When did I become this irritating old person?

There is nothing easier than becoming a recluse, by accident or deliberately, they say. It doesn’t require action, no effort at all, in fact, it just happens and before you know it, you live in a world of one-and-a-half, the half being an elderly dog suffering from dementia. The dog doesn’t know that she is lacking in mental agility; so what if her circadian rhythms have changed, she is fed on demand and let out on demand.

But nobody feeds me and nobody lets me out when I scratch at the door and howl in frustration.

Back to me, the recluse-in-waiting. Loneliness can kill you apparently. It can cause heart disease and depression. Lonely people are more likely to develop Alzheimers. The UK now has a Minister for Loneliness although there is no pill yet. Just give it time.

So, reading about the dangers lurking in solitude I reluctantly made my way out of the house. It’s been cold and windy, not conducive to being out of doors. Besides, I like my own company. I accepted an invitation to join a ladies’ luncheon club, went to a supper for two at the pub, a birthday luncheon at a very nice cafe which was new to me, renewed visits to the gym, ad hoc chats with neighbours and dog walkers. Fine, all fine. By the end of this mad whirl I was searching the diary for an ‘empty’ day, a pottering day I call them. I am truly my Dad’s daughter, he too found the delights of company palatable only ever in small doses. Still, mindful of the dire warnings, I persevered. The ladies’ luncheon has become a fixture. One has to eat, after all, and not cooking my own dinner one day a week will be a welcome change.

Except, there’s a snag. There I was, having enjoyed eating what the waiter called “Spanish pork casserole” - rather tasty, the Spanish part being black olives in the sauce - I made my way to the cashier. A cane, a bag, my gloves, my purse, all in my hands, dressed in a bulky winter coat, I navigated through a narrow aisle and came to a full stop at the till. Well, maybe not a full stop. Momentum took me a step further than the counter and I tottered uncertainly. This caused me to a) drop the cane, b) my gloves. The cashier came out and picked them up for me. I then opened my purse and took some notes out. English notes are now made of plastic, very slippery. Obviously, I dropped the notes next. There was a fire close by and one of the tenners floated gracefully towards it. I snatched it up just before it hit the flames, again dropping my cane. I had stuffed the gloves into my coat pocket. The cashier didn’t bother to come out to pick it up this time, I imagine he was leaving that until right to the end of my transactions. My bill came to a tenner plus coins. I did that thing that old people in queues always do, I rummaged around in a separate little coin purse to find just the right change, promptly dropping several coppers. Picking them up - with difficulty - and handing them to the cashier he said “sorry, we don’t take coppers, there’s just not enough room in the till for them.” I resumed rummaging for silver, and found exactly the right amount. The problem of disposal of the coppers remained. I suggested he should put them into one of the charity boxes. Unfortunately, they were located behind me, in the narrow aisle, not easy to get at. By now there was a queue, naturally. I am not sure but I may have heard the faintest sigh from the person behind me, who took the coppers, turned and deposited them in the tin, all in one fluid movement. I really need to practice that.

If I had to accompany me out somewhere, I wouldn’t.

Did You Know . . . .

that ‘The functions of the Mistress of the House resemble those of the general of an army or the manager of a great business concern.’

I have been dipping into 'The Housekeeping Book' of olden days and all sorts of wonderful information, instructions, prohibitions, advice to young women and new wives can be found within.
I particularly like the capitals for the Mistress of the House and the lower case used for a general and a manager, be they ever so lofty. Mind you, the Vicar of Wakefield had it that : ‘The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queans’. (I looked up ‘queans’ - it means an impudent or badly behaved girl or woman, or a prostitute.) Serviceable to whom, one wonders. Independent minded women have always got short shrift from the mainstream of domestic theorists, so many of them men.

Having had little interest in new clothes for the past two years this interest was rekindled when I had a very close look inside our closets and wardrobes and chests of drawers; Beloved’s stuff has all gone now, apart from his dressing gown, a summer anorak and a couple of his favourite shirts, all items I now wear. Ditto some of his thickest and warmest socks, which will come in very usefully during the winter. However, my own clothes are sadly lacking in shine and rather shabby after years of wear and needed replacing. I get fashion catalogues and emails sent from fashion houses and department stores, all unsolicited (I may possibly have bought items in the past), so I consulted these. I hadn’t purchased new clothes for so long that I was horrified to see the prices. Nevertheless, a few tops, shirts, trousers and leggings (for the gym) arrived in due course and I admit it feels good to be wearing something that isn’t falling to pieces with age. I like the look of myself again, too.

