Post 457. SOME YEAR, EH?

ANYTHING BUT PREDICTABLE.

IN A NO BRIGHTER BRITAIN.
On Thursday 22nd December an expected guest messaged to say she had Covid and was housebound: her entire Christmas wiped out and, when she recovered, a host of business appointments to be rearranged. It was the second time she had caught the damned thing. Her husband had also gone down with it. At around the same time another of Mo's pals rang to say her husband had contracted it and, though not startlingly ill, seemed unable to shake it off. They are all nice, sensible, people. There's no justice.
Now the talk is that one in every forty five of us could have Covid. The economy is in a heap. Most of the public services are - understandably - going on strike. It's not a brighter Britain. I blame Russia, China, and our government - in that order. Well, why not?
TELEVISION.
Late in his life I saw dear old Compton Mackenzie give a TV interview in which he said age was reducing his literary output; along with that - and he pointed to the television.
I meant to be back at the computer right after Boxing Day but finished up watching that which, sabre rattling films and royal claptrap apart, insidiously urged me not to abandon my armchair. Even the dross lulled me into a comfortable sleep.
Ironically, among the films on offer was the 2016 remake of Whisky Galore (which was to Compton Mackenzie what Cider With Rosie was to Laurie Lee). Well cast film. We enjoyed it.
And that's about it for this year. I'll be off back to my armchair for the New Year fireworks.
ALL THE BEST, DEAR READER, IN

I HOPE IT IS BETTER THAN THIS YEAR FOR YOU  

Post 456. IF YOU STILL READ THIS BLOG.

 SEASONAL GREETINGS

FROM THE GUY WHO WRITES IT.
Great that you have chosen to stay with the written word. I would not have the slightest idea how to produce a video and, according to that nice girl who talked to Sue Perkins on her Big American Road Trip, nobody reads any more; so you are a rare breed. Thank you.
And no, the guy in the picture didn't write it: he's just the token Christmas dressing.
GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEFOLK.
God rest ye merry gentlefolk
Whatever race or creed
Winter can be tough enough
Without your hatred and greed
So spare us all that doctrine driven
Religious or political need
In favour of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy

In favour of comfort and joy.
(The state this world is in, one verse is enough.)
FESTIVE ENTERTAINMENT.
Don't expect much, but you can always hope.

At least in the run up to Christmas we have a new Cormoran Strike series, Troubled Blood, starts on BBC 1 tomorrow night. Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger are back in the leading roles and the short series concludes next weekend, so look sharp or miss it.

THAT'S ABOUT IT

Until after the Boxing Day bubble and squeak with cold meat. Best meal ever.

CHEERS MY DEARS

Post 455. ONLY A FEW DAYS

 SINCE I LAST SAT HERE.

BUT IT WAS A SHORT MONTH.
November, as usual, has been dark and uncertain and seemed to be over before it started. My customary winter gloom has not been helped by the ghastly cold and cough which I now seem to have shaken off (though the cough still lingers with Mo). I don't want anyone, not even Chris Packham, to regale me with the wonders of the season.
And don't tell me Christmas is coming. If the latest statistics are to be believed, there are now fewer Christians in Britain than there have been at any time since the dearth of paganism. I still believe there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, but as a C of E educated boy who, over many years, has concluded that most of the ills in the world are caused by politics and religion, I can understand how belief in Christianity will have faded. Britain now has far  more religious varieties resident within it, too. Our society has gone bonkers. Not always for the better, but there you go.
Today I learn that a doctor in a West Sussex practice is living over two hundred and fifty miles away in Cornwall, and dealing with her patients online. Took me back to my NHS employee days over here when a doctor from a Cowes practice set up home in Freshwater, a 30 minutes (14/15 miles on winding roads) drive from the practice. Questions were asked loudly and angrily, not least by his practice partners. What did the fellow think he was doing? There was hell to pay.
I can't recall the outcome, but I don't think it was a happy one
We used to say 'nothing changes.' Now everything does.

Back next month if you're one of those nice people who still looks in.

Post 454. TALKING TO OLD FRIENDS

BRAVELY BATTLING FRAILTY.

WHAT CAN YOU SAY? 
Last Thursday I was on the phone to two old friends, one in England the other in Scotland,
In England, Jean's husband, old buddy Ian, recently had a fall at home, broke a leg, and has been shuffled from one hospital to another while the overstretched NHS tries to optimize the problem of the future for a brain cancer patient who walks with a frame and, if allowed back home now will, without the constant medical support he undoubtedly needs, be in dire risk of further falls and yet another round of hospital/hospital/where next?
Trouble seems to be, there is virtually no facility beyond that of a temporary recuperation unit. On Friday the family and Ian's medics met to discuss the situation: Ian (who had by then agreed with Jean and daughter Kerry that he really did need the full time ministrations of a care home) was present, and when asked where he wanted to go predictably replied: 'Home.' 
But home is not in any way suitable for him now. What can you say? It's a quandary.
From Scotland, Bill Harrison, a friend for seventy years, talked at me for about half an hour.
I know what to expect when I ring him. He is totally deaf in one ear and has about forty percent hearing in the other so you don't hold a conversation with him, you listen. He talks well about himself - always has - apart from national service in the Royal Signals he spent his entire working life in the police where, for some years, he was sergeant in charge of fingerprints, photographs, and scenes of crime for the whole of Lincolnshire. He was also a top class cricketer and played for the county force right up until. as an acting inspector, he finished up being medically discharged due to overwork. His wife died five years ago. Cancer. She didn't tell him until very late on. Again, what can you say? Nothing except how sad you were then and still are now.
Kath was a lovely person.
Well, he is managing. Has some good neighbours and, currently, a reliable lady who keeps a kindly eye on him. One can only hope his hearing impairment does not worsen to the point where he needs full time care.
Oh, I was going to print a picture of the young Bill in cricket gear, but I can't find it.
Getting older can sometimes be better imagined than experienced.

