bournemouth symphony orchestra at bristol beacon…

Thanks to Dave+Sarah, I was given a ticket to another classical concert at the Bristol Beacon last night (two concerts there within a week!). The programme consisted of:
Brahms Symphony No. 3
Hough Piano Concerto, ‘The World of Yesterday’
Elgar Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’
 
I hadn’t heard the piano concerto (which was impressive, but not quite my cup of tea) before last night, but was familiar with the other pieces. The evocative Brahms Symphony (which I do like – especially the third movement) is apparently, according to the programme notes, rich with references to his own thoughts about life and love in its striking mixture of passion and pessimism, of restlessness and serenity – we certainly need LOTS of passion and serenity at the present time!
And, like most people, I also love the Elgar Variations… but hadn’t realised was that they take the form of a portrait gallery of the composer’s friends, family and neighbours… and, last night, these were elaborated upon through spoken excerpts from Elgar’s own writings.
Another excellent evening with an impressive, full orchestra in full voice.

I’m still here…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon (prompted by Wendy Ide’s 5-star review in The Guardian). I wasn’t disappointed.
Walter Salles’s film is a true-life saga of a Brazilian family torn apart by military rule. A former congressman and civil engineer, Rubens, is abducted from his beachfront home in 1970s Rio. His wife (Eunice Paiva, played by Fernanda Torres - who is utterly BRILLIANT) and five children are left reeling… for decades. One day, men with guns arrive at the door and take Rubens to make a statement. Who they are and where he has been removed to remain a mystery. Eunice and her 15-year-old daughter are also questioned (Eunice ends up being kept in a filthy cell and subjected to repeated interrogations over 12 days).
 
Despite it all, for the sake of her children, Eunice puts on a brave face (understatement) and campaigns for her husband’s safe return. But, over time, there’s a slow realisation that her husband has gone for good (she later hears from an associate of her husband the unconfirmed rumour of Rubens’ death) and that, for the sake of her children, she needs to remain ‘strong’. Eunice ends up deciding to relocate the family to São Paulo and to go back to college (in real life, she went on to become a human rights lawyer). Lots of incredibly poignant scenes that sum up the despair and the horror of it all – including a heart-breaking scene when the youngest of the Paiva children sits on the doorstep, as the last of their possessions are loaded into the car, and finally realises that her father was never coming home.
For me, the film was a frightening, sobering reminder that such regimes and governments continue in various forms to this day (see my footnotes below).
It’s a brilliant hard-hitting film, brilliantly acted… and you definitely need to see it (Oscar-winning performance by Fernanda Torres?).
Footnote: In Chile, Pinochet was a brutal authoritarian dictatorship that seized power through a coup in 1973, violently suppressing political dissent, implementing severe human rights abuses like torture and disappearances, while also enacting significant economic reforms based on free market principles, causing social and economic disruption for many Chileans (democracy wasn’t restored until 1990).
Footnote: In Brazil, dictatorship reached the height of its popularity (my bold type) in the early 1970s with the so-called ‘Brazilian Miracle’ - even as the regime censored all media, and tortured, killed and exiled dissidents… and yet, despite all this, 20 years later, Bolsonaro was elected Brazil’s president 2019-23 and (according to Google) his government was characterized by the strong presence of ministers with a military background, international alignment with the populist right and autocratic leaders, and was recognized for his anti-environmental, anti-indigenous people and pro-gun policies. He was also responsible for a broad dismantling of cultural, scientific and educational government programmes, in addition to promoting repeated attacks on democratic institutions and spreading fake news… (does this sound vaguely familiar?). 

