They must have lost his luggage....

Airlines, you know how they are, especially if you use UK airports. Luggage goes missing all the time.

It's the only way I can explain that tonight's conductor and soloist, Barry Douglas, was dressed worse than anyone in the orchestra. I have commented on his appearance before, though not sure that much of the impish smile was around tonight. It was the black t-shirt combined with the dark grey lounge suit that got me. While the suit did not look as if it had been slept in, an iron would never have hurt. All this was topped off with the gold watch looking out from his sleeve when he conducted from the piano. It's probably just me, I find gold rather naff, but some Irishmen seem to go for lots of gold (viz Jimmy Galway and his golden flute).

Anyway. Barry Douglas, the pianist, who won the gold medal (more gold...) at a Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, is into conducting, too. From memory. Everything. Tonight he got the piano concerto over with first; I had the feeling that playing the piano and conducting to him is a bit like playing the piano with two hands and using the pedals, too is to me - in my case the feet throw the hands; his looked a bit of an effort. Also because the piano was sitting in the usual position for a piano concerto, rather than up the middle of the orchestra, as is the norm in piano-conductor arrangements. It was all right. He played all the notes at the right time, but it did not inspire - in particular the second movement lacked legato. Not very interesting.

The Bartok divertimento for strings was so so, too; not many dynamics, and not much inspirational rough stuff, and little fire. The piece had some interesting moments (written by Bartok), but not played by the band. There could have been much more lushness. The first fiddler and his colleagues, who had solo spots, did fine, though. The cellos got the entry which they were not given.

The Kinsella nocturne followed this. Kinsella seems to have been a head of Irish radio, one assumes of the classical station. It was a one-movement piece, much of a muchness, you know what a nocturne is supposed to do, and so my mind drifted off.

Finally it was Mozart's 29th symphony. It started languidly and uninterestingly. I was contemplating the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra's gorgeous young first cellist (probably not quite so young any more!), Dainius, who has finally given in and got himself a pair of trendy glasses after spending the last 7 years peering at the audience. His facial movements now look quite different, what with him being able to have his eyes open.

Suddenly, at the coda of the first movement, I became aware that something had changed! The conductor and the orchestra got a pulse, and it was stunning performance from then on. I don't know what lead to this sudden infusion of energy, but everyone burst into life and it was a riveting performance from then on! Only, the perils of conducting from memory... either the horns completely missed a lengthy entry, or, more likely the conductor gave it a few bars in advance. Oh the embarrassment of waving your hands high up in the air and nothing happens....

Fabulous Duos

On my return home, apart from finding my flat at 12.6 degrees C, I also found the Philippe Graffin/Nobuko Imai CD of Mozart recordings, including the violin/viola duos K423 and K424 and the Sinfonia Concertante, plus some violin/orchestra stuff.

Even the cover of the CD is lovely, with both soloists looking straight at the beholder. Not sure why Graffin is wearing an overcoat while holding his fiddle, but il est francais et il est tres elegant. (Je ne sais pas ou sont les accents).

I really really like the violin viola duos - you don't hear them often, but particularly K424 is fun. This goes back to my pre-viola days, specifically the Mozart year 1991, when the violinist Gyorgy Pauk and Nobuko Imai played them in a series of Mozart concerts on the BBC. That has always been my gold standard. Most performers play them safely and prettily, and oh, so seriously. My test for fun (though I usually notice the absence of it much earlier) are a couple of notes in the last movement of the K424 movement which should just cheekily be thrown up into the air. Philippe Graffin, the violinist, is as close as anyone I've heard (apart from Pauk) to have got there, though even he is having a little trouble letting them go. But on the whole this is a seriously energetic performance, though it also has some winsome moments where they are needed. I'm not quite sure what it is with the balance, though - the violin seems to be closer to the mike - or is it the usual pitch problem with the viola?

The sinfonia concertante is taken at extremes - with very short, spiky notes in the first movement (as does Graffin in the third violin concerto, also on the CD), followed by a rather unexpected rallentando in the middle of the movement. The second movement is taken rather languidly, oozing pain (though the orchestra seems to suffer more pain than the soloists in some places). The soloists duet beautifully here; there are some exquisite heart meltingly delicate moments about halfway through the second movement. Then they race each other through the final movement to the end!

On this CD Graffin (who memorably with Imai did the world premiere of Barkauskas Duo Concertante in Vilnius about 3 years ago) also conducts Het Brabants Orkest, which also seems to be an extremely energetic and assertive band. Though that he forgets the dynamic contrast in my favourite place in the introduction of the Sinfonia Concertante (a pizz in the violin, debating with the horns) is almost unforgivable.

Overall it's a wonderful set of recordings on 2 CDs. Most people probably Mozart violin concerto recordings ad nauseam. The problem probably was that both the sinfonia concertante of 38 minutes and the violin/viola duos totalling 41 minutes were too long to fit together on one disc, so they had to think of something else....

...not very lucky....

Back in Vilnius last night, at the concert many people complimented me on my appearance (slimmer, hair done [though it badly needs attention]....).

Someone who had seen me at the concert today told me that she could not work out if it was me; she thought it was a boy (! now that my hair is longer!) of 16 or 17.....An American was part of this conversation; a minute or two later she asked my friend and I 'are you retired or are you still working?'

Back down to earth with a bump.

A broken dawn

Home at 3, in the concert hall at 7 pm. An evening of Brahms, Britten and Prokofiev, conducted by Justin Brown, who appears to be one of IMG's artists. IMG takes only the best people - so what went wrong last night?

Britten's sea interludes were a disaster. I must admit to liking them very very much, and having the original Britten/Pears recording; plus I have heard them I don't know how many times whilst living in the UK. So I may have higher than normal expectations (plus, since I had to start the applause at the end, I may have been the only one in the hall who is thoroughly familiar with them). Hearing bits of the piece being practiced backstage before the concert suggested a certain level of fear (though the orchestra has played the piece before). The problem was that the lushness of the piece, and the very long, single lines just did not come out. The beginning of 'Dawn' which should be a very long uninterrupted line was upbow, downbow, upbow instead of upbowdownbowupbow. The cellos had a lovely lush line, but it was just thin. The violins got the line back, the conductor emoted like crazy, but nothing happened. The second movement had a rhythmic section where the fiddles fell all over the place! I fear there was no communication between the conductor and the orchestra, and no leadership from the front chair (that is a bit of an issue; he's a lovely lovely guy, and plays his solos beautifully, but he needs to lead at least his own section; if he does not move at the very least his back off the back of the chair, they cannot see what they should do). It was a shame.

Soloist Lidia Baich then took on Prokofiev's first violin concerto which she played with lots of enthusiasm, and a very interesting interpretation indeed. Her sound was a bit little, but otherwise she did very well. It seems she's a former young musician of the year (Europe), and she certainly was very comfortable and at home with the piece, having clearly put much thought into how to communicate the piece - I can see why she wins prizes. There was not a note out of place either. She also seems quite good at self-promotion, though I am glad to see the links to the pictures of her pets (a kitten) seem to have stopped functioning.

Finally we had Brahms' second symphony which went quite well, with no major glitches. Again, though, the orchestra seemed to go into autodrive, while the conductor was waving his hands about like crazy. But here the orchestra did seem to warm up at least, and they enjoyed it. But there was not a 'Bravo' in the house.

Interestingly Justin Brown has a very impressive CV, but on yesterday's showing it just did not come off.

Dash 8 - 400

What is it with the Dash 8-400 aircraft? A month or so ago two belonging to SAS had crash landings when part of their landing gear failed, and they sat down on two wheels rather than three. One of these bump-landed in Vilnius.

When we took off from Vienna to Vilnius in the same type of plane yesterday, the passengers were redistributed across the plane, for reasons of loading. This was a bit strange - the staff knew exactly which seats to redistribute, including row 8 behind me (near the middle of the plane - question of landing gear?). You'd think though that after two near crashes that all planes of that type would have their landing gear checked, wouldn't you?

Got home safely, though.

Porno!

I wonder how many hits I'll get with this headline....

Some books are quite hard to read. Imagine travelling in Eastern Europe with a book screaming 'Porno', supported by the picture of a doll on the front cover. Aye, it's no jist eny doll, it's wan ay thae dolls, ken. How can you read the book in any pubic place at all? Even at home I was keeping it discreetly laid down, until the cleaning lady at her last outing placed it face up beside my bed. The right place fur it, ah s'pose.

Why am ah writn' like that? Ah fun, ken, that ah aways tawk n think like the book what ah'm jist readn, man....can have unfortunate consequences, like, but. It's Irvine Welsh's follow-on from 'Trainspotting', involving the same gang of guys, in the same part of Embra, Leith. What's changed, apart from the fact that at Trainspotting time I had not lived in Leith, and now I have. I don't much care for the most violent guy in the book moving into a flat just aroon the corner from my flat.....

