Knock Knock

Hey Ho

High Five

Meanwhile, in a London Gentlemen's Club …

Apologies for the Grossness, but Hey: I'm Gross.

Christmas Twerky

Ho Ho Ho

I usually make a sweary and inappropriate Christmas card for the blog, but this year, Non-Seq came up with such a glorious festive greeting I cannot resist posting it instead.

Wishing all my blogpals an unconscionably spiffy Saturnalia / Winter Solstice boozefest / Hannukkah / Christmas / whatever (delete where applicable), but this year with extra special greetings to two true heroes of freedom and democracy, Eddie Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

Not that any of this NSA business should have surprised anybody; we've known for decades …

After all, Messr.s Martin and Mitchell defected from the NSA to Moscow in 1960 and blew the whistle on the NSA spying on its friends and its own citizens.

And here's one of my own posts, from way back in 2007, entitled 'Fuck the NSA":

"Here's a bit of fun:
Some dumb fuck with a crew cut will be reading this up in Yorkshire today, thanks to the title of the post.
I just want to say "Fuck off. You are not welcome here."

Today's subject is the delightful Menwith Hill NSA listening station just outside Harrogate in Yorkshire.
This is the world's largest electronic monitoring station, run by the NSA and responsible for "the signals intelligence and communications security activities of the US government".

Ever wonder where your emails go?
Ever wonder what that faint click was on your phone?

In total violation of EU civil liberties legislation and basic common decency, the NSA use Menwith Hill to monitor private (yes, private) telephone conversations, mobile conversations, emails and faxes plus a whole lot more, listening out for key words such as "bomb" or "bush"
(in my more radical days I would often include the word "bomb" in email titles to make sure they read it, on the assumption that if enough people did that, the twats would eventually get bored and fuck off home to America).
We have demonstrated and lobbied against this outrageous violation of civil liberties (and EU law), but to no avail. Menwith Hill is unaccountable, unlawful and undemocratic and amazingly, very few people seem to be aware of its existence.

I can understand why they needed the nearby Fylingdales early warning radar station during the cold war (though that is now being upgraded to become part of the farcical Star Wars defence shield), but Menwith Hill is illegal and immoral.

In case you think they're not listening to you, they constantly monitor all European post, telephone and telegraph signals, together with mobile communications and such corporations as ITT and RCA in the US.
Say "Hi" to them next time you call anyone.
Then tell them to fuck off.

Now you know."

So Merry Christmas Blogville, Eddie and Chelsea and - as Tiny Tim said, "Gawd bless us, every one."•


•except the NSA.

Yes, You Did.

Christmas Is Coming …

Family Planning in the Eighteenth Century

It's All Downhill From Here …

Three hearty cheers for The British Library, who have just made over a million old illustrations freely available online.
Never one to resist temptation I have been mining them for the inevitable tasteless caption possibilities.

Look out for more of the same …

WTF Monday - Fractal Vegetable

I know this has a name, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is.
I've been fascinated by these little doohickeys for a while now but hadn't tried one until last weekend.
They're a cross-bred cauliflower/broccoli hybrid with all the yumminess of lightly steamed cauli and the added chemical goodies from healthy broccoli.
Delicious.

But am I the only one who finds the fractal florets kinda cute? Confirmation that the universe is indeed ruled by a mathematical nerd-god?
If you love maths and physics, try one of these. They're yummy.

An Incorrigible Rogue Writes …

The Guardian reports today that - due to a cock up by the Ministry of Justice - the Treason Felony Act of 1848 is still in force and that one can be imprisoned for life for advocating the abolition of the monarchy!

Woohoo!

Abolish the monarchy now! Burn down the Parasite House and put the buggers out on the streets.
Older readers will know my long-standing antipathy toward unearned and undeserved privilege and my righteous mockery of the Parasites, but now I find that I could be put in prison for life for it!

Yay!
Free meals, bed and board, a snooker table and an exercise yard. Bring it on!

Rather disappointingly, however, the article points out that an offence under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 has recently been repealed … that of "being an incorrigible rogue."