february 2025 books…

Among The Cities (Jan Morris): I love Jan Morris’s writing. This book (first published in 1985) is a compilation of 37 essays, written over a period of 26 years (1957-1983), describing her experiences of the cities she travelled to. Although I read it from cover-to-cover, it’s also one of those books one could just dip into. Typical of Morris, these are very different travel essays - definitely not ‘travel guides’, but providing wonderful insights into the joys (and frustrations) experienced on her journeys - taking in descriptions of shopkeepers, cafés, colours and smells et al. These are no reflections compiled from ‘long weekend’ excursions, but often the result of extended stays (or frequent re-visits)… indeed, one of the essays (Spanish Cities, 1963 – Franco was still power) resulted from her American publishers’ invitation “to spend 6 months in Spain and write a book about it”. Of course, some of these cities have changed beyond recognition… for instance: Beirut (essay: 1956) after its destruction in 1982 and Berlin (essay: 1957) after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Entertaining, illuminating and fascinating.
Everyman’s Poetry: RS Thomas (ed. Anthony Thwaite): I bought this book in 2010 (first published in 1996), but had previously only ‘dipped into it’ from time to time. For the past few week, I’ve been gently working my way through this book as part of my pondering time at the very start of each day (usually reading it aloud to myself)… and I’ve found it surprisingly compelling. Thomas (1913-2000) was an ordained priest who served in six different rural parishes in Wales over a period of 40 years. His poetry is frequently quite dour, even gloomy – often about isolation (and written in isolation) and the people within his parishes and the landscapes of the remote depths of rural Wales. He was troubled by religious doubts throughout his life… and perhaps, given my own faith issues, that’s what I found resonated for me.
Hard Rain (Mark Edwards+Lloyd Timberlake): Dylan’s 1992 song (written during the Cuban Missile Crisis… and the 13-year-old me thought the world was about to end) forms the backdrop to this powerful book Edwards’ and Timberlake’s text, some stunning photographs and, of course, the lyrics to Dylan’s “A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall”. Today, of course, we know that it’s not just nuclear war that could wipe out civilisation… climate change has the potential to be equally catastrophic. Back in 2006, the authors maintained that the world was in collective denial… it seems that we just weren’t able to get these issues on our political radar screens. I’ve had my copy of the book from shortly after it was published (in 2006) and it’s just so sad to reflect that, nearly 20 years later, awareness of the environmental crisis has improved, its impact has arguably only worsened. Beautiful, powerful, sobering book.
Hijab Butch Blues (Lamya H): This is our Storysmith bookgroup’s latest book… in recognition of ‘LGBT+ History Month’. The author is a queer, brown-skinned Muslim (‘Lamya H’ is a pseudonym – presumably to protect her own identity and the fact that her family are unaware that she’s queer). It’s an unflinching memoir about reconciling faith, life circumstances and her own ‘queer experience’ in a world where racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia are familiar issues. It recounts Lamya’s life after she moves from a ‘Muslim country’ to the U.S. for college with the stories of the prophets and figures in the Quran that help her understand, contextualize, celebrate, or heal from the traumas and tribulations of her life. The book provides an insight into her personal journey and growth in both her faith and herself, broken down into three essays: grappling with the various intersections of their queer, Muslim, immigrant identities; addressing the difficulties of coming out and navigating the world as queer, Muslim, and brown; and illustrating the ways in which her faith has helped guide/create a life for herself. In many ways, it seemed to me that that the book was written as a form of therapy or self-counselling… as well as a vehicle for encouraging others. A fascinating insight into the struggles and challenges that face the likes of Lamya… fascinating but, for me, without being compelling.
Foster (Claire Keegan): This is our Bloke’s latest book choice (selected by me!)… so this is another re-read! I love Keegan’s writing and this book was probably my favourite of 2024. This short story, which takes place in the hot summer of 1981 in rural Ireland, is narrated by a young girl… who is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the relatives’ house, she finds affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom… but (in the words from the book’s cover), “there is something unspoken in this new household – where everything is so well tended to – and the summer must come to an end”. It’s a novel of a mere 88 pages, but it is profound, beautiful and utterly lyrical. I absolutely loved it – one of those books that stay with long after the final page has been read. It’ll be interesting to see what the ‘blokes’ think about it! 

