Tigers and Tables

Yesterday afternoon found me in Manchester, initially for a concert at the RNCM as part of their Judith Weir festival 'Tigers Under the Table' three works:

• Judith Weir Piano Trio Two
• Tom Harrold New work (world première)
  
• Judith Weir Airs from Another Planet

I should have made notes but, for me, the Piano Trio Two was the most appealing - a meditative work for the traditional ensemble; the new work was a wind quintet (flute/oboe/horn/clarinet/basoon with doublings for piccolo and saxophone) and the final work used a variation on that wind ensemble. It was enjoyable lunchtime.
In the evening a complete change of culture for the Manchester blog meet at Common on Edge St, a very crowded and noisy affair - but good to meet lots of folk I saw at the last meeting, now new twitter feeds to follow and lots of un-tigered tables to have free drinks and cup-cakes around. Picture here - drinks kindly provided by I love to Love - there I must have been bribed sufficiently.

Attention Manchester (and area) bloggers!

There will be another Manchester bloggers meeting on Tuesday March 8th 6:30 to 8:30 at Common on Edge Street. Even if you're slightly out of the area - as I am! - you'll be made very welcome. I've only been to one previous meeting but it was well worth the trip into town to put some faces to names (and pseudonyms!). Full details are on Manchizzle - I've no idea, yet, whether I'll be there but it's tentatively in the diary!

About to melt to death

Oxford Light has some lovely pictures of snowmen on the martyrs' memorial - there seem to be 10, is that the correct historical number - and if so did the builders realise? I'm only a heathen Cambridge graduate.
There's some nice pictures of the city on that blog, maybe I need a post enumerating a few city weblogs I have bookmarked?

Is there reality at the other end of an email?

Back in February I wrote a piece which quoted a couple of blogs on the subjects of Afghanistan and Iran as a follow up to some reading and a viewing of Persepolis. I have an interest in both contemporary 'classical' music and mathematics so I was interested to see a blog about an Iranian composer/mathematician Keyvan Yahya. A couple of days ago that entry acquired an anonymous comment which suggested that Keyvan Yahya was not all he seemed, I went to the Wikipedia article which I had quoted and discovered that the mention of Keyvan Yahya had been removed around the same time as the comment was posted probably by someone from Iran. I initially gave the comment a rather dusty answer - my first guess was that the commenter (and possibly wikipedia editor, if they were one and the same) were likely to have Iranian government connections and they were trying, effectively, to un-person someone who might be deemed to be too Western influenced. However, doing some web searching just came up with rather similar biographical details, I also found that the Satrap Philharmonic Orchestra which Keyvan Yahya claimed to have founded had had its wikipedia page removed (the same day) with a note suggesting that it (the orchestra) might not exist.
I emailed the owner of On an Overgrown Path who blogs as 'Pliable' and he was similarly mystified. He's contacted the composer Jeff Harrington whose work was meant to have been performed who has had no feedback on the performance. Mike Roberts, a Canadian composer was also promised a performance by Keyvan Yahya, I'm still trying to find out whether anything has happened there.

I realise contacts betwwen Iran and the outside world due to the political situation have been a little problematic in the last few months but the situation is far from clear.

There's been a blog entry More questions than Answers at 'On an Overgrown Path' supplying more musical background than I can supply - I'd recommend a read there on foreign contacts who may not deliver what they promise! The Keyvan Yahya material comes about half way down that item. So if anyone knows of documented performances or mathematical papers by Keyvan Yahya, I'd be very interested!


(amarok's random play came up with the Parsi/English Sorabji's The Perfumed Garden - whilst I was composing this post, now there's an interesting coincidence!)

Allocation failure!

Sometime ago, I blogged that I was going to attempt the True Harbour Take a Chance reading challenge (I see the challenge is actually based at Find Your Next Book Here). Well, the challenge expires at the end of November and so far it is still only the one part of challenge completed. This week I returned to the items and looked at number 2:

Random Word. Go to this random word generator and generate a random word. Find a book with this word in the title. Read the book and write about it.

