Rule of three

This post will not be about a somewhat extreme form of oligarchy, even if it does seem to be the preferred governance regime in heaven.  Or would that be an autarchy, but one where the autarch has a personality split, like ancient Gaul, into three parts? I’m afraid my O level in Religious Studies did not provide answers to such deep, doctrinal questions and I don’t want GofaDM adding fresh fuel to the fire of the monophysite heresy.

I won’t even be straying into Wiccan magic, chemistry, aviation, programming, survival, mathematics or economics.  The human species does seem to have something of an obsession with the number three and creating rules based upon it – perhaps a rule of four is thought too much to remember and a rule of two too trivial?

Given the form of this blog, I shall stray into writing where the rule of three crops up all over the place.  The unities of ancient Greek theatre is one appearance, but more commonly it appears as a rhetorical device growing from the oral storytelling tradition (which probably links back to fallible human memory).  Just think of all the characters which come in sets of three: pigs, billy goats gruff and musketeers to name but three!  Omni trium perfectum, as they say in ancient Rome (assuming you subscribe to the concept of block time).  However, the choice of title did remind of the rule of three in poetry and, in particular, in my favourite of the poems I studied for English Literature O level.  This was Horatius by Thomas Babington (later Lord) Macaulay – a wonderfully stirring piece for the teenaged me and with a good solid grounding in rhyme and meter, which was a primary part of its appeal in those days before I’d reached an accommodation with free verse.  Stanza XXI offers two particularly fine example of using the rule of three which, as the work is safely out of copyright, I shall share with a new audience:

And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet’s war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.

It is quite a long poem and I have wasted quite a lot of time, re-discovering its joys.  Next week, quotes from Sir Patrick Spens!

Anyway, that was all by way of introduction and has consumed a worrying volume of words just to say what this post isn’t about.  Now to the matter in hand: yesterday lunchtime, I cycled up to Turner Sims to catch a trio of pieces performed by a piano trio.

The first of these was descriptively called Piano Trio (with whistles) by Ben Oliver, whose name has appeared in these pages before.  For a chap struggling to manage two hands on the keyboard and, at times, both feet on the pedals, it seems a step too far to expect the pianist (and also the violin and cello players) to also play a whistle (or a variety of the same).  I suppose it is probably no more difficult than singing while playing, though you do have the issue of not dropping the whistle and (if me) not drenching the piano in your own saliva.  The piece was rather wonderful and Mark Knoop, at the piano, seemed to be in full command of hands, feet, lungs and salivary glands.

The second piece, Ephemer by Walter Zimmerman, was fascinating and, for more much of its length, almost fugitive in its nature.  The stringed instruments produced extraordinary, ethereal tones – perhaps using a method related to the guitar microtones from a couple of weeks ago as I’m fairly sure the strings were not producing their normal notes when bowed.  I’m not sure whether I like the piece or notbut, like the Tellytubbies when it ended I had the desire to call out “again”.  Sadly (or perhaps happily), I resisted the urge, but now cannot find it on-line – next time, I shall go full Dipsy (or Laa Laa)!

The final piece was 1981 by Clarence Barlow which serves up three piano trios played at the same time.  It only uses the first movements of three trios from somewhat different periods, which are blended together using some form of chiral algorithm.  This was much more melodically and harmonically pleasing than the description might suggest, with each trio wrestling its way to the surface at different times.

A stage pregnant with possibilities…

When the concert finished, I needed to cycle home again.  So affecting was the music that I was less than convinced that I was safe to operate my transport, though I don’t think it will be too much of a spoiler to reveal that I did survive.  I was forcibly struck by the fact that I have no need for mind-altering drugs while I have access to such extraordinary music.  I’m not saying I achieved a higher level of consciousness (or, indeed, any level thereof) but I certainly felt very different after 45 minutes of musical input – and without any need to break the law!

My day finished at the Guide Dog to enjoy the monthly Doghouse Acoustic Session.  Pleasingly for the conceit of this post, this started with a piece from the Isle of Man – famous not just for tax-dodging, actuaries and a lack of tails but also for being represented by a triskelion of three armoured legs (on field gules)!  Never let it be said that this blog has nothing to offer the visiting Unicorn Pursuivant of Arms!

The final appearance of the number three was in the triangular shape of the Cheese Moments which I used to accompany a series of fine session ales.  I strongly suspect these Cheese Moments have even less to do with cheese than the most militant vegan, but I was without my reading glasses and so the small print of the ingredients was beyond the reach of my visual acuity.  This packet of snacks, and my use thereof, also led me to believe that I may be using Instagram entirely ironically – still, at least I have now found a purpose for it separate from my use of other social media: it is now the home of memetic irony…

 

Boring

Sorry to any mining or tunnelling fans who have strayed onto this page, you will find little to enchant you here.  This post is all about tedium and just how boring the author is.  I know this will come as no surprise to the regular reader, but despite having lived with the fool for more than 50 years, I am still occasionally shocked by just how boring he can be.

I will admit that much of the absence of thrills and excitement in my life can be explained by a clear plan to avoid such disruptive and emotionally draining experiences.  I have no great desire to place any more pressure on my body’s epinephrine production system.  It obtains more than enough exercise when I have placed something important – keys, wallet, phone etc – in the wrong pocket.  I have a clear system for where things go and any deviation from it causes a wholly excessive fight-or-flight response from my body when I fail to reclaim the desired item from its assigned home.

So dull am I that even my unconscious mind isn’t interesting.  I rarely remember dreams, but the only recent one that has stuck with me related to sliced bread.  Not being pursued or attacked by it, no just being given too much of it to fit in the freezer.  Is it any wonder I have trouble sleeping if this is the sort of tedium I am exposed to when I finally do achieve that balm of hurt minds (yes, I did study Macbeth for English Lit O level and I’m still struggling to evict it from my brain).

