Up the workers!

I’ve never been on strike in my life, not even when that cow Thatcher was in power. I’ve worked for over 32 years and still have a few years to go before I’m meant to retire and take the pension I’ve been paying for since I turned 18, though too many years (months, actually) to be allowed to retire at 60 under the current Government’s proposals. Meanwhile, 30-odd years of pension contributions will be handed to a Private Equity firm to piss away in the direction of its shareholders, all connected to the Tory party.

In the last 18 months, there has been talk of such things as rolling back the EU Working Time Directive, making it easier for employers to sack people, denying workers the right of recourse to an Industrial Tribunal, repealing Health & Safety and Trades Union laws, privatising the NHS and God knows what else. Britain is being frogmarched back in time: not to the 1940s, 30s or 20s, but to the 1800s. That rumbling sound you hear is Victorian social reformers rolling in their graves. This is where we are going, so fasten your seatbelts; we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Perhaps it’s time to have a North African- or Middle-Eastern-style revolution in this country? Who wouldn’t go out onto the streets and honk their car horns or toot on their vuvuzelas when the revolutionaries arrest Thatcher and hang her on live TV, or someone breaks Cameron’s legs when he’s running away then finishes the job before the ambulance turns up? Let’s not spare the LibDems in this political cleansing. It’s a shame there’s no statue of Nick Clegg to be toppled in Sheffield (though Sheffield Forgemasters may be making one for that purpose) and that Danny Alexander is the tosser, not the caber at his local Highland games.

No, sadly, we have to do it all at the ballot box, and with the LibDems having sold their soul (and principles) for the sake of a ride in a Ministerial car, we’ll never see PR at Westminster, leaving the election odds stacked against democracy for another 90-odd years. The Murdoch media and The Mail, The Express and The Telegraph have such an influence on public AND political opinion that Thatcher’s generation of cruel, selfish bastards is continuing to do her work for her, exactly 20 years after she was removed from power. Some of them are on the Labour benches.

Oh, those Russians

I’ve only seen the BBC SSO twice this season. Both concerts have featured Prokofiev piano concertos played by Denis Kozhukhin, and were conducted by tiny Chinese people. I’m going again next week, even though the soloist plays the cello and Andrew Manze is neither tiny nor Chinese. I embrace diversity.

The first half of last Thursday’s concert was enjoyable and intriguing in equal measure. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 (the ‘Classical’) started the ball rolling. It has been a favourite of mine for many years, even before I knew what it was. As I child, I watched a short-lived children’s drama serial called ‘The Flaxton Boys’. I couldn’t tell you anything about it other than that part of the Classical Symphony was used as the theme music. Stravinsky’s ‘Petrushka’ concluded the first half, but the rarely played 1911 version was aired this time to tie in with one of the orchestra’s themes for this season; erm, 1911. Lots of brass, and very loud. Just how I like it. What, though, did Stravinsky think was wrong with it?

It was Prokofiev’s turn again at the start of the second half, his Piano Concerto No. 1, and the concert was wrapped up by another excuse for the orchestra to pump up the volume, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Francesca da Rimini’. Denis Kozhukhin returned afterwards for the Coda: Schoenberg’s ‘Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke’ and György Ligeti’s ‘L’escalier du diable’ from ‘Études pour piano’ (finding all these funny letters is giving me eye strain). OK, one’s an Austrian and one’s Hungarian, but it’s not every day I get to quote Boney M.

The concert was marred by my sitting adjacent to (but over the terrace fence from) an ugly, fat, smelly, bearded bloke who insisted on trying to strike up a conversation with me about the orchestra, other orchestras, various concerts and a nearby guide dog. He also had the irritating habit of breathing in and out through his nose. It took him until the second half to get the hint, following which he proceeded to bore the poor, unsuspecting individual to his left.

