tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51883283050490842372024-03-14T02:31:44.718+00:00beckblogMy name (I call myself) is Beck, and I'm a UK-based usability expert who's also a writer, editor and designer – also strident feminist, evangelical atheist, and militant soprano – blogging about parenting, books, theatre, grammar, usability, sexism (I'm against it), typography, and so on...Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-16504082282298197852021-03-18T08:18:00.007+00:002021-03-18T08:32:33.931+00:00 My life as an amateur singer<p>(in seven tweets)<br /></p><p>Stephen Cleobury, CUMS chorus, Spem in alium rehearsal, 1985-ish:<br />"Girl in the yellow shirt, you are singing *too* *loud*."</p><p>Tim Brown, Fairhaven Singers rehearsal, 1988-ish:<br />"You're sticking your head forward like a chicken."</p><p></p><p>Martin Freke, Fairhaven Singers post-rehearsal pub session:<br />"Your voice has an almost tactile quality."</p><p></p><p>Francis Steele, consort singing course, 2005-ish:<br />"Beck, we can always hear you. You don't need to worry."</p><p>Robert Hollingworth, Company of Musicians workshop on Peter Phillips, 2008-ish:<br />"You sang an absolutely straight note that blossomed into something rather lovely."</p><p>Eamonn Dougan, chamber choir course, first sing-through of Gombert's Media vita, Poitiers, 2011<br />"What a nice voice you've got, Beck."</p><p>Robert Rice, strolling through Kensington and responding to one of my wilder suggestions:<br />"As your singing teacher I advise against it." <br /><br />Oooh, and Edmund, who told me that my Victorian drag performance of 'Burlington Bertie from Bow' was better than the Julie Andrews one. I thought so too!<br /></p><p>My lifelong thanks to: <br /><br />Dave Howells, who founded Yateley Choral Society in 1979 with me as an alto, my dad as a bass, and later my mum as another alto (and changed my life – my first choir (my school was crap)).<br /></p><p>Ian De Massini, who founded Cambridge Voices with me as a soprano, and enriched my life for thirteen years.<br /></p><p>Anne Roberts and Francis Steele, who started Verte Musique music courses and invited me to the first one (a week that changed my life – I was that marketing quote).<br /><br />Berty, who took me on as a pupil. And, uniquely, isn't fazed by *any* genre of music.<br /><br /></p><p><br /></p>Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-81844694669000272382021-03-10T17:55:00.001+00:002021-03-10T17:55:18.493+00:00Singing to sleep<p>Someone on Twitter asked what lullabies we sang to our children, and I thought I'd copy my answers here for posterity.
I deliberately chose songs that I liked very much, started singing them to my bump before Sasha was born, and kept to a limited number of songs, in the hopes of creating a Pavlovian response. </p><p>My songs were: 'Grey Funnel Line' by Cyril Tawney, learned from the 'Silly Sisters' record made by Maddy Prior and June Tabor (I used to swing this in an abridged version at baby and toddler group, and Sasha was especially chuffed to always get the extended remix version with two extra verses).</p><p>And 'Morningtown Ride' by the Seekers. Learned from my grandmother's record. She had three singles: the Seekers with that and Georgy Girl, I think; Edith Piaf singing Exodus / Milord; and Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (what was the B side??). All her LPs were Slim Whitman albums. She was a strange woman. </p><p>One of my fondest memories is of singing a carload of children to sleep. It's a powerful thing to do, isn't it? And sleeping children smell so lovely. </p><p>Sasha, now 14, starts crying if I sing just the first four notes. "Don't mind the rain..." Actually, so do I. Sniff. </p>Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-66413134021905245682021-03-09T12:37:00.001+00:002021-03-10T17:58:50.394+00:00Giving up the Holy Ghost<p>Hilary Mantel's autobiography 'Giving up the Ghost' is one of the most interesting books I have read for a long time. This is possibly one of the more mundane bits, but I have lots of friends I think will appreciate it. </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">" 'When the last tear, the forerunner of my dissolution, shall drop from mine eyes, receive it as a sacrifice of expiation for my sins; grant that I may expire the victim of penance, and in that dreadful moment, Merciful Jesus, have mercy on me.' </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Note that excellent semicolon. People ask how I learned to write. That's where I learned it." </p><p>Mantel was born in 1952; I was born in 1965, and like her brought up as a Catholic: I went to a Catholic comprehensive for my secondary years. But by that time, post-Vatican II, there was no poetry in the religion at all. I don't think I ever heard a phrase that captured my imagination. </p><p>Possibly the beginning of John's gospel, but I remember my father (C of E) talking to our priest and being very appreciative that he'd read the older translation in mass, because the new version was so awful. At the last church service I went to, at Christmas (C of E: I was there to sing), it was misquoted, and I came home to check I'd got it right: I had. </p><p>Even if it I'd been born early enough for the Catholic services all to be in Latin, I doubt I'd have been seduced for very long: words have always been the thing I care most about, and you can't care about words without caring about their meaning. </p><p>I was an agnostic by thirteen years old, and an atheist by fifteen. But it would have been good to have got something out of the experience other than a huge burden of guilt. It was only a few years ago, learning about Buddhism, that I realised what a foul black stain it leaves. </p><p>As for me, I learned my semi-colons from H G Wells, along with a hefty dose of science.</p>Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-36433365557804354312019-09-12T12:57:00.001+00:002019-09-12T13:23:56.453+00:00An introduction to folk song for singing teachers<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlock" style="background-color: #f5f5ef; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlockOuter">
<tr><td class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlockInner" style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlock" style="background-color: #f5f5ef; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlockOuter">
<tr><td class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextBlockInner" style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="m_-5815680768502317461mcnTextContent" style="color: #434547; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><div>
<i>I wrote this for a newsletter for the <a href="https://aotos.org.uk/" target="_blank">Association of Teachers of Singing</a> (if you're a singing teacher and haven't heard of them, you should have (I'm their freelance administrator)) so it focuses on what I think you need to know if you're teaching students a folk song, but that also means that it covers the basics as I understand them; it also includes links to some of the singers I like the most, to give you somewhere to start...</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Folk song is a rich and varied genre, but it does sit in its own niche, so it’s possible to know a lot of music but never encounter a real folk song. The differences between folk song and art song are what make folk particularly interesting to sing, so I was impressed when I discovered that singing an unaccompanied folk song is compulsory in ABRSM singing exams, and that you choose your own song. In Trinity, it's an option but each grade has the choice of just two songs.<br />
<br />
ABRSM use the term 'traditional song', then define this as a folk song. 'Traditional' is a more nebulous term, so I prefer to use 'folk song', but the ABRSM definition is a good one: "colloquial and [has] no traceable composer." A folk song is essentially a song that has been passed around for so long that everyone has forgotten who made it up in the first place. If an art song is a crystal goblet with sharply defined facets, a folk song is like one of those bits of glass you find on the beach, battered by waves and pebbles. The power of traditional song lies not in precise effects but in having passed through many people.<br />
<br />
Traditionally, folk songs were oral not literal – they were shared by being heard, not be being written down. The nearest analogy these days is a joke: you hear it at the pub and retell it later in your own words. Most songs exist in many different versions, and most folk singers will change the songs as they sing them. There is no reason not to combine different versions, or leave out some parts – there is no ‘correct’ version of any song, as long as the story makes sense. This means that you can easily adapt a song to fit the timing requirements: for grades 1 to 4, the song must be between one minute long and two minutes long; for grade 5 to 8, between one minute long and three minutes long. If you’ve found a song you like, a good place to find out about alternative versions is the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mudcat.org/&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNFJy7lsyRHJXQh45P0bYv5aNaJAdA" href="https://mudcat.org/" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Mudcat Café</a>, a community of enthusiasts who collect and discuss traditional folk and blues songs.<br />
<br />
Folk tunes tend to be based on modes (Ionian, Dorian and so on). If you haven’t encountered these, watch out when you are learning or teaching folk songs that you don’t ‘correct’ the tunes into what you might expect if you’re more familiar with major and minor scales.<br />
<br />
Songs tend to have a strong pulse, but singers generally don’t worry about adding an extra couple of beats to accommodate the words, and when songs are written down they often have irregular bars. An example of this that you might know is <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D1m_ysiV4uVY&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNFloKo-GJhKneMY41qBeoK1Tc2k6g" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m_ysiV4uVY" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Johnny Todd</a> (if you’re as old as me you might remember <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DrWflrCrwUSw)&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNHsg0F2JPsANzVM2JX2xdWGCnAfNQ" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWflrCrwUSw)" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">this arrangement</a>).<br />