Post 453. THE DREADED LURGI.

 WE'VE ALL HAD IT

STARTING WITH OUR GRANDSON.
Platform One sent Ellis home. He was fine when he left in the morning. I think it must have been about lunchtime when somebody at the college realised he was coming down with the lurgi. He was home early afternoon: pale. feeling like crap, straight to bed. He wanted nothing to eat and no visitors. Mo and I gamely soldiered on until the inevitable: then we all had it. It was not Covid, so that was one blessing, but it is the father and mother of all coughs and colds and it hangs on like a native American tracker. So we still have it. Getting better though. Or so we tell ourselves.
TELEVISION.
Stuck inside I have watched more than my normal helping of television. Fortunately this has included two splendid series: a ten and a six parter, The ten parter was Series 5 of The Crown, a further reminder that the 'top people' in this country and throughout the world are mostly self-serving, lying bastards. There's a surprise!
The six parter was The English (still showing on BBC2), an intriguing western filmed in Spain. Wonderful acting by all concerned.

I no longer bother with chat shows. Not even Yasmin Alibhai-Brown or Owen Jones can rescue Vine from the fat, failed, right-wing hacks who appear every week calling themselves broadcasters. or the pointless ex politicians who now purport to be reality television stars.
They're on - I'm off!
BUT IT'S NOT ALL BAD.

GUTTERING SORTED.
Yesterday Stuart Boyd-Kerr and his cheerful team did a fine job replacing the guttering on the kitchen window side of the house. It will be quite a change not to be standing behind Niagara Falls when the next cloud bursts overhead. Thanks, lads.
Cheers everybody. 

Post 452. THE DRY SUMMER THAT WAS

 BECAME THE DIRE AUTUMN THAT IS

COLD, WET, AND WINTRY.
It isn't my time of year or my kind of weather, but it does give me the opportunity to indulge in the Englishman's top topic of conversation other than his dog and the shit state the country is in.
Yep. it's the weather again. Only a citizen of this daft kingdom can understand it, but the weather has always been an obsession with us, probably because we are a very small island and we get an awful lot of it: right now the sun is trying to peel the paint off the car outside; when I started writing it was pitch black and peeing down, and I switched on the desk lamp to see the keyboard.
That's only at Wootton Bridge. Family and friends living but a few miles from us can experience different weather from us and from each other. Rain. Shine. Wind. There's no sense to it.
And there's no sense to today's Britain, either. C'est la vie.
But it's not the country I was brought up in.
FINISHED READING

A COMPELLING INSIGHT into an actor's life.
A plane here, a boat there, a train elsewhere. If Alan Rickman's diaries had done nothing more they would at least have convinced me - stage fright apart - that I'd never have made it in the acting profession. It takes unflagging dedication, immense courage, and the patience to be tactful with any colleague of irksome ego. It takes a lot of wisdom and dependable gut instinct. He had it all. He also travelled a lot and seldom ate at home: a lot of restaurant owners and chefs will have missed him when he went. So will his bevy of lifelong friends. I only briefly saw him in person once (at Anthony Minghella's farewell service on the IW), but I liked him as did the many million others who enjoyed his varied acting performances. I don't think he'd want a lot of grief. I think he'd have tutted at that. RIP Mr Rickman. Your diaries are a welcome addition to my library.

Post 451. NO TIME FOR ADVERTS.

EVEN AS AN OVALTINEY

I IGNORED THE HYPE
Still do. My mother enlisted me into the Ovaltineys in the mid nineteen thirties just after they started on Radio Luxembourg. I cannot recall welcoming the experience. Even as a small boy I did not hanker to be part of a team or have more than one or two friends at a time. 'We are the Ovaltineys little girls and boys'  sounded like gang intimidation to me: I think my membership lasted little longer than it took them to sing their welcoming words. I didn't join the Boy Scouts, either. God alone knows why, aged 14, I went into the Royal (Corps of) Signals. It certainly wasn't by dint of any advert other than the glowing testimony of an older cousin who had joined Boys' Training Company two years before and loved it. In the end it did me no great harm to escape my mother's apron strings and get the soft edges roughened up a bit. But I never accepted shouting at people and OTT bullshit as an imperative to discipline, so I spent twelve years repressing the desire to openly opine: 'the bigger the mouth the smaller the brain,' and got out of uniform.
There followed all those years at the NHS: no shortage of pointless big mouths there, either.
So I still ignore hype from whatever source. Have no time for adverts (watch commercial television only after I have recorded it so I can run the adverts on), think PR is BS, and would cheerfully join the lynch party that disposed of whoever orders the annual buggering about with our clocks. Yeah, back again last thing Saturday night. No time for it!

THE ALAN RICKMAN DIARIES.
Have reached 2005 and the Harry Potter films are well underway. Alan Rickman writes glowingly of  HP3 - The Prisoner of Azkaban - directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and bluntly about the pressure put on the directors of all the Potter films by the corporate calculating machine that is Warner Brothers Pictures. I was pleased AR thought well of The Prisoner though. It was my favourite.

NO MORE THIS MONTH.
What?

I'm an hour adrift!     

Post 450. WHEN SOMEONE SAYS ARTISAN

THEY MEAN PRICEY

SAYS MY WORLDLY WIFE.
That's Mo (pictured wearing the artisan head paws) being thoroughly down-to-earth again.
We were watching Alan Titchmarsh's Love Your Weekend (ITV) on Sunday morning. It's the  usual chat showy mixture of forgettable information and celebrity guests advertising their latest book, play, film, TV series, something-to-sell etc., but ol' Titchy does it well and we don't feel the need to dress up like we would if we went to church. I think our presenter was introducing one of his forgettable information experts when he described her particular goods as artisan.
Mo shook her head: "I think he means pricey," she said.

