I'm Sorry - What Did You Say?

Stand by for a mini-rant. I have just heard for what seems like the 99th time a trail for a series of plays on Radio 4, described as 'the epic story of the Stuart Dynasty, beginning with Mary Queen of Scots'.

I can't say it won't be an epic story, but I can say with some certainty that the Stuart dynasty did not start with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. It had been going quite a while before Mary was born. Her father after all was James [Stuart] V, and although all five Jameses were Stuarts not all Stuart Kings were  christened James.

 

If they mean the Stuart Dynasty 'in England' which presumably is what they're on about, why can't they b****y say so?

Actually I can't be bothered to rant. I'm just going to hold my head in my hands and try not to bang it on the desk in frustration.

Devon Part 2

So fortified by Cornish pasties, or possibly weighed down by them, they are nice but they are heavy, we set off for a place called The Alpaca Park which OH's Mum wanted to see. I was quite keen myself. It's basically what it says on the tin, a large piece of land where they farm alpacas, although there are a couple of llamas in residence as well.

It was warm and incredibly peaceful and they have some lovely gardens too. Because we'd walked a long way in the morning and the sun was quite powerful we elected to pay a little extra and get driven round some quite extensive acreage on a buggy. This was definitely a good idea.

 

Anyway some pics:-

 

 

The gardens. I quite like the watery ball thing-y and I'm hoping that one year we'll get one like that for our garden.

 

Alpacas

 

and a Llama

They had a tea room where we naturally had to have -

a Devon cream tea. They bake the scones to order, and although I am not generally a fan of the warm scone in this instance they were lovely. I couldn't finish both of mine, although despite that it was four empty plates that went back to the kitchen. Mmmmmh?

There is also a small shop but we didn't really have time for a proper look. If you're in North Devon, and you like peace and quiet, or alpacas, or tearooms I would heartily recommend a visit. I was very surprised [possibly because of my geographical ignorance] that you could find anywhere as remote and lovely and empty of people in Devon and it was a pleasant surprise.

 

 

More than time

I updated the blog with the trip south, if only because I took some photos specifically for the purpose.

Orkney to Devon is quite a drive, Shetland to Cornwall would be longer but not by much, so day 1 was foot to the floor and get to Carlisle where we overnighted. Day 2 we drove to Cheltenham in time for lunch with my sister, son no 1, d-i-l and grandson. We lunched at the 'famous sausage pub'. Don't think I'd go back, but the weather was lovely so we were able to eat outside.

 

Here is a rare thing

 

 

 

a picture of son number 1. When he was about 8 he suddenly started refusing to have his picture taken and even now, many years later, he's not comfortable with it. So you have to catch him unawares. He did manage his wedding photos with some grace but it was a struggle. He must be a trial to his mother in law, who before the advent of the digital camera was singlehandedly responsible for a large percentage of Kodak's profits.

 

 

No such reservations here

 

daughter-in-law, OH and grandson, all quite happy to be snapped.

I do also have a picture of my sister from the same occasion but she wouldn't thank me for putting it on here and, given that it is my birthday shortly, I have  decided that discretion is the better part of valour.

 

After lunch we got back in the car and carried on with the mega drive, arriving safely in Devon in the early evening.

 

The following day we spent the morning in Bude. I'm not sure if I've ever been to Bude before. It's possible as when I was very young we had a family holiday in Devon, although the only places I recall are Clovelly, where I spent some of my pocket money on a china donkey, long since gone to the china donkey sanctuary in the sky and Westward Ho! where I got into trouble for getting tar on my shorts. We may have been to Bude that week, but if so it left no great impression. Unlike the tar.

 

I enjoyed this visit though. It's very pretty - see

 

 

and has a nice beach

improved there by a brother-in-law.

It also has a good little  yarn shop where my mother in law bought some wool to finish a jumper and I may have treated myself to a couple of skeins of Manos del Uruguay Silk Fino in a gorgeous burnt orange colour. If you're down that way then Coastal Yarns is the name to look for. Lovely selection of yarns and buttons and a very nice owner.

We walked quite a long way round Bude and the beach before having Cornish Pasties - what else? for lunch.

To be continued....

 



 

Mezzo Madness

Just a quick nod to the SotW result last evening. In the event  I didn't watch the final but saw the last five minutes of the program in which the ultra boring mezzo who won the song prize also carried off the main title, and the audience favourite prize went to the English tenor, a man who came across in interview as so odd that I wondered how he managed to function as a normal human being the rest of the time. I wouldn't pay real cash money to hear either of these singers but it really is a matter of personal preference and I'm sure the both deserved their prizes*.

