Happy Birthday Slava

Musicians with a guaranteed place in the history books are few and far between these days, so happy birthday Rostropovich. Whilst many musicians disappear into some kind of publicity exhile (Barenboim), here is a musician forced into exhile but with enough staying power to remain in the spotlight.

Originally stripped of his Russian citizenship, Rostropovich was recently offered Russias ‘Order of the Fatherland, First Class’ by President Putin. 60 years at the forefront of musical performance, and despite a recent hospital stay, still going strong musically.

Kylie should be so lucky…

New York or anywhere

I’m not sure whether it’s my brain always associating being out with my cello and travelling the world, or whether’s there’s some kind of Starbucks ‘force’, but I’m really struggling to comprehend where I am.

I know in reality I’m in Spitalfields market having just played in the Bach Competition [more on that later], but in front of me are a German couple who haven’t spoken in English at all. What makes it wierder is that she is a Bobby Davro Spitting Image of an old singer friend. Behind me are a gaggle of blonde Sex in the City wannabes with New York accents, and to the right another American working on a laptop. Add to that Starbucks Radio which, inbetween unhealthy doses of Dylan, is playing US high school pop and bad Jeff Buckley covers.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised. I know it’s the way SB’s works. i know the idea is that you could be anywhere. There’s virtually a passport control at the door under a sign saying ‘now entering Starbucks Country’. But it’s still strange.

It actually makes me annoyed with myself. Society is becoming addicted to homogeny. We all drive the same cars, use the same computer programmes, replace white goods not when they’re faulty now but when they dare to develop quirks. I once wore tartan trousers for a year to be different, and here I am at the shrine of Starbucks. Soon we’ll be turning down pets who aren’t exactly like Disney characters, or those cute ones on PDSA adverts. Be careful, we may be only one grande skinny vanilla latte away from complete passivity…

Tres Bien Ensemble

As any verstaile musician knows, it can be quite a hectic lifestyle, and the last couple of weeks has been no exception.

Most importantly there’s been the Ardeton Ensemble. Back after a short break, we’ve been travelling to Birmingham and London for rehearsals. It’s exciting, but it feels like everything crept up on me compared to previous years. This year we’re back to basics as a string quartet, with concerts in Bristol, Cardiff and a mini-tour to Norway, complete with a quick reprise of the clarinet quintet format for the Oakham Festival in the mid-summer. As if the rehearsals weren’t busy enough, this week’s been a web-designing week with the ensemble website here.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve been working on the sixth Bach Cello Suite for the North London Festival this weekend. The only problem with Bach is that it’s a bit like a spirograph sketch – so many winding turns with so many different end locations. A tough learning curve, but strangely liberating to perform.

So there you are. Busy.

Flushed with Success

I’ve always had a bit of a thing about photographing unusual signs, and I couldn’t resist snapping this one in an educational establishment’s *ahem* facilities.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what it was that disturbed me more about it. Firstly, there were two in each cubicle; one on the back of the door so you could read it in situ, and another on the wall greeting you as you entered. Secondly there’s the rather whimsical approach to grammar, with a missing question-mark, added capitals et al.

Perhaps most disturbingly, why is there a need for this? Yes, I know men’s toilets can be a rather unsettling experience at the best of times, but please! These people are the ones entrusted to shape and mould the adults of tomorrow. Whilst those who can are shaping little acorns into big oaks, there’s clearly no time to flush.

Then something hit me – thankfully not a result of someone failing to flush with success. Perhaps it’s a motivational thing. You know, like they have in Japanese factories. ‘Have you flushed with success’ will no doubt be replaced with ‘work through the strain for greater relief’, or ‘push for greater success’. Somehow that’s actually become the more appealing reason…

A Grand Day Out

Granny Smith Apples, Mr Whippy ice-cream, cider, conker fights, chicken curry, Terry Wogan, Wallace and Grommit, Rolls Royce, The Queen Mum, St Georges’ Day. There are so many things that embody the right-from-the-spring essence of Britishness.

Actually, scrub numbers 5, 6, 8 and technically 9 probably, but the absolute true embodiment of what it is to be English has to be the image of children and parents eating cornets whilst wearing Kagools and sheltering from the rain driven at them by a force-2 gale whilst walking down a pier.

The British sea-side, there’s nothing quite like it. Old couples sit drinking strong tea from a tartan thermos in their red Rover cars whilst looking at the sea with a look of surprise on their faces making it seem like someone really has just beamed them there from their armchairs at home. Children are taken over by an industrialness that would make Barrett Homes’ motivational team jump for joy as they merrily dig their way to Austalia with flimsy plastic shovels on the beach. Dads kick the footballs discarded by offspring around like it was really they who should be captaining the Welsh team to World Cup glory, whilst Mums sneakily ride around on their child’s scooter when they think nobody is looking.