Cannae mind much aff trainspotting, like, but this time the guys, who drift together in the course of the book, get together to make a porn film. 'Tis not difficult in Leith....My flat was just down the road from a sauna. In Embra saunas are a discreet way of providing sex, and probably quite safe for the sex workers. Ah kent that wur sauna wiz in the trade, what with the girls hawning oot the towels to the laundry van wearing clothes that spoke of a severe fabric shortage and of an ambition to loose much more weight.

Aw wur heroes are in the book, ken. There's violent and seriously paranoid Begbie, jist outta jail, Spud also outta jail and trying to get it thegither with his burd and their bairn (in Embra they are bairns, in Glasgow they are weans), quite apart fae writn a book on historic Leith - which sadly is rejected. Sick Boy buys a pub, Renton (that nice Gregor McEwan) hides oot in the Dam (Amsterdam) on account of that Begbie wants to kill him (and anyone else), but some middle-class burdz (students) also get a look-in. Wan ay the burdz, while being a student, also works in a sauna ('tis not unheard of in Embra, pays for a nice life-style but).

The book is very funny, and pathetic, and wonderfully written, with each ae the characters having their own way ay tawkn. The only wan who's writing is a bit boring is Nikki, the student who works in the sauna - and mebbe she's a bit of a boring person tae, like. They aye tell the story fae their ain viewpoints, n so ye never ken immediately who is daein the tawkin, like. Their minds are spinning, mostly due to the coke (or ching or charlie). Some have tried to give it up like, but not succeeded but. Others have not tried.

The language maks the book also hard tae read, because you want to really savour the Scoats language used, ken. Here's Spud, the failed writer, tawkn: 'Wee Curtis is pure celebratin n aw cause eh's been in some orgy wi they lassies fir this film thit Sick Boy's makin now. A pure dinnnae like tae think aboot Ali working in that pub wi aw thaim aroond thaire. Sometimes ah think aboot him tryin to get hur involved, git her intae aw that, n ma blood just goes pure cauld.'

Imagine proof-reading that! It's funny how none ay the characters are particularly likeable; wi most o them ye'd no want to have onything tae dae wi them, like. You'd want tae cross the road if ye saw them coming but. Though there are wan or twae you feel a bit sorry for, like yon ultra-violent Begbie (though you could no get through tae him tae sort him oot, like). N wee Spud with his literary ambishuns, his attempts to go straight n his love for his pussy cawed Zappa.

Did ah mention the book was aboot a porn film? 'Seven rides for seven brothers'. You could nae mak it up! N it's the unsexiest book ah've ever read - take the love outta sex and it's jist a transaction.

It's great, but it's no for the likes ay thows who cannae unnerstawn the Scoats tung; they'll niver get the book, but. There's also plenty of violence in it, the way a usual Friday evening goes in the UK, not just in Leith, and of course the sex. If you can can deal with all three, it's brilliant, ken?

Love goes through the stomach

The Alsatian who arrived way back in June to live with my landlord's family is an incredibly nervous dog; big, beautiful, but such a feartie! Barks at everything that moves, won't come near me; when I arrive in the middle of the night, she barks from the minute she hears me open the gate at the top of the 78 steps down to my flat, until I've gone in. Sometimes I think she even barks when I go to use the bathroom. Bit of a pain, all that.

We've taken two steps to deal with it. The landlord now leaves the light on in the yard overnight - this hunk of a dog is feart of the dark??? It has worked already, and she's much quieter.

I'm trying to get her to love me, and so invested in some tiny dog biscuits. Every morning when I go to work, I give one each to both dogs (with the longer resident dog getting hers first; one needs to respect pecking orders). It's beginning to work! Previously Miss Alsatian would not go near me; now she comes running up as soon as I step inside the gate. Does not liked to be touched on the head, but I can now touch her on her side a little.

Interestingly, it's also taken about 3 months for the dogs to play together. Complicated thing, this dog psyche.....

NB the option that she spends the night indoors does not exist.

Spotting the expat

It becomes a bit weird when we, as the expats, begin to spot the Georgian expats in the concerts. We Western expats are highly visible, and we tend to spot each other, though it's rather naff to speak to someone just because they are also foreigners. You might have (and frequently you don't) nothing in common.

But at today's concert in the Opera House, 'Baroque in the Opera' with the tiny chamber orchestra 'Mon Plaisir' consisting of one each of each instrument, it was very obvious who was the Georgian expat in the band. People who live abroad for a long time become like the people of the country they live in. (What does that make me??). This soloist reminded me of David Geringas, the Lithuanian cellist, who like Giorgi Kobulashvili lives in Germany. Both look fairly prosperous compared to their former fellow countrymen; it's the better cut and fabric of clothes (though exceeding that is quite difficult in Lithuania these days), the squareness of solidity of weight, the German haircut, the shiny polished skin, and the aura of command. So here your soloist, the oboist, sometimes sitting at the back of the band, was conducting the orchestra. The founder of the band is a bassoonist; forget him for conducting. The leader of the band totally lacks confidence.

So it was an evening of two Vivaldi concerti, a baroque overture (containing a tierce de Picardie!!! - well-spotted), and a Bach cantata where I failed to understand a single word sung by Nino Chachua, in German, I assume. It was fun, though there were plenty of iffy moments, including a very inaccurate cello obbligato in the back (though it was also at breakneck speed), the oboe solo in one of the Vivaldi concerti missed a few notes, and in the slow movement ran out of puff a few times in a way that our wonderful Robertas Beinaris in Vilnius would not have done, and then in the bassoon/oboe concerto the bassoonist ran out of notes, having put the wrong pages on his music stand. But it was all good fun!

We met a delightful couple from the US; his family went back to Latvia 100 years ago, and had got to the US via South Africa and Glasgow. They were over 80 and on a two month tour of Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and the five -stans. A pair of tough old birds! We were lucky to arrive at the hall with them, before it was opened. The security guards felt sorry for the elderly couple and let us in, too! Also met the girls from Latvia and Germany we had met in Kazbegi a few weeks ago; they were in Tbilisi for a few days of well deserved R&R. A great night out, and the concert was fun - not the best concert, but fun. The violist had a lovely case for his instrument which looked like a baby cello case! He hated it, he said...

Expatriate scribblings

Everywhere I go, and where I can understand them, I buy books. Hence the metres of unread books in my house. Some books I can identify later by the price stickers according to where and when I bought them; other times even the price stickers are completely obfuscating.

'Open Season in Beirut' by Denys Johnson-Davies, on the other hand, is one I bought at Dubai airport when I passed through there. It cost 49 units of Dubai's currency. (You can see how deeply I went into researching Dubai whilst passing through).

I thought the book would give me an insight into life in the Middle East, eg Lebanon. It does - into the lives of usually British expats who treat the Middle East and its residents as commodities. The Author is a Canadian. The stories are fairly unadulterated dreadful. There's the journalist who persuades a female Lebanese sniper to shoot an old man in the street, for the sake of the camera; another guy who fancies himself living with the bedouins but goes and tries to rape one of their daughters instead, the guy who casually mentions to his servant of decades that he might return 'home' to the UK, causing all sorts of alarms; the old man in a British nursing home dreaming of his days out East...

The stories are just episodes in people's lives; most of the time they don't go anywhere; they betray a brutality of foreigners who apparently do not see the local inhabitants as human, and who do not appear to care much about the consequences of their actions. Likeable people (usually men) they are very rarely. There are many deaths in the stories, but the expats do not seem to care greatly.

I thought it was just an expat's scribblings; a guy who is out there, with nothing much to do, imagining things, including that he is a writer. In fact, looking at amazon, it seems our author is a very busy translator of Arabic writings. All I can say is, a translator doth not a writer make. I see also that amazon is not selling this book. That might be a smart move.

A very small world indeed!

Reading Grannyp's blog about her school reunion.

I've only been through one of these, after 25 years. When I asked about a 30-year reunion (the person who I'd hope would organise it), she asked 'so who will organise it?'. Fair enough. I've got an easy excuse not being in the same country. Though these days with skype... The next one would be 35 years, which seems a bit daft - so it'll be 40 years, I suppose; by which time we will all be around 60.

Grannyp is right about teachers becoming people at reunions, and roles changing. Suddenly one can have a woman-to-woman conversation with a 'teacher'. Though one also realises that some teachers are pratts - not all of them, but it happens. Never left school, kind of thing. Former pupils also no longer need to suck up to teachers.... a classmate who was bad a maths had the brilliant idea of joining the music course, also taught by the maths teacher, who was very prone to having favourites. It did not work - she was not into music either. (You might think that 'favourites' and 'maths' cannot be used in the same sentence, since results should be either right or wrong. Believe me, our teacher did favourites big-style. I know because for a period I was very much the extreme disfavourite, and boy, did she go on at me.)

