Mundane to marvellous

‘Regression.’ That was the word that came to mind when I eventually was treated to the vision that was my signer person when I went to the Job Centre today.

All the personnel that I have come into contact with since the 18th September have been of the new brigade: comfortable with having to explain to ‘clients’ all the ‘user friendly’ facilities packed into the Centre; rejoicing in the ways in which they can facilitate job finding capabilities; delighting in making the client part of the solution, etc, etc. The man today was different.

First of all he was late. Only a few minutes, but during this time I could gaze at the grubby collar of his coat decorating the back of the empty chair. When he finally arrived he ignored me, sat down, fussed with his glasses and started the process of starting his computer. He then failed to find his pen. Changed his glasses. Took the pen found by me. Inserted his card. And punched the keys of the computer. You could tell that he would have been much more at home thumping keys of a manual typewriter and using the return carriage as a weapon, the crank and thump being sonic assaults against the cringing applicant for governmental largess.

He eventually remembered to apologise for his late appearance: ‘took a late break’; ‘we’re well down’; ‘people away’. This did remind me of bygone years. That ‘other worldly’ sense was augmented by the fact that my advisor did not “watch television” and “not much radio” – so much for my broadcasting aura. His explanations were (how shall I put this?) Defeatist. I was glad to get out of there, and only £1-60 for parking. (Ironic.)

After putting the wrong measurements for my living room on the internet, failing to correct the mistake within a day and failing to contact me when they said they would, Halifax have been sacked. Peter Allan tomorrow.

Sigh!

On to more important things: this evening a free concert courtesy of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Studio 1 in Broadcasting House in Llandaff. The concert was part of the ‘Discovering Music Live’ series in which a musical work is introduced with live musical illustrations; then in the second part of the programme, a full performance of the work is given. The work today was Nielsen’s Flute Concerto played by Sharon Bezaly with the conductor being Ken Woods.

The presentation was excellent; I especially liked the idea that Danish, as a language is often spoken in thirds, the presenter matched a simplified sequence from the flute concerto with the cadences of a Danish speaker reading an extract from the tales of Andersen.

At the end of the presentation there was an opportunity for questions. Silence, broken by me! I have to admit that the question I asked was irrelevant compared with the fluency, knowledge and perception of the answer – but the question and response ensured that there were no other enquiries! Indeed, the producer had to ask for more responses at the end of the show, one of which was provided by the presenter.

The performance was excellent: just the right length for a concert!