<br />
Singers generally add ornaments and vary the tempo rather than using vocal timbre to characterise the songs – the freedom of singing unaccompanied is hugely liberating as well as terrifying. Folk is all about telling a story, and putting the words across is the primary aim, taking precedence over beauty of tone. Folk singers tend to use their natural accents, with pronunciation as close to speech as possible, and comfortable keys to allow that. The ABRSM allows any key, and lets your pupil get a starting note or key-chord from the piano, so make sure they know what it should be.<br />
<br />
It would be odd to sing in a language or dialect not your own, which is why I find the Trinity selection too limited. If you have a pupil whose first language is not covered by the syllabus, this can be a real opportunity: the ABRSM let you sing in any language, as long as you provide a translation or summary: at a recent area day, AOTOS members commented that some pupils were really liberated by being able to sing in their native tongue.<br />
<br />
All the above characteristics mean that the best way to learn a folk song is not to read it from sheet music but to hear it. So I'd like to encourage you to seek out recordings rather than using books.<br />
<br />
If you or a pupil have found a song you like, a bit of Googling will establish whether it’s really a folk song – generally, if it has a named author, it’s not, but <strong>Trad. arr</strong> is fine. Once you have a title (and have checked what other names the song might go by), <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNEahLEWLS-ApjB8cL7NYM4gleNDvg" href="https://www.youtube.com/" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">explore YouTube</a>. Recorded versions will often have accompaniment, but the songs will be fine without: folk was traditionally sung unaccompanied. Your pupils can find lots of versions of a song they like and take different bits from them to make their own version. They can change the tune and add their own ornaments; if the words don’t make sense, they can find out what they mean, or they can change them. There are no rules in folk!<br />
</div>
<h3 class="m_-5815680768502317461null" style="color: rgb(130, 195, 226) !important; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Suggestions</h3>
<div>
<em>Don't know where to start? Here are a few of my favourite singers, with a wide range of styles and voices. </em><br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DFnAoZBrtKxM%26t%3D0s%26index%3D7%26list%3DPLUQihnuERLCNqXbuFYVc_MNOZiUt56WiR&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNE0BRPb03C3gEFKViq_McKmjvIEdg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnAoZBrtKxM&t=0s&index=7&list=PLUQihnuERLCNqXbuFYVc_MNOZiUt56WiR" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">I've just discovered Bill Jones, who has a lovely effortless style – and what a great song.</a><br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3Do12kCyG9en0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3Do12kCyG9en0&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNF9C3_huzRq-uCI5ZqJl-Bq3bj9OA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o12kCyG9en0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o12kCyG9en0" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Maddy Prior has one of the most distinctive voices around</a>, and folk-rock band Steeleye Span have been part of the folk scene for nearly fifty years…<br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DI3YYAiMDSEA&source=gmail&ust=1568379135391000&usg=AFQjCNEvevc6zMsv1e7_suVut6k9j7obVA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3YYAiMDSEA" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Martin Carthy is a giant of the folk revival, with a typical slightly nasal voice</a>. This is a live recording and you can hear the audience joining in for the chorus and improvising harmonies – folk clubs are some of the only places I know where this happens.<br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D3dyUsXgL7ow&source=gmail&ust=1568379135392000&usg=AFQjCNGwdezREj0UFWWa8RT7IWRSJiCcEA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dyUsXgL7ow" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Here’s singer Anne Briggs singing a traditional song</a> in the early days of the 1960s folk revival.<br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D0dVAruXz8Fs%26list%3DPL94gOvpr5yt1JG4_bUp07TdkEHfyb3XO0%26index%3D8&source=gmail&ust=1568379135392000&usg=AFQjCNEOQPG-r-Z5ajHghkYTG2G8ew2O8g" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dVAruXz8Fs&list=PL94gOvpr5yt1JG4_bUp07TdkEHfyb3XO0&index=8" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">June Tabor is a rare alto, and has a knack for finding terrific material</a> (though she also sings contemporary music, so check carefully). <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRGjZWsi9OJM&source=gmail&ust=1568379135392000&usg=AFQjCNGNGBwl3NXfWtpdqF6XOXYDvu9bGQ" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjZWsi9OJM" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Do explore the big ballads too</a>, though you would have to think about what to leave out to keep them within the time limit.<br />
<br />
<span class="il">Frankie</span> Armstrong is a remarkable singer, another key figure in the folk revival; she’s recently become president of the Natural Voice Network, which some AOTOS members are also part of.<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DqgvHgQco0hY&source=gmail&ust=1568379135392000&usg=AFQjCNGl1bB_Itee7B5YD4-uE-QorT1ImA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgvHgQco0hY" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank"> ‘The Brown Girl’ is a song with lots of different versions, which Armstrong sings in a truly distinctive style.</a><br />
<br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DNSWaPEyVM1U&source=gmail&ust=1568379135392000&usg=AFQjCNECWX0uFeDbUz_lI3Mn2jX149rdVw" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSWaPEyVM1U" rel="noopener" style="color: #005cab;" target="_blank">Finally, even an unknown singer can be lovely.</a> This is a good example of a song that's easy to pick up but would be fussy written down. I tried to teach it to a friend who's very classically orientated, and she just panicked... </div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-35456842089362172902019-09-12T12:51:00.001+00:002019-09-12T12:51:56.462+00:00Beck backLast time I tried to log in I couldn't work out how to, and as so often happens the struggle with technology made me so cross that I had to go off somewhere else for a bit. But it was one of those times when I had an article all written in my head, so it was REALLY annoying not to be able to decant it.<br />
<br />
Anyway, here I am back. What a lot has happened since I stopped... Most immediately, I've been back to the twelfth century at <a href="https://www.medievalmusicinthedales.co.uk/" target="_blank">Medieval Music in the Dales</a>, playing some music of the period with a friend who I was a medieval troubadour with thirty years ago. Crikey! Picture thanks to Pam Ferris. I'd always meant to try to sing some Hildegard, and now I have... and in a wimple too (but everyone wore them back then, they weren't just for nuns).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdfNx0G7iLHJrq7tI2gozA4w83V7cpobkdvgGKdU9o-NSd68hW_F0BGv7Tfj90c7wTqVKm1uvcYkdx4cb8FkFRC8eMtKwhc9BnxeDfhsHBl4l1JG6rfFeI5G7KnknlhHsOO78HdUP2_Y/s1600/Tuning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdfNx0G7iLHJrq7tI2gozA4w83V7cpobkdvgGKdU9o-NSd68hW_F0BGv7Tfj90c7wTqVKm1uvcYkdx4cb8FkFRC8eMtKwhc9BnxeDfhsHBl4l1JG6rfFeI5G7KnknlhHsOO78HdUP2_Y/s320/Tuning.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-15579959314003576782016-10-21T19:21:00.002+00:002016-10-21T19:22:53.662+00:00Silence and slow timeI hope this doesn’t sound too poncey for words, but I spent last week singing music written by the Scottish composer Robert Carver. He was born around 1485, the year the Wars of the Roses ended with the Battle of Bosworth, and seems to have written some works when he was only about twenty-two. There were twenty of us singing a mass setting for ten voice parts.<br />
<br />
This was an amazing experience for many reasons. The music was immense, overwhelming, magnificent: both huge and detailed, like the fan vaulting of King’s College Chapel. If you’re at all tempted to think of the fifteenth century as lacking in culture or sophistication, you hear instantly how wrong you are. And the harmonies Carver uses are more unconventional than what came later: there are chords you won’t hear in Bach of Handel, and would never encounter in pop songs or contemporary classical music.<br />
<br />
The music also had a slow, intense pulse, called the tactus because it is the beat you would tap time to, and to sing it well you had to feel this, surrender to it. In later music it is quicker, but in Tudor music it is about 60 beats a minute – the same as a resting human pulse. To sing this music, we had to relax, slow down.<br />
<br />
This has been a common theme for me, of late: I’ve been re-enacting, which means dressing up as a Tudor and attempting to talk like one, at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk. To speak sixteenth-century English, the first thing you have to do is slow down. The words are shorter and the constructions simpler: if you gabble at modern speed it sounds ridiculous. But slow down, and you start to feel how it works.<br />
<br />
Tudor shoes have leather soles. You can’t rush in them, or you’ll go head over heels. Tudor clothes are made of linen and wool and fasten with laces and buttons. You can’t dress in a hurry: you have to take your time. These are not modern clothes that you drag over your head: they are made to fit you exactly, and many re-enactors, including me, sew every stitch by hand.<br />
<br />
