Trapped in the aviary

Hell, I swore I wouldn't do this, but I ended up crawling back onto Twatter again. If you're one of the 3 people (apart from my parents, I should imagine) who've never heard of it, it's kind of like blogging for people too lazy to write a whole paragraph. It's clearly vile and narcissistic, but equally clearly an easy way to massage my monstrously huge ego.

Every day we get nearer to the logical conclusion of the interweb networking madness, where everyone in the world simply hits a button every few minutes to make the message "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I'M ON THE INTERNET! LOOK AT ME!" appear on www.ihavenothingtosaybutthat'snotgoingtostopme.com. If I had any sense I'd set the damn thing up myself, wait for the inevitable rush, and then sell it to Murdoch or whoever for a fucking fortune, just as the Guardian picks up on it (which is always a sure-fire sign that something is over).

Still, it beats doing anything constructive.

A dog's life

Once upon a time, Man and Wolf came to an accommodation: Man provided food and shelter, and in return Wolf became dog and provided companionship and protection. Over time Man realised that he could manipulate dog to become all kinds of useful shapes.

Eventually the uses themselves disappeared, but the shapes remained. Nobody could remember why that particular dog was that particular shape and had those particular features emphasised, only that it was good and desirable that it should be so.

So the dogs kept being bred into more and more unlikely shapes, until eventually they ended up wonderful to behold, but completely impractical, and so far removed from their wolvish origins that they were incapable of surviving without Man to provide food and shelter.

Then one day Man decided to stop feeding dog and kicked him out, and he died a slow, painful death from starvation and neglect.

And that's pretty much the story of (so-called) classical music.

Why don't young people listen to classical music?

Well, why should they?

"Mother's 8-Baby Delivery Surprise"

...screeched the headlines at me as I fought my way down the Euston Road, swatting free-paper-hawkers left and right.

Eight babies? Eight?! How on earth can you be unaware that you're carrying octuplets? I don;t have a womb myself, but I can't help thinking that if I did I'd notice if it was that crowded. Did the mother just think she was constipated for nine months? Or was she so busy gorging on burgers and Mars bars that it didn't occur to her that there might be another reason for the sudden and dramatic weight gain?

Closer inspection reveals that the woman in question was perfectly awarer condition, and in fact that seven of the arrivals were expected. Only the eighth (sentimentally named "H" by the doctors) was a surprise. Suddenly it all seems much more reasonable. I suppose if you're a hard-pressed gynaecologist you might easily give up counting after the fourth or fifth body shows up on the ultrasound.

Still, eight babies. Are they very small? Or is the mother some kind of Titan? As no mention is mad of her extraordinary volume I can only assume she is now the proud matriarch of a tribe of Tom Thumbs, who will grow up to wear dolls' clothes and fear cats more than most children.

One person who will have been very happy at the news is her bank manager,who must be rubbing his hands with delight at the prospect of the interest she'll pay on the kind of overdraft you need to finance raising octuplets. Perhaps we'll salute her in years to come as the person who singlehandedly unblocked the international flow of currency.

Farewell My Cadence (11)

Mr Cage had made a lot of sense at the time, but the next day it didn't seem like I could get a handle on, or even remember, any of it - it was as though the guy had said nothing at all. The mushroom omelette was great, but it was repeating on me. And there'd been enough repetition in this case. It was time to cut to the chase. There was this guy I'd heard whispers about, Greg, they called him the Pontiff. Seems he'd gotten everything written down. That had to be the break I needed. I knew I was getting close to my man, close enough to smell, and it didn't smell pretty. Just one more step and I'd be there. That last twelfth step. Yup, I'd find the answer there alright...

farewell My Cadence (9)

I woke on the floor. What happened?

The musician. Strange, everything he said seemed from a script. It was repeating my suspicions It knew the story well, the rest not at all. 15 or 20 to get the full picture, it seemed.

It wasn't so exciting third time, but he assured me it was the urtext, so I accepted and moved on.

Farewell My Cadence (8)

I came to in a heap on the floor, and not an attractive one. What happened?

The musician happened. It had been a weird night, he had plenty to say, almost as much as he'd had to drink, which was almost as much as me. Kinda strange though, everything he said seemed right but false, as though he was reading from a script. It was when he started repeating himself that my suspicions were raised. It was like he knew part of the story well, pretty well, and the rest not at all. I'd need to talk to 30 or 40 of the guys to get the full picture, it seemed.

I had to move forward, but I couldn't help feeling I needed to speak to him again, maybe with a little less lubrication this time.

Farewell My Cadence (7)

I came to in a heap on the floor, and not a pretty one. What the hell happened?

