Sales of the century

At the end of last month, I bought a shirt and a cardigan. A few days later, I bought another cardigan. Not long after that, I bought two coats. Two of those purchases were at full price; the second cardigan and one of the coats. I have, as yet, not worn that full-price coat, one I had coveted for ages. Yes, my bum looks big in it, as does my belly, but it is nice. I’d just be happy if I could go somewhere that I could wear it. Not long after this, I bought another cardigan. I’ve not worn it, yet.

Prior to Christmas, I thought I’d get a bag to go with the coat I’ve not worn yet. The coat is grey, so I wanted a black bag. In the interim, I acquired yet another reduced-price cardigan, and grey jeans when I wanted dark blue! No, I’ve not worn them, either. I got a bag, eventually, and slightly cheaper than its original price (but more expensive than any other bag I had ever bought), but if I’ve got a coat and a bag, I need to have shoes. The bag is leather, yet I bought a pair of suede ankle boots, just because they were cheap. A few days later, I bought another two coats, one of brown suede and the other blue corduroy. The latter had been on my radar for ages, but never in my size (or never in blue) so I had to have it before it was too late. Sadly, it is even better than the grey one from November, and I have no idea if I will ever go anywhere that I can show it off. I needed a bag to go with that, too, and I found one. Luckily, Christmas came, and the shops were shut.

Well, today is Boxing Day, and that means one thing. Yes, back to the shops. I started off in M&S in Argyle Street, at the back end of the ground floor. I left that area of the shop with a half-price pair of black Chelsea boots, and before I’d left the shop, I got a casual jacket I had liked for weeks but had not wanted to pay funny money for. Next stop, Debenhams, and a lovely little green velvet blazer I couldn’t afford in July and never saw again no matter how many branches I had visited. There was only one in the shop this morning, and it was in my size. It was fate. On my way to the bus stop, I popped into Frasers’ to laugh at people paying hundreds of pounds for handbags then I took the bus up to Sauchiehall Street. First stop here was also M&S, and I left with a smart pair of trousers and yet another bag, but the spending spree came to a juddering halt when I discovered that John Lewis was closed! Oh, no! I’ll have to go back tomorrow.

My clothes collection is limited both by the size of my wardrobe, and the depth of my bank balance, and I have never been interested in fashion. I am also old, and the wrong shape and size. If these impediments weren’t present, I could keep the British economy going single-handedly, but I don’t need to. There are plenty of other women out there who are happy to help. Our brains really are wired that way. We’re all nuts, but nowhere near as nuts as those parents who are happy to send their kids out to the sales to queue up outside Abercrombie and Fitch (whatever the hell that is) to get clothes that make them look like every other teenager in that queue, and like Americans. No thanks.

and a Merry Christmas to you, too

Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas. Peace on earth and goodwill to all men. ‘Tis the season to be jolly. Fa la la la la, fa la la la. You know, I was just thinking as much as I struggled to get out of various queues in various shops the other day. Christmas means different things to different people; to me, ‘tis the season to over-indulge; the season to be acquisitive; the season to be sad, lonely and suicidal. What about those lucky enough to have family and friends?

Men and women of all religions and none give gifts to those they care about, and sometime those they don’t care about. Men and women of all religions and none receive gifts in the spirit in which they were given, then try to find some way to use them to impress the gift giver or find some place to hide them away until they are forgotten by the gift giver. Families get into debt to buy the latest doll or computer games console or fashion item. They erect ridiculously large trees and adorn their houses and gardens with enough lights and illuminated Santa Clauses on ladders to power a medium-sized town for a year (probably). They must keep up with the Joneses, and their kids must not be embarrassed in the company of friends and school chums. I know how that feels, but is that what Christmas is all about?

Men and women of various Christian denominations observe it as their religion dictates. There’s usually some altercation in or around one of the ‘holy’ sites in Jerusalem; remember when the Israelis weren’t going to let Yasser Arafat go to some service or other? Today, or more accurately, yesterday, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster (England’s most senior Catholic, not the UK’s most senior) Archbishop Vincent Nichols, one presumes a single, unattached, celibate man, chose Christmas as a time to attack plans for ‘gay marriage’. Peace on earth and goodwill to all men (i.e. mankind)? I’m not gay (or owt; still remembering Mark and Lard at Christmas, eh?), but if marriage is such a wonderful institution, why doesn’t the Roman Catholic Church allow its predatory priests to marry? It would keep a lot of them out of trouble. Every year, someone (an evangelical Christian) sends me a Christmas card that I never open. A little label on the envelope reads ‘Jesus is the reason for the season’. If there really was a God, I’m sure that, in his omnipotence, he’d have ensured that his ‘son’ was named ‘Jeason’, for the sake of alliteration. If Jesus IS the reason for the season, this season of goodwill to all mankind, then perhaps his followers could exhibit some of that goodwill? Nah, not bloody likely.

So, what have I got planned for the day? I will eat some turkey and trimmings (and everything else), I will drink all the wine in the house (sadly, only one bottle) and I will watch Doctor Who, then I’ll rest before going into town for the sales tomorrow morning. That’s been a normal Christmas day for me for the last few years No presents. No people I care about. No Christmas joy. Later today, I’ll raise a glass to absent friends, though if they were real friends, they’d not be absent. Yes, that’s what Christmas is all about; one massive reality check and the shattering of all illusions.

An open letter to the only one that matters

What’s the saying, there’s no fool like an old fool?  It’s true.

Nearly three months ago, I sat at this keyboard with tears streaming down my face trying to write something so vague that Joe Public wouldn’t understand it, yet so obviously cathartic that I’d feel purged afterwards. It didn’t work. It hasn’t worked. I’m still here, and still crying. In the interim, I’ve stumbled through every day, struggled to keep my chin off the floor and wondered what to do next. Well, you know what I did. I handled it badly; at times spiteful, at times sarcastic, at times lost and confused and weak and pathetic. Perhaps I’ve never shown you the best of me because there is no ‘best’, no good, nothing at all; or maybe I’ve never learned how to show it? Even now, I know that I’m a better person than I was before we met, and that’s because of you. Maybe that’s why I’m disappointed; I wanted to keep getting better. Maybe it’s because there’s no one to be a better person for.

I had so many stories to tell you, not of heroic deeds or success or thrilling adventures, just simple things, but I know that at least one would have blown your socks off. I regret that I made it impossible for me to be able to tell you. I wanted us to have some adventures, some shared experiences; things that, years from now, in a coffee shop or when telling your children how we met, we could have started off with ‘remember when we…?’. I wanted to share part of my life with you, because we shared some interests, and some viewpoints, and because I couldn’t think of anyone better. The first time I saw you, I knew there was something, and it took me all those years to work out what it was: I wanted you in my life. I still do.

The last time I saw you, I asked you a question, admittedly in a rather cack-handed fashion. It had taken me two months to ask and, although I knew I didn’t have the right to ask, or to hear the answer, it was something that I felt that I needed to know. I did try to give you ‘headspace’, and even a month after finally asking you the same question in plain English, I’ve never pressurised you for an answer. I’ve never even raised the subject again. I think I know what the answer is, and it doesn’t matter. It’s that you still haven’t replied, almost four weeks later, and I’m left wondering if you have any respect for me. I think I asked the wrong question.

On our next meeting after that evening in August, I felt a distance between us that I’d not noticed before, and that made me nervous. A week later, it was more obvious. I blame myself for that, and I’m sorry. Maybe I was looking for fault where there was none, so that if you went away, it wouldn't affect me as much. The last time I saw you it was better, up until the point that you said something that took the legs from under me, and since then I’ve never been sure if it was a mistimed tackle or there was intent. That was the question I should have asked, but maybe the answer to that one, had it come, would have been more unpalatable, I don’t know. All I know is that I am here, and you are there, and the gulf appears to be too big to cross, not least because I blew that billion kilowatt dam to kingdom come last night. I did that because I’ve become too afraid to see you again, scared that I can’t make things right.

For the foreseeable future, there’ll be the same old routine: football matches and concerts, TV and radio, books I’ve got to read. There’ll be work, paid and unpaid. Night will follow day, just as it’s always done, but there’ll be no you, no light in my life. You made the sun shine. You made the birds sing. You made the bells ring for me. Of course, all these things happened every day, for everyone else, but I never noticed, or cared, or was never privy to them. When you’re around, I’m dazzled, and I can’t hear myself think for all these bloody birds and bells, but I don’t want it any other way. I’ve no idea if that’s love, and I don’t care. I'm too selfish to love anyone. I just don’t like that it’s now in the past tense and I don’t like the idea of a future, my future, without you in it somewhere. What am I going to do now?

