Unpublished short story (Comes with CD)

Persephone (wealthy, capricious celebrity of unearthly beauty – think Naomi Campbell) taunts Théophile (impoverished intellectual, familiar throughout Western literature – UK casting Richard E. Grant, US casting Stephen Buscemi) to collect extracts that will give her "some idea of classical music”. Keen to immerse her in Quartet for the end of time and Berg’s violin concerto T realises, sadly, the pieces must be accessible, part of a masterpiece, and widely different. One composer per choice.

1. Song, An die Musik. Schubert.
2. Overture, Academic Festival. Brahms.
3. Ballet music, opening theme, Petruschka. Stravinsky.
4. Cello concerto, first movement. Dvorak.
5. Oratorio aria, “He was despised”, Messiah. Handel.
6. Double violin concerto, first movement. Bach
7. Choral song, “Summer is icumen in”, Spring symphony. Britten.
8. Piano concerto no. 4, third movement. Beethoven.
9. Symphony no. 8, Leningrad, second (?) movement. Shostakovich.
10. Operatic trio, first act, Cosi fan tutte. Mozart.

Persephone arrives ninety minutes late for the recital accompanied by Peascod, bass guitarist of Metallica. As Dvorak sounds, the gorgeousness's mobile rings and, Hey!, she’s off to testify about blood diamonds. Peascod nods at Théophile, says “Great tunes, dude. At least you reached track four.” and walks off whistling an accomplished rock version of An die Musik..

Théophile presses the Stop button after track nine and replaces track ten with the Countess’s aria “Porgi, armor,” second act, Figaro.

“Grant, love, that relief to my sorrow, to my sighing
Give me back my treasure or at least let me die.”

Then succumbs to consumption.

NOVEL Trying a new title “A pin’s fee”. Plutarch yet to respond.

I am middle-class, honest

On the left, our Kingston-upon-Thames 1930s semi, sold in 1998. The estate agent noted the property had been modernised “but would benefit from some cosmetic redecoration.” - in other words the vendor’s a slob. ‘Twas a mercy the buyer was desperate and didn’t give a damn.

Twelve years on, scarred by that unkind judgment, I search our present house (new when we moved in) for tasks to prove I’m a caring owner. More and more obscure tasks, it seems. I paid right royally to have the brick driveway installed but now I’m faced with sealing it. Why? I had hoped sealing would inhibit weed growth. It doesn’t. In Tudor England, lacking a driveway, Sir Thomas More flogged himself with a leather whip. Times have changed but I don’t rule out a visit to the tack shop.

LOOK ON MY WORKS… I love France, inordinately, irrationally, irredeemably. I used to think of the USA as the Can-Do country but France is up there. The Millau bridge (already posted) provides grand proof, but here’s humdrum evidence. This low-loader carrying a gigantic yacht has been forced into the centre of a country road and is virtually brushing the plane trees on either side. The latter suggest that this could only be l’Hexagone, but there’s more. The lorry bears the rubric Convoi Exceptionnel. Many more syllables than Long Load, much more style.

POP-UP PERSECUTION It may be a penance for Windows 7 users but is anyone else suffering from the insistent Windows Live Messenger pop-up? It demands I sign up for the service which, as far as I can see, makes me subservient to Microsoft for the rest of my natural. Recommendations?

Wit or meaning?

Words can creep up on you, carry you off. Lucy recently had visitors and admitted her batteries needed recharging. But ended her post with: “Lovely to see them, withal.” No prizes for guessing the abductive word. The dictionary stigmatises it as archaic and offers two meanings: besides and nevertheless - quite a close two-horse race. My untutored view is it works because the sentence is short and the effect comes at the end, like a mini whip-crack. I’d like to use it myself but I’ll have to wait. Currently I’m overshadowed.

Just recently I’ve been road-testing forsooth. This is doubly stigmatised as archaic and/or humorous. It means indeed but like that word it can be used sarcastically. Parvenu: We’ve just exchanged our Peugeot for a Bentley. Clever-Clogs (or if you like, Journalist): A Bentley, forsooth! Normally I’m proscriptive but the screamer is, I think, justified. I file posts like this under Anti-over-the-moon Substitutes.