The second piece of evidence came towards the end of yesterday.  Before this conclusive proof of just how dull I am, I’d had quite an exciting day.  At lunchtime I went over to Lyndhurst for the first time in my adult life and sampled its surprisingly lengthy one-way system: a system which appears to be much larger than the town and which I feel must involve folding in a topologically interesting manner.  However, my trip was not just to marvel at the one-way system but also (and more importantly) to see the staging of a friend’s play at the curiously named and historic Vederers’ Court.  It’s in the trees by Paul Hewitt was a veritable torrent of words brought quite incredibly to life by Phoebe Swallow‘s acting chops and Ian Nicholson‘s direction in the chilly, but intimate, space of the court.  As well as hints of several local legends, I also learned just how far 1500 leaves don’t go…

The original plan was for her to be *buried* in a mere 500 leaves!

Whereas a small volume of spilled milk will coat everything within a square mile, you need an awful lot of leaves to cover (let alone bury) a single – quite modestly sized – person.  Something to bear in mind if you are looking at an autumnal body dump!

In the evening, a friend and I attended our second ceilidh of the year.  This went unexpectedly well: perhaps down to the excellent calling of Barry Goodman and his choice of simpler dances, but I like to imagine our sick dance skillz had their part to play.  This time we lasted the full 3.5 hours participating in every dance bar one and I (at least) seem to have survived more-or-less unscathed.  It was a very sweaty experience – as well as a lot of fun – and I think next time I shall wear shorts or a kilt (or perhaps a mini-skirt, unless the mini-kilt exists…) for improved ventilation.  Nipping out into the frosty air, under-dressed for the temperature, was definitely a (bracing) highlight of the evening!

Anyway, I had driven us to this dance in the hitherto unvisited (by civilised folk, or me) depths of Hiltingbury.  The venue lay in a small area with a greater concentration and variety of speed bumps than I have ever previously experienced: is it home to some sort of nationally (or internationally) important collection?  The journey back to Southampton took us past an ASDA famed for being possessed of the lowest priced petrol in Wessex (it may have other claims to fame, but these were not vouchsafed by my companion) and as my car was finally running short of its delivery half-tank of ‘juice’ it seemed fitting to pay it a visit.  So, having previously (with the aid of the car’s manual) discovered how to de-mist the vehicle and turn on the lights, it was now time to find out how to fill it with petroleum.  Having found the little cover which conceals ingress to the tank, I spent several fruitless seconds trying to remove the petrol cap.  Very much a fool’s errand as it turns out!

Mercy me, but haven’t the boffins at Ford (and perhaps at other purveyors of the horseless carriage) managed to do away with the petrol cap altogether.  Some strange, magical system (no doubt involving valves and flaps) allows the driver both to stick his nozzle into the tank and to later prevent the precious and flammable liquid from escaping – even when cornering hard at Brooklands.  I was entranced by this miracle as I frittered away my hard-earned at the fully automatic pump.  To any third-party observer, I would have appeared way too excited by this very minor piece of progress which our modern era has delivered.  To think I have lived to see the day when a car no longer needs a petrol cap!  You can keep your hoverboards and flying cars – frankly, most humans struggle driving while dealing with only two spatial dimensions, adding a third would be tempting fate – I’m quite content with the more mundane modernity delivered by a 14-plate Fiesta.

Truly, I am a very boring man and even my dreams and fantasies are very low octane when it comes to excitement: nevertheless, I shall continue to dress-up this lack as ‘preserving my childlike sense of wonder’.

Afternoon delight

It clearly wasn’t sensible to entitle this post “Morning delight” as, at my age, the delights of the morning can be divided into two broad camps.  Firstly, there is the delight of having awoken in this world once more, rather than the next (or not at all).  Secondly, comes the thrill of discovering that nothing new has dropped off, started hurting or stopped working since entering the land of Nod.  It is also in this introductory salvo that I should make explicit that I shall be interpreting the word “afternoon” rather broadly as the half of each day that lies after noon, incorporating periods that (less maverick) others might prefer to call the evening or even the start of the night.

David Attenborough and his team have been delighting residents of these isles with a series of films prying into the private lives of the wild denizens of our oceans.  I don’t like getting water up my nose and lack the patience or budget to tackle a subject of this nature and scope, so the post-lunch delights explored in this post will be much closer to home and more personal.  As usual, we will mostly be prying into the private life of a single denizen of the land, who but rarely dips so much as a toe into the ocean.  I don’t necessarily expect it to become fodder for nationwide water-cooler conversation but I like to think that in the same way that Mr A has become synonymous with documenting the natural world, so have I become the greatest documentarian of my own life.  While I am happy leaving posterity to decide who has made the greater contribution to human culture, let’s just say that I’m not getting my hopes up…

If I’m honest, this post largely exists to discuss the extraordinary delights offered by the Out-take Ensemble‘s gig on Monday evening.  However, while this will provide the majority of the thematic material for the piece, other secondary themes may intrude and there will be a coda covering events which took place a few hours later in the self-same space.

The Out-take Ensemble specialise in staging (a word I use deliberately) experimental music.  This tends to be very recently composed, fits into no obvious established genre and often has strong visual and text-based elements.  As with A Thousand Words with which this has some parallels, I fear this is going to push my descriptive powers well beyond their limits.

The evening’s first piece was composed in response to the first ever Out-take Ensemble gig – which took place only a few months ago – and incorporated live sounds recorded from the bar after that gig.  It’s name suggests it forms the first part of a trilogy, so I look forward to even deeper recursion in future parts.  In addition to recorded sounds, the piece used accordion, drum-kit, treble recorder, violin and electric guitar.  In common with all the pieces, it was fascinating both musically and intellectually and was full of the unexpected and sharp, swift moments of delight.  Again, in common with the other pieces, it induced in this listener enormous joy.  Indeed, I think for the whole evening my facial expressions transitioned between concentration, bafflement and joy: which is the sign that the brain lurking behind the face is having a very good time.