Be that as it may, the activity of purchasing does not please one lady author, who had this to say: ‘This ranging from shop to shop has given origin to a fashionable method of killing time, which is well-known by the term “Shopping” and is literally a mean and unwarrantable amusement. I wonder if she would absolve me from blame, as I did my “Shopping” on the internet. I wish I could amble from shop to shop, all along the High Street, and take my time, browse around a bookshop, have a meal somewhere, linger over a cup of coffee and watch the world go by. I may be fancy-free and independent, but I am still accountable to Millie. Poor dear Millie, she is quite decrepit now, although her steroid medication has given her a renewed lease of a semblance of a doggie life. Her hearing is gone which makes her difficult to organise; I also think she has dementia, she does not want to let me out of her sight. Leaving her alone is a problem, there are just two houses where she knows her way around and feels safe, my friend Jay's, who is dog mad and Millie’s best friend and my other friend Ralph’s, who bosses her around in a nice way. I am having the suspicion of dementia being present because all her routines have changed, whereas before she had regular favourite bedtimes, doggie beds and toilet habits she is now all over the place. And yet, she still has a reasonable quality of life and eats well and happily, is fully continent, and appears to be happy provided I’m close. If I have to leave her alone it’s usually for no more than a couple of hours.

My leg is getting better. The swelling is now confined to the ankle and heel and even there disappearing noticeably, almost by the day. I have had all these weeks of mostly sitting and reading with the odd little Millie walk and a potter in the garden. When the summer was at its hottest I reclined gracefully and read novels, taking sips from cooling drinks. I am glad, that by living long after The Housekeeping Books’s strictures, I escaped its censure of indulging in the much decried pastime of reading novels. Apparently, young ladies were wont to indulge and could therefore not hope to achieve the heights of the housekeeping skills necessary to make a good match and thus become serviceable in life.

More Ruminations

Goodness gracious, how lovely to see so many of you return to this tardy blog; it made me feel all warm and wanted. Thank you so much. I shall pick myself up and start visiting and commenting too; what a community we are!

One thing I’m glad about is that I stayed in our house, now just mine. At first I felt that I should move as soon as possible, telling myself that the house is too big, the garden is too big, it’s too empty, too lonely, too isolated. When your partner or anyone else you love dearly falls terminally ill and dies you feel helpless, hopeless. There is nothing you can do to regain control. So you grab at anything that makes you feel in control; moving home being one such undertaking. Rearrange the externals and you’re back in charge. Except you’re not. Less than ever, because now you have upped anchor and lost everything that gives you a grounding, the comfort of the familiar. In my case common sense prevailed, or perhaps it was just lethargy, cowardice, fear of the unknown. Anyway, I am still here and likely to stay here, who knows for how long. Somehow, Beloved is all around me, literally so, of course. I have made a small memorial garden for him with a bench, where I can sit and talk to him. It’s snowdrop time, his long drawn out dying time, has been since Christmas, when the first little bells poked their heads out of the muddy, at times snowy, then again frozen, ground. Once they have faded I shall dig up a clump and plant them in ‘his’ patch, awaiting all future anniversaries of his death.

The problem is that there is work to be done to the house, nothing major, just some painting and maybe rearranging rooms, deciding whether to live downstairs and upstairs or just downstairs, changing a downstairs room into a bedroom. This makes it sound rather grand but it isn’t, it’s just that the original owner of this house, who built it to suit her needs, more or less built two bungalows on top of each other, making it easy to divide the house.

So, what to do? When I asked a friend, idly speculating that perhaps I am too old to go in for great redecorating schemes - the usual thing: is it worth it? will I have the time to enjoy it? how long will I be able to stay? - he recalled an anecdote. ‘Two clergymen met. One of them was wearing a suit which had clearly seen better days, looking rather frayed round the edges. “Thing is, do I bother to buy a new one at my age,” the wearer asked his friend. “Buy a new suit?” his friend replied. “I don’t even buy green bananas.”

The story cheered me up no end. I used to tell Mum to go ahead and treat herself to anything she fancied, no matter how short the time to enjoy it. Now I myself am the kind of ditherer who can’t make up her mind because it might not be ‘cost-effective’. (Sorry about the word, I don’t really speak in such terms, just couldn’t think of anything more apt for our mercenary times.)

Talking of cheering myself up: I have seen a bereavement counsellor who let me talk for an hour, singing Beloved’s praises and going back over the wonderful thirty years we had together. Although close to tears at times it made me realise how very fortunate we were and what wonderful memories I  have. A whole treasure chest of them. I will see her again. Talking really is the best cure for me. My step-daughter recommended that I write to Beloved, a kind of daily diary, I may yet do that too, although I prefer to talk to him.