Two minds with a single thought. No wonder we're still together.
THE ALAN RICKMAN DIARIES.

Now into 1995 I am becoming acutely aware that, no matter how universal the fame, an actor's life is routinely more worrying than glamorous. And this intelligent actor was far too principled to waste much time sitting on the fence.

LASTLY: LAST SATURDAY..

It was our lovely Hans' twenty second birthday last Saturday. Here she is with Ben, who we have yet to meet: I think she may wisely be shielding him from us.

Many Many Happy Returns, Little Buddy xx.

That's it again.     

     

Post 449. BACK AT THE COMPUTER.

 THIS IS WHAT YOU GIVE

A MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING.
For a man who has everything's birthday this year it was Stephen Hough's Dream Album CD and Madly Deeply the Alan Rickman Diaries: it was also, right out of the blue and our mad son's imagination, a fascinating Apollo Flexible Wooden Arm Sofa Tray that I never realized I needed. What? Oh, I still don't, but it makes me smile. For years I have been telling the family I am a man who has everything and neither needs nor expects birthday presents. It's nice they then spoil me with gifts I shall treasure. Mo will always remember from whom I received them, too. My memory doesn't stretch that far. Even old photographs can have me baffled. Who was that?
So how good is the Stephen Hough CD? Very good if you like beautifully played piano music. 
My late father, a decent pianist in the mould of Charlie Kunz, always said it was all down to 'light and shade' and I hope Stephen Hough would not be offended when I say I detected that touch in several of the tracks on this album (e.g. Songs My Mother Taught Me and Blow The Wind Southerly) and was transported right back to the days when I would say: "Go on, play Man In A Coffin, Dad." And he would smile and gently drift into Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor.
My respect for the acting prowess of the late Alan Rickman was first recorded in this blog way back in 2006 (Post 5) when I wrote: How can anyone help but admire a man who, in 1988, had Bruce Willis running barefoot through broken glass and in 1991 cancelled Christmas. What a worthwhile chap. If he'd never done anything else I'd still like him.

He did so much else in his acting career, both nuanced and bold, and I never stopped liking him.

So, following the news that his diaries were to be published in October, I cheekily hinted that I would rather like them as a belated birthday present this year. I got them.

I have just reached the end of 1993. Forget the fame and glamour, Christ didn't he work!
Would like to have met him, but doubt I would have found the courage to speak to him.

He was a star.

And that's it for now.    

Post 448. AN INCARCERATED CELL PHONE

LOCKED IN THE LIVING ROOM.

MY MOBILE STAYS IMMOBILE.
Like me it is very old and, like me most of the time, not switched on. As those good folk who sometimes check up on my meanderings will know, I annually resolve to open it up every day and regularly forget to do so. As those good folk etc. will also know, I don't much like telephones: spent too many NHS desk jockey years putting up with unwanted calls from irate health professionals to now regard a phone as anything other than a device with which to impart/import information. So, in the typical way of most blokes, I neither shop nor phone for fun.
THE JOY OF NOT BEING FAMOUS.
If you treasure your personal privacy, being famous must often be a thoroughgoing nuisance.
It is said that total strangers may regard you as their friend and some even feel they own you. Since I have never been and will never be famous, you may wonder why I now broach the matter. But the reason is a simple one: I am drawn to it by the recent step-backs from their workday world of such famous figures as concert pianist Philip Fowke, broadcaster Jeremy Paxman and, only today, the musical icon Daniel Barenboim. For such famous people, the realization that age and/or illness will determine an end to their customary high standard of performance, and thus mean their departure from it, must be pretty damned depressing. No matter how accustomed to public appearance they may be, making an announcement about it must be a daunting prospect. 

When I retired only the next guy down the ladder cared, He got my office. 

That's the joy of not being famous.

TO CONCLUDE.

IT IS TEACHERS' DAY 2022.
According to Google and I doubt they will be wrong.

Pity they were not able to add that teachers' pay will now go up worldwide. It won't, will it
But thanks for the info, Google.

Cheers one and all. Especially teachers.     
 

       

Post 447. DONE AND DUSTED

ANOTHER

THAT WAS MY 92ND.

Yes, the sands of time have been kind to me so I'll have no cause for demurral when the tide finally washes me away. I shall go loving my family, loathing most politicians, disliking almost all reality television, thankful for friends, and eternally grateful for the nice people, mostly on the lower rungs of the ladder, who have somehow made up for the many appalling pricks at the top.

I'm sure I've done the reflective thing in past posts, but repetition is no stranger to anyone who writes. Many far more professional writers than I have written one decent yarn and thereafter produced only modified versions of it, so why break the mould?

I have always been a part-time curmudgeon and a full-time cynic. It's too late to change that.
But somewhere between surliness and cynicism lurks the sentimental, and I am almost beyond words to express my gratitude for the kindness of family and buddies who sent messages and celebratory cards to us this week, or for the love of those who visited. Thank you, my dears.

That's all for this month.
There will be plenty to criticise in October. 

