Remote learning

Today was my first singing lesson on Skype. My webcam still hasn’t arrived so I could see V but she couldn’t see me. Which is it as it should be. I am older, raddled and given to insincere smiles. V, in contrast, has a powerful message: singing is uplift.

I felt strangely formal, glad I’d doffed my pyjamas and shaved even if I was invisible. Skype forces V to talk more and I realised how much of her tuition is usually non-verbal: a brief noise as I repeat a defect, the piano hammered harder for emphasis, a finger pointing ceilingwards in preparation for a high note, a frown, a smile. In real three-dimensional life silences can be tolerated but not on Skype.

V’s chin appeared to be resting on the bottom edge of my monitor frame. She got up and added another pillow to her stool. Added another. A slight improvement. But why was she constantly looking to her left? Because her Skype-equipped laptop rested on the piano immediately in front and the score had had to be moved.

The lesson was hyper-technical, half an hour devoted to the song’s first four or five notes. I fretted, unable to re-create my own timbre. Demonstrating, V leant forward, forming her lips into a tight circle, then restricting their width with her index fingers; patient as always. I continued to stumble, knowing now how I’d be spending the forthcoming six days in my study.

After more than four years of lessons we’ve become friends, talking briefly about our families and the politics we both hate. For the moment Skype inhibits this. Even so it’s a far greater improvisation than I imagined. And the sound quality is not half bad. Infection is held at bay, progress is tangible.

I sing Schubert's Der Lindenbaum

Here something a little less Serious

And here the Mozart aria I was asked to sing at Lesson No. 1

Finally Lucy's earworm
 

Heartfelt

Plague  Post 3

SPEAKING IN TONGUES “Vox. pop.” – mainly a TV practice - is lazy, useless journalism. Send cameras on to the streets and get the public to bulk out the news broadcasts. Its futility became apparent during Brexit; clearly these random victims – from both sides – had no idea about the increasingly complex issues and could only burble banalities.

The Plague has changed all that. Touched to the core, people speak clearly, factually and often with great originality. I should have jotted some quotes but I was transfixed by the new articulacy. Except for the one: a nurse in tears, having finished a 48-hour shift, arrived late at the supermarket and found nothing to eat. Those shelf strippers might end up needing my services, she said, crying softly.

HEY, BIG SPENDER On Friday we had a celebration; dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant famed for its front-of-house welcome. That at least was the plan. Instead I called in at Majestic and bought a 2006 vintage bottle of Moet plus an extreme shiraz from Australia. Not looking at the prices. The check-out guy said, “Unfortunately that will be…”

I trawled history. More than twice what I paid for my first motorbike. A single seat at the ludicrously over-priced Royal Opera House. Four times the cost of the suit I got married in. Much more than the engagement ring. Couldn’t have invited the tearful interviewee; we were self-isolating. Lacerated by guilt.

WE NEED SOMETHING FUNNY A wicked back-blast of wind as he mounted the stairway to Air Force One proved Trump was absolutely right to adopt the weird hairstyle he flaunts. Covering a multitude of sins.

Where was he going? To buy some golf-balls, said someone. Even presidents need time off from the burdens of state.

By the pricking of my thumbs...

Trumpian Plague notes 2

CORONAVIRUS RE-CHRISTENED Why, asked my ever-literal brother, did I choose Trumpian to identify the plague. I pointed out the virus is unpleasant, so’s Trump, they are in fact a matched pair. Quod erat demonstrandum.

MORE LAUGHTER PLEASE I sent this comment to a blog where things were getting serious.

Look, I lived through WW2. Aged 5 - 10 I wasn't at the height of my intellectual powers as I am now but I recognised that unrelieved gloom would be a destructive mono-diet. We didn't just hate Adolf, we laughed at him. To Colonel Bogey, the tune made even more famous in the movie Bridge Over the River Kwai, we sang:

Hitler has only got one ball,
Göring has two but very small,
Himmler
Is very similar,
While poor old Goebbels
Has no balls at all.

Which is why I maintain we are presently suffering from the Trumpian Plague.

If you think the vocabulary or the sentiments of the lyrics above may offend the sensibility of your readers feel free to use the Delete button. And erect a sign: "Look what testicular inadequacy did for them."

BUYING THE GUARDIAN We do it via pre-paid vouchers, it helps the paper’s cash flow. The nearest source is Tesco’s filling station. How might we reduce mutual infection risks? The staff agreed to use the night-payment “drawer” in the daytime. No change is involved, no breath intermingled, contact is minimal

Pepys updated

Trumpian Plague notes 1.

NEW NAME Corona is the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars. A nice thing, it doesn’t deserve worldwide obloquy. Hence the re-christening.

SPEED OF LIGHT Took Grandson Ian to bus station for journey home to Luton. Pre-seven AM, Hereford’s centre was naturally deserted. But here’s a thing: the traffic-lights change more quickly at this unearthly hour. Were we racing towards something? Could it be good?

BAD TEMPER Recently attached notices at Tesco check-outs: “Please treat our colleagues with respect”. I asked manager: Are customers really squabbling over loo paper? Exactly that, he said. Customer arrives as doors open, wants to clear out all newly stacked rolls. Tesco demurs; says sales are rationed. Customer says she/he  wants to distribute rolls to elderly. But Tesco cannot verify this. Unpleasantness ensues.

