New meaning for 'car bumper'

This article in today's Guardian describes a new type of musical instrument - scrap cars. Sounds like a great idea - the cars are being scrapped anyway, so why not have some fun with them. (The carbon footprint involved in getting the cars to the concert hall, and disposing of them afterwards, is another question).

A German with the history-laden name of Christian von Richthoven and his partners will put on a series of concerts at the London Riverside Studios until 4 May, destroying a car in each show. They got the idea when involved with some teenage vandals; instead the team invited them to their lessons and then let them destroy a car in a musical way, with Bach, Tchaikovsky and Motörhead.

Seems that not everyone shares this sense of humour. They performed at the Leipzig motor show exhibiting lovely shiny new cars - afterwards the guy who booked them was sacked on the spot....

Style in London - final roundup

Now back from London. Flat in Vilnius is quite cold now (heating season not yet started); also the rain has come through into the bedroom (roof is not great). Had phoned the local authority people a week ago, but not sure if the roof was repaired after the rain or not. Need to go and see them tomorrow.

London was brilliant. One evening we walked from Piccadilly through some park, coming out between the Foreign Office and the Treasury; it was such a beautiful area. The total sense of history makes one really quite proud that one is part of this, regardless of what the government does. Also the look on the tourist's faces when they pop out of Westminster Underground station and find themselves right in front of Big Ben!

On the Thursday afternoon went to the Tate Modern; passing an office of the London Development Agency with a rather psychedelic entrance (except, if it had been really psychedelic, the colours might have been more aggressive - but one does not want to frighten off one's investors, does one).

Tate Modern was great, as always. This day, a Thursday, it was full of young people from different schools, and of different ages. They generally wandered around freely (unlike the Lithuanian museum experience where they have to stand still and listen endlessly to boring guides), and what with modern art being what it is always found interesting and surprising installations. Quite a number sat in places and drew their own copies or interpretations of the artworks on the walls or floors (maybe Arts A-level students). It was great seeing all this interest in the arts world.

The Tate Modern has a permanent exhibit by Rothko, my favourite artist, which involves 9 huge panels in mainly dark red and black hung in a slightly darkened room (according to his instructions). Not the most cheery selection of his work. It was interesting to notice that he was born (in 'Russia') only two years after Jascha Heifetz, and both emigrated to the US in their teens. That's about all they have in common. If Rothko had painted like Heifetz played, there would be endless flamboyant detail, lots of detailed ornamentation in gold and other bright colours, and direct painting for the market (was there, in his day, a great market for his squares?). If Heifetz had played like Rothko painted, he would have strictly stuck to the text on the page. But Rothko battled with depression, and maybe that influenced his paintings....

There were a number of interesting exhibitions, quite a number of works belonging to UBS, the Swiss Bank. New exhibitions were being put up, and generally, the place was very much alive.

In the evening to a concert in the Wigmore Hall, but only after a small snack costing 20 quid at Carluccio's in Oxford Street. Carluccio is the guru for Italian food for England (in Scotland we have Valvona and Crolla, a much longer established firm). The restaurant had a long table where various people could eat, and a number of small tables for those preferring intimacy. Beside me were two Italian ladies, one of whom particularly kept bursting into 'Mamma mia!' (not the song). The food was very good (though the caprese need not have come straight from the fridge); nice bread and nice pasta. The bread at Da Antonio in Vilnius is better! There was also a shop, but only a very pale reflection of an Italian food shop, if you compare it to Valvona and Crolla which has food stacked floor to the very high ceiling, and not just olive oil from one part of Italy but lots of different oils, balsamicos and so on.