I think the second piece was the most intellectually complex as it involved the use of the display of coloured flash cards, a form of one-armed semaphore and some fragmentary phrases as well as electric guitar, treble recorder, violin, melodica and Ableton Push (producing a range of curious sounds of its own).  I think it was somewhat based around chord theory and at least some of the colours and semaphore related to notes or whole chords that were also played.  I would need to see/hear the piece several more times to understand its underpinings properly (or at all) – but it was so much fun engaging on many levels with the piece and I, coincidentally, learned several new guitar chords.

More than one way to make a chord!

Other pieces moved even further into performance, treading on the toes of theatre at times.  There was a glorious piece by Matthew Shlomowitz involving the Ableton Push, a tuba, a pair of headphones and a ball of scrunched up paper.  I am pleased to say that I correctly guessed that the ball of paper would end up in the tuba before the piece was over, but it also contained a lot of gestural elements – verging on physical theatre – and a list of northern cities.  This is described as an open score piece – so I believe the performers may have had significant freedom on the instrumentation and how it was performed.  Silent Doom Disco by Ben Jameson (also star of last week’s Playlist gig) demonstrated that experimental music does not have to include music (at least as far as the audience is concerned), or any sound at all, for a surprisingly long time – a degree of dead-air that would make even Shaun Keaveny blanche.  I believe the three headphone-wearing performers could hear music, or at least instructions, which controlled(?) their (at times frenetic) dance moves.  Eventually, some – gradually growing – music is heard by the audience which may (or may not) have related to that heard by the dancers.

An unusual take on Chekhov’s gun…

For the first time, at least in my experience, the audience were solely responsible for performing a piece: For Cage99 by Nomi Epstein.  This involved both quiet reading and singing and proved surprisingly musical – a member of the ensemble merely signalled when we should start and when the piece was over.

I shall spare you further ineffective description, but suffice it so say that future gigs by the Out-take Ensemble are on my must-do list – and I’ve started looking for other experimental music gigs to attend.  I rather fear they are few and far between as the audience for such exotica is limited, probably mostly to practitioners (and me).  However, I reckon lots of people would enjoy it – as long as they bring with them any last embers of childlike wonder they have managed to keep glowing into adulthood (or are still children).  Actually, I reckon children would love it and I’m quite tempted to try and stage an experimental music gig for such an audience: it would be a very different way into music for young people and, perhaps, more fun than more traditional approaches.

Through careful husbandry (ironic given how unlikely I am to ever become a husband), I have managed to keep a sizeable blaze of childhood wonder going, despite my proximity to the grave.  This burst forth as delight again at the piano the following day.  Discovering something new at the keyboard, however badly I am able to execute it, brings so much delight into my life.  This delight often, especially when socially acceptable, causes me to break out into laughter.  In fact, this is not just true at the piano and, as I have learned, is a reaction I share with my piano teacher.  When it happened on Tuesday, I came within a hair’s breadth of bashing my head into the piano lid for the second week running: joy has not normally been kept confined without good reason, she is a health and safety nightmare!  As well as more gloriously knotty pieces of jazz chordage and syncopated phrasing courtesy of Cruella de Vil (I’m starting to forgive her some of her canine foibles which, let’s face it, were a long time ago) this delight was also linked to the piano’s pedals.  I discovered that you can quite legally use more than one pedal! At the same time!  I had previously been treating them like flippers in pinball: for which a wise man (probably not called Tommy) once taught me the principle that ‘two flippers = no flippers’.

Charley the Cat says… always practice safe piano.

Amusingly, in Book 2 of their Piano Lessons, Waterman and Harewood are very strict about the pedal and tell their young pupils (and their not so young) that ‘the foot should never the pedal‘.  I must admit I have not followed this commandment, as being somewhat impractical. For a start, I am far from convinced that FlyBe will allow my piano onto the Dash-8 tomorrow, even if I show them these clearly worded instructions.  In fact, even writing this post I have allowed my foot to stray from the pedal…  This same book also contains a Handel Sarabande which returned to my repertoire after it managed to charm my piano teacher.  Delightfully, as I made a complete hash of playing this I found – partway through my recital (and rarely has a term been used more loosely) – that I was using the pedal.  This piece has no markings to use the pedal and I had never used the pedal when playing it the past, it somehow happened on its own.

I think I may be becoming musical by osmosis – and I like it!  My first experimental concerto must now be a very real possibility…

Is he a psychopath?

This blog, now into its eighth glorious(?) year, is entitled Glimpses of a Disturbed Mind.  Over the weekend, as I sat surrounded by organ keyboards and related assemblies and parts, it was pointed out to me that we have moved well beyond glimpses of the author’s mind: we are after all fast approaching the 800th post.  What passes for the author’s mind has surely been laid bare for all to see – or at least all with access to a sufficiently uncensored version of the internet and possessed of an interest in the author and with the considerable patience (and time) needed to wade through the 778 (at time of writing) back numbers.  I would maintain that there are whole areas of my psyche – and most of my hidden darkness – that have been kept successfully obscured from prying eyes: though a competent mental health professional may be less convinced by this line of reasoning.  However, I would have to accept the further criticism that whilst the eponymous mind may (or may not) be disturbed it is undeniably self-obsessed.

