Viola in Vilnius

Thou are 'Wall'!

2011-08-08T01:43:00.002+03:00

It felt a bit like being in Midsummer night's dream yesterday at the Rose Theatre's performance of Don Giovanni. The Rose theatre, a nice modern opera house style theatre, with rather a cramped pit for the band, finds itself in the fifth and 6th floors of a building that houses a shopping centre on the lower floors, including a Whole Foods, which was far too tempting at the end of the show. The price of property in New York...

The staging was rather interesting (the programme does not make clear who was the producer - was it Ivan Fischer himself?). As the audience trundled in, Ivan Fischer, the conductor was already sitting on his chair, and a number of statues (the choir, wearing grey clothes and with all-over make-up) inhabited the very sparse stage, consisting of a pair of podiums (podia?) and nothing else. Occasionally the statues moved - probably a health and safety requirement, particularly on the part of the woman who was in a Lenin pose for a long time. In the course of the evening they sometimes danced, formed walls, the doors to Hades (effectively), and very effectively shuffled off anyone who died (sitting at the side of the stage, above the band, I could see all this).

The playing was great, as was the singing, generally - though I felt that Myrto Papatanasiu, as Donna Elvira, seemed to hang about a lot waiting for the next entry in her first contribution. Maybe that was how it was designed - but that moment was an intense conversation, and you would expect her to launch into her words immediately the previous person had finished speaking. Zoltan Megyesi's Don Ottavio was rather unfortunately staged - as his Donna Anna (a fine Laura Aikin) was totally distraught about her father's desk - he just stood far away from her - it was not exactly like he was comforting her, even though the words suggested this. (The surtitles were rather fun, by the way). So occasionally the production hung a bit, and there was too much standing and singing - the stage could have been busier. At the same time the production had us by the edge of our seats (thanks to the surtitles which got the most laughs, even though those were also used rather sparingly).

Leporello (Jose Fardilha) had real character, and Don Giovanni (Tassis Christoyannis) came across as a real bastard, just as he should have done. At the end the audience was delighted - and isn't that what counts?

Ballet, ballet, ballet

2011-07-07T14:24:00.002+03:00

Have seen about 5 ballets in the recent five weeks, including Coppelia, The Bright Stream (music by Shostakovich, a very funny tale of country folk on a Soviet collective farm in the 1930s, brilliant), a mix of modern dance pieces and two Tchaikovsky ballets (Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty) - all part of the American Ballet Theatre Season at the Met Opera building. Including also Julie Kent's 25th dancing performance anniversary, and one of the last ever performances of a famous male dancers who has retired at the age of 43 - 20 or more years of lifting ballerinas above his head have taken their toll.

Yesterday's Sleeping Beauty, which I think I have seen for the first time as a ballet, had the lovely Alina Cojocaru as the lead female. She was awesome, dancing it slightly over the top, with some extremely challenging positions, often holding on to them just a smidgeon longer than would have been strictly by the book. Overall I have to say I am getting a bit sick of Tchaikovsky ballets. They probably reflect the time and society they were written in, where there were prima ballerinas who needed to show off their steps, and as for the corps de ballet, its main role was rather more of a corpse de ballet. In both Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty (and probably also the Nutcracker) their main activity seems to be standing at the side of the stage, immobile, watching the stars of the performance strut their stuff. Not really very democratic.

And then, apart from the performance, who was the Lady in the Black Hat who sat in the director's box in the second half? I had spied the box as empty at in the first half and made my way there in the interval, when I saw a shopping bag outside it, and this lady talking loudly into her phone. I asked her if the seats were free, then 'vacant' and she said no, it's my seat (there are four...). Interesting that she did not enter the box until it had gone dark, and with wearing a black hat and dark clothing, and being rigidly turned towards the stage, was almost invisible to the rest of the audience. Was she Someone Famous?

A very rare symphony concert!

2011-05-16T01:12:00.004+03:00

Just made it into the concert of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall last night. Had left it late to leave home, found the subway was not running to Manhattan, instead I had to run to the tram (should have taken the bike after all) and then rushed across Manhattan from the tram stop, sliding into my seat in the balcony on the first applause. Luckily all these concerts have started with someone talking, so I did not miss any music. Boy, it's a long way up to the balcony, and then again a long way down to the front row (and a much longer way down to the floor of the hall). During the first half I noticed my seat neighbour fingering the balcony rail, which looks like painted cast iron, and is less than half an inch thick...not much to separate us from tipping down on the folks a long way below us. (She did not return for the second half).

The topic for this concert was the evolution of the symphony. Having rushed in at the last moment I had not picked up a programme, and often I don't like to look too much at the programming in advance, because I go for the performers rather than the programming. That way I get to hear interesting stuff. I knew it was Beethoven 5 at the end, and some Bach at the beginning, among quite a long list of pieces.

The announcement was that all pieces in the first half would be played continuously and that there should be no applause till the end of the first half. So Mr Nagano and the pianist (who I just discovered was the famous Angela Hewitt - I now hear all these people live that I used to hear on the radio) came on the stage... and the performance started with what I assumed to be Gabrieli, and turned out to be two of his Symphoniae Sacrae. Beautifully played by the brass section of the orchestra, standing in two groups opposite each other, and tossing themes backwards and forwards. It's so nice to hear brass music without having to fear that they will fall apart, have kinks and whatnot. Apart from being among perhaps the earliest pieces to include the s-word in their titles, they also served as rather nice fanfares to start the concert.

Immediately the last of their sound stopped reverberating round the hall, the audience had its solo of coughing. The CH actually gives out free cough sweets, in packets to be opened rustlingly (my seat neighbour had four and did not even cough...), but there seems little effect. Regardless, Ms Hewitt launched into the first of 3 sets of Bach Sinfonias for keyboard, a total of 10 out of the set of 15 - I actually have the sheet music, an Urtext version, here, but it's probably a bit naff to take sheet music to concerts, though people have been known to do that (haven't seen it in CH). While she was playing I was wondering whether I approved of Bach being played on a piano, but then thought that a harpsichord might not carry well in CH, and anyway, Andras Schiff does all his sublime performances on piano. It was a bit strange, hearing her play this music in front of the huge band and the immovable Kent Nagano .... Then a piece for orchestra followed, where I swear each section never played more than four notes at a stretch, with the same micro-motif appeared throughout the piece in all sections. It was fascinating how interesting this piece was, and yet not a single bit of melody. Turned out it was Webern's Symphony (op 21). It must be really hard to hold this piece together, and I wonder how it feels to play it? Emotionally I would not rush to hear it again, but intellectually it would be interesting to hear it a few more times to get more of a grip of it. This was followed by more Bach, and Stravinsky's wind symphony. Quite a rollercoaster of pieces!

Finally, well almost, we had Beethoven's fifth symphony. Yes, ok, a war horse, but well worth waiting for, and I suspect the lollipop to draw in the audience. It was a majestic performance, extremely fast, occasionally I thought the suspensions could have been held a smidgeon longer. But there were some other awesome corners (I really like extreme pianissimos, or pianissimi). Strangely I found the brass extremely bright. The instuments looked different, and later I wondered if they had used cornets rather than trumpets.

But this was not the end of the concert. As the conductor went off, some other musicians sidled onto the stage.... the first encore was something contemplative by Debussy, followed by the Le Corsaire overture. A great thrower-out, even though it might be strange to end a concert with an overture.

I've also realised that in NY no-one gets flowers at the end of a concert. My theory still stands that the poorer the country the more flowers the performers get (maybe they don't get much of a fee there). In Germany they get official flowers, in Lithuania official flowers and, often, a single tulip or whatever is in season, from audience members, in Russia I saw a lady bring in homemade bunches of flowers delivering them at all sorts of moments in the concert, like between movements (the next day I spotted her raiding rubbish bins for beer bottles), in Armenia tiny girls with bouquets larger than themselves struggle onto the stage. I suppose a bunch of flowers is an additional expense. Fair enough, what would the travelling performers do with a bunch of flowers, but it still seems a nice gesture.

NY Times reviews of the last two concerts here.

Overdose of Energy!

2011-05-14T23:20:00.004+03:00

'tis still the 'Spring for Music' Festival season at Carnegie Hall (I would prefer to write 'at the Carnegie Hall' but was taken to task by a faithful reader who said in NY they say 'at Carnegie Hall', like 'at church', or 'at school', I suppose. Interesting, and I wonder if it is just musicians who use the latter phrasings, or everyone). (Picture courtesy of NY Times)

It was only this week that I discovered how Carnegie Hall 'works', if I understood it correctly. Apparently it is totally run like a business. Whereas in Europe, especially Germany and I suspect Eastern European countries, concert halls employ orchestras or engage them (ie pay them) to perform there, here orchestras rent the hall, and have to cover their own expenses. And they then get some of the ticket income to compensate (I suppose the other part of the ticket income goes towards the hall rental, but they still have to cover travel and accommodation). So it's not surprising that some American Orchestras, like the Portland from Oregon (established in the 19th century) and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this week had their Carnegie Hall debut. Dallas managed to raise 250,000 towards the cost; don't know the figure for Oregon. Anyway, it's an expensive business. But on the other hand, if you, dear Reader, feel you want to have your Carnegie Hall debut, just find a kind sponsor to pay for it. I wonder if this affects the programming choices - it does, at times, seem a bit staid to me. Not only that, but also the orchestras and concert halls support the public radio when in other countries I think the radio pays for transmissions of events not of its own organising. Oh, it's a sad state of affairs.

This all reminded me of that opera company, complete with singers, chorus, orchestra, staging. from somewhere deep in the former Soviet Union, North Ossetia (Gergiev comes from South Ossetia), which trundled all the way to Edinburgh to perform in the Fringe Festival (which is more business like than the International Festival). No doubt her CV will now say that she and her band performed at the Edinburgh festival, which is, strictly speaking, true - but it was not the International Edinburgh Festival, even though both run at the same time, together with others...I think the main soprano's dad paid for it. Here's that story,...and her name is 'Viola'. I wonder if someone has told him about Carnegie Hall? She could do an evening of operatic arias...

Anyway, I digress. Last night it was the turn of the fabulous St Paul Chamber Orchestra, from St Paul, which is one of the Twin cities - the other one is Minneapolis (where the 2004 International Viola Congress took place). The tickets were relatively cheap, and the hall was about 60% full, including some of their supporters who had travelled all the way from St Paul. I hadn't heard the band before, but I had certainly heard of them. Like the Orpheus CO they play usually without a conductor, but there is very strong leadership from the first fiddler (I am in no way implying that there is no leadership in the Orpheus, dear Reader!).

As in all Spring for Music concerts, the programming was interesting. (I must admit to not caring a great deal for Andrew Previn/Tom Stoppards 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour', on another day, which I heard on the radio, about a mental hospital in the Soviet Union; it was quite funny and all that, but is really rather dated now). Last night's concert was fun, and interesting.

First the highly energised team played Stravinsky's Concerto in D for String Orchestra - with all performers standing (obviously apart from the celli). It had some lovely viola parts, was brisk, percussive (written in 1946) and a lot of fun. This was followed by Maria Schneider's (gee, she is about 5 years younger than me, she looked about 30) Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories for soprano and chamber orchestra, with the soprano being the awesome Dawn Upshaw (sometimes it's hard to write reviews in NY when you have such stellar performers). Maria Schneider usually writes Jazz and Big Band, so this was quite a departure for her. CD de A was a Brazilian poet, and the Brazilian music shone through nicely; it was very pleasant music, reminding me a bit of the Songs of the Auvergne. The only problem was that the orchestral accompaniment was quite loud, most of the time, I was sitting effectively above the stage entrance, sort of behind Ms Upshaw's right shoulder, so it was quite difficult for me to hear her over the orchestra.

Luckily she had a second piece, with string orchestra, of Bartok's Five Hungarian Folk Songs, arranged by Richard Tognetti. I assume it may have been a piano accompaniment once? Sometimes it seemed a bit of a challenge to keep all the strings busy. But hey, this was so funky! Ms Upshaw sang in Hungarian (from memory), and she was having so much fun - as did the audience. Inevitably it was a mix of happy and sad songs - I knew some of them, whether from spending some time in a Hungarian village or from hearing them elsewhere, I don't know.

And finally Haydn's 104 symphony (one of the 12 London symphonies). A lovely, highly energetic performance, with a wonderful percussionist who was a pleasure to watch (not quite up to 'our' Povilas Giunteris, but then few percussionists have that personality). It had some lovely touches in the minuet and trio, with dynamics which might not have been written in the original score (but what do I know about the score of this piece). I was wondering if Haydn's band at Esterhazy, in that presumably cold castle, would have been so energetic.

Hard-hitting Stuff!

2011-05-08T04:39:00.003+03:00

This afternoon I didn't go to the Met ($$$) but to the Bruno Walter Auditorium, for a free concert. Yes, these exist in New York, if oyu know where to go, or if your friends point you to them. It was the cellist Sam Magill (of the Met Orchestra) and Beth Levin on the piano, with a mixed programme of Beethoven, Rudin (alive and well), Debussy and Vierne.

The programme, in the packed little hall (about 200 seats) started with a Beethoven sonata for cello and piano. I love Beethoven cello sonatas, and have a few recordings of them. But I nearly flew out of my chair when the piano started - it was incredibly loud! I could immediately understand why the piano lid was only about an inch open.... Somehow this performance was not what I would have expected; it did not hang together, the phrases did not flow and create tension. Maybe it was the first-piece-in-the-programme-before-a-world-premiere syndrome, but I was a bit disturbed, and worried about the rest of the concert. But perhaps the cellist was a bit disturbed by the loud, loud piano?

Andrew Rudin's cello and piano sonata was interesting. Not least because I know quite a good cellist called Alexander Rudin who used to regularly play in Vilnius - there are not enough names to go round musicians, sometimes. It was a nice, fairly conventional piece, with no unusual noises, scratching below the bridge and so on - but with quite a challenging ending, technically. Otherwise it was not at the extremes of virtuosity, I think (but am open to correction). I liked the faster movement in the middle (but then I tend to like these), and I thought this performance went better than the Beethoven.I suspect for our Mr Geringas it might not be avantgarde enough, but not everyone needs to write avantgarde music.

The last two pieces, by Debussy and Vierne, also went vastly better than the B. The Debussy was not the usual sweetish kind of stuff that people like about Debussy (La Mer)- but I know he changed his composition style as he aged. Normally I would run miles from Debussy. Vierne's Sonata for cello and piano was nice, too and beautifully played, on the cello.

The New Brandenburgs

2011-05-07T04:52:00.004+03:00

Tonight was the first concert of Spring for Music, a sort of mini festival in the Carnegie Hall, of, let's say, adventurous planning, with matching cheap ticket prices. I'm not sure how often I can afford to sit in the third row of the 'parteris' as we say in Lithuania. Actually those seats are a little low, and you get a good view of the orchestra's shoes.

Never mind. As a loyal follower of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra I bought my ticket and was there, at least in the first half. Then I had had quite enough of contemporary music (not that I am usually averse to it), and got home, thanks to the new bike, in time to hear the second half on the radio. So I don't need to feel totally guilty.

The hall was quite well sold. I now get the sinking feeling when I go into the hall and see a PA system. But luckily Americans are not too prone to liking to hear themselves talk (at least sometimes), and so the speeches were short, and one of them amusing, at least. This one was by what looked like an elderly actor, who, I am told, was none other than Frasier's younger brother Niles, in a previous life! I should have been gobsmacked!

The concert was of six concertos commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in memory of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos. So what these concertos had in common with the original Brandenburgs was the instrumentation, more or less, the number of movements, more or less, the length of the concertos (more rather than less), and the occasional, very occasional, quote of Bach. The order of the concertos, using the instrumentation as an indicator, was different from that of the original Brandenburgs. And frankly, Nardo, could you not have told me that the second half was more exciting than the first half?

The first concerto, a la 6th, with no violins and viola soloists, by Aaron Jay Kerns was, frankly, rather soporific, and so I rested my eyes. But as usual in this case, I caught every note. Nice viola playing, for three violas mostly - the fourth one joined in occasionally. Reminds me of the Mozart concerto for three pianos, where the third part is rather less engaged. Nice viola playing, very nice! It was a kind of dialogic piece, with a bit of melody or whatever played by the violas, and chucked over to the cellos, who replied.

The second piece, inspired by No 4, was for two flutes and a violin. Hate to say that, but the flutes had difficulties cutting through. Perhaps it where I was sitting, and the flutes hiding behind their music stands. It was quite a nice piece, though, with some awesome violin playing, and it did contain a couple of Bach quotes.

The third piece, for flute, violin and piano, was Maxwell Davies' (him of Orkney) Sea Orpheus - oh, the link to the orchestra, the sea surrounding his living place.....It was for piano, violin and flute, a la No 5. The pianist, Christopher Taylor did his best to be the conductor, giving entries to all and sundry, including the other two soloists with their backs to him. It was quite nice, not sure about how sea-y it was. Also in the usual Bach format, in terms of movements, though the piano had a bigger solo in the first movement than in the second, unlike, I think, but don't quote me on it, the Bach 5th.

Then I left, was quite contemporary musicked-out. Got home, and found myself still in the interval (it was being broadcast 'live', with a half-hour delay), and heard the last three concertos - which were much exciting, as evidenced also by the cheers from the audience. Christopher Theofanidis' piece 'Muse' was rather Philip Glass-y, and sounded exciting. Stephen Haartke's 'A Brandenburg Autumn was apparently inspired by him being in the Berlin region, including Brandenburg' (the region) itself. He had recently added a fourth movement, unlike Bach. Also exiting (probably more so than the region...apart from Berlin itself, though there was word that the chipping of the wall was also included), as was finally Paul Moravec's 'Brandenburg Gate'. But I have to admit that at home concentration was not as good as it should have been, what with doing one thing or another at the same time.

So, the concert was good for education, and probably, had I stayed for the second half, I might have joined that excitement. Oh well....

Orfeo - yet again

2011-05-06T02:31:00.002+03:00

I've reviewed the Vilnius Orfeo at least three times (and I've probably seen it more often than that) - and yesterday it was the Orfeo, by Gluck, at the Met Opera. Slightly a step up, in ticket cost and probably soloists as well.

This production was by Mark Morris, a well-known choreographer - and it showed. Lots of dancing in it. To be honest, at the beginning I found the production a bit boring, both visually (the colours were fairly drab) and in terms of action - some of the dancing seemed a bit pointless. But I suppose in New York, especially this week, it would be a bit sensitive to set it in the 9/11 scenario as the Vilnius performance had been, especially this week, with screaming sirens, firemen (including Orfeo) running all over the place, Orfeo's first appearance being a scream from the middle of the audience and so on.

This version was set in a kind of Roman theatre, like the Colloseum, with, I am told, famous people from all periods, on three or four levels, represented in the choir. It was a big choir! If you think about it, the underworld, or heaven, or hell, being full to bursting with famous and not so famous people. I wonder where the guy who died earlier this week (you know who I mean) ended up. Do Muslims believe in heaven and hell, or is that more of a Christian thing?

The overture was oh so martial! I was a bit startled at that. Afterwards it settled down; I did notice the difference in this version (for Vienna) in the famous Euridice aria, and I also thought that the dance of the blessed spirits was a bit short (no repeats?). The dance of the furies was not all that furious - the grey spectrum colours did not exactly help, either.

The singing was awesome, though. David Daniels, the countertenor, had a lovely warm voice, unlike some of the more screechy countertenors heard in Vilnius, and Amor was great, too - also in the acting. Euridice seemed to have a very small role (does she have a bigger role in the Italian version?) so Kate Royal was a bit limited in being able to show off her full potential - but the scene of where she was trying to persuade her Orfeo to look at her was heartbreaking.

The dancing scene at the end, which went on rather longer than in the Vilnius (and Italian) version (but hey, what do you have a choreographer for as producer) was rather fun; much more colourful (in terms of clothes) than the rest of the opera, and rather funkily disco dancing to the sounds of baroque/classical music.

The show went on without a break. Next to me I had a German couple who were chatting a bit too much for my liking (quite apart from the at least 3 cellphones that went off during the performance) - it seems they thought it might have been Andreas Scholl as the countertenor, but it wasn't.

Brutal Democracy!

2011-04-30T05:58:00.003+03:00

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra may be unique in always playing without a conductor - though at least the Kremerata Baltica does it quite often, too. But I have never seen an orchestra where the soloist sidles in with the whole band, in the middle of them, rather than making an entrance on his or her own! Not sure that every soloist could take that - it's not exactly ego-boosting. More like Prima inter Pares, in tonight's case, with Arabella Steinbacher as the soloist. And then, without a conductor, there is no one for the soloist to hold on to, so to speak - quite often, in concerts, there are many exchanges of gaze between conductor and soloist, but here she was pretty much on her own - in difficult pieces. Who could she communicate with? Who was leading? But the Orpheus gets plenty of excellent soloists, so it must be all right. The fact that Gidon Kremer complained bitterly about the band in one of his many autobiographies does not mean that much, he's a bit prone to doing that.

Another unusual aspect is that the seats in the orchestra keep changing, particularly in the strings - so the person who was in a seat in one piece may be sitting in a completely different seat (in the same instrument group). Not entirely sure that that really matters, especially since they've always done it, but it's interesting. So if you are in the band, you could be sitting anywhere, unlike in other orchestras where people work their way from the back to the front, if they are lucky, or all the way to the back, if they aren't.

Anyway, the concert started with R Strauss' wind serenade, op 7, for a rather large group of winds. A very romantic piece, written in 1881, so quite early in his career - the guy lived quite long. Actually, he was an adolescent lad of 17 then; his dad was a very good horn player... It was a nice piece, but the sound arrived at my seat like a big bowl of chicken soup with lots of spaghetti length noodles - the individual voices were not very clear. Perhaps that was his intention? It was nice, but the texture, I felt, could have been better. I was eyeing those four horns at the back and thinking about the Schumann piece for four horns and orchestra....