Modern life has many advantages: unlike many Tudor women, I’ve been taught to read and write, and I’ve survived childbirth. But by golly we’ve made our lives complicated, and the rate of change seems to go on accelerating. If I’ve learned one thing from my time in the sixteenth century, it’s the wisdom of slowing down.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-37277670601345525652013-02-28T09:46:00.003+00:002013-02-28T10:24:16.580+00:00God's property I went to the Soho Theatre last night to see a new play – <i>God's Property</i>, by Arinze Kene. Nigel, who's one of my regular culture companions, and I had realised we were seeing a lot of Shakespeare and opera, but nothing much that was new, so our visit was the result of that. (In fact, it all started when I read Peter Hall's autobiography a couple of weeks ago. Really interesting, and he was somehow breathtakingly ambitious but low on ego. A local boy, too – when Hall was at Cambridge, his father was station master at Whittlesford, the nearest rail station to here. Anyway, there's a great moment when he's about six weeks into his first job as a director of a London theatre, and the script of <i>Waiting For Godot</i> lands on his desk. His experience with that, and his willingness to innovate, made me realise that my theatre experience had got rather fossilised.)<br />
<br />
Last night was remarkable. The theatre is a great space, very like the Young Vic and the Donmar, with long benches and no prescenium arch. Below us was an eighties kitchen, and the first thing that happens is that a black guy comes through the door carrying a bag and some groceries. He goes upstairs to see if his Mum is at home. The door opens again for a younger guy with a guitar, and when he sees the first he pulls out a knife. From that moment, the drama never lets up.<br />
<br />
There are some lovely moments of humour, but where the play really works well is in ratcheting up the tension. What struck me most is how beautifully it's constructed; the entry of new characters and the revelations of the plot are perfectly paced. There are no lulls, and no false steps. The dialogue is batted to and fro like a ping-pong ball, and the humour feeds into the drama. We were on the edge of our seats for most of the ninety minutes, and I spent the last ten minutes at least in tears. <br />
<br />
None of the actors seemed to miss a beat at any point – all four were utterly believable. The lighter scenes also had me almost in tears, remembering what it was like to be sixteen and in love. Ach.<br />
<br />
I'm going to be a regular customer of this place, I think. In the bar afterwards, I heard about at least two other plays and one cabaret act that I've just got to see!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sohotheatre.com/whats-on/godandrsquo-s-property/" target="_blank">More info at the Soho Theatre site. </a><br />
<br />
Also this week.... I read J K Rowling's <i>The Casual Vacancy, </i>and enjoyed it more than I expected to. I don't get on with Harry Potter: Rowling's world never strikes me as fully realised, and the way some characters are realistic and some farcical, so you can't tell who you're meant to take seriously, makes me uncomfortable. This novel avoided those pitfalls, and made the most of her ability to wind a lot of plot strands together. I thought her range was impressive, too: it's the characters at the bottom of the hierarchy who have stayed with me, and they're the ones who don't get to be in many novels.<br />
<br />
Oh, and lastly: go and see <i>Medea</i> at English National Opera: it is bloody amazing. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-35132384550584249822013-02-07T10:06:00.004+00:002013-02-07T10:27:58.017+00:00A moderate feast, and a silent operaTo the Young Vic last night, to see <i>Feast</i> - reflecting a resolution I made after seeing <i>A Doll's House </i>and<i> Three Sisters</i> there, to go more often. They seem to be doing some great work at the moment.<br />
<br />
<i>Feast</i> was a slight disappointment, partly because it seemed a little over-hyped in the reviews. I went expecting to be exhilarated and was only really charmed.<br />
<br />
The reviews had somehow led me to expect swirling costumes and
beating drums, a whirl of colour - African cliches, perhaps? What was on
offer was more thoughtful and measured, but sometimes lost its
momentum. Ideas floated - the first actor on stage encouraged audience participation, but this didn't happen again - but then sank.<br />
<br />
The evening was a sequence of playlets moving through history. The stage effects were great, the acting convincing, and the dancing excellent, and there were a couple of charismatic narrators, but what it lacked, for me, was a really strong narrative or any really dramatic moments. There was a little bit of everything, but not quite enough to bowl you over. Would I have minded, if I hadn't expected to be overwhelmed? I'm not sure....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9845526/Feast-Young-Vic-review.html" target="_blank">Feast reviewed in the Telegraph.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/feast-young-vic-london-8479705.html" target="_blank">Feast reviewed in the Independent.</a><br />
<br />
And even <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/feb/04/feast-review" target="_blank">Michael Billington in the Guardian</a> liked it - which should perhaps have worried me, as he doesn't generally share my taste (he seems to loathe the Globe, for instance).<br />
<br />
The friend I went with agreed with all this - but, as he pointed out afterwards, we haven't actually seen anything we disagreed about yet.<br />
<br />
Last week I went to see the Silent Opera doing Monteverdi's <i>Orfeo</i>. That was fun as I went along with an acquaintance who's an opera director, so applied a critical, professional eye to the production. He was less than impressed, I'm afraid. For me, it was interesting to see how the gimmick had run away with things. In this case, they had continuo instruments - harpsichord, theorbos, harp - but no strings, brass or wind. The audience were all issued with wireless headphones, and the singers and instruments were miked up, but you only got the effect of the full orchestra if you wore the phones.<br />
<br />
But there's something about having headphones clamped on that really distances you from the action - my friend and I spent the production taking them off at every opportunity. Suspicious minds might have seen it as a ruse to save money, since all those sackbuts didn't have to be paid to be there. But the other snag was that if you'd have taken out that element, what was left wasn't quite good enough. The staging was okay but could have done so much more: we'd expected to crawl through tunnels and get trapped in Hades; in the event we simply shuffled into the next room and went up some stairs and then down again – more like being on the tube than anything else. Not knowing the plot, I had no idea at what point we – or Orfeo – were crossing the Styx, and so a lot of the drama passed me by. This seemed a rather basic point not to have made. <br />
<br />
It also meant that the chap I thought was Pluto was really Charon, though he did get the lion's share of the music - which was a shame as the singer wasn't up to it, simply ghosting the low notes. I happened to know the bass who sang Pluto, but my friend (who didn't) agreed that he'd have swapped the two singers. Pluto had a lot of groping, snogging and fumbling to do; there was rather a lot of That Kind of Thing, in fact, with a whole lot of dancers whose only function was to writhe on scaffolding. Which is fine if you want set-dressing, but you could have paid to have the sackbuts there instead. Not just for the ethics of it – having recorded musicians when you could have live isn't polite - but for the energy they bring: I really missed the visual aspect you get from string playing: the energy and rhythm of all those bowing arms, and the visual drama of sackbuts, which are beautiful things. <br />
<br />
What I assumed should have been the pivotal moment – when Orfeo loses everything in a moment by looking back at Eurydice – was also oddly fudged. I thought I'd missed it: then Eurydice didn't seem terribly keen to stay anyway. It was all a little odd - whether it didn't go as planned or the effects were misjudged, I wasn't quite sure. The moments of really effective drama were mostly driven, come to think of it, by the quality of the music and the singing. The messenger who brings news of Eurydice's death to the wedding party sang her part beautifully: that was the one moment that brought tears to my eyes. And Orfeo's final raging, right across the audience, was very effective. A word for Musica, too, who had a lovely voice that rang out in her solos and also shone through the choruses. <br />
<br />
On reflection, losing the mikes, the headphones and the ranks of mixing desks, and focusing on using the space effectively (considering what a schlep it was to find the place, we'd expected something more unusual), might have paid off better. I wondered if the problem with this kind of endeavour is that it's easy, once they're completed, to watch the finished product and point out exactly how they could have been improved. But there were a few terribly trendy elements to the production which seemed to demonstrate that the gimmick was rather the point, and that the desire to be fashionable might have taken precedence anyway. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-48246002041843652602012-10-03T10:17:00.000+00:002013-02-07T10:28:33.857+00:00What happened to feminism?We had a very interesting week a month or two ago: in the same week we went to see 'The Taming of the Shrew' at the Globe, and 'A Doll's House' at the Young Vic. <br />
<br />
They were both terrific productions, I thought. I've always liked the idea of playing Petruchio as a clown, someone who's unconventional but has worked out how to do it within the boudaries of society, and wants to teach Katherina how to do the same. The BBC production years ago cast John Cleese in the part, and it worked very well. The Globe's actor went rather further, and the shock value was great. Their Katherina was what's always called 'feisty' so it was interesting to see what they'd do about her final speech. You can play it as Kate taking the piss rather to win the bet, but that's a bit of a cop-out; instead they played it pretty much straight.<br />
<br />