WELCOME TO THE CHRISTENING I’ve been discussing the novel’s title with Plutarch. It started out as Con-Rod but that was dropped because it excluded the joint main character. Changing Gear brought in that character via a jeu de mots link but was a little too obvious for my allusive taste. Plutarch frowned on my third attempt, Working Stiffs, and talked about corpses. It’s American and means working class. It’s been scratched subsequently but the text will carry an allusion to the phrase at the very beginning and right at the end.

The subject is relevant given the popularity of Wolf Hall, a title which is almost meaningless to the subject matter. But does that matter? Wolf Hall is short and fairly memorable and that may be enough. Plutarch thinks Working Stiffs might put people off. But it is memorable. Well Employed would work but has it got pizzaz?

THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE (SEE BELOW)

Watched Mrs BB prepare Sticky Ginger Cake with Ginger Fudge Icing and was disturbed. I'm Virgo, needing control and tidiness, and recipes don't allow for me. This one required 87½ gm of black treacle (halved from the original) which Mrs BB table-spooned from the tin. Tolerances must have been ±50%. More precision with the butter since the paper packet had lines indicating popular fractions. Worrying work.

NOVEL Dr Plutarch has auscultated and biopsied the MS, done an MMR scan, cardiogram, endoscopy, X-rays and Rohrschach, measured blood pressure and sugar. Vital signs detected. Two months remedial.

FINE DESIGN I stuff the washing machine when I arise. The blue stuff is conditioner, function unknown. However, I approve of the bottle cap. Note the "moat" round the measure. It acts as a catchment and it's almost impossible to spill the liquid.

GOOD READ Finished Wolf Hall. An excellent primer on how to govern a country. Newspaper jokes suggest the book is an intellectual challenge. Not so, it's a good easy read. But the initial pages ominously list the characters. Stuck with the names of real people Hilary Mantel risks confusion since there are several Annes, Jos and Marys. Other than that, dive in (Most commenters to Works Well already have) and thank goodness that a free press, capable of scrutinising rulers, developed two or three hundred years later.

LINGUISTIC STIGMA (Finally it works) Recording my voice to forewarn those hearing it au nature brought unexpected reactions. I felt my accent had virtually disappeared (and good riddance). Others talked about cosy northern tones. I've recorded someone else's sonnet, rehabilitating the accent. Click here for UNCOSINESS

Brooding at the crematorium

Went to a funeral today. My solitary suit, a light grey, mini-tweed bought for my daughter’s wedding (see inset - photo credit Sir Hugh) was out of place, as were my thoughts. Despite being urged I was unable to offer thanks to a god who, I was told, not only bestowed life but created the brain tumour which capriciously subtracted life from a gentle, sixty-year-old woman both of us rather liked. However I held my peace and did my bit. From memory I bellowed “All things bright and beautiful” and would have done the same for “Love divine, all loves excelling.” had I known the tune.

Such ego-centricity! But for a moment emotion exceeded a sense of duty. I suddenly realised that the frail, hunched figure on the front row was Mavis’s bereaved mother! Natural law should ensure parents never have to attend the funerals of their offspring.

MY NEW computer – swank, swank – was assembled to ease my advancing years. USB is great but I hate feeling through the cat’s-cradle at the back to plug in something new. Instead I have a twin-berth dock at the front into which goes: (a) a four-socket USB hub, (b) a hub for camera and mobile phone cards, (c) a remote hard drive holding all the contents – nearly 9 GB – of my previous computer.

JOHNNY-Come-Lately I am almost through Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall”, winner of last year’s Man Booker Prize. Would it have been as popular if it had been straplined “How the Tudors did politics.”? Not everyone raves about politics and re-creating historical events as fiction requires a talent for animating the familiar. Mantel has this talent but Gore Vidal (whom I otherwise admire enormously) doesn’t with his accurate but dull series which includes “Burr,” “Lincoln”, etc. Mantel has one failing – anachronisms such as “cutting a deal”.