Indian Summer

What a lovely couple of days. I’m not talking about my life; I’m referring to the weather. The wasps have been in hiding since the monsoon season (re)started, so when the sun finally put his hat back on, they must have thought that they’d won the lottery, Any day now, they will go utterly bonkers and start flying into traffic lights. It’s true. I saw them do that very thing six years ago. I don’t care what happens to them as long as they go away. Something that will go away, as soon as it arrived, is our Indian summer. I can’t believe how nice it’s been, however I can believe that I wasn’t able to take advantage of it. Having been away for the last two weekends, and never having fully recovered from the previous six trips away, I’ve left myself with a backlog of housework, paperwork, too much work, and I don’t know how long it will take to get back to the way things were before Easter. The concert season has started, and there’s plenty of football. I’ll not be at home much in the evenings or at weekends for the foreseeable future. It’s going to be slow progress.

I could do with being at home to watch the massive number of programmes on my Sky+ box. My dish will be being removed in the near future because of renovation to the outside of the building and won’t be going back on the wall. I'll have to use the communal dish, instead. I’m tempted to cancel my subscription and go for a Freeview +HD box, as I rarely watch anything on the satellite channels. The greater proportion of my subscription goes on Sky Sports, and only then to watch (if I remember) those Celtic away games that make it on to the TV which, to be fair, are most of them. I also watch some English Premier League games. For one month’s subs to Sky, I can take out a subscription to Celtic TV, and see the entire game on the Internet the next day or later. Would I be able to find the time to watch a match for which I already know the score? I doubt it. There are other things I could do with my time. There are other things I could with my money. Freeview + HD seems the favoured option, for now.

I’m also behind with my other blogs. I guess I’ve been having too good a time.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

I’ve been away, and even when I’ve been here, I’ve not been here. Although I’m here just now, I’m not actually here, and won’t be here again for a while. Stay tuned. Please.

The day today

It's not like me to be topical, but here's a few words about this evening's rehearsal, the first of the new term. The Christmas concert we work towards is in conjunction with a choir, so we never find out for ages what choral pieces we may have to accompany, or what cheesy festive tune we'll be doing for an encore. We do, however, get an idea of the pieces we will play on our own (the choir do unaccompanied pieces, too).

So far, we have Malcolm Arnold's wonderful but fiendishly difficult 'Four Scottish Dances',  some of the 'Nutcracker Suite' by Tchaikovsky (probably not the fruit and nutcase bit), the theme from 'The Big Country' and the first movement of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 (i.e., not the Hovis bit). There may be more, there may be less. Who knows?

In other news, I returned home to hear that Scotland had drawn 1-1 with the mighty FYR Macedonia in their 'must-win' second qualifying game; disaster for Scotland, but hopefully the end of Craig Levein's short, boring and embarassing tenure as boss.

This was the yang to Andy Murray's Grand Slam ying. After what seemed like an eternity (and I don't mean the match), he finally won something; the US Open, although I wasn't able to stay up for the 5-hour roller-coaster ride I imagine it was. He's been British since he won the Gold at the Olympics, and this latest triumph cements his place in the hearts of those 50 million who didn't like him until his tearful speech after defeat to Federer at Wimbledon. He's British until he loses again.

Don't be sad it's over. Be glad it happened.

As the great summer of sport, and culture, comes to an end, I wonder what London will do for an encore. I wonder how people will feel when all the Olympic direction signs are peeled off walls in Underground stations, and the paint is burned off the roads in the Olympic lanes. I wonder what the streets will be like without volunteers handing out maps. I wonder how many busy London workers and residents, or tourists, will notice, or care. The flame which once burned brightly has been extinguished, and normality will be restored, in a matter of days for some, weeks or months for others. I know if I went back, I’d not notice unless I remembered to look. I wonder how many people will truly remember, long after the little hints of the games have gone, and long after BBC’s and Channel 4’s inevitable programmes over the Christmas holidays. The athletes, however, will never forget.

I’ve seen very little of the Paralympic Games, and a lot less of the (able-bodied) Olympics than normal. I grudged my taxes being diverted to a competition staged mainly in London, when money needed to be spent on sport in Scotland. I know that the same proportion won’t travel in the opposite direction for Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in 2014, and I know that, mercifully, London politicians won’t be so quick to jump on the bandwagon to try to ingratiate themselves with competitors to impress the voting public. The nations of the UK compete separately, so Unionists will have a hard time trying to make capital of a Scot draped in the Union Flag. Scotland’s medal haul at the London games was itself sufficiently impressive to provoke debate, but we can’t be sure how Scotland will fare when pitted against its larger neighbour to the south, much less countries like Jamaica.

It remains to be seen if Glasgow can create such an aura around the Commonwealth Games that it will make fans of the sports involved forget about London, but that’s like comparing East Stirlingshire with Manchester City. Instead, Glasgow should look back ten years to the Manchester games. Not only did that event, won by the city after many attempts to net a major tournament of any kind, increase the profile of athletes who competed in London this time, and Athens and Beijing before that, but it sparked a phenomenal regeneration in a city that had left its glory days behind, last century but one. Manchester is, for the most part, now a vibrant, modern city capable of competing with London on any stage, though it’s not without its problems. Glasgow must shake off its other image; that of a city blighted by decades of corruption and lack of ambition. It must stop taking then squandering the money (and the perks for the Councillors) from the events such as the Champions League final, the UEFA Cup final, the Garden Festival, City of Culture, City of Architecture and Design and so on, and start building for the future.

Exactly 50 years after the last tram journey, the city is almost impossible to get around thanks, in no small part, to Glasgow City Council’s relationship with First Buses, who have an effective monopoly in a supposedly deregulated bus environment. The lack of a decent Underground system (and the farce over its upgrading, or not, for the Games) and suburban railway network, as well as the criminal under-use of the Clyde for business, residents, transport and tourism will be exposed again when the Games begin. A half-hour stroll from the National Theatre to Westminster Bridge two weeks ago made me wonder why Glasgow has, for over a generation, failed to regenerate its waterfront for the use of its people. Any Londoners visiting in 2014 will, no doubt, be wondering the same thing.

It’s not true to say that there are no more heroes anymore. Any one person interested in one or more sport couldn’t fail to be impressed or inspired by not just our athletes but also a great many of those from around the world. Everyone who managed to see in the flesh or on television any Olympic or Paralympic event in the last couple of months will have at least one good memory. For me, it’s Katherine Grainger finally winning Gold. Thousands of medals were won, records, and even hearts were broken, and somewhat ironically, for an event that took place in what is, at the moment, my own country, I never even got to see her dream eventually come true, as I was nowhere near a TV. It may prove to be easier with the time difference to be in front of the telly for Rio 2016, when people will have new heroes to look up to.

All over Twitter tonight, the phrase being quoted is one from Dr. Seuss; ‘Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened’; ideal for the end of an event that captured the imagination of even some of the most cynical. There’s none more cynical than me, and not just when it comes to the Olympics. Life has a nasty habit of kicking me in the teeth, and I wonder if I’ll find myself having to say that phrase to myself in the very near future or, like our athletes, will I have to wait until the excitement has died down and emotions aren’t so new and raw, whenever that will be? Like our athletes with London 2012, it's something I'm not likely to forget,.

The days grow short when you reach September

That’s two-thirds of the year gone already. In a week from now, it will have been quarter of a year since I last washed my car. It’s dark around 8 in the evening and not light until around 7 in the morning. The days grow short when you reach September, and the nights are fair drawing in. What is there to do around here in the hours between work and sleep?

• One can sit in a concert hall, theatre or other venue and be entertained by people much more talented than one’s self. The season for concerts and plays is upon us, and I report on such things on my blog, Best Seat In The House
• One can attend football matches featuring one’s favourite team(s), and I report on that on my blog, Sent To The Stands
• One can still find time to go away for the day or the weekend, and I report on that (sometimes) on my blog, True Adventures
• Once can stay in and watch TV or listen to the radio, and I do that right here.

