This morning being a Sunday, the care workers turn up half an hour earlier than the norm so I have to ensure that everything is in place for when they come. For a start, bed-linen, clothing, towels, flannels and washing materials have to be in place before the workers arrive so it takes part of 15 minutes to ensure that everything that they might need is at hand. After that we breakfasted and it seemed no time at all until our friendly Eucharistic minister calls around from church. She and her husband are taking a much needed break after a succession of funerals which has befallen them over the last week or so they are quite keen to get a break and we shall resume contact in September. We received a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend and were absolutely delighted that he was back into the country after his little break in Switzerland which is a country he knows well. We met in Waitrose, as much to save time as anything as we had quite a lot to impart to us as he told us about the walks he and his 'amante' had done in Switzerland whilst I communicated the results of the exchange of photographs with my niece over the last day or so.
Yesterday turned out to be quite an emotional day for myself and my sister. After reading in 'The Times' a proposal in Weston-super-Mare a plan to remove the donkeys who have donkey rides on the beach and have been doing for decades. This triggered yesterday's blog in which I spoke about our 'Uncle Jim' and I trawled the internet to see if the faintest trace did remain of him, even though he died in 1960. What I did find fairly quickly was his tombstone in Scarborough so I transmitted this as a message both to my sister and one of my nieces. As I was recounting the story of the one day at the seaside we used to enjoy, I had more than one tear in my eye and, as it happened, the minute my sister received the photo of the tombstone, she too burst into tears. Now my niece just happened to be visiting her mother (my sister) and she immediately located in what the family call their 'Black Magic' box which is an old Black Magic chocolate box stuffed full of family photos. During an extended stay with my mother, my niece and my mother had gone through some of these photos trying to identity the people in the photo and the approximate date it would have been taken. My niece located six family photos on which two were me on a donkey about six, one sitting on my Uncle Jim's knee and the others being seaside snaps of myself, my sister, my mother and occasionally Uncle Jim himself. Now the photos were taken half a century ago and I have not seen them for decades and decades so it was a completely emotional experience for me (and the wider family) to see these images from my past. Just to recap a little from yesterday's blog - our 'Uncle Jim' was the nearest thing to a father that my sister and I have ever known even though we only saw him for a few hours on one day a year. But he always seemed to be 'there' even though he died at almost the same time as my grandmother and before either of them knew what results I had achieved in my GCSEs ('O'-levels) which I obtained in 1961. So the tears I shed yesterday were not really of sadness because I am taking some delight in the photos that are now in my possession, but perhaps thoughts about what might have been but never was.
Yesterday, Meg and I really enjoyed the rendition that we saw on YouTube of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 ('Elvia Madigan' which was, I believe a Swedish film where this formed the film score) But three things struck me about the performers and the performances and I am going to ask these questions of the Eucharistic minister who calls around each Sunday and is herself both a cellist and a pianist and still performs regularly. The first question relates to the clothing worn by the performers. Nearly all of the male performers are dressed in what looks like a black suit but I wonder if it is made of the finest silk or even a special glazed cotton so that the musicians can perform with hindrance in their garments. The second question relates to the young pianist we say yesterday for not only did he have no score in front of him but a lot of the time his eyes were either closed, semi-closed or fixed on the orchestra and therefore not on his own hands. So he question I ask myself is whether renowned pianists know exactly where each key and note are on their piano keyboards without needing to look at it. The third question relates to the 'cadenza' or section where a performer can show off their virtuosity playing solo without orchestral accompaniment and whilst composers such as Mozart and Beethoven probably improvised extensively, I wonder how many of these cadenzas are written down or whether each individual performer develops their own cadenza? I hope that some are all of these questions will be answered for me later on this morning.
An American columnist has written that in the US Presidential election it looks as though the personal attacks against Kamala Harris are going to get really vicious and persona. Donald Trump has said this week he thinks he is entitled to make those personal attacks after the warfare that the Democrats have waged against him in the US court system. It does not help that this week, Time magazine basically deified Kamala Harris' candidacy by putting an illustration of her on the cover that made her look like Joan of Arc. It is always a sign of desperation when political candidates start to 'play the man rather than the ball' to use a sporting analogy and I am reminded of the wonderful riposte, repeated by some British politicians but first coined by an American in the 18th century about his political opponents that 'I shall stop telling the truth about them if they stop telling lies about us' Personal attacks on politicians is what alienates the public the most on both sides of the Atlantic from what we can tell - in British culture there is often a degree of humour involves which can be appreciated on both sides of the political divide but the American political system seems to lack that particular finesse by just engaging in frontal assaults upon each other.
© Mike Hart [2024]