This combined with other recent bouts of self-reflection about my emotional responses to life have led me to ponder whether the author is a psychopath (in addition to having the disturbing habit of referring to himself in the third person).  At the risk of immediately diffusing any form of dramatic tension at this early stage in the post, I have assessed the author using a number of on-line tests for psychopathic tendencies and can be reasonable confident that he (and so I) am not a psychopath.  I have not had the time (or inclination) to read through the whole of DSM-5 in an attempt to characterise my mental pathology with any specific diagnosis, largely because I feel that way lies madness – probably all forms of madness and other psychological and neural disorders in that hefty tome (with the possible exception of housemaid’s knee).

Normally, I do not worry too much about my psychological make-up as I seem to smile and laugh far more than is reported as typical, so figure it can’t be too bad.  I have slight concerns about my psychological resilience given the oddly charmed life that has been my lot to date – though some of that may be down to me taking my life as lived and choosing to label it as ‘oddly charmed’; others may have taken the same life and feel themselves to have been cursed.  I am hoping that heavy caveat is sufficient to placate Fate and not draw her attention tither: unless she is using an alias, she does not appear to be a follower of GofaDM.

This recent pondering of my possible psychopathy arose after going to see the play Things I Know to be True last Friday.  This has received very good reviews and produced a very substantial emotional response in the audience sharing the Nuffield Theatre with me on Friday evening.  I found myself left oddly unmoved – which is odd, as I usually find myself weeping (or at least tearing-up) at the most trivial and banal of narrative elements on stage, screen or page.  The play was perfectly alright and there were many laugh-out loud moments, but the key emotional moments seemed too obviously telegraphed from rather early on.  Part of me was waiting for each predicted emotional maximum to arise which somehow robbed them of any real affect (and effect, for that matter).  Since many of life’s great tragedies or emotional peaks can also be forecast ahead of time (and often with more than the 60 minutes notice one might obtain from a play), I found myself wondering if I had become some sort of pitiless monster (or was ever thus).  I have often joked that I have ‘all the empathy of a well-aimed half-brick’ (a phrase I believe I borrowed from early Terry Pratchett) but had I been showing unwitting insight all these years?

These thoughts consumed me for a while, but were unable to survive exposure to the Bobonboboffs set at the Cricketer’s Arms a little later that same evening  There is something about vigorous ska – eventually delivered by a lead singer minus his slacks and a lead guitarist on a table (despite the limited headroom) that renders such maudlin self-regard difficult to sustain.  I’m not sure if they’ve ever explored the therapeutic element of their work, but it is always an option…

I was reminded of the childlike delight I had taken in elements of my first stumbling attempts at playing Cruella de Vil (by one Melville A level) on the piano earlier that week.  My first time doing some jazz-style things using my fingers was an incredible high and makes me determined to master the piece, despite its difficulty: and not just as a suitable theme to accompany my personality.  I was also forced to recall that my eyes have had to take an early bath during almost all of the other recent plays I have seen – with particular reference to The Busy World is Hushed and Quaint Honour at the Finborough Theatre – and the last time I went to the flicks – to see Call Me by Your Name.  Though this did lead me to wonder if I can only generate an emotional response where some form of romance exists: even if this existence is purely in my own head.  I think I’m using romance here with a relatively broad definition and not just as it relates to gland games.  Then again, given that I have not really competed in any gland games – even at an amateur level – it may be that my response reflects a lack of emotional maturity.  Perhaps, emotions that I have not had need to use in own life are spilling out given any remotely viable outlet to avoid some sort of over-pressure shut-down or, if left unvented, explosion.  Though, frankly that reads like cod psychology even to me – and who can guess the mental state of a demersal fish?

So, to sum up Your Honour, there is no psychological impediment to prevent my client acquiring that set of meat cleavers and I trust you will allow him to exit this courtroom without a stain on his character!

Expect the unexpected…

I have it on no less an authority than the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the advice given in the title is (a) glib and (b) a contradiction in terms.  I fear it will be difficult to speak to (a) without risk of appearing glib myself, however, I feel on safer ground with (b).  It is quite possible – and probably wise – to expect that something unexpected will occur without needing to have any idea what this might be or when it might happen.

Being single, my life is very self-directed – if we ignore the demands of work – and yet is full of unexpected moments (and even longer events).  I suspect the incidence of the unexpected has risen since I started to spend ever more time away from the orderly tedium of my home life – all this interaction with other people and the world at large must be having an effect.  This post started as an idea earlier in the week following a couple of encounters with the unexpected, but I fear may rather have grown over the following days.  I shall try and manage its length by sticking to short vignettes (and relying on the power of the image) from my week, but my logorrhoea may get the better of my good(ish) intentions.

During the interval of a gig…

…watching (but not listening to) a very low budget promo by Lost or Stolen for their upcoming single release.  The live video had something in the nature of a shrine about it, with tealights surrounding a plectrum raised upon a dais made of a pencil eraser.  From time to time, divine revelation would enter the frame in the form of words written on post-it notes – very much the clay tablets of today’s busy deity!  I was expecting some sort of blood sacrifice to propitiate the holy plectrum, with the precious fluid being absorbed by the eraser but, sadly(?), they stopped short of this level of commitment.

An historic re-enactment!

During my piano lesson…

…lying underneath the grand piano while it was played by my teacher.  It was certainly a new experience, but I’m finding it hard to put the insights I gained into words.  It was, I suppose, a logical(?) continuation of the tour of the grand piano I’d enjoyed at my previous lesson – and my first hands-on experience with a grand piano.  I have now used all the pedals in purposive manner – and realised late last night that my own piano-substitute has a sustenuto pedal (which I shall be attempting to use later).

…smashing my head, with some force, into the lid of the same grand piano.  I had to say Messrs Kawai and Sons need to rethink the design of their pianos – the lid, which is black against a black background – projects some significant distance out from the rest of the case when the keyboard is in use.  A chap innocently laughing it some pianistic solecism just committed could (and did) easily injure himself!  My piano teacher found himself in the difficult-to-pull-off superposition of laughter and concern: I feel he acquitted himself well given the challenges of macroscopic existence.

