was quite interesting; obviously she's very into the role (she was also Carmen at ROH a few weeks ago and I dare say she's sung it elsewhere recently, too) and he knows that opera inside out.

He then interviewed Christine Schäfer on her own and they were then joined by Renée and Susan again. Much flirting going on, and there was a discussion about whether it was love at first sight between Octavian and Sophie. Susan was of the view that it was; even though Octavian didn't actually realise in Act II, he has an inkling.

Then she turned to Plácido, looking him directly in the eye and said "I think everybody has experienced love at first sight." Not precisely flirtatious, it was heavier than that!

There was a certain amount of banter about Octavian (ie Susan Graham, in a trouser role) having to choose between her attraction to the Marschallin and to Sophie. It was all very 'innocent' but I detected that they were having a bit of fun, in a way that anyone in the audience could pick up on, if they wanted but not to offend anyone who would be inclined to offence. Plácido made some comment about the Marschallin being old at 32, although nowadays we don't consider 32 old, to laughter in my cinema which I don't think contained more than a dozen people under 40.

And then he introduced Act III by saying that Octavian (in disguise as a chambermaid) and Baron Ochs were set for a 'Hot date'.

I have to say, I don't think that Plácido is a great presenter. If I was in any doubt, this would have become clear when he was being interviewed. When he talks spontaneously about opera or about a specific opera, in this case Simon Boccanegra,  he is so eloquent and passionate and enthusiastic. His English is excellent but his pronunciation and cadences are wayward, which can be disconcerting at times.

But he looked lovely, and he's bundles of fun; he's very good at taking seriously what should be, but he's also light-hearted and always comes across as being singularly unegotistical, which is very endearing.

All the same,I was rather glad I wasn't there with Jimmy. when we watch a DVD and Plácido goes into seduction mode, Jimmy has a bad habit of saying "The creep. Grrr..." and I am pretty sure that would have been his reaction yesterday!

* I'm guessing: the only person in the audience I knew is a gay Claphamite I file under "Lambeth Labour friend" rather than "opera friend". Actually, the two women in front of me were carrying copies of the New Statesman, so I'm being very unfair on audience members!

Der Rosenkavalier in the cinema

I haven't gone to many of these cinema showings of operas, for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps I should go more often. The ones from New York show here on Saturday nights. Generally, Jimmy works Saturdays, so I might as well go to the pictures as sit at home alone. And there are two cinemas very close to me  that show them, so I'm short of excuses.

So, yesterday evening found me in a slightly snowy Brixton and settling down for Der Rosenkavalier. I don't know the opera in intimate detail, but I seem to remember there are lots of longeurs, so I was a bit anxious in case I got bored and fidgety. Actually, as it turns out, I know it a lot better than I thought I did -which still isn't enough to pass intelligent comment on the intricate details and subtle nuances.

I was trying to work out whether I have seen this exact precise staging before or whether there are several staid and unimaginative productions of the same opera available on DVD.

I will fully confess that I found the scenery beautiful and the costumes exquisite, but prettiness doesn't an opera production make. I suppose I came away with a very strong sense of a linear narrative and two dimensional characters. I am at a loss as to how to make the characters more rounded and sympathetic, but that's the director's role, not mine.

I have seen several versions on TV or DVD, and even though none was especially memorable together they have left sufficient of an impression for me to have some basis for comparison.

I thought Susan Graham was far -and- away the star. I've only actually heard her live in one part, in two locations! (Iphigenie) and I don't have much of her on CD or DVD, but what I know of her I like, and I thought she was very convincing as Octavian and mugged and hammed well. I suppose ultimately, her voice doesn't move me, but I find it unerringly pleasing. I did read someone mentioning her struggle with a few of the notes and I did notice this, but I'll prefer a singer, like her, who does these sotto voce rather than the screamers and shriekers.

