All work, and no play

…make me a very, very busy boy.

Subliminally Sublime

We’ve all known for a while that a product can be plucked from mediocrity into being something exotic by applying an unexpected accent. I’m quite happy to refer to an apartment rather than a flat, alluding to the idea that it’s spacious and well-appointed, and hadn’t been lived in just 3 days prior by a fat guy called Mike with ketchup stains all down the front of his faded Def leppard T-shirt.

But I’m sorry people at L’Oreal, you’ve pushed me too far with your latest fake tan product. They key word there is ‘fake’. We know it’s run-of-the-mill, and will never be exclusive. Calling it ‘L’Oreal Sublime Tanning Lotion’ is fine, but don’t prounce sublime ‘suebleem’ and expect us to think it’s exotic, exquisite, exclusive and loads of other things beginning with ‘ex’. We knew all too well what it was about. The thing is, by applying the French=exotic rule to just one word has all the effect of a Chigwell School-run Mum standing at the gates in the latest Kate Moss Topshop designs trying desperately hard not to spill the contents of her Creme Egg on her brilliant white kitten heels.

So there you have it. Poncey accents do not equal turning left when you board the plane.

Why I hate yellow…

Or rather, why I hate something yellow so much I’m beginning to think global warming and vegetarianism are good things.

I like the countryside, that much is clear, but there is an evil occupation that’s going on. It’s the crop equivalent of Hitler’s long weekend in Poland. Where once Parry wrote about England’s ‘green and pleasant land’, Rapeseed is now beginning to have the same affect on my view of the countryside as the piano tuner used to have on our television whenever he visited and started fiddling with the television remote control.

I don’t object to the colour yellow per se, I’m quite partial to yellow Jelly Babies and wine gums, but seeing fields awash with it is making me see red. I hate Rapeseed. I hate hayfever. I hate asthma. Unfortunately I have to live with all three, but if I had to evict just one of them, I know which one it would be. Despite what Wikipedia thinks, I can categorically state that this little yellow weed does indeed make me both sneezy and wheezy. Whilst nice in an alliterative sort of way, they do get in the way of me actually getting things done.

So much is my hatred of this yellow decendent of Jerry, I’m actually beginning to think global warming might be a good thing. You see, rapeseed is used to form biodiesel. If I want to drive green I have to suffer more of this stuff. So the planet lives, but I will either a) die, or 2) be housebound forever more. So I beg everybody – a vote for avoiding biofuels is a green vote. A vote for green not yellow fields.

It gets worse. This yellow relation of mustard (I also hate mustard by the way), is also used as animal feed. What’s wrong with the green stuff that grew in abundance in fields that men on horse-drawn farm machinery used to use to feed cattle? Oh yeah, we got so hungry we needed more cows and therefore more cow-food. The answer? Less cows. I was vegetarian at uni. Linda McCartney’s sausages really aren’t that terrible. Hayfever sufferers unite and go forth and spread the gospel of vegetarianism so we can rid the country of this yellow stuff.

Better still, drive your car around in circles near the fields, and the greenhouse gasses will kill the cows off too. The cows produce greenhouse gasses too by the way, so just think of it as carbon offset.

So there you have it. Global warming and vegetarianism are good. Even The Guardian agrees (sort of). Who’d have thought it?

WTF?

Things invented for which there really shouldn’t be a need:

• Hair Gel which advertises itself as ‘hood resistant’
• McDonald’s Breakfasts – A faster breakfast than you could make at home?
• Soft drinks sold in 1 litre cups
• ‘Sporks’ – a strange contraption for takeaway food which fails, amazingly, to function as any kind of cutlery
• Squeezey Chesse – Cheese is only a liquid a long time after it’s Best Before Date
• Miniature hole-punches – which only do 1 hole at a time

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Manga Shakespeare. SelfMadeHero hope these will “intrigue and grip readers”. Aparrently, setting Romeo & Juliet being”set in Japan… these backdrops make Shakespeare more accessible to today’s reader”. I’m sorry? Today’s teenager’s now more about Japan than Italy? Okay kids, name me the national sport of Japan, or it’s leader, or place it on a map? Or is it just that it’s cooler than Italy to imagine? Certainly Romeo appears to have become a rock star mixed up in the Japanese mafia.