Grannyp mentions that pupils from her school have changed in the last 50 years. I did not find that particularly, but then we had only 25 years of development! It was interesting that at the time my child was finishing university, whereas another's child had not yet started school - but that mum had finished her education before having the child....

Reading Grannyp's entry made me think - I know that school! So I checked, and indeed, it seems she went to school with my son's godmother who she remembers very well. (Both people are very distinctive and therefore easily remembered). Amazing, or what? Since then the school has closed, though not before godmother's daughter went there, and some other people. Now godmother's granddaughter is going to my son's old school. What goes around, comes around!

Where's Blair

Tony Blair - do you remember him? What happened to him? Where is he? Rumour was that he is middle-East envoy - but peace has not broken out. Nor, as a friend pointed out, has another war. That's a good thing, then.

He must be missing his UK taxpayer-funded spin doctors - maybe they did not want to go out into the desert with him.

I see his colleague, Putin, who will also be at a bit of a loose end once his presidency ends (and hat off to his respect for democracy that he is not, like the tinpot dictators all around him, getting his constitution changed so he can be president for life - yet), has already thought of another job. Apparently he is going to stand for the Russian parliament at the December 2007 election. His president job ends in March 2008. Interesting.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Haruki Murakami writes either novels or short stories. It's a pity; I don't like short stories much and here I got landed with a book full of them. It was part of my 3 books for the price of two at Gatwick airport, I think.

The stories are good; quirky and often very strange in the way that Murakami usually writes, and often without a definite end - they tend to peter out. All the stories are quite different and set in different parts of the world. I could have done without the shortened version of 'Norwegian Wood' which I had only just read. The blurb on the back talks about Murakami's inventive mastery - that's certainly right; he's absolutely astonishing in the kinds of stories and characters he creates - where does he get his ideas from?

If you like Murakami and you commute to work on a train or a bus it'll be a wonderful book. But of course, short stories are, er, short, and so it is probably quite put downable, too.

And that's all I remember about it - I read it a few weeks ago, in Ukraine. And now I can get it off my desk.

Understanding Australia

'Speaking from the heart' is one of the books I brought back from Australia; it was one of the very few books of writing (or is it speaking) by native Australians, also known as 'Aaaabos' to Sir Les Patterson. (For those not in the know, the latter is not a nice way of speaking about the native Australian population).

It's a collection of stories describing their lives, by various members of the different communities. There are many different communities and they cannot be treated as the same; they have different languages and different cultural understandings of things. The stories are often fairly horrific, particularly in terms of the White Australia policy of the first half of the 20th century, when the Native Welfare Board was trying to breed out blackness - the board had to approve every marriage involving native Australians, and woe betide them if someone wanted to marry a blacker person (though by definition often one of the parties of the marriage would be blacker). A chap called Mr Neville, the head of the Native Welfare Board, was particularly feared and loathed. Children would be taken from the families and put into missions, often orphanages where they would be brought up in institutional life and encouraged to forget everything about their birth families. There also seems to be a concept of mission which seems to be a very large area of land, managed by some church folk, where native Australians of all ages would live. Although native Australians were able to join the army, they were not always able to participate in the lives of the other soldiers, for example when they would go out and the 'blackfellas' would not be served alcohol.

The spirituality of the native Australians comes through very strongly, as does their connectedness to the land (especially through the 'taproot' which we gardeners know is the strongest kind of root, though here the meaning is conceptual) and its nature, and their very strong sense of family, which does not only include those connected by blood. Hence it's even more atrocious to have the children removed. Interestingly one of the narrators talks about the British children who were in the orphanages at the same time (for a while the UK exported its post-war orphans to Australia and Canada).

Now, having been in Oz just at the time of the child abuse scandal, what surprised me most of all was the talk in the book of families living in four-bedroomed houses, having highly polished floors etc (though not all of them in the book). All the media images at the time (June this year) of native Australians showed rag-tag people sitting near nothing more than benders suggesting that these are their homes. Native Australians were almost invisible, and the few I saw in Adelaide, apart from one smart schoolboy, were always very much at the margin of things. This representation is totally different from that in the book, where most narrators are community leaders and some are academics. Many of them have non-native Australian ancestors, eg white Australians, English or Asians, and perhaps that gave their families a different experience to draw upon and a different outlook. In some way I would have liked to hear more about the downtrodden members of the community and their experiences of life - this is perhaps my greatest criticism of the book. Incidentally you wonder how much the alleged difficulties in childrearing is due to the institutional upbringing of so many native Australians.

Interestingly, at our viola congress reception in Adelaide Town Hall, there were a character whose namebadge said 'Uncle.....'. I asked him what it meant but just at that time the speeches started. 'Uncle...' seems to be the title of an elder of the community. He bade us welcome in another language which we did not understand. He was also white as the driven snow. So the White Australia policy has worked?

Statistics

2 sets of interesting statistics:

from Transparency International, the Corruptions Perception Index of how corrupt people see their society, and of countries I know and love:
1. Denmark (least corrupt)
12. UK
16. Germany
28. Estonia
41. Czech Republic
51. Lithuania and Latvia (oy veh!, Lithuania has dropped)
61. Poland
79. Georgia
99. Armenia
111. Moldova and Rwanda
118. Ukraine
123. Viet Nam
143. Russia
150. Tajikistan
175. Uzbekistan
178. Iraq (well done!)
179. Somalia (most corrupt)

Health Consumer Powerhouse has assessed the health systems of all European Member States and found that Bismarck beats Beveridge (what a headline!). The results in relation to some countries are as follows:

1. Austria (best)
5. Germany
12. Estonia
17. UK
26. Lithuania (below Romania)
29. Latvia

I wonder what makes Estonia perform so much better than its Baltic neighbours? Is it the close influence of Finland?

Plummed out!

I can't believe I've processed over 20 kgs of plums this week! I like them a lot, and they are so easy to process....I feel sorry for my friend Pat in Scotland who can only buy them in packs of 6 (and even though I think they should be larger than the ones here [which I suspect are damsons] that's still a ridiculous little amount at no doubt a vast price). Then again, here I spend about 30 p on a kilo of plums, but nearer 4 quid on a 500 g packet of cornflakes. You do begin to appreciate why people in the UK, where the costs are no doubt inverted, are the shape they are.

So now I've got two kinds of plum jam; one made from a German recipe involving lots of balsamic vinegar (I'm not totally convinced), one British kind with lots of sugar; 21 jars of bottled plums, 5 bits of baked plums in the freezer, two cakes (tomorrow evening's singing is in a very special place and we always bring supplies, though I am not totally convinced of the cakes either...). I noticed the price had gone up this weekend, but I'm not sure if that's due to my neighbourhood which has more foreigners, or whether it's coming to the end of the season.

Apart from that I did two hour-long runs, wrote three mini-essays, went to the theatre and ate out, did a bit of revision, and for that harmonised the Georgian alternative national anthem 'Suliko' (in 3 parts) into something that was intended to be a Bach chorale (in four parts), but does not sound that much like it (especially since I've now also messed around with accidentals). Meant to do it a la Mozart, too but began to wonder if it is not a little bit modal? I can't do modal harmony, I don't think. For a Georgian tune, having looked closely at harmonic patterns, it is certainly much more western than many other Georgian songs (phrase length, cadences etc). Now I know why some people find it a bit cheesy, but if you get a group of Georgians together abroad sooner or later they will burst into it.

Talking of food, I see the Observer has 'a second helping' of Nigel Slater's new book 'Eating for England' (note, only England). Having listened to his book 'Toast' this offering seems to offer nothing new, according to today's excerpt. He is still nostalgically looking back at the glory days of his childhood (which weren't actually all that wonderful, our Nige, were it?) and the food he enjoyed/experienced then, like marmite, custard, coleman's mustard, dairylea cheesespread and so on. Much as the chapters in 'Toast'. Or is he picking up here what he left out? It's nice to look back at food people ate then (when some had more physical jobs, children could play outside etc), but some of that food was pretty ghastly, too. Take Marmite, dairylea, salad cream (someone somewhere recently had salad cream, thinking it was mayonnaise, and got an interesting surprise).

Little (very very little) and Large

Did not mean to go to the final concert of the Tbilisi Autumn concert series. A recorder soloist - I mean, give me a break, that'll be boring, no? So I had bought a ticket for the theatre instead (Twelfth Night, already reviewed here). It was great! The only problem was that when I arrived at the Rustaveli theatre for 7 pm I found the doors firmly locked, as did some other people. What had happened? The shows now start at 8 pm - which makes it quite late in the case of Shakespeare.

What to do? Nipped along the road to the opera house and got a ticket for the concert. In the queue was the lovely Giorgi Kharadze, last night's soloist, who told me he now lives in Germany, where he is studying in Cologne with Frans Helmerson, one of the leading cello teachers. He spoke fluent English, and French (as a French national presumably), Georgian of course, and I assume also German. Any young musician who speaks no language but their birth language strangles his or her international career at birth!