Then we had, wandering in in the middle of the band, Arabella Steinbacher, who mercifully wore a bright red gown, so we could identify her more easily (plus she was the only one standing up, once the orchestra had settled, apart from one bassist). The concerto was Hartmann's Concerto Funebre, written at the start of the second world war - and I wonder what he knew about all the horrors being committed at the time. Nut surprisingly it was somewhat of a dark piece (not sure about the hope being expressed in the last movement, as the programme notes say). It had a very biting, strident third movement, which was awesome. Steinbacher, who played this from memory (awesome all by itself, try asking Y Bashmet to play anything from memory), did wonderfully - getting a nice dark, mournful tone from her violin - and everything hung together.

Following the interval, we had Mozart and Haydn. As a result few people left the concert hall, compared to last week's effort by the American Symphony Orchestra. Mozart's Adagio, and Rondo, for violin and orchestra. Both sublimely played and Steinbacher again produced quite a beautiful tone, very different from the Hartmann (well, obviously - but not everyone might have been able to 'get' these different moods). Finally she added an encore, of something really well-known, of the virtuosic variety (Kreisler, I am told) which knocked the socks off the audience. For this she got a bit of a standing ovation - a real one, not one caused by people rushing out of the hall. Incidentally, I am sure I heard her in Vilnius with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, before my blogging days - but it's not mentioned in her biography. Maybe rightly so....

The concert (almost) ended with Haydn's London Symphony. Here I thought that at times it did not quite hang together. In the second movement there was a moment when a big idea fell apart a little bit - too much of a rest between the strings finishing and the flutes entering; and in the trio the oboe seemed to get a bit carried away with himself - trying to add suspense, but it was a bit over-stretching the knicker elastic. Otherwise it was fine, and even with multiple instrument roles obviously this band can hold it together.

The next bit was again a bit surprising. The applause started, the orchestra bowed, and trouped out en masse, with all instruments, even the basses, being carried off. But the applause was continuing - and so they all trooped back. Also a bit unusual. They gave an encore, Handel, either fireworks or water music with nice horn lines - this was in aid of something; someone had given short speech - something to do with the patrons. Who obviously need to be treated in a very kind way, especially these days. It was a very pleasant end to the evening - and then the orchestra trooped out one way, and the audience the other way - after rather brief applause (by that time the concert had become quite long).

But overall, it's a very nice and great band - particularly given the challenge of working without a conductor. Though hey, they've been at that long enough to have worked out a modus operandi!

Love, love, love....

2011-04-27T04:21:00.002+03:00

Last night at Carnegie Hall it was Thomas Quasthoff, Michael Schade, Bernarda Fink and Sylvia Schwartz singing, with Malcolm Martineau and Justus Zeyen on the piano. Both of them, on the same piano, for almost the whole programme. That kind of programming is quite rare, I would have thought. Maybe the left-over of Hausmusik as it was played in domestic living rooms in the early 19th century?

The programme was all Schumann and Brahms, Liebeslieder (love songs), mostly, though some also addressed to 'die Heimat'. It was the first time I had heard all of them live, and I was very curious about Quasthoff about whom I have read so much, including his autobiography. He's quite the star in the German scene. Oh yes, did I mention that all the songs were in German?

So first there was Schumann's Spanish Songbook. I am noticing that just now, when I can read the programme (these fat programmes seem to be always free here in the glorious US). I have to say I did not hear much Spanish anything in them. But it probably explains why the river 'Ebro' (Ebrus?) was mentioned in one of the songs. The programme talks about bolero-like rhythms.... they must have been very subtle.

Brahms' lovesong waltzes followed - these were clearly waltzes, and much fun was had on the stage. Sadly, throughout the evening, the ladies were a bit stiff, while the lads were having quite a lot of fun. Then more Brahms - four quartets, longingly singing of 'die Heimat' - that was a very moving quartet (psycho-question to self - why did I find that so moving?), and finally Brahms' NEW lovesong waltzes. More of the same, to some degree.

So the programme was very homogeneous, but quite lovely, beautifully sung, apart from those restrained ladies (who nevertheless sang beautifully). My heart did sink a bit when I saw the number of songs, but most were quite short. All the singers, it seems are very very high class singers - and maybe I was just a bit far from them, in the dress circle. Gee, those stairs are steep - both those getting up to there, and those in the cress circle climbing down to the lower rows.

Finally there were two encores of German folksongs, sung immediately after each other - "Da unten im Tale' and something about 'die Heide' which I know well but cannot remember the words. Quasthoff said it was his favourite song, and certainly, the performance was totally sublime! Come to think of it, as were some of the other Lieder as well. It was a great evening!

Loud and Very Long!

2011-04-23T00:43:00.003+03:00

So I had bought a ticket to the American Symphony Orchestra yesterday, in the Carnegie Hall. Since the tickets are relatively cheap at 25 dollars (plus booking fee) I had not looked at what they are playing (A friend normally plays in the band but was sick yesterday).

The programme was Paul Dessau's 'Passover in Exile', a monumental work, well-timed to fit the season, with a huge orchestra, two choirs, 14 adult and 3 child soloists (Dessau used to work in Hollywood where maybe he worked with huge forces; he clearly had not read Bach's correspondence, pleading for being allowed more than about 12 singers (I think) in his choirs).

My seat was in the box right over the percussion and the brass, a move I soon regretted - the piece was LOUD! Essentially it's the story of the Jews fleeing Egypt, so in terms of action and aggression it had much in common with Bach's Passions. It was sung in Hebrew, I think - certainly the transliterated words in the programme did not look Russian, as a guy beside me told his accompanying female. Must have been quite something for the singers to get their tongues round.

Interestingly the hall, which was almost sold out according to the Carnegie hall website, was only about 80% full, and nearer 60% full by the time the second half started. During the interval I went outside, and was nearly knocked down by people rushing away - far away. A trickle kept trickling out during the long second half of the concert, too. Hard when you have to manoeuver a walking aid with wheels, but people managed, fairly gracefully. I expected the audience to be more Jewish than normal, but generally it did not seem to be - the more visible Orthodox Jews seemed to prefer besporting themselves on Roosevelt Island that afternoon - the tram over had been packed by families in their finery, with hugely excited children. Maybe going to concerts is not something Orthodox Jews do?

Sooooo, it was very long - pages and pages of text, and near the end I kept praying that I would see the basses turn to the last page - which eventually came. Somewhere in the second half there was rather a nice children's song, or so it seemed - but it seemed to have endless verses. Generally three verses are quite enough of anything! Most of the time the piece was very very loud, with lots of brass, percussion, two pianos on the other side of the stage, a harp, every possible bit of force the composer could muster. Except the shofar - I would have expected that in it as well. What did it cost to put this show on?

I wondered whether the composer had ever written 'p' as in 'piano' in the score. Maybe 5 times it was a bit quieter, for a very short while, but generally it was 'fff' throughout. The soloists were fine; the opening bass particularly good. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus' conductor annoyed me, though. She sang along with the choir (female voices only, including 5 boys), and rather dramatically stage managed the choir with huge waves of her arm each time they had to stand up or sit down. Surely she could have led them by example, just sitting down or standing up? They all looked like pretty good girls....

I like it when I go to concerts and get something unexpected, which is why I buy tickets sometimes without looking what is on. This was a learning experience! At the same time I think I am done with this piece - would be happy to hear Bach's Passions ad nauseam, or rather ad never nauseam; this piece I can give a miss.

St John Passion in NY

2011-04-18T05:19:00.002+03:00

Heard it today in the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, performed by the St Andrew Chorale and Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Henderson. Last night I could have heard the St Matt's Passion, elsewhere, but I had already been to Wozzeck in the afternoon.

Managed to use my student ID to get in a bit cheaper. The church was not that well sold - maybe 80% or so. So the band consisted of a choir of about 40 people and a small orchestra, with one cello and one bass. Virtually behind whom I sat, and I now know every bass note in that piece.

Andrew Henderson sort of conducted from the harpsichord. Sort of because in the choruses he stood up and conducted, similarly in anything that involved orchestral forces - he harpsichorded mainly in the recitatives.

I noticed they sang from the Henle Urtext edition, which may explain why the very sad closing chorus (Ruhe sanft), was unexpectedly followed by a rather up-beat chorale. Did Bach really urtext that?

I thought that overall the choruses lacked tension. There is a lot of aggression in that piece, and that did not really come out. Once or twice I also thought that the chorus and the orchestra were a little apart. The evangelist, Andrew Fuchs, was wonderful, though, totally enacting the whole story line. His German diction was perfect (surname, hmmm?) and he did a lot to keep the thing flowing. The other soloists, who kept stepping out of the choir, were not bad either, though none had Mr Fuchs' perfect diction. Some could have been more faithful to the score on the dynamics.

The orchestra was generally quite ok, though the cellist seemed to be struggling a bit in his main solo part which was a shame. At another moment the first violins came completely off their skids in their solo part, but managed to recover. I assume the instrumental musicians were professionals. They did have a nice touch with baroque interpretation and little vibrato.

It was ok, but the evangelist definitely won the day!

NOT 'the Barber of Seville'

2011-04-17T18:58:00.003+03:00

as I overheard on leaving the gruelling, gruelling performance of Wozzeck, by Alban Berg, at the Met yesterday afternoon. No, Ma'am, it certainly was not.

To be honest, I would not have gone if someone had not forced a ticket on me. And I am very very grateful to him!!! It's an amazing piece, quite a psychodrama. It's short (was performed without an interval, or 'innermission' as Americans call it. Apparently yesterday's performance was broadcast in Europe, and probably elsewhere, so a friend of mine in the UK caught it, too.

The production was fairly star studded, with Waltraud Meier (a big [not physically] Wagnerian) as Marie (why are women in such dramas always called 'Marie'?), and Alan Held as Wozzeck. Amazing was also Gerhard Siegel as the Captain, who constantly asks for people to live life slowly, and Walter Fink as the doctor, who sees patients mainly as cases, and was desperate to become immortal through some medical discovery. The music, which is very much into sound painting (Klangmalerei) seems to be extremely demanding of singers - I realise why this cannot be performed everywhere (say, Vilnius, hush my mouth). The way the music reflects the emotions is truly awesome! Like Wagnerian operas, this one does not do arias, but is more of a rapidly changing conversation. With fairly rapidly changing sets, which were simple, but ingenious.

Although this opera is gruelling, especially at the end, and involves a murder, it did contain some funny moments, such as the vain doctor, and the captain with his own philosophy of life.

James Levine, who has not been well recently, was conducting. Apparently he is really attached to this opera, understandably. (I must say that the subtitles, in German and English) really helped the understanding of it, though the singers' diction was also fairly clear (quite a few seemed to be German.... He was cheered onto the stage, or rather into the pit, but was unable to join the performers on the stage. But these New Yorkers annoy me, at the end of concerts. Many stand up, but it's only to rush to the exit. Meanwhile, those of us who want to keep applauding, cannot see anything, so are forced into a standing ovation (which was deserved here). Some prat behind me started applauding as soon as the last tone expired - but really this opera needs a bit of contemplation before the applause.

It's an opera I would definitely go to see again, though it has just finished its run for this season.

Second New York Philharmonic Concert – I walked out!

2011-04-15T02:01:00.000+03:00

So while waiting for the concert to start I thought that it might be quite boring to blog about concerts in New York, given that I expected most to be pretty perfect. Wrong!

Tonight it was Kurt Masur (in a grey silk smock, later exchanged for a brown one), the orchestra with Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca Young as viola soloists. To be fair, Masur was a little under the weather – we had received an email before the concert that he could not conduct the middle (contemporary) piece on account of an eye infection and being unable to see the score. He seems to be well-loved in New York as the former music director of the NY Phil and now its Conductor Emeritus, though, with his arrival on the stage being greeted by cheers from the audience.

The concert started with Liszt's Preludes, which I thought I might have played in Hungary, but had not in fact. I did know them very well, though, though I might never have thought that they are by Liszt. There did not seem to be a drop of Hungarian blood in them, or at least in this interpretation. They sounded rather teutonic, in fact. They were nice, of course, but did not set the heather alight.

They were followed by Cynthia Phelps (in a turquoise shoulder-less outfit a la Mutter), and Young (in a single-shouldered outfit, in dark lilac) in Gubaidulina's 'Two Paths – a dedication to Mary and Martha'. This was a very slow, and very contemplative piece, conducted by the young assistant conductor of the NY Phil, with great precision and vigor. The piece was not particularly vigorous, however, more of a meditation/contemplation. Young, who seemed to be fixed to the C-string, produced a wonderful sound – Phelps was more in nosebleed country. It was an interesting, but slow and non-virtuosic piece (apart from those high harmonics) and I noticed watches being looked at by the people around me. The applause was 'endenwollend' (willing itself to end), as they might say in Germany

Finally it was Brahms' first symphony, conducted again by Masur. I love this piece – but oy vey, the interpretation. Where was the tension of those opening bars? Then I contemplated leaving, but the second movement put the hat on it. It was like watching paint dry – so excruciatingly slow. I did wonder if it was the distance from the stage that left me so cold – quite apart from the draft hitting my neck. I left, as did someone else who said 'the Brahms was shit'. He shall remain nameless.....

Too many Fis(c)hers by half

2011-04-15T01:59:00.002+03:00

Last Wednesday (6^th) it was the (Chamber?) Orchestra of St Luke's, with the conductor Ivan Fisher and the violinist Nikolaj Znaider, at the Carnegie Hall, with an Eastern European programme consisting of Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak.

I went along with the idea of Fis(c)her conducting all of Haydn's symphonies (I have the full set on my iPod) and found his interpretation of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony suitably light and springy, fully Haydnesque.

And then the Tchaikovsky violin concerto started similarly lightly – as transparent as I have ever heard it. This was going to be interesting! Almost like a classical piece! But then Znaider, wearing a black suit with a scarlet lining, launched into a purely romantic interpretation, with lots of …..Somehow it did not seem to match the orchestra's style, and yet, somehow, it worked. Znaider wrung out every emotion from the piece, and then some. He replied to the rapt applause with a little bit of Bach, which I found quite nice, but at the beginning of this the phrasing went a bit astray – the phrases were merged into each other, though he recovered by the end of it.

Finally we had Dvorak's 7^th symphony, of which, after almost a week, I cannot remember that much. Like all Dvorak it had a lovely viola solo or two, and some nice Bohemian country dance themes which the conductor (and the somewhat sparser audience than in the first half of the concert) enjoyed enjoyed fully – I think; the applause after this seemed somewhat sparing, but perhaps this is the New York style.

Returning home, I switched on my iPod for some more Fis(c)her Haydn – only to discover that these were conducted by the Hungarian Adam Fischer, rather than Ivan Fisher. Oops.

Vilnius, the Viola and Carnegie Hall

2011-04-06T14:34:00.002+03:00

So there I was in the fairly packed Carnegie Hall, listening to Midori, Nobuko Imai, Antoine Lederlin (cello) and Jonathan Biss (piano) and it suddenly occurred to me that on two days running I would be in the hall, and each of those days a master-class giver to the Lithuanian Music Academy, somewhat sponsored by me, would be performing on the stage. Awesome.

I'd never heard Midori before (nor two of the others) - incredible to be in the presence of such a legend. The music was all classical (Haydn) or romantic (Schubert, Dvorak, plus a romantic encore) chamber music. Midori plays like an intense, hyperactive flea; lots of movement, even where you would not expect it, but very very intense. Her cellist, Lederlin, on the other hand, had a very quiet stage presence, which balanced Midori well. (I could not really see the pianist, sorry). At the beginning I was in the dress circle, somewhat high above the stage (my neighbour commented that he tended to suffer from vertigo), and at times it was very difficult to hear her (and the cellist) over the piano - not least when she plays pianissimo she really does achieve it, as did her cellist partner (later, even in the second row, I had difficulties at times). The pieces were sublimely played, but I thought the Schubert could have done with more weltschmerz.

In the second half of the concert Nobuko Imai joined them, for the Dvorak piano quintet. Like much of Dvorak's writing it had a gorgeous viola line or two, which were very enjoyable. It was a interesting combination; the fierce intensity of Midori, the quietness of the cellist, and Ms Imai somewhere in between the two. At times I thought Ms Imai could have played with a little more vigour, to balance Midori. I wondered why she did not play in the whole programme, or are there such few piano quartets?

It would have been nice, in terms of the whole concert, to have something contemporary, too; something the performers and the audience could get their teeth into. It was all a bit too beautiful.

While the concert was part of the Japan season at the Carnegie Hall, it has not taken on particular meaning, given the earthquake less than a month ago, and the manager of Carnegie Hall came on stage to ask to a minute's silence (has he been doing this at every Japan concert in the last month, I asked myself). Interestingly, in America don't seem to stand for these things.

A vibrato that can cut steel!

2011-04-01T13:25:00.003+03:00

Got to NY yesterday morning, after about 20 hours of travel, rushed about all day, and at night rushed into my first NY concert, that of Anne-Sophie Mutter, the New York Philharmonic and Michael Tilson-Thomas, no less!

What can you say to people like this? It's very hard....

The concert started with Prokofiev's Overture on American Themes, played by a much reduced NY Philharmonic orchestra; one cello, two harps, two double basses, a few strings, percussion, celesta, two pianos etc. I wonder what made him write for such a combination. The music was quite American, but the themes were not that well-known to me. Structure was fast, slow, fast. It was quite a fun piece!

Then Ms Mutter appeared, with an enlarged orchestra, to play Gubaidulina's 'In tempus praesens' - a NY premiere. Also essentially a piece in the same structure, with a cadenza - so fairly conventional in form. Ms Mutter, in the mermaid-style shoulder-free dress of which she always wears her concert outfits (very well), opened with such a strong vibrato that I wondered if Ms Gubaidulina had written this expressly in the score. Her sound could have cut steel, and certainly arrived well at the end of the hall! It reminded me of some concerts recently where I had said that the soloists did not get well above the orchestra (and I had blamed it on not having my hearing aid in). This time I suspect even without my artificial support I would not have written that I couldn't hear her! The piece was very interesting, though not of a whistle-able type, and the somewhat sparse applause at the end of it showed the audience's puzzle with it. Essentially it was a variety on the theme of 'scales' - covering the violin from low G to 'stratospheric', but wow, what a sound production! The strings were a bit thin in numbers, and I realised only later that it does not seem to contain violins - the orchestra was lead by the violists! (Is it Schnittke's viola concerto that is organised like this, too?). There was much percussion, as the often the case with contemporary East European music. The first two movements were quite atmospheric, and not all that virtuosic - the last movement, supported by a very rhythmic insertion of, mmm, heavy beats, made up for this. It was an awesome performance - I just wonder about that very heavy vibrato, and wondered how Bashmet might have played it, had he played violin.

Finally it was, I assume, the full NY Phil band, with Tchaikovsky's second symphony. It was interesting to see how many Asian faces it contained - does it reflect the NY population proportions, I wondered? But such an orchestra gets the best players from anywhere. I thought that I had not heard this symphony before, but later recognised quite a few places in it. It opens with a terrifying horn solo - at least with this orchestra you don't have to be at the edge of the seat, wondering if the hornist will make it. It is a bit unusual in that it does not contain a slow, contemplative movement, but skips along from the beginning to the end. I also wondered what it would be like to set a ballet to it. There were flavours of Swan Lake, and the last movement reminded me strongly of Mussorgsky's Pictures of an Exhibition, particularly the Greate Gates of Kiev. It was an awesome performance, and I liked the way the first and second violins were sitting opposite each other - that really worked very well. Tilson-Thomas seems to be a very precise conductor - it would be difficult not to know which beat you are on (unlike with many other famous conductors), and he really brought out the dance and joy in this music.

Very interesting applause - it started while the orchestra was still finishing the last note. A couple of people jumped up for a standing ovation; in time others did, too, but mostly in order to put on their coats; there is no place to leave coats in this concert hall. So orchestras, conductors and soloists should not let a standing audience go to their heads, unless it's in the middle of the concert....

New York, New York!!!

2011-02-19T14:08:00.003+02:00

Yay! I'm going to move to New York soon, for a job. Unbelievable - I can't wait!

Have worked out how much I will earn - it's a bit more, partly pay rise, partly cost-of-living adjustment, but oy vey, the costs of NY! Housing won't leave much change out of 3000 dollars per month, and then there are always these weird taxes - prices seem to be recorded without sales tax, so whatever it says in the book or on the website, you pay more. Need to check out about my organization's employees' status; in other countries we have diplomatic status and get our sales tax back, but not sure about the US, given that we need a visa to work there.

Looked at the food prices which also seemed high, until I converted the Botswana prices into dollars (as opposed to Euros or Litas, like I used to do); probably costs are not that much higher, except for things like meat and so on. Cigarettes, on the other hand, are vastly higher, so I am cutting back dramatically. Did go for 36 hours without one earlier this week, but at the moment am having about 2 or 3 a day. It's quite a good test of resolve to have a packet of them lying there and not touching them.

Concert tickets are already getting into control; am on the mailing list of one or two orchestras, including also the Lincoln centre (there are some flats available there - at vast cost), and I hope to get into concerts as soon as I land in NY.

Watch this space!

The boy has become a man!

2010-12-31T17:44:00.001+02:00

(I am writing this as I am watching Cosi fan tutte on the ZDF Theaterkanal, which will be followed by a very funny production of Cinderella (the ballet), and a Berlinerised version of the Weiss Roessl Inn later - who needs to go out on a snowy winter's night?).

Last night at the Filharmonija it was the Kremerata Baltica with various soloists, but without Kremer. Note that one time Kremer, in one of his (many, largely complaining) biographical volumes, wrote scathingly about the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York, which always plays without a conductor - he felt it caused total chaos. Not in 'his own' orchestra, presumably, even though by virtue of age his players are much less experienced.

