June has passed by in a blur.
It really doesn't feel as though half the year has gone. It doesn't feel as though I have accomplished very much with the time allotted to me.
And yet as soon as I start writing, I find out just how much has happened.
Firstly, I want to note an excellent radio series. The Classic Serial on Radio 4 has been a staple of my adult life for many a year. A number of these have been noted in this Journal.
The current serial, just finished, has been Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and a
good rollicking, romping, zestful swipe at (eighteenth century) life with all of its
frailties and hypocrisies it was too. I was hooked through all three episodes. Thank
goodness for Radio on Demand over the Internet.
![[Four Stars - Excellent]](4.gif){kind=small}
We have already explored the reasons why most cycling shorts are black and not scarlet. In the USA, at track and filed events, this lesson has yet to be learnt. How appropriate indeed that this team of studly are from "Sac City," given the healthy-size bulges the lads are sporting. "Sac City" actually references Sacramento City College. The SCC Track and Field Team are third in the state and 2007 Northern California Champions. Here are some of the guys from the team at a recent meet. Left or right, cut or uncut, there's little left to the imagination.
I've also just finished Break No Bones, the latest crime novel from Kathy Reichs.
After last year's Cross Bones mistaken
lurch towards Da Vinci Code territory, it was good to return to the lab-based
pathology that made this series good in the first instance. It's still no great
shakes as a novel. But it was a good page turner.
![[Three Stars - Good]](3.gif){kind=small}
Monday was a good weather day - and there have been few of those this month. However, I
began the day by attending clinic for my second blood test of the year. The first gave
an iffy result with regards to anemia so this one was a second check. As it happened,
the results proved absolutely OK and showed that the first result had been an aberration
which was within the bounds of statistical anomaly. After that was sorted,
my Rossi and I set out for the Abbot Hall Art
Gallery in Kendal. We've been wanting to visit this gallery for a while and the
exhibition of prints by Howard Hodgkin seemed like a good reason to make the effort.
In the new car, the journey up was very easy (and this was a
sub-text of the journey - how would the new car re-act and indeed how would I re-act to
driving once more on a motorway). In the event, with a trip up to the Lake District and
back, the verdict on both of us was good. As a bonus, Abbot Hall Art Gallery was a new
venue for us and we liked it. There was good food in the café and the gallery
held enough for an interesting visit without being overwhelming. It must be said
though that the staff come across as unprepared (though willing) volunteers and the
set-up in terms of access is less than ideal. Still we managed.
The artworks were worth travelling the distance. I liked the colour, the freshness,
the boldness of design. I was less happy with the hanging. The bright sunshine
rendered a number of the prints almost unviewable as they had not used non-reflective
glass. Still, I can imagine us re-visiting this place again in the future. Next time,
I think that we should look around Keswick a little more. A good three star trip out.
By and large it has been a frustrating time at work, lot of effort, very little sense of progress. It was good to go to Reiki.
I had had it in mind to travel down to Stoke-on-Trent this evening to attend a performance by Scottish Opera of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. It's a favourite work, one that I have not seen for well over a decade, and the performances had received very encouraging reviews. And yet, on a Friday night, I simply did not fancy driving all that way on my own to witness a woman melodiously losing her mind.
Instead, I ended up going to the Crosby Hall Educational Trust Centre (CHET Centre) to
see the Hoghton Players perform a concert version of HMS Pinafore by Gilbert and
Sullivan. Earlier this year we saw them perform
Iolanthe and, some years back, we went to Rufford
Old Hall with my parents to see them
perform The Mikado. It's also worth
noting that Ruddigore has also featured
in this year's musical offerings.
The concert took place in the Great Barn and was great fun. Some of the singing was
rough and ready. There were obvious moments of under-rehearsal. But, overall, I came
away having had a better time of than had I slogged my way down the M6 for high art.
Apart from anything else, I sat there fore the whole evening saying to myself
"Oh, that's where that tune comes from." A good evening all in all.
And, in fact,
it as very good to discover CHET.
They do a winter chamber music series. I might try to avail myself of that this year.