    
 

Post 446. ALL IS NORMAL AGAIN

AFTER AN UNUSUAL WEEK

WHICH IN THIS HOUSE MEANT:
Monday: The entire day was given over to the funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Thousands turned out for the Scottish and English processions and, worldwide, millions tuned in to see or hear as Britain did the only thing it still does better than any other nation in the world, put on a regal show of pomp and pageantry. Funerals usually run smoothly and, as we were incessantly told throughout, this one had been planned by HM herself, so nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing did. Nothing dared. So all well, then God Save The King.
Tuesday. Mo was at the ironing board and the old man was at the computer. I know. But bear in mind we were born quite a long time ago so don't suffer modern concepts gladly. Mo says she doesn't mind - actually quite likes - ironing, and I say I'm happy to keep out of the way. So she ironed and watched Eggheads on television in the living room, while I scribbled and listened to the Steepletone (Lars Vogt/ R.Northern Sinfonia) in the garden room that used to be called the conservatory but is now designated the garden room because it ain't got a glass roof (it's tiled).
Wednesday: Mo supermarket shopped and, behind her back, I shoved the Miele cleaner around the ground floor, A husband needs to be useful sometimes.
Thursday Was our 60th wedding anniversary. Mo's friends Heather and Sue visited us in the afternoon as did family members Jac, Mike, and Neil. Ellis is back at Platform One but was home later in the day. Pauline, who has both cancer and long-time insomnia, and is currently in line for more sessions of chemotherapy, is not up to lengthy visits, home or away, so was unable to make it. (We are not given to offering prayers, but our concern for her is deep and constant.) 

When we married there were those in both our families who thought it wouldn't last beyond six months. They knew not our stubbornness. So I still love the girl and she still puts up with me.

Friday: I put the dustbins out a day late because the Waste Disposal Operatives joined the rest of the world on Monday to watch the funeral: good on them. 

Saturday: Mo shopped, I brought in the emptied dustbins (thank you WDOs), and we had fish and chips from the local chippy for dinner. Yep, all is normal again.

JUST DON'T MENTION THE ECONOMY.

I THINK THAT SAYS IT ALL.
I hope, dear reader, you are going to get through it. Good luck to you.

We've no idea if we can.

But we're very very stubborn.  

Post 445. A PERIOD OF HUSHED VOICES.

 SO WHISPER IT,

LIZ TRUSS IS THE NEW PM.
Apparently not such a big share of the Conservative Party members' vote as anticipated, but 57% was enough. If you are at all interested in politics there is plenty about her on Wiki. Suffice to say she has held the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk since 2010 and a handful of government posts (each for a year or two) since 2014. Other than that I know no more about her than I do about the county of Norfolk, which amounts only to the waggish Noel Coward description: 'Very flat.'  But, with the state this country is in at present, good luck to her and all who sail with her.
I don't expect much, so I shan't be disappointed.
NO LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS.
Cancelled this year following the death of  Queen Elizabeth II. Not, I think, an action of which HM would have approved, but I can understand the organizer's quandary. What do you do in the face of national serfdom displaying 'got to be there' grief? You close everything else down, that's what you do. (Well, half the country seems to have joined The Queue in south-east London anyway.)

In this house earlier today, as I was getting dressed, the bedroom radio relaying  Classic FM, I quietly sang along to Eric Coates' London Suite. I have my own words to most of 'the world's greatest music' and they consist of 'mind your manners, son' in a variety of guises. I find the words fit any tune somewhere along the line and I may have just completed "Can't you, why can't you just mind your manners, son?" to The Knightsbridge March, when Maureen, in bed reading, looked over her glasses to say: "You're mad. I'm going to have you committed." 
"In London," I said portentously, "Thousands of people are standing for twenty four hours or more in the cold and damp to walk past a flag-covered coffin, and you're saying I'm mad?"
Dare I whisper we both laughed?

Back when it's all over

  

Post 444. SAD BUT NOT UNEXPECTED.

THE DEATH OF HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II.

AN ELDERLY LADY WHO DID ME NO HARM.
We were watching when television cameras at Balmoral showed the Queen inviting Liz Truss to form a government. It was a brief picture, but Maureen turned to me and said: "The Queen's looking more and more frail since Philip died: I can't help wondering how much longer she's got in this world." As this world now knows, it was barely a couple of days.
Whilst I commiserate with the Windsor family on their sad, but surely not unexpected, loss, I did not meet, or ever see in person, Queen Elizabeth throughout her entire reign; so I shall no more travel to place flowers against the wall of one of her palaces than I would go up the road to put flowers against the garden wall of a suddenly demised old neighbour I had never known. 

I regret her departure though.
I think what you saw was what you got with her. She saw through the creepers and had a degree of sympathy for the army of tongue-tied nobodies who landed in front of her year by year. I think she would have been both touched and appalled at the colossal reaction to her death. I think, too, she would have (probably always has) seen the funny side of what this country does better than any other in the world: producing an army of determined somebodies, in a variety of  suits and uniforms, to carry out weird and wonderful routines because they can. Nothing stops it.
In her own steady way I think Queen Elizabeth II has ensured nothing ever will. That's Britain.
I hope in death she will find whatever she hoped she might and will rest in peace.
I shall always think of her as an elderly lady who did me no harm.

Post 443. REGRET LETTING HIM GO?

THINK IT WAS AN

TO DISMISS THE LATIN SPOUTING LITTLE LIAR?
I don't, but it seems many of his party do. Master Johnson's fan club is already shouting the odds for all to hear. Saint BoJo may have been a bit of a naughty boy, but look at all the wonderful things he did whilst he was team leader; and he really did do them, you know, right now he is saying so all around the country at the taxpayers' expense, so it has to be true. The dear boy was betrayed in exactly the same way dear Donny Trump (that other indisputable paragon of virtue) was betrayed in America. But he will be back, just as dear Donny will. Make no mistake, an army of shitheads on both sides of the Atlantic cannot wait to re-select the pair of them. Christ help us.
Meanwhile it's no systems go until the new PM and her (?) little legion of lickspittles have wrought their own particular brand of havoc, and whatever is left of the UK faces its next general election (i.e. no later than 24 January, 2025), by which time a desperate public could finally vote the Liberal party into power. Well, could they do any worse?
Think so?
TELEVISION.
Mo and I watched This Beautiful Fantastic, a film written and directed by Simon Aboud, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I have since read mixed reviews and have concluded that the more fervent of its  detractors were of the sort that feels constrained to laud modern classical music. Ah well. So far as I am concerned, the film had a beginning, a middle, an end, and a fine cast of actors.
Y'don't often get that nowadays, more's the pity.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU, DEAR READER, TOO.
Whoever next claims to be running the country.
Let's face it: they've been ruining it for years.   