The group started with an arrangement of pieces ('Trilogy') from the Art of Fugue (Bach), by three composers. One wonders how three composers (Alexandras Raskatovas, Stevanas Kovacsas Tickmayeris and Raminta Serksnyte - can't help feeling that the first couple of names were lithuanised) collaborate on the same piece; but since there were more than 3 pieces, the 'trilogy' may relate to the trilogy of composers rather than pieces, especially given the style of the pieces - some were much more modern than others. The Kremerata belted along, giving its best - but does the cello really lead the band? Nice, vigorous playing.

This was to be followed by the Telemann viola concerto with Ula Zebriunaite, but she was nowhere to be seen...So instead the violin and viola leader played a piece of film music by Nyman; ah well, we have to put up with anything. I thought the viola player would also be effective in a heavy rock band; he's a very vigorous player with a beautiful sound where he plays lyrically.

Then, in a daisy chain of repetitions, we heard the Bach concerto for violin and oboe again - had only heard it three days ago....Again the violin was not all that audible, but I wonder whether it is because an oboe can cut through a bunch of strings better than another string player. Agne Doveikaite who I think won third or fourth prize at the Heifetz competition a couple of years ago has matured very well since then, and seemed to have a lot of fun, as did Juste Gelgotaite on oboe.

After the interval we had some Gorecki. Older UK listeners will remember his third symphony which hit the top of the classical pops at the time. It's kind of wallpaper, or mood, music - does not say anything specific, but I suppose some people like it. I think Gorecki died this year, so maybe it was 'in memoriam'. All the same, there is more exciting music, though the Kremerata did its best to enliven it.

Finally we had Chopin's first piano concerto (which can be played with a string quartet, I have a recording with Luisada of this) with the young Lithuanian/Russian genius, Lukas Geniusas. He had won the second prize in the Chopin piano competition (which launched Marta Argerich in her day) with an all-Chopin programme. It was very nice - the first movement seemed a bit fast, and the last one a bit lacklustre - could he not have made the first theme a bit funkier? People had raved about his performance of the second movement at the competition. But generally it was a very sound performance, and he got a standing ovation from the rear of the hall. He seemed much more comfortable on stage than a few years ago; I hope he goes further. The first encore was another Chopin piece, stunningly performed - and then followed by a Piazzolla (?) piece with the orchestra (When I went into the concert I was sure we'd have some Piazzolla.) So he can play stuff other than Chopin - this one was fun! I hope his career gets going now!

Fashion on Parade!

2010-12-27T22:17:00.003+02:00

The series of Christmas Week Concerts at the Filharmonija continued on Monday with the Concert by the Muzika Humana, the small chamber ensemble which more usually plays at the Lutheran Church on a Sunday evening (not every Sunday evening!). I have often commented on its conductor's style of conducting, his love of encores etc and will restrain myself this time.

The MH seems to have a new leader, Paulius Biveinis, whose career I have watched (from a distance) from when he had very long hair, very short hair, and now seems to have longer hair again. He used to be leader of the Music Academy's orchestra, played in the Chamber Orchestra, and now is in Muzika Humana (and maybe other orchestras as well since the MH is not full-time employment), but he's never quite hit the Big Time. Otherwise it was much the usual crowd apart from a young woman at the back of the first violins.

The programming was Bach and Corelli, starting with Corelli's Christmas Concerto. I always forget how long this is, with about 6 movements or so, and the 'famous bit' is about the fourth or fifth movement. Reliably played and all that.

Then we had some the first of a series of Bach; a couple of recitatives and arias for soprano (Raminta Vaiceskauskaite, an apparition in red) and bass (Ignas Misiura) from the Christmas Cantata. It was nice but a bit strange; only Ms Vaiceskauskaite was on stage first, doing her bit, very nicely, and then Mr Misiura strolled on, in an outfit that can only be described as a mixture between bell-hop and the hunter coming back from the hunt. A very short grey jacket, buttoned up to the neck, with one lapel hanging open, and a velvet collar and velvet pocket covers (or whatever you call those flaps above pockets). Mr Misiura is a very stylish man and appears to like following fashions, but I am not sure about the shortness of that jacket in a concert hall. How many female singers would you see in a mini-skirt whilst performing?

This was followed by Bach's first orchestral overture (hadn't we heard the first movement the day before?). I have to say I always find these boring, with all those stately dances and so on. I know the cello suites are much the same, also series of dances, but they seem to have more depth. This performance was solid and reliable, but did not set the heather alight.

After the interval we had the Bach concerto for violin and oboe, with Paulius Biveinis as the violin soloist and the inimitable Robertas Beinaris on oboe. A former trumpeter behind me muttered - this is not original. So I listened hard and thought that I had heard the first movement as an organ piece before, but Bach transcribed his own and other pieces, other people transcribed Bach's pieces ad nauseam - so who knows what was the original. Beinaris' performance was spirited, as always, Biveinis' might have been, had I been able to hear him. Not sure if it is his instrument, but his sound really does not cut across the orchestra - it sounded rather diffident. Technically it was sound but I would have liked more (audible) sparkle.

Finally we had the first movement of the Christmas Oratorio - at least something of it, it's so rare in Lithuania. The reason for the rarity may lie in the Soviet occupation; my trumpeter friend told me he performed it in 1976 in the Filharmonija - since under Soviet rules there was no god and no religion, the oratorio was performed in the spring, to quite clearly divorce it from any religious nonsense. Here the choir Jauna Muzika joined the band. What an apparition! It seems the JM has come into money - the ladies in individually tailored silk dresses according to their very different body shapes, with matching silk wraps or jackets (they often sing in chilly churches) in shades of brown and grey or grey-blue. What a change from the drab-looking church outfits!

Mindaugas Zimkus, tenor (normally dressed for a concert) and Jurga Prakelyte (alto, in a shoulder-less number in white with a black ribbon round the top) joined the others for this performance. Generally it was quite good, though the size of the choir overwhelmed the size of the orchestra. It also does not help when the reviewer knows every note and every word of this piece! Mr Zimkus really needs to work at his German pronounciation - it was pretty distant at times from where it should have been. There are textbooks for this. Overall there were notes missing, slightly sloppy entrances and exits, the timps did not quite sound as they should (I find this difficult to imagine, too, but they just were not quite right).... but at least it was the Christmas Oratorio! I suppose in Western Europe it is such routine that most performers can do it standing on their heads, which is obviously not the case in Eastern Europe.

Bliss!

2010-12-27T09:27:00.005+02:00

6 months on, no music to report on in the meantime - cannot report on my own concerts in Botswana, nor other concerts there which are so dire (and I know the people personally) that normally I would ask for my money back, but if the concert is in Aid Of A Good Cause, what is a guy to do?

Anyway, my second concert in the Filharmonija in 2 weeks, and this week will be a busy week of concerts. It was the usual Christmas concert of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, which takes place on Boxing Day every year. Conducted by the Ukrainian Artistic Director, Sergey Krylov who was also a violin soloist in some pieces. Not much has changed in the orchestra; I spotted two new faces, otherwise it was the same group as before.

Aaaah, the bliss! It started with a beautifully executed overture from one of the Bach orchestral suites (got in too late to get a programme). Beautiful smooth sound - people do not realise how starving a guy can be for a good sound. Played more or less in the historically informed style, given modern instruments and all that, though some of the performers still struggled a bit with the bowing.

This was followed by a Mozart Divertimento, also very nice, and the audience applauded obediently between every movement. Never mind, at least they went to the concert, which was almost sold out (I had to stand in the second half).

Then Krylov was the soloist in a couple of pieces. The first was Schubert's Rondo for violin and orchestra (again I thought that Schubert tends to write very long pieces). Very nice, though the orchestra could have played this one in a more romantic style - here the Bachian historically informed style seemed a bit inappropriate. This was followed by 5 Paganini caprices, arranged for soloist and orchestra by E Denisov, a contemporary Russian composer. Not totally convinced about the arrangement - the background seemed to be mainly noise, rather than music. In the first caprice Krylov seemed not quite settled down - it was a bit like a bus driven by a drunk driver travelling along a narrow road with cars parked on either side, and with lots of tiny car crashes resulting in many cars being scratched. From the second caprice onwards it was a fine performance, were it not for this arrangement.

Finally we had Vivaldi's Gloria, with the aristocratic-looking Ieva Prudnikovaite and Ona ???? (no programme, website has moved on) as soloists. Both, like most young Lithuanian women, tall and slim as rakes - towering over the conductor. It was a very nice performance - I was word perfect for most of the piece (not that difficult ' gloria in excelsis deo', 'agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis', 'laudamus te, adoramus te, beneficimus te, glorificamus te' etc etc, not necessarily in that order). Ona ??? tended to drop off notes a bit, I felt - some could have been held longer, and Ms Prudnikovaite had a bit of a steely edge to her voice as she got lower; could have done with more warmth - might that be a factor of body weight? But otherwise it went well - the Kaunas State Choir at its best, though some of the dynamics could have shown more contrasts.

Very pleasant evening overall, and a nice end to Christmas.

Oh, it's sooooo COLD!

2010-06-19T20:55:00.002+03:00

That's the Batswana way of saying it: 'it's CCCOLD' or 'it's FFFAR', with emphasis on the first letter, in the case of distance.

And geee, it really is frigging cold! Temperature below freezing at night, during the day it still goes up to close to 20 or so, but overall it feels very nippy. I'm cycling to work, only one km, and my hands are ready to fall off - in Vilnius at a temperature of minus however many I survive without gloves, but here I really feel that I should have gloves - but gloves in Africa? Seems ridiculous!

Will be back home in a week's time, for a total of 18 hours, before rushing half-way round the world for a meeting, at which I will give a 30 minute presentation. No time to be there, into the meeting, out of the meeting, and straight onto a plane back home. But Im sooo looking forward to getting home, into my own flat, ....and looking at six months' worth of mail...

Corruption at Vilnius Opera House

2010-06-12T14:42:00.002+03:00

Here it says that millions of Euros are missing in the very expensive reconstruction of Vilnius Opera House. Interesting.

The construction/reconstruction has been going on for years, including externally new carpets, new seats (why are theatre seats always red?) and a huge amount of work in and around the stage, which by now should be able to do all the singing and dancing all by itself, without actual people. It really was millions and millions of Euros to be spent, much of it on a German company which had reconstructed a number of major opera houses around the world.

But clearly with procurement things can go easily wrong. We always moan about procurement procedures, and about how long they take, but they are really necessary to avoid funny business. European procurement regulations are pretty good, generally (Lithuania is subject to these, especially for large-scale public projects), but it looks like some whily people around the opera house have found their way around these.

In the past I had heard disgruntled artists mumbling about corruption in the recruitment of foreign performers etc, but you know how it is, if someone is disgruntled. It's not as if we can have the same Lithuanian artists performing every week.

The first comment under the article suggested that since the arrival of the Lithuanian President, a financial whizz, things have been getting cleaned up. I wonder if these investigations will spread? I can think of at least one other institution which I would love to have audited, but won't mention its name here, not even which kind of business it operates in. However much I would like to.

Museum of Innocence

2010-05-23T22:18:00.002+03:00

Orhan Pamuk's new book of this title is brilliant! I've had some moments with his books, finding one or two of them quite putdownable - but this one is amazing.

It combines his (and my) love for Istanbul with the story of the main character's love for a woman, who, in good Turkish middle-class style of the 1970s, is unattainable. He did have a small fling with her, while approaching his prior-arranged engagement with someone else, but after the big engagement party (in which, and elsewhere, the Pamuk family makes a cameo appearance) she cut off contact - finally he finds her several months later, married to someone else. In the remainder of the book he describes his total anguish at missing her, spending time with her and not yet being with her. The feelings described make my heart go out to him.

Part of the book describes Istanbul; it also seems to be a love-story of Istanbul (Pamuk has recently written a number of books on his home city). I wondered if he had written the book after he left the city following the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink's assassination (in early 2007? I was in Istanbul on the same weekend) by some 16-year-old from the eastern provinces. Pamuk had himself been in some trouble with the law over mentioning the Armenian genocide. But it seems the book was certainly started in 2000 or so. It is set mostly in the same neighbourhoods in Beyoglu, and Nisantasi, which I so often walked through in my stays in that city (not least because I knew that Pamuk was from Nisantasi).

Like all Pamuk's books it's very slow, but I much prefer it to books like 'Snow' and 'Red' - this one I found very put-downable, and it's a must for anyone who loves Istanbul.

Are there any sane people in psychology?

2010-05-11T08:08:00.003+03:00

I'm just asking myself that, after reading some books about psychotherapy, including 'My Therapy' by Marian Davies, who had a horrific childhood and whose book says little about her therapy from a technical point of view, other than mentioning her therapist's 'warm brown eyes'. Not that well written either - who thought of publishing this? Total 'misery lit'. At the same time this Ms Davies is training as a counsellor.... Another book, 'Who is it that can tell me who I am', by Jane Haynes (a psychotherapist/analyst), starts with a long rambling letter to her deceased analyst before it becomes more professional - she, too, had a fairly challenging childhood.

Now I've discovered that one of my psych tutors is being cyberstalked, to a serious degree, by a disgruntled student, who, on a social network, is a member of the clinical psychology students' group; presumably with an aim to treat people at some stage. Not sure that our level of course is really anywhere near clinical psychology....

It's a weird world out there!

54 minutes 56 seconds...

2010-04-18T15:07:00.004+03:00

...is how long it took me to cover the 10 km of the Phakalane Gaborone Marathon 10 km run. I am amazed! Obviously it helps to start smoking - adds the speed...Almost exactly two years ago I did the Vienna Half Marathon (on the day that the dreadful Fritzl story broke) I took 2 hours 2 minutes, or about 5.46 minutes per km; today it was 5.27 minutes. I suspect the official statistics may show a different figure; the starting time was counted from well before we in the rear guard crossed the starting line, and I am not sure how accurately the end statistics were recorded. Statistics, eh? But I had set my stopwatch precisely on the moment of crossing each line.

It helped me that there was a big field of 2000 (two weeks after the Vienna marathon I ran in a 10k race in Vilnius and gave up - the field was small and I was last the minute I stepped over the starting line I was last). Took the first half kilometre to get past the walkers and the slower ones, and after that it was ok - there were other people around but we were not tripping over each other. Some children were running barefoot...

I felt sorry for the 120 (full) marathon runners, though. That is not a big number....Watched the first 15 or so come in; the winner in a far from worldbeating time - but if a guy is running on his own it is boring, and there is no challenge other than himself. And a few minutes later the second, and so on. We waited for a long time for the first woman to arrive; again, whenever she did, it was not a record-beating time; we left because we were getting hungry. On the way home the remaining field, of about 100 people was spread out over a distance of maybe 15 km, with a gruelling 10 km of straight road to follow near the end. That must have been very very lonely!

My two friends did very well; one had never run the distance before and was worried about it, the other thought he would take 1.5 hours... in fact both came in shortly after me, within the hour (according to our timing rather than the organizers' timing). And the whole hash team finished the route very nicely.

Where is the next run?

Gaborone - the filthiest city? I don't think so

2010-04-17T18:09:00.002+03:00

It says here that Gaborone must be 'among the few most unkept (sic) capital cities of the world'. Suspect the author has not travelled very far. I can think of many cities that are far more unkempt than Gaborone.

He quotes a South African teenager as saying 'but it looks so rural'. That's not really surprising given that the large South African cities have populations well more than the whole population of huge Botswana (1.8 million). And it does look rural - there are very few apartment blocks, most houses sit in their own, fairly large, plot, and the population is only around 250,000. Even the slums (Old Naledi?) are fairly spaced out - and I don't mean it in a hashish sense. In any case, 'rural' is not exactly synonymous with 'filthy'.

There are many ways of describing Gaborone - well spread out, lacking a city centre with a heart, short on historic buildings, very car-dependent, with people congregating in shopping centres or churches, but filthy? I have seen much worse - in most parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Dushanbe in Tajikistan is also fairly rural, though its older city buildings are double the age of those in Gaborone), and indeed Western Europe (has the author ever been to London?), in other parts of Africa....

I wonder what spaces the author is talking about. Most businesses seem to employ more than enough cleaners to pick up every cigarette stub, or for one to wash the floor of the supermarket while her colleague stands beside her flapping a piece of cardboard to make it dry quicker. There does seem to be a problem with rubbish collection at the moment - I noticed the piles of rubbish bags near our office; but they are neatly placed in some large rubbish bag holders, for the moment. Apparently the city council has not collected rubbish since the end of last year due to a problem with machinery. Can't say I have noticed particularly - this place is not Naples...

Concert!!!!

2010-04-17T00:30:00.004+03:00

As Vicky Pollard would say: yes, but, no but, yes but, no but...'

Problem is I was performing in the EU BIFM concert at Maitisong, Gaborone. I could lose all my friends - on the other hand, it was better than I expected!

A packed house, a very packed programme, with lots and lots of singing by three different choirs (Gaborone Musical Society, Sedibeng and KTM) and about 8 soloists. Plus lots of very funny introductions to the music by David Slater, maestro extraordinaire. No really. I am not just saying it because he is the conductor of the GMS I sing in - he is a really fine conductor. Perhaps it tells that he may have conducted many school orchestras in the past; he was able to manage all our motley crew, from teenage to old age. He takes everyone by the hand and guides them through the piece they are performing, but he is precise, he does not miss out any entries and he is funny - and seems to be enjoying himself. (We were told he is a 'physical mathematician' by trade - which could be taken to mean many things - but he would not be the first musical mathematician).

Our singing was pretty good, all things considered - the moments in rehearsals when we thought we could not do it, like one piece in which we ended up flat at the end of the first chunk of singing every time. In the concert we did not, and it went really quite well. Could still do better on the dynamics, though. And tenor notes around 'd' (next to middle C) are far from my comfort zone, but then I am not really a tenor. Our Faure (the Cantique for Jean Racin, a slightly cheesy piece) went better than expected, and supported by the huge Sedibeng choir our Beethoven's Choral Fantasy was quite good, really. I do have a better recording of it, and I heard an outstanding version with the delightful Russian pianist Alexander Paley and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra some years ago - he was having soooo much fun! Not sure that our pianist Olga was having fun, but she was doing a nice job, and her Eastern European training showed. There were some lovely contrasts between lyrical places and the more revolutionary stuff. And hey, it's Gaborone!

I missed the orchestra playing a Mozart symphony (the Paris one?) since it was just before our more challenging piece. Otherwise the band, the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra (which seems to have different members every year, I am told - much like the Vilnius Festival Orchestra, a mixed bunch of different players?) was not all that challenged, accompanying many bits of opera, for choirs and orchestra. I could have played that. I would have loved to play that, just for the sake of some playing.

The local singers had fine voices; one voice did not carry well over the orchestra; the soprano soloist, who seems to have a huge fan base, could do with having a more varied (and off-switchable) vibrato, but she is getting training somewhere in Europe - they can fix that. 'Don Giovanni' had a gorgeous voice - but I wondered if he (the character, not the singer - we are heavy on HIV here) would get laid with a velvety voice like that? Maybe he would - it might make the women feel safe and undress them all by itself; on the other hand I like my Don G to have a bit of steel, like a knife, or a sword (you get the idea....) to his voice; kind of a hint of menace. Women, I am told, find that sexy, too. Linking Don G and HIV, I am told he used a kind of leather arrangement for a condom.

So this has become a concert review after all....sorry for not mentioning more names, but I did not have a programme. (Hint to the organisers - the performers must get a programme. Individually!)

Polish President killed in Plane Crash

2010-04-10T13:19:00.003+03:00

Here it says that the Plish President, Lech Kaczynski, has been killed in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia. Apparently he was going there for an event commemorating the Katyn Massacre, there was thick fog, the plane hit trees and went down. The pilot had been offered Moscow or Minsk airports but refused those. The plane was a (probably very old) Tupolev 154 - one of the type in which I have flown many times to Tajikistan.

Question of course is why was he flying in an old Russian plane? Not many of these are allowed in EU airspace. Was he trying to save money? Generally these planes feel very safe - they seem to be much less affected by turbulence than more modern planes, but does the Polish government not have its own planes? Why did he not fly with LOT? But of course thick fog is another thing; whether a LOT plane would have coped any better, who knows. Another question is whether the pilot would have insisted on Smolensk airport if he had not had a president on board.

Whatever we think of Mr Kaczynski and his brother's politics, I feel sorry for his twin brother.

Turning pages

2010-04-05T20:58:00.001+03:00

The funniest video (thanks to Jessica) on page turning...

Guarding, Botswana style

2010-04-05T14:35:00.002+03:00

I suspect that the guarding industry in Botswana is one of the industries with the highest number of employees. Guards are everywhere - many houses have guards, there are guards outside our office, in shopping centres, some town centre supermarkets (Spar) have guards who prevent me from taking my backpack in (not sure if I have seen any at the larger Spar in Riverwalk), and stamp each receipt, checking your purchases when you leave the shop - that's apart from those loitering in the aisles....It must make people feel really trusted. Given that the central Gaborone Spar is rather a grotty place with vegetables you really would not want to take home (who wants to buy mouldy courgettes?), floors who do not seem to see a cleaner from one day to the next, and often overcrowded, I am not sure what they expect people to steal. The doctor's surgery, used by many expatriates and I am sure quite a good earner, opposite my bedroom, is guarded during the day, all day - the guard sits under a tree underneath my window, from about 6 am till when? I don't know. No shelter, if the surgery is closed no toilet.... how do they treat these humans? I don't know if the guard sits there all night as well - that would seem to be a more logical time to guard the place, given the quietness of the street, with more opportunities to steal. The place in which I live is always guarded, with a second guard with a big fierce dog joining him at night. Luckily the guards don't seem to be armed most of the time, unlike in the Kenya shopping centre where I spotted four guys in fatigues, each sporting a machine gun.

Yesterday I was part of the team setting the route for the hash - leaving home at 7.15 am. We tootled round, past some ponds, and round and through some derelict greenhouses and wended our way back to the meeting point. At 10 am the hash, in full battle cry, set off. We reached the ponds - only to be almost barred by four female guards who were most sniffy about us passing. Luckily a hasher speaks Setswana and we got through. Around the derelict greenhouses another team of guards had turned up, who were ready to call the police - I mean, what's possible to steal there (though I had clocked some nice plant trays and toyed with the idea to rescue some of them for my balcony).