At Playlist in the Butcher’s Hook…

…the glorious conjunction of diverse but wonderful music was entirely expected.  The unethereal vocals of Stanlæy accompanied by two fae from the Winter Court, extraordinary guitar sounds from Ben Jameson and the first public performance by Somerset folk-collective Zaffir were a reminder of why Playlist is one of the cultural jewels of the city.  My unexpected discovery was the existence of microtones in the amazing new piece composed by Ben and commissioned by Playlist.  I have tried re-creating these on my acoustic guitar at home, but I may need to get some more tips from Ben for better results.

…the delicious Cambrian Root by Vibrant Forest: a salt liquorice porter.  So many of my loves brought together in one tiny space!

Strolling home from the Butcher’s Hook…

…talking to a friend on my phone (I know, shockingly used to speak to another human!) to discover that he had found wholly unanticipated love.  The heavy irony of finding, halfway through our conversation about love, that as I strolled twixt the Aldi car park and an industrial diary (well, I don’t reckon it had ever seen a cow) I was unwittingly in the (or of one of the) city’s red-light district(s).  So little do I know of gland games, that it was only when the third young (from my perspective) lady said hello and then went slightly further in her salutation did the penny finally drop.  Until that point, I had merely thought that people were slightly friendlier than usual and that the lateness of the hour (and our friend Johnny Ethanol) had helped ease their traditional British reserve.  Is it any wonder I remain single when even those with a financial incentive in raising my interest in matters of the loins struggle so badly to achieve their goal?

At the launch party of the new NST City theatre…

…being asked if I had a job other than writing my cultural blog.  This left me somewhat taken aback, as I hadn’t realised this was a cultural blog (unless the culture in question be me).  I was also pleasantly surprised that someone though this farrago might be sufficient to finance my continued existence.  I fear it is far too short on insight and far too long on weak jokes, niche references and attempts to demonstrate my (largely illusory) erudition.

…chatting with a chap in want of silver hair.  I offered him mine (I have an ever increasing abundance), but in a major failure of the supposed perfection of markets this transaction was impossible to carry through despite two willing parties.

…chatting about going vegan not for the sake of the planet or the animals, but as an economic choice to reduce costs.  A fine idea – very much in line with the teachings of Katherine Whitehorn in my youth – but I felt slightly weakened by the need to buy almond milk at much greater cost that its dairy equivalent.

…finding myself thinking, while in the stunning new theatre, that it didn’t feel like I was in Southampton: and then worrying why.  Even my photo of the entrance has an air of unreality about it.  I feel my thought was not disloyal to my adopted city but a reflection of the fact that I’m used to the city’s older and/or re-purposed venues, few of them much younger than me.  There look to be exciting times ahead: I hope their insanely(?) ambitious plans to strengthen and develop a sustainable cultural scene in Southampton, across the full range of culture, bear a bumper harvest of fruit.  Roll on (or up/down) the nano winches!

At a Film Week showing of short films…

…being surprised by the nature of the Jane Austen lecture theatre: not a hint of wood panelling or even one over-stuffed leather armchair.  Very much a modern university lecture theatre: so, much like a cinema, but with more USB charging points and less comfortable seats.  It also lay, rather unexpectedly, in a basement below a spaceship which had become inexplicably trapped in an atrium (or was the atrium built around it?).

No sign of the extra-terrestrial Postman Pat (or any black and white companion)

…finding myself enjoying a piece by Skepta (it arose in my favourite of the short films).  I suspect I may not be his primary target audience, more some unanticipated bycatch: he should probably throw me back to avoid harming the wider ecosystem.

I feel this conceit could be re-used in future to link other disparate observations which the author is too lazy, or unskilled, to draw together into a coherent whole.  I think the only lesson we might take from these 1300 odd words is that if you go out and also talk to people, unplanned things happen – and many of these are delightful!

The rhythm of life

I have a feeling that, along with music, all human cultures have some form of dance – well, all human cultures except me…  Until now?

This blog has documented a few encounters between my body (and the passenger mind) and the general concept of dance, with various attempts at vaguely rhythmic movement while music is occurring in close proximity.  These are generally sabotaged by my tendency to over-think things coupled with my status as a klutz.  Nevertheless, one should not be put off by the first few (or indeed, many) failures – if all else fails, one must merely redefine the parameters of the whole concept of dance and then attempt to enforce these on the wider population (by brutal military conquest, if necessary).

I had a tango lesson about a decade ago, so on my typical form another lesson is due in the mid 2020s.  Sometime around the turn of the millennium (the most recent one), I went to one (maybe two) ceilidh(s) (I strongly suspect this is not how a Gael would form a plural) in that hotbed of Celtish culture: Camden Town.  I remember these as being enormous fun and I clearly remember winning a box of porage oats which I carried proudly home on the bus (134 or 43): what I don’t recall is how I won these oats, but I like to imagine it was for my prowess on the dance floor.

If you now turn your mental clocks forward to the start of this summer, a friend and I went to a ceilidh in Winchester – in the rather grand surroundings of its Guildhall with the excellent Threepenny Bit providing the tunes.  Despite being ‘called’, i.e. someone with a mike telling you what to do, this was not an unmitigated triumph.  There seemed to be quite a bit of jargon and I feel things went badly wrong when multiple willows were being stripped in at least two directions at the same time.  At this event, a number of flyers were available (I suspect pushed on unsuspecting attendees) one of which was for an organisation named FASH (less sinister than it sounds) which seemed to promise potential learning experiences for the novice dancer in the autumn (and beyond).  My friend and I resolved to attend the first of these and try and become less embarrassing (and embarrassed) participants in future ceilidhs.  This was quite the commitment as it promised 5 hours of dancing with only an hour off for lunch – an exhausting prospect – but fortune favours the brave (allegedly)!

