An Interesting Flight

Many many moons ago in the '70s I was flying from Stornoway to Glasgow on a Vickers Viscount (a four-engined turbo prop passenger plane).

It was a fabulous day and the Captain announced that we were flying towards Fingal's Cave (Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, known for its natural acoustics and made popular in music by Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture.).  He went on to say that he was going to make a low pass and that passengers on the port side would get a really good view.  He then went on to ask passengers not to all crowd over to the port side or we would tip the plane over.

It was a really low slow pass which I'm sure would not have been countenanced by the Powers That Be.

However, he got a rousing cheer of thanks from his passengers and I think everyone on board would have retold that story many times.

In this risk-averse world where such actions could not be hidden or overlooked because of modern monitoring in and outwith the plane such experiences are unlikely. I think the world is a sadder place as a result.

Success

A few days ago I had BBC Breakfast on in the background waiting for the local news when I heard a statement that the most successful band in British History was on. It is called 'Little Mix'. I, for one, had never heard of the band. Okay so they obviously make the sort of music that I don't listen to now but if they were the most successful band ever I'd have expected to have heard some mention of them at some stage.

I was brought up in Liverpool in The Sixties so I was, of course, very aware of groups such as The Beatles,  The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Hollies,  Herman's Hermits, The Searchers, Credence Clearwater Revival, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Led Zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkle, Pink Floyd, Manfred Mann, The Monkees, The Mamas and the Papas, The Moody Blues, Procol Harem, The Everly Brothers, The Shadows, Deep Purple and doubtless many more. 

I suppose we all tend to remember the groups of our youth more than those of later years (although perhaps I'm wrong in that supposition). However since the Sixties and Seventies I've only been aware of a relatively small number of groups that have made the Really Big Time.

Storms and a Beautiful Aria

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday and I was going to post about Scotch Pancakes. They have nothing to do with pancake day but a few people had asked about them and I was going to make some and share the experience. Some other time perhaps.

I had to go into town to the dental practice at short notice. There were gale force winds from the South but the high tide was about 40 minutes previously so the Braighe was not closed to traffic and I duly got ready and set off. There was a police car at this end but he was just keeping an eye on things and I drove across. It was still a bit hairy and there were stones on the road so it must have been bad at high tide.

I listen to music much of the time when I'm in the house. Usually in the morning it is BBC Radio 3 Essential Classics. Otherwise I choose from BBC iPlayer or my library on Apple Music. I rarely use my huge CD collection directly any more because it is held in my Apply Music library.  I often hear pieces that I've not heard before or I've forgotten about. Sometimes they have an great impact. A few days ago one of those was Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheeba) - Assad's act 2 aria "Magische Töne", recorded in 1967 by Nicolai Gedda with the Orchester des Bayreischen Staatsoper, Munich, conducted by Giuseppe Patanè. It will probably be of little interest to many of my readers but for anyone who enjoys opera I think it is one of the most beautiful pieces of singing I've heard for years. It's available on YouTube here.

Music

Long ago I was once asked, in the days of Blog memes (remember them?), what the most recent CD was that I had bought. I said that I had at the same time just just purchased the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler's 'Bat out of Hell'. The point being that my tastes in music are pretty catholic.

I suppose that I am like most people who love music in that I play music to match my mood. By that I don't just mean happy music when I'm happy and sad music when I'm sad but more a music to match my emotion of the moment. So it may be Laura Brannigan at full volume - emotional times (the advantage of living in a detached house) or Garth Brooks to remind me of driving along the Highway in the Californian sunshine or The Smashing Pumpkins when I think of Andy. Actually the latter are not really my scene but they were Andy's. However I'm more likely (especially on a Sunday morning) to play Grieg's piano music (Andy bought me his complete works) .

New songs are written constantly for pop and rock music and other modern genre.' 'Classical' music is, on the other hand, by its nature limited to an extent by historical output although there are modern composers to whom I can listen without being challenged too much. I'll give Stockhausen ("Just play as you feel") a miss thanks but Simeon ten Holt has produced fascinating piano music and there is always Nyman, Reich, Glass, Góreki, Pärt and Taverner to name but a few. In recent years there is a huge amount of music by female composers being 'discovered' and played.

So what is the purpose of this posting? Well I have a pretty large collection of music of the major composers in the baroque to romantic eras and can be pretty confident of finding something to suit about any mood I may find myself in. 