Oh yeah, the musician. It had been a weird night, he had plenty to say, almost as much as he'd had to drink, which was almost as much as me. Kinda strange though, everything he said seemed right but false, as though he was reading from a script. It was when he started repeating himself that my suspicions were raised. It was like he knew part of the story well, really well, and the rest not at all. I'd need to talk to 60 or 70 of the guys to get the full picture, it seemed.

I had to move forward, but I couldn't help feeling I needed to speak to him again, maybe with a little less lubrication this time.

Farewell My Cadence (6)

Time was running out. Every corner I turned seemed to hide a whole bunch of questions. Who was this dame? Who was she seeing? Was there anyone left who'd known her, not just heard about her? Why were there so many bodies in this case? I'd need a whole new year to figure this one out. Hey...

Farewell My Cadence (5)

The guy opposite me was a weaselly looking man, beard, glasses, kinda fusty. He looked like the kind of man who'd sell out his own grandmother for a chance to sell out his own grandfather. Everything he said sounded strange, kinda bored and confident, the kind of confidence that's a con more often than not.

"Of course, no-one knew her like I did, it was my job to make sure everyone else knew her right, " he drawled. "Wanna buy some pictures of her?" The pictures looked kinda old, but the price tag on them was right up to date.

"Yes, I understood her, alright, and it was my job to make sure everyone understood just a little less than me - nothing worse than letting just anyone in on the act. I made sure everyone knew about all her old lovers - the Abbé, the Kaiser, the Rebel, the Joker, the Choirmaster - oh, yes, she had plenty, I can tell you..."

Yeah, plenty of names coming of his tongue, but thy were all old hat, all long gone. I needed to know who she was seeing now, who might have had a reason to stop her seeing someone else.

"Now? Good God, man, she was never seeing anyone now. There were only ever the old lovers. What do you think I am - some kind of gossip columnist? Only the old ones are worth talking about. Oh, sure, I know there are some young bucks who like to say they know her - but they don't, I tell you! Only I do! Only through old photographs, all those faces from long ago..."

He was starting to ramble. I slapped him hard across the face. He fell to his knees and thanked me, asked me to do it again. But I didn't have time. I had to get to the bottom of it all. There were a hell of a lot of bodies piling up in this case, and I was starting to wonder if the dame knew anyone who wasn't dead.

Farewell My Cadence (4)

I got into the Professor's study. Don't ask me how, gotta have a few trade secrets in this business. Let's just say that there aren't too many locked doors when you look at them.

Joint was a mess. Someone had been here before me. In fact, it looked like a lot of people had been here before me. For a guy who couldn't get the time of day the Professor seemed to be at the top of a hell of a lot of visiting lists. Didn't look like many of them had stopped for tea, mind. Just a quick drop-by, overturn the place and get out. Guess they had their own agendas.

There were a lot of papers, all over the floor. Lot of sums. Lot of numbers. Well, a few numbers over and over again. 13 wasn't one you saw anywhere.

1-12-3-10-5-8-7-6-9-4-11-2

2-11-4-9-6-7-8-5-10-3-12-1

1-2-11-4-7-6-9-8-5-10-3-12

12-3-8-5-10-7-4-9-6-11-2-1

XXXXX

???14???23??

!!!

They said the professor had had an even temperament. Yeah, sure looked even to me, equal enough to send a man all slanted about. Whatever he'd been working on made some kind of crazy sense, even if I couldn't tell my augmented octave from my diminished ninth. Someone didn't like what he was on to and had been fiddling with his results to discredit him, that was obvious. The numbers just didn't add up. It was a frame. Damn good looking one, too. I was going to have to watch my back, I was dealing with someone damn clever, someone who seemed to be able to make the finger point at anyone but himself. Everyone's a critic, they say. Maybe it was time to talk to one.

Farewell My Cadence (3)

The Frenchman sat opposite me. His face was half hidden in shadow, but even the half I could see looked like a face to be careful of taking your eyes away from for too long. He smiled and joked, but I could tell he wasn't too much of a giggler.

"Classical Music? Yes, I knew her," he drawled, in a voice as smooth as a silk stocking and twice as dangerous round your neck. "She was - how you say?- quite a dame, yes." I tried to moderate her behaviour, but she had a tendency to run away to... get in touch with people, non?"

"So you didn't like the way she acted with other guys, huh?" I asked. The guy had a charm, sure, but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him, I could tell. Maybe you'd find yourself stuck in the Bastille with the kind of kiss-off that brought the house down.

"Pfff, it's not my concern what she does with... other classes. I know she did the right thing when she was with me, that's all. I made sure she kept up to date, dressed her well... what more could she ask for?"

"Maybe to be shown a little slack every now and then?"

"Ah, I have always been open minded, no matter what... some people may say."

"What about the German, were you open minded enough for him?"