My word is 'allocation' and I think it will be a challenge(!), I've drawn a blank on anything readable at the library. If anyone can think of a book with the word 'allocation' in the title which isn't on some abstruse area of economics I'd be very grateful. I suppose there might be some - not too mind-numbing books on computing (IP address allocation?) - wake up at the back! - or mathematics? All suggestions very gratefully received (email or by commenting)!!
Otherwise I shall hastily move on to challenge three.

Must tidy up

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
after re-creating this blog...

I've plunged

The blog roll is missing a bit at the moment, but things will gradually get back to normal! Have patience!

Teaser Tuesday - 14 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Grateful for this temporary relief Bridget took down one of her glasses that she had brought back from Limoges and filled it to the brim; the white milk glowed green behind the thick glass. She poured herself coffee and sat down opposite the boy across the kitchen table. 'I am Mrs Hansome,' she said.

couldn't avoid adding that final sentence!
Salley Vickers, Instances of the Number 3 - reviewed here by Penelope Lively.
Also can't resist adding the classic quote from last weeks teaser Zazie dans le métro:

- Qu'est-ce que c'est un hormosessuel? demanda Zazie
- C'est un homme qui met des bloudjinnzes, dit doucement Marceline.
- Tu me racontes des blagues, dit Zazie

I hope I don't need to translate - best read aloud with conviction!

Newcastle again

At work
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

A few hours on the train today with a trip to Newcastle doing computer support things. Added to it with a half pint in a local pub with Mad Priest, a local blogger who it was good to meet - yes he does exist and has - to me - an alarming resemblance to Stanley Baxter (no that Stanley Baxter, the other S B!).
This is a picture of the wonderful historic inside of our Newcastle offices. I linked to other (not taken by me) pictures on our last trip.

Tuesday Teaser - 3 Feb

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Abdul Haq unslung his barrel-chambered Kalashnikov and handed it to me. It was heavy.

.. this is a travel book! Rory Stewart 'The Places in Between' - walking through Afghanistan in Spring 2002! Photo of Abdul Haq and his treasured possession. New York Times review is here.I'm still only about 50 pages in...I acquired it in an unwanted and in this case also chewed stock sale at the local library. I shall see whether it gets fraught enough for me to chew the book a bit more!

Tuesday Teaser - 27 Jan

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

In the world of the novel, when all this has been said, everything is still to play for. And the attempt to approach human affairs as if they belonged to the world of evidence and determined outcome is bound to end in violence-ideological violence to the understanding of what humanity is, literal violence toward those who will not be convinced

A book about novels rather than a novel..Rowan Williams - DostoevskyLanguage, Faith and Fiction and inevitably it is taking some concentrated reading!! Andrew Brown says:

Rowan Williams, like Christ, renounces these powers; but when an Archbishop renounces powers he does not abolish them, he hands them to his enemies. Like Christ in the parable, Rowan's response to the Grand Inquisitors of the world is to kiss them on their bloodless lips and then slip out into darkness and obscurity through the door they have held open for him. When Christ kisses him, the inquisitor is touched in his heart but his beliefs and his actions do not change. Fresh heretics will burn when morning comes.

. Guardian review (also by Brown) is here:

There were times when I wondered whether I was struggling through the worst prose ever written by a poet. Sometimes the thought disintegrates entirely, like a jellyfish dropped in a jacuzzi

You may get a sense of that in the above! But there's lots that is worth reading.

