One of my colleagues recently was telling me how she looked forward to the Advent season as it marked a slowing down of events before the mid-winter caesura. My response to that is "Hah!". If anything, this last week has been the busiest I've had for some time.
It began last Sunday with the silent film The Thief of Baghdad starring Douglas Fairbanks Snr with live music by Rimsky-Korsakov. Ross and I had the most awful time getting there. Firstly, the tube was out of action and then we ran into several traffic jams. What should have been a gentle 50 minute journey eventually took nearly two hours. We'd hoped to have some food and perhaps wander round the book fair under Waterloo Bridge. In the event, we grabbed a sandwich and dashed to our seats with minutes to spare.
I'm happy to report that it was wonderful. Three and a half hours of absolute magic. However, although the music was in once sense incidental, I doubt that I could have sat through the complete film in silence.
Monday, I had a five hour database design meeting which was intellectually tortuous but good fun. I could just have done without it as I had plenty of other things to be getting on with.
Tuesday brought teaching plus Quaker Men's Group which was most necessary for reasons I'll return to.
Wednesday was teaching again followed by a presentation about the networking project at work which got me riled as there was no mention of any training in the business plan. I climbed into bed at the earliest possible opportunity.
Thursday was the first day of a conference at work. I'd been angered by the general assumption made by some people that I could be available at a moment's notice to help during the week before. As you can see, I had other things to do. But come the hour, come the man. Who was it who dressed the information tables, who was it who removed all the staples from the notice boards, who was it who helped hang some of the exhibitions, who was it up a ladder removing Christmas decorations which blocked the view of the project screen, who was it up a ladder re-hanging a chandelier for similar purposes? C'était moi, naturellement.
And who was it in the conference hall, doomed to listen to all the presentations and
witness how poor most lecturers are at constructing presentations, armed with a roving
mike to hand out to people during question time. I tell you, there's a job for me on
any chat show. It's amazing how skillful a job it is. You need to be alert, agile and
available whilst at the same time having the ability to be absolutely inconspicuous
whilst the question and answers are going on. I'm surprised my knees survived all of
that bending and stooping.
Friday, the conference finished and I was glad to get home and rest before collecting Ross for another weekend together.
And somewhere in there I received news that I had been accused of professional misconduct at the recent training course I worked on.
Yup, you did read that correctly.
I was gob-smacked. For the record, though I think Chris, the guy who made the accusation, was quite nice, I wouldn't cross the road for him and I certainly didn't make a drunken advance to him in the toilets.
The situation has been well contained by the managers involved and nothing will ever be official but the whole situation is crap. Luckily, I react differently to things these days. For example, I spent most of Tuesday evening discussing the situation with the Men's Group and they were very supportive. From that talk, I came to see that the situation can never be resolved. For that to happen the two protagonists would have to come face to face and since we live at opposite ends of the country that ain't going to happen. I also came to see that I don't know Chris at all. He's a young man I met for three days on a course. And all the time that the other men in the group were saying "D'you think this was his motivation?", "D'you think it was that?", I had to answer that I simply didn't know. Something caused him distress and kicked him off. Maybe, inadvertently, it was me. I do reckon it's his problem and that I cannot be part of the solution. But it's frustrating and hurtful.
However, I'll know not to be festive with my students in future. I guess I'm no longer one of the boys. I'm the older, uncle figure and I'll be retiring to bed early from now on. Oh, I'm forgetting, all of the advance stuff was supposed to have happened at the end of a raucous and drunken last evening of the course. So, I'm spared that from now on.
Still, the week ended on a high note with a performance of Verdi's La Traviata at ENO that more than restored one's faith in the world of opera. Traviata is one of my most favourite operas and this is witnessed by the fact I have attended some twelve performances of the work over the years. Occasionally, it has left me unmoved; occasionally, as in the Powerhouse production at ENO in the early 90s, I have been angered by the staging; mostly, as with performances by Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North, I have been entertained and moved. And none more so than the fabulous Scots production that I saw in 1989 which is still clearly etched on my mind's ear and eye.
Last time I saw this production, I said it could do with a bit more opulence. I'll revise that. I think the settings are drab but functional. The best that can be said about them is that they provide a plain box in which the story can unfold. That aside, the evening was stonkingly good and it all stemmed from a blazing performance in the pit conducted by Music Director, Paul Daniel.
The cast were uniformly good to great. John Hudson's Alfredo was wonderfully sung. Yes, he's stiff in his physical movements but that caught some of the gaucherie of the character. Vocally, however, he moves with ease from hesitancy to ardour, to bewilderment, to anger, to shame, to loss. It's an excellent performance. Christopher Booth-Jones's Germont père is probably one of the best assumptions of that role I have ever heard. He offered a beautiful baritone legato and words, words, words that were clear and projected meaningfully. His body language was impeccable. He became the absolute moral core around which the tragedy happened - like him or loath him, understand him or revile him.
And then there was Sandra Ford. She was our last minute replacement in Tales of Hoffmann earlier this year. I was filled with high hopes for the performance and was not disappointed. There was a real sense about the house that here was a star being discovered. Vocally she was a treat, she looked great and she acted marvellously. The whole thing was great music theatre. Even Alfredo's servant and the messenger in Act Two had credible personalities. Five stars without any hesitation.
So, you'll understand that I've spent a lot of the rest of the weekend just relaxing with Ross. We bought our tree and decked it. It was a near disaster. The first Christmas that Ross and I had together we got a tree that was about 1.8 metres tall and it was just too tall for the room. Last year we did well with a 1.4 metre tree and so we followed that pattern this year. All went well. We secured it in its pot and fed it water and then cut away the restraining mesh so that it could open out. Which it promptly did revealing the fact that it may have been only 1.4 metres tall but it was a good 1.6 metres wide. I was nearly trapped underneath it. It was like surfacing in a spiky crinoline.
But we laughed.
And on Sunday we had lunch with Roger and Barry from the Quaker group. I dunno life is moving on. Things are changing. I guess I'll look back and make sense of it.