Darn it. At least I can justly claim to be actively guilty of a treasonable offence that carries with it a term of life imprisonment.
Kinda cool.

It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged …

Non-Seq made me giggle this morning.
Earlier this year, Joy tricked me (thank you, Joy) into the fœtid waters of interweb "romance," an experience that was truly alarming, horrifying, depressing and hilarious by turns.
Maybe over the holidays I might set down on here some salutary advice for any who may be tempted.
We shall see if I get drunk enough.

WTF Monday - Socking It To Christmas

The yarnbombers' festive knitted tree in the Forum.

Here We Go Again

Gosh! Two in a row. Here's this afternoon's sunset. Not such rich colours as yesterday's but the clouds were far more attractive.

Sunset Season

It's sunset season again at the office. This was taken this afternoon from my workstation. Straight out of the box; no need to mess with Photoshop. Boffo!

Ovation for an Empty Stage

I know you're sick of me gushing about the Britten Sinfonia but I've been waiting for this one for a long time.
As my own special birthday treat and to kick off Ben Britten's 100th birthday week, the BrittenSinf staged a concert that could have been programmed just for me.

No Jackie Shave this time around; instead, regular collaborator and guest director/leader Pekka Kuusisto took the reins for what he billed as a new kind of programming.
And it was.

But before we get to that (and my regular BritSinf fashion notes) here's something that Robyn and Eric are going to love.

No pre-concert lecture and chat this evening. Instead, a pre-concert concert in honour of Ben and Peter's lifelong educational crusade. We got to the theatre early to find the stage filled with a couple of hundred six to twelve year old kids from local villages, all in their school uniforms and noisily and chaotically excited.
They've spent all summer with the Britten Sinfonia, writing and rehearsing a tribute to Ben for his century and this was it.
They called it "Darkness and Night" and it was musically influenced by the final piece in this evening's concert, Britten's glorious Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. The kids wrote the words, based on getting to sleep, dreams, nightmares, their impression of stars, galaxies, nebulæ and auroræ and finishing with sunrise. The Britten Sinf wrote and arranged the music.

So … Out goes any syrupy impression of cute kids' choirs. In comes an octet of the Sinfs: violins, violas, cello, bass and the lovely Lettie on horn, two vocal conductors for the kids and we start with a 400 year old polyphonic piece by Tallis before launching into the new stuff. The Brits have rearranged Tallis like John Adams and the kids are somehow able to keep up with the polyrhythms.

I can only assume it's because the kids are so young and not drilled into rigid conformity, but the Brits have written and arranged some seriously modern and difficult stuff and the kids are natural and PERFECT. They're bang on with all the cross rhythms, challenging and bizarre key changes, tempo changes (often different sections of kids at different times) and weird chromatic scales and harmonies that would send most "straight" musicians screaming to the hills.

Forty minutes of breathtaking pyrotechnics later comes the inevitable standing ovation. I remember Ben Britten and Peter Pears visiting my school when I was a kid and playing some weird shit but these kids took it all in their stride. Amazing! There may be hope yet for music education. Ben must have been grinning in his grave.

Right … Back to fashion:
As ever, the Britten Sinfonia relish the challenge of twisting "formal black" until it squeals. Best female of the evening goes to the second viola in a three-quarter-length diagonal cut wizard's cape with skin-tight black velvet leggings and strappy kitten heels.
Best male is split between tenor Mark Padmore in an immaculate midnight tux with black open-necked shirt, and Pekka himself in open black cardie, black tee-shirt, black baggy trousers and what look for all the world to be old-fashioned black wrestling boots.

Suffice to say, the clash of silk, lace, velvet, stripes, ruffles, trousers of all lengths and styles, dresses and skirts that could have been designed by aliens and shoes that definitely were means it's just another Britten Sinfonia gig.

Before we start, Pekka introduces things with a chat about the programme. He wants us to forego applauding until the interval and the end, even though - (giggles all round) - the stage will be empty both times. He wants the programme to read as one narrative.

