Church/choral musician (alto), massive opera nerd, surtitle operator, and project planner working in public transport. Idiots not tolerated. She/her.
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Britain is so used to having no opposition party, where the government and opposition have fundamentally the same positions on things, particularly immigration, that they now think to oppose someone means agreeing with what they say and that’s how you do opposition
Maybe this guy can change the narrative. At least he's going to try, unlike Starmer bsky.app/profile/best...
But sometimes you meet a colleague’s partner (who they DON’T moan about) and find they are a complete liability that shouldn’t be allowed into contact with anyone you respect… 😬
I’m glad it was such a comprehensive victory, too.
Quite.
This kind of thing is the only reason I still have a Twitter account!
What is it about the British climate that means, regardless of what the weather has been doing over the summer and precisely what it’s doing now, the first week of September always is suddenly recognisably September as soon as you step out of the door?
And ENO brass section. And ENO (Pountney) translation 😍
Love this opera.
The ones I know are all religious people who think they’re sinful and wrong. For being in monogamous loving relationships for decades.
I have known quite a few homophobic gay people…
“I don’t want asylum seekers to live on my street” is genuinely a wild thing to say as a notionally progressive politician
Isn’t that particular exchange also reliant on everyone speaking a particularly plummy version of the Queen’s English, which is part of why it’s funny?
This one, I felt, had potential. I’d cross out “dream” and write “job” 😁
I’m in a tourist trinket shop on holiday - sheltering from some very British rain - and among all the things I definitely don’t need collecting dust in my flat, I found this pin. Which just about sums up my personal take on diversity, equity and inclusion ☺️
It’s a semi-outdoor bar (with a roof that can be fully closed if it rains) with loads of space, and (by London standards) reasonable prices.
The nicest bar near the Arcola is the Speakeasy, but it’s not a real ale type place. Plenty of places that are, however!
That may be a *slight* exaggeration!
Let’s leave aside the fact that The Algorithms evidently consider that AI-generated silver foxes are now what I need in my content… But this AI-generated silver fox is the spitting image of Pierce Brosnan as a weirdly miscast Ron in the new Thursday Murder Club movie.
P.S. it’s forecast to rain most of the weekend but I don’t really care. My planned activities aren’t weather-dependent - though it would help if I’d remembered to pack an umbrella. And - unrelated - a pyjama top… It was lovely this afternoon, however.
Pottering over to Wells-next-the-Sea tomorrow on the bus to eat at my favourite seafood restaurant. Riding steam trains on Saturday. Hopefully punctuating all of this with more of the interesting beer options (currently discovering Köstritzer black lager, which sounded odd but is very tasty!)
Greetings from a very chill beer bar in Sheringham.
Ite travelator est [, Alleluia]
Oh hurrah, guess who’s currently on a train to Norwich (sitting in the platform at Diss…)
I say that as somebody who’s been to maybe 20 out of the last 25 years of Glyndebourne Proms.
Yes, although I was horrified when last year’s Carmen was amplified (I would never have booked for it if I’d known it would be) so was relieved that this was back to not being.
She was, although having seen her several times as Susanna my brain got a bit confused at times!
*Prologue and Act 3 of Parsifal
Thank you.
And I do like Southwark - my local cathedral. I have sung there a few times in visiting choirs, and when I worked very nearby I used to go to the services aimed at local workers (a December weekday lunchtime carol service, and an Ash Wednesday lunchtime liturgy).
I had never been to Temple Church for any reason until a few months ago for the semi-staged production of Parsifal, which I had a friend in. I should go to a service, and my 2 part-time Sunday choirs have a lot of clashes and in the next few months, which also means I get some Sunday mornings off…
This. The FT actually has to have a commitment to fact because huge sums of money are staked on those facts being real. It’s now the only mainstream paper I read.
Yes, so many churches in Central London take August off choral services. By the looks of their website this includes Guards Chapel, where I’ve sung on a handful of occasions, but i do recommend you try there in future if Choral Mattins is what you’re after.
I am hoping to see Oliver! next week, at last - so many people I respect have raved about it. I notice there have been consistent ticket discounts at £55 and £69.50 from TKTS, so I’m planning on doing that.
I have been persuaded to drop in to join my Evensong choir in East London on my way home from holiday on Sunday! It’s literally on the way, as my Director of Music noticed the moment I mentioned where I was going.