Post 442. STILL FOLLOWING THE PROMS.

DESPITE THEIR MODERNITY.

I REMAIN FAITHFUL BUT LESS EAGER.
Pushed on by avant garde conductors, concert orchestras now seem compelled to undertake at least one composition by a 'promising new composer' with every appearance they make. This year at the Proms there has been ample evidence that the practice is spreading. So far I have watched the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra conducted by Canadian-Ukrainian Keri-Lee Wilson give, with only a fortnight to prepare, a fine performance of Valentin Silvestrov's 7th Symphony (Mr. Silvestrov, Ukraine's leading living composer, left Kylv with his daughter and granddaughter, in March), of works by Beethoven and Brahms, and of  Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 played by Anna Fedorova. I have always thought Chopin's piano concertos to be nothing more than fancy tinkering up and down the scales with an occasional nod in the direction of the orchestra, and Brahms Symphony No.4 is very, very long, so the programme was not to my taste. But the orchestra was fine and the proms audience loved it.
I also watched Marin Alsop conduct the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra on their Proms debut: the programme consisted of works by Bartol, Prokofiev, Hannah Eisendle and Dvořák. I like Marin Alsop, I liked the orchestra, and I greatly respect the keyboard skills of Benjamin Grosvenor. Those were my positives. Everything else: from the Bartok - where the tramps should have done away with the mandarin at least ten minutes earlier - to Dvořák's Symphony No.7 which came from nowhere and went right back where it came from, was a negative.
So, too, was the Proms broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon and fronted by a favourite of every fun-at-the-Proms follower, violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Great orchestra, and always great to hear Pekka, but did he really have to let Vaughan Williams' lark out of its cage again? Never mind the number one choice of Classic FM listeners, I'd have shot that little bugger out of the sky long ago. To me, most twenty  and twenty first century classical music is a combination of the loudly discordant and the monotonously off-key. If I am alone in this, too bad. 
To quote the brilliant (recently retired) concert pianist Philip Fowke: "I'm not a student at all. I run on ignorance and prejudice...and instinct of course, that's very important."
He still is a brilliant pianist.
I still scribble this blog and follow the Proms: the latter less eagerly.

I don't like decimalisation and the metric system either.
But things will cheer up. They always do.
As Endeavour's Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) puts it: "Mind how you go."

Post 441. STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS.

 HOWEVER HONESTLY PRESENTED.

IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE.
No, you don't speak too openly, not in twenty first century England you don't. Now you tread warily. You choose your words with care. You avoid confrontation or giving offence. If you have two penn'orth of sense you keep clear of social media, too. ChitChat, TikTok, PatterNatter, FlipFlop - whatever trade moniker given it by some teenage billionaire.
And you ignore any comment by anybody who doesn't give their name, or by any 'former something-or-other' who does. Time was when a member of the NHS committee that purported to employ me (actually the government did) remarked that I was 'rather forthright' and I took it as a compliment, even if it did mean I would never progress beyond Deputy Clerk and Finance Officer. Most of the people who took exception to my bluntness were pompous small-town somebodies whose views concerned me not. I was my own man: never did learn.
Now it is different. Even my dear Leader warns me. You cannot - must not - be adversely outspoken about the way you see this country changing. It is no longer the England of your youth: the one you thought you knew. It is twenty first century England: the one you don't, and never really will, know. So keep your counsel. Do not rock the boat. Avoid words like 'tokenism.'
Though this may suggest otherwise, it really does not bother me all that much. Can't change it.
Early nineties, arthritis, diabetes, cancer: nobody lasts forever and my time has to be too limited for such trivia. But I worry for our descendants in the rat race they will perforce have to join.

Meanwhile it is BBC Proms time again so I am back watching 

TELEVISION.
Saw the vast and gifted National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain conducted by Andrew Gourley perform Danny Elfman's composition Wunderkammer (20 mins), Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue with Simone Dinnerstein superb at the piano, and Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe (50 mins). Loved the Gershwin, thought both the Elfman and the Ravel (in particular) were too long and went nowhere. But I am not a 'modern' music fan. The orchestra, though, was marvellous and the Proms audience (liberally sprinkled with NYOGB musicians' parents I guess) clearly enjoyed every moment wherever the music was or was not going. Wonderful.
Also saw Yuja Wang play Liszt's Piano Concerto No.1 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä. Brilliant.

How can someone who looks that good be that talented?
How many times have i asked that question?

That's it until the end of the month..     

post 440. MOSTLY THE TELEVISION SCREEN.

NOT IN THE CORNER.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LIVING ROOM.

Yep. A sad fact of life: television still reigns supreme in this house. The screen (it long ago ceased to be 'the box' didn't it?) stands slap bang in front of Mo and I and is watched, or at least switched on, for most of every day. God knows why. Much of it is garbage. But some of the repeated stuff can still be worth another look: so we  watch it, further praise the good, and re-lambast the bad.

Good or bad does of course depend on your perspective, and my likes or dislikes may not be yours or  those of a more kindly majority. When I look back, many of the television programmes I castigated from their very conception have since appeared in series after series, each attracting an adoring audience, and are still going strong. Ah well. To each his own.
Mo and I are currently attempting to intersperse the reality dross with Netflix. Mostly it works.