LSO playing mahler at the beacon…

I went to the Bristol Beacon last night with my good friend Ed to hear/see the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO)(conductor: Sir Antonio Pappano) performing Mahler’s Symphony no.1 and Walton’s Cello Concerto (soloist: Rebecca Gilliver).
I love Mahler’s music and last night’s performance was wonderfully impressive… so brilliant to witness the sight and sound of a large orchestra at full tilt.
I was less familiar with the Walton piece, but very much enjoyed Rebecca Gilliver’s mesmerising performance.
A really excellent evening.
PS: Somewhat embarrassingly, the last time I was at the Beacon (or Colston Hall as it used to be) for a concert of classical music was in May 2018 – to see the wonderful Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla conduct the CBSO… although I’ve attended other classical concerts elsewhere in the meantime.
PPS: Although Walton’s Cello Concerto isn’t my favourite cello piece, the cello IS almost certainly my favourite classical instrument. It reminded me of the time I first remember hearing/watching Elgar’s ‘Cello Concerto’ played ‘live’. I’d been invited to a special concert at St Hilda’s College, Oxford (I designed some student accommodation for the College during my time working for The Oxford Architects Partnership). The world-famous cellist Jacqueline Du Pré was an Honorary Fellow at St Hilda’s College. She was forced to stop performing in 1973, due to Multiple Sclerosis, and died in 1987, aged 42. The Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building was subsequently built in Oxford and opened in 1995 (St Hilda’s had been one of the joint fundraisers). That concert probably took place in 1973/4 - over 50 years ago (I know!) - and I still have goose-bumps when I recall the sound of the cello that night (the last performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto I attended – at St George’s, Bristol in 2019 – brought tears to my eyes… soft man that I am). I think I need to attend another performance of that Elgar piece before I die! 

january-february 2025 books…

The Perfect Golden Circle (Benjamin Myers): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup selection (albeit that I won’t be able to make our review meeting) – under the theme of ‘weather’. The novel is set in 1989 and, over the course of a hot English summer, two very different men – a traumatised Falklands veteran Calvert and a somewhat chaotic Redbone – set out in a clapped-out camper, under cover of darkness, to traverse the fields of England forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns. Over the course of the summer, their designs become increasingly ambitious and the work takes on something of a cult status (albeit that the men’s identity remains unknown). In many ways, it’s an unsentimental and yet realistic look at our world of today – changing weather patterns; global warming; and sober implications for the planet. The book’s cover/flyleaf is FULL of praise from a whole mass of gushing reviewers. Here’s just a flavour: “brilliantly constructed…”; “understated, plangent loveliness of Myers’s storytelling…”; “a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword…”. Well, although I warmed to the book towards the end, I’m afraid I didn’t find it particularly convincing… and I didn’t find either of the characters particularly believable. Unlike the army of book reviewers, I wasn’t particularly impressed by Myers as a writer and found many of his descriptions painfully laboured. I could quote lots of examples, but here are just two: “Redbone takes a drink. His throat is a Saharan sand dune, a dead riverbed of boulders. He is so thirsty that he swallows the water as if the lives of his unborn offspring depend upon it. He drains half the flask in a few greedy gulps so that non-existent children might one day live”… and “The owls are so owlish that they resemble a sound effect, a dusty vinyl recording found in the BBC’s audio archives. The tree trunks meanwhile create corridors as if a needle is stuck on the record that is playing continually in an empty office deep in an abandoned building guarded by a solitary nightwatchman for whom retirement cannot come quickly enough”. Really?? The book echoes some of the themes of the excellent BBC TV series ‘The Detectorists’ from 2014 – a secretive pursuit for treasure (or in the book’s case anonymous cult status?) undertaken by some rather strange, quirky enthusiasts… and yet, for me, it failed to really engage me. I found it mildly amusing at times and somewhat irritating at others! In a word: disappointing (although I know I’ll be in a minority).
Sentenced To Life (Clive James): I first read this 10 years ago and have been re-reading the book’s poems as part of my early morning reflections (a couple of pieces each day). The poems were written as if James felt his death was imminent and yet he survived another 12 years (first published in 2007 – he died in 2019)… but I again found his words/reflections/regrets/joys/guilt/memories really quite poignant and insightful – albeit sometimes overly self-pitying perhaps.
Night Waking (Sarah Moss): I’ve read a number of Sarah Moss books (this is quite an early one – first published in 2011) and enjoy her writing, but I struggled to get into this one initially… and came back to it after a 6-month gap. The main character, Anna, is a Research Fellow in History struggling to write without a room of her own… stranded on a Hebridean island where her husband is researching puffins. They have two young sons and Anna’s days are a round of abandoned projects and domestic drudgery – with husband Giles sadly lacking in his ideas of shared parenting due to what he sees as his far more pressing puffin obligations. The book becomes something of a mystery novel when one of the sons finds a baby skeleton buried in the garden. An investigation begins and Anna’s work changes as she endeavours to confront the island’s past while finding a way to live with the competing demands of the present. I ended up really enjoying the book… it’s brilliantly observed and frequently funny (I particularly enjoyed the rather wonderful way Moss was able to mix in the speech of small children and of adults talking to them so convincingly well). I loved one reviewer’s description of Anna as a “furious, self-pitying martyr, self-conscious to the point of satire about her particular niche in the pantheon of middle-class motherhood”!
Night (Elie Wiesel): January marked the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of German Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz… and this book provides a horrifying portrait of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was 15 when the Nazis came for the 15,000 Jews of his hometown of Sighet, Transylvania, in May 1944. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, his mother and sister were murdered within hours, while he was put to work as a slave labourer. Eight months later, the Germans evacuated the camp and forced the survivors on a death march that ended at Buchenwald. Wiesel (now a Professor at Boston University) was one of the few still alive when the Americans arrived in April 1945. We all know about the horrors of the Holocaust but, still, Wiesel’s first-hand account makes the grimmest of reading… one is left with a sense of utter disbelief that man could commit such crimes. The book is disturbing in the extreme and yet, thankfully, also something of a beacon of hope. We must not EVER forget what happened.
Bad Island (Stanley Donwood): I bought this at the £5 Bookshop (Park Street). First published in 2020, this stark, graphic novel is about the end of the world(!) - which seems particularly pertinent at this time when we have Trump talking about ‘drill baby drill’ and the UK government regarding airport expansions as being more important than the environment. The book is a series of single image linocuts, building up slowly into an eons-old narrative of life, evolution and ultimate (self-)destruction. Stark, bleak and but with a powerful message. 