 

*Actually I'm totally unconvinced of this but some innate sense of fairness makes me write it.

 

 

New Gadget

I bought a drink maker at the weekend. For reasons into which I need not go I have recently completely changed the way I eat, and smoothies are starting to loom large. So I bought a gadget that makes them. I infer that OH has no intention of following me down the healthy fruit drink route from the fact that I was allowed to unpack, wash, put together and suss out this machine myself.

Anyway, if it's Wimbledon there must be strawberries, that's an infallible law, so I'm writing this with a banana, strawberry and OJ smoothie by my hand. I wish I knew something other than banana that gave body to smoothies as I do get a bit sick of the banana taste. But think of all the good it's doing me!

 

Meanwhile it is indeed that time of year when afternoons go for a Burton (and there's a strange phrase, I wonder which Burton it refers to?) as I watch the tennis. Not all of it, all of the time. But a fair bit. I shall again be challenging my blood pressure levels by watching all of Andy Murray's matches, and willing him to win. Do I think he will? No, not really. But he'll do his best, and quite honestly I think this whole obsession with having a British winner for Wimbledon is a bit odd.  

Proud as a Proud Thing!

Son number two is training to be an actor (or for more or less permanent unemployment, depending on whether you're an optimist or pessimist by nature) and a couple of weekends ago he had his first paid acting job.

Kirkcaldy were re-launching their museum and art gallery and they had a big weekend doing it with all sorts of exciting people visiting like Jack Vettriano and Val McDermid. Also a local politician called Gordon. As part of the celebrations they auditioned some students from son no 2's course and picked five to wander about, in costume, and deliver little scenes about important people who are associated with  the history of the town. 

 

So if you were in Kirkcaldy for the relaunch, and were accosted by a young man in 18th C dress who said he was Adam Smith - then that was my son. He got his costume provided and he got paid and everything. We were thrilled.

 

We were  promised a photo, hence the delay in the report. It has yet to appear although I haven't quite given up hope yet.

Mired in Mezzoland

I haven't been filing any  recent  reports from Cardiff Singer of the World because really I've got quite bored with it. I put this down to the fact that there have been far to many mezzo-sopranos competing , and winning.

 

This is not to say that the singers concerned haven't been good. To a fault they have had support, control, expression, colour and some of them have managed to perform, rather than just sing. They have also had voices that I just don't want to listen to.

It's not that there has never been a mezzo I didn't like. Brigitte Fassbaender for example was a joy to listen to. And there was a woman called Sally Burgess who used to sing at Opera North and she just stopped you in your tracks. So it's not a case of just not liking the mezzo voice. It's that I don't like these particular mezzo voices. They bore me.

Tonight's final has two mezzos, two sopranos and the Croatian who didn't know how to sing Handel. This latter choice strikes me as perverse in the extreme, but then I'm not  a professional. I did say here that one day he would be great. I just don't think that the one day is the end of this week. I'm in two minds about whether to even watch it to be honest. I'll probably have a look on the website to see what they're singing, then make up my mind.

 

Let's hope the next two weeks of tennis at Wimbledon don't leave me feeling quite so let down.

What I did in May

No, don't go looking for anything else.

This was it.

The sum total of my creative endeavours all month was just this one jumper for the grandson.

I did start a lot of stuff that didn't get finished. And I staggered on with the quilt.

But really, when I look at that, I am appalled.

Cardiff Singer of the World Round 2

This was definitely more like it. All five singers were of a high standard, almost all of them were better than all the singers in round 1 and the frocks were better as well. Once again there were perhaps some ill-advised repertory choices, but not such glaring ones as in Round 1.

 

The Hungarian soprano had me just from the rehearsal clip even before her televised performance. OK, if you want to be picky then her Fiordiligi was a bit lacking at the bottom but there was nothing wrong with the top. She managed to sing Handel as he should be sung, and finished up with a totally ravishing version of the Song to the Moon from Rusalka. I suppose the Rusalka is an expected choice given where she's from, but there's nothing wrong with that if you can perform it like she can. She sounded and looked absolutely wonderful.