So found a seat at the end of a row, to be able to escape quickly to the theatre. Found myself beside the basses, and had a wonderful opportunity during the initial Mozart symphony to revise classical harmony and confirm that in Mozart's day the basses play the same as the cellos, only an octave lower. I've also revised my opinion of the orchestra's ability to play Mozart; they are really quite good when a section of 6 basses and 10 cellos can play really delicately and quietly. Also had a better view of the orchestra leader and confirmed my view that he is really very good indeed - a great leader!

Then on came the soloist. Most of us who had attended the concert series regularly recognised him as the very tall German guy, Justus Wilberg, who also had come to every concert. But where was his instrument? He put his hand in his jacket and pulled out .... a sopranino recorder. That's the recorder equivalent of a piccolo flute; a tiny thing. The player was well over 2m tall; with hands like shovels, and here he was playing this titch of a thing in Vivaldi's concerto for it. In Eastern Europe recorders are rarely taken seriously as concerto instruments.... He laughed, the audience laughed, and after his first musical entry (and exit) a slight hum broke out in the audience, which continued to smile. After that they were totally spellbound, partly also because he did not seem to breathe. Ok, so he's a guy with big lungs and a tiny instrument, and I think I saw him doing circular breathing, but it was pretty, er, breathtaking. The orchestra had reduced its forces for this, and accompanied him very delicately indeed. It worked very well.

I see that I left before a concerto by Telemann for recorder and ....VIOLA! Glad I did not know about that...

Georgian and Armenian life

Yesterday's demo seems to have gone off fairly peacefully. US media report a crowd of 1500, Russian media tell us that 10,000 demonstrated against Sakaashvili. I was there - the US media are nearer the mark. By the time the concert started the road had re-opened and it was business as usual. I heard another theory about Okruashvili's outburst against the President; this suggests that he knew that he was going to be arrested for corruption etc, so he said this stuff to make his arrest look political. Machiavellian, no? In this case I take back any words involving 'banana' and 'republic'.

Today Armenia Now reports that the Georgian government is planning to demolish the Armenian district, Havlabar, around the new Cathedral in Tbilisi (photo courtesy of Ham) and to construct an 'elite district'. Opinions vary, from yes, it's time they pulled down the old houses (an Armenian living there) since they lack all amenities, and people are supposed to be compensated or get accommodation in the new district. Other's say it's anti-Armenian, as proved by the fact that a seminary attached to the cathedral is being built on an old Armenian graveyards, and bones have been littered everywhere. (A story the Jews of Vilnius can tell, too, so the Jewish diaspora outside Lithuania says). Someone says that the President suggested the Armenian diaspora is paying for this little exercise.

So of course I had to go for a run and take a look. It needs to be said that the area behind the cathedral is like a village, with mud roads and I dread to think what the domestic facilities are. There are all individual houses, but quite closely together, not surrounded by high walls and strong gates like in richer neighbourhoods; nor are any large farm animals visible. It's a very poor but also very interesting little neighbourhood.

If I were them, I would not look forward to any significant compensation, though, particularly if the Armenian diaspora is involved. There were horror stories when a similar large scale deconstruction/reconstruction took place in the centre of Yerevan, where on occasion laws were changed so people's property could be taken from them with little or no compensation. And even in Vilnius there are shady goings-on in the district of Snipiskes where wooden houses, in a perfect little rural location (though with a slightly shady reputation here and there) very close to the city centre, have a habit of going up in smoke. Insurance cover is often lacking...and even if an arsonist is identified, the compensation is minimal.

The land here in Tbilisi is worth a fortune - as I discovered when I turned a corner and found myself behind the new presidential palace/offices currently being constructed. Suddenly everything became clear! Clearly it would be an ideal location for lobbyists and all the usual presidential hangers-on to have nice offices, somewhere to have a civilised lunch and it's not far from the Tbilisi sea, so a good place to live? Maybe if the existing residents really get a place in the new developments, they might enjoy them (running water, electricity etc), and who is to say if they would lose more than they will gain. It's just that the phrase 'we've been robbed' does not get out of my mind...

A concert to die for!

I'd been telling everyone about Giorgi Kharadze, the extremely talented young Tbilisi-born but French-raised cellist, who last night performed Haydn's first cello concerto. I'd been telling them about what a talent he was and what prizes he had won, though I had never heard him play. So I was a little worried in case I had over-sold him.

I did not need to worry! It was a wonderful, wonderful performance. It is not often that I am moved to tears by music, but here I was. Kharadze, a tall and very skinny young man with fingers that the witch from Hansel and Gretel would want to spend much time fattening up, is an extremely impressive communicator. When he plays, totally flawlessly, he looks around the audience and the orchestra (not sure how much he takes in but it's nice for the audience) and it gives just that air of total communication and total togetherness. He was completely and utterly in command of this concerto and there were moments of almost orgasmic beauty. Kharadze has been very involved with the Kronberg Academy in Germany which is a kind of elite training centre for cellists. If he performs anywhere near you, go and see him. If you are in the business of organising concerts, go and engage him!

I need to add that the orchestra did very well playing with him - the final movement was a teeny bit on the fast side, but the orchestra hung in there. (Not every orchestra does that...). The leader of the first fiddles is very impressive and he's got his crew well trained. It's a shame that the conductor seems to think he needs to participate in every encore (so it's usually the final movement again); it gives the impression that the soloist cannot play anything else, but this cannot be so in the cases of the two soloists I heard this week (Natia Buniatishvili has attended Lockenhaus, the Gidon Kremer summer retreat - he only invites the most talented people).

The Haydn was surrounded by two Mozart symphonies, Nos 23 and 36, and Mozart's 'Serenada Notturna' for four orchestras. I've heard this now, and I don't need to hear it again. Like ever. Jeeez, what a boring piece of work. The impression one gets is that it was written for a school with beginners and better players. Orchestras 1 and 2 play fairly elaborate stuff (the same stuff but 2 plays after 1) ; orchestra 3 plays bits of that, and orchestra 4 plays a few chords. The music goes round from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4; always in the same sequence, always with each orchestra playing at its own level. Safe, and dull, dull, dull, dull. One fairly quickly gets the idea, but it goes on and on and on. No thanks!

Hot Politics

The political temperature is rising in Tbilisi. A couple of days after the former defence minister Okruashvili accused the (absent) President Sakaashvili of involvement in murder, the former finds himself in prison on corruption charges. This leads to two possible conclusions:

• if he was really corrupt then it is breathtaking political naivety to arrest him just as he attacks the President. But then again, breathtaking naivety is not uncommon here. I think I heard that Sakaashvili, who is at the UN in New York, has not been entirely happy with the UN's work in relation to the break-away region of Abkhazia - and he's not afraid to say anything to anyone. Fair enough, I suppose, the UN is fairly toothless anyway, compared to, say, Russia.
• if Okruashvili was arrested because of what he said, then the words 'banana' and 'republic' are not that far apart. That sort of thing would really bring down the standing of Georgia in the west. Then again, India survived a similar style of Government in about 1976.....

So today there's a huge demonstration in front of the Parliament building (see photo - I've taken better ones, but it's good to stay away from truncheons). It seems fairly civilised, and I hope not no-one will lose their hot heads. Someone had their very small boy in traditional Georgian costume on the street......At the one end of the road (maybe at both ends, and certainly even more up the side streets) there are 12 buses containing 600 soldiers in riot gear. If there are more soldiers in other places, there could be a thousand easily....

In between is the opera house at which tonight one of the best young cellists in the world, Giorgi Kharadze, will be playing Haydn. This is what the access to the opera house has been looking like for the last few weeks. It's beginning to improve .....Luckily, she can't fail to notice, the slabs that they are putting down are too unwieldy to chuck, should the demonstration turn nasty.

My Ipod's not well!

Yesterday I used the Ipod for work for the first time; there's a programme called Mojopac which allows you to use your Ipod much like your computer (though someone pointed out that Ipod hard disks are not as long lasting as computer hard disks), and you can even have your own desktop anywhere you work, though you need to instal your own programmes on the Ipod (unless you use it just as a storage device, which is also an option). But with your own desktop and stuff you feel quite at home, which is nice.

So, installed Firefox on it, and downloaded open office to instal on it. Went home, tried to install and it froze up. Went to a concert, and tried again to install the stuff, when the Ipod got a very sad face and refused to do anything. Aaaargggh.

The internet tells me it may be a hardware fault, which would mean sending it in. At least I suppose I know that some bits in it are working.....but what to do? Much advice on the internet relates to older Ipod models, though by now mine is not the latest one either.

Apart from pushing buttons here or there, the advice has included:

• opening it up and disconnecting the battery briefly, or hitting the tiny reset button on the hard drive (invalidates the warranty, and with my talent I will break it completely)
• dropping it from between 4 inches and waist high onto a hard surface; it seems to have worked wonders for many people. I've tried the waist high onto a carpet, but it did not work, nor has the shaking or one 4 inch drop onto my desk. Made plenty of noise though - but you know what happens when you shake a baby...
• plugging it into a mac computer (as opposed to my PC)....hmm, I wonder if a Linux computer might help shock it back into life?
  
