HERE AND NOW.
Music.
I am settled in my chair in the computer room listening, for the umpteenth time, to a self compiled tape of recordings made by the late Richard Tauber. Just reached the end of Eric Coates’s Bird Songs At Eventide, recorded in 1932, and reflected again that it has never been sung better; fantastic pianissimo finish. If you like the tenor voice you can Google Richard Tauber sings - Bird Songs At Eventide and listen to it.
Set me thinking there are many modern singers who would probably benefit from recording old favourites. Some already have tackled medleys of songs by the likes of Berlin, Gershwin and Porter and, even if it does sometimes seem like a last ditch attempt at career revival when a ‘pop icon’ pilfers tunes from the past, it can certainly make for fascinating listening.
Sting, for example, made a very decent job of Someone to Watch Over Me and Mick Hucknall did the same with Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye. Both can be viewed on YouTube.
If you are a fan of Rufus Wainwright he can be seen singing Macushla, a Count John McCormack favourite. If you’d like to hear McCormack’s version it, too, is on You Tube - just look for Richard Tauber - Macushla and you will get a picture of Tauber accompanied by the voice of McCormack. Trust me, I know. I listened to both of them whilst they were still alive. I do love it when technology makes a harmless balls-up, though, don’t you?
And for what it’s worth, I’d advocate young Wainwright include Bird Songs At Eventide in his programme. The outcome might be too camp for my tastes but it would surely appeal to his many fans.
The Olympic Games.
Well we finally saw the back of them - and without trouble - so thank whatever god for that. Friends of ours went to see Usain Bolt do his stuff. Apparently the stadium was marvellous and the London atmosphere was magic. I wouldn’t have gone, but neither would I venture to put flowers at the scene of a fatal accident or place them in front of the home of someone who had died in one. Truth is, I distrust public demonstrations of feeling when they are presented by strangers whose sole motivation seems to be to get in on the act. This time the feeling was friendly and welcoming, but it can so easily be otherwise.. (See the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for a reminder, or consider the misery heaped upon any of the currently oppressed people of the world.)
But well done everybody, be they black, brown, white, yellow or sandy-grey-russet. The 2012 Games were a success that not even Britain’s plethora of detractors could totally dismiss.
Let’s hope everything will be just as peaceful and even more successful for the Paralympians when they compete.
The Cat in the Plastic Lampshade.
I am a little late with this bulletin because, unlike the Duke of Edinburgh, the cat Shadow does not have daily proclamations made about his health, but does have the occasional family visitor. I have spent the past week cat sitting a bewildered moggy wearing an inverted lampshade around his neck. On Thursday 9th of August he was placed in the care of local veterinary surgeons Green and Forster for an operation to remove the lump on his head referred to in post 183. He had no food after 7pm the night before the operation, was kept in overnight with a litter tray, was allowed water only until 7am and was admitted to veterinary hospital just after 8am. He left behind an irreparably smashed, jammed, cat flap (locked to prevent his premature departure) and the strong impression that he was mightily displeased at this outrageous affront to his dignity. That’s my boy,
The cyst was fortunately benign and the operation to remove it successful. We picked him up in the afternoon and he went berserk in the box we took to collect him. At home he became a model patient, went back to the vets after two days to be assessed (My Leader drove: I carried him firmly wrapped in a towel; he quite enjoyed that) There followed eight days of being the cat in the plastic lampshade, professionally described as Buster Collar 10cm and Cat Collar Simba Splash Purple 12” S17. (Don’t ask)
By last Saturday, when we took him to have his stitches and the offending lampshade removed, he was pretty well pissed off, but had reached gold medal standard at lampshade wearing activity, culminating in a determined mountain climb to next door’s kitchen roof trailing the collar strap beneath him: he had by then learned how to scratch it undone.
Discharge accomplished, we drove him home quietly, taking in the scenery, content at a week well spent. Euphoric that it is all over, he has since spent hours fastidiously grooming himself and is now dozing comfortably on the rocker settee in the courtyard. I am still reeling at the combined cost of the operation and the replacement cat flap.
The sun is shining and he thanks you for your good wishes. BACK TO THE BOX.
BBC Proms 2012.
The Proms this year provided a welcome respite from mostly non-stop coverage of the Olympic Games. I still tend to avoid anything modern, so Daniel Barenboim’s wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performing the Beethoven symphony cycle was, so far as I am concerned, somewhat undermined by the addition of music by Pierre Boulez. But hell, what do I know? I neither read music nor play a musical instrument.
I might have enjoyed An Evening with Ivor Novello, though. Saw several of his musicals way back when he was still appearing in them. Mary Ellis, Olive Gilbert, Trefor Jones and Vanessa Lee were among the fine singers chosen to star in those shows. He knew a good voice when he heard one. So did I…and still do. Sadly, I felt neither soloist in this tribute programme would have particularly appealed to him: well. not for their voices anyway.
