Cabaret: touring performance

See it.  Hull New Theatre next week, Wolverhampton the week after.  We went to the first night here yesterday, and were very impressed.  We'd heard mixed reports of Will Young as Emcee, but once he'd read and recruited the audience pantomime-style, he did very well indeed.  It's a very dynamic show, though with a lot of quiet scenes dripping with pathos.  I think I enjoyed the dance routines most: they could have done with a touch more ensemble, but the gymnastics were nonetheless impressive.  We especially liked Lyn Paul's Fräulein Schneider: she can't half act!  I last saw her in Blood Brothers decades ago, and in the meantime her voice has gained in timbre and maturity - chapeau!  If you do go, prepare for a really chilling ending.

Leaves are falling like mad, but at least we no longer have a trillion ash leaves to rake from the grass.  With the deluges of the last week or so, I can't get to the iris sibirica, which need cutting back.  The roses are looking a bit sad now - rain and rose buds are uncomfortable bedfellows. 

Off south tomorrow, but only because the tickets are irrevocably paid for.  The plan had been to inspect finished work and pay the bill.  Hoping to instruct the builder on Friday, not least as to timescales.  And final inspection and payment will be to our timetable.

...and another thing!

Home ownership, joys of, ctd.  It occurred to me to check the renewal quote for our house insurance and - fancy that! - it was up 27% on last year's.  On calling them, I found no sign of flexibility or haggle room, so have moved the business elsewhere, for a premium a good 10% lower than we paid last year, let alone the inflated renewal quote.  It's clear what's happening: the insurance companies now rely on low, come-on, introductory quotes, and rely on inertia and/or 'Oh, I don't want to make a fuss, dear!' to hammer people in year 2 et seq.  It seems to me that this discriminates against the unassertive members of the elderly community, and against people who lack the wit and energy to kick over the traces.  If you make a claim, you tend to find that, when renewal time comes round, the underwriters decline cover: the time-honoured mutual risk-sharing principle of the insurance industry is a dead letter in these post-Thatcherite times.  Well, being for the time being a time-served and active member of the geriatric delinquent tendency, I'm not having it, OK?  And I expect, if I'm spared, to be telling you the same story next year.

That's not the only cage I've been rattling today.  I've been round to pester our hedge-trimming man, who has been busy the last week or so sawing up trees that fell across drives, sheds, croquet lawns, orangeries etc during the recent little zephyr.  Hoping to see him next week.

Not immune ourselves to harrassment, I got a snottygram yesterday from the neighbour in Another Place about the lack of progress on repairing the end wall.  Given that we have had the fragile bits of rendering taken off, hence that there is no longer an immediate risk to his roof, I'm getting seriously close to telling him: MYOFB. The essence of his comments is to bad-mouth our builder (of which I'm perfectly capable myself, le cas échéant) because we declined to use his preferred man.

I slapped some paint around yesterday, and am consequently a shade less anxious about the piece I've been asked to do, which involves a complex task of perspective and lighting.  Version 1, on canvas, is somewhat stalled, but what I'm learning in the course of Version 2 might help me to get it flying again.  Version 2, (on paper, since the complex perspective and detail dictated a preliminary pencil drawing) is beginning to take shape.  I might have a crack at a Version 3 while we're closer to the subject next week, though the brevity of the visit may dictate otherwise.  On verra.

The joys of home ownership

The good news is that the central heating is working fine.  The bad news is that the system isn't heating the water, so one's date with the bidet on Friday was something of a shock to the, er..., system.  We do have an electric alternative, fortunately, but it overheats the water, a fact for one's awareness of which the, er..., system is more than grateful.  The eponymous Mr Waterman spent a good few hours here yesterday trying to make sense of it, concluding that the problem lay with the box on the kitchen wall.  We expect him back here later this afternoon with new box and commensurate bill.

It's an ill wind.  Since the boiler cupboard has to be emptied before the excellent and eponymous Mr W can 'attend to me boilers!' [honorable mention to spotters of the quote], I took the opportunity to reinforce the U-shaped shelf on which we keep the cookery books: Delia, Pru, Nigella, Madhur, Slater, Spencer, Tonks, Hollywood et al impose a severe burden.  Said shelf fits in round the boiler, hence makes good use of otherwise wasted space.  It's been a while since I've made busy with a crosscut saw, drills, clamps etc, and it was quite a pleasant way to spend the odd hour on a bright, breezy autumn day.  We couldn't find any suitable batten in our stocks of scrap timber, but Martyn found a bit of melamine coated chipboard that has been knocking around in the attic since it ceased to be part of some sort of self-assembly furniture.  Cutting it to length presented no problem, and I found enough recycled one-inch N°6 screws to fasten the pieces together while the glue hardens.  What I hadn't done, of course, was measure fore and aft.  Needless to say, the reinforcing batten conflicted with the support studs in the side of the cupboard, so I had to make with the chisel to get it to fit.  Well, as our favourite duty solicitor would say, there you are.  It's all in place, and the shelf is somewhat closer to the horizontal than it once was.  We have also lined up a few rarely-used books for the next trip to the Hospice in the Weald shop.