Another coping mechanism is increasing physical activity, releasing endorphins, happy hormones. "any of a group of hormones secreted within the brain and nervous system and having a number of physiological functions. They are peptides which activate the body's opiate receptors, causing an analgesic effect.” My doctor came up with that one when I consulted her about depression. So now I go to the gym and enjoy it greatly. I do exercises, pound (or rather went from shamble via amble to walk) the treadmill, cycle on a beautiful stand bike  and will be doing weights and other infernal machines by and by, as soon as my personal instructor gives the green light. I have to be careful because of the heart condition which is otherwise fully under control.

Eating chocolate and/or falling in love also produce endorphins; I’ve tried the chocolate cure with great enthusiasm but that had rather sad side effects for my hips. And unless you can show me a sweet kitten or puppy I shall probably never fall in love again.  

Keep Breathing

on this grey and dismal day. That’s about all we can do.

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. *

We had Brexit not so long ago, Although, in the scheme of things, Brexit isn’t on a par with what happened yesterday, the immediate impact on this side of the Atlantic was tremendous. Even for the winners. Impossible things seem to happen more and more and leave more and more people shell-shocked.

‘What I tell you three times is true.’ **

The morons are on the march everywhere.

Which reminds me of a story my foot health practitioner told me. She also works as a telephone operator for the WM Police - privatised, of course - and takes calls from sometimes desperate, sometimes urgent but mostly daft callers; some get passed on, for others there’s advice, yet others make no sense and are beyond help. This story is actually quite sad, as well as hard to believe, but true.

“Hallo, my car seems to have disappeared from where I left it.”
“Oh dear, I am sorry, may I take some particulars?”

Particulars, like name, address, car registration etc, duly taken, the operator continues.

“You are certain the car was parked in front of your house?” The caller is a lady in her 80s, the assumption that she might have been mistaken is not completely unlikely.

“Yes, I always leave it there. I had come in from shopping. A friend called and we chatted and when she left I saw the car was gone.” It was in the evening - grocery  shops are open late in the UK.

The operator remains calm and friendly. “I take it you heard nothing. Presumably the car was locked? The thief had to break in?”

“Oh no,” the old lady said, “I always leave it open. That’s what I do. It sits just in front of my house, you see.”

“Ah, you might have a problem with your Insurance then. Where was the key, did you take it in?”

“Oh no, I always leave it in the ignition, that’s what I do, you see.”

There is no way the operator could say 'you silly old bat’; she has to remain calm and concerned and keep breathing. And probing.

“What else was in the car, anything else that could identify it as your property? I will be putting a general call out right away and the more details we have the better.”

“Well, there was my shopping, I hadn’t had a chance to bring it in. And, of course, my handbag, on the seat in front. Where I left it when I came into the house with my friend. I’ve done that before and nothing happened."

The operator remained totally professional. “And what was in the handbag, your purse maybe . . . . “

“Oh yes, my purse with some cash, my cards and bits and pieces like that.” The old lady paused and repeated what she had said several times before. “It’s what I do, you see. It’s what I do.”




*Alice in Wonderland
** The Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll

Economies of Effort

My friend and neighbour Sally is a hard working lecturer and writer. Due to start a research trip to the Amazon rain forest two days after returning from a holiday in France, she has decided not to return to Shropshire in between trips but to stay in London, meet other members of her expedition, and set off again almost immediately.

The problem is her lecture work at a London university for adult students, many of them from overseas. "Classes start the day after I return from Brazil", she said. "I shall be exhausted and jet-lagged; it's going to be very hard to concentrate on the students, who will all be new to me, and to provide a reasonable body of work for their first day. They'll just have to hear all about the trip." As this is not a problem I have ever come across I had no solution to offer.

"I know what I'll do", she said. brightening. "I've done it before and it has worked before. I shall simply ask each of them to write a short autobiography, ten, fifteen minutes long. It'll get us going and I will learn far more about them than asking them, one after the other, to tell me about their past education and work history".  I was impressed but doubted that ten or fifteen minutes of scribbled notes would give an accurate picture of a person's history. I'd need at least ten minutes just to collect my thoughts. Sally waved my objections aside. "They are journalists", she said, "I would certainly expect them to be able to write a concise profile of themselves in that time".