My Apple Music program tells me that I have 17,651 tracks available. That's a lot of CDs. However after constantly playing such music for the last 50 plus years I sometimes find that I'm a bit bored with some composers. 

Alleluia!  Never before has so much new 'classical' music become available and never before has it become so easy to explore it and listen to it. I listen to various BBC Radio 3 programmes which constantly bring new works and 'new' composers to my attention.

I was thinking yesterday though just how my (our?) listening habits have changed: 

• 78rpm records
• 33 rpm records
• cassettes
• CDs
• iPods
• Music streaming services

I haven't played a CD for ages and my music is always available to me via Apple Music and the various gadgets available to stream it, whether I'm walking in the Castle Grounds or working in the Polycarb or sitting writing this post.

How do you listen to your music now and have you  abandoned your 'old' physical storage and gone digital? 

SID 77. Music - Another First

I was brought up with music. My parents had catholic tastes and a wide selection of music when I was a young child. It was, of course 78 rpm records played on a wind-up gramophone which was a wedding present from my Mother's place of work. I still have lots of old 78 rpm records even though I got rid of my hundreds of LPs. Except, that is, for the first one that I bought. I was 16. I bought it at Rushworth and Draper in Liverpool on the corner of Whitechapel and Richmond Street. How is it that I can remember all that but not how old I am?

The record was, rather predictably I suppose at the time, some Tchaikovsky pieces played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra C Sir Malcolm Sargent. It was an orchestra I listened to at the "Liverpool Phil" almost every week during the season. 

As time goes by our tastes tend to alter, some would say mature, and that probably wouldn't be my first CD now. On the other hand in 'classical music' terms my tastes are still late Classical (Mozart and Haydn for example), Romantic and post-romantic. 

I wonder how many of you recall what your first record/CD was. It's interesting that in another 10 years people may well not be buying CDs in any number and music will generally be streamed.

A Little Bit of Culture

One of the advantages of being in Glasgow for a while is the opportunity to go to live concerts.

Today we are going to see the concert pianist Stephen Hough play at the Glasgow City Halls - one of several splendid concert venues in the city. 

Last night, however, was an opportunity to see Verdi's opera, La Traviata. It was being streamed live from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to one of the cinemas at Glasgow's Cineworld (together with cinemas around the world).

I was brought up in the era when cinemas were huge, cramped, crowded and smoke-filled and, as a youngster, trying to see round the head of the person in front could be a real challenge. The luxury of the modern cinema with its big, comfy seats, plenty of room and no heads to be looked round or over never ceases to amaze me. 

Of course there is nothing like  the atmosphere of being in the audience of a live performance but the detail that one sees on the big screen as well as the wonderful sound makes up for the lack of atmosphere. 

The lead role of Violetta was played by the magnificent Albanian soprano Ermanelo Jaho.  She made her Royal Opera debut back in 2008 in this role and is, without a doubt, the most convincing and emotionally challenging interpreter of that role that I have see. I unashamedly shed tears through a lot of the last act.  Alfredo was sung by Charles Castronovo who has played in the role opposite Jaho on many occasions and the chemistry between them showed. Alfredo's father was sung by Plácido Domingo who has now played all the leading male roles in the Opera at the Royal Opera House.

A Wee Jaunt

I've just been away for the weekend in Glasgow. It was lovely to be able to drive down for the weekend without worrying about hospital visits. I stayed with my pal, Anna. We had planned quite a few things including the Glasgow Contemporary Arts Fair where friends were exhibiting. Sunday was an afternoon Rachmaninov Concert at City Halls which is a delightful concert venue. On Monday I drove home via Ullapool and Anna came as far as Dunkeld before getting the train back for a lunch in Glasgow.

I'm finding that the 500 mile rounds trip plus the ferry seems to get shorter every time I do it.

We had an early evening meal out at a favourite Italian restaurant near the City Halls. When we arrived home we decided to go for a walk along the Forth and Clyde canal near Anna's home.

Through the Highlands there were quite a few hold-ups for road repairs after the severe winter. As I was sitting in the car on the moors perhaps 20 miles before Ullapool on the way home I couldn't help thinking that if I had to sit in a traffic hold-up this was as good a place as any to do it.