Two years ago, I went to the chiropodist. I'd had a pain that I thought was an ingrowing toenail but turned out to be a small corn. Anyway, he treated it and I was fine. I'd started to have a similar pain in the same spot so I went back and he sorted me out. Great.
We are starting to get to the point in the year when the winter series come to an end. Thus Prison Break came to a conclusion with many of the major protagonists back in gaol in a Latin American prison. Sky has bought up the next series, wresting it from Five's grasp. I'm not that fussed. It has lost its edge somewhat.
I'll be sad, however, not to have a weekly feast of munchkin, Wentworth Miller.
Earlier this year, he was considerate enough to disrobe
for the film A Human Stain. It's a trend we can only support. He's also taken
to modelling for Korean jeans manufacturer, Bean Pole. And, with photographs like the
one to the right, we support this trend too.
Now, however, the gossip machine is in full spate. Word is that Wentworth Miller is
gay and dating actor Luke MacFarlane who plays Scotty, a recurring gay character on
the ABC family drama Brothers and Sisters. We'll never really know, of course,
but Luke MacFarlane has also declined to speak about his sexuality. He has, however,
been linked with Grey's Anatomy star TR Knight and he plays a gay character
in his TV show. He has even shared some "intimate scenes" with the drama's
resident gay character Kevin Walker, played by Wales's own
Matthew Rhys.
We've already encountered young Matthew in The Graduate and Lost World. As an up and
coming actor, Matthew used to share a flat with long time friend
Ioan Gruffudd with whom he played a gay
couple in the (dreadful) film Very Annie Mary. Ioan, of course, is now based
in Hollywood thanks to the Fantastic Four franchise. It's lovely that his little
friend has also found work over there, isn't it?
Today I helped Sue out with the children's meeting for General Meeting for the North West of England which was being held in Southport for the first time in many a year. In the event, there were only two young people both from the same family. We spent some time with them at the Southport Conservation Centre and then went for a walk along the promenade and up the pier. Surprisingly, it was a relatively clear day and you could see as far as Blackpool to the right and Prestatyn on the North Wales coast to the left.
One of the highlights of the summer TV season has been Andrew Marr's excellent
History of Modern Britain. Taking the political story from the end of the Second
World War up to the present, the whole idea is that, whilst politicians attempted to
take the country in one direction, the people determinedly took it in another of
their own liking. I don't agree with all of the premises and I think that the final
chapters are snide and personal in a way that distance enables a much more balanced
and detached viewpoint in the earlier portions. But it has been excellent viewing and
listening in an otherwise dull schedule.
Ross's brother, Sam arrived to stay today. By this stage the decoration of the back bedroom was supposed to be complete. However, the car crash, neck pains, indolence, Ross and I getting in each other's way have all contributed to the fact that it is all about four weeks behind schedule. Anyhow, I helped move Sam's belongings out of his student flat in the pouring rain. It hardly seems to have stopped all month now.
I've also just completed a really good book which I picked up on a whim in London.
Set in the time of Henry VIII, it is another of those detective novels set in the
past. That in itself is offputting but it is really well written and gives insights
into a well covered area of English history. My only reservation is that I have now
read book three of a series. I'll read the first two some time but I already know
plot elements. Still, an excellent read.
Saturday was an important day in this year's artistic calendar as it brought a trip
over to the Lowry Theatre in Salford to see a performance by Opera North of Dido
and Æneas by Henry Purcell and Les Noces a ballet to music by
Stravinsky. The opera I've seen twice already as recorded in these postings -
English Bach Festival and
Chester Festival. I've seen the ballet too
but done by the Royal Ballet more than thirty years ago when I was a student. This
was an odd pairing and, to be honest, I would not have gone but for the appearance
of one of the dancers, Robert, seen airborne
on the right.
There were a number of good performances. I did like Susan Bickley's Dido, full voiced
and magisterial throughout. Amy Freston was OK as Belinda and I liked Clarissa Meek
as the Sorceress. Adam Green did not make an enormous impression as Æneas but
James Laing's counter-tenor rang out as the Spirit. Nicholas Kok conducted both
works well. I was, however, somewhat distressed by the fact that none of the dancers
was given a biography in the programme - it seems to me perverse to programme a ballet
and then only to give the biographies of the singers contributing to the musical
element. And, where Robert was mentioned, they spelt his family name incorrectly with
a terminating "e".