• Now I am trying to use up the battery - and maybe then it will unfreeze itself. Trouble is that usually it only runs (and beeps??) for a few seconds - but I found by setting it to diagnostic mode it keeps the screen lit up (and presumably using the battery).

It's not only the 4-month-old Ipod that has a sad face......

Michelin girl and other news

The MoscowTimes (photo courtesy of Reuters) reports the birth of a 7.75kg (16 pounds?) baby girl to a proud mother in Siberia. She's her twelfth child; apparently all her children were 5 kgs or more. It looks like wee Nadya has a bit of a mouth about her already - you can just see her in 40 year's time not taking any bullshit from anyone. The little child next to her looks, which has ribs, totally stunned!
(for my more sensitive readers - yes, the thoughts of freakshow and invasion of privacy did cross my mind, very briefly).

That blue stuff on her belly button (do they cut them off short in Russia, or what?) is some sort of disinfectant; even in Vilnius you sometimes see children who've had chickenpox and have little blue spots all over their pale little faces.

I was raiding the paper of news about the Lithuanian (...Russian...) politician (semi-ex) Uspazkich who had stormed into parliament a few years ago, but then got into deep trouble corruption-wise, to the degree that he fled to Russia where presumably he has a right to stay, having been of that citizenship. It seems he has returned to Vilnius and been arrested on arrival. Glad I was not on that flight. There is a rumour that his return might have something to do with a by-election in some corner of Lithuania, but surely to God, he wouldn't have the nerve? He probably would....

In the UK politicians tend to get accused of bedroom pecadillos and high-level corruption [in the interests of the nation....], in Lithuania it's personal corruption, bedroom stuff or KGB membership, but in Georgia it's murder and mayhem. A disgusted former defence minister (who was demoted), Okruashvili, has accused the president, Sakaashvili of ordering him to kill the richest man in Georgia, to attack an MP, Valery Gelashvili who spends much of his time in Lithuania (and how can he be an MP in Georgia?), and to have had involvement in the death of Zhvania, the former prime minister, who died mysteriously of gas poisoning one cold spring a year or two ago. All this on the website www.civil.ge - not very civil, no?

In Vilnius Gelashvili has an extremely posh hotel on Pilies Street, the main tourist thoroughfare. This article which says 'he maintains some business interests in Vilnius' is slightly understating that fact....

Jarring moments

I know I am paid enough money to buy any food I like, at any time that I like it, but there is still that Scottish streak in me. The one about preparing for the future because you don't know what's round the corner.

So in the autumn, particularly in Eastern Europe, where people are preparing for a hard winter ahead, I start to feel the need to do the same. Even though years of experience have told me that I never get round to eating all the food I have frozen or preserved. Be honest - what's the bottom of your freezer like? But you never know....

Add to that the fact that I like anything with plums, though like with all fruit I'm not a great fan of the raw stuff - you never know whether they are under-ripe or over-ripe, or whether they contain a wee beastie or two. (Remind me of the wee beastie story later!).

Stewed plums I love, plum cake I brought into work the other day, baked plums - they are so juicy and oozing that you hardly need any sugar. Another bonus, together with that of the plums being not far from prunes....

Last weekend I bought five kilos of plums, in the expectation that I would be able to buy some jars to put them into. Jars? How to describe them at the market? No jars to be seen, only lids which looked like they needed an implement to attach them to jars, rather than being screw-top. And presumably they would be destroyed in the opening process. All not very convenient. But still no jars to put under the lid.

Then I asked a friend to go somewhere to buy some. He said that he'd have a look at home to see if he had any. That was Monday. Yesterday asked again, he'd forgotten, others had forgotten, I had retrieved two coffee jars from work...and baked and frozen lots of plums. Not sure if you can bottle baked plums - but they would be so much better than cooked plums....

Thinking creatively I decided to buy food that comes in jars. But how much can I eat quickly? And usually I don't buy that kind of stuff! I spotted the ideal jars in the corner shop - they were full of plums imported from Germany! So I bought some sausages and some peas. At that moment my Scottish streak must have deserted me because I realised afterwards that I had paid 7 Euros for 10 little Viennese sausages, which are not that exciting to eat. I mean, come on!

Today I asked another friend; he said - I know exactly where to go. We went and got 15 beautiful jars with screw top lids. And I now know where that place is and can get more. Now, what else can I bottle/preserve? I've found a very nice recipe for a special kind of plum jam...

The lily, the pomegranate, the grapes, the banana leaf and the feather

Another evening at the Opera House, another concert (great when you can call that 'revision'). Had not intended to go to the first half of Chopin's piano concerto No 2, but this piano pupil felt a bit guilty about that.

I'd always thought that any piano concertos after Beethoven would be loud and virtuosic, and lifting the piano into the air - but not in this case! This is a very delicate piece where the pianist dances along the fingerboard, up and down and twirls around a little. I suspect the piano in question could not have taken much more... I'm showing the publicity still of the lovely soloist, Khatia Buniatishvili, because she actually now has very short hair indeed. She played beautifully, very controlled, like a grasshopper skipping across the keys and enjoying herself greatly when they played the last movement again as an encore. The title of this post? That was a floral arrangement she received from an admirer - the feather stuck out of the pomegranate. It must be the time for them!

The second half ...well, it was a bit of an odd concert. At the beginning we waited for 20 minutes after the official starting time (5 minutes after the audience had settled down) for anyone to appear on the stage. Even sporadic outbursts of applause brought nothing.

Then the orchestra must have made up for lost time - and after the interval it appeared when far less than half the audience had returned. Shortly afterwards, when three quarters of the audience had ambled in, the conductor appeared, to hardly any applause. He stepped on the rostrum ready to conduct - and people kept shambling in. He turned round, and back to face the orchestra, and the general hum and chitchat carried on. After a good long while he left the state, no doubt in a mega-huff. And quite right, too - I gave a few claps of applause! Someone came along and shunted the rostrum closer to the orchestra. Eventually he reappeared again, I lead off the applause (applause in Georgia seems to run under those activities on which energy is being saved), he cut the applause very short indeed and launched into Beethoven's 8th. If I had been in his mood (or the mood I assume he was in), I would have given it a blistering blast of music! The orchestra isn't quite up to that (or maybe the acoustics); they did play very very fast indeed (the cellos have a horrific running bass in the trio of the third movement), but again the sound volume was not there. The symphony has some sweet places, which could have been sweeter, but not under the circumstances, perhaps.

This conductor is very sensitive to audience noise, much more so than anyone I have seen perform in Georgia - a child cried roughly at the back of the basses; he gave him A Look, and shortly afterwards the child was gone. Ditto the person with the mobile phone ringing in the quietest part of the concerto benefited from an Imperious Glance....

Not running

On Saturday I went for a long run, after a break of just over a fortnight (though plenty of long walks had been had). It went great! Brilliant, I thought, I can get away with weekend running only.

Ha! On Sunday I went for another run and found myself creaking everywhere; managed about 35 minutes which ain't much.

The problem had been that to go running during the week I used to get up half an hour earlier; and as it is beginning to be a little dark around that time, that had become really hard.

The solution has now come to me .... unfortunately....I get up early at 6.30 every morning (with a 10 am start to work...). Went for another run this morning and still found my legs quite reluctant. I'll have to keep running and running and running....

Singers and teeth

I am not talking about Giorgio Pressburger's weird and funny book 'Teeth and Spies' ('Denti e Spie') which is set in Hungary of the last 50 years or so, and involves a great deal of dentistry (you may not wish to read it while undergoing such treatment), but I'm talking about singers.

Tonight's opening night concert of the 'Autumn Tbilisi' Festival featured a choir where no teeth were visible, with the ladies in particular going to all sorts of contortions with their upper lips to cover their teeth. (A singer in Vilnius also covered his teeth, though fairly naturally, to such a degree that we wondered if he had any teeth at all. He later became the culture minister, then left under at least one very dark cloud involving personal use of public funds - I'm not talking of his salary). Now, you can understand this in a country where you have to pay for every bit of your dental treatment (though in an OU TV programme recently a very fine-sounding singer was also, alas, a fine symbol of NHS dental treatment), but an American girl in my Monday singing group, who naturally has very nice teeth, also does this. It looks so uncomfortable and so unnatural. Are singers not supposed to show their teeth? Is it a hangover of the bad old days?

Anyway, tonight's concert, conducted by Vaktang Kakhidze, started with Haydn's London Symphony - something of a tired rendering, and ended with Cherubini's Requiem - a good subject for the opening of a festival, no? It was the Cherubini's premiere in Georgia. You may be surprised - be not! I was at the Armenian premiere of the Dvorak violin concerto in about 2003; it was not one of their finer efforts, and I am not sure you can call it a premiere, given that they only played two of the three movements - and did the Austrian soloist, who had just presented the orchestra with an orchestra-wide set of Thomastik strings, not run out of memory as well?