Tonight, at 19:20 BST, the waiting was over. My world has been somewhat topsy-turvy since Saturday 1 October 2011, and I hope that some stability can be achieved now that Doctor Who is back for a short run. ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was a fairly good episode, featuring the surprise appearance of a character of which we are destined to see more (how???), but lacking the outrageous humour of Steven Moffat’s previous ‘openers’. It had an epic, big-screen look to it, with some wonderful camera work by Nick Hurran, who had directed ‘The Girl Who Waited’, and really should have lasted ninety minutes. For anyone perturbed by the Dalek voice, this episode must have been a nightmare.

The world of politics has been rather quiet, with the summer recesses both in Holyrood and Westminster, but that doesn’t stop the sniping over the Independence referendum or the Tories’ relentless march towards a society cleansed of all the poor, sick and disabled, even when the Paralympics are taking place in London. One of the sponsors of this event is ATOS, who have hit the headlines many times in the last two years however, in the last couple of weeks, they have passed fit for work a man in a coma, and also got an honourable mention the other day when the story broke of a lady they had previously passed fit for work having died of cancer. Many competitors in the GB team for the Paralympics (not called TeamGB, but ParalympicsGB) covered up the ATOS logo when they appeared at the opening ceremony, and so they should.

Finally, as if my life wasn’t complicated enough, I have finally decided to complete my English Literature degree (*) with the Open University. I sort of started in 2004, and have stumbled along ever since, adding a few credit points as I have gone along, and now I need 240 credits (or four modules at 60 credits each) in order to complete the qualification. This will take me four years; four years in which I have to pass each of the four modules and not drop out of one and repeat it later, as the modules I have already passed will cease to be counted after 2017. I think I can do it. After all, I’m only aiming for a ‘Desmond’ (a 2:2), as I already have a First Class Honours degree, from that same, venerable institution. What do you mean I should tell the world about it? Well, I’m sure that the associated trials and tribulations will adequately fill the hole left by the departure of travel, football and the performing arts to their own blogs. I will, however, need to create a new blog all about the novels, plays and poems themselves.

Did you know that it's been a year (52 weeks) since I resumed (and continued) blogging? Well, it has, and it all began (resumed) here. It's been fun, hasn't it?

*Yes, I’m the one with the reading problems, so how the hell am I ever going to be able to read works of literature in order to write about them? Stay tuned.

Nothing to see here. Move along, now.

Is there anything worse than summer? Well, probably winter, but you know what I mean. Apart from holidays and festivals, there’s nothing happening. There’s nothing to watch on TV, though a major sporting event helps fill any empty schedule. There are no concerts or plays to take in, unless you either live in, or are willing to keep travelling to, our nation’s capital. The Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe, the Book Festival and a whole host of other festivals could keep me occupied 24/7 for a month, if I had a regular income that didn’t have to come from a 9-5 job. I manage to get to the occasional concert every year or two, but don’t feel like I have either the patience or the time to go trawling round pubs, decommissioned telephone boxes, disused public toilets or wigwams trying to uncover the next Eddie Izzard or Jeremy Hardy. It’s not just patience, or time or money I need. I could have had a couple of hours there on each of the last two Saturdays, but I’m just not interested. Some of you would think I’m not making the most of my life, that I lack courage and imagination, but what sort of life is it when you’d rather walk up and down the street eating a cold pie from nearby Tesco rather than go into a crowded restaurant or bar for a meal before a concert? What’s the point of humiliating myself? Mind you, I do that on a regular basis. This life is becoming steadily more unpleasant. Is there anything worse than that?

How strange the change from major to minor

Some things, keepsakes, you take with you on your journey through life; a teddy bear, a photograph, the ticket from your first concert, a present from a long-dead grandparent, a card or letter from your first boyfriend; long-cherished memories. I’ve travelled this road with nothing tangible, just thoughts and feelings, and Frank and Ella for company.

There was one song I loved to sing along to when I was quite young, around 3 or 4 years old; ‘High Hopes’, written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and sung by Frank Sinatra, featured in a film called ‘A Hole in the Head’. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen the movie, or would want to, but the song was on a 78rpm record in my mother’s collection, and I was forever asking her to play it. It was one of those songs with a motto; nothing is impossible.

Next time you’re found, with your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned, so look around

Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, cant
Move a rubber tree plant

But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time your getting’ low
’stead of lettin’ go
Just remember that ant
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant

When troubles call, and your back’s to the wall
There a lot to be learned, that wall could fall

Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he'd punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin’ that dam

Cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time your feelin’ bad
’stead of feelin’ sad
Just remember that ram
Oops there goes a billion kilowatt dam

All problems just a toy balloon
They'll be busted soon
They're just bound to go pop
Oops there goes another problem ker-plop

I’ve never had a positive outlook. It comes from bitter experience. I’ve never found that I could move a rubber tree plant or punch a hole in a billion kilowatt dam. I’ve never had the strength or the guile, or someone else to do it for me. The immovable is object is just that. The unbreakable is just that. The impossible is just that. Immovable. Unbreakable. Impossible.

The song that my mother always wanted to hear was ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’ written by Cole Porter and sung by Ella Fitzgerald. The first lady of popular song, like Sinatra, has been, from that early age, an ever-present, towering figure in my musical life, my consciousness, my heart, my soul. Ella and Frank speak to me today in the way they always have. They sing to me my songs of joy. They are my port in every storm. They are immortal. They stand firm when everything around me falls apart.

Ella’s song didn’t mean anything to me back then, or for a long time after. How could it? The tune, the arrangement, those warm tones were all it needed to make it a classic, but the lyrics can only have meaning attributed to them if you’ve lived and loved and lost.

Everytime we say goodbye, I die a little,
Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know.
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

I’ve never really lived, or loved, but I always find myself having to say goodbye. Without going into detail, I was out the other night with someone I’d not seen in ages. I say ages, but two and a half months feels like an eternity when you miss someone you love. I say miss someone, but we barely know each other. I say love, but I’m too selfish and self-centered and scared to love anyone. Although I should be pleased and excited, and concerned, for someone who may be on the verge of leaving to go on a great adventure (and I am, truly, all of those things), I’m falling apart because of what it means for me, only for me. A good night watched over by the spectre of something I always thought would happen, but just not so soon. The positive, anything’s possible, punching a hole in that billion kilowatt dam balloon is burst by the cold steely pin-prick of unyielding, pitiless reality. There’ll be time enough for Whitney Houston to wail ‘I will always love you’ but for now, Frank’s high hopes are brought crashing to the ground, and how strange the change from major to minor.

Operation catch-up

It’s a bit tidier round here, but the work’s not yet done. I’ve been distracted; by the Olympics, by the heavy rain and thunderstorms, by the Internet. I’ve started bringing my blogs up-to-date:

I’ve written three posts on football on Sent To The Stands and one post on July’s concerts in Best Seat In The House

Just four or five of the travel blog entries to sort out and everything will be ship-shape. The writing in a ‘journal’ or a 'diary' loses its impact if not written at the time. First impressions are contaminated by subsequent encounters or the passage of time or a poor memory, or combinations thereof, but I have photographs to help me remember at least some of it.

Those participating in the Olympics, and those lucky enough to have obtained tickets, will remember the last eight days for a very long time. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or teamGB as it is known, has exceeded expectations, so far, in terms of its medal haul. There are over twenty TV channels showing wall-to-wall coverage of as many of the sports in these games as its possible to broadcast, and I’m not near a TV or streaming media all the time, so I’ve missed most of it, including some triumphs for GB. As I type, Great Britain is third in the medals table with 16 Gold, 11 Silver and 10 Bronze. No one is expecting significant additions to those totals, as we are currently relatively poor in track and field, but where there’s life, there’s hope.

This good feeling is only temporary, though, and doesn’t mask the current Government’s victimisation of the poor, the sick, the old and the underprivileged by its systematic dismantling of the Welfare State. Politicians are queuing up to stand alongside our sporting heroes. They’re happy to live vicariously through others and bask in their glory, whilst at the same time, cutting funding for grass roots sport, selling off school playing fields, taking money from local authorities which then cut community facilities and coaching, and so on. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they won’t be.

Congratulations to all those who have won, those who came close, those who lost and all those who didn’t manage to compete. There’s something in me that runs and jumps and swims and cycles, that goes higher and faster, but it’s not my body. All I can do is watch, and admire.