The summer whirled by and all too soon 8 October arrived.  My friend and I headed to Twyford and its Parish Hall, wearing loose clothing and comfy shoes, in the hopes of becoming the skilled (or at least marginally less useless) dancers that I felt was what destiny intended for us.

The Crucible!

As at Winchester, I knew some of the band – Mrs Savage’s Whim on this occasion (the precise nature of her whim remains unknown, but it is commemorated in dance) – but this did not entirely compensate for two minor problems with our plan.  Firstly, the session related to English folk dance which has some importance differences to the form of dance that the Scots (and wannabee Scots) practice at a ceilidh.  Secondly, whilst the day did have an educational element it was to teach different interpretations of a number of dances – not to handle the needs of a pair of complete rubes!

It would seem that much of the canon of English folk dance comes from The English Dancing Master written (or at least assembled or claimed) by one John Playford in the 17th century.  This is a splendid resource, but was written for an audience well-versed in the dance of the day.  As a result, it is (to put it kindly) exceedingly unclear to the modern reader, lacking access to a TARDIS, how the dances worked.  Various people have attempted to put some clarifying flesh on Mr Playford’s terpsichorean bones, meaning that there are several competing forms of each dance.  Our day in Twyford was designed to explore these variations by means both scholarly and physical.  This had some advantages for the novice as we had a chance to try each dance several times, but also the disadvantage that on each run through the dance had changed from the previous iteration in subtle (or rather substantial) ways.

This description might make the day seem like a write-off, but nothing could be further from the truth.  The good folk of FASH could not have been more welcoming to the two incompetent cuckoos they found, unexpectedly, in their nest.  I do have the feeling we may have been the first new blood seen since the end of the Peninsular War!  They were so patient and helpful with us, that in almost all cases we found ourselves reaching at least modest mastery of each dance and its allotropes.  I think we might also have provided a useful ‘excuse’ for the regulars to ask the caller to explain a particularly abstruse element of his dance plan again.  Still, by the end of the day, despite exertions both mental and physical, neither my friend nor I needed a stretcher.  We both left invigorated, feeling like we understood far more of the basics of English folk dance (and by extension more of ceilidh) and having had a great time and keen to return to the (folk) dance floor.

My opportunity may come this Sunday, when I have been invited to a Morris Dancing Taster Workshop.  I think I have been promised sticks (or at least stick!) which is a major incentive: who could say no to dance with a weapon!  There is a certain degree of challenge returning from Lewes (where I will awaken on Sunday morn) in time, as there is a replacement bus service operating between Angmar and Barad-dûr: something about Nazgûl on the line. (OK, the engineering work is between Angmering and Barnham – but how often does a chap get to reference the Witch King of Angmering?).  Not sure I will ever go ‘full’ Morris – it does seem to come with rather significant laundry obligations – but it should be an entertaining afternoon and some useful exercise and offer further grist to my dance-mill.

So, if in future should you hear the sound of bells, be prepared to duck as a big stick may not be far behind!

 

A mighty organ

People might wonder to what extent this post will be autobiographical, but as the author I do feel that I need to retain both some secrets and a certain becoming modesty: dips demurely behind opened fan…  Let’s face it, I am not a celebrity and this is not Snapchat, the only exposure going on here will be of the dark shallows of my soul (subject to their availability and/or existence).

If we’re honest, this is a clickbait title to hook a few extra eyes as I expound (yet again) about the cultural riches on offer to the residents of a south coast city more famous for its departures than arrivals.  It has also grown from thoughts too long even for me to attempt to shoe-horn into a Facebook status.

This last week has provided a particularly rich and varied seam of cultural coal and, in the interest of narrative drama I shall leave delivery against the title until towards the end (or will I?  Now, you’ll have to read the whole tedious diatribe in hope of salacious content).

Monday started well with a concert of less-commonly seen brass instruments, including a tuba which looked like it had been knocked up by a plumber from bits and pieces found in her van: and was all the better for it.  It also marked my introduction to the althorn, the rotary trumpet (less exciting looking that its name might suggest) and a horn with pipework that would not look out of place in some Celtic knot work.  I was left wondering if concert brass had taken a wrong turn, towards the bland, at some point in its history…

Talking of brass, last night’s jazz included a trumpet that looked to have lived a life of debauchery and excess.  It led me to realise that at some level I don’t really trust a shiny brass instrument: if I can’t read too many late nights and a life lived not wisely by too well in its patina I can’t help feeling there is something lacking.  Then again, I do have a friend with a saxophone to sell, and while it is probably shiny I am seriously tempted (and I’m not really going to fool anyone that I have lived a dissipated existence, however battered my horn might be).

Wednesday afternoon delivered a talk on pulsars by (Dame) Jocelyn Bell Burnell: the person who discovered them in the most analogue (and often uncomfortable) way possible.  She did this as a graduate student in 1967 and she is an excellent advertisement for radio-astronomy as an alternative to a painting in the attic. It was a talk in turns amazing and inspiring with a fascinating Q&A after: Richard Rodgers was right, there is nothing like a dame!

On Thursday night, it was world music – a description I usually despise, but with a trio of musicians hailing from Cuba, Senegal and Venezuela it is probably the least clunky description available.  What an amazing gig it was!  Incredible musicians – Omar Sosa on piano and keyboard, Seckou Keita on the extraordinary double-necked kora and Gustavo Ovalles on a huge range of percussion – and they were having so much fun doing it!  It was feast for eyes, ears and the soul.

Saturday afternoon I saw the powerful and amazingly well written, directly and staged People, Places and Things at the Nuffield Theatre: yet another strand in an incredible strong autumn season they are having.  I’m very glad I do not tend toward addiction as I think I’d seriously struggle with any form of 12-step programme – much as the play’s protagonist does.