I'm afraid I just don't get Renée Fleming and I am startled at descriptions about her epitomising the role. I tweeted frivolously about her resembling Mrs Robinson, startled at how well cast Renée would be (physically) as Iris (I am certain that Renée doesn't share the same hateful views). One of my Tweeps from outside the UK assumed, not unsurprisingly, I was referring to Mrs Robinson from The Graduate and commented that Renée has none of the class he would expect from the Marschallin. I'm not saying she was bad, and there was a welcome absence of her characteristic scoops and swoops and jazz style. And she is rather delicious looking.But she isn't quite the Marschallin one would desire.

I rather took to Kristinn Sigmundsson as Baron Ochs. I rarely make a point of commenting on the vocal qualities of basses but I think he was marvellously obnoxious, playing the role straight for the maximum of laughs.

Christine Schäfer was okay in places but I can't say she did much for me - which is a shame considering I have booked to see her six times in March! I am sure I would have preferred Miah Persson who appeared earlier in the run.  Unfortunately, Christine resembles Celia Imrie in a bad Victoria Wood* sketch, and I have to say I found most of Acts II and III to be pure provincial pantomime. To a certain extent Act III is meant to be, whereas I'm not sure Act II is.

That having been said, I think that the point of the opera is a satire on certain society mores and perhaps an innovative modern production would bring this out more. The pantomime mugging and hamming of Act II and the vague hints of grotesquery in Act III, all hinted at the work's potential, but I think probably just about everybody went away with a strong sense of this being about a love triangle in gorgeously pretty frocks.  I didn't see the ENO production of this work but I would expect a director of the calibre of David McVicar to pick up the undercurrent.

With ultra-traditional, ultra-conservative and very pretty productions, the devil is in the detail. For example, the Marschallin's breakfast is brought and she is poured a drink (turns out to be hot chocolate) from a china pot into a china cup with matching saucer. The pot was decorated with pink flowers, the cup and saucer were predominantly green.

I told myself not to be nit-picking, but I detected a fidgeting in the cinema, and one almost totally audible stage whisper from two rows in front of me "Teapot doesn't...tea-cup"

Another time, minor character Valzacchi was supposed to be opening the big heavy doors of Faninal Palace, only to reveal that they were light insubstantial things.

Overall I enjoyed the performance. I'm not sufficiently familiar to be able to say how the conducting and orchestra playing compared against the field. I didn't notice any bad moments, either flubs or strange tempi. But I also didn't find anything that revealed anything about the orchestra colours, layers and textures, which, ultimately, is the joy of Richard Strauss, and nothing that moved me to rapture.  So, given my caveats of ignorance, I would award it a good not great!

And I shall devote a separate blog post to other aspects of the transmission!

* I'm not suggesting Victoria Wood is bad, but she does parody the farcical, so imagine a bad version of a VW parody of farce

Why I love Brixton

It's like when you love a man; yes, you can see the flaws but you love despite, because of, regardless of them. It really is love at first sight. I think I decided in 1984 I was in love with Brixton, even though, as a streatham resident I didn't actually get selected until 1993 and didn't take up residence until 1995.

I love Brixton because it has two hundred years of crap architecture visible as you drive round the residential side road.

 I love Brixton because you sit on the bus and listen to the two women behind learning Spanish by reading Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales with English on one page and Spanish on another. A white baby with a white Mum, sitting on Mum's back wrapped in an African-style papoose shawl, watches them absolutely entranced.

 I go to the crappy local flea-pit cinema for an HD live from NY of Rosenkavalier and bump into a member of Lambeth Labour. The tills aren't working and I tut at the half-wit who needs a calculate to work out the cost of 3 glasses of wine at £4.20 each.

I go to a backstreet pub and sit up at the bar, smoking (sssshhhhh!) while the jike box plays classic 50s Rock 'n' Roll plus (the two) Greatest Hits of Dr. Hook. Yeah, kind of random...

I pass the "West Indian Continental Grocery" and the Fairy Lights still illuminating the trees of Central Brixton. The cab-driver's music proclaims "Our God is an awesome God" - the music is shit, but, somehow I love it, because it's Brixton I love. Half one in the morning and people are still moving around on foot. Rush Common is beautiful with its thin veneer of snow - sod it, Rush Common is beautiful full stop, this long thin strip of green that gives lungs to the congested A23, makes us different from every other arterial road.

