2012 New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna and Gustav Klimt

13 January 2012 23:49

It has become a tradition in our house to watch the Vienna Philarmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day concert. It’s a lovely peaceful way of starting the day, even if you aren’t nursing a hangover. There’s always a lovely mixture of music and dance and they show you bits of Vienna too, it’s somewhere I’ve never been but it looks gorgeous.

This year the dance literally revolved around Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. I love his artworks, whether they’re landscapes or portraits. He was so great at getting the feeling of textures into his work which I suppose is why so many of his designs have been used for tapestry and embroidery kits.

The Kiss dance is around about 39 minutes into this video if you’re interested in looking at it.

I know people always slag off artists whose work is used for things like calendars, it’s daft really because it just proves that it’s beautiful and easy on the eye, after all you don’t want to look at ugly works of art for the whole year.

Klimt

I have this one above the fireplace in my living-room and I always fancied visiting the place, until I saw it on TV smothered by tourists and that put me right off. Now I’m quite happy just to have it on my wall.

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Categories: Music, Television, Towns

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Outraged

6 January 2012 00:28

I was flicking through the Guardian the other day (yes we do actually buy it) when I came across this article. It’s quite long but well worth reading, even if the result is to make you spitting mad, like me.

The upshot is that the BBC is having to pay Rupert Murdoch £10 million a year to have the privilege of BBC programmes being shown on Sky. I feel as if I’ve wandered into an alternative universe again. I thought that we lived in a Capitalist society which is very simple to follow. If you have something which someone else wants then they have to pay you for it, if you want them to have it. So why isn’t Murdoch paying the BBC £squillions to be allowed to broadcast BBC programmes?

I have always prided myself that I haven’t knowingly added any money to the Murdoch coffers. I’ve never bought one of his newspapers and I don’t have Sky, so I’m more than a wee bit peeved – actually I’m incandescent – that my licence fee money is going to Murdoch.

I’ve always thought that the TV licence is just about one of the best bargains around. I would even be quite happy if Auntie Beeb didn’t block the internet viewing so that people in other countries could look in. That would stop Murdoch in his tracks, which could only be a good thing.

Please BBC, stop giving money to Rupert Murdoch et al!

Square up to politicians. Nothing is perfect but the BBC has a place in the hearts of most Brits which is second only to the NHS.

Why am I not surprised that this whole situation came about through Maggie Thatcher’s sucking up to Murdoch. Cakes and ale anyone?!

I could go on at length but I can already see that 2012 is going to be a year of grumping and groaning. Now, does anybody know how I go about setting up an online petition to support the BBC?

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Categories: BBC, Politics, Television

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Christmas TV

25 December 2011 00:19

Well that’s the birthday meal over with and it went down well with all five of us. Especially the Kinloch Castle Tomato Soup the recipe for which reached me in a convoluted way – via Peggy Ann’s Post, somewhere in the US but I’m not sure where exactly, maybe the Appalachians. Anyway thanks for the recipe Peggy, I’ll be making that soup regularly I’m sure. Don’t you just love the internet! Peggy is the only person I’ve ‘met’ who reads George MacDonald’s books, there don’t seem to be many of us about nowadays.

I haven’t had much time for watching TV at all but I did manage to watch all of The Young Victoria a couple of nights ago and I did enjoy it apart from the bit where Albert jumps in front of a bullet aimed at Victoria. There were quite a few attempts on Victoria’s life over the years but why add details which are just untrue. Then I saw that it had been written by Julian Fellowes, that man just can’t stop himself from embroidering history. Between Fellowes and Philippa Gregory the kids of Britain will be convinced of historical ‘facts’ which are just historical nonsense.

As usual the Christmas TV seems to be pretty dire. The one thing I hope to be able to watch is The Borrowers which is on on Boxing Day because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it from beginning to end, I loved the books by Mary Norton even although I didn’t read them until I was an adult.

Is there anything good on TV which you are looking forward to watching?

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Categories: Books, Recipes, Television

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New Carpet

24 December 2011 00:16

carpet and boots

I had wanted to do a before and after photo of the dining-room but it wasn’t to be. So here’s a photo of the new carpet which as you can see is a sort of oatmeal colour and has a slightly textured pattern on it which you can’t really see here. The carpet fitter was absolutely brilliant at his job – how often can you say that – and I’m really pleased with it especially as it won’t show up the crumbs so much! The old carpet was charcoal grey, a big mistake as it showed up every speck.