What was interesting, at the Globe, was to feel - physically feel - how uncomfortable this made the audience. At first it felt like disbelief - was Kate really saying this stuff? How could she possibly mean it? Wasn't anyone going to stop her? And then it slowly turned into shock - she really was going to say it, and apparently without irony, and actually all the people on stage were in agreement with her. The sense I got from the audience was that, despite everything that they'd seen in the play, they hadn't really realised that this was, once, how some people thought. It made me want to look really closely at the text to decide whether it's possible to deduce if Shakespeare is actually over-egging it at this point, or whether you can read it as a statement of his values.<br />
<br />
What clinched it was that we had much the same experience watching Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' at the Young Vic.At the point where Torvald, the husband, talks about how he's always seen Nora as the child that he took over protection of from her father, there were gasps from the audience. How sexist! How could he say that! What was Ibsen thinking of.... I wanted to stand up and shout - "This is how it was! This is what decent people thought in 1879! THIS IS WHY WE HAD FEMINISM!"<br />
<br />
Both were very strange experiences. Have people somehow forgotten that things were once different? Do play audiences not know that the position of women in society has changed dramatically in the last hundred years? <br />
<br />
I suppose there's a side point too, that it's crazy to expect the work of the past to conform to the orthodoxies of the present. I've always strongly disliked the tendency of feminist criticism to accuse the works of the past of not being feminist enough – how could they have been? And you can't demand of all writers that they be politically aware. Gah!Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-53708140578333841432012-06-22T21:55:00.006+00:002012-06-23T10:22:53.781+00:00Henry V at the GlobeSaw a terrific production of Henry V at the Globe on Wednesday. Unusual - but really no reason - to have a female chorus. And when she said 'this wooden O' (about thirty seconds in) my eyes filled with tears to think that once again it was literally true. <br />
<br />
I didn't know the actor - we don't really watch television apart from the odd thing on iPlayer - but Henry himself was terrific. He was very good at conveying the physical effort: lots of wiping of brow, wincing at bruised hands, and so on. And good at doing the thinking between scenes, so they developed without words. And those tricks like coming in before the other person has stopped - because you're not meant to know exactly how much the other person is going to say. But more importantly, he brought the words to life and said them as though he understood them, and they were relevant, without losing the poetry. The set pieces were truly inspiring - I felt moved to cheer louder than I ever have at the Globe, and standing in the yard is a great inducement to cheering. I wanted to boo the French, too, but nobody else did. (I also laughed at a few jokes that nobody else did - not use whether that betokens great subtelty in my understanding of Shakespeare's lanugage, or simply reflects how many of the audience don't have English as a first language.)<br />
<br />
The actor playing Katherine was lovely in her first scene, but almost the only quibble I had with the production was that she didn't yield enough to Henry's courting. I'm sure you could make a strong case that the character wouldn't; but dramatically, I felt it needed her surrender as a princess to reflect the surrender of the country. But I like the way that the concluding dance often supplies a consummation that hasn't had quite enough time to play out in the drama. That's one of the many things I like about the Globe.<br />
<br />
Another is the interval treats. They've always done nice nibbles and things. This time there were very classy burgers, and some good-looking frankfurters. Cider at £5.90 a bottle seemed a bit much, though.<br />
<br />
What I don't like is the website, which in the many years I've been using it has never had some fundamental usability flaws fixed. Find the play you want to see, find the date you can go, click Book tickets.... and start again from scratch. Do you want the Theatre, Education, Globe on tour? Oh, come *on*! It's as rubbish a user journey as you could hope for.. What could be worse than taking a user who's made a decision to buy, and forcing them two steps back in the process?<br />
<br />
Get over that hump and you face a larger one. Your £5 ticket has a £2.50 transaction fee. Splutter! Some theatres - such as Cambridge Arts Theatre - host outside productions, and the booking fee is the only way to get their percentage - apparently, though it's another one of those things that you'd have thought they could equally just bloody well sort out among themselves, frankly. But the Globe has its own company and does its own productions. It has the same layout and ticket prices for every single play, so far as I know, so there's no reason why the ticketing process should be so frightfully complicated that it has to be subcontracted to an outside agency who'd have to take their rake-off. So why the fifty percent surcharge?<br />
<br />
I asked at the box office when I collected my ticket, and the person there said "It's a transaction fee." For what transaction, I asked - using a credit card? That's only ten percent. "It's a transaction fee."But you don't have a ticket agency - "It's a transaction fee." (At this point the person next to me said "It's not worth it, they're just robots.") The staff member said "You don't pay it if you book by phone." And I said "WHAT??? I phone you up and use up your time and I don't pay, or I do it all by myself and you charge me a whacking great fee? What the hell are you doing?" "It's a transaction fee."<br />
<br />
So there you are. Don't use their website: it costs fifty percent more than talking to a human being. Insane. And how stupid, that such a great institution should have one big fat lump of idiocy that sours the whole experience - which, apart from that, is stupendous.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-58127497080460132172012-02-22T21:23:00.000+00:002012-02-22T21:23:01.197+00:00Why make up is badA while ago, a friend invited me to chair a book group meeting on Catlin Moran's How to be a Woman. I was very chuffed, partly because I was flattered to be asked, and partly because I love the book to bits. It turned out to be pretty hilarious; all the women there (it was a women-only book group) were vaguely feministy in some degree (up to and including "I'm not a feminist but" where the but includes a belief in equal rights for women, but I was the only hardcore, unreconstructed, 1970s radical feminist - well, there may have been one other, but I was definitely the only person present who didn't shave my armpits (why should you? Men don't. If armpit hair is disgusting, why isn't it disgusting for everyone? Plus I think shaved armpits look horrid), which some people found so intriguing - they'd never seen an unshaven female armpit! Imagine, sisters! - that I stripped to show them. Shame nobody was interested in my pubes, really.<br />
<br />
Anyway, as usual I digress. Next morning the friend asked me why I objected to make-up and as I wasn't really awake I said I just thought it wasted a lot of time. Sensibly - some people are so alert int eh mornings, it's really unfair - she asked me what I thought I achieved with the time I saved compared with her, as she wears a bit of make-up, every day I think. I rambled on dopily about all the stuff I do, and realised very quickly that I wasn't making much sense, plus she does loads of stuff too so it was pretty patronising. Ever since, I've wanted to think of a better answer. Here it is.<br />
<br />
When I get ready in the morning, I have a wee, wash my face in cold water, get dressed, brush my hair and leave the house. When I get dressed up for a concert I wash, put on floor length sequins, brush my hair, and leave the house. So long as I remembered to wash and I brushed my hair (and it was reasonably clean - I've recently started washing it twice a week instead of once, but I reckon if you wash it more often it simply needs it more often) , I know I'm presentable. Now obviously this is time-efficient, and that can be bloody useful. But I think there's a more important, and that's that as long as I'm neat and clean, I'm happy. I don't have to doll myself up to feel I've made an effort. I don't feel that I can't face the world without my mascara. I don't fret that people won't take me seriously if I haven't got mascara on. I don't worry that I can't sleep with someone I fancy (harking back a bit here) because he'll see me in the morning without my hair straighteners, my lip gloss, my special bra, whatever. What you see is what you get. I'm good enough. I don't have to make an extra effort to look extra nice. That seems to me to be truly liberating.<br />
<br />
It's also how it is for men. They wee, they wash, they shave, they dress, they're ready to go. Why would things be really different for women unless something weird was happening? Unless the rules for men and women were oddly different?<br />
<br />
Another friend says she likes to put on lipstick when she's going out - it's a trigger: the act gets her into a going-out mood. That makes sense. That's not a need or an obligation; that's for fun. What I worry about is when it's not for fun, it's a necessity. If you can't got out without it, then it's a crutch, maybe an addiction. Certainly an inconvenience. <br />
<br />
I have also never, ever ever ever, seen a woman I thought looked better with make-up on than without it. Call me a diehard old radical feminist, but smearing greasy crap into your face just seems bloody weird to me. It looks funny. You look great without any of that stuff. Honest.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-42714698359176715802012-02-10T14:30:00.002+00:002019-09-12T13:00:04.311+00:00Sasha knows what sex he or she isHmm, I have a feeling that it's a bit pointless continuing to make this blog keep the secret. Anyway, if you've been reading and not known whether Sasha is a boy or a girl, skip this post.<br />