I know just about every problem that besets Brixton, the  poverty, the violence, the absence of hope. But for me, Brixton is the greatest town on earth. Above all, it's home!

And here's to you, Mrs Robinson

I am always of the view that if politicians screw around outside their marriage, so be it. It isn't normally relevant to their role as politicians, and shouldn't be regarded as any more heinous than any of the numerous other things that imperfect human beings do.

I also think that any politician who has cast judgement upon the sex lives of other people has surrendered the right to privacy in their private life.

So there is a large dollop of schadenfreude hovering over the revelations about Iris Robinson, considering her views in the past, in particular on homosexuality, but also on adultery.

There is a little part of me that is hesitant to wade into this: I am pretty damn certain that if it had been Peter Robinson having an affair with a teenage woman, there would have been less scurrilous sniggering. If women in private life are judged more harshly than men, then this goes with spades for women in public life*.

The 'Mental Health' card has been played, and it's wise not to wade into that minefield. For example, there was a ridiculous slur campaign a few months ago that 'insinuated' that the wifey of Oik Osborne has mental health issues. I believe that Oik's wife - who seems to stay well out of visible politics - is not a legitimate target, regardless of the incompetence and arrogance of Oik himself. I also believe that to using someone's illness, whatever the nature and cause, as grounds for attack is neanderthal.

For all I know, Iris Robinson may have a history of depression. It's not improbable - isn't 20% of the population at any time; also, with a husband away from home for long stretches, while she's stuck in some dreary backwater bringing up the children, and her being all into religion and that, it's almost a classic textbook case.

That having been said, it's almost like now we are supposed to be all sympathetic and understanding of mental ill health, it's become a convenient excuse.

During the Expenses Scandal, there were reports of MPs feeling suicidal. I can't really feel sorry for them, even though I (probably less than many people) know too well how awful it feels when the bills and debts are piling up and you can't see a way of settling them. Doing something wrong, and being found out, is never a good feeling. So I shall wade into that area!

It always makes me feel good when I see some self-righteous religious nutter - and the DUP epitomises religious nuttery - being hoist by their own petard.

It's easy when you have the nice life, the uncomplicated marriage where the man is successful in his career to be all smug and idealistic. I guess we all have some ideal of how life should be lived, but most of us acquire, from experience and observation, the wisdom that rarely do lives fall into the category of ideal. I suppose the religious nutters would condemn me for having an 'anything goes' mentality, and, actually, yes, I do more or less (with the usual caveat of consenting adults).

We are also the products of our society. Among my friends and peer group, there is a general acceptance that people's lives are messy. That isn't to say that there is endorsement of the messes that people make; there is also an absence of condemnation, because we all do stupid things.

I don't just mean sexually. Many of us have done messy things with career, finance, family/friendships and so on. Because we are human, we can't see into the future and know the consequences, because we are weak and give into temptation, because not having the affair would cause us to feel so miserable. And so on.

I guess that in the society they live, the knowledge of the wife having an affair, the husband being a cuckold, is hard to bear. Perhaps in other circles, it's one of those things that acknowledged but deemed diplomatic not to discuss at dinner parties. I wonder how much her contemplation of suicide was due to the knowledge that her public reputation would be ruined for ever. I have to say that as an MP she had barely scraped my radar at all. I remembering noticing that his wife had been elected, a rare woman from Northern Ireland, but I assume that she is a big cheese that matters in Northern Ireland.

I haven't even mentioned the financial impropriety which is, actually, the nub of the matter. No doubt some religious nutters would use this as proof that nothing good ever comes of extra-marital flings. They would say - perhaps with justification - that Iris Robinson wouldn't have made this misjudgement if she hadn't been blinded by the euphoria of a fling. But I would respond that plenty of people have shown themselves to be venal and corrupt without sex being the motivation. 