FUNERARY ADDENDUM Honesty compels this footnote. Both my sisters-in-law died young and horribly, one of cancer of the spine, the other of motor neurone disease. The former took a year to die and spent it - as a Christian believer - in robust dialogue with the local vicar. Her funeral was High Anglican and the vicar was able to refer to the discussions he had had in some detail. Not that my opinion matters, but I found this acceptable. It was exactly what she wanted and I found myself absorbed by the ritual. My other sister-in-law also had time to consider her funeral and chose a Humanist service with music by Brahms and Simply Red. The eulogy wasn't a eulogy as such, simply a number of observations gathered from her nearest family and presented by a man whose only qualificaion was that he was a Humanist. The event made a direct intellectual appeal to me and I was astonished to find myself discussing the service with an elderly aunt whom I had always regarded as a freethinker (she did chemistry at Oxford when this was a distinctly unfashionable career choice for women) and finding her leaning towards country churches with yews and wisteria. I have to say that both funerals fitted the nature and character of my darling sisters-in-law and that this, in the end, is what matters.

Windows dumbs down

Changing from Windows 98 to XP was like sliding back a couple of years at primary school. Words reverted to pictures. The trend continues with Windows 7.

Start (bottom left), which misleadingly hid Stop, has been scrubbed and literalists may now click on a globe icon and delight in an unequivocal Switch Off.

Right-clicking Create Shortcut is not always available. Instead it’s Send To > Desktop, More logical, of course, once you know.

The former Control Panel option of Add/Remove Software, which I always thought required an initial act of faith, is to be found under the blandly titled Programs and Features. Right-clicking on the listed program gives Uninstall.

Sentimentalists will mourn the passing of the egg-timer as they wait for things to happen; a rotating silver ring doesn’t have the same charm.

But perhaps the best change is the execution of the obscurely titled Outlook Express (which I always renamed Email) and its re-emergence as Windows Live Mail. What took them so long?

There’s a brutalist intervention in Solitaire. When no further moves are possible Windows tells you so.

CHICKEN MECHANIC I wrote the above while waiting for a repair to my car at Winner Garages at the aptly named Forest of Dean town, Cinderford. An interesting fault. At precisely 81 mph a high-speed flapping, almost a chatter, announced itself. How did law-abiding BB become aware of this? In France, of course, where 81 mph is more or less the autoroute maximum of 130 kph. The receptionist told me quite sturdily that the mechanic was not prepared to road-test the noise. However, he did find a loose undertray at the rear and it remains for me to find a bit of motorway and check the repair.

BB speaks through the techno-mist

Recently I confessed to an accent formed during my youth in the West Riding (ie, a part of Yorkshire, one of our grimmer northern counties). Why confessed? Because I for one cannot take anything seriously said in that whining drone suitable only for voicing complaint.

I have already met two bloggers who comment on Works Well and neither was prepared for the accent. Julia says it's time I took a more adult view and provided some kind of warning for other such unfortunates. As a result I have recorded one of my sonnets based on memories of a walk I took over fifty years ago with the woman who was to become Mrs BB.

you may click HERE and discover my angst.

 

Empire of the senses

Speed tends to be regarded as anti-social. The knee-jerk image is of a nineteen-year-old son of a property developer driving a Porsche Carrera to the detriment of pushchairs, unattached dogs, zimmer-supported oldsters and wimpled nuns on zebra crossings. But speed comes in different forms.

My new computer has a 3.1 GHz processor and is blindingly fast. Yet “fast” in this context is relative. Booting up takes just over a minute compared with about three minutes for its predecessor which worked on a damaged version of Windows XP. Re-loading Photoshop Elements (more than half a gig of software) was done and dusted in less than fifteen minutes. So what? Why not instantaneously? What did I do with the saved minutes?

To tell the truth the minutes don’t matter. The improvement is rated in units of sensuality (mink-strokes – which I’ve just invented). And like most forms of pleasure it will die away with familiarity. But just for the moment… ahhhh!

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME This year Mrs BB’s birthday was marked by the viewing of three consecutive rugby games on TV and some compensation was in order. Hence the reservation of the De Pamier Suite at a swanky hotel in the Alkham Valley between Folkestone and Dover. But how much benefit can one extract from a hotel suite? Both bed-chamber and lounge were furnished with televisions but lack of any physical barrier between the two meant that simultaneous usage seemed unlikely. What did divide the rooms, however, was a small step on which I stubbed my gouty big toe. There were fewer complaints about the bottle of champagne which came the package.