It's all a bit poor!

Bygones

2009-07-14T09:45:00.001+01:00

A stumbled across this website today which has many black and white photos of places from yesteryear. Worth a look.

230 not 240

2009-07-12T11:17:00.004+01:00

I went bell ringing today as I am on holiday and can do so. At Rothwell they recently installed an electrical winding system for the clock.

I had grabbed hold of the Treble rope and was waiting for others to join the circle, so I glanced at the apparatus behind me (not shown on the link above) and saw a sticker stating that it required a supply of 230v. One of the ringers works for an electricity company and was able to explain that we no longer have power at 240v as I had thought. This brings us into line with Europe and has had a beneficial effect because there are far fewer voltage problems (supplies had to be +/- 6v or something).

It makes no difference to me. However one would have thought the public might have been aware of it.

Did they make Mars bars smaller without anybody noticing or did I imagine it? It's all part of a plot to reduce things until the country shrinks away to nothing. I blame the aliens.

Worst verse in the Bible

2009-07-09T14:44:00.003+01:00

Hop over to Rectors' Ramblings who has just posted a video from Ship of Fools.

Take a look at the Internet Explorer 8 one too.

The plumber has been back to look at our new boiler. In the course of his visit he said I have to have my hot water set at 60 degrees to kill the salmonella! How many raw chickens are there in my hot water tank? I have tried to Google this to check but so far have come up with nothing.

Shopping

2009-07-08T17:29:00.005+01:00

I have done too much shopping over the last few days both online and in real shops. If you are really interested there's a list at the end of this post.

What annoyed me today was my visit to Sainsbury's. Over the tannoy came,

"Colleague announcement: Sharon to Till 4 please". Whatever happened to "Staff announcement"?

What sad git sits in an office and thinks up politically correct tannoy announcements? I am now used to British Rail (if they are still called that) and their "Customer announcements" which replaced "Passenger announcements".

What's next I wonder?

Shopping List

Epson Printer
Ink for printer
Croquet clothes (waterproofs, white V-neck pullover and a fleece)
Slippers
Pajamas
Food (twice)
Petrol
Booking a holiday
Tyre puncture repair (thankfully a new tyre was not needed)

New printer

2009-07-07T23:03:00.004+01:00

I now have a new printer/scanner, an Epson SX200. Truth be known I bought it because it was cheap (not the cheapest) and I can get cheap compatible cartridges to go in it. I've just printed a test page and I think it is a bit noisy, so the review I found was, sadly, correct. We have a DX3800 with the family PC downstairs, which is fine, and the cartridges I bought for my old D68 fit that so that's good.

This printer/scanner cost me just under £50 from Argos. The local Tesco stock Lexmark printers and, yesterday, they also had one Epson SX200 in stock for about £73: I ask you! Today they had a dozen or so but I couldn't see the price; no reason to suppose they had lowered it.

Our first ever printer was an HP 640C but we never had any joy with refilled cartridges; they were always rubbish so we had to buy genuine ones. If I ever get to rule the world I shall dictate that there will be - at most - only half a dozen types of printer in the world; they will all take the same cartridges and be environmentally friendly by virtue of the fact they can be refilled and used many times.

Darn

2009-07-05T15:56:00.005+01:00

My printer has just stopped working; it was OK yesterday. Having looked at Epson's website I find the problem is simply the sponges inside which soak up excess ink are full and need replacing. Do I want to pay to have them replaced when a new printer/scanner (which I do now need) is around £50? Well no, but I do detest the throw-away society in which we live. I shall Freecycle it in the hope somebody will want to fix it.

End of Term

2009-07-04T20:23:00.005+01:00

We broke up today so it was prize-giving and sports day. We have various colleagues leaving and changes in the timetable from September.

One friend of mine - in a one-man department - knows that a new (female) colleague will be doing some teaching in his department next year. Until now he has obviously not had to hold departmental meetings. He has a dry sense of humour and seriously quipped that he would not longer be able to hold his departmental meetings (during which he talks to himself) in the shower after sport lessons. "At least" he said, "I shall not mention - for a week or so into next term - that this is where I hold department meetings." I thought this very funny and put forward a suggestion that they could take it in turns to bring the shower gel.