News Addiction and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Unfortunately I am a news junkie. I have no idea why. I suppose there was a time when I had to keep abreast of what was happening and I also enjoyed knowing what was going on in the world outside the United Kingdom. I have, over the years, developed a habit of watching the BBC 6 O'Clock and the Scottish News every evening and I often switch the television on at 10pm and watch the ITV News. Of course every time anything happens of significance my iPhone lets me know instantly. So I knew instantly that the new Royal child was born (and gave a sigh of relief that we would not be watching days of pictures of St Mary's Hospital) and that people had been killed in Toronto before the van had come to a halt.

Of course there is occasionally Good News. Very occasionally.

When the news programmes that I have mentioned are on the television I find it hard to do anything else so that is 90 minutes a day wasted apart from the times when I have my evening meal between 6 and 7 pm (when I can't then do a crossword whilst I eat).

I gave up cigarettes in 1967 and never missed them from the moment (just after 9 in the morning in my office) that I threw the box of 48 Piccadilly Tipped across the office (I'd smoked 2) and said that I'd never smoke another cigarette as long as I lived. I stopped my habitual 2 glasses of wine at 6pm (when the news starts) last September and, whilst I haven't given up alcohol in general or wine in particular I no longer drink anywhere near the 14 units per week recommended as a maximum and I don't miss it. I didn't even take a conscious decision to cut down.

So why can't I stop watching the news programmes?

I have made a wee start tonight. I stopped watching the 10 0'clock news before the programme ended and decided to watch a Prom concert from the 2017 season that I recorded (I record most of them).  The conductor is Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. She is a Lithuanian conductor who has been music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since September 2016. She is only about 32 and is exceptionally talented and brings a breath of fresh air to established works. Few things could persuade me to go to Birmingham again but the opportunity to watch her conduct the BSO would be one of them.

Be What You Wanna Be

Back in the '60s (1962 to be precise) I made the journey from Liverpool to London's West End Adelphi Theatre see a Lionel Bart musical called Blitz. It was my first London musical. I may still have the LP I bought at the time (I don't think it went with the hundreds that went to Oxfam recently). Mind you I bought the CD years ago and I still play it. It was a very uplifting musical as well as being nostalgic. It included the song 'Be What You Wanna Be'.

I was thinking about something recently and the song came back to me. The 'something' I was thinking about was Blogland and social media and the use of cellphones and the like to keep in touch. I think it was triggered by a newspaper article which suggested that we should wean ourselves away from our general enslavement to the god of social media  and our cellphones.

Of course the term cellphone or mobile phone is a misnomer now because they are generally used less for telephone conversations than anything else. In fact several years ago a quarter of mobile phone users never made a phone call. Bucking the trend I have now got rid of my 'free' weekday and overseas calls with BT (the landline provider) saving myself about £20 a month and spending £3 of that on 'free' overseas calls on my cellphone bearing in mind all my other calls are included in my monthly fee (which is considerably less than £20) anyway.

I digressed.

What I wanna be is back in Blogland. It is, generally speaking, a far more comfortable environment than the Real World. Why? Because you can choose the environment in which you want to live. I've been so busy in the Real World (including travelling between Lewis and Glasgow - where I am at the moment) that I keep losing touch and catching up gets harder. So I'm reading as much as I can on Feedly (I can do that on my cellphone when I'm in the airport or in a hospital waiting room) but it's difficult commenting. So I'm still with you all and I'll comment as soon as I'm able.

Vinyl

I have hundreds of old LPs. They have been in the loft in boxes since I moved into this house over 23 years ago. I do still have an analogue turntable for playing them but have never bothered. The quality of CDs is so much higher (some people would argue against that but even they would have to admit that CDs are at least free of dust crackle).  So they are going to Oxfam who not only have dedicated music shops but also sell vinyl on line. Today I got them out of the loft:

 

Of course I couldn't do all that without looking through them. That led to some awakening of a lot of memories: LPs I'd forgotten I ever had; music I remembered with considerable fondness; music I haven't listened to for years; and a realisation that although I have more 'classical' than anything else my tastes have always been catholic or eclectic. 

Was the first record I ever bought still there and still playable? Yes it was there. There was only one way to find out whether it was playable. So a search of the loft and the turntable emerged and I plugged it into the amplifier.

Yes. It is and as I write this it is playing and, apart from the start which is showing signs of being well over half a century old, it is in remarkably good condition.

What was the record?

One of the reasons I chose that record was that Sir Malcolm Sargent had been my mother's hero when she was a member of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and I had seen him conduct. I bought it in Rushworth and Dreaper, piano makers, in Liverpool's Whitechapel just along from NEMS which was one of Brian Epstein's shops. But that's another story.