"Oh, I doubt anyone would be. I hardly spoke to him in recent times. We fell out since our days when we plotted to bring the Professor's plans to fruition."

The Professor. I'd heard of the guy, not that people liked to talk about him. Some said he was responsible for the whole mess. Nobody'd ever caught him in the act, but they said you could see his fingerprints all over if you looked. I wondered aloud if I should speak to him.

"Speak to him?" The Frenchman's face cracked into a smile, and a laugh I didn't like the sound of. "Mon Ami, you won't find that easy to achieve."

"Why not?" I was getting a bad feeling.

The Frenchman sat back with a grin across his face like a cat that's inherited the whole damn dairy. "Why, haven't you heard? He's dead."

Farewell My Cadence (2)

I pulled on my mac and pulled my hat down low to keep the rain off my face. It was a dirty night, cold and wet, and plenty of folks would be glad to be indoors, but in my line of work you go where the action is, when it is.

There was this guy, the German. Lot of folks had his number, they said, a lot of suspicion pointing his way. He wasn't the kind of guy who liked to do things anyone else's way, kinda the dominating type, if you know what I mean - I'd heard pretty strange things about his domestic, too. Kind of man who keeps more than one woman at home is going to be careless with the rest of them they said. And he was into crazy stuff too, weird group action and saying he was from outer space. I wasn't convinced - a bit of kinky doesn't make you a killer, and just because he liked to have the dame in unusual positions didn't mean he'd offed her, just that he had a different appreciation of her.

I was too late, anyhow - the German was already dead himself. Looked like heart trouble, but you never know - guy like that makes a lot of enemies, and some of them are smart, smart enough to make foul play look like happenstance. I was going to have to check that out, but not now. I had to get to the bottom of the case. I decided to grill the German's accomplice - the Frenchman. I pounded the sidewalk again, wondering if I was going to find a killer or a victim. Damn this rain.

Farewell My Cadence

or, Who Killed Classical Music? An exciting Christmas thriller in 12 parts (or fewer, depending how quickly I get bored).

Part 1

Classical Music was dead. Sure, she'd left a good-looking corpse - she was one hell of a dame in her time, and if you didn't look too close she could still turn your eye, and hell, some people were still trying to turn hers. Jeez, some people. If you've got an automobile with no wheels and no engine, it don't matter if it's a Rolls - it's still a jalopy, and it ain't right to take it out for a ride.

Question was, who'd done the deed? Sure, there were some people who wanted her dead, but most folks, if you asked them, were surprised she hadn't bitten the dust years ago, if they even knew who she was. Or cared.

Just because most didn't though, didn't mean that the ones who did hadn't come up with a whole heap of suspects. This was one investigation that wouldn't be wrapped up before the bars opened.

The things that concern

It has been a time of eventfulness and profound and worrying thoughts of late, which need not concern us here. What I ave always wondered though is:

What exactly are "gorblimey trousers"?

Fight!

Jessica Duchen provides a handy roundup of the opening salvos of the London orchestras' new seasons today. But what's this?

So Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams emerge as flavours of the month, which is an interesting combination since Stravinsky could probably have eaten Vaughan Williams for breakfast, given half a chance.

I'm not convinced. A Google Fight would appear to back Jessica up, but given that Vaughan Williams was very tall and hefty (over 6', I think), and Stravinsky was a measly 5'3", surely Ralph would whup Igor's ass?

Stuck in the middle with you

Pity the poor sixth.

Doing the washing up, I find my head filled with "Do-Re-Mi" from the Sound of Music. You know the one, the song that gives cutesy names and puns to all the notes of the diatonic scale. Except one.

"La - a note to follow So [sew]."

That's the sixth, what's technically known as the submediant, and Rodgers and Hammerstein hold it in such contempt that they can't even be bothered to think up a decent line. It's nothing special, La, it's just a stopping place on the way from the bright lights of So to the glittering wonders of Ti (a drink with jam and bread). Sort of like a motorway service station - you need the facilities, but you wouldn't choose to go there if you had any real choice in the matter.

Even the technical term's an insult - submediant, i.e. like the mediant, only not as good. Don't get any ideas above your station, Mr Sixth, we're only hanging round with you because we can't get close to the mediant for all the cool kids crowding him as he determines major and minor.

It doesn't get any better when you consider the unfortunate interval from a tonal perspective, either. In the tonal hierarchy, the submediant is the location of the relative minor key. Now, you may think the minor mode's proved its popularity over the years, but consider this: When you're in a major key, you modulate to the dominant. The exciting, virile, even more major dominant. Never to the relative minor. Yet when you begin in a minor key, the accepted path is to get away as quickly as possible to the relative major (which is located in the prime territory of the mediant. Yes, the Mr Big Shot mediant, so much more U than the boring old submediant. Who'd want to go there, eh? It's the tonal equivalent of Wolverhampton.