It is always sad to see people leave; this year I was sad to see a few boys leaving. Next year will be worse because the leavers will be boys who arrived at the school when I did.

Runny Nose

2009-06-24T22:48:00.002+01:00

I have a bloody cold. What's more my daughter has one too. Who thought up colds? What is the point? I feel dreadful.

13

2009-06-22T23:02:00.003+01:00

I don't much like being 13 stone and a having 36 inch waist. I need to lose weight. I once got down to 11 stone, from 12. Too many school dinners (puddings mainly) don't help.

I played croquet today but I was bushed after 2 hours. The Octogenarians I play with just kept going!

I'll keep you posted - maybe.

What a laugh

2009-06-21T11:47:00.006+01:00

Anglican chant may not be everybody's cup of tea but I was directed to this video by The Cathedral Choir. The most hilarious bit is the 'Amen' at the end. Do not watch if you are easily offended.

As a boy I spent many an hour singing psalms and then many an hour accompanying them as an organist. I grew to love the chants which I sang as a chorister and, when I go to hear psalms at Evensong and they use different chants, part of the magic is lost. Stanley Vann wrote many a good chant for Peterborough some of which are still in circulation.

Here is how psalms should sound (but I've heard better).

Carlo Curley

2009-06-19T14:01:00.005+01:00

I went to hear Carlo Curley yesterday, at Higham Ferrers church. They have installed a new organ built by Peter Collins. By the way why, do website designers think white type on a black background is remotely easy to read and what's with the noise every time you click a link on his site? But I digress.

This has been a difficult few months for me and I am only now starting to feel like my old self again. I've been difficult to get along with ('no change there', some say) and generally sour. So it was all the nicer to have fixed up to go to the recital with some friends and to be made so welcome. Mr. R (as I'll call him) and I just have a good laugh about organs and organists when we meet; if you are not an organist you will not know what I mean.

Anyway the new organ is a hybrid - a digital instrument with a few ranks of real pipes. This seriously keeps down the cost of a new organ as well as maintenance expenses. To be fair I thought the digital sounds matched the pipes well, although the organ seemed to lack power; it was not meaty enough at full pelt.

However, the organ should have been ready 6 months ago. The recital was at 7.30 and they were still working on it at 7.25. Carlo had not had a chance to play it. During the evening it went gradually out of tune; two stops had not even been installed. Well, an organ builder lives by his reputation so one expects things to be rectified as soon as possible.

I have been to a few Carlo Curley recitals in my time, but not for a while. The poor guy has lost a lot of weight (well he needed to so) and uses a walking stick - not when he is playing! In a way this makes me feel a bit better about my slightly painful hip. Still, it is always sad to see the effects of the passage of time.

It was sad to think that the organ I played for many years is no longer there but it was starting to fail and needed to be replaced.

Insurance

2009-06-19T13:46:00.003+01:00

The Home insurance on Saw mansions has just been renewed. I did it yesterday and used Confused.com to get a quote. Last year I changed company; they sent the paperwork a month in advance asking me to renew stating that this was quick and easy. It wasn't. I phoned the number they gave and reached a call centre outside the UK. As far as I could understand I then had to wait (cue piped music) to be transferred to another operator. I hung up. It was from that point, More Than likely that I would search for another company; if you see what I mean.

I left them a message on their website telling them all this. I arrived home a while ago (we have a long weekend) and had a call from the company. However it was not in response to my complaint; they just wanted to see if I was going to renew. I told the lady the story - there was no apology; no "we'll look into it". Merely a, "Well that's your problem" to which I replied, "No, it isn't my problem"; "I didn't say 'that's your problem', Goodbye".

I suppose you get what you pay for. Big companies were quoting over £300 to insure me, even those which claimed to be good value. Time will tell I daresay. I've saved £100 anyway.

Booking Fee 4 (Please explain)

2009-06-13T14:31:00.003+01:00

I have finally had a reply. I had to e-mail the Castle again and only then did I receive an interim reply. Apparently Mr. Money had forwarded my e-mail to a colleague and hadn't bothered to let me know. He could have scored points here because, had he told me, I would have felt he was being efficient rather than ignoring me. His time is obviously too precious to reply to customers.

I shall not take the matter further but, apart from being the kind of reply I expected all along, there is one section I really don't understand.