The boots are new too, I bought them when we were in England recently. My legs are normally covered up, this is a rare outing for them. My Dad always commented that he didn’t know I had legs whenever they got an airing! I’m not a shoe person at all, in fact I view shoes as objects of torture because I’m always bleeding from my heels and blistered so I tend to avoid them and wear clogs and flat boots all the time and then my feet are fine. I couldn’t walk in high heels to save my life. As a kid I dreaded the start of the new school term and new shoes. Those Clarks shoes were agony, I might as well have worn biscuit tins!

I haven’t been able to blog or visit blogs much for the last few days as I’ve been doing so much running around and trying to finish off things in the house before everyone gets here. So tomorrow I just have to bake the birthday boy’s cake and make the birthday meal – and then it’s Christmas! I hope your Christmas plans are on schedule.

I usually do a wee Winter Solstice blogpost, but not this year as I was so busy. The 21st here was indeed the darkest most dismal day and I could’ve been doing with a party then to cheer me up . It was one of those days when you needed a lamp on all the time – positively dreich. I’m so looking forward to having more light soon.

In Scotland we’re being encouraged to dose ourselves up with vitamin D, the easiest way is to take cod liver oil (yeugh). Apparently it’s the lack of sunlight here which gives us the highest rates of MS in the world. I’m going to be making my way to the health food shop soon and on that cheery note – cheerio.

If you’re in need of a bit of a laugh at the moment, give yourself a treat and watch good old Dick Emery. If I wore high heels I would walk like the ‘charming young lady’!

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Categories: Comedy, Personal, Television

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Dorothy Paul – Scottish Comedienne and Actress

7 November 2011 00:13

I completely forgot to watch the most recent episode of Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Britain programme so I thought I’d watch it on the Channel 4 playback thingy. Then it wouldn’t work so I wandered off elsewhere in the internet and somehow, don’t ask me how, I ended up on classic Scottish TV where I found a bit of a Dorothy Paul show which we went to see when she took it to the provinces about 20 years ago or so.

Dorothy Paul is a Scottish comedienne who is really talented and deserves to be better known than she is. Anyway, here she is playing the part of a cleaner in the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow, it’s one of those things which has Scottish ‘celebrities’ in the audience. I find it quite annoying that they feel the need to show the audience laughing all the time.

This is just a small part of the show and she’s really just getting warmed up here but it’s funny all the same – if you can understand what she’s saying!

http://youtu.be/mNHLO6krOdY

I did eventually get to see the latest episode of Handmade Britain and then discovered that it was being repeated today anyway.

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Categories: Television

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Downton Abbey

1 November 2011 13:03

I missed the first ever episode of Downton Abbey and for some reason I never managed to watch that series so when ITV repeated it all before the second series was broadcasted I took the opportunity to watch it.

I love period costume dramas and I’ve seen just about all of them, the first one I remember is the 1960s black and white BBC version of The Forsyte Saga, I must only have been about nine years old then. I’m thinking that possibly I’ve got to saturation point with them because although I’ve watched Downton Abbey I haven’t been as enthralled by it as everybody else seems to be. I know – it’s tantamount to blasphemy in some circles to say something like that.

I don’t want to say too much about the details because I know that people in other countries haven’t seen the second series yet. Suffice to say that Jack and I have laughed at bits of it which have been shudderingly cheesy. It is predictable and the writing is really not very good. I was particularly annoyed when those famous words uttered by the dreadfully snobbish but vulgar MP Alan Clark, about the sort of people who had to buy their own furniture, were put into one character’s mouth.

I think the writing is embarrassingly lazy and this has turned Downton Abbey into something of a comedy for me. I wonder what I’ll think about the next costume drama which comes along!

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Categories: Television

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The Great British Bake Off

9 September 2011 13:19

I was having a look at You Tube – as you do – I was hoping that there was a clip from STVs The Hour programme of the Scottish author Gordon Ferris, but no such luck. It was Judith (Reader in the Wilderness) who alerted me to his existence, he’s a crime writer and his books are set in Glasgow. I’m going to try them out in the hope that he manages to capture the great character of my birthplace. I read just one book by Denise Mina and I was disappointed with it because she failed completely on the Glasgow front, but maybe that’s only noticeable if you know the city.

Anyway, back to You Tube, I noticed that there are some videos of The Great British Bake Off on it. I never watch any of these reality/competition things, Big Brother and ‘Strictly’ type things just don’t appeal to me. But I must admit that I started watching the Bake Off, well the first one was on in the background when I was on my Netbook and I kind of got dragged in.

At first I was amazed that some of the contestants had been daft enough to bring in shop bought things to add to their celebration cakes. It’s the sort of thing we all do for kids cakes but surely not in a competition! Then I was less than impressed that they all seemed to make their pastry in machines and some of them had never made pastry before. Machine made pastry was not a success. My boys got cookery lessons at school, including hand-made pastry and there was still time for all the academic stuff.