We oblige.

Here's the programme in case anyone out there is as passionate about this stuff as me:

Nico Muhly: Three Songs for Tenor and Violin (with drone from orchestra);
Bartók: Fourth movement (the pizzicato one) from Quartet No.4'
Britten: "Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal" (the 'missing' piece of Serenade for T, H&S);
Erkki-Sven Tüür: Lighthouse;
Judith Weir: "I Give You The End of a Golden String" (Premiere);
Nordheim: Partita für Paul (solo violin with other violins invisible in the wings and the the soloist wandering off to leave an empty stage while still playing).

Interval - drinkies - chatties

Nico Muhly: Material in E-flat for violin and drone;
Bartók: Third movement from the 4th quartet (the lovely elegiac slow movement);
Berg: Kanon (arranged by Schnittke for violin and orchestra);
Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten
George Crumb: God Music;
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (with Stephen Bell playing the "out of tune" natural harmonic first and last movements on a battered old valveless eighteenth century horn that looks like a short length of brass piping got cramp, and the rest on his beautifully engraved modern horn. Shiny!).

So … we have the brilliant Mark Padmore on tenor, Stephen Bell on horn, Pekka Kuusisto on violin, Caroline Dearnley on cello and the rest of the gang moseying in and out and looking sexy as hell.

The stage is all black and in keeping with Pekka's theme for the evening the musicians wander on and off as they're needed (beautifully choreographed), some walking around while they play. For the Crumb piece, the violins and violas sit cross-legged on the floor and play tuned wine glasses with their bows while the cello goes ape (luscious). Musicians play both on and off stage. There are five-string double basses (cool). The girl duct-taping the wine glasses to the floor in the interval gets her own round of applause (she came on in all black with hundreds of pieces of duct tape hanging off her clothing and methodically stuck all the glasses down), while Pekka arranged the music stands and gave me a lovely mischievous grin when he caught my eye. I think they're getting used to the baldy guy who cries a lot block booking the same front and centre seat season after season.

Anyhoo … I won't gush in my usual manner; suffice to say it was the gig of the year by a long way (in a brilliant year) and I wish I could find a woman who loves hardcore modernist music as much as I do because I want to SHARE this amazing stuff (and get laid)!

Next BrittenSinf gig features Patricia Kopatchinskaja, so expect me to sport a stiffy.

Nighty-night.

The Last Box Club

Like Groucho, I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member, but this one I can no longer avoid.

Yesterday I filled in an Autodesk survey asking me for some feedback on their 3D software and gave them a refreshing fistful of honesty that should help dampen their hapless spirits as much as their software dampens mine.

Their revenge came with the little line of boxes asking for my age. I happily and honestly ticked the one that said 45-54.

Today, however, I am acutely aware that I can now only tick the '55 and over' box. The last box in the line. There's nowhere to go from here; no more boxes to fill except the wooden one.

And so - miserable and pouting - I join the Last Box Club.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fucking fuck.

Saturday Statuary - Lippy and Slap

"Dude! You told me you were an expert with make-up an' shit.

That lippy and slap you sold me?

I mean, what the fuck?

Just look at me!

I can't go out without my helmet over my face.

Start running, dude, cuz I'm gonna whup yo ass!"

WTF Monday - Don't Question Authority

Mercifully, I was born rebellious …

… otherwise I could have spent the whole day standing in a corner of the car park.

Obesity Epidemic Spreads to Vegetable Kingdom

Eww … Someone's grown a pumpkin the same shape as the folk you see in Mid-Western Wal-Marts.

Not content with abusing our own bodies, we're now abusing vegetables, too.

Er … a Tardis.

Don't ask.

Sunday Staircase

Friday Morning Wood - Roots

"Lookit my roots! See my roots; they're all like naked. C'mon over here and root with me, baby."

Etc.

More Stuff About Shoes and Noses

Yup: Britten Sinfonia night again. The launch of their new season and I took my usual seat, front and centre, from which vantage point I - as per - took notes for all you shoe fetishists out there.