We took advantage of the dry weather the other day to bring the fuchsias and olive indoors for the winter.  We took a lot of cuttings in the spring from last year's fuchsia plants, and scattered them round the garden, where they have done very well, despite the dreadful soil and egregious neglect.  We treated ourselves to a couple of glazed pots in the spring, planting them with still more fuchsias, and they seem to have liked that environment as well.  I've been a big fan of fuchsias for years, going back to my days as a lodger with my aunt and uncle in Orpington and later Sidcup.  We have a few hardy plants round the garden as well as the half-hardy summer bedding varieties, and they are invariably rewarding.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, the builder has decided that the rendering is good except where it has already fallen off, and would we mind if he didn't start work till we're there.  Not 'appy, having bought the flights, parking and car rental for a planned stay of three nights, y compris Friday and Saturday.  I think the assumption is that, as owners of a second hovel, we must be rolling in it.  I suppose the final bill be un peu moins salé but snarl nonetheless.

Sky

Before

During

After

Don't think I'd have had the nerve to ask a neighbour to stump up (pun intended) for the removal of anti-social trees as ours did, but we did subsidise the process, and are reasonably happy with the results.  We no longer have to worry that a brisk sou' wester will bring an ash tree down on Forges-L'Evêque.

Seven wonderful years since we dun the legals, but fear not the itch, people: it's way into 12 years since we got together.

Autumn

Leaves everywhere, rain on and off all week, grass still growing like mad, with the chances of being able to cut it again this year dwindling with each wet day.  The roads are very muddy, so there’s no point troubling the car washers for the moment.  (Shame, since they owe me a freebie!)  This should be the week that our neighbours’ tree surgeons cut back the hideous, light-stopping leylandii, and fell the enormous ash tree, which has not quite got to the stage of dropping its leaves big time.  Three or four days  till the work is due to begin, so we may with luck have less leaf clearing to do this year.  We still have the other neighbours’ oak and silver birch trees to contend with, however.  By and large, it’s worth the work to have such pleasant green surroundings.  We’ll need to get our man in soon to trim the hedges, prune the cherry tree and take the leader out of the young birch, which is growing vigorously.  We're also coming up to the renewal of the home insurance, and the six-monthly water bills, so we may have to live off our fat for a while. 

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, we’re waiting for a sign of life from the builder who is supposed to be re-pointing the end wall of the French house.  He was due to have begun last Monday, but our spies report no action so far.  All very frustrating: I shall need to go down to inspect the work and pay the builder at some point, but can’t book flights until we know the work is well into its stride.

I’m very busy with the hobby at the moment.  I sat on Friday for the third time this month, and spent two other days last week interviewing.  More of the latter on Monday, and a related meeting on Tuesday, so Martyn is not seeing a lot of me just now.  It being his birthday today, the weather is of course grey and wet.  At lunch time I treated him (last of the big spenders) to fish and chips at a nearby pub.  It was very good, but I’m now being reminded that I can no longer comfortably eat big meals. 

So the Booker jury has selected The Luminaries for this year’s prize.  Unlike the other five on the list, I’m really struggling with it.  It is very wordy, and I find the language annoying: it has in places a Trollopian ponderousness, yet also uses late 20^th century clichés which seem uncomfortable in the context.  The characters are unattractive and the action pedestrian, and the best I can say for it personally is that it helps me to get back to sleep on insomniac nights. 

Our broadband suddenly went out of action this afternoon.  It transpires that the whole of Disgustedville and its surrounding area is out of action.  So it’s not obvious when I’ll get this blog posted.  [Couple of hours later, we're back in touch with the world.]

Getting out more...

It's easy to be dismissive of the cultural agenda of a home counties town from which one can be in London inside an hour by train.  But over the past year or two we've come to appreciate what good old Disgustedville has to offer.  Our local symphony orchestra is now altogether pretty good.  I should say that the standard of the orchestra's playing has come on by leaps and bounds since the (frankly) embarrassing showing they gave accompanying the Operatunity women some years ago.  Their last concert included a couple of pieces by Britten and the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, which is one of my Desert Island Discs.  I was unfamiliar with the Britten pieces, but loved the violin concerto, which sounded really difficult, requiring the soloist (Callum Smart) at one point to play pizzicato while holding a long note (da boy dun great).  Not knowing the score, it was hard to assess the quality of the orchestral playing, but it seemed convincing, and must have been a brute to rehearse.  As for the Berlioz, it's easy to cavil, since it was the first piece of serious music I listened to, and I've heard countless recorded and broadcast renderings of it in the intervening 45 years.  I think this was the first live performance I've been to, and was impressed by the huge rôle old Hector gave to the double basses and timpani.  I didn't like the conductor's very pedestrian tempo, which left gaps in the slow sections that exposed the patchy attack of the strings.  They didn't either, since they frequently galloped ahead of him.  No complaints about the outstanding woodwind solos and string accompaniment in the Scène aux champs.  Elsewhere, under-rehearsed, I suspect, which is understandable given the demands of the Britten, and indeed the ambitious programme they have set themselves for the season.  But all good fun, culminating in that glorious, blazing and almost comically prolonged coda, which brought the house down.  Incidentally, a whole bunch of Berlioz are buried in our local bone orchard in the Languedoc, but not Hector, whose remains ought to be immured in the Panthéon, but are still in Montmartre - together with those of his two wives.

