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[First published 27/01/2005]

It seems appropriate—on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—to talk about a film I watched the other night. Holocaust - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz interspersed interviews with people who had been forced to play music while imprisoned in Auschwitz and photographs from the time, with performances of various pieces of classical music within the camp and buildings themselves. It might sound like an odd idea, perhaps even rather disrespectful, but that isn’t the way it came across. Mr. Bsag commented at one point that it was like a musical exorcism, and perhaps it was. Certainly, music was corrupted and perverted there; people were forced to play marches and jolly little pieces while their fellow humans were marched off to the gas chambers. Playing beautiful pieces of music—some of which were composed in response to the Holocaust seemed a good way to remember and pay respect to those who died or were scarred by their experiences there.

As you might expect, it was unbearably moving at times. I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t watch it all in one go. I had to look away, which is terrible. It isn’t much to ask of us that we should be witnesses, 60 years on, but I still couldn’t do it.

I don’t believe in ghosts (or life after death for that matter), but it was difficult when Cantor Steven Leas was singing a Hebrew lament for the dead (El Male Rachamim) in the women’s barracks not to imagine that he was singing directly to the spirits of the women who had once lived in that bleak and dank room. Similarly, when Iva Bittova played the violin and sang a Gypsy Lament in the ruins of one of the many huts where Roma people where housed and then massacred, it felt as if she was sending a message of condolence and hope back in time. The programme ended in a very symbolic way, with Maxim Vengerov playing Bach’s Chaconne on the violin while walking out of the camp. Liberation.

[First published 30/09/2003]

I’ve briefly mentioned my summer working on the Isle of Mull before. What I haven’t really told you about is how I came to love the place. I went there just after graduation to work for a charity running whale-watching tours and doing research on the local whale population. I had no idea what to expect, as my last visit to Scotland had been when I was in a pushchair as a child¹, and I was woefully prepared in practical terms. I think that I was also unprepared for how profound the experience would be.

I arrived in a rainstorm, so I couldn’t see much of my surroundings beyond blurry outlines swept away by the windscreen wipers as we bumped along in the Land Rover. At that point, I wondered quite what I had let myself in for. This feeling was reinforced when I found out that because of a slight shortage of space in the caravans, I would be living on the boat on my own. This turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.

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We had a family celebration at the weekend, and all converged on Bourton-on-the-Water to eat, drink, go for walks and spend some time together. We chose Bourton mainly because it was the nicest place to spend a weekend that was roughly equidistant between all of our home towns. And it is lovely—-if somewhat ‘chocolate-boxy’—-but the main street is fearsomely busy on sunny weekends.

If you walk away from the main street (and we did that as much as possible), you can find peace and quiet, but the centre of the village was packed with people strolling about, paddling in the river and eating ice cream. We were having a coffee on the terrace of our hotel and witnessed the surreal sight of at least 30 mini motorbikes roaring up to the green. They all seemed to be scale models of particular bikes, but were ridden by full-sized men (with their knees up under their chins), and were as noisy as ordinary bikes. After a number had parked up, a police woman came over to them and evidently asked them to move on. There wasn’t any argument, and they all rode off again like a tiny, well-behaved pack of bonsai Hell’s Angels.

I’m left wondering why anyone would buy a tiny motorbike. I’m sure that you can probably fit one in the back of a car to transport it, but it must be uncomfortable, and—-to be honest—-it makes you look like a bit of a wally.

Mr. D. tagged me with this particular meme, so here we go. I’m going to do it a bit half-heartedly, because I’m starved of inspiration for the ‘5 things…’ bits at the end.

10 years ago…

I was in the final year of my PhD, in the agonising and seemingly endless process of writing up my thesis. It was quite a time of transition. When you’ve spent so much time working on something so intense and rather narrow, you really want to be rid of it, and yet don’t want to let it go—-it’s a strange feeling. I was also trying to work out whether I would be able to make a living from this academia malarky. Actually, I’m still wondering about that…

5 years ago…

This was another rather momentous year—-Mr. Bsag and I got married! The whole year was a bit of a whirlwind. I went to New Caledonia for field work in the Spring, then came straight back to a marriage preparation weekend. I wouldn’t recommend spending quite a long time abroad and living in a tent, and then immediately spending a night somewhere that isn’t your own home. You wake up in the morning wondering where the heck you are, what time it is, and which way up you are. Anyway, despite all the hassle, I remember that year very fondly.

1 year ago…

Obviously the big events in my life happen at five year intervals; one year ago, I started the year in deep depression because I thought I was never going to get a job, then I landed my current job (to my everlasting surprise and delight), and we moved from Oxford to Birmingham. Just about this time last year, we were in that transitional moving house stage, wandering around our flat and wondering how we were ever going to fit everything in a van.