Vakhtang Kakhidze is the son of another conductor and trained by his father. Now I am not sure if I saw his father in Vilnius five or six years ago. That conductor had some strange movements, as does this conductor, who at one stage looked as if he was in front of 'double double, toil and trouble', trying to see through the fug what was in the pot. But Georgians move differently where music is concerned - just look at the dancing!

He did nicely on the pianissimos, particularly in the Cherubini, but oy veh, great music this requiem is not. There are no soloists, and the violins don't play for quite a while. The orchestra rushes into the Agnus Dei when all you want is for the little lamb to be at peace, what with it shlepping the sins of the world anyway. It was a lovely touch, though, to dim the lights at the end of the requiem - the fact that this came with a rather audible crack was neither here nor there.

The violins, considering there were 26 of them, did nicely on the pianissimos because it seemed they could not play really really loud; maybe I was sitting in the wrong place, but the choir, way at the back of the stage, drowned out the violins. Do they have strings issues? When I saw the size of the band I was worried about the Haydn - his music isn't usually played by such a huge group nowadays, but the lack of sound compensated.

I was not that inspired to use up my other tickets (except that for Giorgio Kharadze which I still have to get), but I see tomorrow it's Beethoven's eighth symphony, and on Wednesday it's Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, which I'm studying - I could bring the score along!

(Today only the young women beside me were checking the pictures in their camera, and a baby cried - which even caused the conductor to turn around. Otherwise it was really quite quiet).

European of the Year!

The Lithuanian President, Valdas Adamkus, is one of the 4 nominations for European Statesman of the Year, together with the Estonian President, Mrs Merkel and Sarkozy (though he might not be on her favourite list, what with having invaded her personal space by shmoozing her excessively).

Welldone, Mr Adamkus! It's for helping to avoid isolating Poland over the new EU treaty, even though, under the current Polish regime, this might have been very tempting. But it's one of Mr Adamkus' strengths, sorting out messes. He and the then more sensible Polish president and others helped to sort out Ukraine at the time of the orange revolution, and I'm sure he has had his hands full in Lithuania as well. So even though the Economist described him as 'doddery' a little while ago he's not doing too badly for a guy of almost 81. But now he's due to finish his term in office, and I have no idea who or what will follow him.
Publish Post

Soundscapes

The (British) Observer has an interesting article on urban soundscapes. It's based on the premise that we have to live with noise, so we might as well try to organise noise so that it's pleasant to us.

Research has shown that people quite like the sounds of:

• car tyres on wet roads
• the roar of a distant flyover
• the rumble of an overground train
• the sound of an orchestra tuning up (not usually in the street...)
  
• the thud of heavy bass heard on the street outside a nightclub

As a classical music lover, I'm not totally convinced of the last one....But having lived in a city, near traffic lights, for most of the last 7 years or so, I don't find heavy traffic very worrying (though I tend to live high up). What did bug me for a while was when blind-friendly beepers were installed at the traffic lights outside my house - but I did not notice them this summer, so maybe they have gone.

The point of all this activity is to design cities and open spaces so the sound environment pleases us; sometimes this coincides with the environment in other ways like when you plant trees and they muffle and absorb the sound. Seems like a good thing to do. AS LONG AS NO-ONE DECIDES TO PLANT A NIGHTCLUB OUTSIDE MY HOUSE.

Sounds I like:

• that orchestra tuning up
• someone practicing an acoustic musical instrument
• a distant train (or even a near train, it's kind of romantic)
• children playing
• people chatting amicably and laughing

I had the pleasure of hearing the last two the night I slept outside on the balcony. Did not get many winks but it was lovely listening to the sound pattern changing as the children were playing, then went inside, the neighbours going inside and watching TV, the TV going off and another group chatting, then at 6 am the following morning another neighbour starting to clean his yard...

Should mention also that since I don't often speak the language well of the country I live in (Georgia is the worst) all I get is sound patterns most of the time.....

The unknown hand stole a tune!

'La fille mal gardee' is a Frederick Ashton original (here in Tbilisi they like Fred Ashton and Balanchine, what with the latter being one of their own). The music is 'by an unknown hand, as it says on this site, a very serious ballet site, it would seem. The Tbilisi opera house site says the score is by someone called Herold.

That would not be an entirely unknown hand in any case, because Rossini's thunder scene from 'La Cenerentola' has found its way into the piece, with one or two notes missing. In another place the music was unexpectedly good, though generally it was really quite rough in terms of musical quality. Ok, I could not have written it, but someone with just a little more musical education could have. It was quite nice on unexpected sounds, like the cockerels, or a person snoring.

LFMG is an odd ballet - generally it is quite a classical ballet, but at least four of the characters don't do 'beautiful dancing'. Does this make those 'character roles'? That would equate 'having character' with 'not being beautiful'. Moving swiftly on....

It's very funny, and thus suitable for children. As was evidenced in the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre where at least 50 of the audience were under 5; one of the nappy wearers sat right beside me - and he was much quieter than the group of12-year-old lads behind me. The wee lad could not take his big black eyes, with the beautiful eyelashes, off the stage, even in the romantic aka boring bits.

It's boy meets girl, but girl's (widowed?) mum has other ideas concerning a rich but eccentric lad. Eventually it all turns out right, when someone persuades mum of the right course of action. All this is surrounded by a set that could have been part of a 50's picture book, much bucolic countryside dancing, including of course that famous clog dance scene (which we used to see on British TV every year around Christmas). I suspect that in Tbilisi they do not teach tap dancing - this was about the worst effort in the show.

The delightful David Khozashvili, he with the legs like scissors, danced the romantic lead, flying though the air, spinning like a top... I don't know who did the little rich guy, but he was good - extremely precise and totally spot on for his role. The female lead was not bad, but rather angular, with little smoothness. She did all the right steps at the right time, but just lacked the certain je ne sais quoi which might have exuded some personality, in a way that the Lithuanian Ambassador, who was in the audience, might have remembered our own Egle Spokaite to have had.

Some of the Corpse de Ballet, as described on the website, might have taken this description to literally, or maybe there were one or two new people in it - synchronicity did not always exist. But it was a nice evening out and totally relaxing now that I had actually made it to the performance.

Alexander Paley

I've been feeling terrible about not remembering here the name of the lovely American pianist who had played the Choral Fantasy so beautifully in Vilnius a few years ago. Does not help when I typed 'American pianist vilnius' I almost only found my own writings. What I did however also find was my culture corner writings in the British Chamber of Commerce newspaper here. Since I'm no longer a member of that organisation (I'm away too often) it's nice to get to see what I wrote. I'm always surprised that they print everything I write because sometimes I go a bit close to the bone on some people....

Anyway, I then took a look at my own archive of cultural articles and found him. 'Tis Alexander Paley. He apparently is from Moldova, but I know that he studied in Moscow - a flautist I know studied there at the same time as Paley.

Paley plays the piano for fun, I think. One time I heard him and his flautist friend (and her violist husband[?]) in Druskininkai, a tiny but up and coming spa town in the south of Lithuania (see my photos). Faced by a rather elderly piano, he had to give up all ideas of Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy. Big shame! Afterwards he chatted with the many Russian-Jewish guests who had been taking the waters of Druskininkai. Though they criticised that the concert announcements were not in Russian, only in Lithuanian.

His Choral Fantasy that time in 2006 was absolutely brilliant. It was as if he was jamming with the orchestra! Beethoven has chucked in a lot of balls to be played backwards and forwards with the orchestra, and he just lightly kicked them back into touch, with a big smile on his face. Whereas Krainev was glued to his music, delegating his emoting to his page turner, Paley hung in his chair totally relaxed, every now and again reaching over to the piano and putting in his two pennies' worth. The Lithuanian audience loves him, and quite justifiably! I hope I will see and hear him again soon!

Going to Cultural Events - or Keeping Fit the Georgian Way

Since I lost all that weight, people have been asking me how I did it. Apart from eating less, it has of course been the exercise regime. While at home I walked from my bedroom to my study, at first in Georgia I had a 3-4 km hike to work. Even now, in a different location, it's 20 - 25 minutes, well half of it almost vertically uphill on the way home (and going down takes much concentration not to slip on the very shiny cobbles or step into potholes. You can't just stride out!).

But that's nothing compared to a simple trip to the theatre or the opera. Today at lunchtime, on my fourth attempt, I was finally able to get tickets for next week's Autumn Tbilisi festival, having walked over from work and back (a good km in each direction, plus being thrown out of the Radisson building site when I strayed into it, trying to find a shortcut back to work).

So what is she whinging about, you may think?