 

She was followed by a baritone from Uzbekistan. The expert commentators didn't think much of his Rossini Figaro, although I was fine with it (but then I don't know much compared to them). His death of Posa was richly and elegantly sung and his other piece, from Korngold's Die Tote Stadt was breathtaking. He's one in a long line of  Russian baritones who have an inner stillness and a depth of tone that's absolutely amazing. The 'innerness' quality is maybe what made his Figaro less successful, since that character is definitely a playful outgoing one, but all in all for me, he was giving the soprano a good run for her money.

 

There were two mezzos competing: I have to say the mezzo is my least favourite voice type as so often their sound is very muddy. Much was made of the fact that one of them was representing Egypt and this was the first singer from Egypt the competition had ever had. She wore a very nice red dress and chose three vamps to sing; Carmen, Delilah and a Polish person from an operetta I'd never heard of. The dress suited her repertoire, her performance less so. She can sing and she has a good basic voice, but she's not a vamp, nor was she able to convey the essence of vampishness. Nor indeed could she quite catch the Polish rhythms of her final piece.

The other mezzo was from Italy and went with the other side of the mezzo repertoire, trouser roles and lots of trills. She was certainly competent and pleasant enough to listen to, but one of those singers you forget as soon as they leave the stage. I would put some of that down to inexperience, were it not for the fact that she's the oldest competitor in the competition.

 

Last up was a South African baritone. He did a much more convincing Rossini Figaro, but sadly that seemed to leave him a bit out of breath and slightly off track because his next two pieces were full of cracked notes. I gather he's had some sort of throat infection recently that affected him. He sang the Yeletsky aria from Queen of Spades which was ridiculous because he's far too young for it, although I'm sure that one day he'll make a great success of the role. He finished with a zarzuela piece which I didn't know, but he did a good job with it.  He also sang in three different languages, none of which were native to him and that alone is impressive. He was good but it wasn't his day, and I don't think he's quite ready yet for the huge career that I'm sure he will one day have.

 

I thought it was quite a close call between the Hungarian and the Uzbekistani. In the end I gave it to the soprano and the judges agreed. I wouldn't be at all surprised though to see two singers from this round in the final.

Cardiff Singer of the World Round 1

This competition has been a part of my (television watching) life since it began and I have about an 80% hit rate at spotting winners which isn't bad. Especially since it has twice been very very close to call ( Terfel vs Hvorostovsky  and Whelan vs Dam Jensen. In the latter case OH has always maintained that 'it was the frock wot won it', which seems rather hard on Whelan who went perforce with the standard male uniform of  black tie. )

When son no 1 moved to Cardiff in the autumn of 2011 we thought that we might actually go to this year's competition and combine visiting family with an amazing operatic/singing experience, but alas! he has moved twice since then, so we dropped the plan. However next time we might go regardless...

Meanwhile last evening saw the first of the televised concerts and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with the whole thing. None of the singers had 'it'; it being that elusive  quality that just stops you in your tracks as soon as someone opens their mouth and means you have to listen. The round winner, a mezzo soprano from the USA, was the best of an indifferent bunch. She has technique and control to die for, but listening to her was boring as all get out.

Many of the problems stemmed from bad repertoire choices. The English soprano sang Eva from Meistersinger and Tatyana from Evgeny Onegin. As an aside I sincerely hope that no-one sings anything else from this opera all week because so help me, if Petroc Trelawney says Yoojean Oneegin one more time I'm going to throw something at the telly. Yevgyenny Onyegin, Petroc, how hard can it be? Anyway if you wanted to pick two female parts in opera that really were exactly the same you couldn't do better than Eva and Tatyana. Although it did showcase her ability to sing in German and Russian.

The tenor fouled up his chances before he even opened his mouth by choosing to start with 'O mes amis' from La Fille Du Regiment. This contains no fewer than 9 top Cs and is a big sing even for experienced tenors whose voices lie high. We heard Juan Diego Florez sing this in San Francisco a few years ago; imagine our astonishment when  the lady sitting behind us whipped out her mobile phone in the interval and rang a friend to tell them that Flores had hit 'every single one'. He had, but did she really need to spread the word quite so quickly and fervently? Ah well. Anyway if I were a tenor at the beginning of my career taking part in the biggest competition  for young singers that there is, I don't think I would choose Oh mes amis. The inevitable happened, he missed some, and it preyed on his mind, and of course, that having taken so much out of him, his remaining choices were less than beautifully sung.