Operation Tidy-Up

I don’t normally go on my summer holidays from Saturday to Saturday. I tend to take two weeks off and go from Wednesday to Wednesday, giving me plenty of time to have a rest before I go and tackle the washing, ironing and tidying after I come back. This year, due to a combination of my good fortune in obtaining a ticket for the John Wilson Orchestra’s (and a stellar cast’s) performance of ‘My Fair Lady’ at the Proms and an unfortunately-timed 50^th birthday, I was forced to take my annual break in Llandudno during the last full week of July, and so I returned home just after midnight on Saturday, i.e. 21 hours ago. I’m knackered, and it may take me until my next trip away at the end of August to sort everything out. What do you mean ‘it doesn’t take 14 hours to drive from North Wales to Glasgow’? I know that, but I had to stop off in Edinburgh on the way (OK, not exactly on the way).

My exploits away from home are being detailed (or will be detailed, when I get around to writing them up) in my other blogs, as is my taking in the match between Glasgow City Ladies FC and Forfar Farmington FC this afternoon. Earlier this year, I decided to have a blog devoted to my travels outside of Glasgow postal districts and, if you take a wee look, you can see that I have been hard at work keeping the world informed of my experiences (not), as I was being a little over-ambitious in thinking that I could do it all from my mobile phone! As well as this, I decided to start a footie blog following the recent upheaval in Scottish football, Now, I think it might be time for a concert blog. You can catch up with all the fun here:

True Adventures (travel blog)

Sent To The Stands (football blog)

Best Seat In The House (concert blog)

I bet you’re hoping that I’m going to shut this blog down. Well, you’re wrong. It’s sub-heading isn’t ‘Irreverent and irrelevant opinions on everything and nothing’ for, er, nothing. As I said, I’ve been on holiday. Sadly, both for me and for you, dear reader (s), I have missed the much-praised Olympic opening ceremony, as well as a great deal of the action, so far. I have missed that piece of slime, Tony Blair, trying to get back into politics and I have missed some super-rich, dodgy-dealing, Mormon arsehole coming over here and tell us we can’t run a piss-up in a brewery, amongst other things. However, it’s the summer, the silly season, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to tell you about before it's over. Don’t you worry your pretty, little head (s).

Plans are put in motion

As holidays go, this one could be better. Nearly two days before Friday the 13^th, my last day at work for a fortnight, I came down with a ‘flu-like illness’ and spent those two days as high as a kite on over-the-counter flu remedies and painkillers. By the time I got on the coach to London on the Friday night, I looked and felt like death (barely) warmed up, so you can imagine how the weekend went.

I arrived home just after 8am on the Monday. I had some breakfast followed by a soothing bath, then headed for bed. Apart from a rude awakening caused by the Radio 3 repeat of Prom 1, I had slept from 9am until just after 3pm. When I got out of bed, my head and feet aching from the weekends’ exertions, I staggered around for a while, gathering items for the washing machine. My recollection of the rest of the day is hazy, to say the least. I know I watched Coronation Street and tidied away some items from my case, but that is all.

I surprised myself on Tuesday morning by doing some of the ironing and some more of the tidying and by making a decision. I threw my camera in a bag and headed for the Falkirk Wheel. 

It’s some 25 minutes from home, and was opened in 2002, but this was my first visit. I wasn’t disappointed.

A boat trip on the last few metres of the Forth and Clyde Canal to where it joins the Union Canal, made possible by the world’s only rotating boat lift, was just the tonic for my ailing body, and gave me the impetus to head a few miles along the road to Bo’ness, for a trip on a steam train.

As promised, Wednesday brought rain, so it was just as well that I had not planned to do anything beyond shopping, banking and eating ice-cream in Nardini’s in Byres Road. With all tasks accomplished, I headed home to do absolutely nothing. I was feeling tired again, the bug having not left my system. I found it difficult to stay up, so I went to bed around 10.

Thursday was the most frustrating day of the week. The rain had stopped, and none was forecast for the rest of the day, but I was too tired to leave the house early. My head and limbs were sore and my nose had started to run. I went into town for a mad, two-hour dash round the shops, but came home immediately afterwards. I didn’t have the energy to do anything, so sat in my chair for few hours until common sense kicked in and I started to pack for my trip to Wales. When I went to bed, the job was only half done.

As if I didn’t have a list of jobs the length of my arm for Friday, I got out of bed for breakfast only to discover that everything in the (mercifully small) freezer had defrosted because the door wasn’t shutting properly. It took over two hours to clear up the mess and get myself ready to go out. That is, out to the shops to buy what I’d planned to buy and everything needed to replace what had been ruined. When I came back, I emptied the car somewhat frantically, before heading for the local driving range to take out my frustration on a hundred golf balls. I hadn’t swung a club for almost a year, so I was worse than normal. I seemed to get into the swing of things (every pun intended) near the end, so I may reactivate that particular hobby after the holidays.

My last port of call for the first half of the holiday was Clydebank, and the Titan Crane in the former John Brown’s shipyard. 

The crane has been a summer visitor attraction for five years but, yet again, this was only my first visit. The waterfront at Clydebank is undergoing a regeneration, with the College having moved to that part of town a few years back and new flats nearby, but there is still a lot of vacant ground, enough to suggest that the recession has halted, hopefully temporarily, plans to bring the area back to life. I had another thought, one much less positive: we seem to have given up. We’ve given up on ever being able to make anything ever again.

 

Tomorrow, I head for Llandudno for the tenth successive summer. I, too, have given up: given up on originality; given up on a sense of adventure; given up on hope for the future; given up on being able to live ever again.

2012: Plans are put in motion to redevelop this life.

Milestones

I’m not inclined to say much when the weather’s like this. Apparently, we’re at the mercy of the six-mile high jet stream, and most of the UK has had the biblical rain to prove it. It’s been a funny old week and a bit here, and I really don’t function in unbearable heat and humidity; I’m tired, grumpy and forever having to un-stick my clothes from my skin. It’s just as well I live in, and very rarely leave, the west of Scotland, where this weather is uncharacteristic. It’s also just as well I’m not going out in Glasgow for some considerable time.

Saturday the 30^th of June saw my final concert of this season, though a summer jazz festival doesn’t really count as part of any season other than the summer festival one. For want of something to do to maintain my record of having attended something at every Glasgow Jazz Festival since its inception (actually, my memory is so bad that I can no longer be sure that this is true), I attended this year’s performance by the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra (SYJO), and this is what I mean when I say that my memory is so bad. I was writing this blog in my head as I sat in the Old Fruitmarket. Six days later, and that piece of journalistic magnificence has all but vanished from my Swiss-cheese brain. Lucky for me, and you, I took notes. Sadly, I’m having trouble reading them!

They opened with a version of Duke Ellington’s ‘Take the A Train’, spoiled by the lead trumpet, who, while note-perfect, struggled for the entire gig to keep in time with everyone else in the band. They followed this with a Dizzy Gillespie piece, ‘Tanga’, which was a new one on me, or was it? I’ve just been looking at a version of it on YouTube, and it’s possible that Dizzy and his United Nations orchestra (featuring a young Arturo Sandoval on trumpet) could have played this at their gig in Glasgow on July 7 1990 (the night the Three Tenors concert was taking place in Italy, prior to the World Cup). Who knows? Anyway, the trumpeter who was having so much trouble in the first number played flugel horn in this one, but there was no improvement. The tenor solo was good though, and this was a feature for Allan Glen, a former member of the band. He was one of many guests in the ensemble, conducted by Stewart Forbes, which consisted of four trumpets, six trombones, six saxophones, piano, bass and drums. This is the second incarnation of the band, which is now based at Strathclyde University. Previously, it was, I believe, funded by the old Strathclyde Regional Council, created for the first festival in 1987, and was for many years under the direction of Bobby Wishart.

Back to last Saturday. The first vocal feature of the day went to the sharp-dressed presenter of the Jazz House on BBC Radio Scotland, Stephen Duffy, and he gave us his rendition of guest trombonist Adrian Drover’s arrangement of ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’. Drover has been a fixture on the jazz scene in Scotland from his days with the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra, and had once been a member of Maynard Ferguson’s band. The second number was Duffy’s own arrangement which brought together Neal Hefti’s ‘Li’l Darlin’’ and the Gershwins’ ‘Our Love Is Here To Stay’. Duffy has a wonderful voice, and an understanding of, and empathy with, this music which is second to none for someone of his age. Perhaps that’s due to the fact that he seems to have been doing it forever. I saw him perform with Bill Fanning’s band in the Glasgow Society of Musicians when he was about 15 or 16 years old, and everyone was in awe of this precocious teenager who not only knew the songs and how to sing them, but had written big band arrangements to accompany them. That was back in the late 80s. He’s a young 41 now.
 