Once I'd stopped laughing at the cheek of it and got over the shock of this teaching aid when in need of recovery, I thought it quite a good idea. What if we could all ask new acquaintances to give a short resumée of themselves? When a musician introduces him/herself to another musician, they say : "John Smith, trumpet", that being the most important thing about them. At times I have been in long and tortuous conversation with a previously unknown person, desperately trying to work out who or what they are. And sometimes I have been bored out of my mind by people who tell me all about themselves, their aunt Matilda and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all in the first ten minutes.

I now need to go away and think what I would write in this fifteen minute autobiography; what do I do, flatter myself and leave out anything embarrassing, even if it is of importance, or tell the bare facts, warts and all. It's not so easy to pick out the most important aspects of one's life and history when there's been such a lot of it.

Gratitude

Painting by Stipan Tadic

The Blogosphere has been awash with expressions of gratitude during the past week. To have one day in the year when families,  communities, indeed a whole nation, unite in appreciation of the good things in life, is truly wonderful, and I hope that kind of special awareness does not evaporate as soon as the last farewells have been said and the dishes have been washed and put back into the kitchen cupboards. Genuinely giving thanks is not something we do often enough.

Saying 'Thank You' is as ubiquitous in the UK as saying 'Sorry'.  German friends and family always remark on it.  Both phrases are constantly used in the world I inhabit, and probably quite thoughtlessly at times. Still, they oil the grooves of social interaction and who am I to question their usefulness; in fact, I am as guilty of overusing them as the next person. 

The sweetest and most gratifying 'thank you' I remember, came from two men on two separate occasions; a frail, elderly, man and a strong and healthy looking boy, probably no more than eighteen years old.  I hadn't been in the UK long when I came across the first man. Waiting to cross a busy road, I noticed him hesitating at the kerb;  several times he put a foot out to step into the road, only to pull it back again as cars sped by. I simply took his arm and said "Let me help you", no fuss, no introductions, no question. I was very young. He thanked me fulsomely, wheezing as he tried to catch his breath, his voice as frail as his body. I was about to leave him on the pavement opposite and continue on my way when he asked "where do you come from?" I told him "Germany", and "why?" "You're only young", he said, you won't know much about the war. A bomb did this to me, I got this weak chest from being buried. And now here you are, helping me, and you are German." I was at a loss what to say to him. "Sorry," was all I managed. "It's not your fault," he said, "it's a long time ago now and we must all try to forgive and not let it happen again." And "Thank you again for your kindness."

The young man was a beggar on London's Embankment, no doubt one of the thousands of homeless, parentless youngsters who had been 'released' from children's homes into 'Care in the Community' at eighteen. He had a pleasantly cheeky grin on his face, as he held out his hand, which made me dig in my pocket for a coin. As I dropped it into his hand, he looked at it closely, and the grin grew into the sunniest, brightest smile, transforming his whole face. "Thank you, lady," he beamed. I was a little surprised, it hadn't been that big a gift. I was with a friend, we moved on, making for a drink at the nearby pub; the place was crowded and while we were still queueing for service at the bar, the young man came rushing in, one hand in a fist held high above his head, shouting happily "I have enough money for a pint, I'll have a pint, please."  I was as happy as he was to know that I had made such bliss possible and have rarely given a gift that has met with such instant reward.

There is one more story where kindness met with the opposite of gratitude. Again, a man and crossing a very busy road were involved. I was making my way to a staggered Pelican crossing, with railings and an island in the middle, outside a major London station, when a blind man waved his white stick at me. "Help me across, won't you," he demanded. "Of course," I said and took his arm. "The official crossing is no more than five yards this way, I'm just about to use it myself," I said, and "I'll take you there". "I know about the crossing", he said, " I don't want the crossing, I want to cross in this direction." "Are you sure," I said, "this is a dangerous road  and I'd feel so much safer using the Pelican crossing." He pulled his arm out of mine. "Stupid woman," he said, "I'll go without you then." He almost, but not quite, stamped his foot, assuming I'd give in. I didn't. I turned my back and left him to it.

More Earwigging . . . . .

Who's a bigot, me?


Elderly couple having lunch with very elderly and deaf parent.


Woman: "I really don't like it when two of a kind adopt."

Parent: "Eh?"

Woman, a little louder: "You know, two of a kind, it's not natural, when they adopt."

Parent: "What?"

Woman, louder still: "Two men or two women, they shouldn't, you know, adopt, little ones."

Parent: "What's that you're saying?"