As promised I am responding to your letter concerning the booking fee introduced by The Castle in July 2008.

I am sorry that the introduction of this has convinced you that The Castle is not being customer friendly, and that we are being unfair in levying a fixed charge per booking, rather than per ticket, but the background to this was that we were faced with a difficult decision in the Spring of 2008, when attempting to balance the budget for 2008-9, in view of the reduced level of funding received from the Borough Council for that year. Our research confirmed that the majority of theatres do levy a charge of this kind, and therefore we took the decision to introduce a charge as the “least worst” option. (I was aware that when the Royal and Derngate reopened after renovation they dropped their booking fee in favour of other revenue raising options.)

We could have introduced the charge on all transactions, including cash transactions, but we decided to give customers the opportunity to bypass it by coming to the box office in person, and paying in cash. We could have charged per ticket rather than per booking, but we are always striving for efficiency, and this charge aims to help that. It is most definitely not the case that the charge is a credit card charge in disguise. It is purely and simply a means to raise revenue from earned income to offset the reduction in funding. I did take legal advice, prior to the introduction last year, which confirmed that we are able to levy any charge that we decide appropriate, provided we make it clear in our terms and conditions.

I hope that goes some way to answering your concerns, and that we see you back here in the near future.

Excuse me, but if they had also introduced a booking fee on cash purchases (i.e. ALL purchases) is that not the same as saying they have pitched the price of their tickets too low? If everybody needs to pay more for tickets so they can make ends meet, then just put the ticket prices up! That way folk will not be disgruntled about paying a surcharge.

I give up!

Booking Fee 3

2009-06-10T19:58:00.002+01:00

No reply yet.

Booking Fee 2

2009-06-05T23:52:00.002+01:00

You couldn't make it up - the Theatre Administrator at The Castle is Mr Money. I have now written to him pointing out that a Credit Card Surcharge is not the same as a Booking Fee. I don't expect to pay a Booking Fee if I book a table at a restaurant.

Booking Fee

2009-06-03T23:03:00.004+01:00

I went to see "Whistle Down the Wind" [not the Lloyd-Webber version] tonight at The Castle, Wellingborough as one of my private singing pupils was in it.

I had phoned up at about 2.00pm for a ticket (not trusting the virus/Trojan ridden staffroom PCs at school to book on line) and was asked if I would hold; I said I would for a while. When I eventually got fed up of the electronic version of "Für Elise" I hung up and called back later. Having selected my seat I was told there was a £1.50 booking fee on top of the £10.50 ticket. I refused to pay. Instead I got there a little early and bought a ticket at the Box Office; there were plenty left! A lady in front of me paid by card and was charged the extra. This is my first complaint (which I shall e-mail tomorrow) that the damned fee isn't a booking fee; it's a credit card surcharge.

I was wound up by this fee all afternoon and nearly didn't go, not that they would have noticed so it would have been a daft protest. I was cross because in the current financial crisis theatres are silly to provide a disincentive for people to give them their custom. Furthermore, if I buy a ticket up front they then have my money and a confirmed (and happy) member of the audience. This fee is new for this theatre I have discovered.

Which of you when paying for your groceries at the supermarket expect to pay a credit card surcharge? No, I thought not. Similarly if goods are advertised at one price I don't expect to pay another to obtain them. I am not being naïve, I know the practice is common at London theatres but it is frowned on and, I believe, being looked at by the OFT.

Anyway, the show was excellent. Brilliant staging (a revolving affair which served as many locations) and lighting; the band was top notch. The singers had been superbly matched to their roles. The music was atmospheric and carried the story well but I'm blowed if I can hum even a single tune from it; there were a few 'big numbers' but hooks no - not that I can recall. One audience member I spoke to said I'd like the music once I got to know it; I rather expect to leave a theatre humming to myself, however. Still, the music was complex and so the cast did a fantastic job in learning it and singing non-conducted, save a few gesticulations from the pit.

Old words

2009-05-31T22:33:00.004+01:00

Following my post about The Pirates of Penzance, I feel moved to mention a particular lyric which I never understood as a boy because I only heard it and had not seen the libretto.