It's Saturday

Today is Saturday. I had nothing planned: no lift to town and no visitors: a quiet day. There were plenty of things to be getting on with though: bed linen to be washed and ironed; pills to be sorted for the next month; a few letters to be written; the car to be emptied because it's going in for a facelift on Monday; the camera infra-red remote to be found; some 'studio' photos to be taken; some more of my tens of thousands of hard copy photos to be sorted for scanning. The list was endless. I could even have started painting the wood surrounds in the conservatory. 

How is it then that a sudden lethargy overtook me in the later half of the morning? I'd done my second set of knee exercises and was about to have a coffee when my mind and body rebelled. Yesterday I'd been listening or trying to listen to piano concertos of a few composers I didn't know: Kullak, Dreyschock and Ludomir Różycki to name three. This morning I suddenly just wanted a huge and loud dose of Beethoven: I haven't listed to one of his piano concertos for a while. So that's what I did: I sat down in front of the speakers with no phone, no computer, no book and not even a thought in my head (the easiest of the things to achieve) and I listened.

Of course reality kicked in after lunch and I did get some chores done. This evening, though. I decided to watch BBC Young Musician of the Year semi final. The talent out there just blows my mind.

Earlier in the week I decided that some of the heavy work in the garden was going to be beyond my capability for several months at least so I decided to discuss certain projects with David of Maybury Garden Centre under their guise of Maybury Lawns and Gardens. One thing was to clear an area which had been filled with trees which had blown down at various times over the last two winters. I had cleared as much as possible but all the roots and some of the tree trunks were still in. 

This was the site yesterday morning:

This was the site yesterday afternoon:

There was a lot of work and several large vanloads of debris involved in that transformation. It would have taken me days even at my fittest. Now I have a blank canvas with which to start again.

La Boheme

I have no idea how many times I have seen Puccini's La Boheme on stage and on DVD and I have listened to it countless times as well. This evening we went to a superb and, for me, moving performance at the Napier Municipal Theatre as part of the  City's Art Deco Week.

Things I Learned Whilst Thinking

I've been back at work in the last few months helping my son at the house he's building on the Island. It's been a lovely experience for many reasons not least of which is feeling useful and spending time with Gaz. 

I have spent time painting walls and ceilings and it gave me time to think.

Gaz has BBC Radio 6 Music playing all the time. Until I started working with Gaz I'd never listened to the station. I have always considered myself to have very catholic tastes in music: opera, operetta, religious music, classical (romantic classical being my principal source of listening), jazz (blues slightly less so), country and western, folk, pop/rock and other genre. However I have learned that there is a huge amount of what may possibly be described a non-mainstream pop and rock out there. More than that though I have heard music which very much reminded me of Simeon ten Holt and Steve Reich and it made me ponder on the blurry divide between some pop and rock and classical.

The second thing it made me think about was good old apprenticeships. I've been painting and paperhanging since my early 20s and although I won't paperhang any more I do paint. I discovered, though, that after nearly 50 years I still really didn't know much about it nor did I have the skills I thought I had. This last few weeks I've done a lot of painting and have been watching a master painter and decorator at work. My painting, though far from perfect, is now much better than it was a few months ago. Most of us won't notice the difference between our amateur painting and that of a master craftsman but I do now. It made me ponder on a subject that I used to think about a lot: apprenticeships. Craftsmen used to learn at the side of the master. The master could have pride in the craftsmen he'd trained and the apprentice acquired the skill and learned the 'tricks of the trade'. 

A Concert and a Reminisce

Half a century ago Peter Roberts and I were members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and attended all the Tuesday Subscription Concerts, Saturday Concerts and most of the Industrial Concerts: having season tickets for the same seats year after year.  Then life got in the way of our shared times together.  I married and moved into darkest Cheshire and Peter went into the Church and became an Anglican priest eventually in South Africa where he died.

During that half century I never lost my love of the music which has been a constant companion through the Bad Days and the Good Days.  Yesterday, for the first time since I moved to Lewis, I went to an orchestral concert.  I went with Anna to The Glasgow City Halls (a wonderfully refurbished modern venue) to hear a concert by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra which was being broadcast on Radio 3.  There is something quite engrossing in watching a pianist (Javier Perianes in this concert) play a concerto one thinks one knows so well having played the CD scores of times over the years.  And there is something wonderful about not being able to do anything other than watch and listen and be swallowed up by the emotion of the music and the performance.