Woman, desperate, but unable to stop now: "Two of the same kind, you know, the same sex,  a couple of men or two women, they shouldn't adopt children. The grandchildren say we're old-fashioned; they say, it doesn't matter; but I say it matters, it's not right, it's not natural."

Parent: " What?"

Man, very loud: "SHE DOESN'T WANT HOMOSEXUALS ADOPTING CHILDREN, DOESN'T THINK IT'S RIGHT."

Women: "SSSSSHHHHH, that's not a very nice word to use. People might be offended."

How To Beat A Cold Caller At His Own Game

Image courtesy of seek4media

You've just sat down to a nice hot plateful when the phone rings. You're almost certain it will be a telemarketing call. No matter how many times you register with the Telephone Preference Service, there's always a new company to sneak through the firewall to pester you with unsolicited direct marketing calls.

"Is that Mrs. Smith?"

You were right, the bubbly foreign voice at the other end confirms your fears, but you will neither hang up instantly, nor start swearing. Well, I won't, I don't know about you, of course.

"Speaking", with a question mark in your voice.

"This is John/Robert/Uncle Tom Cobbley an' all", in the thickest Far Eastern accent, to a background of a beehive of murmuring voices. "How are you today, Mrs. Smith? "I still don't swear but now I hang up.

Except the other day I didn't.

The voice was that of a woman, an ordinary English voice. 

After we had established that I am Mrs. Smith and that I'm fine, thank you very much for asking,  she let out a stream of words, presumably a sentence with some meaning; as each word ran into the next at breakneck speed I only understood the odd word here and there. I'm not as young as I was, my brain needs time to get rolling.

"What is it you're selling?"

"I'm-not-selling-anything-we-are-doing-a-survey-on . . . .." She'd lost me, I really had no idea what she was talking about. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, could you repeat what you said?"

She did. Still no luck. And again. She must have used exactly the same words so many times in her daily working routine, that there was no way she could slow them down.

Again.

"I really am awfully sorry, but. . . "

By now her voice had a slight edge to it. Perhaps her supervisor was close by, perhaps the connection showed up as being unbroken on her monitor; she had to continue.

Finally, I took pity on her.

"Thank you so much for your patience, but I simply cannot understand you. Could you please put this IN WRITING?"

A snort of disgust, "Yachch", and the line went dead.

I really enjoyed that.

True Story

WILLOW'S MAGPIE No. 68

Reg Barker was the leader of the Percussion Section at the orchestra of the Royal Opera House.  It was part of his duties as leader to study the score before a new work was performed, working out which of his section members would play which instrument, for instance, would the side drum have enough time to get to the cymbals, etc.

On call for a performance one evening shortly before rehearsals for the new opera started, he decided to use the interval to go down to the library and start on the job. He was only half way through the task when the interval bell sounded, calling the musicians back to the pit. 

Reg had a glass eye; when he heard the bell, he took it out, shuffled the papers into a pile, placed his eye on top of it and said: "here, keep an eye on it for me, and carry on, if you would. I've got to get back to work".

Musicians On Out-Of-Town Engagements

Mud From A Scraper

No. 3 in an occasional series.

Musicians on Tour

- between rehearsal and performance -

One of the least popular features of the orchestral musician's life is the out of town concert, or gig. This usually involves early rising, a long coach or train journey, the expense of buying meals, and a late return as well as the customary rehearsal and performance. For all this, the player receives little extra remuneration.

There is invariably great anxiety about catching the return train, and it is accepted that the last movement of the last work in a concert is always played faster than on any previous occasion. The conductor may object to this, but is usually overruled. Experienced musicians have a wide knowledge of the shortest route from every concert hall to the nearest station, via some public house.

Touring may consist either of a string of provincial concerts spread around the country, or of a longer period in just one or two towns. The first kind is generally detested, as the player is away from his customary haunts, and is not long enough in any one place to settle into a routine; the second is more easily tolerated and some musicians may even enjoy such a sojourn as it provides an opportunity for making new acquaintances and playing on fresh golf courses. Whatever its effect upon musicians, touring is a long-standing custom, part of their contract. A beneficial side effect of touring is that it boosts sales of recordings.

The main problem attached to visiting strange towns is that of finding reasonably priced accommodation. Alas, some musicians welcome tours as a justifiable excuse for getting away from wife and home, and, in common with sailors and commercial travellers, tend to have a sweetheart in many towns. Such players rarely have accommodation problems.