Surely if we’re going to truly contemporise it in Japan, Romeo and Juliet would really meet in a chatroom, thus illiminating any danger of swordfighting, daggers or poisoning? In any case, looking at the cover I can’t wait until the first person writes about Romeo’s cool green vesper scooter for running around Verona…

Shtewdent

Whilst everyone around me seems to be having a mid-life crisis and getting all career-orientated / married / buying a house I’m actually regressing.

Today I logged in online as a student again.

Is it just me or have I already graduated 3 times? I’m sure I didn’t dream it. Afterall, there’s letters after my name and everything. There they are; MA PGDip BMus (Hons).

28 and a student once more.

You have to admire the ability to avoid repaying student loans!

Cello Fest

A distinct lack of posts lately, caused mostly by the fact that my birthday spilled over into a second weekend. One some time after my actual birthday weekend, but nevertheless quite birthdayish.

The lovely Sarah bought tickets for one of the big concerts at the cello festival in Manchester. It’s like a big cello conference except without the lectures, suits, comic-book ties, meandering lunches comprising on salads, PowerPoint presentations and geeks. In fact not much like a conference at all. The best part of 40 international soloists from all parts of the world dropped in on the festival, and hundreds of cellists like me. It’s not often as a musician you get to go to a non-conference conference (if you see what I mean), so we also watched another couple of concerts and a masterclass or two.

I’m just starting to get a little more inspired in my playing at the moment, and with concerts galore coming up it was an amazing weekend. Colin Carr, Natalia Gutman, Ralph Kirshbaum and Yo-Yo Ma all in one concert was a once in a lifetime thing to see – particular as it’s been announced that was to be the last cello geek-fest festival.

I also fell in love over the weekend. Don’t tell my cello, but for the first time ever I actually liked playing a modern cello. I love having an old cello, and wondering about its former owners and where in the world it’s been. Wondering who else has played each piece I play on it, and feeling like it’s a transient thing and I’m only a small stop-off on it’s history. But I liked a lovely cello by Jacop von der Lippe, who just happens to be in Oslo. All ideas for how to raise enough funds to buy one by the time we go there in July gratefully recieved, although thankfully the one I played already has an owner waiting for it.

I have my new strings bought at the festival to encourage my playing, but most importantly I have the memory of the weekend to inspire me. It’s not often you get to see Micha Maisky (currently playing the Shostakovich Sonata on my stereo) swaggering around outside the concert hall. There’s a kind of warm fuzzy glow you get from being part of a cello community, and sometimes you lose sight of that. For now I can see that, and all is well.

Reviews of the festival can be seen here. 

Nibbling my nuts

Regular visitors will now that I enjoy feeding our feathered visitors to the garden. One of the nicest things about moving from Cardiff to the relative countryside was that our feathered acquaintances, once large mobs of sparrows overlooked by Don Corleone-esque seagulls, became more colourful. More varied. More exotic.The downside was that it seemed to be costing me more than ever to feed the little things. I was beginning to wonder how much seed a small robin could eat. And I’m sure the local hardware shop were beginning to wonder if I was trying to make some Cruella da Ville-like coat of many feathers, the entrapment of wild birds being the only possible justification for buying industrial quantaties of birdseed each week.

Now I know.

Let me introduce to you two new additions to the world of birds that is, on a somewhat smaller scale, our garden. Firstly, the rare squirrel-bird. Notice it’s grey colouring to help with camouflage, it’s feathers almost looking like fur, and it’s extra long tail feathers. I always like to imagine the Mission Impossible music whenever he enters the garden.

Secondly, there’s ‘mousey’. A very small bird, brown in colour with a single long tailfeather and pronounced beak. I like to imagine some tuba and flute music when they’re around.

So there you have it. All the creatures living in a kind of Paul McCartney/Stevie Wonder type harmony, all in my little garden. Where will it end? From my youth I’ve been led to believe that all the animals in the woods get along in a neighbourly manner, and all talk. That means soon there’ll be all sorts of animals popping over for tea. Eventually word will get around, and I can only assume that one morning I’ll awake to find a seriously jet-lagged and annoyed African Elephant who’s just stepped out of a cab from Heathrow because his distant nephew recommended popping over the Chipping Sodbury and nibbling on me, er, seed.

Farewell to Slava

“A sad day for cellists”, the phrase echoing throughout the world in today’s media. Not just a sad day for cellists, nor just for musicians, but for anyone who is touched by music.