It would have been nice to get tickets for all the concerts at one go - but today the ticket office (on the other side of the opera house box office, and with no connection to it) did not have any tickets for the last two concerts. It does not have these newfangled computers, but tears the tickets out of a book.

She said to come back on the 26th, when I have another concert anyway.

Oh, but it's better to come earlier in the day since in the evening before the concert she will be so busy.

Tonight I shot home from work, ate some goulash left-over from last weekend which I had forgotten to freeze, and shot back down the hill to see 'La fille mal gardee'. Funny, I thought, where is the audience? Usually they all mill outside the opera house, but for the last two weeks people have been working there redoing the pavement, and maybe they find it too noisy? (I did not think either that redoing a relatively small pavement would take two weeks..)

Oh, the show is cancelled? A young man speaking German said that I could come back for tomorrow's performance with the same ticket. Apparently a dancer was sick or injured but she would be fine tomorrow. (Hmmm)

To the same [wonderful] seat, I asked?

No. I'd have to return my ticket, get the money back, and buy another ticket. He helped me with that, which is just as well, since you needed ID to get back your money (with a signed statement). Of course I don't carry formal ID, and my student ID was insufficient. [I feel a management recommendation coming on].

And no, I could not buy a ticket for tomorrow. Need to come back tomorrow for that. Of course it's better to come early so I can get a good seat again. I suppose I can attach that little trip to my morning run. Maybe by that time they'll know if the show actually goes ahead. But it means running along the busiest street in Tbilisi in my shorts. Not a happy idea....

Airline X

Tootled off from Georgia to Ukraine on Monday, with some colleagues, for a conference in Kiev at which I was going to do a song and dance act. When I booked the ticket I was not entirely sure which airline I was flying with. Having arrived in Ukraine, I'm still not sure. Might be Georgian National though Mr Sakaashvili should not be pleased about their use of ancient Russian planes.

Colleagues had taken the same flight on other occasions, and somehow I had got the impression the flights had always been late - very late in one case. Imagine - so was our flight! Three hours after the proposed take-off we were taken by bus to the plane...once the bus found the plane, but luckily Tbilisi airport is not all that big or busy. We tootled all over the airport, past every plane, past every dog sleeping on the parking area (not the runway, thankfully!), and finally we found the little plane - a Tupolev 134a with no clear identity markings other than a Ukrainian flag. Well, it happens - I remember Lithuanian renting Maersk planes; and at the moment maybe SAS are renting some other planes while their own Canadian Bombadier jets are grounded.

I should add here that that day there was a howling gale round the airport, so the little plane rocked even while sitting on the ground. When we got in...it was as if the Soviet Union had never closed down. The plane did not appear to have been cleaned since it was made; it was minging; the seats were the collapsible kind that you see in obscure planes in obscure places; the seat alphabet was the Cyrillic variety. Ah well, I thought.

Some of my colleagues did not think 'Ah well'. They refused to fly on this plane, muttering things about 'serious breach', 'thirty-year-old', and so on. So they got off the plane.

I never quite understand why then all other passengers also had to pile off the plane while our colleagues' luggage was unloaded. The remaining passengers were not happy. Very far from happy. But it did not come to fisticuffs.

Eventually we got back on board, and the flight was absolutely fine. I had worried about the take-off in the strong gales, but nothing rocked the plane - steady as a stately galleon we flew into Kiev. The catering, in true early post-Soviet style was in thin plastic cups, some cold potatos and sort of chicken sticks, and tea served in plastic cups which already contained the sugar.

About 20 minutes into the 2.5 hour flight the first guys piled into the toilet for a smoke. Not sure why they did that seeing there was no no-smoking sign in the plane anywhere. Did not make much difference to the ambiance of the little plane either.

This is dinner - much the same colour as the plane. The little brown things in the right hand corner are dried meat; the chicken cutlet (I assume) was of course provided without a knife to deal with it. Note that at least the cheese is right for this passenger!

Oh yes, and all the other early post-Soviet games came into play - no safety announcements at any stage during the flight; everything in Russian or Ukrainian, no seatbelt checks or seatbelts done up during landing, and folks out of their seats as soon as the plane touched the ground. Makes you feel quite nostalgic!

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Hotel Rus

Hotel Rus in Kiev is a huge Soviet concrete structure. Sitting almost on top of a hill, with its more than 17 floors it dominates the skyline of this side of Kiev.

In good old Soviet style it has a few big burly beefy
security guards in combat uniforms sprawling around at the entrance, and at the restaurant entrance
one floor up; all with batons ready for charging. It's funny how different cultures interpret security. In the UK you'd rarely have security guards at the entrance of hotels, and if so, they would probably be standing up, wearing very smart uniforms (and often they'd be rather elderly, too).

There do not
seem to be the Babushkas on every floor,though I did notice a
housekeeper's room on my floor which might have the same function (more comfort for the babushka).....Sometimes some
countries/organisations take a long time to drag themselves out of the
old rot!

The hotel does a lot of group trade; on two out of my three mornings I hit the dining room at the same time as a huge group of twittering American pensioners - the first group was on a cruise down the Dnjepr. It was hard finding a seat for myself.... but then again, on another evening our conference completely took over the dining room, leaving no tables for anyone else.

The amount of group trade means that the hotel is very efficient at processing large numbers of diners very quickly (unlike the Hotel Neringa in Vilnius, which also does the group trade, but is absolutely hopeless at getting them through). On my first evening at 10.30 pm I went for some dinner, at the same time as a group of French people arrived for theirs. They had salad, chicken Kiev and chips, and icecream - the latter arrived while the first were about to start their chicken Kiev. Meantime my potato pancakes and sausage took ages to arrive, and I swear the potato pancakes had been cooked a good long while before (days?). I find Chicken Kiev vastly over-rated - not sure what the original chicken Kiev was, but this combination of processed chicken, plastic breadcrumb coating and greasy filling is close to the bottom of my list of desirable food. In fact that night I had gone, with a song in my heart, to the sushi bar on the ground floor, only to find that it was out of rice. Happens all the time that one is out of rice, doesn't it, especially if one is a sushi bar. I think it's still out of rice three days on....

The lifts in the hotel are a serious challenge - there ain't enough for all the people who want to travel, and they are cramped - so you get to know people more intimately than you'd normally choose. Also the stairs seem to lead to no-where - once I tried to run down the stairs from my 7th floor room; only got to the third floor where they stopped, and then had to climb back up since the electronic door card did not open the door to that floor. I wonder what their fire procedures are like?

So it's not badly located, but about the peak of impersonal, anonymous hotel. The rooms are quite small (in true Soviet style with a large empty fridge), and the heating does not seem to go above 20. But it was only three days.

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The expressive page turner

Had of course checked out the concerts at the Filarmonia before I ever left Tbilisi for Kiev. And brilliant the programming was, too. Last night was the opening concert of the season, in a mini-festival called 'Volodymyr Krainev and Friends' (or something like that).

Krainev is a highly respected piano professor who teaches at Hanover in Germany. If you want to be a high class pianist, that is where you should study - he's not the only highly respected professor teaching there. He also sits on lots of piano competition juries, and his pupils tend to do well in competitions. Not that there will be a connection, of course. At the last competition I saw him, a few years ago in Armenia, with huge prize money, it was the pupil of the jury chair (not Krainev) who won....

It was an all Beethoven evening; starting with the violin concerto, then piano concerto No 4, and finally the Choral Fantasy. Oh wow! As we were waiting for the concert to start I was chatting to my companion about the Schnittke cadenza for the concerto, and while I had heard of it, I had never heard it (Gidon Kremer has recorded it). Was I gobsmacked when Oleg Krysa, the violin soloist, stepped on the stage and started explaining about the Schnittke cadenza and how it picks up themes and motifs not only from Beethoven (not only this concerto), but also Brahms and Shostakovich. Wow!

It was great! While in the rest of the Beethoven there was the odd little rough intonation, and the sound of the violin was sometimes a little thin, these cadenzas, one for each movement, were amazing. Quite Bachian in their own little way, reminding me of a slow movement in one of the sonatas or partitas where you have a melody playing at the same time as a rhythmic beat on another string. This beat could come from bowing, plucking, or in the case of the cadenzas, from the timps - Schnittke did not mind including other instruments. The themes were beautifully picked out, and the five-beat opening motif of the timps appeared in both the first and last-movement cadenzas. In the last movement cadenzas the first violins joined in to give a background sound of roaring bees. It's really extremely skilful what Schnittke did in his post-baroque polistylistic approach. I need to track down that recording!

This was followed by Hisako Kawamura of Japan playing Beethoven's 4th piano concerto - beautifully. She seems to be quite a personality, coming on the stage with a very confident and cheeky grin - and then starting the concerto with the lightest touch. She played it beautifully and expressively, emoting (but not excessively) from the top of her hair to her tiny little toe. The collaboration between her and the very elegantly conducting Volodymir Syrenko was a joy to behold. Her way of carrying a little hanky on the stage, and confident use of the word 'spaceba' (thank you) makes me think she studied in Russia at one stage.