S<br />
P<br />
O<br />
I<br />
L<br />
E<br />
R<br />
S<br />
<br />
Yes, of COURSE Sasha knows he's a boy. How could he fail to notice that he's got a willy? We have never concealed from him what sex he was. That would be silly. Plus, he's got a willy so how could you even attempt it? Duh!<br />
<br />
The thing we don't push is GENDER. That is different. We don't say "Ooh, he's a typical boy" or "Don't run like a girl" or "You sound like an old woman" or "Big boys don't cry". We don't say that only girls are interested in dolls and colours and what they look like; we tell him he's beautiful. We don't assume that he likes diggers and lego because he's a boy; I like diggers and lego, and I'm a woman. Mummy has a toolbox; Daddy does the cooking. We just don't believe that stereotypes are useful when you're dealing with individuals. So we try not to restrict Sasha's options based on generalisations about gender. On the other hand, we do restrict his options based on good taste and our own opinions, which can border on sheer bloodymindedness. Barbie is banned (except for jumble sale bargains) because she is BORING and Disney is banned because their Princess crap is too yukky and they over-merchandise, and because I have never forgiven them for ruining two of my favourite books, Alice in Wonderland and Winnie-the Pooh. <br />
<br />
What things do you ban, as a parent? <br />
<br />
<br />Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-63034536451131959002012-01-25T12:34:00.004+00:002019-09-12T13:02:48.330+00:00The truth about Sasha, the ‘gender-neutral’ five-year-oldHere's what I'm telling everyone now I've had a chance to write something down:<br />
<br />
The truth about Sasha, the ‘gender-neutral’ five-year-old<br />
<br />
When Sasha was born, we'd asked the midwives not to tell us whether the baby was a boy or a girl. For about half an hour, we just held the baby and got to know it. When we announced Sasha's birth by email to all our friends, we just said "It's a baby!"<br />
<br />
I tried not saying what sex Sasha was when I went to local postnatal classes, but quickly realised that people only ask because they're trying to be nice and because there's nothing else you can ask about a baby except its weight. Sasha had been a November baby and as soon as the weather got warm enough was frolicking around the garden with no clothes on anyway. So everyone in our village who knows us knows what sex Sasha is. <br />
<br />
But I did write a blog about my experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting (and lots of other things). Because I am a writer and editor by trade, with accessibility as a key criterion, and because writing non-sexist language is part of making copy accessible, I decided to see if it was possible to write about Sasha without using sex-specific terms. To date, I have never revealed Sasha's sex online, in my blog. Some people have got the Internet muddled up with Real Life. <br />
<br />
We can't think of any way we could have "brought up little Sasha as gender-neutral" - what would that mean? What we have done is try to give our child a gender-rich environment, with toys some people might say are girls' toys alongside those they might call boy's toys. We've also tried to make sure that dolls, for example, have different skin tones so Sasha doesn't think the world is white (Nana (grandmother) being Anglo-Indian probably helps with that too!). Kieran has a son and daughter from a previous relationship who live with us some of the time, and we have a dressing-up basket with magic wands and cutlasses, capes and and shawls, fairy wings and tiger suits, and tutus for everyone. <br />
<br />
We also try not to assume that Sasha will be just like us, so we try not to assume that our child will be musical (as we are) or will go to university (as we did) - we don't want to set expectations that Sash might not be able to fulfil.<br />
<br />
All we're doing is what most parents do - trying to do our very best for our child. <br />
<br />
<b>Beck and A</b>Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-67065681735646205902012-01-16T19:50:00.000+00:002012-01-16T19:50:10.140+00:00Is your child musical? Is mine?Gosh, it's all happening today. I got my flute out a while ago meaning to see if I could still produce any sound at all, and while we were waiting for cakes to bake (a subconscious impulse as I'd completely forgotten that I need them for <a href="http://www.ifagiolini.com/">I Fagiolini</a> tomorrow!) Anyway, there's a tuning fork in the case and Sasha was playing with it, so I played an A and asked if Sash could sing it. Sash didn't want to. (I wonder if the pitch was too high? When we were singing this morning, I was asking for higher notes but Sash seemed only able to use chest voice.)<br />
<br />
Anyway, then I played an A on the flute, asked Sasha which note was higher and which lower, thinking as I did that I've never had a very acute ear and I couldn't actually tell myself. But small confident person said without hesitation "That one", pointing to either the flute or the fork, I can't remember which - anyway we tried a few more times and Sash did the same each time, giving the answer as though it was *really* easy. And you'll have spotted, of course, that I had no way of I telling whether the answers were right or wrong as I didn't know! When I went from zero to grade eight flute in eighteen months in 1979 to 1981, tuning it was the only bit I was rubbish at. You can imagine what my violin playing sounded like.<br />
<br />
Anyway, it's a funny little miniature tuning fork I bought in Switzerland, and Sash was having trouble getting it to sound, so I went and got the full-size one. That was bought in the same shop, and I'd always wondered whether the titchy one might be a bit gimmicky and not actually in tune, so I sounded them both at once and asked Sash which was higher and which was lower. And lo... Sash said something about silly mummies - "They're both the same sound."<br />
<br />
Then pointing at the smaller one - "I can't hear that one." I think that meant the two notes were so blended you couldn't tell the difference. So maybe that interference thingy you're meant to be able to hear when two notes are different (and that's the thing I've never been able to hear, so no wonder I can sing so flat without noticing) wasn't there and so there was no way of distinguishing the two sounds. <br />
<br />
I'd love to hear what other musicians think. Have you tried this on your kids? Have you found any other fun things to try?<br />
<br />
Oh, and the other big question: now that we know (unless that's changed?) that it's caused by early proximity to a keyboard instrument and isn't inherent, are you going to make an effort to give your child, or an effort to not give your child, perfect pitch?Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-50588776043296320202012-01-16T13:22:00.003+00:002019-09-12T13:03:37.828+00:00Magazine in a muddleWell, that seemed to go well. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/celia-back/31/a0a/596">Celia Back</a> was very nice though of course, like policemen, she was much younger than I expected. (Which only really means that I'm much older than I expected. Golly, I *love* being middle-aged and confident and clever - I must tell you later about explaining the physics of frost and snow to Sasha this morning on the way to school.) It really helped being an ex-journalist and an amateur magazine editor now: when she said things like "So, did Sasha ever go round with a [can't tell you what the anti-stereotype toy is or I'll give away whether Sash is a boy or a girl which though known elsewhere is still a secret on this blog]?" I was able to say "No, I'm afraid not - ooh! But we did once have a great game with something else..." and know why she'd asked, because she needed some strong things to build the story around, and what might do instead. I hope. She seemed very interested in the principles behind it all, and that was very encouraging.<br />
<br />
So now I'm off to the supermarket to buy a magazine to see what that column is about and check what <a href="http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/magazines/Woman">Woman</a> is actually like these days. (That really is them, btw - very strange URL but I suppose the obvious one was always going to have been taken.) Now and again I pull a <i>Good</i> <i>Housekeeping</i> or <i>YOU</i> or <i>Elle</i> magazine out of a skip (or someone else's recycling - is that a social faux pas? It's much more meaningful recycling than having them pulped and made into new magazines) and have a look to see what nonsense is being peddled to my sisters. Things have got a lot worse, though possibly still not as bad as the copy of US <i>Cosmo</i> that Mike brought back from a visit to the States for me in the early 1990s. The message of that was "You're a strong smart glamorous working woman who needs to buy buy buy a lot of make-up and perfume and things to stop you smelling nasty because you feel so utterly shit about yourself". Let's see whether <i>Woman</i> has got it a bit better than that.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-35418487784793727102012-01-16T12:00:00.000+00:002019-09-12T13:15:33.808+00:00My life in magazinesSo, I'm pretty excited that I'm going to be talking to <a href="http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/magazines/Woman">Woman</a> magazine at midday - I might nip down to Budgens and buy a copy so I can check that they're with the good guys: their journalist certainly sounds nice but as I keep telling Sasha, you can't always tell the ones that are EVIL just by their spooky red eyes. <br />
<br />
One of A's many endearing characteristics when he first moved in with me was that he'd often turn up carrying a copy of <i>Woman</i> that he'd bought to read on the train. Loved that he as secure enough in his own skin not to feel he had to mind other people's daft stereotypes or prejudices. That's what both of us want for our children.<br />
<br />
I was thinking about how you can map your life through magazines. I was born in 1965, so mine went something like...<br />
<br />
Pippin... Bunty... Jackie... Punch... Cosmopolitan... Spare Rib... The Socialist Standard.... <br />
<br />