Musicians pay one of their few tributes to culture when working out-of-town, for no beauty spot, abbey or historic building in provincial towns is left unvisited. The purpose of this is two-fold: to be able to say they have been there when asked by curious grandchildren and also to help prove to suspicious wives that they have really been away on a job at all. Most take their cameras to add evidence to their stories; some have even been known to hand these to accomplices to take pictures for them, when their motives for going out-of-town were less than professional.

Stout Encounter

WILLOW'S MAGPIE No 57

At the 'Shamrock' Inn in Kilburn, north west London, the preparations for St. Patrick's Day were well in hand; extra bottles of Irish Whiskey and barrels of Guinness had been laid on and several regulars were practising what they meant to do well on the day itself: getting gloriously drunk.

One mighty old labourer proved particularly successful; having reached that stage where it is obligatory to burst into song, that's what he did, at the top of his voice and, for an Irishman, remarkably unmelodiously and raucously:

"did ye mother come from Oireland, cos' there's something in ye Oirish, and the Oirish in ye steals me heart away . . . . " he bellowed.

At the other end of the bar sat a little chap, crying softly into his pint of Guinness.

The large, buxom barmaid noticed his sadness, leant over the bar and took his hand into her plump fingers.

"Poor lad", she said, "have ye just come from the old country yourself then?" She hadn't seen him in the Shamrock before this night.


"No, I have not,  the little man sobbed,  I am a musician".

An Atrocious Institution - Window No. Eight

The Voice of Dissent

George Bernard Shaw

The World, 20th December 1893

An Atrocious Institution.

Like all intelligent people, I greatly dislike Christmas.

It revolts me to see a whole nation refrain from music for weeks together in order that every man may rifle his neighbour's pockets under cover of a ghastly general pretence of festivity. it is really an atrocious institution, this Christmas. We must be gluttonous because it is Christmas. We must be insincerely generous; we must buy things that nobody wants, and give them to people we don't like; we must go to absurd entertainments that make even our little children satirical; we must writhe under venal officiousness from legions of freebooters, all because it is Christmas - that is, because the mass of the population, including the all-powerful middle-class tradesman, depends on a week of licence and brigandage, waste and intemperance, to clear off its outstanding liabilities at the end of the year.

As for me, I shall fly from it all tomorrow or next day, to some remote spot miles from a shop, where nothing worse can befall me than a serenade from a few peasants, or some equally harmless survival of medieval mummery, shyly offered, not advertised, moderate in its expectations, and soon over.

In town there is, for the moment, nothing for me or any honest man to do.

Friko's comment:

Oh dear, oh dear, secretly - and now not so secretly - and with the exception of his first and last sentence, I agree with much of what the old grump is saying here. 

Who has not moaned about Christmas being a bore, a chore, an expensive waste of time, a Kitschfest, an occasion for old family rows being warmed up once again, for uncle Geronimo getting so sozzled that he falls off the chair,  for auntie Geronomina bursting into tears at the injustice of it all, at TV programmes being nothing but ancient repeats warmed up for the -nth year,  at the kids breaking their expensive toys within hours of getting them, and everybody feeling sick  because they've been eating and drinking for most of the day.

Christmas doesn't have to be like that.  

It doesn't have to be the corrupt, plasticised, saccharine, artificial creation that has been allowed to smother the real Christmas to which we all reach in our imaginations.

The wonderful Christmas we used to know.

It's Not What You Know But Whom You Know.

Sir Adrian' s Head  . . . . . . . .

A young musician, a female clarinettist, having played in an orchestra for a few years, decided that medicine was her first love after all and she gave up her job and returned to medical training. During an important anatomy exam, she stood at the dissecting table and watched an attendant carry a tray holding an object covered with a cloth towards her. Students were not given exam details in advance and she therefore awaited disclosure of the object nervously.

The cloth was removed and to her utter amazement, there, on the tray, rested the head of Sir Adrian Boult, which she recognized immediately and which she had last seen attached to his body, very much alive, conducting her and the orchestra from the rostrum.

Sir Adrian Boult had died and left his body to medical science.



. . . . . . .  and Sir George’s Reputation.


It is a well-known fact that medicine and music have a great affinity for each other. Medics often love music as much or even more than musicians do.

Beloved tells a story, which goes something like this:

When he was in imminent danger of losing the use of his fingering arm (i.e. the arm that holds up a string instrument), a very serious and potentially life-threatening operation to his neck was the only option. The famous medic, who happened to be the Queen’s official Neurosurgeon, who was to perform the operation, found time for a chat during prepping.

“I hear you are a musician at Covent Garden; what do you think of Solti”?