I was disappointed. But hell, what do I know…?
George Gently.
Apparently Martin Shaw is to return to our screens next week for another series. My enjoyment of it may be slightly tempered by the reminder that I am still only half way through the first of the ten Gently case files bought for me by my Leader and henceforth must hurry…
BACK TO THE BOOKS.
Alan Hunter’s Gently Does It has thus far proven to be a case of No He Doesn‘t. I try not to blame Mr. Hunter. Nowadays my attention span is prime suspect at every turn of a page. But I do hope Gently goes off peppermint creams before the bloody things make me sick and, in the meantime, my faint curiosity over whodunnit has been totally absorbed by
Sandi Toksvig’s The Chain of Curiosity which my Leader laughed over for a week before passing it on to me to laugh over ever since. I shall certainly have reached the end before my next post.
I may even arrange for Gently to have done it, too.
Music.
Set me thinking there are many modern singers who would probably benefit from recording old favourites. Some already have tackled medleys of songs by the likes of Berlin, Gershwin and Porter and, even if it does sometimes seem like a last ditch attempt at career revival when a ‘pop icon’ pilfers tunes from the past, it can certainly make for fascinating listening.
Sting, for example, made a very decent job of Someone to Watch Over Me and Mick Hucknall did the same with Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye. Both can be viewed on YouTube.
And for what it’s worth, I’d advocate young Wainwright include Bird Songs At Eventide in his programme. The outcome might be too camp for my tastes but it would surely appeal to his many fans.
The Olympic Games.
But well done everybody, be they black, brown, white, yellow or sandy-grey-russet. The 2012 Games were a success that not even Britain’s plethora of detractors could totally dismiss.
Let’s hope everything will be just as peaceful and even more successful for the Paralympians when they compete.
The Cat in the Plastic Lampshade.
I am a little late with this bulletin because, unlike the Duke of Edinburgh, the cat Shadow does not have daily proclamations made about his health, but does have the occasional family visitor. I have spent the past week cat sitting a bewildered moggy wearing an inverted lampshade around his neck. On Thursday 9th of August he was placed in the care of local veterinary surgeons Green and Forster for an operation to remove the lump on his head referred to in post 183. He had no food after 7pm the night before the operation, was kept in overnight with a litter tray, was allowed water only until 7am and was admitted to veterinary hospital just after 8am. He left behind an irreparably smashed, jammed, cat flap (locked to prevent his premature departure) and the strong impression that he was mightily displeased at this outrageous affront to his dignity. That’s my boy,
The cyst was fortunately benign and the operation to remove it successful. We picked him up in the afternoon and he went berserk in the box we took to collect him. At home he became a model patient, went back to the vets after two days to be assessed (My Leader drove: I carried him firmly wrapped in a towel; he quite enjoyed that) There followed eight days of being the cat in the plastic lampshade, professionally described as Buster Collar 10cm and Cat Collar Simba Splash Purple 12” S17. (Don’t ask)
By last Saturday, when we took him to have his stitches and the offending lampshade removed, he was pretty well pissed off, but had reached gold medal standard at lampshade wearing activity, culminating in a determined mountain climb to next door’s kitchen roof trailing the collar strap beneath him: he had by then learned how to scratch it undone.
Discharge accomplished, we drove him home quietly, taking in the scenery, content at a week well spent. Euphoric that it is all over, he has since spent hours fastidiously grooming himself and is now dozing comfortably on the rocker settee in the courtyard. I am still reeling at the combined cost of the operation and the replacement cat flap.
The sun is shining and he thanks you for your good wishes. BACK TO THE BOX.
BBC Proms 2012.
I might have enjoyed An Evening with Ivor Novello, though. Saw several of his musicals way back when he was still appearing in them. Mary Ellis, Olive Gilbert, Trefor Jones and Vanessa Lee were among the fine singers chosen to star in those shows. He knew a good voice when he heard one. So did I…and still do. Sadly, I felt neither soloist in this tribute programme would have particularly appealed to him: well. not for their voices anyway.
I was disappointed. But hell, what do I know…?
George Gently.
BACK TO THE BOOKS.
Alan Hunter’s Gently Does It has thus far proven to be a case of No He Doesn‘t. I try not to blame Mr. Hunter. Nowadays my attention span is prime suspect at every turn of a page. But I do hope Gently goes off peppermint creams before the bloody things make me sick and, in the meantime, my faint curiosity over whodunnit has been totally absorbed by
Sandi Toksvig’s The Chain of Curiosity which my Leader laughed over for a week before passing it on to me to laugh over ever since. I shall certainly have reached the end before my next post.
I may even arrange for Gently to have done it, too.