Today was one such day, spent at that most institutionally British seaside destination, Weston-Super-Mare. Betraying the name that makes it sound like it should have been along the French Riviera, it was cold, wet and windy, perfect for the British day out. Chips on the pier, sheltering from the pitter-patter of the rain above our heads, followed by a walk to the end of the pier. Not for pleasure, but taken on as a challenge worthy of any Arctic Explorer as you try to remain upright in the wind.

It was an amazingy enjoyable day out though, partly because of the teenagers. Firstly I’d like to thank the guy driving the electric train/car up and down the pier, as he huddled himself up inside his blue parker anorak with the grumpiest look on his face, and then pulled away playing banjo music on his radio worthy of any wooden shack in the southern states of America selling Alligator shoes.

Then there were those who had no idea about the right clothing for the weather. Cotton is not an outdoor material. Okay, so the bit around the collar and across the chest that says ‘Binch’ or ‘Noke’ may well provide some protection from its plasticy paint, but this item of clothing is meant for the climate of the child ‘sweatshop’ it was made in, the cotton is just soaking up the water the sea doesn’t have an appetite for.

Still, they’ll learn. There’s not anyone over the age of 20 who hasn’t yet learnt to dress for all the elements when you go on a British seaside trip. Everybody’s got a particular seaside memory, but I’d guess just about all of them involve trying to eat your Mr Whippy with strawberry sauce before not the sun but the hail and snow dissolve it into thin air.

A good day

You know it’s a good day when…

• Everybody thinks you’re great at your job, and that you’re so much better than ‘x’ or ‘y’, even if they are all under 12 years old.
• You unexpectedly save money on the car repair you’ve been stressed about since the weekend.
• A farmer stops to remark to you what a lovely day it is, mid-hedgecutting.
• You cycle 9, fairly hilly miles with ease in the glorious sunshine
• A rabbit runs out into the road in front of you to say ‘hello’ then hops away.
• You see 3 white doves fly in formation overhead.
• A field which was empty is now full of tree saplings in perfect horizontal and diagonal lines.
• The bakery gives you some free gingerbread men with your wholemeal loaf because they ‘have too many’.

Not just half-full but a full-full glass, that’s what a good day is.

The world at your fingertips

Isn’t technology great. Some research and design team at Citroen spent months designing the exhaust system on my car. They put a lovely little chrome bit on the end, built it of durable stainless steel so it will never rust or fail. They then spent another month or so designing and testing the bracket which would hold it on, with it’s large rubber dampers to make sure my bottom doesn’t get all vibrationy when I drive. Then, moments before the staff Christmas outing probably, they spent 2 minutes deciding the method of attaching both items together would be two minute bits of bog-standard welding. Ultimately, I now have to throw away a perfectly good exhaust which is unrecyclable and buy another one. All that technology, all those man-hours, and currently good old-fashioned rope is saving the day.

There’s been an element of that lack of thought in green politics lately. David ‘is the Camera-on?’ has outlined a superb way of saving the world – by taxing people out of the sky. People who fly are evil, world-haters who want to see the planet ruined. Amazing really. These people pretend that they’re flying off to some world beauty-spot, but really they’re only doing it to make sure another bit of the Suffolk coast is lost under the sea. If it was Norfolk I could see the logic, but hey, I’m from Suffolk.

So he’s made it a little sweeter – You’ll be taxed heavily for flying, but they’ll knock a penny off income tax or something. Great. I can sleep safely in my bed tonight knowing I won’t fry through lack of ozone in my sleep.

Except I won’t sleep soundly because of this tax plan. If he can afford to offer tax-breaks elsewhere, he must be assuming air-miles won’t be down – he’s counting on receiving the tax money and everybody still flying as normal. Secondly, why use environmental taxes on schools and hospitals? The schools have been told today they must now start teaching foreign languages so that people will be able to speak Spanish but never be able to afford to go there, and hospitals will have shiny new wards but doctors won’t be able to graduate because they’re unable to fly abroad to do their electorate year. Why aren’t these ‘green’ taxes being used to plant trees, design cleaner engines or invent those Starfleet Teleporters?

What about buses? The government spends millions a year subsidising and paying bus companies to run rural routes which continuously run empty. Stagecoach are claiming a CO2 emission of 0.58 KG per passenger journey, but surely this must be higher because every bus I see only has two pensioners on it, and they got on with a free bus pass and don’t pay taxes anyway. Plus, if we all start using busses, there’ll be more on the roads, more CO2, more fuel will be used as the busses are heavier etc. Plus think of all that extra tarmac needed to repair roads crushed under constant bus usage. The Climate Outreach Network, the UK’s only active charity working to educate on climate change, is making a case that buses and trains are in fact worse per passenger mile than a carefully used car.