Mabel sings "Hold monsters! Ere your pirate caravanserai proceed, against our will, to wed us all....". I tried to make sense of this think she was singing, "Ere your pirate caravans arrive...". It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me. She is basically saying ,"Hold on you beasts; before you marry us off you ought to know our father is a Major-General". Why she needs to mention caravanserai I have no idea, although I suppose Pirates are travellers. She could also mean the Pirates are treating the girls as 'goods'.

Later we in the operetta hear:

Pray observe the magnanimity
We display to lace and dimity!
Never was such opportunity
To get married with impunity,
But we give up the felicity
Of unbounded domesticity,
Though a doctor of divinity
Is located in this vicinity.

How many of those words words have you used this week, this month or this year?

The whole operetta is littered with examples of the variety and power of the English language and I foresee several months ahead of explaining all these to the pupils at school.

Only today Mrs TS was watching "Dunkirk" on TV and - from the next room - one character said to another,"Don't be a clot". I had quite forgotten the word although my father had addressed it to me on many occasions both in jest and otherwise!

One of our more senior masters at school likes old words and he mentioned Smithereens, which I agree is an excellent word.

Bring back "Call my Bluff" [which finished in 2005]

Finally here's a really mad performance of the Major-General's song. Mabel's line is heard first though pronounced in slightly different way. Listen to the totally mad orchestration particularly the piano and xylophone - is this the Broadway version of the show? It isn't Sullivan's scoring. I admire the tempo.

Pirates

2009-05-31T14:19:00.005+01:00

I have been studying "The Pirates of Penzance" all weekend for school. My reference CD was a D'Oyly Carte recording from 1968 (and 2003). I have really enjoyed the part of Mabel as sung by Valerie Masterson [above] who had a well-focused agile voice (she now in her 70s). There are comments on the company's production in this article. I do like to hear a secure voice which is not being forced and which does not have excessive operatic vibrato. Her voice stands above others in quality on the CD.

There are some other good voices on the CD although many do sound dated. This is because they actually take trouble to produce decent vowels, although their vowel modification is rather over the top for current tastes. We were taught to do much the same as choristers and it is still an important technique. I wonder if I'm picking it out more than an 'ordinary' listener would.

The Pirate King is the late Donald Adams who suits the role although I feel he struggles lower down his register. Ruth is sung by Jean Allister in what I feel is an highly idiomatic rendition for the time although the style is rather fruity sounding these days - she sounds as if she is overworking at times and it isn't always comfortable to hear. Frederic is Philip Potter who does a fine job sounding suitably 'innocent' and incorruptible whilst John Reed as the Major General delivers the right characterisation. Owen Brannigan was well cast as the Police Sergeant.

When my sister sang the part of Mabel when she was at school all the singers listed above were alive and most were at the height of their powers. Time marches on; we have lost some and the rest have retired. Like sportsmen and women, vocalists have a limited shelf-life. Would that some members of church choirs would realise this.

A slight scream

2009-05-30T22:23:00.004+01:00

Broadband off today; must have been our ISP - it's back on now. As it happens it was't a Windows problem, but don't you just hate Windows' error messages? There are two above.

Funny Local News

2009-05-30T00:18:00.005+01:00

On the front page of the local free paper is a story headlined thus:

Shock as bones found in bushes

There is a picture of the finger bones taken with a mobile phone on the page too. What is amusing about this story is that the account says:

Shop owner Natalie, who runs the Nimble Fingerz Craft Centre, found the bones outside her shop at 5.30pm.

Finger bones / Fingerz - get it?

Mahler

2009-05-26T21:36:00.006+01:00

One effect of growing relatively old is that one acquires a taste for music which didn't appeal in one's youth - well that's what I find.

Whilst gathering my papers together to do my Tax Return tonight I put on a CD of Mahler's 5th symphony. Along came the 4th movement, "Adagietto", and the old eyes started watering. There are two reasons.

When my father died in 1998 I did the 'stiff upper lip' thing all day but I knew I had stuff to let out when I got home - the "Adagietto" did the trick.

It also reminds me of being in my teens when I went to see "Death in Venice" with a rather nice young girl whose name I have long since forgotten. It was the only film on, and I found it tediously boring and not a little creepy, as you can probably imagine. The soundtrack was all Mahler and, though I didn't enjoy it then I got to know it pretty well.

I'd happily be a teenager and go to see it again....