Nothing quite so outrageously "fuck me" as Alina Ibragimova's shoes from last time around, but this evening's prize went to Jacquie Shave for imprisoning her feet and calves with what I can only describe as a stiletto heeled, gladiator sandal-themed creation that had somehow got pimped by a bondage shop.

Sexiest feet of the night, however, went to Clare Finnimore - principal viola - in black ballet pumps, for constantly twining her feet and ankles around one another and her chair legs in a surprisingly erotic manner. Of course, the fact that she's adorably cute didn't hinder the effect; nor even that she was wearing what appeared to be short clown trousers and a baby-doll nightie in black-on-black stripes.

As usual, the Sinfonia's women took the "black formal" theme and undermined it every which way they could, from Caroline Dearnley - principal cello - in a mountain of lace layers that would have made Stevie Nicks grind her teeth in a jealous rage, to Miranda Dale - 2nd. violin - clad clingingly in a beautiful empire line black velvet gown with a wide satin band under the bust and a diamanté brooch front and centre. With her hair up in strict 20's style she looked glam and gorgeous.

The only non-black item on display was a crimson silk Nehru-collared blouson, wrapped around the increasingly rotund figure of star oboist Nicholas Daniel as he strutted his stuff like a somewhat chubbier Mick Jagger and monstered the fiendishly virtuosic insanity of Nicholas Maw's "Little Concert for Oboe".
Oh, and a mention too for Jacqueline Shave's bonkers mane of red-blonde hair that has now grown bigger than she is and had its own little private party during the gig.

Anyhoo … enough fashion notes, other than to say that the women of the Britten Sinfonia sport a wonderful and exceedingly attractive collection of noses; something I'd not noticed until this evening. I mean, I'd noticed that they had noses, but not that they were so darned attractive … er.

As for the music?
The Sinfonia are renowned for their consistently wonderful programming and this evening gave us a premiere from Chicago-based Brit Anna Clyne (one of whose pieces launched this year's Last Night of the Proms), the Maw oboe piece, Mozart, Haydn and Stravinsky in a delightful mash-up.

This is the band of course, who regular readers might recall recently made gloriously melodic music from - among other things - items of furniture, glass and water, and whose leader has just returned from a free-improvisation concert in a cave on the remote Faroe Islands and is currently working on a piece for violin and the sounds made by Antarctic ice recorded underwater. Which is one of many reasons I love them: they are refreshingly, deliberately and deliciously "different."

They kicked off with Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet, with Jackie, Miranda, Clare and Caroline putting on their own little fashion show and hitting the tricky Stravinsky pieces with verve and not a little wit. A real grin-inducer.

Next up came Anna Clyne's "Within Her Arms," a beautiful and elegiac string piece that built and ebbed like waves and was both unashamedly gorgeous and very modern; you could tell that her heart lies in electro-acoustic tape pieces even though the stage was filled with lush acoustic strings only. Lovely.

A short coughie break while the piano was wheeled onto the stage and then the dashing Dejan Lazić delighted us with Mozart's Piano Concerto No.12 in A Major (K414) with a small chamber orchestra in support. He has affected a Lisztian dangly forelock and delights in hunkering down with his nose almost against the keyboard, Bill Evans style for the fast passages and then throwing his head and arms back at the end of each thrilling run so that the floppy forelock flies back in a graceful arc. All very Romantic and Byronesque. His piano playing wasn't bad either. Bravos all round at the end.

Interval. Drinkies. Chatties.

The pink glasses and crimson torso of Nick Daniel launched us into the Nicholas Maw piece, with horns and woodwind added to the strings. A beautiful melodic line transferred piece by piece from the strings to the oboe before a fiendishly fast, serial-based and almost free-jazz recitativo and a boffo, grandstanding final movement that saw him exchanging rock-star poses with Jacqueline Shave. Fully deserved encores.