The band was back in the spotlight again in arrangement of Oliver Nelson’s ‘Stolen Moments’. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Nelson’s own arrangement, and this spoiled it somewhat for me. I seem to recall that my first exposure to this piece was a recording by pianist Ahmad Jamal, played on Humphrey Lyttelton’s much-missed Monday night show on Radio 2 and, lo, here it is on YouTube. Next up, Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder’, which I seem to recall was my highlight of the day. Time, once more, for vocals.

SYJO is about to start recruiting for next term, as Stewart Forbes said about a dozen times, and, every so often, it unearths some gems. Today was no exception. He introduced a young lady by the name of Deborah Bismanah (apologies for the spelling), who was singing with the band for the first time. If the song, ‘Georgia’, was somewhat unimaginative, the performance suggested that she might just go on to become a big star. If she has a fraction of the success and respect Stephen Duffy has had, she won’t have had too bad a career. Speaking of Mr. Duffy, he returned for his final spot; Nelson Riddle’s arrangement of ‘Don’t Be That Way’, which was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, and a Barry Forgie transcription (arranger unknown) of a song Tony Bennett recorded with the Buddy Rich band, ‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made’. Finally, the band returned to Duke Ellington, with an arrangement (again, unknown) of ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’, and this was followed by ‘All Blues’ by Miles Davis. Stewart Forbes announced that they were out of time, and that was my Glasgow Jazz Festival over for another year. Somewhat disappointingly, they never played ‘Milestones’.

SYJO made their big debut in that first festival in 1987, and I’ve seen quite a few line-ups along the way. That was the year I saw Benny Carter, the man who made one of the first jazz LPs I ever bought, and, thanks to the festival, I’ve also seen Oscar Peterson, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, Dizzy Gillespie, Phil Woods, Maynard Ferguson, Chic Corea, Nat Adderley, George Shearing, Stan Tracy, Gary Burton, Wynton Marsalis and, I suspect, a few others. I’ve missed dozens and dozens more. Almost all the legends of jazz in its many forms are no longer with us, but as long as there are people willing to play the music and people willing to put on gigs and people interested enough to go to those gigs, jazz will survive. To live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die.

There's no such thing as a free lunch

No, but there’s a free weekend of concerts by the BBC SSO every June, and there’s always something to enjoy. This weekend was no exception, so let me tell you all about it.

It’s always difficult to park in the Merchant City, more so if you don’t have the change to use the machine in the High Street car park. I arrived in the area late, as it was, but too late to go round the block twice and along Bell Street and back up High Street again, and that’s where I found myself with fewer than ten minutes to go until the start of the concert. At this point, the rain had abated.

Thanks to my tardiness, I had to sit upstairs, four seats from the aisle. I was also too late for a little comfort break, so by the time the 2012 ‘Listen Here!’ curator, BBC SSO Artist-in-Association Matthias Pintscher, turned to face the orchestra, I was already in distress.  The fire alarm in work had sounded for thirty minutes only four hours earlier, and my ears had barely recovered when the almighty mess that is the Second Movement (’Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut’) from Charles Ives’ ‘3 Places in New England’ had me almost weeping with agony into my sleeve. I am not familiar with Ives’ work, but at least I know that I’ll have to listen at home with one hand on the volume control. To complete Part I, American violinist Jennifer Koh gave us a fine performance of Bartok’s second Violin Concerto, but I was still to be convinced that I’d made the correct decision in leaving the house. By the time Part II, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, was over, I was relieved, in more ways than one, and resolved to remain in the hall for Part III.

Scott Mitchell, the well-known RCS accompanist and chamber music coach, delved into the realms of the plinky-plonky with John Cage’s ‘Seven Haiku’ which, thankfully, only lasted three minutes. A typical theatrical SSO performance then followed, with trombones, horns and flutes sprinkled around the Choir Stalls and Balcony for Charles Ives’ ‘The Unanswered Question’, before Scott Mitchell returned to play Robert Schumann’s ‘Kinderszenen, Op. 15’ and this, like the Dvorak, was one of the rare truly beautiful moments in the evening. The wandering minstrels returned to delight us with Giovanni Gabrielli’s ‘Sonata pian e forte’, which isn’t what you think (the former means one choir, the latter the two reunited), before the marathon session ended with a small orchestra playing Aaron Copeland’s ‘Appalachian Spring’ (which features the clarinet in the Shaker melody ‘Simple Gifts’, of course). That was that, at nearly 11pm!

One of the many things I love about the BBC SSO is the chance to participate in an event along with the orchestra. Last year, it was the orchestra and massed choir, conducted by the delightfully enthusiastic Andrew Manze, performing ‘Pirates of Penzance’. This year, it was the efficient German Matthias Pintscher's take on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Concerto Grosso’ for string orchestra. Now, what on earth could this poor excuse for a clarinettist find to do in a string orchestra? Well, it’s not such a quantum leap when you consider that, as a former member of the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop, I’ve got a violin; not that I would know what to do with a violin and a violin part. Once I had stuffed tissue paper in my shoes to dry up the rain that had settled there, it was time to take my seat. I tried, I really did but, like my desk partner, who was about 9, I was floundering from the start, in spite of the fact that all my notes were on open strings. However, I enjoyed it, and fulfilled another ambition along the way. The bucket list hasn’t got much left for me to do.

I had a wee snooze after I got home, so I had to rush to get to the Saturday evening concert, too. This time, it was easier to park, and easier to get a seat, though the audience turned out to be larger than anyone expected. This was the ‘modern’ night, entitled ‘New German Mythmakers’. A touch of the plinky-plonky, again, with the opener; Aribert Reimann’s 1993 work, ‘Neun Stȕcke fȕr Orchester’. This was followed by Hans Werner Henze’s 1993 composition ‘Sinfonia No. 8. This jarred less than the first piece, and even though I’m not able to hum or whistle any of it, it wasn’t bad, for a modern piece, and I’ll need to look out for the episode of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Hear and Now’ that will feature it. After the interval, American cellist Joshua Roman was the featured soloist in Matthias Pintscher’s ‘Reflections on Narcissus’ from 2005, which was actually worth hearing again, especially the movement were Roman appeared to play harmonics the whole time. This wasn’t the last of the 28-year old virtuoso, as he gave a recital after the concert in which he played J.S. Bach’s ‘Suite No. 3 for Solo Cello’.

Finally, this afternoon’s concert, and the lighter side of the orchestra, in a programme entitled ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’. Conducted and presented by Stephen Bell (presumably to avoid a repeat of the high jinks of last year, when Jamie MacDougall and Billy Differ had the audience fighting back the tears with their double-entendre double-act), this was billed as a family-friendly concert, and there was a whole host of bored children sprinkled throughout the auditorium. Beginning with Malcolm Arnold’s ‘Scottish Dance No. 1’, the SSO took a trip around the world from Scotland to Norway (Grieg), Paris (Cole Porter), Spain (Albeniz), Germany (Mendelssohn), Austria (Johann Strauss II), Italy (a Neapolitan miscellany arranged by Gordon Langford) and the Czech Republic (Dvorak). That was just the first half. After the interval, Russia (Tchaikovsky), China (Tan Dun), Australia (Grainger), Mexico (Sydney Torch arrangement), Canada (Bob Fanon), USA (Copeland) and finally back to the UK with ‘Great Songs of Great Britain’ arranged by Bob Farnon, the Canadian who made Guernsey his home. And that was that, all over for another year, and there’s only one more event to attend in Glasgow before the summer, proper. More about that next weekend.

Between Baroque and a hard place

Vivaldi, Corelli, Locatelli, Geminiani; Baroque stars. Close your eyes, and you’re transported to late-17th/early-18th Century Venice; open them, and you’re in St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, with its uncomfortable traditional pews digging into your spine. The last concert in this season’s RSNO Chamber Series, coinciding with the West End Festival, was an extravaganza of lesser-known Baroque pieces, interspersed with short, tasty morsels from an even more obscure composer, Uccellini, whose works have been unearthed by no less than Andrew Manze. Led by violinist David Chivers, the ensemble consisted of four violins, two violas, a cello, a double bass, a harpsichord and a baroque guitar, alternated with a bass lute called a Theorbo. What a wonderful sound and what better way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon?

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain

Two weeks ago, I was wandering around Perthshire in short sleeves. A couple of weeks before that, I could be seen without a jacket, in Glasgow, for the first time in anyone’s living memory. Since I returned from holiday, however, the sun has been very elusive, indeed. The heavy rain and high winds would grace any November, but it’s flaming June, for God’s sake. I’m not a sun worshipper, but even I know that this is summer, and something has gone badly wrong with our weather.