a complete unknown…

Moira and I went along to the Watershed yesterday to see James Mangold’s ‘A Complete Unknown’ – about Bob Dylan’s rise to become one of the most iconic singer-songwriters in history. The 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in New York in 1961 with his guitar and is destined to change the course of American music.
I recall my schoolboy days in 1962 when, in order to try to look ‘cool’ and ‘keep up with the music scene’ (I’m pretty sure I was the first person to actually discover The Beatles!), I used to subscribe to ‘Disc’ magazine or what later became ‘Disc Weekly’… and so began my fascination with Mr Dylan and his music. “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” 1963 album has always been my favourite.
As my good friend Tony suggested (after he’d seen the film last weekend), watching it was an exercise in ‘nostalgia’… in a very positive way. He was absolutely right. Unsurprisingly (on a Tuesday afternoon!), the vast majority of the pretty much capacity audience comprised lots of old couples in their 70s (like us!) – reliving their youth.
I feared that it would all be very disappointing… a number of people acting out and singing parts of some of my heroes. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought the actors were absolutely excellent: Dylan (played brilliantly by Timothée Chalamet); Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro); Pete Seeger (Edward Norton); and girlfriend Sylvie Russo (pictured on the ‘Freewheelin’ album cover photograph)(Elle Fanning).
In the film, Dylan somewhat predictably (and convincingly) comes across as an arrogant, thick-skinned, selfish musical genius. The film includes the time of Dylan’s appearance at the 1965 Newport folk festival – where he rejects the traditional folk traditions in favour of rock and blues-inspired electric guitars… and I can well remember my own disappointment/disbelief of that time. But, hey, music is something of a journey – and Dylan is still going strong despite his 83 years (and thank goodness for that).
I’d strongly recommend that you see this film. It brought back lots of memories.
PS: Of course, I’ve been re-listening to Dylan albums all over again since seeing the film!
PPS: I think my favourite Dylan song is “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”… and its lyrics are featured in Mark Edwards+Lloyd Timberlake’s brilliant book “Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision With Nature” (published in 2006)… a stunning photographic essay. I absolutely treasure this book. It’s sadly sobering that the book’s major theme – our headlong collision with nature and the pressing issues of climate change, environmental degradation and world poverty – applies even more today than it did then, 19 years ago… and Dylan’s lyrics (which at the time were inspired by the threat of nuclear meltdown) remain scarily prophetic – 62 years later. 