Finally when we got back to our meeting place, the police did turn up. Only to tell us that there were many thieves about and that we should be careful. We told them that a hasher had remained behind to watch the cars. (The chap in question has a gammy leg and walks with a crutch....).

So if you want to steal anything in Botswana, just pick a time when the guards are sleeping - there is much of that time....

My fly and I

2010-04-05T14:32:00.002+03:00

...I am talking of the winged kind...

So it is Easter, four days at home, much of it in front of the computer. (Yes, I could have gone to see the wild animals up north, but am a bit busy here.)

For the last four days a little fly has been swarming around me while I am sitting at the computer. It sits on the computer, my coffee cup, my body - but can I ever catch the little bugger? I am prepared to catch him and put him out - but no luck. I don't like swatting a fly, especially not on my laptop - blood could get into all sorts of places, or I could smash the screen. What's the life expectancy of a fly? I hope it's only a few days...

He is driving me crazy!

Tidy desks?

2010-04-03T11:45:00.002+03:00

Interesting blogs here about tidy desks - which to the author suggest 'an empty mind', or that the person has nothing to do.

My desk is never tidy; yes, I would like it to be tidy, but I am always working on different pieces of work, and need to see them to be reminded to do them - that saves me using valuable brain space better used for thinking! Also, much as described in the paper, I do find things on my desk, or in my shelves, when I need them. Maybe those of us who use untidy desks have a different way of remembering things than those whose desks are tidy? There could be lots of psychological theories explaining memory and ways of constructing memories or where something is and what I should be working on. I do use a crib sheet (to do list) to make sure I don't forget important, or sometimes unimportant things - what may be important to me, on a high level, can be different to what is important to the organisation or its suppliers (writing contracts, dealing with payments, money allocations, organising keys for consultants and so on).

I remember working in an office which had a 'clean desk' policy - to allow the cleaners to clean the desks (mainly), though there were also issues with client confidentiality, where the clients' files were lying on the desks (some of those cleaners might also be clients). Not sure that I actually ever saw a totally clean desk....

So if you have an untidy desk, go ahead - if you produce the work you are required to produce then it's just your style of working. We are all different!

Double standards?

2010-04-01T09:29:00.002+03:00

Here it says that Haiti is getting 9.5 million USD from the international community for rebuilding itself. Congratulations!

However, when Georgia had its war in 2008, it received 4.5 billion USD for the same purpose. In Haiti 200,000 people were killed, and a million homeless. In Georgia a few hundred people were killed, about 160,000 homeless, so per head of affected Haiti is getting much less than Georgia.

Political reasons, or effect of the economic crisis?

Autumn is coming

2010-03-31T13:46:00.002+03:00

'tis getting cooler in Gaborone.... after spending the summer on my balcony, wearing little more than (boxer) shorts, soon I'll have to throw on a Tshirt at night. Shocking!

Meanwhile, the Gaborone Musical Society's concert (together with Sedibeng Choir and the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra) is coming on, the weekend after Easter or so. The first full orchestra I will have heard in Botswana since I got here last June. Ok, so our choir's contribution is only 4 minutes for the Beethoven choral fantasy, and maybe another four minutes if we do the Faure as well (Cantique for Jean Racine, bit of a cheesy piece, but that's Faure for you).

Have to say that our conductor, David Slater, or Mr Music of Gaborone is fantastic. It may be a year or two since his teenage years, but he is able to control both our somewhat older crew (not many of whom may remember their 40th birthday or even be looking forward to it), patiently coaxing the best out of us, as well as, at the last rehearsal, the very much younger Sedibeng Choir - a fantastic youthful collection of singers - he can relate to everyone and anyone, of whatever age group. Once he gets us to appreciate dynamics there will be no holding us back... He must have been a wonderful music teacher in his younger years. What would we do without him?

Going to bed Botswana style

2010-02-27T22:46:00.003+02:00

Sooo, in Europe I would be winding down slowly, taking a shower, wrapping up warm and all those things and gently subside into bed.

Here I find myself coming in from the balcony, wearing my boxers, following a huge moth into the flat. I've been through that before, when, after switching off the lights in the living room the bugger followed me into the bedroom. So, instead of winding down the pulse rate I have the choice of either rushing into the bedroom and slamming the door, leaving the moth outside (but will I remember that in the middle of the night?) or catching him and throwing him out. So I use the usual trick, the glass, the OU study calendar (a sheet of paper), trap him, rush out on the balcony, carefully closing the balcony door behind me but not so much that I will be locked out, and throw him off the balcony.

Pulse rate sky high - does wonders for the sleep!

Fantastic

2010-02-26T10:10:00.002+02:00

This is Valencia market, on a normal shopping day, and suddenly the shop assistants (opera singers in real life) burst into song!

Oh that Marcel Marceau were here...

2010-02-14T11:33:00.003+02:00

Friday Night, at the Maitisong in Gaborone, sponsored by the Alliance Francaise, an evening of mime with Laurent Decole, who describes Marcel Marceau as his spiritual father. I saw Marceau a few times about 4 years ago....

It was not looking good. The start was postponed from 7 to 7.30 pm - an old theatre hand like me knows that that means a short programme (I always remember the concert by Aurele Nicolet in Iserlohn, also about 40 years ago, where the first half was expected to last 32 minutes and the second 28 minutes ...perhaps net of applause, but short nevertheless.)

So we started (on time? did not check) with speeches; an announcer, followed by the head of drama at Maitisong. He seems quite a bossy sort - if he were my drama teacher, he would cause me anal retention with my creativity. First he ordered some children off the balcony where they were without their parents. Then he told everyone to be very quiet, particularly his pupils. Finally he went into long exhortations about mobile phones, and threatened that if he saw a lit-up screen he would come down and escort the offender off the premises. I did not get the impression he was joking! How can his students be relaxed and allow themselves to be really creative in such an environment?

Then there was a speech by the head of the Alliance Francaise, giving a bit of background on mime, and Marceau, and Decol who, after seeing Marceau perform when Decol was 18, decided to become a mime (I am glad I did not make that decision when I saw Marceau at about half that age).

Then there was an introductory act - a local hip hop band who had won some prize. It was a strange dance - the first half was hip hop, the second was pure acrobatics - and awesome they were. In the dance they could have been a bit more coordinated - they were not exactly synchronised swimmers, but the acrobatics more than made up for this.

Finally, at it must have been about 8 pm (we had been told the event would last 1.5 hours, but confusingly there was also mention of an interval), Decol arrived on stage, in the usual white mime's face. There were a variety of sketches, some, I am sure, filched from Marceau (but who holds the copyright on mime?). The sculptor who chops away at a rock to make a figure of a woman and ends up with a piece of dust; the people in the park, the guy who keeps getting trapped in walls encroaching on him (sounds like a nightmare come true), the sportsman trying out various kinds of sport and failing, and various others. Some were quite funny, others perhaps a bit heavy for the audience. It can be quite difficult to translate French life for Africa, even though probably most of the audience would have been well-travelled - would be interesting to do it in a village in the bush, to see if people would understand it. He could have done more entertaining stuff, eg showing a busy restaurant kitchen, a school class and so on.

He was quite a good mime, as especially became obvious when he got a boy on the stage from the audience (maybe one of the mime class at Maitisong, under that drama teacher?) and the difference showed. But it was also a bit boring, and he lacked the charm of Marceau, the little swagger he had and so on. Obviously he could not have had the hat with the flower on it (Bip) - that might have gone a bit too far.

Then at 9 he finished his act, and had to nurse the applause a little - perhaps most people were a bit underwhelmed. The guy who was sitting beside me and I felt a little bit embarrassed about it all. While the whole evening had lasted an hour and a half, there had been no interval. Maybe there was a second half? I don't know; a lot of people were leaving when I left. I had seen enough of him, and missed Marcel Marceau.

Feasts of India!

2010-02-07T10:40:00.003+02:00

Those of you who knew us in our Edinburgh period (1998 to 2001) will probably remember my friend Mridu Thanki, not only for her lovely personality, but also for her exquisite Indian cuisine, consumed round her kitchen table. Those were some of the best evenings I had in Edinburgh, not only food, but also fantastic company!

Since then, and perhaps before, Mridu had been talking about writing a cookery book to give us a chance to enjoy her sumptious food even when not in reach of her. And finally, just before Christmas, it came out! Available from Jaggnath Publishing, jaggnath.publishing (at) googlemail.com.

It is a fantastic book! Stunningly designed, with lovely illustrations, with our friend Sushil Mangoankar (then a budding artist) as the creative advisor, illustrations by Sandra de Matos, apart from that it is a family affair, with Mridu's son and daughter heavily involved in editing and proof-reading (and proof-cooking?).

The book is totally vegetarian (can be difficult for me in a country like Botswana with such beautiful beef), but gives enough recipes and menu recommendations for a balanced diet. For the last two weeks I have been eating almost entirely according to Mridu's recipes. This involves plenty of pulses (for some reason in recent years my body has been able to deal with pulses better), wonderful aubergine recipes, a pakora thing in a scrumptious yoghurt sauce (sorry, cannot remember the dish's name) .... the list goes on. Luckily here in Botswana I can get Indian spices easily enough, though they often come in packets of 100 or 200g, quite a lot, really. Unfortunately for me they are often labelled in the Indian name (I think), so it needs some sussing out to identify them. Mridu is also generous in her use of fresh coriander which is not available in every supermarket - so I bought a whole lot, chopped it, filled a muffin tin with it, adding a little water for each coriander 'muffin', and froze it. It's still better than the dried stuff which tastes of nothing. Have also made my own ghee... There's only one thing, Mridu - your estimate of the cooking time of black-eyed beans seems to be a little optimistic - mine take over an hour easily.

It's a great addition to my cookery world! Now and again I do also enjoy a steak, though!

News Stories...

2010-01-27T07:06:00.002+02:00

Here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8480656.stm) it says that NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK, is recommending that all adults entering hospital should be checked for their risk of acquiring deep vein thrombosis during their stay. Well, er congratulations! When I was in hospital in Germany last year, twice, those anti DVT stockings were thrown on as soon as I went into the operating theatre, and I was not allowed to take them off till I left (the second time I did take them off a day or two earlier, but I was walking around a lot by that time). Also I got a daily injection to prvent DVT, as did certainly everyone who had an operation. Don't know about medical patients - I was not on that kind of ward - but it seems rather an easy way of dealing with this. The stockings may be expensive to buy, but they do last a long time (and can be washed and kept in the hospital for the next patient).

The other story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8482068.stm) says that the President of Haiti is planning to move into a tent on his lawn, since his house was destroyed in the earthquake. One asks oneself a) where did he stay until now, and b) how bulletproof is a tent?

Botswana update...

2010-01-16T19:27:00.001+02:00

My readers may be a little disappointed that I blog much less, currently, in Botswana. There are two reasons for this:

1) I work for an international organization and it is not appropriate to discuss political events in the country.

2) Nothing much really happens here!

Couple of little vignettes:

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy to buy some syringes for my injections. At the check-out desk I noticed that there were no needles. No needles? They told me I had to buy those separately..... Apparently they sell the syringes needless for giving medicines, I suppose to infants. Seems reasonable enough. I then had a choice of needles; so I could actually have bought smaller syringes as long as I get the right size of needles. (The needles on the rather dinky diabetes syringes are too short to get my stuff out of the ampoule....).

Today, on my first long weekend here, I thought I might do some baking (plums are on the market just now, and plum cake is never a bad thing to have around the house, even without cream). Put half a pound of butter on the worktop, and carried on doing what I do most of the time, procrastinating over studying and playing computer games....Later in the afternoon I saw the packet lying in a pool of liquid. Had the kettle broken and leaked over the worktop? As I picked up the packet I realised what had happened - the butter had totally melted! Now I realise why on butter packets in some countries it says that butter contains about 80% of fat; the rest is that milky stuff that is in butter. Kind of home-made ghee, maybe? But perhaps not from the worktop!

Oh Boy, Musika Humaaaaana

2010-01-01T12:41:00.002+02:00

New Year's Eve, the Filharmonija puts on lots of concerts, lots and lots of them, and they are all sold out well before December. But....not only did I get a standing room ticket for the Musica Humana Concert in the Lutheran Church last night, in the end I ended up in the same seat, at the end of the front row, in which I always sit! Couldn't ask for more...

The Musica Humana was in fine fettle, as was the conductor, true to his rather large-ego self. There were encores in the middle of the concert, added pieces thrown in elsewhere - I, and many others, fled after 1 hour and 45 minutes sat on hard, cold church pews, before he launched into further encores.

The music was Bach and Vivaldi; well-known pieces, including 'sheep may safely graze' (did Bach really write the bass part pizzicato? that makes it sound rather cheesy), arias, a motet, concertos, a symphony by Vivaldi.... They played their usual selves well. The soloist, Julija Stupnianek had a rather unfortunate wide vibrato which does not really go with Bach (I tried to imagine 'sheep may safely graze' sung by a boy soprano, and failed) - the wobble was such that she almost doubled the syllables in the words. Shame, she does have a nice voice.

The final piece, Vivaldi's concerto for two orchestras and two organs, was rather over-ambitious. The other orchestra was sat up beside the 'real' big organ, and in the second movement, where they had an echo function, we all were at the edge of our seats, waiting, and waiting, for the echo. Also they sounded rather rough, it has to be said - though I know it was not an amateur orchestra. Quite unnecessary for the main orchestra leader, who himself sounded rather thin on his solos, to shout bravo to the other band before the applause started.

There was another piece where the flute doubled the oboe, making the combined sound rather screechy; never mind the moment when a cellist went for it, with gusto, but too early, much to general giggles. Overall, though, it was a pleasant enough concert, but it would be nice if the Musica Humana just plays what is on the programme, and once only. Then again, pigs might fly!

Music - at last!

2009-12-31T11:22:00.002+02:00

After a five-month break from orchestral music I am now getting my fill again! Saturday night saw us in the Filharmonija, for the usual Christmas concert by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under its artistic director Sergey Krylov, with an early Haydn symphony and a Mozart divertimento (we missed the second half of Vivaldi's four seasons for a dinner engagement; should have been Mendelssohn's concerto for piano, violin and strings but the pianist could not make it to Vilnius for whatever reason).

Both pieces were nice; I did not know the Mozart (a first?), and played with plenty of verve and energy (which has not always been the case in this orchestra). It seems that the pulse may begin to beat again.....It was lovely seeing a few friends, too!

Then last night it was the Kamerata Klaipeda with their usual Christmas concert. Usually they used to play baroque type music, but last night it was all romantic music; quite a nice change; though the programme, both in terms of sequencing and content, had rather little connection with what was played.

The concert started with Ysaye's 'Evening Harmonies' for string quartet and string orchestra; bit of a dirge, frankly and I was glad it was played at the beginning and not the end of the concert. Well played but boring - but I suppose 'evening harmonies' would not lead to much excitement (if you see 'evening' as either old age or the end of a long, hardworking day).

The band followed this with Mendelssohn's 7th symphony, strings only. It was nice and very energetically played. In the menuetto the cellos sounded rather dry; that place could have done with some warmth which the cellists are well capable of, but somehow that did not come across.

The second half was a series of more or less salon pieces. Vilhelmas Cepinskas struggled to make himself heard over his band in Schumann's 'Dedication' and Suk's 'Love song', both arranged for string orchestra and soloist. They all played beautifully but the balance could have been better.

Then the VIOLA soloist, Michail Bereznickij, played Bruch's Kol Nidrei and Tchaikovsky's Andante, both originally written for cello and string orchestra (I think). They were played very safely; he is also no Misha Maisky (who has produced the most moving performance of Kol Nidrei ever), but quite nicely. I would have preferred Weber's Andante and Hungarian Rondo (as advertised) instead of the Tchaikovsky. Like Bashmet, in whose orchestra Bereznickij plays, he used the sheet music in front of him.

Finally we had Vieuxtemps Virtuosic Duet for violin and viola (and string band). It's a delightful piece! Vieuxtemps, true to his name, wrote it in the style of Paganini, with very virtuosic parts to the violin, and also to the viola, within the limits of that instruments (there are some things you can't do on a viola as compared to a violin, something to do with string response). A lovely, lovely piece, played with exuberance. And the final, most virtuosic movement was given again as an encore since there was no other music available for the combination of all players. Which did not stop Cepinskas from adding a couple of solo (with band) pieces at the end, including a rumbustious Romanian dance. Great fun!

Both concerts had a fair amount of non-concertgoers in the audience, who applauded between every movement. Do I care? It's nice that they come to concerts!

Brrrr in Vilnius

2009-12-31T11:04:00.002+02:00

Got back to Vilnius a week ago; it was raining, it had frozen earlier, and it was like an ice rink - until and including Christmas day, when it was absolutely pouring on top of the ice. As I went out to empty the bins, a couple of homeless guys slipped into our stairwell, no doubt hoping I would not notice. Found them sitting right at the top of the stairs (next to my apartment); they said they wanted to warm up (and dry out?) a little. Who could blame them? I gave them some Christmas biscuits to support any liquids they might be taking. The next morning they had gone and the stairs were fine.

Then it thawed a bit, and the pavements were clear, but a couple of days ago it started snowing again. I can't make up my mind whether the municipality is cutting back on snow clearing; now the snow is frozen to the pavements again and it is becoming treacherous. But I do see people out shovelling snow (this always used to be a public works scheme whereby the unemployed got a bit of employment and a bit of income). I am not sure how much the municipality is liable for people's injuries; they may never have been sued, otherwise the pavements might, even without snow, be in better nick.

Having said that, while I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago, during a very cold snap, I did not notice that there was that much pavement cleaning being done - and there the onus is on property owners/renters to clear the snow in front of their property....

Feeling a bit sorry....

2009-11-29T10:33:00.002+02:00

Last night there was a fund-raising dinner for a women's refuge here in Gaborone, called something like Kanisano, supported amongst others by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of Germany, or 'by Friedrich' as one speaker said. Expensive tickets, nice venue, big anticipation!

Alas.....it was supposed to start at 7 pm, by 8 pm half the guests had drifted in....at 8.10 pm it was finally decided to start in the half-empty (of half-full!) hall. By then it seemed like there was pressure on time (was the hall only rented till 10 pm?). Given the price of the tickets my team had all saved their appetite for the evening....so we were gasping. Not least because it seems that the drink was not included in the tickets (had it been more people might have been more motivated, later in the evening, to sign a commitment form for further funding).

One of the organisers then read out a list of all the organisations who were attending - at least it was all the organisations who may have paid (better than nothing), but many were not attending. (My team was out in full force!). Bit embarassing, that. It got worse... I spotted quite a few people who I knew, which was nice - I am getting into this Botswana scene! An entertainment was procured, with some youngsters dancing to Michael Jackson music (a school mate of my son's, over 20 years ago, was a huge fan, so I remember this).

Then finally we were allowed dinner, which was nice. Lovely puddings, especially - Botswana is quite good at traditional British puddings, with a compulsory trifle at every meal. I bought a bottle of wine for the table....

Then, the show went on, with a video being shown about the refuge's work. The person who was supposed to introduce this had also not turned up (Serious embarassment, no?). So someone else introduced it, rather at length. The master of ceremonies did a thing about how to treat a woman (compliment her - I turned to my neighbour and said 'don't I compliment you every day?' - she agreed. Flirting is Fun!). Bit of a thin ice situation, all the same, given the environment.

The video was ok, nothing new for me; I'm not sure about other people in the hall. One of my colleagues who had been affected by domestic violence earlier in her life, found that extremely hard to take - it was really brave for her to come at all. Later the master of ceremonies announced that just that minute a child victim of sexual abuse had been admitted to the refuge (really?, I ask myself). But it's good that at least this is talked about, unlike in Georgia. (Though many of the guests were not Motswana, but expats).

Then there was the awards moment, perhaps of donors? I missed the start of this, having gone out for a smoke (and yes, I am cutting back a bit, having come to an agreement with a colleague - she found the right button to push, after everyone else told me just to stop). When I got back, I saw most of the pile of awards, about 10 or so, having moved from the left to the right of the table - I think only one beneficiary was there. I felt so sorry for the organisers!

I suppose if people pay at least the organisation gets their money; though at the same time they will also have paid up front for the buffet (for the paid number of guests).

One interesting thing - SADC, the Southern Africa Development Coorperation has some sort of agreement on domestic violence and dealing with it; of all the 15 or so member states only Botswana and one other have not signed this. hmmmm.

Registering that there SIM card

2009-11-27T15:32:00.003+02:00

The new law in Botswana requires every holder of a prepaid SIM card to register their number by the end of 2009. Did someone mention 'invasion of privacy'?

Having only 2 more weeks here this year I thought it was high time to get it done. Went round to the MASCOM office near the main mall....Every time I go there there is a huge queue....As there was today. Not only a huge, slow-moving queue with about one person dealing with it, but also no forms for registering the phone - they had run out (yesterday I had seen a guy with a several inches thick bundle leaving the place...). I was told to wait outside and they would soon get a form. Lots of people were sitting outside, slightly in the shade, waiting. I waited for about 15 minutes or so, by which time a queue had also formed outside. No forms appeared.

I got narked, and felt guilty because I was the only white guy in the queue... but eventually got up and cycled to Riverwalk, to buy those black trousers required for next weeks' 'President's Concert' - still need to find a bow tie....

Realised that I might have time to get my hair cut, too, and as I went upstairs to the hairdresser's I found a MASCOM office next to it; with hardly any queue! Went to get the modem configured - to get me through the times when my accommodation's internet is down; filled in the form and had my passport ready to confirm that I am who I am.

Only to find that no-one checks the form and it is just stuffed in a box. Hmmm. So what is the point of registering? People could put in any information in the form..... But job done!