Four weeks from now, I will be spending a couple of days in London for a pathetic attempt at a 50^th birthday treat. On the Saturday night, I will head to the Royal Albert Hall for only my second visit to the Proms, for a concert performance by the John Wilson Orchestra of ‘My Fair Lady’, but unlike that frantic night in August 2006, I will stay over and take it easy. I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing the rest of the time, but it will have to be very cheap, as I’ll be heading off on my proper holiday a week later.

In keeping with the theme of Eliza Doolitle and ‘Enry ‘Iggins, I set out for Byres Road, and Oran Mor’s ‘A Play, A Pie and a Pint’ series, for an hour-long version of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’, on which the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ was based. It was sold out. Due to roadworks elsewhere, I’m not driving up Byres Road on the way home at night, and it’s always difficult to stop there for any length of time, so I couldn’t go in before today. I could, of course, have purchased a ticket on-line from Ticketweb, but they were adding a £1.56 booking fee to a £12.50 ticket. It probably wasn’t very good, anyway.

School's out for summer

It’s Tuesday. It’s almost 7:30pm, and I’m at home, starting to type this. Term has ended for the orchestra, and summer is upon us. I’m bored.

I know that I may not go back, I may not want to go back, but I get a buzz from just being there. I had never played in any sort of ensemble when, at 45 years old, I took my seat that Sunday in November 2007. I was scared; no, more than scared, I was paralysed with fear. My anxious fears had not been bid/bade subside when we started for real in January 2008, and when term finished around ten weeks later, I was disappointed to find myself, as one of its plentiful supply of clarinets, rotated out until after the summer. Luckily, I was able to play in our first concert in December of 2008, and have played in all six subsequent musical extravaganzas, the most recent of which took place last Saturday.

It’s been a tough few months. Some complicated, but interesting pieces were jettisoned, leaving us with only four (equally complicated, but interesting) works to play in the concert (plus a surprise encore). If any of the grannies in the audience had indulged in a sweet sherry or tawny port prior to taking their seats, they’d have been reaching for their heart pills by the final cymbal crash of our opener, the utterly bonkers ‘Colas Breugnon’ by Kabalevsky. Luckily for them, the orchestra had a rest for about half an hour while some of its members who had formed into small ensembles played the pieces they had been working on.

The orchestra returned after this long interlude to play (I think) the longest piece we’ve ever played; the Fourth Movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. In the hands a professional orchestra, this would last just over fifteen minutes. I’ve no idea how long it took us to get through it, but I was relieved when we had, and headed for the toilet.

The second half followed the same format; orchestra, ensembles, orchestra. We got through Holst’s 'Somerset Rhapsody’ without major incident. I’d be surprised if anyone in the audience would know it, anyway, so we’d have got away with it. One of the ensembles, the entire percussion section, performed a delightful piece written by one of their number, and this set us up nicely for our finale, ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ from ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ by Mussorgsky (arranged by Ravel). When it was over, there was a hint of a ‘whoop’ from someone in the audience, but before they could get carried away, we hit them between the eyes with Sousa’s ‘Washington Post’.

That was that, and this is, well, this. I’ve got lots of thinking to do over the summer, and decisions have to be made, and that’s before I have to try to get back in. When I think of what the orchestra has given me, you’d think it would be easy to say yes, but it’s complicated.

So which way do I go to get out of here?

Before SatNav in cars, and GPS and Google Maps on mobile phones, it was possible to go out for walk and get lost. I know, it happened to me on numerous occasions. Even if I knew the general direction I was going in, I still managed to get confused, or was indecisive or impatient, and so would take the wrong route just to keep going. After one particularly nasty incident during a thunderstorm, someone who loved to dispense wisdom told me that I should be chastened by my experience. He meant my trip out into the hills, but I was certainly chastened by my experience with him. I’m not sure I know the words to describe him, and it would be difficult for someone as inarticulate as me to do so without resorting to profanities, but when I think of him, I not only see a person who, frankly, was not worth one iota of my attention and time, but I also see a common thread, a pattern.

He wasn’t, and still isn’t, an isolated case; I appear to be drawn to people who take me for granted, or treat me like something they’ve stood in. In other words, people not worthy of my attention and time. If any of you are reading this, why don’t you look in the mirror and ask yourself what you have to do to be a better person? While you’re doing that, I’ll ask myself why I should have to do anything special in order to be afforded even a little common courtesy.

When you’re out walking, and you arrive at a crossroads, you’ve got a choice to make. It’s usually a matter of left or right or forward, but there are other options. You could go back the way you came or just stay rooted to the spot. It takes a lot of courage to choose to go forward, to approach the unknown, and it takes a lot of time to build up enough courage to take that first step. Trouble is, when you get there, there’s this terrible feeling of déjà vu. It might take a short time or a long time, but it eventually dawns on you that you’ve been here before, that everyone is the same, whatever coat they wear.

It takes courage to go back, too; back to the life you had before everything changed, back to something long acknowledged as imperfect, unwanted, unwarranted. It takes courage to admit that something akin to being dead, emotionally, is preferable to the slightest cut turning into a gaping wound.Sometimes, though, there’s nothing else for it, no alternative but to retreat inside your protective cocoon. I was dead for a long time, and I will be for a long time to come, but even the faintest light from a distant, spellbinding object can be difficult to extinguish.

Well, again I’m at that crossroads now; left or right or straght ahead into the unknown, back to what I don’t want, or stay where I am and be insulted, disrespected and scraped off the sole of someone's shoe. So which way do I go to get out of here?

The Transit of Venus 2012

The last time there was a Transit of Venus, in 2004, I didn’t have broadband. I shudder to think what the early hours of Wednesday morning would have been like had I remained a Luddite. For this Transit, the last until 2117, I was monitoring the live webcast from the Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii on one computer and, on the other, the feed from the Mount Wilson observatory in California. The UK wasn’t going to be able to see anything, in theory, until sunrise on Wednesday, by which time, the planet would be about to reach the point of Interior Egress, where it starts to cross the solar limb for the second time (i.e., where the edge of the disk of Venus just crosses the edge of the disk of the Sun). Under twenty minutes later, at 05:54 BST, Exterior Egress would occur, then the Transit would be over.

I don’t have suitable equipment for solar viewing, so a little improvisation was called for. To view the 1999 Solar Eclipse, I projected the image on to a piece of A4 paper sellotaped to the wall of the building I worked in. 

With me in charge of the camera, I cajoled a couple of my colleagues into holding a monocular at a suitable angle, or securing it to the departmental tripod. Back then, you could have fun like that during working hours.

I returned from holiday late on Tuesday afternoon and dug out some sheets of card, a piece of tinfoil (no, not to make a hat!), sellotape and scissors. I made a pinhole viewer 

and, in case that didn’t work, I attached a piece of card, rather clumsily, to my trusty old monocular to cut down shadows. 

I selected suitable clothing, and set two alarms; one for 03:45 BST and one for 04:00. All I had to do was wait.

It didn’t occur to me that I would be able to watch this phenomenon via the Internet, and this is where Twitter came into its own. I follow a number of accounts associated with astronomy, including Dr. Lucie Green, a solar physicist, and Pete Lawrence, a renowned solar imager and co-presenter of ‘The Sky at Night’. I also follow NASA, and they announced that there would be a live feed from Mauna Kea. There were also links on NASA’s page to a number of other sites, and I settled on the webcast from Mount Wilson. It was difficult to follow both at the same time, especially as the two computers were about 10 feet apart, so I turned the sound down on both and just watched the event unfolding. I also took photographs from the screens.

I have no idea about solar images. I think this Mauna Kea picture is Hydrogen Alpha.

And this, from Mt. Wilson, is a white light, or continuum, image.

Of course, I may be barking up the wrong tree.

The most exciting part is the time between Exterior Ingress and Exterior Ingress (the opposite of what I mentioned earlier), after which the entire disk of Venus is within that of the Sun, then it’s a slow crawl East to West to get the other side (but, if I'm right, it’s not really a straight line, and the angle of the arc is different depending on where you are). After I watched it move away from the edge (or solar limb, if you wish), as in the Mt. Wilson image, above, I went to bed.

