Post 384. ANOTHER BLOG POST LOST.

HIT A WRONG KEY AGAIN.

SO I'M BACK AT THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD WITH LITOLFF: 
Concerto Symphonique 2 and 4 played by Peter Donohoe who I am convinced has hit very few wrong notes in a distinguished career, then with Daniel Barenboim (Brahms Piano 2), who would probably regard any wrong note by anyone as a personal affront, and I may finish with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 played by John Ogden (who I have on video playing Rachmaninov's 2nd and gently tutting at a spot where, almost imperceptibly, he touches an unwanted note). Now where was I?
Hit a wrong key!
Wiped the entire draft of this blog post. Nothing saved and no back up. Swore my soul to hell! It isn't the rewriting so much as the remembering what I was writing about. Nowadays my short term memory can seldom be found where I thought I'd left it. I do remember that it had something to do with fame again.
Oh...yes...

LOOKING FOR FAME?

I'D SOONER RELAX.
The one thing you learn about fame on an island like this is that, whoever you are (actor, broadcaster, television celebrity, national treasure), you should not expect recognition.
Islanders have a very healthy outlook on the famous: ignore the buggers until they've proven they are something more than a giant ego. A few of them manage that right away and are popular. Given time, others scrape by and become reservedly accepted. 
Those who envision awed respect are studiously ignored.
Two people unlikely ever to be burdened with fame, Mo and I, have only been in wordless proximity to two immensely famous people worth the mention: Years ago, waiting with friends outside a nightclub in London to board a black cab, we vaguely recognised the angry-looking passenger who disembarked from it.
We clambered aboard, chattering that we ought to know who that was, and the cabbie, taking pity on an obvious bunch of provincials, said:
“That was Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber.”
When we remarked that, for all his success, he looked far from happy, The Knowledge said: “Oh that's because he's looking for his wife. He looks like that quite a lot nowadays.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber was married to Sarah Brightman at the time.
The other much lauded national treasure we came across was David Attenborough.
He was sitting at a table in a large bookshop on the main street in Edinburgh where it would seem his publishers had booked him to sign copies of the immensely expensive tome that accompanied his immensely popular television documentary of the time. Don't ask me which one: there have been so many of them. 
Anyway, just for the record, he looked more determinedly disconsolate, more unapproachably lonely, more totally and utterly pissed off, than any world famous television presenter – national treasure or not – should ever look, in or out of the public eye.
So much for fame.
ANOTHER SAD VIEWING.
In Post 381 I mentioned the death of Mo's nephew Phil.
Last Wednesday we were afforded the opportunity to see his funeral service on a computer link.
In normal times the crematorium would have been crowded. With lockdown there was just a sparse family attendance, but the ceremony, free from religion, was affectionate and heartfelt, and concluded in a way that was so Phil Butler it brought tears to our eyes.
They played PLAY UP POMPEY
The entire Fratton Park crowd. Full blast!
Thank you, lovely family.
RIP, mate.

Post 383. GRANDPA MET CECIL RHODES

IT WAS A BRIEF ENCOUNTER.

WHEN OUR WORLD WAS VERY DIFFERENT.
Back in the eighteen hundreds my mother's father, Grandpa Pope, was an apprentice baker to Judge the Baker of Hastings. His duties included the delivery of bread which he carried, in a basket, to customers near and far. He would have been about eleven years old. 
One morning he made a delivery across a field to a large house and on his way back, at the gate in the fence bordering the field, saw a man on a horse approaching. He opened the gate and, when they were through, closed it behind them. 

The horseman abruptly reined in, shouted: "Good lad! Catch!" and threw him a coin which he duly caught with his free hand.
"Keep that, boy," the rider advised as he departed. "And when you're old you'll be able to tell people Cecil Rhodes gave it to you."
I was young at the time my grandfather told me the story, but old enough to have heard of Rhodesia. 
"So did you keep it?" I asked.
"No, spent it within a week," he said. "To me he was just another posh fella on a horse."
I have upheld that matter-of-fact outlook to national heroes ever since.
I am seldom disappointed.
MUSIC.

KATIE DERHAM.

Mo and I. Either end of the settee. Feet up. No tele. Reading. When I said:
"I do hope the Proms will be back soon. I miss lovely Katie Derham." 
"With her trainers," said Mo.
"And, on Last Night, a pretty dress and her trainers," I said. "You have to look up to a woman like that."
"You certainly do." said Mo.
That's fifty nine years of marriage for you
TELEVISION.
We binged until the repeat demise of George Gently and binged until the repeat near demise of AC12 (Law and Order) and now we're just about binged out on repeats.
We found we'd forgotten almost all of it anyway. Sad.
NCIS is back and The Walking Dead will be back on 1st March.
Death in Paradise has just finished again: our hero still hasn't told his pretty lady sergeant he loves her, so there's bound to be another series.
I'll watch 'em  all if I'm not asleep with a cat.

Stay safe buddies.
 

 

 

  

Post 382. EVEN THE OLDEST FRIENDS.

SOMETIMES DON'T GET IT. 

MY DEFAULT STYLE is DISTRUST when the FONT NAME is BREXIT.
Earlier this week an old friend forwarded the following – probably concocted by a brexiteer - email to me:
Dear Ms Nicola Sturgeon,
As your country voted to remain in the EU, the UK Government has diverted your share of Covid-19 vaccines to Brussels. Please contact the EU Commission on what dates you might receive your vaccine supplies. You will of course be in an alphabetical queue behind Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Romania. 
Love and kisses,
Boris 
I decided that Nicola Sturgeon should not be begrudged a reply and the following day sent my old friend this response on her behalf: 
Dear Master Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson,
When I require a rant from a patronising, puerile, public school Sassenach I shall cease to be a Scot. 
Scant regards, 
Nicola 
To which my old friend replied: Very good Alan. You've missed your vocation. 
Which would have been quite flattering if my name was Alan.
Ah well. 
READING.
I finished A Song for the Dark Times, another good Rebus yarn by Ian Rankin. Told you the man was a page turner. Now I have started on The Secret Language of Cats by Susanne Schotz, who starts by telling me she has five cats and talks to them all.
I've never found talking to the beggars difficult.
Getting them to listen can be hard. 
TELEVISION. 
Death in Paradise (BBC One) Sound acting. Lovely location. Dire dialogue. Unbelievable comic characters. Pitiful plots. Worldwide popularity (I am told).  What?
Oh, I watch it, but I'm just another lockdown detainee.
63 Up (ITV) We have watched the seven yearly pry into the lives of this pleasant group of individuals from right back when they were seven years old. Those still with us are now approaching the age of retirement.
Michael Apted, the man who directed them from the beginning, died on 7 January, 2021.
I can only thank each of the participants for their stoicism in the face of such constant public scrutiny, and wish them all the very best for the future. 
That's all for the time being.