The concert at the Wigmore involved the graduates of the IMS course in Prussia Cove, a chamber music course of extremely high reputation. The concert included Imogen Holsts's String Quintet, Mendelssohn's piano trio, and Chausson's 'Poeme' for violin, string quartet and piano. The performers were Chloe Hanslip, violin, Christoph Richter, cello, Ian Brown, piano, Sacconi String Quartet - this was the last in a series of daily concerts in Cornwall and later London. The string quartet with the additional cellist played the Holst quintet very nicely (although the second violinist emoted for England), but the game was really lifted once Chloe Hanslip came on stage to play with Richter and Brown the Mendelssohn trio; they did amazing chamber music playing - real togetherness, almost to the degree of 'too much', but this particular group does not often play together, maybe. Later the Chausson was stunning. Chloe is really amazing - almost three years ago, when she was sixteen, she came to Vilnius to play the Philip Glass concerto. As soon as she starts playing she changes personality completely and is totally masterful and, as someone said recently, totally mature - and it was the same then, when she was a mere 16. (She has also just had a wonderful review for her new CD of various less well known [except the piece from the 'Red Violin'] violin concerto pieces in The Strad).

The only thing that has changed, and it's a shame, is that Chloe is already developing middle-age spread. Being of rather small stature it probably does not take much for her to gain weight, but it's a pity when a young woman of 19 already looks like Queen Victoria, particularly considering all that hard manual work she does with her arms. She badly needs some good style advice (including personal fitness advice?). It does not do to wear dresses where the excess weight can spill out of, or in concert a hairstyle which clearly shows the split ends (there is also the question of the very heavy make-up). But Chloe is by far not the only one having style problems (remembering quite a number of people who struggled with similar issues at the Montreal International Viola Congress). One of the most stylish musicians, apart from Anne Sophie Mutter, is probably Misha Maisky with his (I have now discovered) Issey Miyake pleated fabrics, which not only look stunning but I bet are exceptionally comfortable while performing.

Friday was all work, and in the evening we went for a celebratory dinner to the Japanese Restaurant Benihana in Savill Street near Picadilly circus. It's not cheap...it has an entertainment angle in that each table has a chef who cooks the main courses in front of you, and depending on audience reaction, 'arses' around more or less. My friend John managed to catch with his mouth the piece of steak that the chef sent flying through the air. I had the vegetarian option (steamed vegetables) which was nice, and some sushis as a starter which were to die for - the best sushi I have ever had! Heavy smell of fried food throughout the restaurant, though.

On the Saturday morning, before the departure, went and sat in some park very close to Downing Street. It was sunny, various people were about including individuals and groups. Also very lively wildlife, with lots of types of geese and ducks. Whilst I was reading my paper, a squirrel (grey with a brown back) was running about on the other side of the fence with a walnut (?) in its mouth, and then squirred it away in the undergrowth right in front of me. Unfortunately I did not have my camera handy at that moment. When I left, the squirrel was running about again - it ran up to the fence beside me, hung itself on the top of the rail, showed her entire tummy to me (yes, she was a mummy squirrel) and looked me in the eye for a good wee while. Gee, in London there are two-legged and four-legged beggars!

Went to Gatwick airport very early because I had heard horror stories about the length of the queues there. Nowadays thankfully Lithuanian passengers no longer need to queue with British Airways passengers; there is a separate checkin which had no queue.
Security took only 10 minutes (other people reported 1.5 hours), so I had plenty of time to wander about, and have a sushi lunch at Yo!Sushi. They also offered carry-outs in theory which would have been wonderful for dinner in the plane, but apparently currently they are banned by the British Airports Authority (blowing a plane up with sushi? or maybe it's those chopsticks?).

falling stockings - wet visitors

I felt for the poor young woman hurtling rapidly through Waterloo Station the other day. She was wearing those kinds of stockings which are supposed to hold themselves up; except one did not, and the top was dangling around her knee. Lesson to be learnt, here.