OK, I’ve made you wait long enough: it is time to talk about a massive organ (fear not, there will be pictures too and, like me, you’ll probably want to get your hands all over it!).  Yesterday afternoon, as part of Southampton Film Week there was a showing of the silent Buster Keaton film The Cameraman.  However, for the fortunate audience, the film was far from silent.  Southampton Guildhall is home to a Compton organ – the largest they ever built – and has been since 1937.  This engineering marvel has 4000+ pipes plus sundry items of percussion and sound effects somehow hidden above the main stage (frankly, there doesn’t seem to be room and I strongly suspect the organ also consumes a significant tract of hyperspace).  It is also the proud possessor of two consoles: one for traditional (classical and ecclesiastical) organ recitals and one for a theatre/cinema organ performance.  Sadly, they no longer rise from beneath the stage, but are otherwise a remarkable survival.

Frankly, I can’t help thinking NASA’s recruiters should have looked to organists rather than test pilots!

So many keyboards, pedals and buttons: especially for a chap struggling to come to terms with one keyboard and a single pedal (though I have had a brief dalliance with an una corda pedal!).  Then again, I may be sleeping in a room with even more organ keyboards within the week (though those will not be functional at the time).

This musical behemoth was played by Donald MacKenzie the resident organist at the Odeon, Leicester Square,  Who knew it still had a resident organist?  Not I!  It is almost worth taking out a second mortgage and going, just to see and hear the organist in action!  In the first half he showed off the amazing range of the Compton organ – an instrument pleasingly maintained by a man with the fine organ-linked name of Peter Hammond!  In the second half he accompanied the film, live as it happened.  After the first few minutes, you completely forget that the music is not part of the film and is being produced by a man at an incredibly complex console – so perfect was the integration of image and music, even the punches landed correctly in the ‘soundtrack’.  The film is surprisingly good with some ‘jokes’ I’d not seen before (though for a modern audience, and even me, could probably do with a little judicious editing), despite it having been made in 1928!  However, what made it was the organ – how lucky I am to have this possibility less than 10 minutes stroll from my door.  Once again, I would never have known about this gig (or the organ) – let alone thought of going – but for a friend suggesting it to me.  In an overly self-direct life, ideas hailing from outside my own skull are such a boon!

A perfect blendship

You might ask why I have titled a post with this absolutely howler of a rhyme by the usually reliable Cole Porter.  Perhaps it will give succour to any struggling songwriter to know that even the greats have off-days and, if in doubt, just invent a word to get that all-important rhyme! Mr P later goes on to include the line “a lottle-dottle-dottle-dig-dig-dig” – frankly gibberish – which leads me to believe he was trying to see just how little effort he could get away with in a song: and he would seem to have won that particular bet in some style.

This post will relate to the topic which is the title of the song about whose lyrics I have just been so scathing (and trust me, this while post could have been about how dreadful they are): Friendship.

Never one to dodge a cliché

Traditionally, I have maintained a pretty small circle of friends – well, I say “maintained” but this does suggest I’ve been checking their tappets and greasing their nipples to ensure they remain in good running order and I’d like to be clear that I do not (routinely) offer this service.  This circle of (ungreased) trust was primarily made up of people I’d met at work (both past and present, paid and voluntary – the work, not the friends) and would not require me to remove my shoes (or anything more revealing) in order to count using a basic enumeration.

Even the advent of social media did little to increase my friend count, with my total Facebook friends struggling to exceed the basic dozen for many years.  This blog does (according to WordPress) have either ~140 or ~200 “people” following it, but I don’t think I can count most of these as friends and, in some cases, I am far from convinced they would even count as people.  Still, it’s good to know I have some fans among our future masters when the AIs take over!

But over the last year or so, all of this has changed!  It would seem that if you go out for a bit of local culture on a regular basis you meet other people, in a way which simply doesn’t happen if you set at home curled up with a good book or boxset (or not unless you have a very expansive take on the concept of an open-door policy).  Who’d have guessed?  The cultural scene in the city of Southampton is not so vast, in terms of audience, that one doesn’t start bumping into familiar faces after a while.  At some stage, even the most introverted of folk feel some pressure to move beyond an acknowledging nod into exchanging the odd word and this can quickly snowball into actual conversation (unless one is very careful – or creepy).  My tendency to sit in the front row (for the legroom and to spare my hyperopic eyes from undue exertion) and inability to remain stony-faced when being entertained has also meant that not only did some of the audience start to recognise me but so did those on the stage.  My further habit of talking to people – whether they want it or not – may have added unnecessary accelerant to the friend-boom.

I now find myself in the situation where I have lots of friends and it has become almost impossible to go out to anything cultural (or certain pubs – but I feel a good pub counts as culture) without bumping into at least one (and often several) friends.  Over the last couple of weeks, I have even found the circle of friendship impossible to escape in nearby Eastleigh or Winchester.  I’m almost afraid to look around when in London, just in case I see a familiar face.  Bumping into people I know is lovely and great for a good chat, but it is having an impact on the economics of the publishing industry as these conversations are consuming time that I would otherwise spend reading.

Having a group of friends with a somewhat common frame of reference (me!) has changed my use of Facebook rather dramatically.  Rather than only posting very occasionally, usually when bored on a long train journey, I have now started using it to diarise my life with pictures and (IMNVHO) witty observations or remarks.  I rather enjoy this, as it provides an outlet for vaguely amusing thoughts that occur to me as I wander through this veil of tears and which had previously never made it out of the prison of my skull.  Apparently, this is not how soi-disant “normal” people use Facebook and people claim to have befriended me solely to gain access to my exclusive “content”.  Of course, regular readers of GofaDM know that these displays of superficial learning, excessive use of polysyllabic words and increasingly obscure references held together with weak jokes and my o’erweening self-regard are available without ever having to meet or, worse, converse with their author.