We saw Clint Easrwood's film  Cry Macho and it was slow but charming. The actor/director is four months older than me and looks it: but he can still ride a horse and deliver a quick punch. I pass.

We saw Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer and both enjoyed it even if,  halfway through, I did realize it was second time around for me. Yes...age again... you remember when it's too late.
For our sins we also watched James Weber Brown in Mark Greenstreet's Silent Hours. The film is set in Portsmouth, so we felt a compulsion to stay the course: we are, after all, Portmuthians who met and were married there. Mo eventually gave the film a kindly word on account of twists in the plot. I concluded, in a less kindly vein, that it took two and a half hours off my life and that was two and a half hours too long. Anyway, Pompey is not much of a lure to me. Never was.
To conclude, everybody seems to be complaining that it is too hot, so it was with some relief that I found my annual diabetes check-up being managed by a nurse of thirty years standing who said: "They're all moaning about the heat now. In a week or two's time, when it changes, they'll all be moaning about the rain. I tell 'em to enjoy this like it is. It won't last that long. And the grass will grow  again: it always does." 

God bless common sense. And I'm not in bad nick for an oldie. 

Post 439. HOORAY! THEY DID IT!

 ENGLAND 2 - GERMANY 1

AS IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW.
And, if you are English, how could you not? Last Sunday at Wembley the England women's football team beat the Germany women's team 2 - 1 in extra time to win the Euro 2022 Trophy. It was a landmark for the English against a country that had won the Trophy eight times and, if you were looking for a touch of gentle irony, the England manager, Sarina Wiegman, is Dutch.
So much for Brexit, eh?
A wonderful sporting achievement, though, and the utmost praise to all concerned. I just hope the resultant surge in interest won't lead women's football too close to that of the men. We can do without histrionics in the penalty area, attempted coercion of referees, off-field Facebook fights, or top teams so full of foreigners (see Chelsea 1999) that you can't pick a national side from the Premiership because there are barely enough English players there to form one. That apart, good luck to the girls in their quest for a better deal on the football front. They have had one helluva long wait.
HERE AT HOME.
If you are owned (or have ever been owned) by a cat you will know that, no matter how much you may kid yourself to the contrary, you never really know your feline owner: the most accurate one word description is unpredictable.
My Leader and I are currently owned by two cats: Spike and Angel. Spike, the little female, paying due homage to Mo, runs the show to suit herself; and that includes sleeping most nights by Mo's feet at the bottom of our bed.
Angel has adopted me on an increasingly permanent basis. I hold the door keys, as well as being keeper of the Felix goody bag packet, and nothing in the Angel world could be more influential than an elderly retainer who sidelines as doorman and caterer.
So on Sunday night he disappeared. He is a wanderer and has done it before, but not for too long since he moved here. We may not have worried, but by late Tuesday when calling and searching had brought no joy, we were increasingly concerned that he may have become trapped somewhere or have strayed into busy main road holiday traffic. Mo put a message on her social media outlets and got some nice responses from other cat people. But nobody had seen him.
At a quarter to eleven on Tuesday night I was standing at the loo having a last minute leak when he poked his head round the bathroom door to ask: "Got any cat treats?"
He never has fathomed privacy. Look at it: butter wouldn't melt.

And we still don't know where he was. 

Post 438. DON'T UNDERMINE OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

 WITH ALL THIS WONDERFUL EQUIPMENT.

DON'T BASTARDIZE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
The smartphone pictured at the end of my last post and the smart ipad shown above are not mine: though I greatly respect machine small talk's constant progressiveness, and am in awe of those who have mastered it, I do not yearn to be a part of it. And I do worry that it may concurrently be undermining our education system. 

Recently on Jeremy Vine (Channel 5) the television show where Mr. Vine jumps up and down from his seat like a hypochondriac on a flight to Australia, the presenter made one of his irksome trips to a blackboard to regale us with the, clearly very  modern, view that the apostrophe should be discarded from our language.

There is, he opined, no appreciable difference between 'your' and 'you're.'
The 'no swearing in this house' rule teetered wildly and, though I balk at insulting a guest in my home, I growled: "Do stop it. Your is one word, as in 'your middle-aged crisis is showing ' and you're is two words, as in 'you're talking a load of bollocks:' isn't that something you mostly do when the topic is bikes and cars?"
He didn't reply. I don't think he heard me.
Well I ain't goin' to ring 'im.
Perhaps, in an age when everything other than the medieval minds of some national leaders is subject to change, concern that our language is being crucified by ignorance masquerading as modernity will be dismissed by the change initiators as reactionary. But in accepting the bastardizing of English, surely we are both pandering to the idle and further undermining our oft unfairly criticised education system.
So do I have a particular axe to grind?  Well...yes....
I did leave elementary school knowing only three (noun, verb, adjective) of the eight parts of speech. I  did learn the others on a 'brush up your English' correspondence course opener at the age of twenty three. I did sit and proudly pass my sole GCE (English) when I was twenty six and otherwise taken up by a two terms 'change of career' course in bookkeeping at Clark's Commercial College, Southampton. I did have a column in the award winning Link W.H.A. newspaper for seventeen years. And I did complete sixteen years of this blog just four days ago. 
Oh, let the technically forward be literally backward if it suits them, but don't use that as an excuse to wreck good English. Some of us have worked to put our words in the right place. 
That's the end of the lesson.
It's footie now.
England v Germany. Women.

Fingers crossed.

Say no more. 

 

Post 437. WE ARE STILL SMILING.

 STILL STUCK AT HOME.