The only other noteworthy performance, for all the wrong reasons sadly, was the bass baritone from Croatia who unadvisedly sang some Handel. I'm not sure why he thought that Handel should be sung the way he sang it, but it shouldn't. He did have a wonderful voice, perhaps not best suited to the repertoire he chose, but he'll make a great Figaro soon, and later on if he looks after his voice, he'll be an amazing Verdi baritone. I could almost hear him singing Posa in Don Carlo as it was.

It is invidious and unfair really to comment on the frocks the two women wore since the men have it easy in this respect, but I will just say that neither lady did herself any favours with her choice of outfit. Concert 2 is tonight; I'm hoping for more exciting things.

I Saw Saturn! With Rings!

One of the things we did on our epic trip south (no it wasn't really epic, but we did drive from the north coast of Scotland to almost the south coast of Devon and then back again in 6 days) was to stop  on the way home  at a shop in Sale and pick up OH's new toy. It's a telescope, as astronomy is his latest  interest. He'd bought it already, but said we would pick it up rather than have it consigned to the mercy of the post/couriers. A wise move I'm sure.

It's not a telescope as Nelson would have known it of course; not one of those things you put to your eye and peer down. Or up, as the case may be. No no no. It sits on a tripod and looks a bit like an elongated drum with an eyepiece sticking out to one side. Yes I know - very technical description. Anyway he set it up last night in the garden (I knew that was what he was doing because there was noise and there was a horrible draught ) and after a while he came in and said 'I've got Saturn, do you want to see it?'  Now of course there are two possible answers to this question, but I had just been commenting to a friend on Facebook about how she was a much more supportive wife than I am, and it seemed to  me that this was a chance for me to be supportive in a way which didn't involve helping anyone to saw steel pipes in half and reinforce the side of the track to the house. In fact all it asked of me was to step outside the door and peer down an eye-piece. So I did.

 

And I'm glad because I saw Saturn and I saw the rings, very clearly, and I'm told I should have been able to see one of the moons as well. I couldn't but come on! one of my eyes is only good for letting in limited amounts of light and the other one is a long way from perfect. Seeing a shining silver Saturn surrounded by shining silver rings was actually quite enough for me. If I'm honest, it was a bit of a thrill.

Yes, I'm Back

I'm also very tired, very busy and, given that a southerly started blowing about 40 minutes ago, suffering from a migraine. Tomorrow, when I've had time to upload some photos and check that all the extremely boring post which greeted my return has been dealt with, I'll write a proper post.

So Tomorrow We Go Away

which is a Good Thing because I am in a fairly snarly snarky mood just at present which has a lot to do with having had very little time to myself for what feels like weeks but is probably only about 4 days. (It doesn't take long to throw me off kilter!) The early mornings and stress of scans, presentations and research meetings hasn't helped. Nor did today. The people coming into our holiday flat assured me that they would come straight from the ferry and arrive at two. They finally pitched up at half past three with nary a word of apology or explanation and I may have been a bit abrupt with the 'hereiseverythingandthisiswhatyoudowithitall' speech. When we go on self catering holidays we turn up on time, unlike this lot, and unlike last week's who I asked to arrive not before 3.00 and agreed and who then turned up merrily at 2.00. For two pins (not literally) I'd sell the place tomorrow.

 

It is also a Bad Thing. I do not feel like driving the length of the British Isles over two days just at present because I know the noise of the car engine will drive me crackers and I will hiss and draw in breath every time the car so much as passes over a small bump. I do not want then to end up spending three days at the home of my frail and elderly mother-in-law, because it is my considered opinion that having us to stay is too much for her and we should be staying in a hotel somewhere close, rather than inflicting ourselves upon her. OH quite blasé about problems this will cause; 'she won't need to cook for us all, we can all eat out'. Oh yes, of course we can.

 

As a reward for good behaviour I do get a night in Sale on the way back so that I can visit the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight which is stuffed with, amongst other good things, lots of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. This is a small consolation because it has been on my to-do list for many years, and really, how we never managed it in the 18 years we lived in Leeds I don't know. I am hoping there is a good gift shop with a well stocked puzzle section as  I suspect my currently overwound state needs at least one good new jigsaw puzzle and some peace and quiet in which to do it to effect an improvement.

 

We will also be taking a quick detour form the most direct route to visit Son no 1, his wife and his child, and that is also a small consolation.

 

Neither of the small consolations at present is adding up to make the trip seem more of a pleasure than a pain, and it will be a cold day in hell before I suggest or agree to anything like it again.