Anyway, I played in two Mahler symphonies as university; the 6th as a percussionist and the 8th as the organist. I was quite terrified on both occasions because I am rubbish at counting multiple bars of rest!

Socks

2009-05-26T08:51:00.004+01:00

I can't do it! I simply cannot wear a pair of socks on a Tuesday which have written on them one of the other days of the week.

I bought two packs of socks a while back of the style shown above. For the first week all I had to do was remove the socks in order from the packet. Now Mrs TS has washed them and put them in my sock drawer it isn't just a question of reaching in and grabbing a pair of socks for the day - oh no. I have an irrational need to wear the day-specific pair on any given day. Why? If admitted to hospital do I presume the staff will stand around casting judgements on my inability to match socks to the day? Is it superstition? I know not. It just goes against the grain. Thus my purchase was not such a wise investment as it now takes 15 seconds extra to select socks in the morning.

Mathematicians out there will know that at the start of the week (and assuming I only bought one pack) there are 7 possible pairs; on the second day 6. Thus there are factorial 7 (7!) possible orders of picking the socks out of the drawer over a week. That's 5040, which any bellringer will tell you.

Chopsticks 2

2009-05-25T20:17:00.004+01:00

Jocelyn has responded by identifying the music I heard as the Flea Waltz. She even wrote out the music specially for a revision she made of the Wikipedia article, but her revision has been removed! Anyway there is now a 'See Also' link at the bottom of the page; perhaps that is why.

Mystery solved!

Chopsticks

2009-05-25T17:40:00.006+01:00

Jocelyn has contacted me to say that there is more to Chopsticks than she realised. In fact, it is not a piece I hear very much although I do own a copy of the "Chop Waltz". The piece I mentioned in my previous post begins as shown above but I do not know what it is called. I now expect to inundated with people telling me, such as Julie, Can Bass, Christopher Campbell-Howes and many others. I hope they do; I hate a mystery.

As for Chopsticks, view this performance and marvel.

Guilty

2009-05-25T09:56:00.004+01:00

Steve has written about the way he judged some callers at his door. I too have jumped to a conclusion this week (well more than one, but this is the most recent).

Yesterday I played the organ at a church to allow the regular guy to have a holiday, despite my recent post. I arrived for choir practice at 9.40 (which meant I could not go bellringing) and a few folk said "Good morning" as I entered to the strains of the choirmaster playing "Chopsticks" on the piano. [Actually it wasn't chopsticks but I'm not sure of the name of the blasted piece].

Anyway I wandered to the organ console to set up. There was no hymn book (only the cardboard covers of the organ copy which had come adrift during my tenure of the post) and there was no copy of the setting of the Communion service. Although I had one with me, I'd been promised there would be one to avoid awkward page turns. I was out of sorts. OK, I'd caught the sun playing croquet on Saturday but this was not a good start; I vowed I'd never play at this church again.

I waited to be asked to strike up a chord but it became clear the choirmaster didn't know I had arrived. When he heard this he immediately walked to the organ console to say 'Hello' and asked if everything was okay. I gruffly told him there was no music and that I was confused because the music list mentioned a communion hymn but he had just rehearsed it, calling it the anthem which was supposed to be a different piece.

He replied that he had put all the music on the piano (which I'd be using for the communion music) ready for me and the rehearsal. Thus I went right from, 'nobody has even bothered to check there is music for me to play' to 'this guy is on the ball' in a flash. The rehearsal went well (although I was expected to sight-read quite an intricate accompaniment to the aforesaid anthem; I'm pretty good at sight-reading so this was no sweat though I say so myself - however I do like to look at things in advance. Indeed, had they wanted the organ for this I'd have wanted to sort out stops and know it well so I could devote my attention to the CCTV which combats the fact that the conductor is miles away from the organist AND the choir cannot be heard terribly well).

Furthermore, after the rehearsal the choirmaster came and asked my advice about a few musical points which confirmed to me that he actually didn't regard himself as God's gift to music (which I'd been led to believe). In the end we made a good team and I shall go again, if asked. Like Steve I was glad I didn't burn my bridges too soon and say the wrong thing(s).

At the end of the service there were notices. The town has an annual Fair (and has done for the last 800 years). I got the wrong idea when they announced the Tarts competition. They were referring to Curd Tarts.