Cold, cold, cold....

2009-11-20T17:45:00.002+02:00

Since Wednesday it has been raining, mostly non-stop - there have been a couple of breaks in the rain, but not many. The temperature is about 15 degrees or so...People are freezing.

Even here in Gaborone this shows up problems with drainage (not a problem that much considered in roadbuilding, it seems). Everywhere there are large, very large puddles - a stream is running down the road outside the complex, even in my complex getting out is a problem. I now have to take a detour virtually versus someone's patio, the pool and its surrounds are merging...

I wonder what it will be like in the countryside, in villages which don't have that many paved roads, where children often don't have shoes, where people cook outside their tiny houses (and how is the firewood kept dry). I wonder about people in tiny houses at the same level as the surrounding area - how do they keep the water out. I hope the rain is local to Gaborone, but even here there are house with mud floors etc, pit latrines in the garden - overall about 24% of people do not have access to any form of sanitation...

The government has a disaster unit. If, in a little while, you hear about severe flooding in Botswana, you read it here first.

Hot is...

2009-11-15T15:50:00.001+02:00

when you don't want to go out because it's so hot
so you end up walking around the flat and balcony in boxershorts all day
when the brick paving outside is too scorching for bare feet (how do poor Africans do it?)
when the pool is so warm that it feels like swimming in soup
when going on the balcony from the air-conditioned flat is like entering an oven

Not sure that staying in the flat all day is all that good for a guy, but it saves getting sunburnt.

Botswana culture

2009-11-04T10:07:00.000+02:00

from http://www.gov.bw/cgi-bin/news.cgi?d=20091104&i=Moatlhodi_appeals_for_officers_accommodation

'Moatlhodi appeals for officers accommodation04 November, 2009
FRANCISTOWN - Tonota South MP, Mr Pono Moatlhodi has urged his constituents to assist in providing affordable accommodation to nurses and other officers posted to their village.
Mr Moatlhodi, who is alsoDeputy Speaker of the National Assembly, said when addressing a kgotla meeting recently that civil servants may not be able to stay in their village if the rentals are high.

He told residents that rentals for private property are set by the owner and no one can advise to lower them.

The MP said government will in the near future post nurses and other government officials to Tonota Primary Hospital.

On other issues, Mr Moatlhodi commended residents for taking Ipelegeng projects (public works) seriously. He said de-bushing at primary schools is a welcome initiative as pupils were prone to being attacked by snakes.

He said all primary schools in Tonota did well in the Primary School Leaving Examination with Tonota Primary School scooping position one for the second consecutive year. This, he said, was due to concerted efforts by parents and teachers. He advised parents of students at other primary schools to take leaf from Tonota Primary School in order to improve their childrens results He also noted that, Batswana voted in large numbers during the past election and that as the election dust has settled, residents should come to terms and work towards developing their village. I want to call for cooperation and coherence in serving the public, he said urging all councillors in the constituency be they opposition or BDP members to unite with him to form a better team that would deliver to electorates.

Mr Moatlhodi also briefed residents on the new SHHA loan scheme and that funds are now available. He talked about ISPAAD and advised the area agricultural demonstrator to ensure that seeds are enough and ready for distribution. For their part residents complained of women, who attend kgotla meetings wearing trousers. They also complained about drivers who over speed because they pose danger to the public.

Residents called for traffic lights at a junction near the new bus rank saying to date more than seven pedestrians have lost their lives while more than five accidents have occurred on the newly constructed road.'

In praise of idleness

2009-11-01T17:38:00.002+02:00

I've been reading Bertrand Russell's 'In Praise of Idleness'. The title attracted me - and I remember my mother eading his stuff when she was about my age, and I always wondered what she saw in him. I think I still do, though it's interesting reading these 15 essays written in the 1930s.

He covers a wide range of topics, from idleness, to architecture and social conditions, to communism and fascism, the cynicism of the young, the powers of capital (to use a Marxist phrase). I cannot quite work out what kind of type he was. Clearly he was not a scientist - while there are references to other thinkers/writers, they are not properly referenced. While one could argue that perhaps the style of academic writing may have developed since then, in fact Freud who wrote a good 20 - 50 years earlier, was fairly meticulous in his referencing. So he is not a scientist - is he 'just' a thinker? He did get a Nobel Prize for literature - which makes me wonder what constitutes 'literature' - I always thought it was novels, poetry and such like - but I don't think he wrote those.

The book is fairly readable; the foreword talks about his wit - I did not notice much of that, unless it was unintentional. Clearly his ideas are somewhat dated. But there are some interesting moments:

In his essay on idleness he suggests that 4 hours work is quite enough for anyone, given the possibilities of modern (1935!) machinery. If the income from work were properly distributed we could all live quite happily and enjoy idleness - time to sit and think. (I am getting better at that....though for a long time that damned protestant work ethic got in the way). He even suggests that teachers should not work for more than 2 hours per day to keep themselves fresh and interested in their charges.

On architecture and social conditions he suggests that families should live together, eg in apartment blocks, with a communal kitchen and kindergarten, to free (especially working) women from the drudgery of housework. The kitchen would provide wholesome meals for families (this might be desirable given the UK obesity epidemic) and the nursery would be child-safe so the children could explore their limits; they would spend all day there, only returning to their parents after the evening meal. A bit like the kibbutz idea - at the time attachment theory (relating to babies and children) was not even thought of. ...

On finance and financiers he writes: 'the interests of finance in recent years have been opposed to the interests of the general public....It is unwise to leave financiers to the unfettered pursuit of their private profits'. Something we could echo today....

On youthful cynicism he suggests that young men (sic) in Russia are not cynical because they accept ...the Communist philosphy. Perhaps he was not aware of the Stalinist clampdown on free speech, even thought, at the same time.

He writes a lot about stoicism and mental health, particularly in the face of death. He suggests, for example, that parents who lose a child should not hide their grief from their other children, who might then think that they would not care either if this child died. I suppose there is not much danger of hiding parental grief these days - perhaps the opposite is the case.

Although he often mentions the lot of downtrodden wives, he is still a man of his period; discussing body and soul he writes 'we knew that a man consists of a soul and body'. And pray, what do women consist of?

Interesting reading, in terms of social construction of social categories.....

and now I will idle some more.

Apples and Pears

2009-10-30T14:49:00.002+02:00

Here it says that pearshaped women (large hips and thighs) and appleshaped men (larger bellies) are more at risk of DVT. Illustrated by a back view of two very very large ladies.

But....it goes on to say that, in the case of women, even if they have the ideal weight they are more at risk of this.

So what, pray, are people supposed to do with this information? Hunger themselves down until they are well below the ideal weight? Sounds like a recipe for anorexia....

Sometimes there are things one really does not want to know.

The Children's Book

2009-10-16T11:37:00.002+03:00

Picked up A S Byatt's latest book, 'The Children's Book' a week ago at the local bookstore. I was quite surprised that they had one of hers, but it's not a bad place ('Exclusive Books', in Riverwalk, Gabarone, a South African chain; has the most choice). I did not really mean to buy more books, have quite enough to last me for the moment, but could not resist. I think it may have been listed for the Booker prize.

In some ways, Byatt always writes the same books; complex arty and often left-wing families, who always seem to be putting on Shakespeare dramas in amateur performances. This one was a bit different, being set at the turn of the 19th/20th century until the end of WWI (my heart sank when I noticed that), and for my liking it contained far too much history - I hate that stuff. It contains a wide mixture of real and imaginary people, and probably real quotes. All sorts of left wingers, from the Webbs to the Pankhursts and so on. Particularly near the end the characters almost disappear under the weight of history. Ok, so it was a horrible time, even before WW1, and the struggle of the suffragettes was quite horrific (just had conversations about women's votes this week on the eve of the Botswana election tomorrow), but I am really not into history.

Apart from that, it was a jolly romp, though also including some deeply disturbed families (my diagnosis - bipolar depression in one person, unipolar depression in at least one other), emotional abandonment and so on. All upper middle class stuff, apart from the working class folk, who somehow fitted in, more or less, on sufferance. Some characters always remained on the edge of things, colourless - one never got an idea of what went on in their heads.

It was a nice read, it's just that I found it much of a muchness for A S Byatt (bit like Isabel Allende, who always writes the same book), and I could not abide all that historical stuff. But maybe that was a new challenge for her.

Opera in the Bush!

2009-10-11T09:22:00.001+03:00

I've never had an experience like this! Cycling out to Kgale Sidings (distinctly dodgy given that outside the town I could barely see the difference between the road and the rubble beside it; someone gave me a lift back into town with their bakkie) I found the 'opera house' all lit up and the audience milling around, having drinks and chatting. Found a few friends there which was really nice.

The opera house is a converted garage, with about 100 seats (seemed fairly sold out) crammed in a very steeply sloping auditorium. The stage is tiny, and the garage doors at the back of the stage were open to the African night - awesome!

The opera was 'Okavango Macbeth', with words by Alexander McCall Smith, and music by Tom Cunningham. (Okavango is a delta in the north of Botswana famed for its wildlife). Have to say that the music was very, very easy on the ear - he describes himself on his website as a New Age composer, and there were hints of that in the piano accompaniment (there is no orchestra and there is no space for one anyway). One of the songs repeated three times in the 75-minute opera (could call it leitmotiv, but wonder if it was a bit of lazy composing), and much of the other harmonies and accompaniments seemed very easy to write - I could have done those. But no matter. David Slater, seemingly the only capable pianist in town (I've heard 3) and 'Mr Music', did a great job managing the 'orchestral' part.

The story was of Macbeth among baboons, watched by a group of scientists. It started with a chorus of animals singing about peace, but then all hell had broken loose and it was the fault of the baboons. The animal acting was fabulous - the actors had got the behaviour and the movements so well! Some were better as baboons than others, but overall it was stunning. I do wonder though about the wisdom of McCall Smith writing an opera about monkeys using black actors; one of the many racist comments about black people in Europe are in the form of monkey noises, or throwing them bananas.....

Unsurprisingly, the story was very compressed, given that it was not only Macbeth, but also the scientists who had troubles between them - so some story lines started and were then left in the air....

Visually it was stunning, funny, unexpected, and much of the singing was very nice indeed. Lady Macbeth played by a young woman from the Sedibeng Choir who I think studies singing in France was amazing, especially in her acting. What a sly bitch! The guys had wonderful voices, and this was one of the few opera performances where one could actually understand the words (in English).

Rumour has it that they might take it to the Edinburgh festival (McCall Smith probably has connections). It's length and need for only a tiny stage would make it perfect for the Fringe! As long as they can all get visas.....

Bicycle spares

2009-10-09T23:46:00.001+03:00

A few weeks back I had enough trouble finding a bikeshop, but eventually got my bike. By the time I had had it for 10 days I had a small puncture; fixed it after a fashion but not perfectly, then I had another puncture, and decided to get new inner tubes; two, just in case.

Gabarone has 3 bicycle shops that I know, and I have heard of a fourth one, but don't know where it is. One of these three only does bikes, the others do all sorts of other things, too. Went to the first one, nearest to work - had none and did not know when to get them in. Went to another one, a B&Q type of place; did not have the right size. Went to the place where I bought the bike; had possibly the right size, but the wrong valve for the pump they sold me! Aaarrrggghh!

So tootled home in the taxi with a mad taxi driver (was he on drugs? he seemed to be very angry with a lot of people; he seemed to be looking for a room but not with me, honey) and repaired my punctures. Have realised why the last one, and many others I have repaired in the past, did not hold well - I always repaired them with some air in the tyre; this time I let all the air out - so far (14 hours later) they seem to be holding.

Gaborone is not a 'green' place!

Off to the opera tonight; in the bush along unlit roads - hope I don't get a puncture there!

Music without headphones

2009-09-30T18:40:00.003+03:00

I do have a wonderful set of headphones to listen to my iPod, but sometimes it is a bit weird singing along to it, and people passing by must wonder what I am up to.

So today, once I had repaired the puncture in my bike, not wonderfully successfully, but enough, and then in the middle of the road reset the rear wheel, then gone to one shopping centre for a new inner tube (Game in Game City, closed for Independence Day) I finally found the electronics shop open at another shopping centre (Riverwalk). It had been open on Saturday, too, but constant power cuts meant that the shop could not actually sell anything to all those people patiently waiting in a queue (imagine if you had come 800 km just to buy something there...).

Treated myself to a Phillips 'docking entertainment system (see photie). It's cool and gives not a bad sound! Also works as a radio (if I get South African Classic FM here; since it's modelled on UK classic FM that may not necessarily be an advantage...) and alarm and all that. It's nice to be able to listen to music and not have my ears squeezed all the time!

Congratulations Vytautas Lukocius!

2009-09-30T18:15:00.002+03:00

Since there seems to be some delay built into the writing and publishing of posts (and comments) at the moment, let me be the first to tell you that the Lithuanian conductor Vytautas Lukocius has won yet another conducting competition; this time in Mexico, the Eduardo Mata competition. He wrote to tell me so himself (comment under previous post, once it appears). Well done! I wish, though, that at least one of the jury members had not not only been in the Helsinki jury, but also his some time teacher. That sort of thing makes me feel uncomfortable.

I don't know where he has been since he won his last competition in Helsinki, then got a bit carried away, with mouth running away ahead of his brain, producing some rather intemperate comments about the Lithuanian music business (he may have been right or not, but damn it, it is a small country, and his home country - that was a big risk to take, and it did not pay off so well).

A concert review!

2009-09-27T17:32:00.003+03:00

It's a long time since I wrote a concert review, no? (And what, by the way, is happening with blogger that my posts don't appear?).

So last night I went to the Maitisong to listen to the Sedibeng Choral Society - I had heard them in rehearsal last Monday, nearly a week ago, and thought they sounded good.

The Maitisong was about half...full, with few expatriates (code for 'whites') to be seen. The programme consisted of a classical half and a Setswana half. For the classical half the ladies appeared wearing lime-green dresses and the guys were wearing snow white. A stunning appearance! During the first half a number of choir members also sang solos. Particularly impressive was Oteng Zachariah with Bernstein's 'Lucky to be me', sung like a cheeky chappy - with really wonderful singing, acting and a bit of dancing. The Gluck and Mozart arias plus choir had their moments, not least from the pianist (must be hard to find a decent pianist here; the 'orchestral' transcriptions not only seemed to be sparse, but also often wandered off into unexpected directions, for those of us who knew the pieces). Interpretations were a little unexpected at times, as well, but interesting. Refilwe Ramogetsi, who sang 'Let love be triumphant', from the Orfeo, a tiny bit unsteadily, but she tried hard, reminded me so much of the Orfeo I have seen in Vilnius many times. Later Tshenolo Segokgo was wonderful in Bizet's Habanera (though is it really a soprano aria?), kind of like Westside Story in Spain. Very sexy!

The second half was quite different, and amazing. This was a collection of Setswana songs, including weddings, and funerals and daily work songs. Here the choir wore normal clothes, and went about their business, singing and dancing. The theme was 'how beautiful is Botswana' - it would do well as a tourist attraction or for selling Botswana world wide. Particularly moving was the funeral song, preceeded by an announcement of the HIV/AIDS statistic - the song was harrowing - it expressed so much pain! A young guy did a dance act involving a medicine man, and at the end lead the whole troupe out of the hall, singing. It was fabulous!

Comments on Vilnius Capital of Culture 2009

2009-09-26T13:31:00.003+03:00

It seems that Riga has been nominated as one of the European capitals of culture 2014.

The Vilnius Capital of Culture appears to have been nothing short of a disaster (partly because of the economic crisis, but also, at least as far as I can tell, due to the appalling response of the government to the economic crisis - it singlehandedly deepened it even more in Lithuania; but I am not an economist).

A comment in the article points out:

'Selection
panel chair Sir Robert Scott, who headed Liverpool’s successful bid to
become the 2008 EU culture capital, told DPA that he hoped the funding
cuts experienced by this year’s title holder Vilnius would not be
repeated in Riga.

“Vilnius was not a happy example. The possibility of capital cities becoming capitals of culture and then not doing their work was something that haunted our discussions, but Riga’s presentation was very impressive, so we are giving Riga a real opportunity,” Scott said.'

What a devastating critique! It did also not help that Vilnius lost its charismatic mayor between the time of the bid and the event; his successors have been ....unimpressive, to say the least.

Changing weather

2009-09-26T11:06:00.002+03:00

In the last week or so the weather has been changing. A few thunderstorms at night, spectacular ones (though I cannot see the lightning very well, what with having buildings directly opposite me), never-ending thunder rolls, and some rain. Yesterday morning it even rained without a thunderstorm! I wonder if the plants in the desert are heaving a big sigh of relief, and stretching out their little water-gathering cells (I used to know the word for those once) and sucking up every drop of moisture. Will the desert turn green?

Meanwhile I learnt, the hard way, that cycling in the rain with a bike that lacks mudguards is not a good idea. Even on the short trip to work (about 5 minutes) I could feel my back getting wet; when I got to work the (Friday casual) T-shirt was not only wet, but covered in mud, front and back. Very embarassing; especially since it was a version of our organisation's polo shirts which my local colleagues do not have. More to the point, there has been a rare day that I have arrived at work without having at least a wee oily stain somewhere. Maybe it's better to continue walking to work.

Alo, cycling at night. Last night cycled to the Moth Hall (like a small village hall, at the back of the bus terminus, behind the Gaborone Hotel) for the Capital Player's performance of 'Barefoot in the Park', by Neil Simon; an American comedy set in about the 1960s, when having a gay couple as neighbours could still create laughs. The performance was, kind of, ok - amateur; could have been done at twice the speed and nothing would have been lost; I think it was meant to be fast-paced. The funniest performer was the lady with the smallest part.....I left after the first half, maybe the second half might have been better.

Cycling there and back was a bit of an adventure. On the way there the traffic was still fairly busy, I somehow drifted into the teeming bus terminus with people everywhere, finally found the entrance to the 'theatre' with pot holes all over the place. On the way back cycled along a footpath und crashed into the branches of a very thorny three; if I had not closed my eye so fast, I could have had a very nasty eye injury! And thank you, helmet, for saving my head from instant combing!

Freeeeedom!

2009-09-21T14:51:00.002+03:00

Another long weekend; the UN team has today off in honour of Eid-Al-Fitr; a Muslim holiday. You have no idea the slagging off I got at the hash yesterday about the UN honouring this holiday. Did we honour every religion's holiday, people asked, and if so, did we do any work?

So I had planned to use my last weekend's 'car allowance', ie the use of the office car, to fill up with shopping. Alas, out of the three cars a colleague had one (who is well over her 3 months' car allowance), and two others were out in the countryside. I was supposed to get one of those, but it broke down in the middle of no-where on Saturday; so no car for me.

I was narked; seriously narked. So I finally decided to buy a bike. People laughed - someone had asked me some time ago how I can live in Gaborone without a car. A colleague said that a UN employee cannot go around on a bicycle. But me, I can be stubborn, especially when I am narked.

So on Friday I looked up the address of Jonmol bicycles, Plot 25146, Gaborone Industrial West, and hailed a taxi to take me there. An hour and a half later we still had not found it! He was bothered, I was annoyed - why do I have to know how to get somewhere in order to use a taxi; seems the wrong way around....

Then on Saturday I finally spoke to Bones, the owner, and he told me it was next to 'Fruit and Veg', on the north side. That kind of direction is another one I struggle with, but today managed to get there, remembering that the sun here travels via the north, not the south.

He has a whole shop full of used bikes, some very used (one saddle looked as if a rat had made a hole in it), also some new bikes. Found a reasonable used one, male, not female, with a saddle with only a small hole, and paid about 65 Euros for it. It runs well - took it to Game City and bought all the other kit, helmet, lights, backpack, repair kit - all that together cost more than the bike, and now I am independent. I can't quite understand why I never needed to shift the gears, even though there were one or two mild hills to conquer.... so I'm very pleased with it. Also the wind, while cycling, cools me down a bit, which is pleasant, and better than walking. And since it looks old it might get stolen less easily. Bought the heaviest lock I could find, which Lithuanian bicycle thieves would only laugh at, and I hope it'll keep me going until I leave, in December (if I leave).

I noticed that Bones had a whole pile of bikes there labelled UNDP - now what is that about? He's a lovely guy; well worth going to if you want a cheap bike. He also has a full-time mechanic who I suspect is able to fix anything. While I was there a buy came in with a very very buckled front wheel - apparently it had been a bike-to-bike crash.....There's another bikeshop in Gaborone, near the station, Gaborone Garage and Cycles; it sells mainly new bikes, and most of them are behind a huge counter, so it's difficult to just go and look at them, without asking. Me, I don't like asking, as my son will confirm.

Chat on the way to the Choir

2009-09-15T10:11:00.000+03:00

So there I was walking along, in the dark, on the way to the choir. It is not really recommended ducking through dark places at night on your own, but I only ever take very little money, so it's ok.

Anyway, walking along a very busy road, overtaking another guy, when I hear him talking to me. I think 'another bad luck story, he'll want money'. Turns out he wants to talk his problem of a 'running stomach', Botswana for 'diarrhoea'. As one does, of an evening. I'm very glad it's dark so I can hide my smile. But he is serious; he wants a medical consultation in the middle of the road. So we go through all the symptoms, he makes some shapes with his hands indicating something, and I just wonder if he is going to drop his trousers on me. But no, the conversation stays perfectly polite; I give him some suggestions, including going to see a doctor seeing he has had it for 3 weeks, and we part company.

Whatever next????

Travelling through Botswana

2009-09-12T22:58:00.000+03:00

It's a week ago now that I was in Palapye (for work). It's 270 km from Gaborone, quite close by as people say. The rather ancient bus took 3.5 hours going there and 3 hours coming back.

Travelling through Botswana is not interesting. In that distance we passed through one town, a few villages, and in between there is just scrub land and nothing and nobody to be seen, apart from some goats and donkeys here and there. In Botswana animals are not tied up, as they might be in Eastern Europe; a colleague said that at the end of the day they find their own way home. Given that there are some nasty wild beasts about, it's probably better if they can run away....