Last up: Haydn. While we wouldn't normally expect such "popular" classical composers as Mozza and Haydn from the Brittens, they choose the more non-traditional of traditional pieces and the finale was Haydn's wilfully bizarre, six movement, 60th Symphony: "il Distratto."
This piece of gonzo weirdness is chock full of jokes and the band were obviously having a ball … exchanged smiles of delight, fiercely furrowed brows and alarmed glances gave the impression that they were flying by the seats of their collective pants, but as ever they were fantastically tight and together. Fiddlers' elbows got a serious seeing-to in the hilariously over the top speed-freak fourth and sixth movements. Inevitably a few folk got caught out after the false climax of the fourth movement and burst into spontaneous applause, much to the giggling delight of orchestra and audience alike.
A gleeful, helter-skelter show-stopper of a finale that blew the roof off and made us cheer and clap until our arms dropped off and then stamp our feet.

This is only the opener in a fabulous season. Next Britten Sinf gig in four weeks' time. Expect hyperbole and fashion notes.

Toodle pip!

Saturday Statuary - Big-Ass Bug Thing

"Now hold still, sweetie; I'm just gonna put this big-ass bug thing in your hand."

Wednesday Window

WTF Monday - Top Shelf

Apologies, folks; I just play 'em how I see 'em.

Saturday Statuary

"Come, my darling, and kiss my weird alien face and I promise that next time I'll pay for a sculptor who can do hair and sleeves properly and not make us look all wrinkly and wet."

Wednesday Window - Gauze and Effect

WTF Monday - Shadow Puppets of Ancient Egypt

"Okay, so you watching this?
Right?
You watching?
HA!
Anubis!
ANUBIS!
Aww c'mon!
Jackal headed god?
Sheesh, you're a tough audience …

Okay, okay, okay … Wait 'til you see this one …
Y'ready?

Ta-daa!
Aww fuck! That's Anubis again. I really am shit at this …"

Where's Mona?

Do click on this to enlarge it and see what the poor woman has to put up with every day.

By the way … the girl at the lower left? If anyone knows where I can order one of those, please let me know.

Friday Morning Wood

A little tree with big ambitions.

Wednesday Window

WTF Monday - Meanwhile, in the Louvre …

"Gimme back my penis, you cock-pecking bastard!

C'mon! Cough it up!

I'm gonna need that when I get older."

Slow Time

Hey, it's Sunday and I've got the whole week off to recharge my batteries after a frenzied period of overwork.
Phil and Dawn are in Paris, Tony's off to Spain, Gerry and Heddy are running away to Sicily and me? I'm heading for my library to rest my tired eyes from bloody computer screens and spend a lazy-assed week snuggled into my big ol' reading chair.
Toodle pip!

Friday Morning Wood - How Many Eyes Does A Yew Tree Need?

I only have eyes for yew, etc.

Wednesday Window - Hattie

A peek through the window of Goodwood motor racing circuit's hat shop. Yay style!

Sir Jackie

It'll take me a while to go through the more than half a thousand photos I took at Goodwood at the weekend, but here to tide you over is one of my favourites so far: a nice portrait of Sir Jackie Stewart driving one of Jim Clark's beautiful old Lotus racers. Worth clicking on it to enlarge it. Sometimes I manage to get the panning just right and it makes me very grateful to those nice folk at Canon.

WTF Monday - FU…

All in all it's been a pretty strange weekend …

Friday Morning Wood - Twister

Wednesday Window

WTF Monday - Sick

Friday Morning Wood

Wednesday Window - Ripon Cathedral

It's Tuesday. Chill the Heck Out

It's true: in England, the rivers run with tea.

WTF Monday - Yet More Inexplicable Classicism

"You want this, huh?
You want this bunch of grapes and this severed penis?
Huh?
Yeah, I know you want it.
Well you can just keep your filthy paws away from my fruit sack, you weird fucking cat/dog/otter-looking thing, you.
As for the severed penis: I don't exactly recall why I'm holding that but as it's way bigger than mine I'm thinking I'll just keep hold of it and you can go find your own."

Saturday Statuary

I'm sure I'll be fine running around the garden naked, just so long as I don't trip over anythi …
Shitshitshitshitshit!