I suppose though, we can all see the world at our fingertips. Why go to Iceland when you can see some pictures on the internet? Why stand behind the Niagara Falls when you can take a 360 panoramic tour online? Because they’re absolutely amazing. There’s no noise like Niagara on the planet, and no landscape so Earthly as Iceland, that’s why. And what about the extra drain on the environment as weall buy computers and use them constantly to tour the world? How many extra landfills and windfarms will we need then?

‘Camera-on’ wants us all to stay in the UK and only fly once a year at the most. So that’s okay, we can expect to see about 57 places abroad in our adult working lives. The only thing is, before we all started going abroad in the 1970’s didn’t we used to have wars? Weren’t we very wary of other cultures with widespread prejudioe and racism, and ridicule of religions other than Catholisism and CofE? We’ll start being worried that the world is flat and that vikings are going to start pillaging Norwich again.

Except it gets worse – we’re being priced off the road. So we can’t go abroad, but we’ll also not be able to go further than the corner shop unless we earn 100k a year to run a Nissan Micra. We’ll all know our neighbours as well as Karl and Susan Kennedy, but the next generation of Britains might be wary of people who aren’t ‘local’? We’re all doomed to accept that Little Britain may actually be a clever prophecy worthy of Notradamous.

But it’s okay, there is a saviour. Thankfully we can learn all about foreign countries and other British counties. The only people who will be able to afford to drive and fly and travel the world will be Tory MP’s with their inherrited wealth. The only problem is that as most of them own half a county each in housing and grounds they can spend 57 years exploring the acreages and shooting the wildlife. They may never actually get around to going outside the electric gates at the end of their drive.

Captain America, MIA

I have to admit that I was never all that interested in comics. Whilst everyone else was reading the childrens’ comics I was out doing active stuff like cycling and playing football, so by the time my friends were reading Judge Dredd et al, my ship had not only sailed it had been run aground on the Devon coast and all of its cargo looted.

You may be surprised therefore that I’m marking the sad passing of Marvel’s Captain America.

The thing is, he’s kind of like the perfect Amercian President in comic book form. A Private in the army, Steve Rogers was never going to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. But by some luck he winds up being injected by super serum and suddenly he’s a hero. It’s like the American dream with storyboards and speech bubbles.

Over the years he’s charted the rough seas of American foes too. The first cover historically showed Capt. A punching Hitler and from then on he was fighting the good fight. Fighting for truth and democracy. Beating the Axis of Evil… oh wait, stepped into reality for a moment then. But seriously, he took on the Japanese at the time of Hiroshima, defeated the Nazi’s and protected America and its allies.

The thing is, in the modern world G W Gump and Captain A are struggling for allies. What’s the Captain fighting now? Sure he’s a superhero, but he’s only one guy. And what was it that killed him? A sniper as he left a New York courtroom where he was sentenced to jail. A slight irony in this time of heightened policing and the patriot act.

PS An interesting project for the comicbook minded – Toonopedia

Creatures great & small

As highlighted with RobinWatch some weeks ago, I’ve been cultivating a little bit of birdtopia in the garden. A kind Ella Fitzgeraldesque tribute to Birdland.

My little feathered friends may eat around £3 of food a fortnight, but they do cheer me up so it’s money well spent. In the words of Daniels and Albarn, ‘It gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing’. There’s a couple of cheerful and tame robins, some bluetits, a blackbird couple, a chaffinch or two, and all get along in perfect harmony, sharing the birdfeeders and tables. It’s calming to look out and watch them fluttering around in a hectic way. It’s like a little-winged society. Like every society, however, there’s a growing underclass.

First there were the pigeons. Now, in Cardiff these and sparrows were about all there were to feed, but in the countryside they do have a certain city griminess about them. They’re like nightclub bouncers with their white-striped necks like cheap bow-ties, shoving the smaller birds out of the way. They litter and pollute the garden with mess and rubbish picked up elsewhere.

But this isn’t all, there’s also criminal elements at work. I’d like to have another reason, but I can’t help noticing that since the birds moved in there’s been a lot of cats about. Largely they’re in the grassy area by the stream, lurking in the long grass. If the birds want to go into the dangers of the undergrowth, then they will know to be wary of thugs. Better to stay in the safety of my garden if you ask me.

Except one particular, dark-furred feline has taken upon itself to become the mafia don of our garden. Hanging around in the shadows of the top corner of the garden, or otherwise perching on the end of the low fence waiting to pounce on unsuspecting flyers coming into the garden, is Don Cationi merrily ordering ‘hits’ on Robin and blackbird. He has a public face, all sweet and innocent, but in the dark world of the garden society his is a life run by murder, GBH and fast thrills.