Mind you when they got to the bread making bit I was full of admiration because the couple of times that I’ve tried to bake bread have been disastrous. I couldn’t even have put the results out for the birds because the RSPB would have done me for cruelty! My bread was so heavy the only possible uses for it would have been as doorstops or even anchors.

Anyway if you’re interested in baking, or just looking at food you might like to have a wee keek! They’re starting off with cup/fairy cakes. Kids stuff!

On the Gordon Ferris front – all of his books are out in my local library so he’s obviously popular, I might have to put in some requests.

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Categories: BBC, Cakes, Television

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Flambards

2 June 2011 22:43

Flambards cover

I loved the TV adaptation of K.M.Peyton‘s Flambards which I watched way back in 1979. It doesn’t seem to have been repeated since then. Anyway for some reason Flambards popped into my head just before I went to a local library book sale earlier in the year and I was quite amazed to see a copy of the first book in the series sitting unloved and unwanted in the children’s section. It was still there at the end so I decided that it must have been meant for me and I bought it. It was first published in 1967 and the Flambards quartet was the runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.

The story begins in 1908 and Christina who is an orphan has been sent to live at Flambards, the home of her widowed uncle. He has two sons the eldest being Mark who is arrogant and selfish like his father and they are both obsessed with horses and fox-hunting. I know, the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. Christina’s uncle is an invalid and unable to walk and ride due to a riding accident and they are obviously a lot poorer than they used to be. It’s supposed that he plans to get Christina to marry his son and heir Mark so that they can get their hands on Christina’s money when she comes of age. The younger son Will is completely different from his brother, he has no interest in horses. Machinery is his obsession and in particular, flying machines!

Will is bullied and beaten by his father because he isn’t the sort of son that he wants and a close friendship grows between Christina and her cousin Will, despite the fact that Christina has caught the horse obsession.

There’s a lot of horsey stuff in the shape of hunting and point-to-points so this series is bound to be of interest to the many girls around who are into horse riding. I never was but my schoolfriends Vivian and Lorna just lived for horses.

This book takes us up to 1912 so there isn’t much about flying in it but I’m going to be seeking out the other three books in this series which, if they’re anything like the TV series will feature the estate of Flambards as a First World War flying base.

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Categories: Books, Television

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Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

12 July 2010 10:17

I had really been looking forward to this show but I don’t know what happened. I completely missed it on TV. I think it was on too early for me as I tend not to watch anything in the early evening during summer.

Anyway, luckily you can watch it on the internet nowadays so I’ve been trying to catch up with it.

Take a look here, if you are interested in gardens and plants.

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Categories: BBC, Gardening, Television

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The Barchester Chronicles

13 January 2010 23:28

I was lucky enough to be given the DVD’s of The Barchester Chronicles as a Christmas present and I’ve just finished viewing it all. I think this was one of the few classic book adaptations which I saw on television before I had read the books, so I had no idea if the BBC had done a good job or not.

I just knew that I really enjoyed the series, well you can’t go far wrong with such a brilliant cast I suppose. It was the first time that I remember seeing Alan Rickman in anything and he made a wonderful job of portraying the ghastly Obadiah Slope. Barbara Flynn looks so young too, it was made in 1988, which I can hardly believe.

Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan,Susan Hampshire and Clive Swift are the main players.

The series is based on the novels The Warden and Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope. A newspaper sets out to rid the Church of England of nepotism, using a young local doctor to spearhead the campaign. The reverend Harding, who is well-loved in the local community is targeted by the newspaper and his name is dragged through the press. At times of great stress, Mr Harding (who is in charge of the church music) plays the air cello whilst he is in mid verbal flow. I thought this was a great way of showing how emotional he became and I was pleased to discover that it is in the books.

When the old bishop dies, he is replaced by Bishop Proudie (Clive Swift) and his wife (Geraldine McEwan), with Mrs. Proudie very much the one wearing the bishop’s hat. I think that this might be quite a common occurrence as at the time the series was first aired they were exactly like a certain bishop and wife couple of our acquaintance with a diocese in the west of Scotland.

Throw in Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope, Mrs. Proudie’s sleazy side-kick and you have a very entertaining series. Don’t be put off by the ecclesiastical ambience of the whole thing.

Trollope seems to have had as much fun with names as Dickens did. One character is called Sir Omicron Pie and there is a Sir Lamda Mewnew, both doctors to the bishop.

It’s a good long while since I read the books but viewing the series again has whetted my appetite so I’m hoping that I enjoy them as much as I did after watching the series the first time.

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Categories: Books, DVDs, Television

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