Last night's concert by Fascinating Aïda was in parts highly touching, and in many more parts good for a mighty belly laugh - even embarrassed giggling in some of the filthier songs!  I think I first heard them performing as a half-time interlude in Robert Robinson's Saturday evening  Stop the Week Radio 4 programme.  The good people of Disgustedville turned out by and large to be the kind of audience that can stand a bit of clever bawdy humour (I think the fellow near us who walked out was answering a call of nature...).  I wonder how many of them had actually heard of 'dogging', the subject of one of their more, um, robust songs (one of us had not...).  One of their more recent songs is A Teacher's Lot is Not a Happy One, obviously to the familiar Sullivan music, highlighting the superficiality and general incompetence of OFSTED.  Look for it on their web site if you're ready for the occasional rude word (which some nicely brought-up teachers will have learnt from their pupils, of course).  Their Cheap Flights song is, of course, a classic.  Or as Dillie Keane put it, 'Thirty years and one f*%@&€g hit!'. 

So the Booker jury liked The Luminaries.  I did not, and have given up on it at the 22% point.  I found its pseudo-Victorian style contrived and wordy - so far as I got - and a bit like some later Trollope stuff that went to the charity shop part-read. 

I'm covering a lot of miles at the moment for the hobby, and to meet people who want to join the club.  Fair enough: there's not a lot I can do in the garden at the moment while it's so wet, but whenever the terrace is dry enough I get out and catch up on the dead-heading.  The roses and penstemons are battling on, and the cosmos are also hanging in there.  This year's rudbeckias have been pretty pathetic - a mix of late sowing, poor compost and horticultural incompetence, I fear.  Once next door's overbearing trees have come down we'll get a  bit more autumn sun on the garden.  That is supposed to happen early next week. 

Also due this week was the next stage of the work on Château Smith.  My spies report no signs of scaffolding so far.  Oh, well.

Grizzle ctd.

Just as I was recovering from the cold, along came a dose of Montezuma's Revenge, which clipped my wings somewhat over the past couple of days, and left me feeling thoroughly out of sorts.  Still, rehydration and the usual capsules seem to have worked, and after a thoroughly lazy day yesterday (I cried off art class), I felt up to attending an AGM in the County Town in the evening.  Dreadful traffic on the way there, heavy rain, thunder and lightning on the way back.  One survives.

Having slept badly on Monday night, it was not a pleasant surprise on Tuesday to meet someone, in the course of the hobby, whom I've already met twice since April for similar reasons.  My comments were a whisker less moderate than usual.  Fortunately, there were a lot of blood-curdling matters before the professionals this week to fill the columns of the local rag, so my remarks seem to have gone unreported.

We had a delightful afternoon on Wednesday with Sunrise colleague Rodd and his wife Lesley, who were taking a break from their nomadic existence to get some repairs done to their caravan, and to visit family.  They arrived to something of a fanfare - as they pulled on to the drive, their automatic parking brake sounded like an attempt to engage first without benefit of clutch.  So their vast vehicle is also due for a spot of work. 

Barbecue after ZIWA treasure hunt, 1998-ish

We three plus another colleague and his wife did a treasure hunt in and around Zürich one day in 1998, organised by the Zürich Internation Women's Association.  One of the things we had to produce at the end was a pink elephant.  Evidently there was a bunch of them - paper cut-outs - hanging from a lamp post in the station car park at Oerlikon, where we started, but we missed them.  Back at the flat, where I think we went for sandwiches at lunchtime, Lesley fashioned one out of pink paper with the help of a pair of nail scissors.  The next thing that nearly stumped us was a portrait of the composer Arthur Honegger.  We spent quite a while dashing into every church where we thought there might be a handbill for a chamber concert until someone thought to look at the CHF 20 bank note.  We had a pleasant punt round the countryside in the big barge I drove at the time, finishing up at the Katzensee for a barbecue.  To our surprise, we won.  First and last essay in the genre. 

Those who deprecate social networks should live and be well.  But had it not been for facebook, I wouldn't have been back in touch with old friends such as Lesley and Rodd, Patricia and Martin and quite a lot more.  So I'm in favour.