Yesterday…

I had a bit of a busy day yesterday, which involved a lot of running around with video equipment, and included giving a talk. I think it went down fairly well. In the evening, we watched ‘Young Adam’ on DVD. I wasn’t wowed by the characters, but I loved the photography and David Byrne’s soundtrack. I spent most of the film trying to think of Ewan McGregor films (other than the Star Wars prequels), in which he doesn’t show us his dangly bits. I suspect it’s a very short list.

Today…

Another day of running around, followed by a slightly desperate attempt to come up with 2000 characters to describe what I hope to be doing in the next year. Try it—-it’s not easy.

Tomorrow…

I’ve got a pile of things in Tracks which are showing up with an embarrassing yellow highlight, which means that they are starting to fester on the list. My goal for tomorrow is to get the worst of them off the list, so that I can enjoy another weekend away without guilt.

So there you have it. Last time I tried to pass a meme like this on to other people, I managed to make a right hash of it. So this time, I’ll just throw the comments open to the first five people who fancy tackling it themselves. It will also give those who don’t have their own blogs a chance to join in. I’m curious to know how the last 10 years has treated all of you.

I think that my Dashboard Weather widget has taken a bit of a funny turn. This is what it was reading last night (yes, I did manually refresh it) for Birmingham. That’s Birmingham, UK, not Birmingham, Alabama, and 30 degrees Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. It was also just after 10pm, and nowhere near 30 degrees. Hmmm.

It’s that dreaded exam marking time of year again. In universities all over the country, academics can be heard pacing around their offices and muttering things like “Come on! Just one more script, then you can have a break.” to themselves. I don’t know what it is about marking, but it’s one of the most severe procrastination generators that I’m faced with in my daily life.

There are a number of things that make almost anything more attractive than the prospect of marking scripts:

1. There are so many of them. I don’t have as many as some of my colleagues, but even so the ‘unmarked’ pile seems to get bigger rather than smaller as you progress.
2. My handwriting is pretty bad, but trying to decipher the scrawl of stressed students who are trying to write as much as possible in three hours makes your eyes go funny.
3. If you’re marking one question, you see more or less the same essay with minor variations over and over again.
4. It’s really important that you get it right.

The last one is the real kicker: the students have (mostly) worked really hard, and you want to be fair and give their efforts the attention they deserve.

While I was marking¹, I came up with a ‘procrastination index’ to apply to unpleasant tasks. The idea is that you think of the everyday task that—-under normal circumstances—-would be the very last thing that you would want to do. Mine was cleaning the oven of burnt-on fish pie. Then you compare the current task and see if you would rather do this baseline task or your current one. I decided that I would rather clean the oven twice than mark scripts, so the procrastination index was +200. Fortunately, I was in the office, so I didn’t have the opportunity to take that way out. I just had to grit my teeth and slap myself every time my mind or body strayed to any task not related to marking. Roll on the end of the pile…

¹ I’m sure that some of you will have spotted that this was a form of procrastination in itself.

For a number of reasons, I’ve had some niggling worries on my mind recently. None have been particularly earth-shattering, but they were annoying enough that I’ve been mildly gloomy and pre-occupied, as if I’ve been walking around with a small stone in my shoe. I had a very busy day yesterday, but suddenly almost all of the things which had been bugging me resolved themselves—-just like that. To top it all, the weather—-which had been grey, wet and oppressive all day—-abruptly changed for the better, and everything sparkled in the brilliant light.

I ended the day with a little celebration at work with some colleagues (involving a certain quantity of alcohol, which doubtless helped a bit), and left for home feeling like a different person. I started to read a book on the train, but then just let myself daydream, looking out of the window and enjoying the odd, weightless, connected and yet disconnected feeling.

The train was nearly empty, and opposite me a man in a suit sat with his briefcase on his lap. His hands were resting gently on his copy of “The CEO of the Sofa” by P.J. O’Rourke, and his chin touched his chest as he slept. I felt slightly guilty about watching him while he slept, but he looked so peaceful and still that I was fascinated.

I lived in Oxford for 13 years, and over that time I owned a succession of bicycles, some of which were quite good quality. Despite the fact that Oxford is one of the great bike theft capitals of Britain, I never had a bike stolen. Mr. Bsag went to Oxford today on the coach, taking his nearly new Brompton folding bike with him. You can probably guess what’s coming next.

I got a phone call from him at lunch time to say that he’d left the bike outside a shop for ten minutes—-locked to an immovable object with a decent cable lock—-and had come out to find it gone. However, there are worse things that can happen. It’s just property after all—-and insured property at that. It’s annoying and inconvenient, but as long as the insurers are reasonable about it, nothing more than that. Still, I’m going to miss the little folding yellow fella sitting in the garage.