Not everyone hates the submediant - Brahms loved nothing better than to pile the sixths on, and there's a wonderful bit in the finale of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, when a massive dominant chord is emptied of its harmony, and then the single note left behind is reinterpreted in a new context, which swings the tonality unexpectedly towards the submediant key. It's an awe-inspiring moment, although Beethoven ruins it by prancing off on a thoroughly silly march, so maybe he didn't like our middling friend so much after all.

Well, I say it's time to stick up for the little guy. What's so bloody great about all these so-called perfect intervals, anyway? Let's hear it for the submediant - the tone that's not afraid to be different.

Walls come tumbling down (or not)

You'd think the sky had fallen on our heads. Personally I slept right through it. Maybe I'm just insensitive. Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

Torchwood in "not shit" shock

It's amazing what incredibly low expectations can do.

By the end of the first series of Torchwood (that's series. Seasons are something they have in America) I'd passed through some kind of cosmic irony barrier and was starting to enjoy it for just how unremittingly awful and laughable the whole charade had become. So series 2 was never going to have to do very much to improve in my eyes, and pie-eyed sucker that I am, I decided to give it another chance.

And good lordy, it turned out to be rather enjoyable. Mainly I think because they've decided to ditch the teen-angst vibe and get funny. there were many good gags in the first episode, not a few of which seemed aimed at the weaknesses of the first series. The whole thing's still ridiculous, and paper-thin, but it now has a healthy sense of its own daftness, and is infinitely more watchable because of it. it also helps that the team now actually appear to be operating as a team, and to have some kind of affection for each other and be vaguely likeable as characters. And that Captain Jack now appears to be more or less the same character as he is in Doctor Who. Having Spike out of Buffy as a guest star (out-gaying John Barrowman, which is quite some feat) helped as well. Although the relentless attempting by everyone to get into everyone else's knickers is gong to get very tired very quickly. But all in all, it was quite good fun.

Of course, the first episode of the first series was quite good fun, and look how that turned out, so there's still plenty of time for everything to go tits up. Still, next week we have the prospect of the lovely Freema Agyeman and Jim out of Neighbours to look forward to, so fingers crossed they manage to keep it up (fnarrrr!).

Reach for the facts

If it's on the internet, it must be true, mustn't it? Not necessarily... there's a lesson for anyone doing a research job here: actually do some research.

Fun for social pariahs

fun hats
Originally uploaded by petemaskreplica.

Regular readers will be aware of my passion for the medium of comics, a medium I will stand up and shout for in the face of its reputation as an interest for sad freaks. I feel much the same about real ale, and the Great British Beer Festival reminds me somewhat of the Bristol Comics Con, for many of the same reasons; largely that when you go, the crowd there is a lot less freakish than your prejudice might lead you to believe, but this doesn't mean the freaks aren't there. But as a freak myself, I salute them.

There's been a bit of talk about the introduction of 1/3 pint glasses, apparently in an attempt to attract more women. I can see the advantage in having the smaller measure,. but for myself I prefer the pint glass (despite drinking largely halves) as it's more likely to find use at home. Interestingly, many of the 1/3 pint glasses I see are in the hands of men, in the afternoon, and as evening approaches they become a rarer sight. There are plenty of women there, but thy seem largely to hold half or pint glasses.

We wound up going on Thursday this year, something we've previously avoided, as for one thing the earlier days in the week tend to be more selective (i.e. less full of twats in suits getting pissed) but also because Thursday is Fun Hat Day, the mere thought of which fills me with unspeakable horror. Fortunately we went in the afternoon so avoided the worst of the twattery.

As ever, there were many delicious and unusual beers to try, as well as some excellent food stalls to help keep the stomach lined. As the afternoon wears on, the place begins to seem less like a large barn and more like a large pub, until at about 8.00 we consider one more beer, then realise that the place is now packed and resembles a very busy pub that we don't really want to be in (I'm not queueing for 3/4 of an hour to buy a half). We retire to a real pub for one for the road, and then stagger our separate ways.

This year I especially enjoyed a Scottish stout called "Black Gold" (which tastes very little like Guinness), a Finnish Dark Lager (which tastes a bit like mild, although it smells just like lager), some lovely milds ( a mild won the Beer of the Year award for the first time this year, which I hope will lead to a more general availability of this fine beer), and the fruit wines and meads, which stand I left laden with bottles.

There's a whole lot of nice booze beyond the normal fare awaiting your discovery, so if you're in London, pop down to Earl's Court between now and Saturday and sample some of it, and in any case hunt it out wherever you may find it. Why should we settle for the bland and predictable when we can have nice stuff, eh?