The dancers did all that was asked of them by the choreography but I don't know that
the choreography amounted to very much. In Les Noces, there was a lot of running
around like we were watching kids in a school playground. It felt more like movement
drama than actual dance but maybe I was missing something. I would also say that,
overall, the whole of the dance troupe lacked a little pazzazz. Maybe because they
were on performance 9 out of 11 or something but I felt that there was a little snap
missing. There wasn't quite the energy I would have expected in hitting the designated
shapes.
So, why put the two together? Well, there's the idea of a marriage or union at the
heart of both even if it doesn't happen in Dido. Both require dancing as a core
element of presentation. But beyond that you'd find it hard to say. The one thing that
I did come up with was the idea of men being from Mars and women from Venus. In
Dido all of the Carthaginians are women and the Trojans (soon to become the
founders of Rome) are men. So there's an in built opposition there. In Les Noces,
the dancers were clearly divided by gender into two groups and, fundamentally,
each seemed to get on far better with their own kind. That's about as good a case as
I can make for performing the two works together. So a good but not great night out.
Sunday was a day full of Quaker activity. There was Children's Meeting which, although there was only one very young child, Thomas, and his mum, was fine. The we had a shared lunch which turned into a deep discussion about development of the current premises. Finally, we had our Quest meeting at which I said that I wanted the journey to end because of the forthcoming course about the Quaker Testimonies. I was exhausted by the end of it all.
The Bulletin Boards have been full of photographs of two young male models who I now bring to your attention. The first is Anton Antipov, who was born on May 6th, 1983 in Bobruisk, Belarus before moving with his family, at the age of 13, to New York. While attending college, he was approached with several modelling offers and has become a much sought after hunkette.
Chad White, on the other hand was born in 1985 in Portland, Oregon. Standing 6' 2", he played baseball in college and was drafted for Major League Baseball. An injured hand put paid to a sports career and so catwalking and posing for the camera lens became a lucrative alternative.
Never let it be said that I am not good to you.
Today I handed in my V1 portfolio so that I am now within an ace of getting my Internal Verifier's certificate. This has been going on for the best part of a year and would probably have gone on for longer if the colleague who has been my assessor had not resigned to go on to another job. Anyhow it's done and I can relax again after a week of hard work creating evidence and cross-referencing the portfolio against the standards.
I was glad that the weekend came and Ross, Sam and I chilled out by watching
Shrek the Third. After Shrek 2,
it turned out to be a great disappointment with far fewer moments of pure
enjoyment. It passed the time but not with any great elan.
![[Two Stars - Average]](2.gif){kind=small}
Come the morning, I stayed in bed and finished off Julian Barnes's Arthur and
George which concerns the true story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fight for justice
George Edalji, a half-Indian lawyer wrongfully accused of maiming pit colliery ponies
and sending poisoned pen letters. The whole thing became a cause célèbre
which led to the setting up of the Courts of Appeal. Generally, I like Julian Barnes's
work. Metroland is one of my favourite
novels. This I found more problematic because it was difficult to separate out the
fact from the fiction. Ultimately, though I sort of admire the achievement, I'm going
to leave it with just three stars.
We reached the season finale of Dr Who. I have to say that this third series
of the re-vamped Doctor has out-performed the second and matched the first. No doubt
Ross will get the DVDs at some point and we can watch it all again. I particularly
liked the dual episode with the family set just before 1914 and the episode with the
moving statues was very scary. I enjoyed the cleverness of the Elizabethan episode,
the episode with the traffic jam underground and the hospital on the moon. We've just
finished off with John Simm (late of Life on Mars)
as The Master in a spectacular big for world control and total domination. There
was a lovely final payoff with Captain Jack and the Face of Bo.
Incidentally, we also liked actor Tom Ellis in one of the subsidiary rôles.
As we reach then end of a sodden month, we note that Wimbledon has started and that we have access to the traditional photograph of Andy Roddick sprawled on the grass revealing a bit of (what the americans call) butt crack.
It is nice to know that, in a changing world, some of the eternal verities are observed.
