Brown as a Berry
8 June

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One of the upshots of spending more time in the back garden this year is that my head is as brown as a berry and my torso and limbs are not far behind.

Last Monday, even though it was mostly overcast, I spent time out there with my top off hacking away at some of the ivy which has bolted from the top of the back wall. The neighbour whose ivy it is had agreed to me doing this as they have a very large fatsia which blocks their access to climbing plant.

In the space of less that a couple of hours I was left with reddening sunburn on my shoulders and pate. Soothing balm and a night's sleep later and colleagues at work were admiring my Mediterranean tan.

This last week, as we approach the summer solstice, I've spent many a happy hour sitting out there in the semi-shade after work reading books or in the early light of morning drinking a coffee and eating my breakfast museli. One skill I wish I had is that of being able to tell a bird by its call. I'm sure that there are many more garden and hedgerow birds in this neighbourhood now than when we moved in some eight years ago.

One of the books I've completed is Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe. I rather missed out on the Tom Sharpe phenomenon back in the 1970s when, as a student, I felt that such literature was tosh and beneath me. Well, it is tosh but now it has a certain historic interest - a bit like looking at social history through early Carry On films. The plotting and characterisations and moral compass are simplistic. In fact, I was reminded of Jackie Collins novels of the same period. There, of course, one is supposed to feel a frisson of shock and horror. With very little change of tone, Tom Sharpe renders everything farcical. Oh, it was an average sort of read.

However, I did receive a jolt of surprise on page 204 when I read the following passage. It's the thoughts of one of the characters musing on the wanton destruction of the countryside by the construction of a motorway.

All this would go, to be replaced by a motorway which would be a useless, obsolescent eyesore in fifty years when fossil fuel ran out.

No doubt, in years to come, we'll all claim that we didn't know that the catastrophe was coming. But this book was published in 1975. It isn't a learned tome. It's a work of popular fiction espousing widely held, if contentious, views.

It's like everyone throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s knowing that smoking tobacco was directly related to lung cancer. We all chose not to acknowledge the implications of the bad news.

I've just finished re-reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. What a stunning book! It was my book of the year in 2005. And I can only re-endorse that view some three years on. In fact, I'd say that I enjoyed it more on a second reading because I knew where it was going and so I could appreciate more of the why.

New, though the latest in a continuing series, was The Spook's Mistake by Joseph Delaney. High standards are maintained which is a relief. It was a good read.

I'm indebted to Radio 4 for their continuing Classic Serials. Just finished is Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge in a fine performance. And elsewhere on the network in the Woman's Hour Drama slot Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym provided further entertainment.

Come Sunday lunchtime we were off into Liverpool for a lovely meal at Bistro Jacques (I had quail, penne pasta, cheesecake, pinot grigio and coffee and Ross had crostini, lamb, crumble, lemonade and coffee) before attending our last concert of the season at the Philharmonic Hall. This is the concert we should have attended last September but it was cancelled because of flooding in the hall.

Our first Sunday afternoon concert back in 2006 was also our first encounter with conductor, Vasily Petrenko, and all the auguries were right then. I'm looking forward to next season already. This concert, however, had a bit of an end of term feeling about it. Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No.1 was decently played but didn't pack the sort of punch that it might have. Martin Roscoe was a more than adequate soloist in Grieg's Piano Concerto and Jonathan Aasgaard made a good fist of Bruch's Kol Nidrei (Adagio on Hebrew Melodies) for cello and orchestra. Petrenko was back on his own again for Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. Again it was fine but lacked brilliance. It was all reasonable enough but, given the standards that I am now expecting at the Phil, not good enough for three stars.

I've just received from Amazon, this recording of Mozart's last four symphonies conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. Obviously, I'm going to listen to these discs more and get to know them thoroughly but, so far, I'm mightily impressed. It's up there with the Naxos disk of twelfth century music from Notre Dame de Paris as a contender for disc of the year.

Meanwhile, Ross's brother Sam continues to enjoy life in Liverpool. We see little of him but his Facebook pages provide enough clues.

Through the miracle of Internet security backups, Ross and I have now watched all of series two of Heroes. Oh, it was alright but it has lost the WOW factor of when it was new. I fear that it may well go the way of Lost.

Nevertheless, there seems to have been a contractual obligation for the screen writers to provide opportunities for Milo Ventimiglia to take his shirt off and show how long he has been spending in the gym. However, if the studio executives feel that the only way to boost rating is by showing gratuitous amounts of prime male flesh, then who am I to argue with them?

Mind you, this latest incarnation is preferable to the early years photos which seem to show that young Milo felt that showing your knickers and sticking your tongue out was cool.

He was wrong!