january 2025 books…

The Fortnight In September (RC Sherriff): This is our next Bloke’s book. First published in 1931, it’s a simple account of a family’s two weeks’ holiday at the seaside. The Stevens’ family (mother and father; Mary nearly 20; Dick 17; and Ernie 10), who lived near Dulwich, had always holidayed in Bognor and always stayed at the same guest house. They were an ‘ordinary’, decent family and their holidays were planned by the father (who, every year, made a list of ‘Marching Orders’ to ensure that everything was ‘right’ in advance of their train journey to the coast)(we travelled by Sandwell Coaches’ charabancs), but with the family agreeing a basic itinerary on a day-to-day basis. Although there was something like a 25-year time difference, the book reminded me of our own family holidays in Blackpool each year as a child. My Dad was a list-maker (Ru and I have inherited the trait!) and, like the Stevenses, our holidays included beach cricket games (or to the park when the tide was in), theatre visits, the pier and amusement arcades… and we stayed at the same guest house every year – even after the people had retired. Nothing really happens in this book, except the simple pleasures and the decent ordinariness of (working class) life. The book won’t appeal to many perhaps, but I found it a wonderfully evocative reminder of life as it used to be.
The Last Devil To Die (Richard Osman): I’ve read and really enjoyed Osman’s previous three ‘Thursday Murder Club’ novels. There’s part of me that almost resents Osman’s ridiculous success in everything he seems to touch (but, hey, he’s a hugely talented bloke!) but, I have to admit, I really like his books! If anything, I think this is probably his ‘best yet’. Another clever, intricate storyline – featuring art forgers, online fraudsters, drug dealer and, of course, those wonderful, aged characters (Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron – my favourite is Joyce!) from Cooper’s Chase Retirement Village. Effortlessly (at least that’s how it seems) entertaining and even quite moving (despite the body-count!). I read it within 3 days and found it rather wonderful.
Julia (Sandra Newman): This novel (published in 2023) is something of a re-telling of Orwell’s ‘1984’ (which I’d previously read three times before over the past 50 or so years - the last in 2017)… but, this time, from the very different perspective of the role women were forced to play – something that was clearly lacking in Orwell’s novel. Newman’s version is seen through the eyes of Julia Worthing, who works in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. I found it utterly convincing, complex and disturbing… and, somewhat worryingly (in my view), also a reflection of the world we currently live in – with its powerful (+hugely rich) oligarchs; its fake news; its blatant lies; and its potential ability to control the media/internet (but, so far, no apparent use of torture!?). It all felt scarily authentic and impressively written. Not a book that one ‘enjoys’ exactly… but it’s very difficult not to be hugely impressed.
Cork In The Doghouse (Macdonald Hastings): Another book from the Oxfam secondhand bookshop – largely on the basis that it was another of Penguin Books’ ‘green cover crime series’. It was first published in 1957 (I remember the author when he was a reporter for the BBC’s ‘Tonight’ programme back in the day!) but, frankly, I was very disappointed – it all felt very contrived and (perhaps unsurprisingly) very dated… and yet it probably would have been better to have been set back in the 1920s. Montague Cork is the General Manager+Managing-Director of the Anchor Accident Insurance Company (the author has apparently written a whole series of ‘Cork Adventures’… I personally won’t be reading any others!) and this one concerns a highly-insured pit bull terrier and a group of ne’er-do-wells. I’m afraid I found the book unremarkable and unconvincing.
Three Men In A Boat (Jerome K Jerome): I think this is the fourth time I’ve read this book (the last being in 2020)… somewhat pitifully perhaps, I took it off the bookshelf again on the basis that it provided some guaranteed ‘comfort reading’ at a time when the world seems to have lost its marbles. First published in 1889 (our/Moira’s copy 1969) is the well-known story of three men (and a dog) on a boat, making the journey from Kingston to Oxford along the Thames (and back again). It’s obviously incredibly dated and ‘of its time’, but it really is very funny and beautifully written. All accounts of their journey invariably get side-tracked by recollections of other, often completely unrelated, events – indeed, the first quarter of the book isn’t about things they encountered on their boat journey at all (instead: stories about their various health issues; what they should take with them; how they should pack etc). Some lovely references bemoaning the “pace of nineteenth century life”… and a rather pertinent comment about “people’s changing tastes” and things that had become “unfashionable”: “Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimney-pieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd?...”. A lovely, enjoyable re-read.