We decided to spend the day visiting the National Sealife Centre in Birmingham. They used to feature British marine life, and had an exhibit following the course of the River Severn from source to estuary, but evidently they decided that British fish are a bit—-well—-drab. It’s true that there are some very lovely fish, crustaceans and molluscs in British waters (we even have cuttlefish), but the overall tonal palette is somewhat on the brown side.

Anyway, they’ve just finished a big refit, and have a lot of tropical tanks, seahorse breeding facilities and one of those walk-through transparent tunnels through the biggest tank. Here and there you can still see the odd reminder of the old Severn exhibit. A diorama of the coast around the Severn estuary—-complete with stuffed gulls and oyster catchers—-has had a few coconut palms added for that tropical touch, but it doesn’t really fool anyone.

The tanks have been nicely done, though few contain real coral or plants. However, the fish look healthy enough, and most have plenty of space. I loved watching the rays flap lazily around their tank, gliding silently over the base and walls of the tank. I find them so relaxing that I could watch them all day. The crustaceans were brilliant too; along with some brilliantly coloured shrimps, there was a tank full of the most enormous spider crabs I’ve ever seen. They look like they should come from another planet.

I was disappointed that they didn’t have any octopi, cuttlefish or squid (I would have been happy just to see them walking on eight legs, rather than pretending to be coconuts), but they did have a mantis shrimp. Mantis shrimps are incredible. Not only do they have an incredibly fast strike with their specialised front appendages that is capable of breaking double-layered safety glass, but they are also beautifully coloured and have amazingly complex eyes. I’d love a mantis shrimp. In a very strong aquarium, of course.

I took some pictures at the Centre—-quite a challenge without a flash and in rather dark conditions. There’s a photoset on Flickr if you’re interested.

The need to write a will has been bobbing about in the back of my mind for a while now, so when I read [this article][1] by Reid, it struck a chord. I had also been idly wondering what would happen to my online existence if my organic existence ended suddenly. I know that it sounds like a bit of a morbid topic (and don’t worry—-I have no particular reason to believe that I’m about to check out), but it is worth giving some thought to.

The hubby and I don’t have a huge amount of material stuff to distribute, nor do we have children to worry about. We don’t own a house and have few savings, so there’s just the car, some IKEA furniture, hi-fi, computer, and a music collection. But the things we’ve created seem much more valuable and worth conserving. Mr. Bsag’s paintings are fairly easy to deal with; I know where they are, and would have no difficulty in physically accessing them and making sure that they were safe. But what about my writing here? I’ve written 770 posts here to date, and while they are by no means all worth saving for posterity, taken together they do reflect me in some meaningful way. In fact, this collection of writing probably represents the essence of me and my interests and opinions better than anything else tangible. And then there’s all the comments, forming a little community that I would hate to see disappear.

The problem is that with all the passwords, obscure URLs and technical challenges of accessing this material, the chances are that it would all just go quiet here, and when the hosting fees weren’t paid, it would disappear. I think I might have to sort out a kind of ‘load in case of emergencies’ CD with instructions on accessing my WordPress installation, passwords and so on, and make sure that those close to me know where it is.

[1]: http://photodude.com/article/2548/lifetime-web “The Daily Whim: Lifetime Web”

I’m not sure that choral singing is something that most people would classify as an adrenaline sport, but my experiences on Sunday have lead me to believe that it might be. I went along—with about 1,100 others—to participate in the ‘Blockbuster Choruses from Scratch’ day, held at Symphony Hall in Birmingham. The idea is that you get some rehearsal with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) and Chorus during the day, then perform a short concert in the evening.

My love of listening to choral music is well known, but I also enjoy singing, despite not having done it seriously since being in the choir at school. I don’t sight read well; I can tell if the notes are going up or down, and roughly estimate the duration of notes, but I’m heavily reliant on listening to others and picking the tune up as I go. As Eric Morecambe famously told André Previn: “I’m playing all the right notes, pal, but not necessarily in the right order”. Despite this, I had an absolute blast. The conductor, Simon Halsey, was wonderful¹, and it was brilliant fun.

I enjoyed all the pieces we did (‘Deep River’ from Tippett’s ‘A Child of Our Time’ was unexpectedly beautiful, and a treat for altos with low voices like me), but perhaps the biggest buzz came from doing Handel’s Zadok the Priest. This music must be the biggest musical tease in history. You get about 24 bars of gentle orchestral introduction, which ebbs and flows and keeps fooling you into thinking that the big choral sonic boom is about to arrive, when it actually isn’t due for another few minutes. This is an approximation of my thoughts during the concert, while waiting for the big moment to arrive:

diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle, are we nearly there yet? diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle, wait for it… diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle OK, getting closer, diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle, on your marks diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle, get set diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle, GO! [sound of 1,100 people collectively taking a deep breath]

ZAAA-DOK THE PREEEEIST… [flamin’ heck, that’s good…]

And a huge adrenalin rush was had by all. With so many people, I’m not sure that our timing was spot on, but I don’t think we could be faulted on amplitude!