the I went to Cambridge and even the Alternative bookshop in Gwydir Street didn't get the SS. I expect I just read <i>Stop Press,</i> which had been <i>Varsity</i> and later switched back.... <i>Punch</i> was an odd one - my dad bought me a subscription as birthday presents, in my early teens, I think. I started by reading quite a lot of it, but by the end it was just the cartoons and that Hunter Davies column called 'Father's Day' which must have been quite groundbreaking at the time. <br />
<br />
Then I subscribed to <i>Private Eye</i> for years until I realised it was actually making me a bit depressed. Oh lord - just remembered I moved to Sawston and subscribed to <i>Country Living</i>. I'd forgotten the incidental ones. I subscribed to <i>Uncut</i> for ages but never got round to reading it - oh, and I read <i>Q</i> for a while because I worked in music magazines. And I used to look out for launch issues - I still have the pile upstairs if anyone would like them for posterity. Does anyone remember <i>Minx</i> magazine? It was really, really, good - got the content and the tone spot on: sensible info given in a cheeky tone. <br />
<br />
My first magazine job was on <i>Home & Studio Recording,</i> whose wonderful editor Dan Goldstein taught me everything I know about compound hyphenation. Then a great time with Sam Molineaux (now called Graham, tut tut) on <i>Keyboard Review, </i>her editor and me production editor then deputy editor. I did some great interviews - bought a floppy disk reader specially to upload them here but it's still the box five years later.... When Music Maker got taken over by Future I got made redundant and spent rather a sad year as a sub on <i>Sound on Sound</i>, out in the wasteland that was Bar Hill then. Then I got made redundant from there... I'll have to check my <a href="http://becklaxton.wordpress.com/">professional blog</a>... Oh, I'd forgotten my first job, on <i>BBC English</i> magazine in Saffron Walden. I Facebooked about the horrors of superscripted ordinals and Microsoft's hideous predilection for them recently and an old colleague from there, Donna Sharp, found me, which was lovely. That lasted three months, mostly spent struggling with Ventura, a user-hostile early DTP programme - just as I was getting the hang of the bloody thing the bailiffs arrived to tell us the company had gone bankrupt. So I got made - no! the suspense! - redundant. <br />
<br />
After <i>Sound on Sound</i> I moved back into information design. Applied for dozens of magazine jobs but just didn't get anywhere - I remember going to Hanover house for a sub job on House and Garden, and meeting some Voguey girl in the lift who was wearing a miniskirt and black tights who looked me up and down, and I knew I wasn't going to get it. Then the editor said she was working on an anniversary issue and someone had mentioned that the magazine was in a song - had I ever heard of it? I was so gobsmacked that she didn't know the Flanders & Swann number (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCdshepGguI">on YouTube at 6.00</a> in) that I expect it may have shown. I was right, didn't get near it. Which magazine, that was a bugger - hours and hours of research, interviews and writing tests, it was more work than a bloody O level, then I got a standard rejection letter that didn't even get the facts right – "We regret that you have not been selected for interview" – oh do you, best hold those tears just for a moment; and they appointed an internal candidate so that was a week of my life wasted. I think it was after that I just gave up. I got a job as a freelance sub on Internet magazine, which was fun, then as freelance production ed on some business telecomms titles whose names were so odd I can't even remember them - bet there are copies in the attic. But the staff were lovely - always have been, everywhere I've worked. Do people who care about words by definition care about people? <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-74306386310053047702012-01-15T10:52:00.005+00:002019-09-12T13:17:36.303+00:00Boys and girls and Lego and BarbieGreat to see the <a href="http://impeus.com/?p=445">Lego magazine debacle </a>provoking so much comment - and so much of it witty and well argued: I feel no real need to contribute anything more than this.<br />
<br />
Our three (11, 9 and 5, mixed sexes) were playing some kind of mash-up of Star Wars, Ninjago, Pirates of the Caribbean and Creator which often seems to involve everyone being in a classroom where the teacher keeps swearing but this is represented by saying "BLEEP!". Anyway, the catchphrase for this is uttered in a sort of sinister slightly lecherous tone and goes:<br />
<br />
"Hi... I'm Anakin Deweddawend... Nice to [sniff] <sniff> *smell* you..."<br /><br />The sniff is a real sniff and you have to sniff the other person at that point - Sasha tells me. I'm not sure whether it's a skit on the fact that I like to take deep breaths inhaling Sasha's scent (back of the neck is lovely) - Sash has got used to it but we're all rightly treating it as a bit of parental eccentricity - or just a fart joke.<br /><br />The older kids are one of each sex and so got both copies of the magazine and saw immediately what had happened. I'm told there were shrieks of outrage. In our house there are all sorts of toys for all sorts of children to play with. (Barbie is banned, but when someone brought back a few from a jumble sale recently, I didn't make much fuss. The eldest used to make a big thing of chasing me with a pretend Barbie -"Grrr.... I've got a Barbie! Beck doesn't like Barbie! Watch out, Beck, here comes Barbie!" which was a cute way of subverting the whole thing. With not much encouragement, the kids are extremely good at subverting such things as dubious marketing tropes, and songs you get taught at Sunday School.) In fact, I'm being interviewed for <a href="http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/magazines/Woman">Woman magazine</a> tomorrow about it all, and it sounds as though they've got a positive and sensible take on things, so fingers crossed that we can make some progress here! (And that I do make it into print.)<br /><br />On that subject, I've also been interviewed by Emma Higginbotham for the<a href="http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/"> Cambridge News</a> about that thing I did of not telling anyone whether Sasha was a boy or a girl - and I completely forgot to tell her about this blog, where I tried to go on writing about Sash without ever mentioning it - a good chance to combine my political views with my writing and editing principles, which have always included gender-free writing. (The only time anyone has ever been annoyed was over my use of 'Chair' rather than Chairman or Chairwoman in <a href="http://www.sawstonscene.org/">Sawston Scene</a>, but I've had some good discussions over the years.) This will be a feature but not online, so I'll post here when I know which issue it will be in - Emma reckons Thursday or Friday this week. Though I've just realised that this blog never revealed the secret, but if I say any more about the article it will, so I'll stop there. They should have some nice stereotype-subverting photographs of Sash and me too! (One thing that doesn't seem to have changed is that nobody's has expressed any interest in talking to Sasha's father - the kind of thing we were trying to fix at the <a href="http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/">Fatherhood Institute</a>, where I worked for a year (before being made redundant, to continue that them! My sixth and most recent time.)_ And yes, as their web editor I did try to persuade them that you can't update a website once a month. Let me know (becklaxton, the at sign, gmail, a dot, com) if they say anything about this - I would so love them to run with it. </sniff>Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-48078380364183668342009-10-16T09:21:00.004+00:002012-01-25T23:32:50.557+00:00Peter Grimes as a paedophileSo I imagine you can tell that I've finally had a hiatus in the hurly-burly. I've properly started my new job, and the flipside is that I finally feel that I've got some real time off. I'm still learning the music for tomorrow's concert, but hey. The new I Fagiolini website is almost there, I'm done with NCT projects (wish I'd seen my Baby Show banners - I've never designed anything two metres wide before!), and at this very moment I can't remember anything else I'm meant to be doing.<br />
<br />
So, then. I went to see Peter Grimes at English National Opera back in May - May! Good grief. There's a good review of it <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/britten-peter-grimes-english-national-opera-london-1682818.html">here</a> to refresh your memory. My memories are that the sets were very ugly and some of the costumes ludicrous - Auntie and the nieces came off particularly badly - but that the music was just sublime (and at least First Niece was allowed to be standing when she sang her top C). There were moments in the score I'd never heard before, and my favourite parts - 'Mister Hobson, where's your cart? I'm ready'; 'What harbour shelters peace?'; 'Who can turn skies back and begin again?' - made me cry in a way that opera very rarely does (I'm normally dry-eyed while darling A sobs next to me). However, this is all digression as the point of this post was to discuss what seemed to be a throw-away remark by the director, David Alden, in his programme notes. He was discussing Grimes's character, and how dark he can be painted, I think.<br />
<br />
"I'd like to see a production where he's played as a straight paedophile," he said (I'm paraphrasing from memory), "though I wouldn't want to direct it." And my question is - what the heck is he talking about? Is there some weird operatic convention that Grimes a paedeophilic? Because I can't see any evidence in the libretto or the action. As I understand it, paedophilia means literally 'liking for children' and is used to mean that you have a specifically sexual interest in them. It's not a term to bandy around lightly.<br />
<br />