BUT WHO WANTS TO HEAD FOR DOVER?
Our home is located on the main road between Newport and Ryde. It is set well back and we have good double glazing, but our bedroom is at the front of the house so we usually sleep with the windows shut and the door wide open. The recent heatwave put paid to that: our little top window stayed open and sod the traffic. The occasional vehicle or two didn't trouble us.
We slept well enough, though I think that was helped by me closing the window on the way back from my early morning call to the bathroom.
As we sat in bed drinking tea on the first open window morning, Mo said:
"Oh, you've closed the window. When did you do that?"
"At about six o'clock," I said. "I thought by eight we might have the tail end of the traffic queue to Dover lined up out there."

Sorry, unhappy travellers, but how many of you voted to come out of Europe?

On Tuesday morning, at a little after nine o'clock, we were sitting in bed drinking tea. 

Mo was reading Barbara Taylor Bradford's Being Elizabeth.  I was listening to Classic FM.
AA (not the Automobile Association, the other one) was probably polishing off a full English whilst we listeners took in the final movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor.
Mo suddenly came out of her book to say: 
"This is nice. D'you think someone might use it as a theme tune?"
"What. after Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard did it to death with their Brief Encounter on a railway station?" I said. "I don't think even the television people would be so cheeky."
"Oh lor!" she said. "Was that the one?" And she went back into her book.
Y'know, I think ol' Sergei would have seen the funny side of that. 

I MAY BE BACK AT THE END OF THE MONTH

WITH A GRIPE ABOUT MODERN ENGLISH.
Or "What's the point of education?"
Hope you'll look in

Post 436. WHEN TECHNOLOGY LETS ME DOWN

 I AM FURIOUS.

EVEN IF IT IS MY OWN FAULT.

I have lost track of the number of times I have cursed to hell Google and everybody who works for it. The last time was at the conclusion of Post 435 (the one that says technology is wonderful) which originally concluded with a picture and a few more lines but then did that weird transference onto a one page too many page that retains your last few words but loses absolutely everything preceding them. Don't ask. It's a Google Blog thing. Perhaps it has something to do with taking up too much valuable space on the net. I dunno.
But I like a bit of space: it's the reason I don't do TikTok or why I constantly overlook bandying niceties on Facebook (from whom I recently received notice that there were twenty seven
messages awaiting my attention). It's not deliberate rudery or obtuseness. It's forgetfulness combined with a lack of technical savvy. I'm not proud of it, but I'm too old to care about it. 

I am also too old to blame Google when I bugger up the blog. Which won't stop me doing it.
What's life if you can't occasionally curse them up there?

THIS IS THE PICTURE

THAT CONCLUDED MY LAST POST.

Her name is Betty and she is standing in for our daughter, Jacqueline.
Why?

Because I don't have a single picture of Jackie, with or without Mike, on my computer.

What did I say? It's forgetfulness combined with...
Have a good holiday.
Try to avoid the road to Dover

Post 435. YES, TECHNOLOGY IS WONDERFUL..

WHEN IT WORKS.

AND LAST THURSDAY IT DID.
Yes, thanks to Live Streaming on YouTube, and a considerable amount of aged blundering on the computer, last Thursday we were able to see our lovely (courtesy) granddaughter Hannah Woods' degree ceremony at Nottingham University. If you blinked you missed her (so many smart young people on display), but we were fully focused and the few seconds in which she did appear were magic to us.
A lot of salt water has flown under the non-existent bridge to the island since Hans's first visit here. She was, I am reliably informed, nine years of age then. She quickly bonded with Jac and quietly became one of the family. To me she has always been, and will always be, my little buddy.
Now look at her. Grown up. Confident. A good degree (2:1) in Broadcast Journalism and, recently, a new job that promises extremely well for the future.
We could not be more pleased for her or more proud of her.
Bravo, little buddy!
Onwards and upwards!

    

Post 434. BOJO'S OUT THEN.

 EVENTUALLY SHOWN THE 

BUT NOT AN  EASY DEPARTURE..
Well, did anyone imagine it would be a simple farewell? What, to Master Johnson? When was anything ever that straightforward? He's the limpet PM. Finally kicked out, he apparently means to cling on to 10 Downing Street as Caretaker Prime Minister "until his successor is elected."
He blames his failure on the herd instinct, not on himself. Well he would, wouldn't he.

Now he will hang about in the wild hope that during the next three months there will be a  magical change in the world of politics -  where, it is said, a week is a very long time - and that something along the lines of  Putin dragging the world into WW3 will force Britain to acknowledge its need for a Winston Thatcher Johnson to save us from a fate worse than death.  
Dream on, Sunshine, dream on... 

In the next few weeks I shall try to contain my laughter at the wildly ambitious antics of those eager to replace the artful todger (sic) at No.10. Many of the contenders will have been Cabinet ministers, headed several departments and been singularly useless at all of them. They will make promises that even their former leader may have thought questionable. They will employ professional advertisers who will make sure the description 'reliable' and 'experienced' is bandied about a lot, and they will do a painful amount of faux smiling and limp hand shaking. They may even be photographed putting overpriced petrol into a total stranger's car.
It's open season on gullibility, folks, so enjoy the show but know you're going to finish up with the same self-serving charlatans. 

And for every one who doesn't believe them there will be one who does.
It's enough to drive you to

TELEVISION.

Which to us means mostly documentaries, fictional cops (home grown and foreign), or films on Netflix. On the documentary front we have enjoyed Francesco da Mosto's Mediterranean Voyage from Venice to Istanbul and still enjoy Secrets of the London Underground presented by Tim Dunn and London Transport Museum's Engagement Manager, Siddy Holloway. Tim's enthusiasm is infectious and any man who doesn't cast an appreciative second glance at Siddy...

What? Aren't I supposed to say that now? 

Get off! My Mo would think there was something wrong with me if I didn't.
All the best to you and yours. 

       

Post 433. TALKING ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL.

WHICH LOOKED LIKE THIS.