We finished work in Palapye on the Saturday afternoon; some people decided to stay on for some excursions. Not sure there is much to be excursioning about....but someone said that in the villages around it there were/would be lots of weddings, and it seems anyone can just gate-crash. It's one way of spending a weekend, no?

On Sunday I will be off to Ghanzi, on the other side of Botswana, near Namibia. It's a 700 km trip, each way. So we'll be spending Sunday and Wednesday driving all day. It's possible that I may have to go again the following week! That week we'll have a meeting there in the morning, but still cannot return in the afternoon. Apparently that road is really dangerous to use at night, what with all the wild animals crossing roads (Only this week some people were killed by crashing into something big on four legs....).

A few weeks ago a friend was telling me about when he crashed into a cow. The cow landed on the bonnet, then on the roof, denting all, crashing all windows, breaking all mirrors (the car now drives without any mirrors....) and then sliding onto the road. The driver got out, rather stunned. Went round to look at the cow. She staggered to her feet and strolled off into the bush......

Today had a works outing, a brief one, to Kgale Hill, the main hill near Gaborone. It was lunchtime. 12 people had signed up and got their sports gear, maybe 9 came out; 5 ended up strolling up the side of the hill for about 15 minutes and then down again.....It was very warm; maybe it's better to walk up early in the morning - but when?

The spring has really sprung now. The evenings and mornings are noticeably warmer, and my colleagues are now starting to use the air conditioners for chilling them out rather than for heating. A week ago I was talking to a guy who has a building business. He wondered how he could heat his house in the winter; this winter he used four cylinders of gas to keep them warm - that he considered a harsh winter. (I used one a week when I lived in Scotland). I had to explain to him, literally in words of one syllable, different heating systems, like radiators, electric under-floor heating, that system where you get the heat out of the earth.....It's weird for us northerners when people don't understand hot water radiators.

The other nice thing about spring are the beautiful trees and bushes beginning to flower. They are pretty stunning, in all sorts of bright colours. At night, when I go home or sit on my balcony, a beautiful scent wafts through the air. Tonight, returning from my weekly shopping trip, I saw a stunning sunset - a huge red globe dipping down the horizon, fast.

I wonder, though, how hot it will get?

Ghanzi

2009-09-09T21:09:00.000+03:00

So I've just arrived in Ghanzi. Shared the 760 km trip with our driver. It would be hard to miss Ghanzi. You leave Gaborone for Kanye (about 90 km outside Gaborone), turn right and keep going for the remaining 670 km or so. On the same road. After Kanye we passed two towns and possibly a settlement. I drove the last 200 km; in the first 170 km of those I passed a solitary cow, who waited patiently until we passed before she crossed the road (just as well, given her horns), a group of donkeys, and another group of cows. No people.

The landscape is mainly flat, mainly sandy but covered in scrub or small dry trees. Not all that exciting. Apart from the cows and donkeys we saw some goats, one group of sheep, and a horse or two. And there was an interesting bird, kind of like the hornbill, but with a much smaller bill than those you see in the zoo.

The road seems to be mainly used by lorries travelling from Namibia to South Africa. There was very little other traffic. It is in beautiful condition, so I could thunder along at 160 km/h.....

3 days later....

On the way back met the first car, on leaving Ghanzi, after 30 km.....The wildlife was a bit more prolific; spotted two tiny antelope-type animals (or gazelle types?) with big fluffy ears quietly grazing beside the road and lots of birds. Quite a few hornbill-type birds, one of whom unfortunately took off the road in front of the car too late, and hit the windscreen at 140 km/h; a huge bird, about owl-sized, with a brown body and black and white wings, which just managed to lumber out of the way of the car; some delicate grey fowls with long necks and a little red crown; a little black bird with a stunning red tummy, an fluorescent blue bird and two ostriches! They were also stunning - from the distance they looked like a little black cloud a metre above the ground, until you got nearer and spotted the grey legs and head. Going about their business quite calmly.

I really must buy a book on the flora and fauna of Botswana. No pictures were taken, of course. Not on a 700 km road trip in a hurry to get home.

The Ostrich Migration!

2009-08-24T00:17:00.000+03:00

Do ostriches migrate? Not sure, seeing as they don't fly.

But this ostrich did. The Botswana Hash (also known as the Kalahari Hash) migrated, as it does annually, to some place in South Africa, just south of the border. The way it goes is that 90 km or so are covered by various teams, each team responsible for a bit of the distance. And then among each team the runner carry an ostrich feather duster, and change every so often. In the case of the old folks, it's very often, in the case of fitter folk, it's less often.

Being among the fitter folk, I was not only among the first team,but also among the second team (as was all of the first team, what with the second team not getting visas in time to enter SA). A five am rise, 6.30 am departure, 8 am running start. 'Sprint', we were told....And so we did. With the pick-ups and drop-offs it means, essentially running behind a car. Not so good for the lungs. Also not so good for the interior of the car, given that most of the running was on dirt roads, which were very sandy. My car had the additional disadvantage of being well-oiled inside, given my home-made salad kept in a box, specially bought for it's nice closures, but which leaked all over the place....

What with the second team not arriving, we had to cover a total of 27.4 km between five of us. Then I had to drive for a South African team....Later, I also took on 3 km of a cycling leg (again someone had visa problems), and finally joined another team of 6 to cover a further 6 km. Plenty of running was done, and waiting while we drove ahead of other groups and waited for them at the end of their leg. The landscape was deserted, which was just as well seeing as it might not have looked very kind to see an older person running after a car full of younger ones. And at around 4.40 pm we had all arrived!

See hashes? See different cultures? The Botswana hash is very nice, a family kind of hash, with people of all ages. The South African Hash, mentioning no towns of origin, but they were not that far from the BW border, were a rough lot. Geeez, their songs - the Botswana hash was covered in embarrassment while listening to the SA lot. It's interesting how different hashes attract different folk.

SA got well carried away with themselves; there was one (rather butch) woman who gave me a hard time all day, over this, that and the other, finally kneeing me in the groin over me burning a lid of a cardboard container. No harm done :-). I was shocked at the time and it was only later that I thought that maybe she fancies me and does not have the words to express this....some sociological studies have been done on how little boys make friends, and they often beat each other up first before becoming firm friends. There's not much danger of that on my side, but I wish I had thought of that at the time and grabbed her in my arms and kissed her! That might have sorted her out!

Some people camped, in a seriously nippy temperature; I shared a room with another guy and in fact was very warm indeed (though by the time I showered in the morning no hot water was left).

Spring has sprung!

2009-08-08T20:16:00.003+03:00

Today looks a bit like verbal diarrhoea, no?

Spring sprang in Gaborone on Wednesday, 5 August. Waiting outside the yoga place at night I suddenly realised it was not as chilly as usual at that time of night. The next morning a colleague reported that she had taken one of the blankets off her bed.

Today I went into my compound's pool for the first time, and as probably the first person this spring. A South African friend laughed and said it showed that I came from a strange country. And yes, ok, it was rather nippy, especially in the morning. In the afternoon it was better, and it's quite nice to swim. Though putting the head into the water, to spare the neck a little, was a wee bitty challenging.

By 2 pm today there were distinct symptoms of sunburn. I'm glad I brought some stuff out with me.

South Africa photos (Viola Congress)

2009-08-08T19:51:00.005+03:00

A Street in Stellenbosch (Hamman Street, don't ask me why they called it that!).

Below the lads from Pretoria giving their best playing kwela music to the clear delight of their audience

View of Table Mountain on a dreich day

A wonderful magnolia in Stellenbosch

Them thar wild animals

2009-08-08T19:23:00.002+03:00

It's Saturday, I have the office car (not pranged anything yet this weekend...).

So I thought I'd do my duty wild animal wise and go to Mokolodi Game Park, just outside Gaborone. I even found it, first time - that does not often happen to me here. (It's off the Lobatse Road).

Since people rave about the park's restaurant, that was my first stop. It has nice outside seats, with a view over the park (no giraffes wandering by), and a day's special involving pork knuckle, sauerkraut and 'bratkartoffeln'. Almost enough to make me turn back! But in the end I had a wonderful salad and a fillet steak with chips. Folks here are great on meat, less so on vegetables.

Then off I drove towards the game park, only to find that you have to be a member to drive your own car in it, otherwise you have to participate in a guided tour (which costs less, I am Scottish!). And today's tours were already booked. I suppose that is nature conservation for you. Did not see anything alive, though passed closely by the reptile department. Bit scary that!

My local colleagues seem to think that those wild animals are best kept in a zoo. They are really scared of them, perhaps not surprisingly. I told one that in Europe buffalo milk is used for rather nice mozzarella - she exclaimed 'How do they milk those wild beasts?'

It reminds me of the day my son (then 9) and I met a little snake sunning itself on a stone in Scotland. Not sure what it was, but my (half-African) son screamed and screamed and ran away. Even then I wondered if a fear like that could have been passed down genetically (certainly not culturally in our case). Having just read Carl Jung on something like a common unconscious (between all people) which is fed by ancient myths I still wonder about that. He suggests that apart from their own psyche people's unconscious is also fed by all sorts of stories and myths from ancient times till today. (Though I think Jung looks at this from a learned middle-class point of view - he analyses [probably Swiss] folks' dreams and links them to all sorts of mysterious mystical events all over the globe. Can't imagine that my friend's English removal man, who, on being told that she works for the European Union, said 'never heard of it', would have similar dreams, and might well think his analyst is off his head talking about squares and circles, and ancient Indian myths. Myself, I prefer Freud, plain old sex and family problems. No wonder Freud and Jung fell out.) Wow, bit of a detraction here, no?

Separation anxiety!

2009-08-08T18:57:00.002+03:00

So a guy goes and buys Lisa Batiashvili's recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, combined with 6 miniatures by Tsintsadze, a Georgian composer.

Now, normally one expects the main piece to come first, with the fillers filling up the end. One is then rather startled to find the rather folksy, almost folksy-poppy miniatures at the front of the CD. Some people, slipping it into their player and wandering off, might think they have slipped the wrong CD in altogether, especially since the first piece starts with a startling drum solo (but then, so does the Beethoven...).

Me, I was totally startled, if not stunned, to find a rather cheesy arrangement of 'Suliko' as the second piece. Suliko is, in any case, a rather cheesy Georgian song, and the arrangement adds an extra layer of buffalo mozarella on top. It's the one song that unites all of Georgia, and Georgians abroad, if drunk and/or homesick, will burst into this. Given that I am not good at dealing with separation from people or places (family history, and yes, I have just the right job for that, don't I?), eg Georgia, it had me damn nearly in tears. It's incredibly emotional! I wonder if Mr Saakashvili was singing it yesterday, on the anniversary of his war against Russia.

All these pieces, arrangements of Georgian songs (I thought I recognized another one or two of them) are brilliantly played by Batiashvili, who obviously has this music in her blood. Even the men's songs (aggressive pieces) she plays with the right (sword) edge. Her Beethoven is pretty stunning, too!

The wee soul!

2009-08-08T18:56:00.000+03:00

At work we have, among others, this lovely wee security guard. He's a slip of a lad, barely at the shaving age, and I dread to think how he would protect us against a marauding horde brandishing machine guns. Let's hope that never happens!

It seems he is not that well paid, like most security guards; one time, while I was out for a smoke, he asked me for some money because he was so hungry - I did not have any on me; I have also seen him sell phone cards and one time he was handing out cards for a taxi firm; that evening when I needed a taxi I used them - it only took them three phone calls to me to find my place. Had I mentioned that Gaborone is not good at doing addresses?

Yesterday he turned up at work wearing a pair of glasses. I asked him about them, about to make a quip about old age not coming itself, when he took them off and showed me that in fact they did not contain lenses - it was just a rimless, and lense-less frame! He would not admit to his motivation....He did look rather cool in them, and most people had not notice the lack in the specs.....Aaaaah!

Here's a wonderful conversation my friend varske had whilst moving from Oxford, England, to Vilnius.

Yoga....

2009-08-06T00:26:00.000+03:00

This yoga is so funny, and not altogether challenging, quite sedate, in fact (literally, given that we never stand up). The teacher is a 'counsellor' by trade; not sure I can take that entirely, in public, like.

We always start the session with 'what kind of [thing] am I today'. In my first session it was fruit, so after dismissing the thought of 'lemon' I said 'orange'; in the second session it was 'weather' ('cloudy'; interestingly she was facing a wind which she was having to fight). Today it was something to eat, so I said 'sausage'. That caused a bit of a stir (I imagine serious yoga folk being vegetarian; I also have had enough psychoanalysis to know fine what I was saying). She asked what kind of sausage; I said 'boerewors' - a Southern African kind of sausage. Did not elaborate that it was long and full of fresh meat..... Later there was some exercise involving massaging the abdomen and being nice to the bits inside it, including the ovaries. I pointed out I did not have any [functioning ones]. Resisted manfully voicing the suggestion that I might massage my testicles instead. The teacher suggested it was a shame I did not have any ovaries; it's rather a matricentric outfit, no?

What a finale (a series of finales?)!

2009-08-02T10:49:00.002+03:00

South Africa, and in particular Hester Worlitz, who was the main mover behind the 37th International Viola Congress, has really done itself proud! Hester and I both attended our first congress in Germany in 2003, and were both enthused to do a congress in our countries. I did not manage to pull it off, but Hester did, and the end of the congress was a triumph!

The congress dinner at the Morgenhof was magnificent (though they seemed to be unable to cater for vegetarians, and proportions in South Africa between meat and accompanying vegetables seem to be greatly in favour of meat... the wine flowed very generously...).

Early the next morning not that many people appeared, but eventually trundled in for a fascinating lecture recital of Brazilian music for viola. In Brazil the viola is a guitar-type instrument played by violeros; this has the result that many European type viola teachers ('viola di arca' played by 'violistas', give or take my non-existant knowledge of Portuguese) find themselves attended (once) by many little boys wanting to play the Brazilian viola, and getting a big surprise!

The closing concert was almost the highlight of the concert. Luise Lansdowne's group of students from the Royal Northern College of Manchester (including, it turned out at the very last minutes of yesterday, a lad from Wrexham) did a really funny, and technically stunning, performance of caricatures by Hindemith of military and waltz music. Finally it was the performance of the massed viola ensemble, a regular feature of congresses, where everyone can play along (even I, had I had a fiddle on me). This year's group must have been one of the biggest groups ever - with the lads and lassies from Pretoria and a few other players as well. After some rather dreary pieces (I hate Gordon Jacob's music) and the Queen of Sheba they then launched into an African suite, written specially for the congress by a local composer (sorry, white, I maybe should not go on about people's skin colours) - that was fun. But the final medley of South African songs, written by a black guy from Johannesburg (also specially for the congress) was riotous and brilliant - and for me incredibly emotional in terms of social cohesion, sense of human family and so on. What a finish! And then the group of youngsters from Pretoria just could not stop playing and played song after song, including dancing, while the rest of us were enjoying end-of-congress drinks. A brilliant end to the congress!

In the evening some of us went for dinner in a local restaurant (not cheap), as did all the UK students (students obviously ain't what they used to be given that they could afford to come along to this, apart from also perhaps paying for their flights here, and renting cars locally). It was really, really great having some relaxed time out with very good friends! Roll on the next congress in Cincinnatti (sp?)!

Services for poor people are poor services

2009-07-31T19:19:00.001+03:00

This is a World Bank saying, which they used about 15 years ago to introduce charged services everywhere in education, health, on the basis that if people pay for servies they are more likely to complain about the poor quality. In fact probably poor people, who are not used to complaining about anything, probably lost out on a lot of education and health services during this period.

So today, given that the Viola Congress programme was not that exciting, and given that I realised I would not have much time to shop for books in Cape Town tomorrow, I decided to make an early outing there. White people tend to assume that everyone has a car, and there are offers for 'transfers' to everywhere by car (350 Rand return), so they tell you there is practically no public transport in SA. But I spotted a railway station in Stellenbosch, so off I went. Call it social research.....

The first surprise was at the ticket office, when the clerk asked about first or third class. I suggested second class. Does not exist, so off I went into third class (14.50 Rand, 11 Rand to the Euro). Oh dear....The carriages have a long yellow bench along each side, an that's it. No toilets. Not a single white face to be seen. Stops everywhere. Hawkers selling (successfully) sweets keep wandering through the train. The windows, of plastic (?) so blind that you could not see out of them; more a problem on the return journey when I could not really tell where I was - but a kind student helped me.

Somewhere down the train someone began to sing, with a chorus behind him. Very interesting, I thought, remembering last year's music course. Then he started preaching, in a language ununderstandable by me (11 languages in this country). Given that later he preached in English I realised it was all about God, a loving God, a saving God, but heck - the tone of voice was loud, hectoring, all hellfire and damnation. Talk about the difference between the words and the body language! A woman, never-ending, followed him; another man preached, the main man preached again, a guy was saved (on account of trying to get off the train and unable to escape), and so it went on for the whole hour on the train. Jeeezus! Luckily they did not pick on me, or on the Muslim woman sitting opposite me. Some people seemed to be amused, but it was a little scary.

Off the train in Cape Town; the station full of blacks, again almost no white face. Went into town, in the pouring rain without a raincoat, had a coffee, decided to by a brolly at Woolworth's (which here is more like Marks and Spencer's), and the rain promptly stopped. Found a German bookshop, with no order whatsoever, and could not find what I was looking for, so asked about others - to be told they are at the waterfront and far away. Back to the station to look for a bus - saw a minibus loading up people. I know that they only go when they are full...so after about 10 minutes we left, and I was let off by the shopping mall. Did I mention that the bus contained only black people?

The mall was big, with a much more mixed population, especially among the buyers (paler than the shop assistants), and had a half-decent bookshop. So I managed to get a few books (though the Stellenbosch Protea shop was better in terms of what I wanted). Am now loaded up.

On the return journey the train was packed; people returning home from school and so on. This time we did not have the God Squad, but an elderly guy who never drew breath, telling anecdotes between Cape Town and Stellenbosch - he had the whole train in stitches! An improvement on the morning's performance!

I did briefly peep into the first class compartments; they were not much better - hard-looking seats only but across the compartment, not along it. Far from what one might imagine first class to be like....

Viola Congress!

2009-07-31T12:29:00.000+03:00

Here I am at the International Viola Congress, and I find it very difficult writing reviews....many of the performers are my friends, and although that has not stopped me in the past, it's still a bit awkward. So I'll just mention the highlights and various bits of impressions:

The congress attenders are generally white, apart from the young people from Pretoria (the South African Viola Society's President's students). There is also a significant age gap between these and the rest of the participants, apart from one group of students from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, whose SA-born teacher brought them over for wall-to-wall Hindemith. Sometimes there can be a bit too much of a good thing. But the young ones from Pretoria participated quite happily in many things (not as much as they might have done, though maybe they were also busy practicing. Before last night's gala concert they did a lovely kwela (South African music, not improvised, but very nice and played with much enjoyment, it seems).

Roger Chase produced a stunning performance of the William Bell Viola Concerto, 'Rosa Mystica'; it was the first time it had been played live since 1917. It's a lovely romantic piece, and it really was a superb performance. The young Pretorian lads jumped up into a standing ovation - it's brilliant to see enjoyment and real appreciation like that!

Csaba Erdelyi's performance of his own edition of the Bartok concerto was very interesting. Not sure about his opening of the second movement, which Nobuko Imai had said should be played like a boy soprano in a church - Csaba's approach sounded more like a person in distress, voicing his anguish (just the interpretation, not because there were problems with the performance). This edition has a very complicated history. He started doing it because he was not convinced with Tibor Serly's completion of the work, which Bartok had almost completed when he died of leukaemia. Erdelyi found 260 wrong notes alone, and some transpositions which did not please him, so he laboured over the work for years. Only to discover that Peter Bartok would not give him permission to publish his edition. However, in Australia and New Zealand works pass into the public domain earlier than in Europe and the US, so he published it in NZ, and yesterday's performance was in an educational setting - which is ok. Cannot be performed in Europe or the US....

Kenneth Martinson and Vladimir Andreev's performance of the Rolla duos was fun; at times at the edge of the precipice in terms of hanging on in there, but fun.

I have not participated in as many activities/events as I could have done; it was also quite nice to hang out and relax....Though today it's raining; I don't have a rain jacket on me; the programme is not that exciting...Maybe I'll hop on a train to Cape Town. There's a railway station in Stellenbosch, and I'll need to see how long the train takes....

The food is a bit weird; yesterday I lunched at the student canteen and found myself eating potatoes covered in sugar and cinnamon....there was also sweet potato, I think, covered in sugar and a sort of sweet potato pancake (ditto). Hmmm.

Stellenbosch

2009-07-29T22:27:00.000+03:00

Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, is a beautiful place. It's quite old - the oldest year number I have seen on a building is 1837. Full of low-rise houses (one or max two floors); lots of lovely little shops, coffee shops, restaurants, a university described as 'Ivy League'....and yet and yet....

There seems to be a white part of town and a black part of town (that with the cheap shops, including a rather smelly fish shop). Black people are seen as shop assistants, gardeners, tradesmen - though I saw a fair number around the university. In the viola congress the audience is white; the South African violists playing today were white (though one had a Russian name and a playing style similar to Bashmet's, rather attacking a Brahms sonata).

To us Europeans it looks as if nothing has changed.....I suspect Stellenbosch is rather a middle-class town - but does it all need to be white? We are very conscious about it, or, I wonder, is it our prejudices speaking and our way at looking at South Africa which is out of date? Are we overlooking the middle-class blacks? I wonder what it will be in Cape Town when I go there on the weekend.

Emotional intelligence....

2009-07-29T22:22:00.000+03:00

Having spent most of last year chatting to my therapist in Vilnius (and paying for her new windows in passing), I am a bit better at sussing out emotions, mine and those of others. Which is very interesting.