¹ His explanation of how choir boys achieve a trill was hilarious and not easily forgotten…

It seems appropriate—on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—to talk about a film I watched the other night. Holocaust - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz interspersed interviews with people who had been forced to play music while imprisoned in Auschwitz and photographs from the time, with performances of various pieces of classical music within the camp and buildings themselves. It might sound like an odd idea, perhaps even rather disrespectful, but that isn’t the way it came across. Mr. Bsag commented at one point that it was like a musical exorcism, and perhaps it was. Certainly, music was corrupted and perverted there; people were forced to play marches and jolly little pieces while their fellow humans were marched off to the gas chambers. Playing beautiful pieces of music—some of which were composed in response to the Holocaust seemed a good way to remember and pay respect to those who died or were scarred by their experiences there.

As you might expect, it was unbearably moving at times. I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t watch it all in one go. I had to look away, which is terrible. It isn’t much to ask of us that we should be witnesses, 60 years on, but I still couldn’t do it.

I don’t believe in ghosts (or life after death for that matter), but it was difficult when Cantor Steven Leas was singing a Hebrew lament for the dead (El Male Rachamim) in the women’s barracks not to imagine that he was singing directly to the spirits of the women who had once lived in that bleak and dank room. Similarly, when Iva Bittova played the violin and sang a Gypsy Lament in the ruins of one of the many huts where Roma people where housed and then massacred, it felt as if she was sending a message of condolence and hope back in time. The programme ended in a very symbolic way, with Maxim Vengerov playing Bach’s Chaconne on the violin while walking out of the camp. Liberation.

One of the things I really enjoy is watching people who are very skilled do something difficult, making it look simple and graceful. It doesn’t matter if it’s filleting fish, laying bricks, forging iron or singing polyphony—I find it all fascinating. We went to see The Tallis Scholars at Symphony Hall last night, and quite apart from the sublime sound they made, I was fascinated by how effortless they made the difficult task of singing Renaissance music seem.

They are only 12 singers (at a maximum—for some of the pieces, they used fewer people), and yet they sing intricate unaccompanied and un-amplified music in parts. I used to sing in amateur choirs, and it was always a disaster when I found myself on the outer edge of the other altos. I would start listening to the sopranos part, and find it really difficult to stick to mine.

They sang a number of pieces by John Sheppard which were exquisitely beautiful. You can lose yourself in the shifting harmonies, and then suddenly find that some of the voices are soaring away, and you get lifted up with them. We were in the second row of the stalls (the cheap seats, as it turned out), and the whole thing was thrilling and quite emotional¹. I have a few recordings of the Tallis Scholars’ work, but—particularly with choral works—there’s nothing quite like experiencing it live.

¹ I think I’ve mentioned before that while I’m staunchly agnostic, I’m unusually interested and moved by all kinds of religious music: Renaissance polyphony, Gregorian chant, Russian Orthodox Christian sung liturgy, Qawwali/Sufi devotional music, and so on. If religion only involved music, I’d be pretty keen about it.

Reading The Fencing Master reminded me of what I miss about doing martial arts. I studied TaeKwon-Do for several years, and also had a brief bash (if that’s the right word) at fencing. I must be the world’s least sporty person, but I really enjoyed both—perhaps because there was as much emphasis on just doing and enjoying them as on winning a competition or match.

The Fencing Master is full of wonderful descriptions of the experience of fencing, and of the curious mixture of analytical planning and instinct it requires. On the one hand, you need to react and act instinctively towards your opponent because the action is so fast that if you wait for your brain to catch up, you will already be beaten. On the other, there’s a lot of strategy involved. You need to feel out your opponents weak points (acute observational skills are useful here), and then exploit them by employing a feint which will make them react in a certain way and allow you to make a counter-attack.

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Commuting at the moment is really irritating. There’s a limited strike on the trains, so while they are still running a service, there are cancellations and delays every day. Instead of taking me less than an hour each way, for the past week the journey has taken more than 90 minutes for a distance of about 12 miles as the crow flies.

Last night, travelling home, I was feeling like it might be my lucky night. The train left on time¹, and I settled back enjoying the feeling that I might actually get home at a reasonable hour. Obviously this was a bad idea, and I was enraging the gods of the railway. We waited for ages at New Street station, until the conductor came on the intercom to explain that the train didn’t have a driver. I’m no expert on railway systems, but I’m guessing that having a driver is a big help. There followed a period of a fun game of ‘train musical chairs’ in which people switch between trains because of a rumour that there might be one on the adjacent platform which might be leaving sooner than the one they are on. They then find out that there’s a different problem with that train, and come back again (rinse, repeat).

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