Beloved was one of only two members of the orchestra who actually liked and admired Sir George Solti for his rigorous and exacting approach to music and who was therefore known as a bit of a slave driver.  Beloved admitted his admiration with a clear conscience.

“That’s good”, said the great man, “ the last time I had dinner with George . . . “

The operation went well, the arm and Beloved’s career were saved.

A Handy Hint For When The Blogging Muse Fails You

Sometimes it’s hard to find an interesting subject to post, particularly if you’ve been at it for a year or more, as I have. Going over old ground will only serve once or twice  -  readers change and if they haven’t been with you for long, they probably won’t know warmed-up fare from freshly concocted dishes.

There is one way to make sure the news is always sensational: invent it!

Decades ago there was a free-lance journalist working for any London newspaper which would buy his stories; Beloved knew him when he was a young man; the two of them collaborated on a long forgotten piece of film, for which Beloved wrote the score.

One day Eric asked “Did you ever see the piece about Margaret Truman singing at Covent Garden in the press? I wrote it.”

Beloved, who was already employed at the Royal Opera, couldn’t believe his ears. Margaret Truman was a singer? Surely not.

“Well” Eric said, “I needed a story, so I rang the White House, giving the name of The Times Of London, got through to the Press Office and asked them, if they could they please confirm the rumour that Margaret Truman was to appear on  stage at Covent Garden as a singer.”

“As there had never been such a rumour, naturally, they denied it,” Eric added, "which made the piece ‘White House denies rumour that the President’s daughter is to appear at Covent Garden’ the absolute truth”.

If you didn’t already, now you know how it’s done.

Let Music Be The Soul Of Discretion

An invitation to a meal at the house of musicians is fine, provided you are a musician yourself. If not, you are in for a rough ride. I am not. I deal in words, not notes.

Musicians have words too, of course, but a lot of their words deal with the character assassination of other musicians, particularly conductors, and then, a long way after, with music. I love the idea of juicy gossip, but as I don’t know the subjects personally, although quite a few of them are well known, even famous people, my interest soon wanders.

As these particular musicians are polite, friendly, generous and kind hosts, for the first thirty minutes the conversation concerned itself with the topic of left over berries in the freezer and what to do with them, arising from serving a token shot of cassis in the first bottle of bubbly. This in turn led to discussing home made wine and its uses in the house, particularly for bleaching and disinfecting purposes.

By now our host was raring to go; I could tell he was keeping a tight rein on himself.  Still on the subject of home made wine, he told us how he had recently been given some elderberry wine which seemed rather strong. As it is not easy to determine the alcohol content of home made wine, our host sent a bottle for analysis to a laboratory. In due course the answer came back. “ I am sorry to say that your horse suffers from diabetes”.

Lunch was delicious. Musicians eat and drink well. Beloved and I were rather slow and our hosts finished their courses long before us. When we apologized, John said: “that shows the difference between freelancers and those in fixed employment. Freelancers learn to chew and swallow vivacissimo”.  Beloved always was on a regular contract.

After the meal I took Benno out into the garden, I could hear gales of laughter coming from the open windows. By now the conversation was very firmly established in the world of performers of classical music, names falling thick and fast, each anecdote leading to the next.

When I got back inside, a well known violinist, a foreigner living in the UK, aspiring to being the perfect English gentleman in speech and manner and famous for his interpretation of Mozart, was being discussed. The soloist had been asked, at fairly short notice, to play a Mozart concerto. A colleague, also a soloist, but not a great friend, asked how it had gone.

“Terribly, dear boy, terribly”.
Sensing a triumph over his colleague, the second soloist asked,
“ Oh dear, were the critics there?”
“Yes, unfortunately, they were”.
 Ever more solicitous, the second soloist said,
“Do you happen to have a copy on you?”
The famous man pulled a sheaf of them out of his pocket.
“Here they are, quite terrible”.

The other read them, each critique glowing with praise.

“What do you mean, terrible, these are very good indeed”.

The famous man sighed.

“The grammar, dear boy, the grammar”.

Boris and Bhuna

Friends for Life

Shaggy dog stories are usually soppy, so if you don't do soppy, don't read this post.

When Boris first came to live in Valley's End,

Bhuna was already here. Boris was 4 years old

and Bhuna just eighteen months.

Bhuna and Boris had had very different lives.

Bhuna had always been a pet, he was untrained,

spoilt and obedience was not something he had ever come across. His name is the Ethiopian name for coffee, his coat was coffee coloured.

Boris was a foundling, picked up by a dog warden in the Essex countryside;

he was sick, starving; he had a leg injury and was totally cowed. It became apparent that he had been trained as a working dog, a gun dog, in fact.