But here’s the real problem. I’m a cat person. I’ve always been a cat person and grew up with one of my own. This particular cat has been welcomed into the house (sorry Sarah!) in a friendly manner. But that was before the birds came to town. Now my once calming and uplifting garden-watching is striken by turmoil – is it worse to frighten the furry away with a water spray and have it confused as to why I suddenly turned on it, or will it be worse to see a feathered friend killed or seriously injured in some underworld ‘hit’ by Don Cationi?

Pinhole Nostalgia

They say it’s a sign of getting old, but really the reason you get more frequent flashbacks to your youth as you get older is because there’s more to flashback to. When you reach ten you can only look back at what it was like being 7 or 8 and 3 months, but when you’re twenty-seven, ‘youth’ is defined as anything before last Tuesday.

I’d like to point out that I do other things in life apart from buy books, but I was in Waterstones yesterday and suddenly found myself in a Detective Sam Tyler flashback to another decade. Trying to find contemporary non-narrative literature, my brain tuned in to music wafting around me like curryhouse carpetting. Normally music in shops is by design a grey and lifeless affair, but suddenly my toe was tapping to ‘King of the Kerb’ by Echobelly. It raised a smile within me, a kind of knowing recognition shared with some of my fellow bookbuyers.

Then ‘Vegas’ by Sleeper came on and I was gone. Sure, my hands were still fondling all the lovely paperback books wanting to teach me new ways of looking cynically at the world, but my mind was elsewhere. As Lousie Nerding sang “He got away. Waited all this time with, all this scratching around, in one place made it just in time, all this talk about luck” there I was sitting in the sunshine in Cambridge surrounded by friends. I was arguing with Amy about some facet of Jarvis’ personality or trying to come up with reasons why Rachel, now a fully qualified fitter of lady’s undergarments for Robert Sayles, wasn’t going to drag me around underwear shops to spy on the competition’s merchandise. Again.

Then Nerding continued, “He got away, took him 40 years to plan his route of escape from this place. Made it just in time, with all this talk about luck“. There I was, sat on a bench in the quadrangle of my Sixth Form college. Our lives ahead of us, about to go off to university with suitcases full of good A-levels, determined to avoid dullness in our lives and sidestep the corporate ratrun. At least I know where I get my cynical and subversive nature from. No lives of the common people of Cocker’s world for us. We were destined for great things. We were the ‘it’ generation of Britpop. But for now we were content to eat cream eggs in the sun and laze around on pine garden furniture, resting in complete confidence that things were going to be different for us.

Just as I thought reality would bite, then the line “Do you think it’s be alright, if I could just crash here tonight, as you see I’m in no shape for drivin’ and anyway I got no place to go”. The Gin Blossoms were taking me into level of consciousness normally delivered by post-operative sedation in a hospital environment. Now it was GCSE year, and mid-summer sitting around listening to music and playing the Street Fighter game. This was one of Sarah’s favourites, much to the dismay of Bob. It was too ‘pop’ to be cool in a world where everyone was being different by listening to Nirvana in a Prodigy world.

It’s not just songs either, this evening the word ‘Bostik’ had my mind rambling for ages. It’s a glue which only people with an interest in woodwork, airfix models or Warhammer games will be aware of. It had this amazing ability to dry instantly on everything it came into contact with except its intended target, for which it would have a setting time of approximately 2 weeks. I could smell it and sense it on my fingers, as I stuck tyranids together in the secondary school library with friends long after the rest of the school had gone home. Where teachers would wander through to the staffroom and be amazed at our energy and enthusiasm at 4:30 when hours earlier we had been comatose in the corners of their classrooms. It had images of d-sixes and d-noughts, dice with no real function and a completely inappropriate shape for use on flat surfaces.

It’s strange how these flashbacks hit you. It’s not an all-encompassing wave that washes over you and changes the colour with which you see the world. It’s not some jet that whisks you off to another place, nor is a trigger for a seachange of what you’re currently thinking. It’s like a piece of pinhole photography. On the outside you know there’s a billion memories all in technicolour and linked in millions of ways which you could get completely lost in following. It’s a world full of smell and sensations, movement and sounds. The thing is, only a small amount gets through the pinhole at the front of the camera and you get a snapshot to place in a larger album. A square picture which, despite its vivid colour and historical significance, has clearly defined borders which are difficult to overcome.

I think the Gin Blossoms song actually has the key to it all. The hook to the chorus embodies what I ‘m trying to say, “Tomorrow we can drive around this town, let the cops chase us around. The past is gone but something might be found to take its place…“, and that’s exactly what it’s like. The flashbacks become more frequent as we get older because there’s more to flashback to, but they also become more warm and welcoming. What was traumatic at 14 becomes fuzzy and glowey at 27. We can meander around our memories today and take sanctuary in them in the hope something will happen tomorrow to take their place. Maybe by 37 I’ll be in a bookshop listening to a song to transport me back to March 2007.