I would hope that some of these born-agains and rigid fundamentalists would use this incident to pause and reflect, and remember that we are all human, that human beings have human instincts, and that, often, to deny those instincts is to deny our essential humanity. Most of us try to muddle through, generally trying to avoid harm to those who haven't harmed us, and we all behave in ways that seem irrational to others.Creating an ideal and condemning those who fail to meet it makes all our lives more difficult. Ironically, it hits hardest those who have created and maintained the ideal, in their smugness, absolute conviction, and sheer stupidity, they don't realise that one day they will be killed by the sword they have yielded.

* Women politicians are criticised far more frequently for their appearance; my observation is that there are far more casual comments accusing women ministers eg of being 'annoying' or 'patronising' or 'in it for themselves' than of men; and the personal, domestic, family etc arrangements of female politicians are scrutinised more thoroughly than men. In the Great Expenses Scandal, the ghastly Julie Kirkbride was subject to far more (justified) criticism than her odious husband, who was complicit and equally guilty. (as an example)

Winter

It has to be said that winter, real snowy icy cold winter, has not featured very much in my life. Ironic, because I was born in a freak South Manchester snowstorm and the next day, when I made grand entrance into a cul-de-sac in Sale (then Cheshire, now Greater Manchester) where my mother still lives, my father and Grand Dad had to shovel snow to allow the transport access.

There was 1979 where the snow actually lay on the ground, for several days! This coincided with the oil tanker drivers' strike rendering my school closed for extra time after Xmas. Wins for Infant 1 to Junior 3; Junior 4s had to go to into a cold school for several mornings. This was to prepare for the twin ridiculousnesses that were the 11+. 11+ ridiculous, because how exactly do you prepare for verbal and numerical reading tests; confirmation - how ridiculous at 11 - daren't leave it until people are actually able to think for themselves in case some may actually abandon their soul to the devil and decide that they don't want to be any part of the Catholic Church. Guess what, it made no difference.

Ranting aside, I didn't really see significant snow again until I was at University and first learnt how snow can cause a standstill irrespective of widespread industrial action. Campus was covered, people even ski-ed, and Radio Trent were announcing the last buses out of town along Derby Road soon after 5pm.

I also had some bad experiences in the wrong type of snow in 1991; my plane being diverted to Bournemouth, then having to get a coach to Heathrow, and the realise there were no trains to Southend. Nice.

I experienced the one true snow-day earlier this year but have otherwise escaped.

I have heard several stories about the winter of 1963 and understand that it was very cold. Someone told me a story about how his mother dropped the backdoor key in the snow, locking them out until his father came home from work, and she had to take him for a rare treat to the cinema; it was another three months before the key was retrieved from the melted snow. That was in Southend, too. 

1963 just got mentioned on BBC News Channel, moment before I read this on a catch up of blog-reading:

My old school is a turning off and my memories of the Avenue are mixed – in the dire endless winter of 1963, when our playing fields in Regent's Park were still under snow, we were forced to run up and down the entire hill each week supposedly improving on our ‘times’, and how relieved we were when the thaw finally arrived.

My Grandad was a lorry driver in 1947, which was, reportedly, worse than 1963. He ended up stranded and had to spend the night at a girl's boarding school. Also in Essex, I believe.

Both my nephews seem to be having great fun in the snow, in the part of Greater Manchester that used to be Lancashire, and in West Yorkshire, but I'm rather glad I live in boring over-heated South London. A SnowDay is nice once in a while, but I don't want it to become a habit.

Concert at Angel de la Independencia, Mexico City

On 19 December  Plácido appeared in a free concert in front at 200,000 people at the Angel de la Independencia in Mexico City (his home city between the ages of 8 and 21)

Placido Domingo nombrado huésped distinguido de Ciudad de México

with video

Plácido tiene Ángel:Recital gratuito del tenor para expresar su cariño por México

Plácido Domingo, ovacionado en el Ángel

 

 

Mexico City Concert 19 December

Highlights

Amor, vida de mi vida

O souverain (and opening remarks)

No puede ser

Granada (if you can, close your eyes and hear the voice of a young man)

En la calle donde vives (even I can translate that back into English!)

