A Culture Vulturess speaks

I have been the lucky imbiber of much culture recently:

• The Walworth Farce at the National Theatre.   Go see!  Go see!  It's fabulous - clever, breakneck and funny, gradually unraveling into something more unsettling.   I really enjoyed it.  And then drank a medicinal whiskey or two in the bar at the BFI next door afterwards. 

• A concert by Kensington Symphony Orchestra at St John's, Smith Square.  They played Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe - I thought the cascades of notes sounded great in that big washy acoustic, but I'm told it all nearly came apart at the seams.  Although to what extent that comment was influenced by either false modesty or condescension (as in, "it may have been tolerable to a talentless mortal such as yourself, but a more discerning ear would have realised it was actually rubbish") on the part of the commenter, I cannot say*.  Next up, the Britten variations on a theme of Frank Bridge, which has some exceedingly difficult corners in it, but they did make a lovely sound.  Slightly too many variations, if you ask me, but then he was only a wee nipper when he wrote it, so you can't really blame him for a bit of youthful enthusiasm (plus I was a bit cold and tired so may have been lacking patience).  Apparently he wanted to name the variations after aspects of Bridge's character.  What a terrible idea.  Anyway, they finished up with the full version of de Falla's Three-cornered hat, which was suitably entertaining.  And then I went and shoehorned myself into a microscopic pub with the whole of the orchestra, in order to tuck away a little more medicinal whiskey.

• Platform - a film by Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke.  Described on the cover as an assured social satire.  Described by me as... um... well...  long, for one thing.  It followed a performing arts group for about 15 years as they gradually westernised in the post-Mao world.  To begin with they put on suitably approved productions before moving into pop music and spangly disco routines as time went on.  And they copped off with each other a bit, as these performing arts types do.  There was a trauma over an abortion, an illiterate cousin who signs all his rights away at the mine, a breakdown of the tour bus in the middle of nowhere.  All fascinating little pieces in their own right, but without any particular narrative thread running through.  I would have said that you could have put all these pieces in any order, except you definitely couldn't because of the sense of "progress" driving through in the background, which I suppose was the whole point - illustrating the passage of time without the need for giant labels on everything.  It finished (well, petered out) with one of the old troupe dandling a baby over a gas stove.  Not in a "set fire to the baby" way.  Just in an "oh what fun look at the flame, baby" way.   (Which given a small error of judgement could have been a set-fire-to-the-baby way after all, but didn't turn out to be, fortunately. )  No doubt my parents will now rush out to obtain this film, as they are drawn to films with subtitles, non-professional actors, no discernible storyline, etc etc.  They took me to one once (I'm inclined to say it was Belgian although I really can't recall anything but the pervading sense of gloom it engendered) which followed a girl living a shitty life in a shitty trailer park who had a shitty job and couldn't even manage to successfully gas herself (the gas ran out just after she sat down waiting to die).  The high spot of the film was watching her boil and eat a hard boiled egg in what I swear was real time.

* I could, but it would sound rude.

blackberrying

Just seeing if this works from my Blackberry. Although typing on this diddy keyboard is a faff.

Conor came round for dinner tonight. We ate risotto and drank a nice bottle of wine and caught up on about four months of gossip. Very little of which is shareable.

He's working at the FSA at the moment. He described it as being in the eerily still place at the eye of the storm, watching the devastation wreaked around you. His office in Canary Wharf is entirely surrounded by the big name banks. It must be an amazing and bizarre time to be there.

Let that be a lesson

I return, prompted by a faux pas.

A subject of one of my previous posts (hello Nick!) was obviously googling himself (the vanity...) and found the post I wrote about him on this blog many months ago (he's the artistically-haired cambridge conducting prodigy).

I saw him last night for the first time in maybe six months and he said, "I read your blog of the last concert we did together. Where you said the soloist looked like he needed to get laid." Eeek! He was smiling when he said it, but it was still one of those moments of abject horror...

So naturally I had to go back through the archives and see what libel I had committed. The worst thing is that I'm sure that Nick is friends with this soloist, so no doubt my comment was gleefully reported back.

I do hope the poor chap is not litigious.

Perhaps he's got laid by now and might feel less inclined to sue me. But if he hasn't (and is therefore feeling a little tetchy) I unreservedly apologise. Apart from that comment, the rest of the post was reasonably unlibellous, so that's nice.

Anyway, reading through the posts reminded me of how much I enjoy it, even when it gets me into trouble. I get to re-live all my exploits, frequently late at night in the deserted office when I should be finishing off my work. Ah, the tragic pleasures of the city life, eh?

So, what's been going on? Well, I've moved to a fabulous new flat RIGHT BY the office and for the first time in a long while am working pretty modest hours. Which means that I have had a lot more time over for the purposes of FUN! And boy, it has been.

I went to a music weekend earlier in the year and met hundreds of fabulous musical people, and as a result got invited along to play with some new orchestras and things, which is simply wonderful. I've made a new friend who goes to the theatre a lot, so I've managed to see a load of great things I am personally far too disorganised to get tickets for. I've started going to pilates and stopped running (lazy lazy lazy lady - the excuse is not having anywhere to run as I am bang smack city centre) and got rid of the TV. Well, not quite true - I can still watch dvds, so I've joined an impossibly cool dvd library on [london's fashionable] Brick Lane. Course, I look a tad out of place there as I am very far from impossibly cool. But I brazen it out.

Tonight I have an unusual gap in my social calendar. But that's no bad thing: I was out last night (Strauss oboe concerto / Rite of Spring / pub afterwards - hurrah!) and Sunday night (I was playing a concert - Beethoven 1 and whathaveyou / pub afterwards - hurrah!) so what with that and the collapse of capitalism, I'm pretty tired now.

On that note, I really should go home. And here's the best bit: it's 7.10pm now. I'll be unlocking my front door by 7.15pm. God I love Zone 1.