As for the other, less illustrious orchestra, the Christmas concert is fast approaching, and practice has ground to a halt. Rehearsals have been, for me, uninspiring, as I have too much other work to do to stop and try to figure out how much of the Tchaikovsky I can attempt, and although Schubert has been unceremoniously given his marching orders, we have two new, allegedly easy pieces to contend with; ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Well, someone does. I can’t stand it.

As I type, Celtic are at home to St. Mirren. This is the second successive home game I have missed due to the inclement weather. It is also the second successive home game in which they have scored two goals early on in the blink of an eye. They nearly made a pig’s ear of it on Wednesday. Who knows what will happen today? After the soaking at the Hibs game a few weeks back, and lacking in any suitable protective clothing, I have had to boycott the fitba’ for the good of my health, physical as well as mental. Normal service will probably be resumed in two weeks time for the visit of Heart of Midlothian (weather permitting), and I’d love to meet whoever it was who had the bright idea to schedule the game with St. Johnstone for Christmas Eve. It was originally meant to kick off at 3pm, but someone must have alerted the authorities to the complete lack of public transport after 4pm that day. It will now (weather permitting) start at 1pm, which is bad enough. Of course, the late December Saturday home game has not featured in my plans in recent years due to illness and poor weather. I may yet find myself indoors again enjoying ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’.

In just over an hour, I have to get ready to brave the elements and drive to Paisley Town Hall again for another concert. It had better be good.

Modern Art* Is Rubbish

(*music)

Is it? When I stagger out of the cold into a modern art gallery (a gallery displaying ‘modern art’ or ‘art installations’) I walk round at high speed, tutting and shaking my head in disbelief. Who could forget the talking mushrooms or talking garden shed in the 'Playing John Cage' exhibition at the Arnolfini in 2005, or the film of a guy dressed as a bear wandering at night round the entrance hall of a deserted airport at Tate Liverpool in 2007 (Mark Wallinger's Turner Prize winner), or the piece of graph paper with dots on it (possibly also in Liverpool)? I have to admit that I liked those metal statues on Crosby beach by Antony Gormley, and there’s been the odd painting or sculpture along the way that I’ve not guffawed at, but most things leave me cold or muttering ‘I just don’t get it’.

The same goes for music. Last week, it was James MacMillan. This week, it was Sally Beamish. Cue the plinky-plonky, the screechy or the downright tuneless (or any combination thereof). I don’t doubt that they’re gifted individuals, and both they and others of that ilk (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies springs to mind) enhance the reputation of Scotland throughout the world (well, anyone who’s not a violent drunk or a sectarian bigot could do that), and they are probably kind to children and animals, but until they can write a decent tune that the Old Greys (of Whistle Test fame) could walk down Buchanan Street (Glasgow or Milngavie) whistling, they are not what I want to listen to. I like Max’s ‘Farewell to Stromness’, though, and that’s a big compliment coming from me.

In June, the BBC SSO gave us ‘Made in Sweden’, a free concert which was recorded for BBC Radio 3’s modern music series ‘Hear and Now’. The second piece featured the young Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth (cue comical attempt at pronounciation of her name by presenter Jamie MacDougall) and this was the programme:

Victoria Borisova-Ollas Angelus (c.20') (UK Premiere)
Britta Byström Förvillelser (Delusions)* (c.16') (UK Premiere)
Tobias Broström Transit Underground (c.10') (UK Premiere)
Anders Eliasson Symphony No.4 (UK Premiere) (c.25')

No, I can’t whistle any of the tunes, but I recall liking a couple of them, and promised myself that I’d investigate further. I’ve not done so, as yet, but I’m hoping that this particular blog jogs my memory. Not all music composed in the last few years is inaccessible or impossible to listen to, but some composers seem to love driving people nuts.