Merry Widow Waltz

Ella, in mariachi costume with accompanying mariachi band

Me llamas Rafaelillo, from El Gato Montes - the camera pans away just as it looks like get steamy...

El Rey - more mariachi

The concert lasted nearly three hours and could have lasted longer, but they had run out of material they hadrehearsed, and it was cold.

There are plenty more clips on YouTube, but these are a selection of the best I could find.

Swan Lake - and crap sign

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a distinct lack of cycling posts since our epic excursion to Wimbledon in mid-October. It was only halfway down an extraordinarily steep hill that I remembered that my brakes desperately needed replacing.

I could not see how to do it, and was very frustrated because in the old days, replacing brake pads was a two minute job. Eventually I sussed it out, and although Jimmy insisted on doing it, I talked him through the process. But in between were weeks of prevarication, avoidance and so on. Also, my inner Pagan was telling me to hibernate as we approached the dead time of year and its partner, depression, was brought on by an abject fear of Christmas - or is the fear of Christmas brought on by the approaching Solstice?

But Solstice is behind us now and there is a palpable sense of renewal. Slowly, sunset is getting later (half four and there is still visible blue in the sky - just). Spring is still a long way away (and wouldn't the Vernal Equinox be a more meaningful celebration than the arbitrary changing of the date!), but nevertheless, there is hope in the air. (My birthday is five weeks away).

There will be snow and gails, and dull miserable rainy grey days, but that doesn't matter. Today has been bright, sunny and dry, even if it has been cold. But never mind the cold. One can't moan about grey, wet and miserable days and then stay sulking indoors on days like today. I had finally run out of excuses, and I got the bike out.

Basically, I went there and back, and, ouch, did it hurt!

Well, sort of. I was coughing my lungs up at one point, but in a very healthy way! But I never once had to get off and push, as I had been fearing when I set out, not even on that final killer incline that leads back to Gert Cottage.

I've read so much crap that says if you miss one day's 'training' it obliterates all the work you've ever done. For all I know that may be true of elite athletes, but for someone like me, it simply isn't true.

I can feel in myself how much better I am than when I first started the cycling. I can also see and feel how I've deteriorated since, say, September. In some ways that is dispiriting, but in many other ways it's encouraging.

I'm dissatisfied with the flab, but I know what the toned strong muscles felt like in September, and I want that again. It's an achievable target, and I think even in the five weeks between now and my birthday I can make a difference.

Even though I think that now is a bad time to be resolving on self-improvement!

I went to Tooting Common and paused by the duck pond, where I discovered that my beloved camera is no longer functioning as it should - the zoom lever gets stuck, and that's attached to the button that actually takes the photos, so actually getting the photo taken is hit-and-miss. I needz new camera.

The partially frozen pond

Wandsworth Council in their infinite wisdom put up a sign

and in more detail:

I detest signs like this. It gets certain things right: black on yellow and the word 'Danger' in bold black capitals.

The rest is just wrong. What the bloody hell are 'persons'. What the feck does 'prohibited' mean. And, like, you and whose army are going to enforce it. Oh, it's Byelaw 7. Who, apart from Anoraks in Public Administration actually knows what a Byelaw is?

Obviously, someone has decided - we must tell people it's illegal to go on the ice, because one thing that surely deters anyone (you know, teenage lads, that sort of person) is the fact that it's illegal (and there are no council operatives in attendance to enforce it).

First rule of communication: be direct. After 'Danger' say 'Do not go on the ice'. Simple. Requires only basic literacy or minimal understanding of English.

Find some way succinctly to say that you'd be a fool to even try it. Okay 'Danger' has said that, but no harm in reiterating that. Say something like 'It won't hold your weight and you might drown." Spells it out in words of one syllable, starkly and unambiguously.

Hey, why bother communicating when you can behind legalese bollocks!