The weather forecast wasn’t favourable, and Glasgow has an average cloud cover for June of 75%, so I wasn’t surprised when I looked out of the window at 03:45 and couldn’t see the sky. We had 8 days of clear nights before I went away, and the weather in Perthshire was pleasant, to say the least. Typical, bloody typical. Undeterred, I went out at 04:30, and drove up the hill to a spot with a better take-off to the East than at home. I sat in the car with the intention of waiting until 05:30 then scurrying over to the site in time to set up. A fox appeared, then the rain, and it was obvious that my efforts would not bear fruit.

At 05:55, I made my way back to the car, and headed for Tesco. What else was there to do at that time in the morning?

So, what did I learn and/or what do I have to do now? Let’s see:

1. I need to find a more secluded spot for observing, as a patch of green opposite a row of houses is neither private nor safe.
2. I think that the pinhole viewer will have to be tested with the sun early in the morning on a nice day to see if it works. If so, a pinhole projector could be built out of cardboard boxes for viewing the sun to look for sunspots.
3. Similarly for the monocular.
4. There are designs on the Web for a sun funnel to be used with a telescope. Again, the sun, and sunspots, could be projected using this method, perhaps in conjunction with my reflector, which will have to be modified, first.
5. I'm not very good at this. 

I’ll not be around in 2117, so I guess that’s it.

Where the hell have you been?

I've been here the whole time, doing my impersonation of a church mouse and now, having eaten all the cheese, I've come back to the keyboard. Briefly. Thanks to Her Majesty, I've got an extra day off, so I thought I'd squander it by having an unplanned holiday, like you do. So, all that's left to say is I'm going outside now. I may be some time. If I can be arsed, you'll find me on my other blog. Over there somewhere. O the wanderlust is on me....

Normal service has been resumed

It’s been a while. I’ve got no excuse. It’s not as if I’ve been out every night. I guess I’m more tired than I realise. It all started to go wrong last Thursday night and, one week later, I’m still out of sorts.

Let’s get the obituaries out of the way, first. As I type, BBC4 is showing ‘Top of The Pops 77’. She’s not on this particular edition, but 1977 was the year that Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ was blaring out of every radio and at every school disco. Georgio Moroder’s hypnotic backing track provided the ideal accompaniment to Ms. Summer’s voice and catapulted her into the mainstream. Eh? Yes, the mainstream. Don’t you remember her more saucy records? She went on to have a successful career, with many hits in the UK. My favourite is ‘Dinner With Gershwin’, which came much later, and her duet with Barbra Streisand, ‘Enough Is Enough’, is worthy of mention, but she’ll always be remembered, fondly, by those of a certain age, for ‘I Feel Love’.

Both this week’s and last week’s rehearsals went reasonably well. Brahms and Kabalevsky are beginning to sound good enough to fool the audience into thinking that some of us can actually play, but it appears that ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ from ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ shall not let us pass. With only 23 days to go, why am I blogging?

Last Wednesday, I went back to the RCS for ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and on Thursday, I was at the Citizens Theatre for ‘King Lear’ (where it was almost hours before there was a comfort break). I’m not qualified to talk about these plays (or ‘Measure for Measure’ from the previous week), but the high body count was noticeable. Perhaps I’ll return to the subject of Renaissance drama in the Autumn, when I’ll be having a much closer examination of ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, in an effort to ‘do’ English Literature?

I had a normal Friday, re-acquainting myself with the washing machine, and Saturday was spent engaged in shopping and banking duties. Sunday brought rain and a party. The SPL trophy was presented to the 2011-2012 champions, but not before a jazz band, a juggler, a unicyclist, the Elvis Cleaning Company and the Thai Tims entertained the crowd, and Gary Hooper scored five goals to send the Jambos back to Edinburgh with their tails between their legs.

Monday found me in the City Halls for the Merchant Voices Summer Concert. Apart from the audience clapping between movements, it went well. Accompanied by the St. James Orchestra, they treated us to, among other things, Faure’s ‘Requiem’ and a rendition of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ that had me wiping the tears from my tired, old eyes. I think I might go and see their next concert (ahem).

To round off, some words about the BBC SSO ‘Afternoon Performance’ at the City Halls. It really isn’t that long since the name ‘Stravinsky’ would give me the heebeegeebees. The second piece after the interval, the plinky-plonky ‘Movements for Piano and Orchestra’, could only serve to reinforce that prejudice or misconception. The rest of the programme, however, was a delight, and well worth taking a half a day of leave from the cultural backwater that is my day job.

Opening with what we would call ‘Song of the Volga Boatmen’, the SSO, and guest soloist (where appropriate), Steven Osborne, treated us to quite a few interesting works by this versatile composer; ‘Concerto in D for String Orchestra’, ‘Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra’, an orchestration of Chopin’s ‘Grande Valse Brillante’ and the ‘Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments’. Perhaps it’s time I confronted my fears?

Suspicious mind

Is ‘Runnicles Weekend’ the BBC SSO’s answer to the RSNO’s ‘Au Revoir Stephane’? That little thought popped into my head as I sat in the City Halls waiting for the closing concert of the weekend to begin. I’m very cruel, I know, but it certainly put ‘Scotland’s Maestro’ in the spotlight at a time when the MD of the RSNO is waving a long goodbye to Scotland.

The first half lasted around 15 minutes, and featured Principal Cellist Martin Storey in the beautiful, haunting ‘Mariel’ by the Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov. The second half was given over to Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, an epic and loud piece needing five horns, four trumpets, four trombones and four Wagner Tubas. What’s a Wagner Tuba? It’s a tenor-bass horn (in other words, a big tenor horn). I bet you’re thinking that I hated the whole thing. Well, I didn’t. I actually enjoyed it.

Earlier, I took a drive out to the RSPB reserve at Lochwinnoch. I created a bit of controversy when I said that I might have seen a Wood Warbler. If I were to believe the experts, I saw a Willow Warbler (wearing a yellow scarf or bib). Apart from the usual suspects, I also saw a Blackcap.

Back to work tomorrow, but it doesn’t stop; one rehearsal and two plays still to go before I can stay at home and be miserable, instead of going out and being miserable.

A night at the opera

This going out thing is getting tedious. No sooner have I tidied away the debris from the night before than I have to do it all over again. It’s just as well that tomorrow is a holiday. It might allow me to catch up on serious things like washing, ironing and blogging. I’m spending far too much time thinking about where I’m going and not about where I’ve been or where I am, though the latter does not bear thinking about.

For a bit of variety, I decided to go out in the afternoon, and return in the early evening. To achieve this, I went to the Theatre Royal to see, for the third time, the much-revived, 1980 Anthony Besch production of Puccini's 'Tosca'. I saw it in 1992, and possibly in 2002. My last opera memory, which may not necessarily be the last opera I attended, was Verdi’s ‘Aida’, set during the Seven Day War between Israel and Egypt! As I type, I’m having a terrible dose of déjà vu. I remember slagging it off somewhere else on the Internet, perhaps on my old web site, or perhaps it was in an e-mail to someone with whom I no longer correspond (which is most people I have ever met). I guess it must have been after the lavish production of Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, which was about this time ten years ago; a night more memorable for the state of my health rather than the entertainment on show. Anyway, I can’t tell when I last attended an opera.

It may just be the result of fatigue on the sixth day of this marathon session, or it may be that I no longer see opera as an enjoyable art form, but I was quite bored and wanted to go home. My experience wasn’t enhanced by the number of people seated in the Balcony who coughed loudly, with no intent to muffle, all the way through the performance, just as they would if they were watching a DVD in their front room. I also had difficulty seeing past the rather large head of the young gentleman in the seat in front. Perhaps I should splash out on a more expensive seat, next time?

Musically, it’s a better work than ‘La Boheme’, but I don’t find Puccini’s music as interesting, or as stirring, as that of Verdi. Irrespective of my taste, it was well-played by the wonderful Orchestra of Scottish Opera, conducted by Francesco Corti. It's an ensemble which, sadly, is still having to watch its back for fear of those who would erase it from history, presumably having never heard it play.

Jose Ferrero, as Mario Cavaradossi, took until the second act to get going, and was still somewhat unconvincing in the role at the end. Susannah Glanville was an equally uninspiring Tosca, and from where I was sitting, she looked like Keeley Hawes for two acts and Michelle of the Resistance for the third and final act. Yet again, I failed to bring my opera glasses! Both leads looked very young, so may improve with age, something I felt that Floria Tosca should have had on her side. Ms Glanville looked far too young, or was it too thin? Robert Poulton stole the show as Scarpia, the evil Chief of Police, and he was booed and hissed as the cast took their bows. Honourable mention must go to David Morrison as the Sacristan.

