Riding the slide

via www.manicalarga.net

Sorry

but not very

Berlusconi

Oh, good grief

Perla Pavoncello, 24, asked the media mogul how she was supposed to start a family or get a mortgage without a job, only to be told: 'You should look to marry a millionaire, like my son, or someone who doesn't have such problems.' He then added: 'With that smile of yours, you could even get away with it.'
Opposition politicians slammed Berlusconi as Italy's answer to Marie Antoinette and forms quickly appeared on the internet to fill in and send off to Berlusconi's eldest son asking for his hand in marriage. Piersilvio Berlusconi, 38, declined to say if he was open to offers.

I'm still looking for one of those forms...ah try here - acquired via this blog - a postcard from your honeymoon would be appreciated!
Berlustconi doesn't seem to get enough google hits at present.
This is a better link - I didn't think English that weird was possible but I see it's a machine translation.

A night with the magician

To the RNCM last night to see a Ravel double bill:

L'heure Espagnole and L'enfant et les sortileges. I'd not really appreciated L'heure Espagnole before, maybe you need to see it - apart from its overtones of Brian Rix (somewhat to my surprise he's still going and is Baron of Hornsea - which has a pottery whose dishes we've been dining off for the last 25+ years). The continual presence of the clocks was caught to perfection in the RNCM performance. L'enfant et les sortileges is wonderful - various movies for example here on You Tube - childhood though the eyes of a master. Two more performances - hurry! - we bought the last 3 seats last night so spent the evening scattered over the theatre.

Can one know the length of a dream?

I've seen it before but I was still enthralled, the teapot and cup got a lot of the applause (apart of course from the boy) but I was very taken by fire's performance

The Olympics

Spot on from Mad Priest:

When they decided to give the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing, they were fully aware that China was second only to the United States in their abuse of human rights, and they were fully aware that Tibet was an illegally occupied nation state that was being systematically denuded of its culture and native population. Yet they still did it and now the free nations of the world are, once again, faced with the decision as to whether to boycott the games or not.

Britannia Music

I used to be a regular customer (and an appreciative customer) of Britannia Music until it folded last year - yesterday I received a letter from a credit agency (intrum justitia) claiming I owed them (as administrators) some unpaid money (> £30) supplying an 0870 number as a contact! Sifting though my orders I find the exact amount ordered (and paid for) back from March 2007. A web search appears to give lots of other folk with similar letters - the letter was quite threatening - if you receive one, do check that it is not for an amount that you have paid!
Either Britannia music's credit systems were in a mess when they folded, or the credit agency has a similar problem, or someone is seeing how much they can recoup by threats.
Fortunately I have the emails from Britannia recording my payment!
Later - as this posting is fairly high up the google hit list for likely search terms or other letter receivers, let me also recommend this thread and this phone number 0151 4732626 quoted in the thread, as an alternative to the 0870 rip-off number.

In case you've not seen this

Postman Pat does rural evangelism.
Via Elizaphanian

Thought for the weekend

Our essential orientation to life is a consequence of the stories that form us. A genuine story will not leave us alone. It insists, sometimes in the most impolite terms, on changing us

Daniel Taylor The Healing Power of Stories quoted in Ann Morisy's Journeying Out. No doubt it will find its way into the talk on Sunday morning for Palm Sunday - last time I preached on Palm Sunday was 2003 - when there was some chance of optimism about the future of Iraq - how things have changed. Also thinking about personas and anonymity for Sunday..

Another Simon's cat

Hat tip to Lindsay

Oh go on!

Sometimes some schmaltz is nice

I'd lose the female string band though! The other YouTube copy looks too much like a shampoo advert losing the darker words - though the final transition is nice!

Spamming google

Whilst searching for words to Hallyday's Un jour viendra, googles summary gave -

We couldn't find any jobs for un jour viendra.... Please check the keyword terms you entered.

Courtesy of a myspace site...I won't supply a link!