If they want, they can add at the bottom 'You risk being prosecuted if you break Wandsworth's Byelaw 7'.

But, actually, they don't need to. Ignorance of the law is no defence; the byelaw isn't there to increase prosecutions for the sake of it, but to deter reckless people, such as teenage boys, from standing on thin ice which might crack and leave them drowning, or at least with a nasty case of Weil's Disease.

Oh, and while I think about it. Open message to the dumb bimbo jogging along the cycle path with noise-eliminating earphones for your mp3 player.

If you can't hear a bicycle bell, please review the preceding statement from 'along the cycle path' to 'noise-eliminating earphones'.

Just out of curiosity, was I supposed to a) swerve into the quagmire to my right b) swerve into the dog-walking pensioners on the footpath to my left c) career into your back or d) do what I actually did, slam on my brand new brakes in order to avoid catastrophe.

'Sorry' is insufficient when you are, in fact, a cretin.

Perhaps rather than trying to keep your ugly anorexic body even skinnier, maybe you should focus on your shortcomings in the common sense department. I know you're blonde and posh, but, even so, the world doesn't actually revolve around you - not when I'm in the vicinity, anyway.

Oysters on Trains

From today, Oyster Cards are acceptable on what I refer to as 'British Rail' trains ie choos-choos that aren't part of the Underground (including London Overground) network or DLR or Croydon Tramlink.

Previously, if one held a season ticket one could use it for a train journey as long as one remained in Zone. But as soon as one goes outside Zone, it is technically fare-dodging with a penalty fare - or prosecution. Prosecution is no joke for such an offence, which on a morality scale must rank far below parking on a double yellow line. But has to be declared, even when spent, for some employments.

I recognise that my situation is fairly unusual but not so freakish as to be worth disregarding. Where I live is in Zone 2. Technically, my road is the Zone boundary, which really used to matter when Zones applied to buses, but thankfully Ken Livingstone had the good sense to do away with that.

I live in that part of the Inner City without London Underground. Habitually, I travel into town from Brixton Tube. To get there is half an hour's walk, back is longer because it's up-hill, so, naturally, I tend to get the bus. Late at night I come home via Clapham Common, because of the door-to-door bus and related matters. Clapham South is also about half an hour's walk, and the one infrequent bus still requires a walk home up an incline which is a pain in the wrong shoes or carrying shopping.

My nearest station is Streatham Hill, where ex-BR trains run to and from Victoria via Clapham Junction and also to West Croydon.

I work in the Westminster area so every week or two I end up going home via Victoria, taking in a trip to M&S, Boots, Smiths, Whittards etc . Often, depending on the time, it would be most convenient to jump on a Southern train to Streatham Hill, avoiding the congestion of Victoria Underground, and having a door-to-door bus, or a much shorter walk.

What deters me from doing this is the need to buy a ticket. Not so much the cost as the inconvenience. The majority of people buying tickets from the ticket machine are visitors or infrequent travellers and it's a right pain having to wait behind people who can't work out how the ticket machines work - they aren't intuitive, and I can't really complain, remembering my struggles with one on the S-Bahn in Berlin. So 'hopping on' a train doesn't work.

Working part-time I tend to use the Oyster PAYG with Auto-top up, which caps my daily expenditure, debits my Oyster and then, when the balance falls below £5 credits it with a further £20 direct from my bank account. It works for me - on London Underground and London Buses, as well as on Croydon Tramlink were I to use that.

When I heard that Oyster was going to be extended to trains I was delighted. All my transport dilemmas solved. At Victoria, armed only with an Oyster PAYG, I can hop on the train to Streatham Hill and be home in a satisfying 25 minutes. EPIC WIN, as da kidz on t'interwebz say.

Except, it doesn't work like that.

In order to get that train I will need to get an Oyster Extension Permit, from a source that already sells Oyster Cards, so, presumably not a Southern Ticket machine. Having thought about this, of course I should get one now, so that next time I'm minded to jump on a train, I'm pre-armed. And with a newsagent just a few doors away I have no excuse.