NOT THE OTHER ONE which was larger but occasionally looked like a cheerful evening in a home for retired entertainers: Where was that again? Glastonbury? Well they both had a lot of visitors so they must be doing something right.

On the Isle of Wight the early favourites included Madness, much loved over here (though Suggs, constantly interrupted in an off-stage interview, was not sure that the Red Arrows were being particularly friendly):the group did most of their popular numbers and everybody loved 'em. They were followed by the likes of Lewis Capaldi, The Charlatans, Kasabian, Mark Owen, Peter Tong, The Kooks and,to conclude the last night, Muse, one of the best bands on any festival stage anywhere, singer Matt Bellamy showing, for the benefit of those of us who who are blissfully unaware of such things, that he is a versatile and gifted musician too. We watched quite a lot of it on television. Ellis went, was sensibly selective in what he watched, came the couple of miles home each night rather than camp at Seaclose, and did not set eyes on his father, Mark, who was also there and who later had Covid. Ellis was lucky as was our daughter Roz's friend Wendy: she, with her daughter Lyla, was also at the festival. They came in to see us on their way back to Brighton. It was so good to see them again and exchange news.

As for Glastonbury. We also watched quite a bit of that on television. 

Neither Diana Ross nor Paul McCartney has as strong a voice as they once had, but they still have great stage presence and a faithful following. Which is surely what drives them on. They don't need the money, do they? 

And it didn't rain on anybody. Lovely.
I JUST STILL WISH

I HAD LEARNED TO PLAY THE PIANO.
Too late now.
But I do see some of the best pianists in the world on YouTube.

They nearly all speak English, too. What luck.

Just watched Peter Donohoe chatting, slightly uncomfortably I thought, to a select group at St.Mary's Perivale. Somebody really should have offered him a glass of water early on.
After his 1982 success in the Tchaikovsky competition I saw him play Rachmaninoff's 3rd  at Portsmouth Guildhall. Remember being vaguely disappointed at first (believe I thought it was going to be the 2nd), but finished up a lifelong admirer both of the 3rd and that performer.
He is still a fine musician and a nice down-to-earth man.
The same obviously goes for young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki. His YouTube appearance with orchestra conductor Peter Oundjian discussing the cadenzas of Beethoven's piano concerti is fascinating even to a viewer who knows not a single note of music (not even tonic sol-fa).

Whatever your musical taste, enjoy it whenever and wherever you can.
Cheers. 

Post 432. I HAVE AGAIN LOST MY GMAIL.

NO MESSAGES IN OR OUT.

NOBODY CAN FIND IT.
That's it. Nobody. Not even computer lifeboat captain Neil.
I asked Ellis and he tried. No luck. He thought I would have to ask Neil. So I did.
I try not to call out the computer lifeboat nowadays - our son has more than enough on his plate - but he happened to be here, for some reason beyond my elderly recollection, and I quickly roped him in to investigate why the server is so firmly rejecting my login. He had limited time but he tried. No luck. So if you are one of the few who has my email address and has intended using it to message me; forget it,  friend. I have hit a wrong key somewhere and that's that for now. 
What? Oh I have Googled it. Plenty of instructions from experts, none of whom I can understand. So back we go to

TELEVISION.

AND HOORAY FOR NETFLIX where we recently binge watched Stranger Things. Lovely lunacy.
For good measure we watched (and, in some cases, re-watched) our every recorded episode of Beck. Lively police action apart, Peter Haber as Martin Beck and Ingvar Hirdwall as his neighbour are a double act par excellence. It takes talent and experience to get timing that good. Bravo!

We also tuned in to the BBC series Sherwood. A superb cast played James Graham's harrowing story of lasting embitterment in a defunct mining village to perfection. David Morrissey, as DCS Ian St. Clair, topped the list of a cast packed with star actors. A thought-provoking six episodes.

That's all for this month.
Try to be safe. Try to be considerate.

On the world situation? Words fail me

 

 

 

Post 431.WHY I AM NOT SURPRISED

AT THE DISAPPEARING PM 

WHO WILL BE IN UKRAINE milking popularity the moment the shit threatens to hit the fan at home. It ain't diplomacy, folks, it's self-preservation that activates the Winston Thatcher persona, and it does not surprise me in the slightest. Now the crafty little responsibility dodger has been seeking further approval in Ukraine. Partygate won't go away and Master Johnson's sniffy Latin one-upmanship obviously eschews the phrase hircum hic sistit.

Here at home his universally detested Home Secretary, Priti Patel, is seriously considering the electronic tagging of all uninvited Channel crossers, presumably on the grounds that they are all petty criminals too. Oh dear oh dear. But I am not surprised. 

NOR WAS I SURPRISED

TO LEARN THAT THE COLUMNIST YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN'S recent fall, as she was boarding an underground train in London, left her lying helpless and in considerable pain on the floor of the carriage for two stops without a solitary approach by a fellow passenger. Three people finally came to her assistance as they were coming to the third stop, but her experience from then on was equally distressing until she finally came into kindly staff hands and eventually reached hospital where it was found she had badly broken bones in her upper right arm. She will by now have undergone surgery and one can only hope that all will go well and wish her a swift and complete recovery. But she had not encountered the sort of London she thought she knew.
Sadly, I am not surprised. I have a village mentality and, on my few solitary visits to London, found it to be the loneliest place in the entire world. You didn't pass the time of day there. But she has lived and worked there for years and thought she knew it. I am sorry it has changed for her.
For me England today is an insular self-serving shambles much like its government.

Which unfortunately has no opposition so is unlikely to be dislodged in my lifetime.

So to end on a happier note... 

GLAD THAT IAN RANKIN HAS BEEN KNIGHTED.

I THINK HE'S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS

A damn good writer, too.

That's it for now.
Talk Isle of Wight Festival at the end of the month.