Milngavie Music Club’s November recital was given by the Elias Quartet, comprising two French sisters on 1^st Violin and Cello, a Swede on Viola and a Scotsman on 2^nd Violin. They opened with Haydn’s String Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2. I’d not heard this piece before, and though it was quite old-fashioned in its style (dating from 1772), it was enjoyable. The other work in the first half was ‘Reed Stanzas’ by the aforementioned Sally Beamish. She wrote about it in the concert programme, but it didn’t help. Even as someone who has attempted to play Scottish fiddle music in the past, this did not leap out at me as something inspired by that tradition (probably more a lament on the pipes, actually, when Donald Grant was playing on his own) and it did suffer from two of the symptoms mentioned above. Beethoven’s String Quartet in B Flat, Op. 130 (from 1826), with the Grosse Fuge, Op 133 as its finale, took up the entire second half. This extravaganza lasted over 50 minutes, and if I’d known I was going to suffer from a dodgy tummy, I’d probably have left at the interval. I felt, as I do with Bach, that I can tolerate most things in small doses, but there is a finite time during which I can sit without distress or an excess of fidgeting. After it was over, it was time for a nocturnal visit to Tesco in a monsoon. What an exciting life!

Lest We Forget

I’ve been watching the Remembrance Sunday service from the Cenotaph for decades, and rarely miss the broadcast. It seems to come round quicker every year, and it’s hard to shake off the spectre of one’s own mortality when two of the Queen’s grandsons, both serving in the military, now regularly take part in the ceremony. It’s not that long ago that the Queen Mother was an ever-present, or Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, or even King Olaf of Norway. 2011 is the first year in which there are no (known) surviving veterans of the Great War, and the majority of combatants of World War II are in their late 80s and 90s. I have not watched the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance for such a long time, but I remember, year after year, being moved by the sight of the Chelsea Pensioners marching down the steps into the Royal Albert Hall, and knowing that they had served in the 1914-18 conflict (and possibly even the Boer War, if you consider that I started watching it as a child). My father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers missed both World Wars by accident; too old or too young, and I have yet to find evidence of any significant losses in the their immediate families, avoided more by luck than design.

The relatively recent innovation of the veterans’ march-past shows the decrease in ex-serviceman from the 40s and 50s able to attend such an event and an increase in those from conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, as well as both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan. A number of organisations associated with those who served in WWII have disbanded due to lack of members and funds, and it is only a matter of a few years before the 1939-45 conflict ceases to be living history in these islands. The wars of conquest and colonialism are rarely, if ever, celebrated or commemorated (what was all that nonsense about Trafalgar Day?), so when will Britain stop marking the Armistice or VE Day, and when will this ceremony be rendered as redundant as the troops this Government is soon going to throw on the scrapheap? Sadly, Britain has been involved in a number of military incursions and adventures since 1945 (most of them under Tony Blair’s term, or am I just being bitter?), and a new tradition has developed in the House of Commons; prior to Prime Minister’s Question Time, the names of the military dead of the previous seven days are read out to Parliament. Why? To remember them? To honour them? To assuage the guilt of people who should never have sent them there in the first place?

Even before I started school, I was aware of a very interesting point. When I used to walk with my gran to shops around a mile away, I would do what every child did; try to avoid walking on the cracks in the pavement, balance on the edge of the pavement like a tightrope walker, step off and on raised sections of the footpath, pretend I was playing hopscotch, etc. There was one area I could not comfortably walk on; some nearby tenements has flagstones arranged in a border below their ground floor window (some dwellings had a little patch of grass, some had concrete slabs), and these were dimpled at intervals along their length. Every time I saw them, I asked my gran why they were like that, and she would tell me that there used to be fencing there, and it was cut down during the war. I didn’t understand until many years later that the metal had been taken away for melting down to make weapons. Britain was unready for war in 1939, and I believe that it may also have been unprepared in 1914, yet we are scaling down our armed forces at a dangerous time.