I save my post-Proms drinking for special occasions these days, mostly when I know lots of people in a concert. Not had one this year… drinks there with most of the soloists from the Glagolitic Mass last year were fun!
Bonus points if the Prom is over before 9:30, because you can hit Waitrose at closing time and re-stock your freezer for cheap.
Enjoyed the Prom version of Glyndebourne’s Figaro. Idiosyncratic conducting decisions, but some glorious singing. And with those prehensile toes that Huw Montague Rendall has, I wonder if he’s considered pointe 🩰😆
I just got home too! Now to pack for a few days away. I’m back in time for Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk - will you still be here for that?
Granted.
Gloucester Road station is South Kensington station for people who know where they’re going, want to make use of amenities, and don’t care for crowds of tourists.
Fast walker’s advantage: scoot down to Gloucester Road after the Prom (which is further than South Ken), pop into Tesco for wine and a snack, and still be in time to get a seat on the tube before everyone else gets on at South Ken and sees me sitting there looking smug 😎
I too am technically on holiday (today was getting-things-done day prior to going away for a long weekend).
I’ve had an incredibly productive and energetic day. I really hope this does not bode ill for my likelihood of staying awake during The Marriage of Figaro.
I used to sing ‘Pippin, Pippin, beautiful dog’ to my mum’s dog, to the tune of ‘Nothung, Nothung, neidliches Schwert’ ☺️
I have reached that stage of learning Balstrode where I ardently wish Old Joe had stayed at home.
People in the comments are pointing out that the people we lost during the AIDS epidemic were mostly Boomers, but that misses the point. They were the people who would have been mentors to the queer GenXers, the ones who could have helped us find our way and given us support.
people often ask what’s wrong with gen x, and, like, there are a lot of answers, but i think the AIDS epidemic and the specific people it wiped out is probably an under discussed contributor to the bomber with red dots diagram
They are, if you’re naming electronic files in a sortable fashion.
It was better than I expected, actually. But it does lose a lot of the detail that gives the books their character, including replacing some interesting subplots with one new one which might complicate the future of the story (assuming sequels are intended…)
I would actually enjoy a concert format that was run like a sports match, where the 1st clarinet could be subbed off after a run of disappointing solos
Announcing the cast change, Stephen Langridge said that while it was Tsirakoglou’s debut, he had acted as Renato Girolami’s stunt double during technical rehearsals, and was therefore used to being shoved out of the window with a pair of underpants on his head.
A star turn from cover Stephanos Tsirakoglou making his Glyndebourne debut in the title role of Falstaff today, in one of my very favourite opera productions, at the last performance of the season (what a *brilliant* opera on which to end the Festival).
Last day of the Glyndebourne Festival, and I’m off to see Falstaff - one of my favourite opera productions of all time. What joy to look at the National Rail website and find my train home already cancelled 🙄 though fortunately in this case I have a Plan B with friends driving back to SE London.
Kicking off a week’s holiday this afternoon with a visit to the cinema for the newly-released Thursday Murder Club film. I strongly suspect I know what I’m going to think of it… but you never know.
That’s kind of the point, as far as I understand it. It stops you wanting to eat out of habit and makes you only consume what you’re genuinely hungry for.
I saw this yesterday. It would surely have been SO easy just to use the same model throughout… whichever one.
And Elephant & Castle station is - depending on how you measure it - either on a latitude with, or further north than, Victoria station. The Tube map, and the general notion that the Thames runs straight through the centre of London from West to East, are apparently persuasive drugs.
I think I should just be content with the fact that Facebook generally gets my location constraints and price bracket relatively accurate these days.
This popped up in my Facebook algorithms. A one-bed property… with parking for four cars 🤷🏻♀️
This is beautiful, more of this pls
Last night's Suor Angelica at the Proms left me dry-eyed. Reviewed for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...
The other thing about blazers and ties is you only need one of them at a time. Unlike shirts, trousers etc where you need enough to have clean ones while others are in the wash.
Blazer badges can be removed from a small blazer and put on a bigger one, too. The only issue with ties is it becomes fashionable to ruin them and then they need to be replaced - certainly when I was at school. I was a good girl though. I never lost or damaged my original tie.
And KIND OF the tie, but even that I think was fairly mass-produced somewhere and the local uniform shops bought batches of the one required.
(And yes I do agree in principle that minimising the amount of required branded items in state school uniforms is important. This just doesn’t go far enough. “In my day” the only unique item required was the blazer badge.)
It’s literally less than a Mars bar a week, which is easier to conceptualise.