Yesterday, near the Queen Elizabeth Hall, a number of interesting installations. One of these is a fountain consisting of a square, which in turn has four internal squares. The sides of the squares are metal strips out of which shoot, up to 2 m high, bursts of water, so that effectively the squares are a group of rooms. Sometimes a side of fountains switches on, and then off, so you could wander into a 'room' and then find yourself trapped for a while if the water comes on again. Very funny - but the funniest bit was when a sudden gust of wind made the water go more sideways rather than vertical, and completely drenched the guy inside the 'room' at the moment - and he could not get out. (In fact, the sideways leaning of the water was so parallel that I wonder whether that was not part of the design, too.)

All Shostakovich

So last night to the Albert Hall for a dose of Shostakovich under the heading of Cinemaphonia. Fist arrived half an hour early, since I had mistaken the start time. Joined a queue, and found it to be one for people who got free tickets. Hmmm - poor attendance? Then got my own ticket from another desk; asked the lady what was the issue with the free tickets - she did not know. I love well informed customer service operatives (operators?).

Wandered into the hall, and had not realised how red it was - everything from the chairs, the decoration, the lights on those mushrooms in the ceiling.. My other impression was how drab it was; not redecorated for decades, I think. The lighting was gloomy in a bordello sort of way. The arena, which is also often used for boxing matches etc, was particularly depressing; simple chairs placed there with metal bars in the back to hold them in straight rows. The chair legs contained the grime of the last 50 years. The orchestra had similar chairs - a number of them were adjusted with special cushions which the cellists and others had brought to save their backs. Really, these days there are plenty of adjustable chairs for musicians, and a rich country like the UK should afford them. Maybe I am spoilt, because concert halls in the relatively prosperous parts of Eastern Europe are generally recently refurbished.

Indeed, the hall was only 40% filled.

Anyway, the concert contained Shostakovich's 8th string quartet transcribed for string orchestra, and his 15th symphony. These were accompanied a) by film clips from Shostakovich's life, and b) by film clips of general soviet life in the war and the 10 years after the war (was the symphony written as early as that?); mostly of large groups of people doing gymnastics and such like. It was a shame, because the film and the music did not fit well together - might have been better to show the real films that he wrote the music for, with the accompanying music. Son Maxim Shostakovich is not a conductor who sets the heather alight; more a care and maintenance kind of conductor. The string quartet piece came together in the end, apart from a rather ropy solo line by the front desk of the second fiddles. The symphony was very transparent, not at all like the normal 'blast your ears' type of Shostakovich sound that one is used to in Eastern Europe. But maybe the son is more authentic than other conductors? It was not a great concert, and the conductor only really came to life when he called up the individual orchestra members to take their bows.

Afterwards in the hotel (that's why I love UK TV) I came across a Channel 4 production called 'Ballet saved me', or Ballet changed my life. It's part of a series about an 18 month course for 200 'disadvantaged' youngsters who will eventually perform Romeo and Juliet (great for crowd scenes etc). These people have generally not danced before. In addition they also get counselling from a charity called 'Youth at Risk'. This programme was the penultimate of the series, so shortly before the performance in Birmingham (with the Birmingham Royal Ballet). The very main parts are danced by professionals, but most others by the youngsters. Originally each other part was prepared for two or more people at the time, and the better one would get the part (it was not clear what happened to the other ones). However, these youngsters being who they are, had difficulties in turning up on time, or at all; but this was also part of the treatment programme. Using 'tough love' they were warned that if they did not turn up regularly, they would be in trouble/thrown out etc. So one day a list was read out of all those who had been late or absent three times or more - unfortunately this included most of the people picked for major parts. They then had the right of appeal, and all of them won their appeal (what's the point, you might well ask). In the case of 'Juliet's mother', both she and the choreographer were in such floods of tears that they had to abandon the appeals process altogether.

Another guy had to carry out real sword fights as part of his role. Originally his part was to be doubled with a professional doing some of the fights, but the young guy did so well, that he was trained for more and more fights. By the end of the programme, though, the choreographer was still in two minds about using him for all fights in the pressure of the performance, just in case he accidentally injured his opponent.