Firstly, then, I think you'd have to push it to show that Grimes is interested in sex at all. It's a rare production that shows him any closer to Ellen than the touch of hands that's required by the libretto. I should think even a clumsy hug might be pushing it. When Grimes sings about her, he focuses on the respectability that she's going to bring him. That's his goal: social acceptance. In this production I really noticed that passion with which he sings about money. When he dreams about fishing the seas dry, it's so that he can earn money, always money. "They listen to money, only to money!" so money can silence the gossip, he fantasises. I reckon a sexual analysis would get less out of all this than a Marxist one.<br />
<br />
Secondly, you'd have to show that Grimes is interested in children, and there again I think you'd be struggling. His whole problem is that he's using the apprentices as orphans because they're cheap - money again - without considering that they're children. He's blind to their physical needs, continually demanding too much of them, refusing time off.<br />
<br />
Yes, he's abusive - he's violent, he shouts, he pushes them around - but that has nothing to do with paedophilia that I can see, except for being another kind of child abuse. He's rough and unthinking. He seems in fact to be someone who's almost abnormally uninterested in children. He just wants to get the job done. He's a workaholic, if you like.<br />
<br />
The use of the term seemed to me careless. And this isn't something to be careless about. I suspect the term is often bandied around when Britten is discussed, partly because there's an equally careless association of paedophilia with homosexuality which so far as I can see has no justification at all (if male homosexuals fancy little boys, shouldn't male heterosexuals fancy little girls?). There's an interesting flipside to the current paranoia about paedophilia, I think. If anyone (well, anyone male) who wants to be with children must be showing they have an unhealthy sexual interest in them, isn't that asking why on earth anyone would be interested in children otherwise? Isn't that saying there's nothing interesting about children? Do we really believe that?Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-49628622402805426272009-10-16T09:10:00.002+00:002009-10-16T09:21:21.120+00:00How to be a freelance writer for the webA work colleague asked if I'd help out a friend of hers who's looking for work as a freelance writer but hasn't been getting anywhere. She's got experience of writing for television, but that's all. I was trying to analyse what's worked for me, although my working life has now been so long and complicated that I'm not sure I'm a good eaxmple. But here's what I said - I'd be interested to hear your feedback, especially if you're a writer yourself (Ruth, Phil, Clare; Iona, Nadia?).<br /><br />I think there a few things to consider. You need to demonstrate your ability; make sure you have the core skills; develop specialities; make professional connections; give it time; and keep your standards high.<br /><br />One is simply how you show that you're any good. Do you have samples of work? Can you point to a website and say what bits you wrote? Have you got your own site? I set myself up with WordPress and it was dead easy and got into search rankings very quickly. (By the way, how are you at search optimisation for copy? Do you know your stuff there? You will need to.) It's here <a href="http://becklaxton.wordpress.com">becklaxton.wordpress.com</a> if you want to look - I didn't really get it finished, but got a few pieces of work up there. <br /><br />Can you get involved in any projects that would give you a chance to show off? Again, I've done two quick and easy sites for friends; I can't code at all so used iWeb on the Mac. They're not great examples, as they wrote their copy and I just edited it, but I did help them work out what they wanted to say, and can be a part of the job too. These are <a href="http://robertrice.co.uk">robertrice.co.uk</a> and <a href="http://tangotechnique.com">tangotechnique.com</a>.<br /><br />And I also run a music festival and wrote the site for that:<a href="http://sawstonmusicfestival.co.uk">sawstonmusicfestival.co.uk</a> - an interesting example (argh, it's so out of date) as it has lots of complicated info that needs to be put in sensible order: every concert has to have a time, a place, tickets prices, contact details. This is more about information design - is that an area you're interested in? Do you think you're better at writing instructional copy, or marketing material? Can you think of snappy headlines for banners? I think it's probably about defining your strengths, but also knowing the basics - search optimisation, or SEO, is vital, as is knowing how online copy is different from printed copy: have you read Jakob Nielsen? Steve Krug?<br /><br />Think about subjects you know about, and companies who might need people to write about them. For example, I've done lots of stuff for financial services, and sometimes if I've applied for an ISA online or something similar, if there's a space to comment I'll tell the company how bad the copy was - if I was looking for work I'd take that further.<br /><br />The other thing is to make connections. Use Facebook and tell all your friends what kind of work you're looking for. And join LinkedIn and fill in all your details there too. There are lots of people advertising work there. You could try signing up for mailing lists too - both lists of online writers and editors, and mailing lists of job vacancies. Researching all this is part of the kind of thing that writers often have to do - you'll often just get a bare description, say for a Microsoft site, and have to go and dig out enough info to be able to say something meaningful, so you need to be good at finding stuff online.<br /><br />My other advice is to give it a bit of time. I got made redundant in March, did all the things I've described, and got my first freelance work though an ex-colleague in July. There's a definite timelag.<br /><br />Lastly, I'd say, be really scrupulous all the time. All the writers and editors I know have hugely high standards, and I think freelances have to be really professional. Typos in emails - even just emails to someone like me - will be a real turn-off. (NOTE that this was of course a dangerous thing to say, as naturally there was a typo in my email to her - though of course she wasn't a potential referee or employer...) As a writer you're on duty all the time. For example, I went back and changed my first sentence to make it a summary of the content here, as it's such a long email. If I was really keen, I'd put in subheadings. You've got to show you know what you're doing.<br /><br />Oh, and just a usability thing - it would be better to have an email address that matches your name, so if someone wants you they can find you really easily. Yours is a lot to type!<br /><br />That was it. Having written it, I'm struck by how specialised online copy-writing has got - you need to know quite a lot about how websites work to write really good copy. In fact, I'm now working with a group of people who are immensely articulate and literate, but their writing is absolutely 'offline': copy for emails that runs to two or three pages. Not that brevity is *my* strong point, I hasten to add. But then I am writing this for fun. So there!Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-50835945821181957592009-07-10T13:15:00.005+00:002009-07-12T21:43:51.653+00:00First blog since MayWell, I think you can see the point at which the music festival took over my life. Four of us do absolutely everything, and there's just so much. I got to the stage of tear-filled frustration more than once, especially when I realised how many notes I had to learn in the Mozart. But at least I could wake up every morning and thank heaven (figuratively, of course) that I wasn't singing the 'Et incarnatus est'. Frankly, I just wouldn't have made it. Even the second sop part (as it's traditionally done) covers more than two octaves and quite a few semi-quavers, I can assure you. According to our resident expert, Dr Maunder, the usual split of responsibilities isn't at all authentic - Constanze would have bagged both big solos, and they'd have got a castrato in to sing the duet, trio and quartet. I wasn't sure any of the sops I know would fancy this role, though...<br /><br />Anywa, I'm not going to ramble on about soloist's paranoias, for once (I've done that every other year....) - I've been mentally writing a post about Peter Grimes as a paedophile since I saw the ENO production (and read the programme notes), and I really want to write it before I forget it all. What's a non-cliché that means the same as 'Watch this space'?Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-30746372055055568172009-05-07T09:02:00.003+00:002012-01-15T19:47:18.812+00:00Eye tracking is evilSomeone on LinkedIn says:<br />
"I was at a public discussion with Jared Spool last week (and about 100 participants in SF at the IxDA discussion). the topic was... when usability is evil. The consensus on eye tracking... everyone hates it, no one seems to trust the results. In the end... and from what i understand as results from the consensus: eye tracking is evil. There were persons who championed eye tracking... (I think there was one), but... just some random data for your study from a room full of UX's. anyone who was there is welcome to chime in here."<br />
<br />
You can't say usability is evil, but I would certainly agree that eye-tracking is at worst evil and at best pants. In my opinion, any user testing method that requires such long-winded and dreary analysis, in real time, afterwards, by an expert, is a bummer. If you've got a roomful of users, about the dullest thing you can do is point a camera at them. Go in! Watch! Take notes! Talk to them! *Then* you'll find out stuff. When do you ever learn about people just by watching their eyes? You'd only do it if there was no possibility of talking to them.<br />
<br />