We are going to another concert at the City Halls on Monday evening. I'm quite excited.

[The images are downloaded from Google images.] 

Gardening and Music

Today dawned and looked promising.  I'm not sure what it looked as though it was promising but it was definitely promising something.

I've been gardening for fortyodd years.  I've done a lot of gardening.  I have moved hundreds, yes hundreds, of tons of soil and stone making gardens.  Did I enjoy it?  Well that's not so easy to answer.  It kept me fit when I had a desk job.  Most people I know who love gardening enjoy it as a therapy.  I've never really enjoyed it.  It's something I do because I have to and because the result gives me satisfaction: satisfaction but not enjoyment.  Until today.  Today I spent a large part of a sunny, windless, cold (and midge-free!) day in the garden.  And I very much enjoyed it.  The situation helps, of course.

By 5.30 this evening I ached.  I did something I rarely do: I ran the spa bath and lay in very hot water  and when the spa didn't drown it out I listened to the symphony that I would take with me to a desert island if I was only allowed one.  Of course I'd never want to make that choice because what I want to listen to depends on my mood - like most people I assume.   In this case though it's a piece of music which connects deeply with me.  It is Dvorak's First Symphony: The Bells of Zlonice.  It's not a particularly popular piece in the concert halls but the second movement contains, for me, some of the most moving phrases.  I don't pretend to have a good musical ear but this is one of the pieces of which I have multiple recordings and actually have an outright favourite: Witold Rowiki's London Symphony Orchestra 1971 recording. 

Tell No One

was one of two films we watched this week.  Anna had recommended Tell No One as a must see and I'd followed her advice.  Now I have it on very good authority (ie a female told me) that men are useless when it comes to following films.  The Matrix is an oft-quoted example.  I can't vouch for the voracity of the statement but I can confirm that I watched The Matrix, didn't fall asleep and still had absolutely no idea what it was about.  French films that I have watched are known for their depth (I am a Marcel Carné fan of many many years standing) and Tell No One lived up to that reputation.  It was shrouded in unintelligibility right to the last moment and by that I mean right until the end of the credits.  If you watch it then a short synopsis of the outcome would be appreciated by yours truly.

A long time ago in Blogland terms I was introduced to a new friend on Facebook.  I can't recall how but I seem to recall it was via a Blogland friend from New Zealand, Fi of Four Paws and Whiskers.  This friend, also a Fiona, used to play the violin professionally and is someone I feel that I know far better than circumstances would suggest.  At some time Fiona introduced me to Jay Ungar's Ashokan Farewell.  It is a piece of music to which I listen frequently.  The piece is used in the soundtrack of the film Legends of the Fall.  I bought the CD of the soundtrack.  I play that quite a lot too.  It is very emotional.  Last night we watched the DVD.  Now I know why the music is so emotional.  No one would ever suggest that it is a feel-good movie but for someone who has an overwhelming preference for feel-good movies I was absolutely riveted to it from beginning to end.  The superb acting of Anthony Hopkins helped.  It wasn't the simplest of movies either.

So that's two movies I have to watch again.

Thankful Thursday

Buzzards and Corncrakes

There used to be buzzards mewing and flying around the valley at the side of my house all the time but in the last few years they seem to have disappeared. I've not been able to fathom out why that should be. So yesterday I was pleased to hear the mewing of a buzzard again even though I didn't see it. I also saw, very close to the house, a buzzard being chased by a couple of gulls. So there is hope the valley will have its buzzards back this year.

I keep hearing a Corncrake too. There are not many sheep in the area now to disturb them so provided the local cats, Hooded Crows, Black Backed Gulls, Buzzards and Hedgehogs leave them alone we might have a few more of this very rare bird by the end of the summer.

A neighbour told me this morning that when you are doing a spot weld you know that you have got it right when it sounds like a Corncrake. The things you learn.

No Electricity

The electricity was switched off recently between 0900 and 1600 for general line maintenance in the area. I found the main inconvenience was the lack of the wi-fi which shows where we are at these days when everything in the house seems to be plugged in. What really struck me though was how quiet the house was. There was no music and none of the 'usual' things one associates with electrical appliances such as washing machines and the like. But the eerie quiet in my kitchen puzzled me. Then I realised just how much noise two fridges and a cooling mat for a laptop in a room make.