A fantastic concept and I wish I could see the final of the programme. Maybe it too will come out as a DVD, like 'Rhythm Is It'.

Vilnius and London

Monday evening, and a book launch of a book by the writer Arvydas Juozapaitis. No, my Lithuanian has not suddenly improved vastly; my friend Arunas Statkus promised to give a rendition of a Hindemith Sonata as part of the launch.

My first visit to the writer's club in Vilnius; a friend had been in the evenings to the bar part of it and found that much drink was being taken - which my friend quite liked (He's Irish). The launch was in (one of) the meeting rooms downstairs. I arrived late, and found my friend Laima there already. The room was packed.

This was the first time I was in with a literary crowd, as opposed to the concert crowd, and the difference was quite remarkable. Because of the subject matter, not many foreigners attended (I was the only one, apart from some expat Lithuanians). The audience was generally elderly, and did not exude an atmosphere of great wealth. Writing must be poorly paid in Lithuania, as anywhere else. The room itself was seriously ugly; a golden painted ceiling with kind of soviet, very heavy-handed, stucco - no subtleties about it whatsoever.

More and more people kept pouring into the room, and the room became seriously crowded. Old ladies defended empty seats to the death. Old ladies in Lithuania, like the ones in Russia, are to be feared, it seems.

When the author and his entourage came into the room, I realised that I knew the guy - we had once shared a stage together during a conference on social matters. At the time he was described as the 'president's philosopher'; now he is the consul general of Lithuania in Kaliningrad. His other claim to fame is that in his past he has won some medals in the Olympics for swimming (maybe 1972 or 76? He was born in 1956). Nice looking guy, too.

Anyway, Arunas played very nicely, and then someone else started a long and apparently amusing speech - this kind of vocabulary is entirely beyond me, and it was a bit embarassing. As it happens I really had another appointment elsewhere, but I left rather earlier than I needed to. This was tricky, because although I was going out, other people were pouring in; I had to negotiate an old lady's huge shopping bag; I found two chairs being put directly in my way as I was trying to leave, and other people just walked across me. If I had fallen on the floor, I would have been trampled to death by pensioners!

Yesterday off to London, to do some work on Friday. Flight was ok; a young couple beside me - suddenly I was given a pastry made by the young lady's mother, and I asked her 'Is your mother Armenian?' - and indeed she was. Can be diagnosed from the pastries.... She is an interpreter for Russian/English and Italian/English; he is a musician playing the 'birbyne' (spelling?).

In the evening to the French Institute for the film 'Fallen' set in Latvia, by a German producer (Keleman). First the underground did not run well due to signal failure in South Ken where the film was, so at Victoria I got onto a bus. It's really a pain travelling in London during the rush hour, and I don't know how people stand that - no choice, I expect.

The film...well...did it need to be made? It was about a man who had heard a young woman fall/jump off a bridge, walked back to the place, heard a shout of help and called the police, who found nothing. Disturbed by guilt he investigates all relating to the young woman. The young man in the film had two speeds 'slow' and 'stop'. He walked every where very slowly, and he did a great deal of walking. When you saw him at the end of the street walking towards the camera, your heart sank because he would take so long to get there. I had asked about the translation, in case it was into French, but it was into English all right (from Latvian and Russian, an interesting commentary on the social situation in Latvia). In any case, it did not matter too much since the dialogues were no more than 15 minutes out of the whole film. The film was shot in black and white and shot in the most depressing locations in Latvia... happy days.

Now, Wednesday morning and shopping day in London. My hotel is in the County Hall and I use the Westminster underground station. I must say that walking across Westminster Bridge in the morning is quite an awesome feeling - the skyline in London is really impressive. It is also really nice to walk around and see familiar shops, read familiar newspapers, find familiar products. And also seeing so many places that one reads about and hears about. London is really not bad (if you are a tourist).