However, you can only get one at a time, so every time I finish a train journey I have to remember to buy another OEP. This is easy if I'm not carrying loads of shopping and the newsagent is open, but realistically, who can remember the next morning? I can't even remember to sew a button back on my coat once I get home!

One of my most recent use of trains was back in September. We caught the train from Streatham Hill to Barnes Bridge, cycled to Richmond and caught another train. It's easy for Jimmy, he's one of those Pushy Pensioners who can go anywhere on their Freedom Pass, but I'm in the unfortunate position of being aged between 16 and 60!

This wasn't a straightforward return journey, and in any case, we didn't know when we set out where we'd end up - if the weather had been better we would probably have got to Kingston. So, each time required buying a ticket. At the time, Streatham Hill had a temporary entrance on a different road from the ticket office; it can be a pain abandoning the bike at Richmond to buy a ticket at something past five.

I have to admit that in the grand scheme these aren't major inconveniences, but surely, in this day and age, the authorities should be removing unnecessary obstacles to travel by Public Transport. Don't lecture me about the 'pointlessness' of having a bike and getting the train - it's the ability to do that that makes the excursions possible, irrespective of some hypothetical ideal.

And it is an unnecessary obstacle, because what does the Permit allow one to do? I don't get it.

It's not a permit to travel without a ticket because I have a ticket, pre-paid and ready to be charged. Why can't the ticket barriers at Victoria MainLine and Streatham Hill work exactly the same as the ones at Victoria Underground/ Brixton? My possession of a valid Oyster with a balance of between £5 and £25 is surely permission enough. I'm giving them access to my bank account, for heaven's sake, so my intentions are absolutely not fraudulent. Perhaps it is to deter me travelling to Brighton - but then, surely, I'd arrive at Brighton (or be inspected on the train) and be found lacking, with all the consequences.

Under the current system, I could face a penalty fare or prosecution for travelling between, say, Victoria and Battersea Park, or Waterloo East and London Bridge, whereas I can happily hop on a train at Heathrow and travel all the way to deepest darkest Essex or Hertfordshire perfectly legitimately as long as I swipe in and swipe out.

It strikes me as being yet another stupid transport wheeze dreamed up by people who don't actually use public transport. Just as foolish as designing buses with windows that don't actually allow a through breeze - and yet another idiot is set to introduce air-conditioning on these buses, whereas slidey windows would do the trick, like they used to.

They realised with ticket machines and ATMs that what may work on paper doesn't actually work when real people with no prior knowledge are let loose on them, so they get in actors to replicate what normal people do. There is another mechanism, called public consultation, but why do that when you can pay hundreds of thousands to 'consultants' to bugger about and come up with something stupid.

We've ben promised the Underground round here since the First World War, and there's even a plot of land set aside for a station a hop, skip and a jump away from Gert Cottage. It's unlikely ever to happen because of the disproportionate cost of building the infrastructure. So a far more sensible approach is to integrate and make accessible the existing means of transport.

Just before I moved to the area, they doubled the number of trains through Streatham Hill (under the Tories surprisingly, but pre-privatisation), thereby exponentially increasing their usage - quarter of an hour frequencies encourage people to turn up and wait, half an hour doesn't (source Lambeth Public Transport Group, sometime in the 90s) 

It's going to take a lot more to really make public transport accessible - I don't know if Streatham Hill refurbishment is complete, and whether it includes lifts. But accessibility isn't just about the physical environment, although that is important. It is about enabling people to use the network spontaneously without the need for pre-planning. The system already allows for integration, because of in-zone season tickets and Freedom Passes,  so what is the problem with out-of-zone and other PAYG, especially with auto top-up?

I hope that this OEP is only a temporary measure, until Boris and his cronies realise that it adds no value, and introduces no controls that don't already exist. I suspect they have bent over to please the Train Operating Companies without anyone having the nous to ask 'what is the purpose?'

Interview with Plácido at La Scala

Yeah, I'm a bit behind in my blogging. It's not like I've been doing anything recently!