pumpkinstrokemarrow

I find that the stick can be used for various tasks. Poking the mouse on the computer to wake the display up. Opening and closing the curtains. Pushing unwanted bedding off the bed. But one could do so much more, so I am starting to think of various gadgets which one might attach to the end of the stick. Maybe what one needs is a universal coupler together with a range of gadgets which fit it, rather like the gardening tools from Wolf which do this (see http://www.worldofwolf.co.uk/). Idea neat, but I was not that keen on the tool heads themselves which struck me as being made on the cheap out of poor quality steel. Plus the universal connector was not that tight; the tool head wobbled enough on it so that your hands knew, which irritated. If I go into making gadgets to hang onto the end of walking sticks I shall, of course, do rather better than that. First gadget would be one of those things for picking litter up. Which one could use at home to retrieve things on the floor when one did not feel up to getting down there or retrieve things on higher shelves when one did not feel up to getting up there. Or out of doors to pick wild flowers or to pick up litter. Second gadget would be some sort of a basket in which to put things when you wanted to hold something with the non stick hand. Perhaps for a railway ticket when ascending the long flight at Earlsfield and one wanted, additionally, to hang onto the hand rail. Third gadget would be a frost spike ferrule for when it was frosty and one did not trust the rubber ferrule to grip the ice adequately. I would publish diagrams, but I shall have to hold off on that until I have got a bit clearer on the patent front.

Moving on, from time to time I have a pop at book reviewers who used the space provided to grand-stand rather than to review the book under review. But last week (January 1 2010) the TLS carried an interesting article all about ENO and its roots in the Old Vic, ostensibly reviewing a book about the same. I am not very interested in opera, although I have been to ENO from time to time, but there was an interesting story here, the enterprise starting out as a vehicle for providing something better for the proles in Waterloo at the turn into the 20th century than booze & fornication. Opera, drama, dance and improving lectures. Cut price productions with cut price seats, although it seems that the audience gentrified after a bit and chaps with duffle coats and scores started to displace the chaps with cheesecutters.

One of their things was the notion that operas should be performed in English rather than some foreign language. Foreign language in fancy dress was all very well for the toffs at Covent Garden, but the proles needed more serious fare. And how could they be expected to engage with musical drama if they had not got a clue what the drama was about? An argument that I am not all that convinced by; I get quite a big enough bang out of Schubert songs with only the sketchiest idea about what is going on. Might overload if I had a better idea. Anyway, was moved by the article to give my one and only Britten record its first outing in the near forty years I have had it. Illuminations for soprano and strings; a musical setting of some material from Rimbaud. And very impressed I was too, despite not having a clue what Rimbaud had written and not understanding a word of the sung French. Turned the record over and it was a tenor, a horn and some strings doing some settings of English poems by various people. Not quite so as impressed as I had been with side one, possibly because it was more of a medley and lacked the necessary inner coherence & consistency. My switch time is far too slow for me to much go for lots of switching. And I still did not understand a word of the sung English either.

Not much cop on poetry so not sure if it is worth the bother drumming up the text of the Rimbaud to see if having read it makes any differance to the reception of the music.