Picked up last night at Cape Town airport I found myself the victim of a deluge of non-stop praise of South Africa by the white taxidriver of British-French descent. He seemed disappointed that he could not take me to Cape Town because he would have given me lots of information; instead he took me to Stellenbosch and never stopped praising his country; including offering interpretations which languages different words and names came from (not always correctly, but with much conviction), telling me about the history of SA (mainly white), and stating everything with a very clipped and almost aggressive sense of conviction. Talking about the languages he went through English, French, Dutch, German.... eventually arriving at some 'black' languages. I felt it wise not to ask about the black population; his discourse was so forceful that I thought he was defending something that he certainly did not want to be touched.

As it happens, I did touch a rather sore spot. Talking about his life (there's only so much you can talk about whilst driving through dark countryside) it turned out he had been a policeman. Seeing he is younger than me and the police seems like a safe job (better than taxi-driving) I asked him why he had left the police - I knew I should not have done when he burst out along the lines of 'I killed the fucking bastards'.....He had left for his sanity, he said. Myself, alone in a car with a killer (policeman or not), in the dark countryside, I wondered if he was really a) in total control of his feelings - they seemed damned close to the surface - and b) the right person to take tourists all over the country. After this small interlude the conversation became very superficial, talking mainly about wine....

Methinks she doth protest too much

2009-07-25T20:43:00.003+03:00

A fellow-blogger went off into a right rant in her blog yesterday (I'll keep this anonymous to avoid being ranted at again; she has ranted at me before for saying much the same thing) about an article in an up-market UK newspaper about why authors should 'get more real'.

The article's author suggested, according to her, that book authors should leave their comfort zone and experience other parts of the UK or even go abroad, to widen their horizons. I agree, though some authors do make a very good living always writing about the same thing (eg Ian Rankin, and dare I say Kate Atkinson, after that weird book 'Behinds the scenes of the museum'). Then again, you pick up some authors and you immediately think, another middle-class story involving this or that topic. (It makes me think that it is funny how some authors get away with writing the same stuff over and over again and others don't - that does not seem fair; what is the trigger that allows this for some authors and not others?).

The blogger, however, went off into a very heavy rant - seemingly going with the head right through the wall. Had she been a Glaswegian (well, some Glaswegians, I have to be careful here) she would have nutted the guy right in the face. She suggests that there is enough different stuff, eg crime, unemployment, different cultures, right here in the UK. Yes, indeed there is, but she does not write about them - perhaps because she does not really know much about this; eg by living on a run-down, drug-ridden council estate for 6 months (who can blame her....). Also not many authors can afford to abandon part of their lives for a longer period in the name of research.

Having said that and having noted that some authors can get away with using the same formula over and over again, psychologically I find it very interesting how she reacted. Completely in at the deep end, I'd say. Psychology, and people's reactions to certain events and statements, are just so fascinating. It suggests that the article's author hit a very tender spot in the blogger...though I would not like to speculate, in public, what this/these tender spot(s) might be. (Much as a reaction in a conversation I had this afternoon about elderly car drivers with a person in that age range. Personally, I have to say, I am not that happy to be driving myself; every time I go out, especially in this huge tank from work, I worry about killing a child. Though I will probably miss having the car when I don't get it any more from the middle of September). I wish, though, that I had know about all this psychology/psychoanalytic stuff much earlier in my life; rather than getting carried away in hotheaded situations it's much more interesting to stand aside and think why a person might be reacting in a certain way).

More books....

2009-07-25T19:33:00.003+03:00

Getting hold of what I can (South Africa next week, hope Stellenbosch has more bookshops with a wider range; have already identified some...):

Ian Rankin's 'The Flood' - this was his first book, written while he was still at university and rejected by many publishers then.... Set in a mining (former mining...) village in Fife, it tells the story of a woman who fell in a pit burn aged 10, after which her hair turned white overnight, and had a son aged 16 whose father remains unknown until the end of the book. Also of her son and various other people who come into contact with her. The son has no idea who his father is and is afraid to ask his mother in case he hurts her. I know the feeling well! He, a smart lad (an alter ego of Rankin?), in his teenage years has his own problems and dreams....The woman falls in love but cannot do sex, given her earlier experiences, there is a new minister in town who also feels strongly attracted to her.... many people in the village think she is a witch, and she is a bit of an outcast (somehow she also made me think of Susan Boyle, who, like Mary Miller in the book, has not worked until now). There is no crime and no Inspector Rebus in the book. Knowing Scottish former mining communities (albeit in Ayrshire) pretty well I liked this book very much; it describes the community very convincingly, its decay, the despair settling in, the boys who are desperate to leave school (but after the summer holidays are envious of the boy staying on at school). It also made me think about all the policies everywhere in the world where staying in education for as long as possible is encouraged - but there are people who hate school (me included), and alternatives need to be found for them. The book made me feel quite at home.

Coincidentally I then went on to read Kate Atkinsons 'When will there be good news', another Jackson Brodie book set mainly in Edinburgh. Actually I find her a better crime writer than Rankin (and she has not always been a crime writer); the characters are more sympathetic, though also quite appallingly complex. This book is another crime novel with twists and turns you would not believe - the opening scene reminds me of that murder in Kent where a guy murdered a mother and at least one of her daughters. The chapter headings are a mix of nursery rhymes, converted religious quotes, quotes from other literature, and she displays an intimate knowledge of classical Greek. The main heroine is a plucky 16-year-old girl who the reader's heart goes out to - she has had so many disasters in her life that it is surprising how well adjusted she is. It's also quite funny, despite all the murder and mayhem. Well worth getting (and I will be taking it home).

Finally (not finally really, given that there is another book on my office bookshelf whose name I cannot remember) there is Andrew Wilson's 'The Lying Tongue', about a young art history graduate, Adam Wood (notice the coincidence of the initials?) who gets a job in Venice tutoring a young boy with the aim of writing his first novel in his spare time. The job falls through, and he finds another one looking after an old author with a very murky past (which, not surprisingly, he is rather secretive about). Young Adam sets out to find out about the past, which is not very pleasing - but at the same time Adam is not necessarily the guy you would like to have as a friend, or even as an acquaintance - never mind as an enemy. It's ok; a good read, for hospital reading etc, and its end is one which I could not help feeling a little satisfied with. Not terribly high-brown literature though, the descriptions of Venetian art, buildings etc notwithstanding. This one is for sale in the office....

Out in the countryside....

2009-07-25T18:56:00.002+03:00

Out at the crack of dawn this morning to set the hash for tomorrow. Crack of dawn is 7.30 am, which it is distinctly nippy at this time of year.

The hash was at Kgale Sidings which I had heard of because the Ladies' No 1 Opera House is supposed to be there. Jeeez, it's way out of town, past Game City, along the Lobatse road, and then near major satellite dishes you turn left into the bush. All countryside, with a few nice houses dotted here and there. It's a cul-de-sac.

Not exactly a typical location for an opera house, nor for a restaurant which it is from 9-4pm during the week, or 10-2pm on a Sunday. Passing trade? Probably zero. Walking distance from anywhere? Forget it. I suppose it is a concert venue, reasonably cheap to set up, given the scarcity of land anywhere central, and with parking for visitors - but the casual visitor is extremely unlikely to ever find it. Extremely well-meant, of course, but I wonder about the business model....if it had not been largely funded by the generous A McCall Smith, would it ever have got a start-up loan? (See photo to the left below)

The Gaborone Hash have got some implements called 'stompers'; they are cans screwed to batons, with the letter 'H' punched out of the bottom. They contain lime, you stomp them on the floor and you have printed a beautiful 'H' to show the track. Off we wandered, followed by a delightful little Jack Russell who followed us all the way around our track. There were no serious animals to be seen, apart from a dog. I asked about snakes but was told they were not around at this time of year, and that the main dangerous snake, the puff adder tended only to be dangerous if you stepped on it. So would I, I'd expect! (NB I have no idea whose nests are swinging in that tree....)

On the way back into town I spotted a large animal strolling along the road - gee, some size of dog that, I thought. Coming closer I noticed it was a large monkey, casually strolling along on all fours, in no hurry to go anywhere! It must have been close to the size of me, standing up. Since this seemed to be quite a normal thing to happen, I thought it would look rather naff stopping and taking a photo of the beast!

When I got home, the guard made a lot of heavy weather of showing me into my parking space. Not only did I not much care for that, wee bump or no wee bump, I cared even less for him standing right behind my tank as I was manoeuvring in......

Dammit!

2009-07-24T20:11:00.001+03:00

So today I got the office car; it works well, but feck it - I reversed it, slightly and slowly (but it is a frigging tank) into someone else's car. Not sure what the insurance situation is in that respect. The owner of the other car asked if we needed to get the police - I suggested that not, seeing it happened where we both live, there were plenty of witnesses and no-one else can be at fault (plus my driving licence is in my previous name; hope that does not cause problems with the insurance....). Not sure what the insurance status is in any case.

It's such a huge car that you tend to feel rather invulnerable in it, which does not really help....And yes, as Freud would say, there are always emotional reasons for accidents, there are no accidents per se. What had happened that someone had blocked me in my car parking space, I kept hooting the horn, nothing happened, then it turned out to be a colleague who had just nipped into someone's house nearby, and so I was a bit narked, to put it mildly before I started driving. Without due care and attention, obviously.

Looking for a house

2009-07-23T19:50:00.001+03:00

I've now given up looking for a furnished place; I will just have to buy furniture and everything (got enough money for that, though I used it for other stuff, but ah well - people tell me that it is easy to sell things again (after 4 months' use....). Have now got a colleague on the job, too. Just phoned about a couple of places, both reasonable, advertised yesterday, and they were already taken. Wew! That looks like it is hard, too.

But again the problem is the directions and the addresses; in the papers they talk about Block X, but on the slightly old map they talk about Extension this and Extension that. So I have no idea where the dratted place is. Just now I am downloading Google Earth to see if it shows the Blocks. When I ask for a street name and an address they just laugh - does not work like that here. A local colleague, who studied in England, was surprised how easy it was in England to find a place. And then proceeded to tell me how to get to a particular ministry, waving her arms about....

There is a place called Phalakane, where lots of places are for rent, but it is a long way out of town; very posh and rather nice, but I don't need posh (though need to meet my employer's security requirements); I just want somewhere in town, especially now that I am joining this choir.....

Choir!

2009-07-22T21:22:00.001+03:00

Found a choir in Gaborone, the Gaborone Musical Society. It will do Carmina Burana in November, and rehearsals start next week. Not entirely sure about the pitch of my voice these days (might be baritone/bass) and how it will hold out to serious singing.

First parcel arrived....

2009-07-22T20:53:00.001+03:00

...from Europe. The only one sent commercially, by Amazon UK; took exactly 2 weeks. Three others are on the way - will they make it?

Reading, reading, reading

2009-07-21T21:30:00.001+03:00

So what can a guy do when there is virtually no cultural life, no restaurants, little social life, but read. Lots of books, all so far very interesting, but I wonder how long it will take me to use up the books in Exclusive Books in Riverwalk Mall of Gaborone? At least at the moment they have their winter sale, which helps. Need to look in Stellenbosch next week - I hope they will have a wider choice.

What did I read?

Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene (1938). A scary book set in the underworld of Brighton, with knife-gangs etc (as they say they had in Glasgow in the 1950s). Some desperate guys kill a guy (except it seems he died of fright before they managed to kill him). A woman with big boobs has her suspicions about his 'natural death' and pursues the gang. It describes their rather horrid lives rather well - there is a rather complex character, all of 17, who runs the gang, and who has had the usual upbringing of reform school and so on. What surprises me about him is that he does not drink or smoke and he hates sex, perhaps because, in his family's one-roomed flat, he saw his parents at it every Saturday. But a 17-year-old boy, with hormones all over the place? A bit strange....

The Bad Mother's Handbook, by Kate Long - about a single mother (aged 33) of a clever 17-year-old daughter living on a council estate somewhere in the North of England, and with a rather batty mother herself, who slips in and out of dementia. Except there is a secret..... and the daughter herself follows her mother's footsteps. Very amusing in between all the drama. Well worth a read if you understand life in the North of England.

Spud, by John van de Ruit, written as a diary by a 14/15 year old boy in a South African boarding school. It's very funny, though I hope not too many of the events in the book happened to folks I know who went to boarding school. The narrator comes across as rather a complex child, singing in the choir one minute and up to no good the next.

A book by a South African author (currently lent out, cannot remember author's name or the book's title) about a Jewish family in South Africa and their black servants (in passing). Told by all the different characters (which makes each chapter difficult to sus out - just who exactly is talking here?). The grandparents come from Lithuania, and for some reason talk about Polish money (fair enough), had a terrible life in Lithuania (ditto), spoke little Russian (why would they speak Russian if they were using Polish money) and speak much Yiddish (when suddenly the Lithuanian word 'bulves' = potatoes) drops into it. The book is set in the 1950s when the main character, a child, is a young child, and goes on. It's very interesting psychologically, with the child/family having to deal with a mother who clearly sinks into deep depression (understandable, under the circumstances described in the book), but no-one in the family is able to deal with the woman's rejection of any help. Only much later, after the woman is dead, the daughter realises what difficulties her mother had to struggle with. Initially it seems a bit corney, but when you get into it, you really (or I really did) get into the child's suffering. I can't believe I can't find the book on the internet. Would help if I remembered any of the characters' names; I have a feeling it was shortlisted for some (UK?) prize within the last few years....I picked it because I have a South African Jewish friend who would have been about 10 years older than the child in the book.

A wild sheep chase' by Haruki Murakami; a usual Murakami thriller-type book involving the slightly weird and wonderful. Great reading, as always, less sex than usual (:-(). Unputdownable.

And I am still reading 'MacroPsychoanalyse', an economics/psychoanalytic textbook (in French) about how any economic models are really run by emotions (as is everything, in my view, even if, sometimes, it is the denial of emotions, which also gives its own message). Very interesting, converting the individual model of people (in French 'le ça', 'le moi' and 'le supermoi', as well as 'la pulsion de la vie' and 'la pulsion du mort'). Fascinating stuff, it really is - but it is so threatening to people to talk about emotions in relation to what they think are rational decisions. I'm waiting for a few more books on the same topic, should they ever arrive in Botswana. It's not quite as easy to get into it in French....

But Philip Roth's book, 'Our Gang' or 'Le théâtre de Sabbath' in French may be one step too far for my French. It's sitting there, and I have laboured through a few pages.....

Picnic by the lake

2009-07-21T17:53:00.001+03:00

So, after the hash, where I had whinged a little about being lonely and having little do do on a weekend, one of the guys phoned us on the way back into town and suggested we join him and the girls for a picnic. No idea where we were going. My mate, whose car we were using, got a little anxious about how far we were heading out of town.

Anyway, tootled along the Francistown Road (600 km to the North) but after 20 minutes turned left towards a village called Bokaa. What is there, we asked ourselves? The guy in the other car kept stopping and asking people for directions, which led us all over the village. Finally we saw the lake, but still could not get to it. When we asked again at a house, the woman there gave us her 15-year-old daughter (or sister) to show us the way. So young Keda joined us.....I was not at all sure about this, what with my work - how did the woman know that we were not child abductors/traffickers? Finally found the lack and young Keda sat beside us, occasionally saying something. She was a lovely little girl (rather than young woman which some girls of that age might have been). It was very tempting to go into the lake, but Keda (and later her mother/sister who appeared looking for her - so she was worried after all) told us that there might be crocodiles in the water, although perhaps more at the far side. I'm afraid when I hear of crocodiles in the water I always think of that scene in the cartoon version of Peter Pan where the eyes pop up, one by one - so I only went in up to my ankles. The ground was a bit slimy and it might not have been nice to be unable to sprint out of the water. In any case, I think crocs can have a fair bit of speed on them in water....

It was interesting - we were there with some Cuban doctors, who are here as volunteers. Apparently there are lots of Cuban doctors in Botswana, and probably other African/Latin American countries as well. Maybe Cuba gets some money for this, but it is so impressive that it sends its doctors all over the world. Cuba is well-known to run an excellent medical system on a shoe-string (if the string is long enough to close one shoe) - it may be propaganda, but this is just fine with me. (Much like El Sistema from Venezuela - if it does good to its own people and give benefits/pleasure to people in other parts of the world, why not. I wondered how able they might be to open a bank account here - the bank I opened an account with made me sign some thing about trading with unapproved countries, of which Cuba is bound to be one.

It was an interesting outing, not least because I found myself as one of the three guys going out with three girls (plus young Keda) - I did wonder a bit how to handle this. Stuff to get used to, I suppose.

Learnt something else over the weekend, and just had a long conversation with my South African mate, who clearly did not understand what I was talking about (he's never lived in the North). Sitting quite a bit in the garden, I was wondering about the path of the sun; I was totally bewildered in terms of the direction in which it was travelling. Seems that in the South it travels also from the east to the west, but via the north! I had never paid any attention to that in Australia. One lives and learns.

Oh joy, Radio 3!

2009-07-18T18:53:00.001+03:00

My faithful reader Anni reminded me that Radio 3 exists on the internet; just tried it, and it comes across on my laptop (but the Berlin Phil transmissions, involving also pictures, don't... thankfully, it seems, my subscription had expired anyway at the end of the season). This is brilliant!!! So I suppose it'll be Proms from wall to wall for the next couple of months.

So it's a long three-day weekend; I had taken the office car as I am still entitled to. Went shopping last night, and got enough for a while. Just as well - even last night there seemed to be a problem getting it started (it turns over but does not fire), and this morning it did not fire at all. I have a distant memory of having to jiggle something in the carburettor (was looking for a choke but did not find one), but it's a long time since I tried to get a car to start. There are no hills for bump starting, and the thing weighs a ton. So much for my planned trip to a game park, or anything else exciting.

Walked to the Broadhurst mall (about 4 km), described as 'atmospheric' in some information for American medical students. Hmm, not sure. Wish I had looked at their blurb again before I left, and looked for the second-hand bookshop. Otherwise it was the usual shops in Gaborone, slightly less organised than in the fancy Game City Mall (Broadhurst was probably built in bits), a post office which took 15 minutes to post registered letters, a very nice shop with a huge range Indian spices in bulk (200g makes an awful lot of spice), and chapatti flour in 5kg bags (how much flour does one chappati take? 10 g?). The 'stalls where you can bargain for all sorts of things' were largely of clothes, either fake designer goods or secondhand clothes, including huge piles of black shoes. Nothing African. As one who once bought a second-hand Tshirt of a street child vendor in Rwanda I should not quibble, and for non-posing running t-shirts it should be ok. Beyond that it does not have that much to offer to the average ex-pat.

Had meant to go to another place, with a garden centre, to try and liven up my dark patio (and it's supposed to have a nice restaurant, too). But one thing that drives me crazy in Gaborone is that no-one ever gives their frigging address on their websites or their adverts. I assume they don't use postmen/women here; it's all 'Post Bag XXXXX'. How do ambulances and the fire services manage? So lots of businesses do have websites, but don't tell you where they are. The garden centre in 'Block 7' is as near as I got; but Block 7 is rather huge, especially without a car; Botswanacrafts, another highly rated provider of Botswanan arts and crafts (can't say I am that much into that sort of thing, but it would be nice for a look), also appears to have its shop inside a post bag.

Soweto Buskaid vs El Sistema (Venezuela)

2009-07-12T21:50:00.001+03:00

After seeing Soweto Buskaid in concert last night, I thought I would try and compare it with Venezuela's El Sistema.

Both target children living in difficult circumstances (though not all those in the Venezuelan Band fall into this category, 'only' 90% do - that's a pretty good achievement in terms of targeting). Buskaid is privately sponsored (by Total petrol); El Sistema is publicly funded, under the heading of 'Social Action for Music', possibly by the Health Ministry.

El Sistema has 250,000 children participating at any one time, apparently 30 professional symphony orchestras (see Wikipedia) and is creating many very fine soloists, musicians and not least conductors (Dudamel); the population of Venezuela is 27 million; thus almost 0.1% of the population are in El Sistema. The Buskaid project is one music school in Soweto (population 900,000), which takes 80 students (0.01% of the population) and turns away 100s more, due to lack of funding. Rather than an integrative system, Buskaid is more an elitist system - but, it's privately funded, with apparently no state support. (It should be said that there may be other, similar projects in other townships - a violist friend is involved in a similar project in possibly another township, but that does not have as high a profile).

El sistema was started by a Venezuelan, Mr Abreu, whereas Buskaid came into being through a British violinist, a foreigner. El sistema grows its own conductors (well, it does have a huge base) whereas Buskaid is still a string ensemble and conducted by Mrs Nalden; who conducts a bit (I am sorry) like a school teacher - do those children really need two bars counting in? I do wonder whether another conductor, a local one, might not have let the children's personalities and their exuberance (all children are, or should be, exuberant) out. Perhaps the rather refined 'early performance practice' is not the best approach for this age group? But with such a small base it will be hard to find someone....

It would be great to persuade the South African government to expand something like Buskaid, but locally there is probably no evidence base whatsoever to show that it keeps children out of trouble (especially since I suspect that the children chosen to be accepted are probably those who might not get into trouble in the first place).

Music in Gaborone!

2009-07-12T10:00:00.001+03:00

So you think I am in a cultural desert? Well, almost, but not quite.....tonight we had, in the 400-seat Maitisong concert hall/theatre (the only one purpose-built since independence in 1966) a concert of Soweto Buskaid.

Soweto Buskaid is an outfit founded by a VIOLA Player, Rosemary Nalden, in response to a BBC programme about the 'difficulties besetting a string project in Diepkloof, Soweto. It is a band of about 20 - 25 young string players who tour the world, have played at the Proms (to '5-star reviews'), and voted as 'one of the world's most inspirational orchestras' by Grammophone magazine. Hmmmm. You know how it is when you have a blind pianist or someone else overcoming seemingly overwhelming odds, that sometimes judgement goes out of the window, a bit?

Yes, they played very nicely - but world class? They need to let their personalities out.