I think I may have been having a bad day, so was never going to be as receptive to the performers and the performances as I should have been. One thing that would have helped, I think, would have been better supertitles; a great deal of the libretto was without translation. Enough complaints! Time for bed. Runnicles and Bruckner tomorrow, and I’ll need a good rest for that

Not getting it is the new getting it

Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’; a work that led to fisticuffs on its first performance, and something I’ve always had trouble listening to. One night last summer, I was forced to pump up the volume on my stereo in order to give a little hint to the Clampitts downstairs that whatever social event they were having in their so-called garden, it was quite unacceptable at half-past midnight. I’d hoped that ‘The Rite’ would chase them off, but they were impervious to it, and not just because they were a bunch of (not recovering) alcoholics.

As far as I know, not a single punch was thrown at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall last night, though if I had been Deneve, I’d have had very strong words with whoever was responsible for maintaining the hearing-aid loop, which was whistling like crazy throughout the concert. Last night may just have been the night when I stopped fearing this piece and started to believe that I could actually enjoy it. The augmented orchestra helped, although the BBC SSO appears to be able to achieve that kind of noise with just a couple of extra brass players. Following the lead of both Bill Chandler and Deneve, himself, I decided to concentrate on the complicated rhythms of the work, instead of looking for a memorable tune, and this appears to be the key to cracking the code of ‘The Rite’.

Prior to the concert, Associate Leader, William Chandler, who hasn’t aged much in the 20 years since he joined the orchestra, gave a very entertaining and informative talk on the evening’s programme. He waxed lyrical about Debussy’s impressionist style and told of the row that accompanied the commissioning of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, before relating the tale of the fight that broke out at the premiere of ‘The Rite’ in Paris. Chandler also alluded to the fact that the evening would see the penultimate appearance of Stephane Deneve as Musical Director, and the Maestro himself later remarked on his love for the word, and its bittersweet meaning last night.

What can I say about Deneve? Unfortunately, I have to start with my shame and embarrassment at my only ever having attended one concert of his prior to last night. He has been a breath of fresh air, and I doubt that there are many conductors with a personality and enthusiasm to match his (Runnicles take note). From the moment he walks on to the stage, with that mop of curly hair trailing behind his beaming face, he exudes joy. With his little speeches before the concert and his gestures to the players and the audience and the end, his obvious rapport with, and love of, both the music and the Glasgow crowd is clear to see, and he will be sadly missed. He is inimitable, that is clear, and no one should expect to see his like again here for a long, long time. I fear that, if his successor can’t engage with the audience in a similar way, the RSNO may revert back to its staid, boring old self, and all his work will have been for nought. We will see him again. He is destined to become the new Jȁrvi, returning once a year to grace us with his charm.

What of the concert, itself? Opening with Debussy’s prelude to the afternoon of a faun (later, I promise), with Katherine Bryan providing the famous flute solo, Deneve had the audience eating out of his hand long before the virtuoso, Canadian violinist James Ehnes gave us his take on Barber’s concerto, and, not content with one encore, the Caprice No. 24 by Paganini, he gave us a second, the Third Movement of J.S. Bach’s Third Sonata for Violin, and all this as Deneve sat with the basses. After this, came the interval. After that, ‘The Rite of Spring’. It was over all too soon.

Earlier in the day, I went to the Gallery of Modern Art for more from the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts. I saw a pile of sawdust, some plastic bags and sellotape put together (what else can I say?) by Karla Black

I saw, amongst other things, items by David Shrigley and the Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce, then I went to an exhibition of photographs by Alan Dimmick, whose father I worked with many years ago. All of the photos were of arty types from Glasgow, almost all of whom I had never heard of, including the woman who was wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘Not getting it is the new getting it’. All this modern art, and I still wasn’t getting it. If I had thought that the sawdust was bad, I was unprepared for what I saw at the Centre for Contemporary Arts. Sadly, the CCA, unlike GOMA, does not allow the taking of photographs, not that there was much to snap.

First up, a projector on a pile of rubble and a little picture on the wall near the floor. Next, an actual table tennis table, and anyone could play. This was, apparently, ‘Ping Pong Club – Cultural Situations’ by Julius Koller. At the end of that space, Walter Sickert’s painting of Jack the Ripper’s bedroom. In the room next door, pencil drawings, at least one of which wasn’t suitable for the kids wandering around the place, and a video loop of a guy tumbling down (up, actually, as it was backwards) stairs near Woodlands Terrace. This appears to have been ‘This sort of thing shouldn’t happen round here’ by Rob Kennedy. Back to the room with the table tennis; three large TVs sat side-by-side, and the same video showing on all three, again, by Rob Kennedy, entitled ‘Have faith or pandemonium’. There was also a film in the cinema, but I have no idea what it was called. Finally, I went upstairs to the Intermedia Gallery, where I was greeted by a large ghetto-blaster and two video monitors on the floor. This appeared to be something about videos of training shoes on YouTube, by someone called Charlotte Prodger. I left, unimpressed.

When faced with such things, it might help to remember that someone created them; someone put their heart and soul into them, whatever they are. Not getting it is the new getting it? That’s not really the problem, is it? People are being ‘paid’ for this; they are being lauded for this; they expect that unsuspecting members of the general public (i.e., not just their pretentious, arty pals) will spend time looking at whatever the hell is in front of them. Arty farty nonsense? Art for art’s sake? Pretentious for the sake of it? I have no idea, but, at a time like this, I feel the need to appropriate a phrase from an e-mail I received recently: ‘if this is art, then art is easy’.

As they day drew to a close, the ‘supermoon’ became the focus of attention (though it turns out that it may have been at its most super at 4am!). I was forced to resurrect my 30-year old Canon AE1, with 75-300mm zoom and a 2x tele-converter, and I just happened to have a roll of film sitting on a shelf. Sadly, this camera is very clunky, and my cable release appears to jam every so often, so I have no idea what, if anything, I took pictures of, but this is what I got with my IXUS230 compact. It just looks like any other moon (and, according to Pete Lawrence, no more special than the last supermoon).

I'll stir-fry you in my wok

Trust ClassicFM to capture the zeitgeist. There I was, driving along Cathedral Street, when what comes on the radio but the ‘Romance’ from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor K466. You know the one; do-do de do de-do de do de do, etc. ‘What’s the problem with that?’, I hear you say. Well, I was on my way home from the City Halls after a Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert which featured this piece, played the American pianist, Jonathan Biss (who happens to be the grandson of the woman for whom Samuel Barber wrote his Cello Concerto).  The orchestra, under the baton of young Czech conductor Jakub Hrusa, began with Dvorak’s Czech Suite, Op. 39, the reason why I was attending the concert in the first place, and finished with Beethoven’s Symphony No.2, a work with which I am barely familiar. This was my first (and last) SCO concert of this season, and I suspect I will have missed more inspiring programmes. It was a good concert, but nothing spectacular. The SCO doesn’t have whatever the BBC SSO has, but my ears are always glad of it.

It wasn’t all music. Earlier in the day, I stopped off at Glasgow Green for a look at Jeremy Deller’s Stonehenge bouncy castle

When I arrived, people of all ages and many nationalities were sampling its delights, but I was more interested in the neighbours

I found the rules rather restrictive, and more than a little disturbing

I don’t even wander round my own house without shoes on; padding about in a public place in my socks is near the top of my list of life’s icky experiences. My fears were realised when I accidentally stood in a puddle, but I just had to put it to the back of my mind and enjoy the work as best as I could. We’re meant to learn something from art, aren’t we? Well, I realised that I can’t lift both feet off the ‘ground’ at the same time, so I couldn’t jump like everyone else seemed to be able to do. I tried trotting around it, a bit like Miranda Hart probably would, and I did a comedy fall; again, much like Miranda might. This allowed me to take a photo lying down. 

Soon, it was time to retrieve my shoes and head home, but not before I went to see the horses again.

A quick walk along to the restored Doulton Fountain opposite the People’s Palace convinced me that I should come back another day, when the light was more suitable for photographs. The museum and the fountain will still be there, but Deller’s installation will be long gone; proof, if proof were needed, of the ephemeral nature of modern art.

Finally, the sad news broke yesterday of the death of Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, at the age of 47. I was never a big fan, but, through seeing some of their clever and funny videos on MTV over the years, I grew quite fond of a few of their tracks, not least Sabotage and Intergalactic. Enjoy.