Perhaps some of the software available is good stuff if you use it a lot, but everything I've seen seemed to have quite a steep learning curve and be prone to disastrous errors - recording three days of video with no audio, to cite an example from one of my team, who traipsed all the way to the US to capture a lot of data that turned out to be unusable. Instead of faffing about with tracking nonsense, invest some time before your test sessions in writing really good questions and tasks, and talking to the client to make sure you're going to find out everything that they're going to want to know afterwards.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-73878580587394413312009-05-07T08:53:00.004+00:002012-01-15T19:53:41.539+00:00RuggedGosh, I have been quiet. I had meant to boast about carrying Sasha back from Whittlesford station the other night, but needed to gather statistics - we don't have scales in the house. We finally visited a well-equipped friend and I discovered that my very solid child weighs 16kg. (You have to remember that children are always much heavier when they're asleep, but then the differential increases with their age.) According to Google the distance is 1.7 miles. I had a sling, and tried to arrange Sash to be vaguely symmetrical, as it's asymmetry that does your back in. It was partly that I didn't want to pay for a taxi, partly that it was after 10pm when all the Sawston taxi drivers go to bed anyway, and partly sheer bloody-mindedness to know whether I could do it. It wasn't too bad at all, in fact, and of course I felt gloriously rugged too. Self-reliance is very satisfactory. But is it universally so, I wonder, or do some people just not find it to be so? Is there also pleasure in being a parasite - well, that's a little harsh: does it feel good to be a wuss?<br />
<br />
Last week I was at the Church Hall, about four minutes' walk away, and asked a woman with a baby of about six months old if she'd like to come back to my house for a cup of tea. She wasn't sure, because she'd parked her car somewhere else and didn't have her pram with her. I stood there and just nodded because it took me about five minutes to work out what she was saying - she couldn't carry a tiny baby a few yards. But in any case, words would have failed me.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-23293400244255534802009-03-11T21:36:00.003+00:002019-09-12T13:16:22.376+00:00Weird weekWell, it has all been rather odd. I went to have a tooth taken out yesterday, for the first time ever. Ate a hearty breakfast as I didn't know when my next meal would be. Tooth out; left with gaping hole which was rather bigger than I was expecting. The dentist assured me that nobody really needs more than twenty teeth, but I feel that my chewing power has been drastically reduced. I schlepped around Cambridge with Sash for the rest of the day and then headed home, but as usual hadn't left enough time for dinner before the Parish Council meeting, so A and I had to make a dash for it. As usual, also, we were so cross afterwards that we came home and knocked back a couple of bottles of wine. We forgot to have any dinner. I think I may have eaten a piece of cheese and finished the pickled onions. Ugh.<br />
<br />
I dreamed I was singing evensong, with my top half in a bath towel as of course I'd forgotten my clothes - dreams in which I've remembered to put my clothes on being a minority (honestly, you'd think I'd got a complex about it or something) - and the choir director mouthing the words of the first hymn for us as nobody knew it. For some reason we had to rush over to another chapel to sing the responses, and then my mobile phone alarm went off... at which point I discovered that it was 0645 and I had twenty-five minutes to get out of the house with Sasha. Normally I have ten, but have got everything ready the night before - but this time I'd spent it getting hammered. Boy, did I feel terrible.<br />
<br />
Then I went to work and got made redundant. Actually, I think still having half my brain worrying about naked evensong probably helped in not making it too traumatic. But I had been with the company ten years - but then who gives a damn about companies: they don't exist. People are the thing worth caring about. Everyone was very sweet, especially considering tha I was one of about 35 people to get the push so was expecting sympathy to have run out rather.<br />
<br />
So, time for bed. Is it true that hearing about other people's dreams is suprememly dull? Does anyone know that really nasty James Thurber story about a man who marries someone who interrupts him all the time to correct everything he says, and he starts talking about his dreams in desperation because they're the only private experiences he has, and slowly goes crazy? Thurber is brilliant - a short-story writer and cartoonist (his most well known is possibly "Well, If I called The Wrong Number, Why Did You Answer The Phone?", which was on my third-year exam on Comedy. A brilliant paper - though I was the only person in the exam hall who laughed out loud.)Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-70454993795293955572009-02-26T11:12:00.003+00:002012-01-15T19:57:33.175+00:00Doctor AtomicA really splendid first night of John Adams (the <i>Nixon in China</i> man)'s new opera, <i>Doctor Atomic</i>. Fabulous singing, especially from the glorious Gerald Finley. The first-half closer was a solo setting for him of Donne's sonnet 'Batter my heart, three-person'd God', and it was a show-stopper. Donne is a devil to set as it's such twisty, complex stuff: I've never heard a convincing setting, and often you just wish you could get rid of the music. But this was stunning music.<br />
<br />
There had been a lull in the middle of the first half, as the bedroom scene with the Oppenhemers didn't work terribly well. The libretto was so abstruse that you couldn't take it seriously as a conversation, and it wasn't clear what anyone was talking about. Beautiful singing, though, from Finley again - god, he's good - and Sasha Cooke as Kitty Oppenheimer. One member of the cast was a last-minute substitution, and I didn't catch who, but it was impossible to tell. Everyone's diction was lovely, and they got the accents spot on, I thought. Good naturalistic pronunciation, too - none of that 'pronounce the words as they are spelt, not how a normal person would say them' rubbish, except from the alto Meredith Arwady, resolutely enunciating 'moun-TAYNS' when everyone else sang 'mountins'. Her part was a bit of a drag, to be honest: she was a sort of ethnic voice of conscience.<br />
<br />
The second half - all one and half hours of it - hardly flagged. Adams really built up the tension, but he used touches of humour to release it as effectively as Shakespeare does: they were very nicely judged. Almost at the end, there were two minutes of near silence: brilliant. The final moments had the perfect focus on individual anguish. After the end, there was a silence you could almost feel - until the inevitable over-eager idiot felt they had to start clapping: a great pity.<br />
<br />
The chorus work was very effective: for once having everyone in their own little box seemed appropriate to the subject matter. The choruses were all, I think, all homophonic - no: what's it called when everyone sings different notes but at the same time? - which made a few ragged edges obvious. Mostly excellent, though. The staging worked very well, with the bomb dangling ahead for much of the time, and the weather effects were good too. As in <i>Candide</i>, the touches of video and graphics were beautifully judged, eschewing gimmickry.<br />
<br />
The whole thing was surprisingly affecting: I cried for the first time ever at an opera, having sat dry-eyed through Madame Butterfly, Tosca, and so on. It's really not at all an odd subject for an opera when you consider it.<br />
<br />
Top marks all round - do go and see it! Day seats in the balcony are only £10 and you just phone the box office after 1230 to get one.Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5188328305049084237.post-66689528715533094812009-02-20T20:16:00.003+00:002009-02-20T20:23:35.140+00:00The sticking placeRecently, I scrunched up my courage and posted the stuff I'd been writing about Clare Wilkinson, who is a rather fabulous mezzo who sings with I Fagiolini. Unfortunately, Blogspot stuck up the post under the date when I'd started to write it, rather than when I'd finished it, so it's got a bit buried. Do please go and <a href="http://beckblogbeckblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/paean.html">have a look at it</a> - I'd be interested to know what you think (and also grateful if anyone knows how to pronounce 'paean' - A and I don't, we realised).<br /><br />I had a good conversation with a work colleague a while ago about postivity and negativity, and how your mental attititude colours the world around you to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It reminded me of something someone told me when I was a journalist, which was that to write a positive review of something is much more of a risk than writing a negative one: you really stick your neck out when you praise something. It's always easier to criticise: partly, humour comes more easily when you're being rude. Writing with a positive slant feels slightly naff.<br /><br />We've been pondering the nature of fandom, too. There was a funny story in the press about a woman who'd sat outside the gate of Prince's estate for several weeks. When he heard about it, he went and asked her to come in and talk to him - at which point she got up and left. It made me think of medieval courtly love, where the adoration is the whole point and consummation would ruin the whole thing. And Petrarch, writing all his poems about Laura after she was dead. Great art, but lousy sex.<br /><br />Our fandom remains at the point where what we dream about is introducing Russell T Davies to Joss Whedon at a dinner party, and getting the discussion started with some suitably geeky topics. But at least the evening would have a purpose: the problem when you admire people is that all there is to do is gush. If you get that far - when A and I were in the same room as Clare at a post-concert drink session, we stood in the corner staring at our toes and twiddling our glasses. But then you can't really stride up to someone and say baldly "You're wonderful!" - can you?<br /><br />PS After being so rude about Janet Baker, I was wurgling around on YouTube and found some videos of her. Oops. She's, um, rather good, isn't she? I guess I just didn't like trained voices in the days when I didn't have one...Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235750905371810185noreply@blogger.com0