Friday, February 03, 2012
St Luke's
Season restarted yesterday with some Mendelssohn - two of the four pieces for string quartet Op. 81 - and the Brahms Clarinet Quintet from members of the Nash Ensemble. Never knowingly heard the Mendelssohn before but that was good and the justly popular clarinet quintet even more so. Although, to carp, I did think that the strings could have turned up the volume at times, being a bit overwhelmed by the clarinet. The thing is supposed to be an ensemble piece, not a clarinet piece with some string trimmings while the clarinettist catches his breath.
Two nice touches. First, the radio 3 announcer cut right down on the warm up talk. Last season they were in the habit of giving us a rather gushing rehash of the programme notes, which I found a bit irritating: if they want that sort of thing for the radio broadcast, the things are not live and they can always add that later. Particularly given that I believe they are not above tinkering with the tape of the performed music should that be necessary for some reason or another. Second the chairs we were sitting on appeared to have been supplied by a gang called Amadaeus - and subsequent perusal of http://www.amadeus-equipment.co.uk/ suggests that this was indeed the case. Presumably a wholesaler rather than a manufacturer. Hard to see a big enough specialised market for musical bums on seats to justify specialised manufacture.
St Luke's - or at least those parts of Old Street and Whitecross Street - boasts an enormous numbers of cafés and luncheon food caravans. Lots of oriental but a respectable sprinkling of more western fare, egg and chips sort of thing. One is supposed to use the place with the most customers, but I was in something of a hurry, settled for the place with the least and I was served with a perfectly decent bacon sandwich and a mug of tea in no time at all. Very reasonable it was too.
Got home to read a moan in the DT about all the people who have got a criminal record according to the criminal record computer who should not have. Once again, the DT completely fails to recognise that in an operation of this sort there are going to be mistakes, particularly since we have never been taken (here in the UK) with the idea of a national identity scheme. The complaint should not be that there are mistakes, rather about process. Could the guardians of the tablets have better processes for getting the data on and better processes for redress when the inevitable mistakes come to light? Should there be regular quality checks by independents (bearing in mind that such checks are pay day for expensive consultants)? I don't know whether one is allowed to see one's own record if one suspects that it is either wrong or that it should not be there - but it seems reasonable that one should be allowed so to do.
Two nice touches. First, the radio 3 announcer cut right down on the warm up talk. Last season they were in the habit of giving us a rather gushing rehash of the programme notes, which I found a bit irritating: if they want that sort of thing for the radio broadcast, the things are not live and they can always add that later. Particularly given that I believe they are not above tinkering with the tape of the performed music should that be necessary for some reason or another. Second the chairs we were sitting on appeared to have been supplied by a gang called Amadaeus - and subsequent perusal of http://www.amadeus-equipment.co.uk/ suggests that this was indeed the case. Presumably a wholesaler rather than a manufacturer. Hard to see a big enough specialised market for musical bums on seats to justify specialised manufacture.
St Luke's - or at least those parts of Old Street and Whitecross Street - boasts an enormous numbers of cafés and luncheon food caravans. Lots of oriental but a respectable sprinkling of more western fare, egg and chips sort of thing. One is supposed to use the place with the most customers, but I was in something of a hurry, settled for the place with the least and I was served with a perfectly decent bacon sandwich and a mug of tea in no time at all. Very reasonable it was too.
Got home to read a moan in the DT about all the people who have got a criminal record according to the criminal record computer who should not have. Once again, the DT completely fails to recognise that in an operation of this sort there are going to be mistakes, particularly since we have never been taken (here in the UK) with the idea of a national identity scheme. The complaint should not be that there are mistakes, rather about process. Could the guardians of the tablets have better processes for getting the data on and better processes for redress when the inevitable mistakes come to light? Should there be regular quality checks by independents (bearing in mind that such checks are pay day for expensive consultants)? I don't know whether one is allowed to see one's own record if one suspects that it is either wrong or that it should not be there - but it seems reasonable that one should be allowed so to do.
# posted by Jim @ 2:05 AM 
