Junior Reading was never this much fun

Curious Pages has an archive of inappropriate books for kids. I did like the 'Polonius was a mythical sausage' line and illustration. Definitely not suitable for the young (though that's who they were published for!). Hat tip to The Second Pass.

Dies Irae

As seen in the Observer

The city elders of Milan wanted Mike Bongiorno interred alongside one of Italy's greatest writers, Alessandro Manzoni.... Only perhaps in Berlusconi's Videocracy could a state funeral be accorded to a TV quizmaster.

Manzoni is the writer whose death inspired Verdi's Requiem, one guesses that Bongiorno's death will be a little less culturally elevated.
Only in Berlusconi's Italy (one hopes).

Mmmmmm

Venice - and the few posts in that blog after (i.e. later) than that.

Abschied

(no not from here!)
I've booked - at last - for the RNCM Stockhausen day - that weekend is going to be busy for various reasons but I'm intending to make most of the events - probably calling it a day before Luzifer's Tanz - alas - but 6 hours will probably test my staying power. It's work the next day and I belong to the 'give us back our 1960's Stockhausen' clique....

Teaser Tuesday

.. Well busyness and timezones...
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!

It's a good sign, Paola said, a beginning. Apparently every morning I would sing a song as I made coffee.

from The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - Umberto Eco - looks to be fun, about a book seller who can remember every book he's read but nothing about his own life - probably appeals to me for the same reason as Berio's Sinfonia! (and of course there's a Berio Eco link).
More reviews on Geoffrey Brock's (the translator) website - from the Guardian review:

as if Peter Ustinov and Stephen Fry had been rolled up into the body of Dorothy L Sayers, berobed and begowned, and paraded around the ancient university towns of mainland Europe in a hand-cart

Humph!

(well covers that other piece of news) and at the radical evangelical there's this

Lis Goddard has just written an article about evangelical women in leadership here. in it she says that experience is showing that a good proportion of women are not given curacies in evangelical churches because of the risk of adultery and/or the belief that a female curate is surplus to requirements because the vicar's wife has got the 'women's stuff' covered.

Grrrrr! Go and read it (and indeed the original)

Culinary delights

from the Far East - link sent by a kind contributor to uk.r.c - you may not want to follow this link before breakfast!

Spanish with a kick

Hat tip to Lindsay

Among the Gypsies

Via plep come these photos from Stacia Spragg, of life among the gypsies in Bulgaria.

As in Blagoevgrad, most Gypsies nationwide live in ghettos on the outskirts of the city, comprised of poorly constructed houses lacking running water. Residents often do not have access to sanitation or other public services. Gypsy children are mostly placed in schools for Bulgarians with learning disabilities, where the emphasis is on learning low-skill trades, dooming them to perpetuate the poverty cycle.

Click at the top of the essay for the photos - here's one

Translations

I hope they didn't pay anyone for this!
- you probably need to click on the image to get the full effect. crudités = crudenesses - 'nice of pig forest' is also attractive etc.. It doesn't appear to be Babelfish's responsibility. but I'd guess that this can be pinned on a computer! Unfortunately we didn't get around to eating there, but we did try! Though we skipped the pizza restaurant in the same town that was offering pizza aux escargots (or something)
I should now hurry and make sure there are no English to French translations of mine visible on the Internet!
In a similar vein, a couple of faux amis (for which I am wholly responsible) that I enjoyed were 'flamin Gothic' and 'formation holes' - both on road signs.

Post the festival!

Recovering after playing in the Alderley Edge Music festival no places this year(!) but consistently scored 81 marks in each class, no criticisms from the adjudicator on my polyrhythms in the Rachmaninov - great relief - though coming to a strange piano not having tried the start of Op 23 No 4 on it was a bit hairy - and it showed!
Go and see Raspberry Rabbit's photo of da Vinci Horse Manure....

Two Musical Links

First comes Max on Blair and the dumbing down of music

Some months ago, Buckingham Palace gave a magnificent reception for "the music industry", and it took some persuasion to include in this "the music profession", so one begins to understand how far purely commercial values have penetrated.

but also

When Alexander Goehr, John Ogdon, Harrison Birtwistle and I were students in Manchester, we were summoned all together to the Principal's office in college, the day after a Manchester Chamber Concerts Society evening had finished with a very funny Haydn finale. It had been impossible not to smile, and even laugh, discreetly. We were told our behaviour was unforgivable in a serious concert, and that we were a disgrace to the college, and should have more respect for the composer and the string quartet.

- though I think I've heard that tale before - but the whole lecture is worth a read - probably preaching to the converted though!
And then there's this unfortunate tale - reminiscent (to me anyway!)of that wonderful Prom back in the 80's when the piano lift wouldn't work and the Bartok Piano concerto was long delayed - can't find a link but the announcer marking time was heavily featured in the Three and the Third feature marking 60 years of the Third Programme which can still be found, here, on the BBC web site.