Mutterings - 25 Jan

And from Unconscious mutterings this week:

1. Unwanted :: lost property
2. You’d better :: behave
3. Woman :: Man
4. Weighed :: in the balance
5. Upright :: moral
6. I feel :: pretty
7. Ill :: recover
8. It’s like :: parable
9. Poor man :: cherry stone
10. Great :: expectations

Mutter 18th Jan

Unconscious mutterings gives me:

1. Arrival :: aeroplane
2. Vomit :: aeroplane
3. Fit :: tailor
4. Stutter :: frustration
5. Lifestream :: river
6. Tread :: tyre
7. Desire :: love
8. Freezing :: winter
9. Permit :: allow
10. Crinkle :: crisps

Facebook bug?

As a result of a discussion elsewhere, I googled someone and discovered a facebook page of someone with that name - wasn't them unless its a very old picture! Logged out of facebook - from my home page (on that site). When I next login the first page it shows me is this:

as you see, I appear to be one of their friends! I'm sure there's the makings of a security hole here... not to mention the way logging in produces an unexpected page! Also clicking on one of those friends (apart from me) produces another friend list - for someone else - which also includes me! shades of Zelig?

Tuesday Teaser 13th Jan

Well it was Tuesday when I was reading it!

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

'"This Old Testament prophet gets cut off short in drought" - five letters' he queried aloud, oblivious to who was speaking. He was on unfamiliar territory with the Bible - American Indians were his thing.

From Salley Vickers 'Mr Golightly's Holiday - only just started it!

He says, I say..

This week's word associations from Unconscious Mutterings are:

1. Resolution :: New Year
2. Break :: Holiday; Ankle
3. Tied :: Up
4. Suffering :: pain
5. Instead :: different
6. Slash :: fiction
7. Divorce :: divide
8. Cough :: benylin
9. Happy :: clappy
10. Sniffle :: 'flu

Window into the mind

And this week's words from Unconscious Mutterings are:

1. Confirmation :: Bishop
2. Verse :: Bible
3. Authorize :: Version
4. Blog :: Here
5. Thirty :: too long ago
6. Heir :: son
7. What are you doing? :: blogging
8. Complaint :: illness
9. Leave :: holiday
10. Tune :: melody

Blog summary for 2008

Via Some disagree with Mom For this meme, you take the first sentence of the first post of each month and line 'em up. 460+ postings last year here!

Since I acquired a new router I've been unable to administer - or post to my wordpress book blog, the blog lives on my home machine and is set up to use the full address when administering and, I assume, the router doesn't like http traffic leaving and then returning to it.(well actually it is the Trondheim Akkordion Ensemble) Polka'in though the Widor toccata..On this page - a really secure password - see the fun on this at The Daily WTF's So You hacked our site. I was grandstanding with these dirty old men (sorry that's illustrious benefactors) twice this week, you'll just have to google or wait for the full album to appear to find out what they are ogling! On the way back from La Cantina - a tapas bar in Macclesfield, meant to take a photo of the sunset coming off the train but was too rushed - so this will have to do! Thanks to the onionring for this wonderful garble! The Craven Herald's report on the Scargill closure. Off save scargill comes this video taken on the penultimate day. Over the holiday - over a month ago now - I read three books which appear to be fascinated by holes in the ground. ..dear boy. Going to a Birthday party this evening (not mine!) with the lifeboat band. Cheating (already!) slightly, as I took this picture yesterday morning.

Last teaser of the year - Dec 30

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This is from my current book club read:

'Forgive me, but I thought of you directly I sighted that cloth, for the green is the colour of your eyes.'
I felt my face flush, and my vexation at blushing made my cheeks and throat burn all the hotter.

Geraldine Brooks 'Year of Wonders' The story of the plague at Eyam which is fairly local to here...I'm currently finding it gripping.

Free Associations

And this week's words from Unconscious Mutterings are:

1. Destined :: Chosen
2. FAIL :: Blog
3. Camping :: Kenneth Williams
4. Only you :: deserted
5. Incessant :: rowdy
6. Tomorrow :: Is Another day
7. Impressive :: erection (that was a building - honest, Dr Freud)
8. Riches :: gold
9. Dislike :: getting the goat
10. Speaker :: Woofer