There was something funny about it. I found them rather timid. Someone said 'it's because they are very young' - that's no excuse; young people don't tend to be timid. Think of the Bolivar Youth Orchestra, or any other major youth orchestra - usually they are full of exuberance. I did wonder about the conductor's personality (more about that anon).

They started with some Purcell, a dance suite, of short dances. They were very nice; played with a nice baroque bow hold and so on, but Purcell is Purcell, fairly straight music, precise, at times not all that exciting....There were a couple of amazing dancers (one also a violinist in the band); I thought of the two Tumi Mapholo was the more talented one - they had done their own choreography which was very interesting, and Mapholo was really, really good. Drop the violin, boy!

This was followed by two Kreisler pieces, played very nicely by a violinist from the back row. In the second piece there were some intonation issues, and maybe not enough give and take on the tempi. There was the odd bit of funny bow direction, but he was having fun. I did wonder about him going to a music school in Europe, say Lithuania; he would have the talent though I would not wish Lithuania on a lad from Soweto.

Then we had two Beatles songs, sung by Cecilia Manyama; she was far more at home in Preacherman than in 'Michelle' (which the band is hoping to send to Mrs Michelle Obama). I think that needs a bit more practice to get more into the singer's comfort zone. This was followed by the first movement of the Brandenburg 3; we have all played it, haven't we. It was nice, though again not as lively as it might have been.

Finally they ended with the Beale Street Blues, an old American piece, nicely played by the band and the basses (they seem to have streamlined basses - they had the thickness of the cellos rather than being deeper as is normally the case).

The second half opened with the best of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, No 6 for violas and basso continuo. I was listening closely to the violas - during the first half emotions had taken over and I was wondering about sponsoring (or helping to sponsor) one of the viola players to participate in the viola congress at the other end of South Africa in a couple of weeks' time. When I was listening to them, they were good, again lots of musicality, but at times (mildly) iffy technique, and damn it, can those personalities not be let out? I thought of the standards of other viola players and wondered whether really theirs would be up to congress level. Still some time to think.

Then we had two slow Gymnopedies by Satie - those that we all know and can sing along to. The dancers appeared again and did very nice dances indeed. I see that the programme notes suggest that Satie may have suffered from 'compulsive neuroses' (hence the 'hypnotic repetitions' of the piece??? though you could say the same about any ground bass; and I wonder if people like Philip Glass have similar neuroses??? - Freud - where are you?). Does this come from Wikipedia, one of the sources of the programme notes?

Another two Kreisler pieces followed - again not as much give and take (rubatos) as there might have been, but pleasant and nice. Finally we had an African Kwela; African music arranged by Buskaid students - these were fun. Again I wondered if the players had restrained themselves a bit too much, and were a bit too much in the European music straight jacket - it was pleasant music, but I would have expected some raucousness.

But overall I thought temperaments were curbed, the members of the group were too restrained, and there was not as much fun as there might have been. '5-star reviews?' At the end I went to ask a member of the accompanying team about the viola congress; not only had she not heard about it, but she also felt 'we should have been invited' - before she dropped me to speak to the US embassy representatives. Well, with that attitude of 'entitlement' (I am sure the congress is run on a shoe-string budget, and could probably not invite a whole group) I could see no reason to offer to support anyone. Money saved.

Will blog a bit more about Buskaid and saving the world and so on....

Medical services - Botswanan style?

2009-07-10T22:57:00.001+03:00

So I've had a stiff neck for over 3 weeks, making my nights quite uncomfortable - not moving my neck much during the night seems to stiffen it up. Tried yoga, did not really work - at the end I felt my head was ready to part from my body; then a massage - the next night it seemed to freeze up completely, so today I went to see a doc.

Did not want to ask my colleagues, less than 3 weeks into the job, so picked one from an embassy website of doctors approved for that country's immigration policy, and one who was not too far from my home.

Found the surgery, a little house in the back garden of a larger house. The reception was presided over by Mma Ramotswe herself; a large lady with a ball of hair pinned on top of her head (Botswanan ladies seem to be prone to wigs, hair extensions and hair pieces - at times it can be rather disconcerting).

She asked me if I had come for a medical examination; I confirmed assuming I would need to be examined before any treatment was given (I suspected she meant a deeper medical examination). She proceded to push over to me a medical examination form for the Civil Aviation Authority..... I suggested that was not what I needed.

Waited for a while; an elderly female doctor (?) had slipped into one of the consulting rooms, but nothing happened. Then a very elderly male doctor went into the other room, and I was ushered in the second after he had disappeared through the door. Felt a bit bad about not even giving him time to sit down.

He did, I told him my symptoms, he started writing a prescription while I was still talking. Meantime I had time to survey the consulting room; akin to British NHS ca 1950. I had been worried a bit about taking off my shirt, and having to explain the scars across my chest (not a very common condition here), but seeing he did not lift himself out of his seat, nor ask me to move my head about or do anything, there was no great need. Not totally convinced about the quality of this interaction....

Then, in the waiting room, I was told to wait. The receptionist shuffled round a bit, went into an open cupboard beside the front door full of medicines, dug out two large bottles, disappeared into a back room, and a short while later re-appeared with two neatly labelled plastic bags with the stuff I had been prescribed. Still trying to find the name of one of those on the internet...

but I did get him to refer me for an xray. Addresses are funny in Botswana. People tend not to use them, but give you general driving directions, waving their hands in the air, and houses have plot numbers which seem to be fairly randomly allocated....luckily the referral form had a general map of the place on the back, and I only had to ask once.

There I did have to take off my shirt, but no questions were asked. 5 x-rays later, including one holding two full 10-litre containers in my hand, and an excruciating one of lying on the table (that's when I worried about the following night) I was done. Result due tomorrow.

It's interesting sussing out different health services. This one also seems to give the reports direct to the patients (though the next day, not on the spot as the Lithuanian service). Is it only the UK service that 'protects' patients from the knowledge of their own health condition?

I may be going to the Viola Congress!!!

2009-07-07T21:25:00.001+03:00

Just discovered that this year's international viola congress, which usually takes place around June, has not happened yet! I knew it was going to be in South Africa.....So, it seems it will take place in 3 weeks' time, and I should be able to get enough leave to participate in most of it (I will be entitled, it just depends whether I will be allowed....)

It slightly kyboshes my idea of going to Cape Town for the 4-day weekend before (we are having some public holidays), but going to the Viola Congress and see all my mates should be wonderful!

Keep fingers crossed!

Settling in...

2009-07-05T19:31:00.000+03:00

after my internet started working yesterday, albeit slowly, but it works...must try out the skype phone side....I bought a lightbulb (the missing one was a halogen bulb, I discovered after buying several ordinary ones, both of screw fitting and that British kind, can't remember what they are called, but they don't screw). The shop only had a 500 watt bulb, which makes me feel guilty about the environment, but it's better for my mental health.

En passant also bought some cake tins ('tins' - they are silicone) and a marble cake is in the oven as I speak - I am finally blessing this house. Ok, so I only had brown bread flour (wholemeal) in the house, but that makes it a bit healthier. Funny thing, though - the measuring jug I had bought measures water, sugar, rice and...wheat.... Cultural differences in measuring jugs, too. The baking powder, I discovered, comes in a rather dinky metal tin, with the old-fashioned 'Royal' logo. At times I feel I am going back 50 years - whilst baking in a silicone 'tin'. I can see food-related souvenirs returning with me to Lithuania at the end of the year...There's also the 'Five Roses' black tea which is the first tea I have ever experienced that does not go bitter while sitting in the pot for hours...

Twice this weekend I took the wrong turning to the shopping mall, the 'Game' mall. First time I drove past a rather poor neighbourhood, the second time I drove right through the middle of it. Great thing to do, going through a fairly dirt-poor neighbourhood with a tank of a car called 'UNICEF'! As in 'seriously embarassing'. I can see what those guys of the planning blog mean about it being much more natural, if this is the one they were referring to. It does look vastly more human, not least because there are many more humans around and to be seen, what with no high walls, fences, the roads being a bit squiggledy (and dirt roads). Though the housing was basic, some just tin shacks, with outside toilets and so on (wonder what it will smell like there in the summer). There was a large open space in the middle, no grass, and a serious football match was happening, with lots of spectators. At the edge of this settlement there were little decorations, some ornamental plants etc which made the place look rather pretty. I wonder if the place has a school.....

There's also the question of individual security. Some people might think that there is nothing to steal from the poor, but my experience tells me that the poor tend to be among the greatest victims of crime (I am sure there must be some statistics somewhere). The financial value of what can be stolen may not be that great, but the loss to the (former) owner can be very great indeed, if not devastating. This place did not look all that secure to me. And even though everyone may know who thieves and who does not, community pressure in itself may not be sufficient to control such activities. People may be too scared to speak out.

A small miracle?

2009-07-04T21:26:00.001+03:00

Just switched the laptop to apple mac and suddenly the internet is working in my house. Coincidence, or is apple more sensitive? My digs are beginning to grow on me...

Sooo, Botswana continued....

Today I walked past a large building with loud singing coming out of it; a short while later I returned by it and heard singing, cheering, whooping....it was the Roman Catholic church! The singing sounded very interesting - quite different from the European RC churches; very African with a solo singer followed by a choir (song and response, type of thing). I should go and study that a bit....

The Batswana ladies are very polite; in particular they are very softly spoken. This causes me no small degree of difficulty, having left my hearing aid at home, what with coping ok recently without it. Maybe I'll get it sent out.

Everyone, particularly men, address me as 'sir' which makes me feel uncomfortable in terms of race relations.

Outside a supermarket today spotted a couple of guys busking on home-made marimbas...

The Game Mall is amazing; a proper Western shopping mall, if you desire to buy anything. Not that I particularly would, and it was a bit dark and gloomy (maybe justified in the summer) but it seems to have every type of shop possible, including a book shop, a few cafes - in the one I tried you need to allow for much time for the service; diy shops and you name it, they have it, including a garden centre. Someone tried to sell me some language courses - French, Spanish - (done that, worn the Tshirt), but also Setswana, the main local language other than English.

Tried to get a ticket today at the Maitisong, the local concert hall seating 400 (the only purpose-built theatre since independence in 1966), for Soweto Buskaid, but each time the box office staff, such as they are, were not there, the guards at the school entrance (it's a school hall) informed me. Will need to keep trying. Otherwise I could go and see them on 15 July at the No 1 Ladies Opera House (I kid you not!) which is co-funded by Alexander McCall Smith (he looks for donations on his website) - this is converted from a former garage and acts as a restaurant during the day. But it's rather far from my place.

Also I see that the Soweto Buskaid will run a string orchestra session on one of those days - I wish I could go along, but apart from having no instrument it's also a working day.

Hey, it's brilliant to have internet in the house, without being hunched over on a poolside chair!

Driving the organisation's car

2009-07-04T20:43:00.001+03:00

Driving our huge organisation's car (both the organisation and the car), it creates mixed feelings in me. It's covered in the (humanitarian) organisation's logo, which does not necessarily help.

Of course it is nice to drive such a huge car, and very comfortable - though I am a bit surprised about the manual windows - would have expected things to be electric, or is this a security precaution, like the internal central locking mechanism?

But I find that I have to drive very well, and cannot let my anger or aggression reflect itself into the foot on the accelerator. Then I am also quite scared about children running into the road (though that's not a problem in Gaborone); I know that if I touched them with this tank even at 20 mph that would be deadly for them. There are quite a few tiny children in the complex in which I live - I would not possibly be able to see them....(I do tend to think of cars as deadly missiles in any case.) Plus here is zero tolerance for drinking and driving, so that is absolutely not on. So it is rather mixed feelings...

In front of me, by the pool at the place where I stay, a wee boy is playing at 'Wimbledon'. First he carried out two green plastic chairs, then his backpack...I wondered whether he was about to run away....out of it came two bottles of juice, and a huge tennis racket. Now he is rushing about after an imaginary ball, smashing them across an imaginary net, and already grunting for...Botswana. It's really rather sweet.

'Cases' and 'Suitcases'

2009-07-02T13:51:00.000+03:00

English language = difficult language. This article is headed by a heading which suggests that an employee of the Polish embassy is complaining that her 'suitcase' was not examined by the Lithuanian authorities.

What is she complaining about that for, one wonders?

In fact, it's her 'case' about sexual harassment in the embassy....

I've moved!

2009-07-01T17:28:00.001+03:00

Slight crisis this morning - having checked out of the hotel, and quibbled over a phone bill of less than 2 Euros (somehow I thought it had been more) when no-one had actually answered the calls, I moved over to 'luxury accommodation in the heart of Gaborone'. Got there to get my studio apartment (actually a bit small, but at least self-catering) and found that it was only available for one night, rather than the weeks or months I was planning to stay. Long debacle.

Eventually they had a townhouse for me. That's a two-bedroomed house, with the bedrooms on the small side, but a house. Luxury? I don't know. They look as if they are not much loved, and mine has more the flavour of a shared student house - there's a certain amount of wear and tear. The groundfloor is quite dark, what with the house opposite about 3 m away, and at the back a concrete wall, a dirt (garden) space about 1.5 m deep, behind that trees and high green netting. Don't mention the view! Wifi - I am not sure about it. But there is a pool (nearby, obviously not in my backyard) and there the wifi seems to be ok. Not sure that I would want to inhabit the house with a bunch of small children. Maybe the flats are better? I don't know. At least I have internal space and a functioning kitchen.

I had taken the huge office car to go shopping, and bought enough staples, cornflakes, bread, wine, beer, the usual things to last me a while. The vegetable front was a bit limited, even in the supermarket, and at the time I had not seen the house to assess freezer space. Maybe I'll take the car back to get some more frozen veg. The aubergines in the supermarket seem to take the American term 'egg plant' literally; they were egg sized. Otherwise the food is a peculiar mix of British food (custard, all those jellies, Patak's curries etc), German food (a la South African) with buttermilk etc, and local spices. They seem to like their spices, the Batswana. The wine shop, Liquorama (doesn't that really make you feel like a drunk?) was tucked round the back, and quite small. But there was a nice bookshop in the Riverwalk mall, and I picked up some books by African (South African) writers. It is only a small section; otherwise the shop is middle-brow, but I am only here for 6 months, so it'll be fine.

Let's see how it goes. I'm a bit depressed about having another dark house, after Georgia, but at least it's near work, and other useful places - not that there are that many (no opera etc, though I see there will be a concert by someone called something like Soweto busk, a string ensemble, on 11 July. Must check that out.

Gaborone planning (2)

2009-06-28T21:15:00.001+03:00

So ok, I only took a brief walk this morning, what with work pressure - but I was thinking about that planning blog. And ok, also, I just walked round the bit near my hotel, for about an hour, and it was the Presidential/embassy area, so hardly representative of the whole of Gaborone.

There were lots of large houses, most single-story, all behind high walls, often topped by electric fencing. In one I saw probably a domestic worker emerge from a brick shack at the end of the garden (hope that was not her living quarters). Otherwise you could not really look in. I counted three small park-like areas (so much for 'no green spaces in Gaborone'); the roads were deserted, barely a soul to be seen - presumably in this neighbourhood no-one would set a foot on the road if they could drive. Crossed two or three dual carriage-ways, also fairly empty (at between 10 and 11 am in the morning). All the gardens had trees and things, so it was quite a green neighbourhood. Did not see any vegetable plots, mainly there was just bare earth (the joys of a dry country, where weeds may not grow much). Probably again these people just buy their food....But it was a very pleasant, liveable neighbourhood, though totally without shops (unlike in Georgia, where every cellar is a shop). Not sure about community facilities either; did not see any, but would this type of people do 'community'?

I was a bit alarmed to see that my entry yesterday was in the Gabarone Google News Alert. Bit of a low-news country, no?

A bit at a loose end...

2009-06-28T21:08:00.001+03:00

I'm still in my hotel, have done all the work I needed to do over the weekend, it's 7.50 pm, and so I switch on the TV. Not sure that Sky News is the best that is on offer....it's looking grim for the next 6 months.....

Anyway, I'm appalled at the amount of coverage of Michael Jackson's death, with Sky not half stoking the flames, having live coverage from 'outside the Jackson home', asking people why they are coming there ('I haven't stopped crying since I heard') and talking about every frigging car that enters or leaves the place. Seems to be another Diana situation. Whether he was a great artist or not, I could not really comment upon, but the poor guy has led a rather tortured life - let's let him rest in peace.

Gaborone Planning?

2009-06-27T22:18:00.001+03:00

Here a guy (of the planning variety, presumably) writes about the layout of Gaborone, described as unsustainable. He suggests that the none-too wide roads, hemmed in on all sides by houses in more or less large gardens cause lots of problems, eg traffic snarl-ups (which might explain my 40 minute wait for taxis the other day).

Gabarone as a capital was only built in 1966 and later, and there are plot numbers rather than street numbers; now it is getting a bit crammed, but it still feels nice and spacious. Everyone has a house and a garden, with greenery in it. Which probably explains why they did not think of parks as open spaces when they first planned it - everyone has their own little park, and a tree to sit under.

Of course what Gaborone needs to build new wide roads is a war. That's what sorted the problems in Germany, Britain, and many other European countries. Is that what he suggests? So the roads are not so good for cars. I don't see that as much of a problem. There is a (private) public transport system - so far I have tried it only once, but it seems ok. Why should everyone have a car? Ok, your own car can be air-conditioned in hot summers....

I bet he would like to go back to the drawing board and start again. And then what? In another 40-50 years someone else might go along and give out about the planning. In many countries (in places where a war did not rage) people live around the buildings rather than the buildings making way for that God, the motor car.

The comments on his blog are closed, so this is the only way of responding to it.

Sort of a music story...

2009-06-26T23:07:00.001+03:00

So Michael Jackson has died, after 50 years of, as it seems, a lot of misery, despite all his money. God rest his soul, at last.

I ask myself, though, was this really the top story of the day? 6 stories in the Times alone?

Sex Education

2009-06-26T21:47:00.003+03:00

My employer had put on a 'learning session'. I had just come away from another meeting, the topic appeared to be something about community groups. Important, but not all that critical for me.

Then I got the call to come along, so I did. Rather startled to find myself in a large room, with most of the team, looking at banners proclaiming 'your sex network'. Was I in the right class? It seems I was. It was about HIV and AIDS and how one infected person can infect lots of others, if they are not careful, and each has several partners. I thought that it was good news that in the years between the last HIV survey in Botswana (2003/4) and the most recent one (2008) the prevalence rate had hardly changed (I'm not putting in figures because I am not sure the report has been published) and said so aloud. Sometimes one just does not think and one should keep one's mouth shut. The reason it has remained so relatively stable is because lots of people have died, so in fact this masks quite a few new infections. As it happens, Botswana is pretty damn good at dealing with this - giving all those who need it those anti-AIDS drugs, so people are much more likely to stay alive now, and providing home care for bed-ridden people. Those drugs ain't cheap! We talked about homosexual sex (illegal here) though a significant number of respondents in the survey (male) they had had sex with a man. I then had to explain to a woman how lesbians do sex....she could not quite understand the gesture the lovely lecturer had used.

Later went off to do shopping. I had intended to get a pair of glasses for driving; I see pretty well enough in most environments, but might not pass a driving sight test. Took only 40 minutes for the taxi to arrive at the hotel, and the journey to the shopping centre cost almost 10 times as much as the minibus on the way back. Having sat in the far corner at the rear, when I got out it meant other people had to get out as well. But a good experience to make, and my seat neighbour was very nice and helpful. I still have not worked out the money - need to take a closer peek at the coins.

Did not get the glasses - paying 100 Euros for those few occasions on which I need them seems a bit much (though they might be useful in opera houses, too - whenever I get back to be near one). Also I had gone to the shopping centre because I saw no opticians in the main street; as soon as the taxi hit the road I saw three within 100 m of my hotel. Might check them out a bit more. But at least I have seen the shopping centre. It seems to have a cinema, too; the supermarket sells some wine, none to cheap, though I got a carton of claret for about 6 Euros for 2 litres (the same make of carton that my luxury hotel uses, with probably a reasonable profit margin)......Just had a near catastrophe; the opening for the wine is quite different from the openings the Chileans use for their wine, sold in Vilnius; thank Christ something had made me try it out in the bathroom and not on the beige bedroom carpet. Not sure what the chambermaid will say about the red spots all over one of the toilet rolls....

Work is building up nicely now; there seem to be a few things potentially on the boil and it is nice to be a bit under work pressure. Still finishing another bit of work; had hoped to have more of it to do over the weekend, but nothing more has appeared. Oh well....

Winter in Botswana

2009-06-25T11:32:00.002+03:00

Lovely story here about winter in Botswana.

Not sure what the temperature actually was - seemed a bit cool yesterday morning, maybe 15 degrees or so, but perhaps in that place, not that far from here, it was much colder? And some of the children described were barefoot....

Botswana!

2009-06-23T10:01:00.000+03:00

Botswana – First Impression

It has a lovely temperature – it’s mid-winter, and some colleagues have the heating on….I walk around in short-sleeved shirts.

Gabarone is like a large village – all low-rise buildings, apart from a few in the centre, large open spaces, large gardens everywhere.

The malls are not like the ‘Mall of America’, but rather small, low-level affairs.

The Batswana (people of Botswana) seem to be very law-abiding. When the plane landed, everyone stayed sitting until long after the engines stopped running – until they were told they could disembark (yes, I was told off). A scandal in some other part of the country involves people drinking alcohol and INSULTING other people. Insulting people is a serious no-no. They are also very polite - they greet you with 'how are you?'.

Another case in the news involved a family of 10 persons who lived in terrible conditions, with a house that was far from weather-proof. So the local community gave them 2 tents, but also found that the mother was quite able-bodied and able to work – so she find herself working shortly. Some might think that with 10 people to take care of she might be working hard enough already…

Botswanan names are very difficult; long, complicated and seemingly not connected to any names I know. I will really have to memorise my colleagues’ names.