Waterfalls and Beethoven Sonatas

As I type this the the sun is shining, there's not a breath of a breeze and it's in the 20s at 9 in the morning. I am listening to the waterfall into the pond outside the wide open window. I am also listening to the final three of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas having listened to them all since I got back from NZ. I had the vinyl LPs of some of them with Wilhelm Kempff and when CDs came out I bought the whole set and have played it ever since (the recordings date from 1965). Now Paul Lewis has recorded them all and I have a choice.

The Thankful Bit

So this morning as I wandered around the garden in shorts, jandals and a light shirt thinking how fortunate I was to live in two such beautiful places on this earth on this spectacularly beautiful morning I was thankful for being alive. As I sit here, though, my thankfulness is more specific. I am thankful for the fact that I live in an environment free from the sounds of the city. I am thankful for the sounds I have experienced and I am thankful for the silence.

And now I'm off to visit the dentist!

An Apple Man Am I

I've succumbed.  It has been said that when Apple sell you a piece of equipment what you actually buy is a brand  into which you are forever locked by loyalty.  I can see that is the case.  Fed up with the vagaries of Windows and lured by the quality and beauty of the Macbook and its seamless operating system I succumbed in 2010 and went the Apple way.  

So far as a Smartphone was concerned however, because of the problems with the iPhone 4 Gaz went the HTC way after returning his iPhone so so did I.  Unfortunately, despite my satisfaction in many ways with the HTC, the way it showed contacts and the many problems synching data led me soon to became dissatisfied.  So one of the first things I did when I got back to the UK was visit Glasgow's Apple Store.  They really do know how to do things!  I came out a complete Apple Man.  I have used an iPod since they were steam driven to carry the music of my my 1300 or so CDs between the UK and NZ.  This, I understand, makes me a law breaker in the UK because, although I only have music on my iTunes and iPod for which I have a CD (ie no pirate music), it is still unlawful to do that.  Silly!

So now I have completed my Appleship by buying an iPhone and an iPad.  The latter will replace Samantha (the trusty Notebook) who remained in NZ with young Catriona as her new friend.

My Apple Family

I have discovered that the iPhone is brilliant and that Siri is unbelievable - and I really mean that last word. I can recall the first attempts at voice recognition software.  This is something quite beyond anything I had imagined.  I'm sure there could be another post on this at some time.  What I can't understand is why I haven't realised its existence and its full capability before now.

Does anyone need an iPad?  It'll be very handy not to have to cart the Mac around everywhere all the time but, let's be frank, what has need got to do with it.  Noone actually needs Apple....... until, that is, you have Apple.  

PS Note that I still keep a good old fashioned diary.  I have my appointment diaries going back to the year dot (and every address book since I was a child) so I think I'll not be stopping that now.  

The Eternal Question: The Definitive Answer

OK.  Don’t worry.  Nothing too esoteric.

I was reading someone’s Facebook the other day when I came across a website entitled: Theme songs/lyrics/intros of UK TV programmes 1955–1990.  It’s the sort of information that you can Google any time but it’s all in one place.  

“Ah”  I thought as I noticed the Trumpton introductory song “That reminds me.  Someone asked the names of the firemen in Trumpton the other day?”  Now I knew the answer to that.  It was first broadcast in 1967 when I was rather too old for it.  I assume that the boys did because it seems to have been repeated ad nauseam ever since.  So it was not because I watched Trumpton.  It was because it has cropped up so many times in conversations over the years.

I duly pronounced.  Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb.  Or was it Pugh, Pugh?  Oh dear. My certainty evaporated.  So I’ve just looked it up.  It will now for ever be etched on my mind:  Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb.  Am I sure ?  Yes.  I quote from the official Trumptonshire Website:  “The sound track can be a little unclear, and the names have been misquoted many times in the press and in TV trivia books, but Gordon Murray who created them insists that the Pughs were twin brothers - and he should know. “

So there we have it.  The definitive answer.

The First Night of The Proms 2010

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) is one of the largest choral works in the classical concert repertory. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", though Mahler did not acknowledge the name. The work was composed in a single inspired burst, at Maiernigg in southern Austria in the summer of 1906. The last of Mahler's works that was premiered in his lifetime, the symphony was a critical and popular success when he conducted its first performance in Munich on 12 September 1910.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the first performance it was this year’s opening work for the BBC promenade Concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall.  Eight soloists and six choirs and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek undertook the mammoth task.

The Orchestra

The singers

The conductor

The audience