Rostropovich, who died today at 80 after battling intestinal cancer, was a character whose presence will forever be felt by musicians around the world. The history books are full of articles relating tales of Soviet opression, being stripped of his Soviet citizenship, championing freedom of expression and often suffering the wrath of the Soviet government for doing so. Amazing landmark performances include a performance of the Dvorak Concerto (Dvorak the greatest Czech composer) at the UK Proms which was met with jeers from the audience as that day in 1969 Russian tanks had rolled into Prague – the audience, forgetful of Slava’s fight for freedom, reduced him to tears as he apologised for Russian actions before delivering his encore. Rostropovich also played Bach at Check-Point Charlie as the wall that had divided Berlin was torn down by those living either side of the historical divide.

However, the lighter side of the anecdotes being told today more accurately reveal how Rostropovich managed to touch so many people. For example the accounts of him wearing a tutu and lipstick whilst performing The Swan for Isaac Stern’s 70th birthday, or tales of him pasting centrefolds from top-shelf magazines into piano parts for his accompanists to find mid-performance.

TV and radio has today been filled with cellists stepping forth to tell how Rostropovich inspired them to play the cello. I have to admit that, rather embarassingly in high-brow circles, it was Julian Lloyd-Webber with his rather cavalier attitude complete with Kennedy-esque rock performances that encouraged me to stick with the cello. However, it was Rostropovich’s interpretations that inspired me in my more advanced studies, in particular his amazing loud sound and emotional tone (I even have my own bent-spike in homage). It was also watching him play the Dvorak in the Barbican that inspired me to play the concerto during my masters degree.

But what of Rostropovich himself, what inspired him to play the cello? Rostropovich said ““When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice — my voice”. As he turned 79 last year he declared that he would never play the cello in public again, and it’s sad to think that it was maybe this loss of the voice, that had led him down such an incredible path in life, that led to his decline.

I’m sure I won’t be the only cellist returning to the Shostakovich Concerto tomorrow, the work written for Rostropovich and most associated with him…

The full NYTimes Obituary

Birthday Beach

So, back from Jersey and one year older. Not because of an unexpectedly long delay at the customs, but because of a birthday.

Being accustomed as I am to a birthday that every 3 years or so falls on the Easter weekend, I normally have to dream up birthday activities that involve either a) an indoor location, or 2) involve copious amounts of, perferably waterproof, clothing. This year was different. This year was in Jersey!

I was beginning to worry that I was getting old. Thankfully this didn’t last long, as being now officially ‘old’ and in my late-twenties, I’m prone to forgetting what I’m thinking/talking about at a moment’s notice. It’s probably only a cat’s whisker of time until I find myself on the 11 stair scratching my head wondering why it was I went up there, or more likely worrying that my tartan slipper is about to fall off.

So a birthday on the beach in was. An organic burger and the best chips in the whole of Jersey at Big Vern’s diner, then a walk in the gorgeous sunshine which has ultimately given me sunburnt elbows (a part of the human body woefully inable to cope with the tiniest bit of weather).

A year older, yes. Old? Well, I spent my day relaxing around, ‘working’ 3 hours in an orchestra in the evening, and eating a burger and chips. Sound like middle-age yet?

[Flight Update]
BA still haven’t sent me details of my cello ticket to Norway. After a total well in excess of 80 minutes on hold, my ticket is reserved, but my payment is currently queueing to be paid… Hope the plane takes off more efficiently than this!

The greatest secret agent in the world

That’s who Dangermouse was.

Yes, childhood memories of lunchtimes home from school, and then waiting for tea in the evening accompanied by Dangermouse. With voices recognised from parental tv viewing like Terry and June and Only Fools and Horses, Dangermouse oozed with character. Perhaps the only children’s TV I watched on ITV, it was also one of the few comic-esque children’s TV shows I was into.

With DM and Penfold battling on the side of good against the evil Baron Greenback, you;d think there’s little more than childhood fun. Except the cable channels have been showing repeats lately, and I can’t help noticing the humour of one David Jason playing Dangermouse himself. A certain sarcasm and dark humour. An ability to laugh in the face of the absurd, sarcastic mutterings and an element of cynicism with the world. It’s all there in the show.

I still want a flying yellow car though. And maybe a flat in a letterbox…

You can see more here, or here.