SYMPTOM Returning to car at bus station I sense a minor headache. This is not one of the official signs for Trumpian Plague (dry cough, feverishness) but one never knows… Then I remember hammering the Armagnac the night before, toasting Ian’s cooking and general assistance.

TV NEWS Watched our Plague’s mastermind on NBC news clip. Could growing inarticulacy be a sign of the illness’s onset? Could we be in for a dose of Pence’s Power of Prayer?

THE GREAT COMFORTER Try Byrd's Mass for Four Voices. His dates (1539/40 or 1543 - July 4 1623) means he had the foresight to get himself born, and to die, well before the Great Plague of London 1665 - 66.  My version (Choir of St John's College Cambridge, conducted by George Guest) is both tranquil yet thrilling. How can that be? Because it's music I tell 'ee, blessed music.

An 8 x 8 in. answer?

During WW2 we took The Daily Mail, a shocking admission given the mouth-foaming, rightwing rag it has become. I can’t be blamed: I was only 10 when Adolf blew his brains out.

But how did my parents regard toilet paper then? Izal had a shiny side and a dull side and, for a time, offered single-line, Christmas-cracker jokes on each sheet. Encouraging users to tear off more sheets - literally - for a laugh.

But I think my mother regarded Izal as a luxury. Instead she cut up The Daily Mail into 8 x 8 in. squares and this did the job. Leading to further problems. A user, fascinated by part of an article on his (unused) square, would riffle through the others to discover how things turned out.

Lack of toilet paper seems to characterise the Trumpian Plague presently visited upon us. So how about 8 x 8 in. squares of The Guardian? A key question: is the The Guardian sufficiently soluble? Given our ages (80 and 84), we may be house-isolated for FOUR MONTHS! A jammed toilet would be just dandy.

Any sewage experts out there?

Rictangular Lenses. My novel, 49,011 words.
Lindsay had become familiar with such tours and knew what to look for. Tidiness was important where metal was being cut and drilled, Renewell recognised this and the painted floors shone. A forklift with specialised attachment worked at Goods In, speeding the flow of raw materials and allowing the large delivery doors to be kept closed. CAD was rampant, but that was to be expected.

Lindsay queried the operator in charge of a laser-cutter burning out complex shapes in mild steel.“How long to set up?”

He laughed. “Ten times faster than manual programming...”

READ TONE DEAF, The prescient blog

Welsh white water

Grandson Ian is staying for the Borderlines Film Festival and there are still more films to go. When we have only one movie a day (or none at all) we look for diversions. We had planned a drive into wildest Wales, up the Elam Valley past the chain of reservoirs built ambitiously and expensively by the Victorians. But the forecast said yet more rain (and thus more flooding) and this is remote territory to get stuck in. But the morning was bright and optimistic and I thought: Bugger it! Why not?

Which led to an epiphany.

We've done this run before and the roads get narrower and more vestigial. Also, on this occasion, more sodden. But ahead was a touring bus based surprisingly in Ingleton, a settlement in the pretty part of Yorkshire, my home county. The driver was taking things easy, splashing along, and we weren't in a hurry.

Eventually we reached the lowest reservoir and briefly parked. Across the road is a substantial viewing area overlooking the lip of the reservoir wall. A woman coming in the opposite direction warned us, intensely, to take care: the wind had almost blown her over. She wasn't kidding. I was buffeted by hard cushions of wind and the overflow of water roared down 150 metres into a raging white fog. The natural power was palpable, my sense of self shrunk to nothingness.

But here's the epiphany. VR is uncertain on her pins these days but had insisted on coming with me to that violent edge. I held her tight and we stayed only a few seconds, but these were seconds of extreme experience. "It's wonderful," she shouted against the tumult, "I'm glad I came."

A fig for being old.

Big but blank evening

VR and I have been married for a “round” period of years. You’d think I’d remember our first encounter in London since I’d only recently escaped the sexual prison that was the North of England. But with one exception (which I’ll get to) the evening is a blank.

I know we formed a foursome, the other male being my flatmate. VR tells me we went to The Doves, a pub in Hammersmith, west London. But what did we talk about? Did we kiss? I have no idea. At the time VR (then VT) was an SRN (state registered nurse) at Charing Cross Hospital, about 200 yards from the absolute centre of London. Since my conversation – for better or for worse – is to ask questions I’m sure I would have interrogated her about her job. But I recall nothing.

What’s remarkable is that somehow I managed to stumble through those early weeks and we stayed together. I was 25 and my only experience of womanly company consisted of three visits to the cinema with a West Riding girl who grew increasingly puzzled by my flamboyant talk. It was she who suggested we brought this monologue to an end.

VR and I did have one crisis – conveyed by written note – but I don’t think I took it seriously. I conclude this was an expert reaction and yet didn’t realise this at the time.

Here’s the remembrance. My flatmate had use of a van.  VR and I sat on the wooden floor in the back as he drove VR back to her flat. I needed her telephone number but had neither pen nor paper, a shocking admission for a journalist. With an old-fashioned penny piece I scratched the seven-figure number on the van’s interior. Perhaps it’s still there.