Greece and Italy are in financial meltdown. Spain and Portugal may be the next to go. All of these countries have a bloody past, and the people have not been shy to take up arms. Imagine a Civil War in Greece, with the danger of it spreading to Turkey or Cyprus. Add to the mix Albania, and the possibility of renewed ethnic tensions in Kosovo, leading to conflict with Serbia or even FYR Macedonia, and the whole tinderbox of the Balkans coming into play. The poorest EU nations, Bulgaria and Romania, lie to the east, and Turkey’s neighbours? Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia and Iraq with its Kurds in the north? Bloody hell. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? Apart from in Turkey, can you see the (equally financially-strapped) Yanks getting involved in this (for the right reasons, not for oil or to attack Iran), especially with the Russian bear on permanent standby, and China (and North Korea) unlikely to be on our side? Everyone has a grudge against us, and what have we got to defend ourselves? A threadbare, demoralised military, no aircraft carriers and the Eurofighter! All that money for a Public School education and not one of them appears to have studied the history of Europe.

Back to the Cenotaph: the part played by the military bands, and their influence on me, cannot be ignored or even underestimated. I was inspired to take up the clarinet as a result of my annual exposure to this traditional event (sadly, I have let not only myself down, but all those musicians of the RAF and Royal Marines by being too lazy to learn to play it properly, and was never able to fulfil my ambition of joining the RAF to play in its bands). I may have made the wrong choice, as usual; I still can’t understand why I never took up a brass instrument, as they play the most prominent roles in military music. One of the pieces most associated with the ceremony is ‘Nimrod’ from the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar, and I was privileged to be in the orchestra for the summer concert in June when this was part of our programme. We will not be playing anything so heartrending in our next concert in four weeks time, which is just as well. I don’t like to have tears welling up in my eyes when I’m trying to read the music.

I'll sleep when I'm dead

It’s been a busy week. Contrary to all the available evidence, I don’t lead a very exciting life. I just go out occasionally, sometimes all in the one week.

It appears that I did the right thing by taking the day off after the BSP gig. My eyes hadn’t un-crossed themselves from all that driving and my head hurt like I’d been drinking all night. One of these days (or nights) I WILL drink all night and I’ll have an excuse for feeling that way. After some grocery shopping around lunchtime, I returned home with the intention of doing something useful, but I fell asleep around three and didn’t wake up until six. What a waste of a day!

I was still grumpy when I went to Tuesday’s rehearsal. The previous week, we looked at the second page (for us clarinettists) of ‘Finlandia’ and the first two sections of ‘Zadok The Priest’, and we were introduced to our special Christmas treat for this year; Leroy Anderson’s ‘A Christmas Festival’, a wacky mishmash of various carols, some played at the same time by different sections of the orchestra. I was so inspired that I actually practised on each of the three following evenings. This time, we looked at the Handel and the Anderson again, but also spent some time on the Triumphal March from Aida, endeavouring to negotiate the announced cuts in the piece. Who knows what will be in or out by the time we get to rehearse with the choir?

I had forgotten that I had a ticket for the theatre on Wednesday, and it was a bitter blow when I realised that I was faced with an additional evening out. I think I’ve seen four plays since the summer, yet another example of feast or famine. This time, it was back to the Citizens Theatre for their production of ‘A Day in the Death of Joe Egg’ by Peter Nichols, which actually premiered in that very theatre in 1967. It must have been quite shocking for its time, and even today, when people are more open about disability, there were cringeworthy moments galore in this black comedy about a married couple trying to cope with caring for their ‘spastic’ daughter (she had a severe form of cerebral palsy). There was a lot of talking to the audience (as if we were a sounding board for everyone’s troubles), which I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much of in a play (plenty of times on TV, though) and the house lights were on when these sequences were happening, which only added to my discomfort. I suppose one is meant to think how one would react and survive in the same circumstances, and I was on the side of the child being institutionalised, or even of euthanasia, rather than being in denial about the gravity of her condition, its effect on everyone’s life and the eventual outcome. I’m a hard, un-sentimental bastard, though. The play was, ultimately, a very thought-provoking piece, and well-acted by Miles Jupp and Sarah Tansey as Josephine’s parents; Joseph Chance and Olivia Darnley as their ‘friends’ Freddie and Pam, and there was a nice cameo in the second half by Miriam Margolyes, whose grandfather was from the Gorbals! The young girl who played Josephine (sadly, it was not announced which of the two in the programme was playing the part that night) gave an outstanding performance.