Finally, at last, it was time for the Choral Fantasy. A piece I love, though someone in the Vilnius Filharmonija turn up his nose suggesting it's just a baby version of the 9th. No matter; a few years ago I heard it in Vilnius played by a wonderful Russian/American pianist whose name will soon return to me, I am sure.

Here it was Mr Krainev himself who was playing, and Hisako Kawamura was turning his pages. This was when I began to realise that this concerto series might have been arranged to give his pupils concert exposure (though those who study with him will have played many concerts already). Mr Krainev is a little round kind of guy, but that does not stop him making contact with the piano. I thought that the chap in Vilnius had put more joy into his, as if he was making it up as he went along, having a good old 'craic' with the orchestra and huge amounts of fun...This was more sticking to the letter of the notes, though he did not look at them that much. While Mr Krainev had a slight civil servant approach, Ms Kawamura did the emoting for him from behind, occasionally finding it hard to keep her hands still. The choir soloists were a little too heavy on the vibrato (especially the women) but overall it was a great performance and they got a well-deserved standing ovation.

It was really a great way to end my last working day in Kiev on this child welfare project which is about to end. The 'Ode to Joy', given the project success, would have been even more suitable, though!

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Autumn in Tbilisi

It certainly is autumn in Tbilisi; where two weeks ago we were still sweltering and lashing out in perspiration every time we hiked home, today I have closed, for the first time, the little windows that were open all summer. Breakfast on the balcony won't happen much longer; Dinner has not happened for some time what with it being dark. There's a howling gale - great when I'm about to fly off to Kiev on some abstruse airline.

'Autumn in Tbilisi' is also the title of the little festival at the opera house, which I had mentioned before. Starting next Monday, 11 days before the start I tried to get tickets. Box office knew nothing about it. I emailed the opera house but must have got someone who speaks no English - no response. We phoned the opera house last week to ask when the tickets would be on the market; today (Monday) they said. Great.

This morning I hurtled down the hill to pick some up for a friend and I; the lady at the box office knew nothing about it (7 days to go). Phoned the opera house and in my best Russian asked about the tickets; was told they might be for sale in a day, or two, or three.... tried to reserve the tickets what with my impending absence. Can't be done - though the website quite clearly explains how to reserve tickets (but perhaps someone else runs this festival and provides the tickets?).

I suppose, it's Georgia.

How to dress as an airline passenger...

My male colleagues from Northern Ireland told me that it was always better to wear shirt and tie whilst travelling home; anyone remotely casual would be severely queried as to why they would be flying to that (then) troubled province.

If you are dark-skinned with dark hair it's probably not a good idea these days to fly wearing Arab or Muslim dress (I saw some very nice, comfortable Arab outfits at Dubai airport when I travelled through recently....).

Although I wear skirts much more than I used to (due to having thinner legs), and most of the skirts are quite short (what's the point of having thinner legs if you can't show them off), I tend to fly wearing trousers - I am sure crossing your legs tightly during a long flight is not good for your health. Never mind that of the chap beside you. In some ways I like those light travelling trousers with all their pockets etc - but if they have a below-knee zip to remove part of the leg those are uncomfortable like hell if you still cross your legs. Also it's a major pain when you go through security and have to empty all your pockets (though on my recent flight from Plymouth airport in the UK, where I had to check in my handbag, they were very useful indeed for keeping all my belongings). Given the amount and weight of my luggage, generally it is better to check in the light trousers and wear the heavy ones.

What brought all this on? Carpetblogger had lead me to this really funny article about a young woman who was nearly thrown off a plane in the US because her attire did not match the high standards expected by South Western Airline. (Something tells me that my anti-Bush T-shirt with him saying 'Stop me before I kill again!' is one I need not take to the US next year, or even worse, wear on the flight....).

As Carpetblogger correctly points out, a rule like this would mean that most Ukrainian women (and Russian and some Lithuanians) would never be able to fly; Carpetblogger comments that she can find the Ukrainian airlines' desks in Istanbul, where she now lives, just by looking at the hair colour and the footwear of the check-in staff. Add to that the length of the skirts - there must still be fabric shortages in Russia and Ukraine, and the governments/airlines won't spend any more than absolutely necessary on uniforms.

Apparently what happened was that shortly before take-off the young lady was pulled out of her seat by someone called Keith and told to change. Presumably all Americans have a change of clothes in their hand luggage? This American did not, since she was only going to Tucson, Arizona, for a doctor's appointment (the gynaecologist??). Eventually they relented, but gave her a blanket to cover her legs....

The things you have to worry about these days:

• ticket
• passport
• no liquids or sharp items in your hand luggage
• electronics switched off
• clothes demure enough

Also, what's this thing about a man telling her what to wear? Surely that, like searching a person, would be the job for a person of the same gender. I'd have slapped him!
(Picture from SignonSandiego.com)

It was like being at home!

'Crow Road' by Iain Banks is actually quite an old book, published in 1993. At Gatwick airport the shop had offers of 3 books for the price of two, and I needed a third book. Have a vague memory that this was made into a film or TV programme.

Of course it's not about the Crow Road in Glasgow which I used to drive along from time to time. It's set somewhere on the West Coast between Glasgow and Oban, and is about three families who are friends through having grown up together, though one is working class, one is posh and one is in between. The son of the in-between , Prentice, is the main narrator. The book covers the period from the childhood of Prentice's father, who dies near the end of the book. There is a dark secret....but it does not much read like a detective story - this only develops nearer the end.

What I liked about it? It was so evocative of Scotland and the period it covered (including the first Gulf War), with many references to real events, and the very sympathetic family's attitude to many of them. It beautifully describes moments on the west coast of Scotland, which you can only have there; the weather (hmm, yes), the food, the language. Oh, the language - here Prentice tries to imagine how the local polis would react if he came to them with his theory about the dark secret: 'Right, sonny, so you think this wee story that ye've read means yer uncle wiz kilt....Ah see. Would you mind just putting on this nice white jaikit? Aye, the sleeves are a wee bitty on the long side, but you won't be needing your hands much in this braw wee room we've got for you with the very soft wallpaper'.

Isn't that just wonderful? Obviously the polis was fae Glasgow. (Those non-Scots who think I cannot spell 'police', trust me. I'm Scottish. So are they!) I read this book before the Gavalda book (below), and while Gavalda might be minus 1 out of 10 for literary merit, this is about 8 or 9 out of 10. It's brilliantly written, brilliantly put together, so evocative also of the languages used in the different periods and by the different people. The sense of humour is so Scottish, so dry - just pure dead brilliant! But you may need to have been there to appreciate that (though I appreciate books set in England even though I haven't lived there that much....)

Hospital book

Think I'll start classifying the books I am reading into hospital books (takes your mind off things, and there's a bowl to throw up into), flying books (gripping read, not to heavy in weight) and so on. Much like I've classified Verdi's operas as 'ice cream music'. I have another one for music, thought of it recently, but have forgotten it already.

Anna Gavalda is a French author, about one of whose other books someone says in Amazon: 'The book is the literary equivalent of a fireplace or an evening with candlelight, soft and embracing warmth. It is very hard to create such stories or characters without overdoing it. The author was able to do so, and the only actual problem is that the book has an end.'

As I said, bring the puke bowl.

'Hunting and Gathering' which is the book that someone leant me, in German, is about a young anorexic woman in Paris, her aristocratic neighbour and flat-mate (owner), a mixed-up chef also living in the flat and his granny who's had one fall too many. They move together somewhat reluctantly and as time goes on they get on better, and so on....Cheesy isn't the word - it's a Brie running off the table! Cliche overload. But if you were in hospital feeling like death, having had your literary judgement removed, it might be ok. If I offered it to my extremely fussy mother, and she enjoyed it, I would begin to seriously worry.

Apart from the cheesy story, it's the style of writing that gets me. The blurb on the back describes it as 'burschikos' (boyish). Obviously I can't tell whether it's the translator's version of the book, but there is a conflict between what is a bit of a woman's story, and the language which is really rather bloke-ish. Especially since the main narrating character speaks like a man, but is the rather skinny and very artistic slip of a girl. I suppose it happens.

But there are gaps of credibility, too - this girl who is a cleaning lady working nights has no hesitation to go and buy a HiFi, a washing machine or take other people out to dinner, even though they know that she cannot earn much (much later we get an explanation, but it's a bit far fetched as well).

I hate to say this, but it seems the book has been made into a film. The French title is 'Ensemble, C'est Tout', with that girl Tatou who was in that famous film, was it Amelie's World? Take plenty of hankies when you go to see it.

Abbado

Claudio Abbado, the wonderful, inspirational conductor, is sick again; he's had to cancel a tour to the US. Let's pray and hope his cancer has not come back again, and that he just needs to take a rest.