I have waited at a few bars recently where a clear division of bartenders between people ordering rounds of cocktails and people ordering rounds of simple drinks would have made everyone’s lives much easier.
you rarely encounter a perfect intro..........but when you do
There was nothing wrong with the balance, even in the hall.
I was left a little bit cold by the LSO Suor Angelica, as beautiful as it sounded. I did however take advantage of the early finish to raid the Waitrose reduced section (buona cerca stasera, sorella dispensiera!) for which my freezer will be grateful.
And actually I would have started whistling at the woodwind entry at 123 so that’s even more 🤣
Of the last 9 rehearsal figures in the piece, from the string entry at 126, only the final 4 (131-134) are once it gets into D major.
Got off the train just as the side drum came in in the 4th movement of the BBC4/Aurora Orchestra Shostakovich 5 From Memory. Turns out I can whistle the whole of the first violin part of that final section from memory as well (but I don’t recommend it, it’s exhausting).
The person who invented the video game joystick has disappeared, they down right up and left.
It does however mean I’ve effectively had two full-time jobs this week. I need a holiday (one more week of day job and then I have a week booked off!)
Yes, I got into it largely by accident back in the early days of Fulham Opera. Now it’s one of those niche ways of making myself useful that means I get to be part of quite a lot of interesting opera productions!
Making the most of a few hours of downtime at the start of a busy weekend. Final night on the surtitles of Tristan und Isolde tonight at the Arcola. Off to Glyndebourne tomorrow to see Katya Kabanova. (I had the ticket for the latter long before I was asked to do the former…)
You can have homes for your children to move into, or you can have racist chatbots and environmental degradation. Labour is making that choice for you and they're choosing the latter. bsky.app/profile/anta...
Excellent result. "Reform surge" huh? Labour, are you listening? People who voted for you want an actual party of the left - and you're no longer it.
It’s not as if there’s not enough of that to choose from.
"London lives rent free inside the heads of right wing activists, because it shows how completely wrong they are in their politics every day of the week." You might have heard how dangerous London is – but that's not really the truth...
Actually, to be fair, probably also the singers. On the inside. You know, those professionals who are used to portraying emotion on the outside, and are suddenly required to act “blank”…
And a slightly less obvious ploy than the ‘shit sandwich’ (NOT MY TERM OR MY OPINION I hasten to add) of a Classical/Romantic overture, an unknown modern piece, and a Classical/Romantic symphony!
Also, canny move to put the Ravel at the end of the first half. I know of people who’d happily book for the Rite of Spring but would probably have arrived during the interval if the first half had ‘just’ been Varèse and a UK premiere.
It's a tax "raid". When you or I pay our income tax it's just a tax. But when a fabulously wealthy millionaire who refuses to contribute to the country whose public services they use (and yes, they use roads, defence, police etc) it's a "raid". www.ft.com/content/8882...
Does anything ever “seethe” in a Robert Wilson production?
Yes, the OP draws an incorrect conclusion from whether people know Reform voters or not.
There’s a distinction between ‘friends’ and ‘people you know’ though. I wouldn’t befriend somebody with far right views, but there are definitely people I’ve known over the years who tend in that direction. Work colleagues, neighbours etc.
You only have to look at the JanePlan diet ads, featuring real customers telling their own stories, to see why most brands prefer to employ professional actors.
Are you saying that horses no longer exist and it’s all the fault of woke? 😉
To be fair, we don’t know if this opinion was posted from a country where reporting and record-keeping are a requirement of home-schooling.
Bugger. It’s a New Routemaster, and as such, almost has reverse air con 🥵 but as the Overground is suspended it’s also my only option…
Also, bras are expensive and often uncomfortable. I wear one because I am well-endowed and need the support. She’s lucky enough not to need one for that reason, so why the hell should she sacrifice her comfort and money for the opinions of a few men on the internet?
(My friend is currently melting in Bayreuth, and coming to see our show after she gets home, so she should be acclimatised 🤣)
It’s 31° here 😬 Studio 1 is an oven in hot weather, and I’m on the crew this week (for Tristan and Isolde) so I’ll be in there for 4 evenings, 5 hours each…
If Rupert Lowe agreed with me on immigration I'd stop to reconsider my whole existence, but Keir Starmer clearly doesn't mind.
Maybe it’s worth 10 minutes of roasting on the Jubilee Line for the reward of then ending up on the Overground which has air con!
Thank you!