Many of my new friends are quite a lot younger than me (chronologically) and this does lead to the situation where partway through recounting a “recent” anecdote, I realise it occurred before any of my rapt(?) audience were born.  Still, on the plus side it does (perhaps) mean that I am moulding (and, in at least one case, breaking) young minds.  This is, of course, a great responsibility which I am failing to treat with even the slightest hint of gravitas.  All of this time spent with the young does feed into my belief that I am still young myself (in fact, I suspect the default internal view of age I hold is currently falling – though sadly my chronological age continues to rise) and does mean I keep trying new things.  Just last night, I found myself in the 6th floor bar of Southampton’s swankiest new hotel – and as regular readers will know, I am a bit of a swanker – to see some friends playing tunes to the 1%.  Whilst I scrub up somewhat successfully, I really don’t feel at home among the wealthy and their foibles and struggle not to laugh out loud in such environments.  Last night I nearly lost it when the straw was introduced to my massively over-priced (and over-iced) beverage using a pair of tweezers – is this really what people insist upon?

Still, this whole friendship malarkey is not all fun and games (and freelance corruption of the young): it does come with some responsibilities.  Several friends and groups thereof have now requested that I provide some sort of gig guide – in the mis-guided belief that as I go out a lot, I must know what I’m doing.  Initially, I am going to try and provide some idea of cultural options for going out in the Southampton area (and occasionally) beyond as a brand new page of this august organ.  This will start fairly basic – it will be a slightly tarted-up copy of the OneNote document I use in an attempt to avoid diary clashes – and I will attempt not to allow it to act as an irresistible incitement to local burglars to divest my rude hovel of its few meagre possessions.  It will start based on my interests – which are broad, but not universal – but may expand to cover as much of the local music, theatre, spoken word and dance scene as I can find the time and inclination to assemble.  I may be amenable to feedback on the format or content, but the author’s opinion is final: however wrong it may be (and it will be very wrong!).

The Darker Half

As I write, we still lie within the Gaelic festival of Samhain- and are once again reminded that whoever transliterated the language of the Gaels to English deserves to go down in infamy.  Should any form of afterlife exist, I trust some special form of linguistic hell has been laid on for him (or her) in which to spend their endless days reflecting on their crime.

Samhain traditionally marked the start of winter and the beginning of the “darker half” of the year.  While I’m sure some neopagans still celebrate in this spirit – though I suspect in a manner which would be entirely alien to any time-travelling ancient Celt – it has mostly been subsumed in popular culture by Halloween.

When I was a lad, I don’t recall any special marking of Halloween, beyond perhaps some of the then three TV channels scheduling a scary film safely after the watershed (and I was tucked up in bed).  However, in recent years its importance had gown in this country so that it now almost outshines the important local festival of arson and resistance to knavish Popery (which will be the name of my latest business venture: providing bowls of dried petals and spices for even the most staunchly Protestant of homes).  Am I alone in fearing that an important warning to the masses not to contemplate the violent overthrow of the State is being lost?

No, today, Halloween offers an opportunity for young people dressed in scary (or merely atypical?) costumes to patrol the streets of our conurbations, great and small, seeking sweets with menaces.  This is very much not my bag – though Andrew Hunter Murray’s admission via Twitter that the only sweets he had available were high-cocoa dark chocolate was tempting, but I fear not widely practiced outside of his small corner of South London.  You might expect me as a curmudgeon of a certain age (spirit animal: Ed Reardon) to rail against this imported custom.  However, until the kids’ costumes include a functional flying broomstick, I can remain safely aloof from the hurly burly until it’s done (and any battles, lost and won) in my tiny first floor flat.  In fact, I was out on the streets while the local children were performing a parodic reenactment of their hunter-gatherer roots and it seemed that the whole process was surprisingly ecumenical.  I saw what appeared to be children from at least three of the world’s major faiths participating enthusiastically under the watchful eyes of their elders – which I feel must be good for social cohesion.

I celebrated the start of the darker half in the musical embrace of the ICP Orchestra: a curious Dutch chimera of chamber orchestra and jazz band.  ICP stands for Instant Composers Pool, but this knowledge did little to prepare me for the evening ahead.  Their music is very hard to describe but there were certainly elements of modern classical music – the odd hint of late Shostakovich perhaps – and of jazz.  I’d also throw in some Dada, manouche and mariachi and no doubt a whole lot more I didn’t recognise.  There was so much to take in, it was hard to believe there were only ten musicians – though about half played two instruments and there were occasional words(?) sung.  The concert also boasted the tattiest looking cello I have ever seen – it looked like it had been rescued from a skip moments before the gig started – but boy could it sing!  There was even an element of physical theatre – dare I say, dance – when the cellist (long past even the second flush of youth and perhaps retrieved from the same skip) conducted the band in a very unconventional manner for one of the pieces.  In the second half, when the band and audience had grown used to each other, there were even proper laughs.  Even when using a score, the music felt gloriously improvisational with order and chaos swirling around each other in a fertile maelstrom.  The ICP Orchestra have been going almost as long as I have – this year is their 50th anniversary – and some of them are clearly original members but there has been no slowing down in their musical creativity or physicality.  Even for a chap who goes to a lot of gigs, it was a unique night of incredible musical invention and fun.

As so often, I am forced to reflect on the musical riches on offer within 15 minutes of my door: if only a few more folk had taken a chance and swelled the rather modest audience.  Nonetheless, I shall continue my blog and Facebook proselytising in the hope of drawing a few more lost souls onto the right path: I can promise nothing for the next life, but plenty of enjoyable experiences in this one and a chance to get out of the house and meet some of your fellow hikers through this veil of tears!