Boris knew every command and followed it

instantly. In fact, he was pathetically pleased

to obey. He had obviously been harshly treated,

he was ever ready to cringe and cower; when we first took him on, he was so afraid of men that he peed himself every time his new master spoke to him in a loud voice.

He had congenital eye disease, which must have been the reason for his having been abandoned; no breeder could get away with a visible defect like that; nobody would buy expensive Labrador puppies who would more than likely pass the condition on.

Within a month or so, after he'd come to us, Boris was fine; he had an operation on his eye, which stopped him going blind, he had put on weight and his fur was back to normal. He became a happy dog; also a very handsome one, he was pure black Labrador.

Valley's End has a castle on a hill, a river round it and a field between the two. All the local dogs are exercised here; this is where Boris and Bhuna first met and where Boris instantly set about training the unruly Bhuna.

Bhuna's master was delighted; we met up frequently, one or the other of us taking both dogs out for long walks; they became inseparable. In fact, Bhuna frequently turned up in our garden on his own, having jumped over the garden gate; Boris was too well-behaved to leave his territory, but he was always ready to welcome Bhuna. The two dogs were more like boys than dogs.

I said that this was going to be a soppy story, it's going to get even soppier.

On one of our long walks we went up into the woods above the valley. The dogs were roaming freely, both noses in the same hole, both of them tugging at the same fallen branch or chasing the same animal scent. They disappeared, came back, disappeared again.

Until, about an hour into the walk, there was only Bhuna; at first we paid no attention, walking on, thinking Boris would turn up eventually. Bhuna started to behave strangely, walking backward in front of us, stopping, looking at us, then walking behind us, stopping again. He did this several times. ending up behind us, following very slowly, standing still in the middle of the path, looking at us, then half turning, looking back over his shoulder.

We finally got the message. Bhuna was telling us Boris was missing, he was in trouble.

The moment we turned back, Bhuna made for the steeply wooded slope ascending above the path and started to climb, all the time making sure we were following, stopping every so often to let us catch him up, finally leading us to where Boris lay, trapped by a huge spike attached to a branch which had gone deep into his paw. There was no way that Boris could have limped down the hill on three legs, every move he made drove the spike deeper into his paw, with the branch dragging on it.

As soon as we reached Boris, Bhuna stood to one side, then ran off, totally unconcerned again.

Boris took no lasting harm; we managed to remove the spike, performed some first aid with spit and a handkerchief and slowly made our way back down the hill. The Vet cleaned out the wound and very soon all was well.

Boris died of cancer when he was eleven years old; until then the dogs remained staunch allies. Within the year we adopted Benno, another black Labrador, also a rescue dog. We all thought Bhuna and Benno could pick up where Bhuna and Boris had left off but Bhuna never took to Benno. The two of them growled at each other every time they met.

Igor Stravinsky, Isaiah Berlin and the Scraper

The Observer Newspaper has for some time been showcasing the work of the acclaimed photographer Jane Bown. Last Sunday's portrait was of the famous philosopher and academic Sir Isaiah Berlin, who was on the Board of Directors at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, during the 1980s.

Seeing the photograph, the Scraper was reminded of the following story:-

Sir Isaiah Berlin

Members of the Orchestra had been invited to a reception in the Crush Bar at the Opera House, where the Scraper and a colleague were engaged in conversation by Sir Isaiah. The name Stravinsky came up and prompted the great man to recall the occasion, some twenty years earlier, when the 50th anniversary of the first performance of the Rite Of Spring, in Paris in 1913, was being celebrated at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Pierre Monteux had conducted the premiere and his services had been secured to conduct the anniversary concert.

Stravinsky, who had never admired Monteux, was invited to the celebration.

Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky accepted. He had no intention of attending the actual performance but he was willing to take a bow afterwards.

He therefore contacted his old friend, Sir Isaiah, and asked him to obtain six tickets for that night's performance, at the Royal Opera House of 'The Marriage of Figaro', which customarily had three intervals. Stravinsky planned to leave during the third interval, jump into a waiting taxi and reach the Albert Hall just in time to take the applause.

Unfortunately, this particular production provided for no more than a quick scene change before the last act, and when Stravinsky and his party rose to leave, the usherette rushed up and whispered urgently, " Sir, there is no interval, you cannot leave your seats".

Stravinsky, undeterred, continued the exodus and, from his great height, looked down on the unfortunate usherette, and said loudly, " We all have diarrhoea, we are leaving!"