Free phone

Don't think I've mentioned that David Shenton's cartoons are on the web and I loved today's

Get one's tribute in early

It brings a warm glow:

The mad privatiser who held a quasi-religious belief that the market was the ideal mechanism for social organisation, who thought naked personal ambition was fine, who crushed the unions, who knew how to appeal to our basest desires, who turned us into a nation of selfish toads.

from Michele Hanson in today's Guardian.
Curiously I read this (for, I think, the first time) last night:

This woman is headstrong,obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated

Cleaning up the Bishop (and his mitre)

12-26-2007_061.JPG
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Uploaded this a few months back and am gradually getting around to cleaning some of the noise and dirt off that slide scan. The latest version is here - I hope that's an improvement though the top left is still rather bitty.
For those expecting an ecclesiastical post - the mountain just to the right of the centre is the Bishop and the one in the centre is the Mitre (Mt Collon is to the left - photo taken in 1971 on a walking holiday)

We went!

Bit of a busy week - hence the slowdown of blogging - on Monday I went with BATS (the church book group) to MADS (I see a javascript banner is that a firefox isn't the browser I'm expecting artifice..?)the local amateur dramatic society - to see Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular a rather black comedy but an interesting study of 1970's kitchens. I thought the ending was weak but the getting there was enjoyable. Inevitably some of the acting was better than others but the cast carried it well.
Wednesday night was Io non ho paura at the Silk Screen - I was one of(?) the recommenders of this film - so in spite of having a meeting afterwards I thought I'd better turn up. I saw this back in 2004 at the cornerhouse (www.iononhopaura.it appears to have gone now)-
seeing it again, I though some bits were slow but once it got to the combine harvesters and the rush to the climax I was absorbed and moved. Half the fun earlier was waiting to see the audience jump when the kidnapee first appears...
Then Thursday night was 'Waiting for Godot' at the Library Theatre in Manchester
. Definitely played for laughs even at the most desperate moments. At the start of Act 2 one of the audience just in front of us, stifled a sneeze and David Fielder's Vladimir, milked the moment. I'd never seen the play before - though I had acted a bit of it as an Easter Saturday epilogue back in 1982. I'd urge you to see it but I think tonight is the last night! - nothing happens, waiting for night to fall. The play's text is available here. Also I remember the spontaneous applause at the end of Lucky's monologue and Pozzo's repulsive Churchill. An interesting counterpoint after seeing 'Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead' in the same theatre last year.

Stepping back a bit

03032008
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

On the way down to the station and getting a bit brighter. I thought it was quiet so that I'd get a picture of the whole hill with noone visible but someone just rounded the corner as the picture was being taken!

Honor Moore

Anglican future has some sensible words on the Paul Moore story.

The Wii Generation

.. for today's pun

Bollington Chamber Music

Off to Bollington to see the Elias String Quartet in a concert of Haydn, Bartok and Mendelssohn.
Started with the Haydn Emperor - showed wonderful sense of ensemble and the the Bartok 4(the principal draw as far as I was concerned) wonderfully carried off. String quartets have a reputation of being very abstract and cerebral but the feeling I took away - from all the works was the physicality of the medium. The Bartok 4 is now 100 years old - this year - and is still a challenge! I felt the difficulty of the pizzicato movement - with bows, you - as a player - get a physical clue as to when the other players are about to hit their strings, with pizzicato it is far harder, and the wonderful rumpus of the last movement - you could almost see the Hungarian village band! (then there was the achingly beautifully played solos in the central movement). I've only heard one Bartok Quartet live before - the 6th played by an amateur(!) ensemble at Cambridge.
The Mendelssohn they've recorded. I felt the first two movements rather dull but enjoyed the last two with a fugal subject dropping from the sky. With the last movement I felt the Violin Concerto was hovering there in the wings.
The bar at the Bollington Arts centre has a price list for wines - one column for 'house wines' the other is labelled 'posher wines'!
We went to a Chamber Concert many years ago in Bollington (the Sorrel Quartet I think) I hope it won't be as long before we go again!

Read the source!

On this page - a really secure password - see the fun on this at The Daily WTF's So You hacked our site