Thursday came and went without major incident, unless you count my forgetting to record the Celtic v Rennes game (no, I didn’t go, as it’s not on the Season Ticket). A makeshift Celtic side came back from a goal down (yes, another early goal resulting from poor defending) to win 3-1. Both Stokes and Hooper scored, and Samaras was praised by (almost) all and sundry. Miracles will never cease. It was nice to stay in and catch up with some jobs then indulge in my latest diversion; tweeting a load of old rubbish during Question Time.

Last night was the first Friday of the month, and that meant Kilmardinny Music Circle. November’s featured artists were the Sutherland Duo, two posh blonde birds in long black dresses, one on violin and one on piano. The violinist looked like she was on her way to the Ambassador’s reception and the pianist, in velvet, looked like she was the very tall one at a children’s birthday party in Kensington. They arrived at their name, after much deliberation, having discovered that they both had ancestors from Sutherland. Aww, that’s nice. Anyway, what did they play and were they any good at it?

They opened with the Sonata No. 3 in D Major by Jean-Marie Leclair (no, it is not him, Leclerq), the French Barqoue composer, and Harriet Mackenzie explained that her violin dated from the same time as the piece they were playing. They contrasted this with Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in G Major op 78, written in memory of the deceased son of fellow composer Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (with whom Johannes Brahms was in love).

After the interval, the Spotlight performer was 20-year old Glynn Forest, a 4^th-year student at the RCS (that’s RSAMD for oldies like me), and he gave us a couple of tunes on the marimba; Bach’s Fugue from the Sonata No. 1 for Violin and ‘Rotation’ by someone called E. Sammut. I know I should go and look him/her up on t’Internet, but I’m too lazy. Anyway, it was an unusual and pleasant interlude, and something to think about while the main act bored the arse off people with some horrendous thing by James Macmillan. They followed this with a trio of well-known and much-loved Elgar miniatures; (a rather hurried) ‘Salut d’amour’, ‘Chanson du matin’ and ‘Chanson de nuit’. Finally, they gave a stirring rendition of ‘Zigeunerweisen’ by Sarasate. Harriet told some story about studying in America with someone who liked gypsy music. I couldn’t pay attention because I was trying not to laugh every time she uttered the word (which was quite a lot in just a couple of minutes). It sounded so incongruous coming out of her mouth in those plummy tones that she might as well have been talking about ‘darkies’. I’m easily amused, obviously, and I know I shouldn’t mock, but what else is there to do? All joking aside, I enjoyed the recital.

I’ve been out on other business today, and hopefully I’ll have avoided the plague that appears to have infected a large number of my fellow Glaswegians. I get rather worried when I hear children and young women coughing like old men with consumption. I think it’s going to be a long winter. Whilst waiting for another insipid M&S steak pie to emerge from the oven, I caught the last few minutes of the Middlesbrough v Watford game. Boro won 1-0 (with a disputed Scott McDonald goal) and extended their unbeaten run at the Riverside to 15 games. Yes, under Tony Mowbray! I’m pleased that they’re doing well, but concerned at the attendance. I know it’s Bonfire Night, and it’s a bit cold, and the game is on TV, but surely they can muster up a bigger crowd than that, especially when they’re going great guns in the Championship (third behind leaders Southampton and Big Sam’s West Ham)? Times are tough, and Teeside is suffering probably more than most areas, but are Boro so desperate that they felt the need to e-mail me and ask me to go and see them today?!

If I don’t fall asleep, or have a heart attack when a firework goes off outside my window, I’ll be off to Paisley tomorrow evening for a performance of ‘Carmina Burana’. I have no idea why.