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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Real life?


Coincidence, in spite of its almost boring regularity, always catches us out. How many times do we find ourselves saying in a depreciatory sort of way, “You couldn’t put that in a novel!” at some piece of happenstance whose insignificance is only matched by the delight that it gives.

In my view coincidence is a reflection of observation: the more of which you take notice, the more you are likely to link – especially if your mind has been infected by the novels of people like Dickens and Smollett who had no restraint in making essential elements of the narrative entirely dependent on the most glaring coming together of unlikely events!

Going to work I listen to a Catalan classical music station and in the gloom of the early morning death defying joining of the motorway I was stimulated by hearing a piece of music which I hadn’t heard before. It sounded like a quasi-concerto for brass and the style of the music was clearly Romantic and Germanic, but I was still dithering about an attribution when the music ended and I managed to work out from the welter of Catalan that I had been listening to something by Schumann and set for four horns. It was the sort of music that you would like to hear again but you knew that you were not going to make that much of effort to find a disc.

Then my copy of the BBC Music Magazine arrived. I have taken this publication since it was launched and have greedily gobbled up the reviews that are included and sometimes even taken action and bought the discs that I thought looked interesting. The disc that comes with the magazine is worth the cost of the magazine alone so for me it is a win-win situation when the grey packaging is poking out of the post box.

This month (within a couple of days of my hearing the music) the disc has as the first tract “Konzertstück for Four Horns in F, OP 86” by Robert Schumann!

Also during this week I have been listening to a series of discs that had been given to me by one of Toni’s aunts. On one the unlikely coupling of Bartók and Beethoven had as its first work Bartók’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste” – a piece I had heard before and wondered vaguely what the motivation behind the combination of instrumentation was. Sure enough, again a few days later in the same wonderful magazine there, in an article about “Classical Connections” was a piece on Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra” and linked to it a description of the “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste!”

Such things are not vital to the health of nations, but they sure as hell give me pleasure when they happen. You get a completely irrational feeling that the world is turning in the right direction and there is some degree of sense out there.

Which is not the case in school. No, I am not going to moan about the predilection for examinations and tests which our school has with a junkie’s obsession, but rather about the children we teach. Well, one of them. Actually his parents.

While sitting at lunch with colleague one, with scant regard for my appetite, threw into the conversation that one of our kids was going to have an eighteenth birthday party. For this obviously momentous occasion his parents had hired a disc jockey for the night at a cost of €40,000! This is just under the total cost of two teacher’s annual salaries. For someone who puts records on a turntable for part of a night. Sigh!

On a more domestic level I have read a book this morning. Just as I used to do on a Saturday morning when I was living in the flat in Torrington Crescent (which was neither a crescent nor in the West Country) and just before I ventured out into Town for lunch and a little light shopping.

The book I chose to read really chose itself and it is one of those volumes which seem to accumulate on the tops of other books which are regimented carefully on a shelf and are therefore obviously asking to be read. I have ignored it for a couple of weeks, but this morning I gave it and, with a cup of tea started to read.

I know that I have read it, but as I read it I found that I could remember remarkably little about it. It was “Putting the boot in” by Dan Kavanagh and is concerned with the life of (as the front of the book puts it) “sharp, savvy and cynical, bisexual private eye Duffy.”

It is a witty, incisive and compelling read. Duffy is an ex-policeman and amateur goalkeeper and the storyline uses his experience in both areas to sustain interest.

It was first published in 1985 and the fear of AIDS informs much of Duffy’s inner life. He is constantly checking for the tell-tale signs of infection and I saw that I had marked page 63 of my Penguin edition of the novel as containing something of interest. This turned out to be a reference to “Bela Kaposi and his travelling sarcoma. Certificate X.” This is part of Duff’s continuing fear as he constantly searches for evidence of the disease showing itself in “Little brown irregular blotches, that was what he had read. Duffy shuddered. It had a nasty name, too. Kaposi’s sarcoma. That didn’t sound like something you got better from. Who the hell was this Kaposi guy? He had a name like one of those Hollywood movie stars. Bela Kaposi.” Worth a read.

The saga of The Catalan Wine Tasting continues with the next suggested date thrown out to our little group. I await the response with some concern as we seem to be ploughing further and further into the year with the wine waiting enticingly to be opened!

One wine that was tried by us (poor use of passive there, but it is examination time and we love setting the passive for the kids) in Barcelona last Saturday in a Chinese restaurant was Libilis. I have signally failed to find another bottle but this afternoon when I was visiting the area where I knew a cheese store lurked I also had pointed out to be an excellent wine shop. On my asking for Libilis in Spanish I was instantly answered in flawless English that they didn’t have a bottle but he could suggest something similar.

I believed him because the shop was a positive treasure trove of thousands of bottles of different wines (or at least it seemed like that number to my delighted eyes) set out in a Tardis-like shop which seemed to stretch on to vinous Paradise!

This shop was Celler Vallés in Avda. De la Constitución here in Castelldefels. The bottle that I purchased was a White wine from D.O. Penedés by Gramona called Gessamí. The grapes are a mixture of Muscat de Alejandría and Sauvignon. This is not quite the same mixture as Libilis but I am prepared to give it a try. I am also prepared to go back to the shop as the English speaking person who served me certainly seemed to know what he was talking about.

I have made a late January resolution to note my reactions to each new bottle of wine that I have so that I have some sort of record of all the money that has passed through my system so to speak.

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