An Evening of Culture

On Saturday evening, feeling suitably mellow after whisky and chocolate, I was flicking through the tv channels and chanced upon the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The orchestra had just started playing Ravel’s Bolero and I was suitably entranced, humming along to that famous melody.  Wonderful stuff.  This was then followed by Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 3.  Well, I’m sorry but I just couldn’t stay with it.  The young Uzbek pianist, Behzod Abduraimo, gave it his all, squirming away on his stool, fingers flying across the piano keys.  To me it was just a series of unrelated crescendos; I did not shiver or tremble, it did not move me to tears, I just didn’t feel the passion.  I couldn’t even hum along to it.  I realised I had got bored with the piece when I started studying the hair styles of the musicians.  Each time the pianist stopped playing and I mentally started clapping he would start up again.  It went on forever.  Paul googled the concerto.  It lasts for about forty minutes.  We switched over and watched the Taekwando on the Olympics instead.

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There has been a lot of curtain twitching going on here, well, there would have been if I had curtains at the window.  Joel appears to have moved in with Monique, our pretty French divorcee next door.  Yesterday he unloaded two vintage vehicles from a trailer, an American jeep and a bright red Alfa Romeo sports car.  Things are definitely hotting up around here.