Homage to Macedonia

Following on from the last post, my knowledge of opera is a veritable compendium when compared to my knowledge of Macedonia. Which can be summed up thus:

- It's north of Greece, south of Kosovo and east of Albania.
- The Capital is Skopje.
- There's a lake called Lake 'orrid.
- It was part of Yugoslavia.

That's less than thirty words of knowledge. Only one way to solve this. Let's go to Macedonia...

Keep it Highbrow

I don't really like it when I don't know about stuff (apart from pop culture, I've long since given up being able to recognise anyone off the telly) so I try to do something about it. Sometimes this leads to a bit of internet swatting (like when I realised that if they had a Shipping Forecast round in a pub quiz I'd be, erm, all at sea, so learned to tell my Forties from my Fisher - incidentally, this extra knowledge hasn't helped at all in anything and possibly never will), more often it leads me to taking a more interactive approach.

So Opera, that's something I know nothing about. Off the top of my head I can only think of two (the Magic Flute and la Traviata, since you ask), even puzzling over it I reckon I'd be hard pushed to reach double figures. I've been to an opera before (Candide, not a real opera, I'd read the book before and it was in English) but that was part of such a weird series of events (Transylvanian crime and lightning strikes) that I'm not sure it counts [Don Giovanni?]. So I went to the opera.

I saw Salome at the Royal Opera House. Well high culture. Quite enjoyed it but even I found it a bit pretentious. [Madame butterfly?] The ROH is magnificent. We were right up in the cheap seats so the view was a little bit Vertigo. But really shiny. The whole thing is immersively multi-media reading surtitles, listening to music and watching what's happening on stage all at the same time. Quite an overload for my non-highbrow brain.

Salome obviously was a ridiculous story - [La Boheme? It's like I've got opera tourettes] - are all opera stories fairly ridiculous. Is that what high art is all about? Ridiculous stories? I've seen Swan Lake - that's about a guy who falls in love with a swan, I'm fairly sure that's never been an 'Enders plot line.

Marriage of Figarro? That's six, plus the two I've seen. Is Barber of Seville an opera? Not sure. I'm gonna count it anyway. Nine and I'm all out.

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Less high-brow-ly I've just finished the Chaos Walking trilogy, That's dystopian teen fiction for all you grown ups. very enjoyable. Just heard that Charlie Kauffman is doing the screenplay for the Knife of Never Letting Go - quite excited.

Once More Unto The Breach

The helicopters pounding overhead did help to create a war aesthetic, however I can't help but think that it was rather more Operation Linebacker than Agincourt. Not entirely appropriate for Henry V at the Globe. Ho hum.

On the way back from that there theatre we stumbled upon the Naked Bike protest, now I'm all in favour of a protest, but there is something a little bit icky about cycling naked on a rented cycle. Next time I borrow a Boris bike I'm gonna try and remember to take some wet ones.

Chattin' at Robins

Still got this beef about aging.

I'm contemplating buying gardening gloves - that's not something that a young person buys. Did some of your actual proper bank-holiday gardening today, it's a lot of hassle, was at it for two hours, and the only thing that's really changed is how full my brown bin is. Boo. Was being helped by a robin, pretty much sitting on my shoulder waiting for worms to be dug up, the precocious domestoid.

What else? Slightly worried that I might have become a monarchist. That's an age thing as well, right. Don't get me wrong, I've not been out mummified in buntings standing to attention. I've not even turned the TV on. But I have read some of the republican-esque comments and frankly I'm not sure I approve. a. they sound like killjoys when they could just ignore it - which is never going to endear me to them. But more importantly b. what's the alternative? I suspect it's a presidency. I fully admit I know nothing about politics, but given the current crop of politicians, I'm really rather uncertain that that would be an improvement.

Let's finish with a riddle. Why does the library have an out-of-hours book return box, if you can't get to the out-of-hours box out of hours because of a big metal gate?

Hey Bruce Willis, I like your sister

I've spent the weekend in Morocco and all I've got to show for it is mild food poisoning. Nothing too bad - not like last year's Valencia incident or that time that we don't mention - but it really isn't a convenient time for the flush on my toilet to stop working.

So yeah, Fez, that was a weekend. Bit of a culture shock. It's a city of two halves is Fez, a new town and an old town and I think you'd struggle to find a more strangely juxtaposed set up. The old town was a medieval maze of markets and mosques - spices and donkeys everywhere - as stereotypically Arabic as you like. The new town could have been just about anywhere. I say that, they sold pigeons in the market place; you don't really get that in, I dunno, Wigan.

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FYI I finished Poisonwood Bible, my assessment was correct, the story finished well before the book.

This week the countries reading this blog are UK (understandable) and Moldova (less so).

Growing up

I seem to have started reading the business section of the paper. I'm not sure I approve of myself. Combined with the facts that cryptic crosswords are one of my preferred ways to waste time and that all music released in the last ten years sounds the same, I can't help but think that I'm getting old.

Things that I've enjoyed over the last couple of weeks:
- The middle bit of the Collaborators - the first bit was too slow, the last bit was too serious, the middle bit was a riot.
- Dawkins casual undermining of Michael Gove.

See, even the things that make me smile are curiously middle aged.
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I'm currently reading the Poisonwood Bible, I feel like I've been reading it forever. I'm fairly sure the story finished fifty pages ago but I've still got another 100 pages left. Is it worth finishing?

Rotterdam or Anywhere

Now I can just about see how you could confuse Rotterdam with Liverpool (both big port cities with shiny new waterfronts) but Rome? Really? I've been to very few cities that are less like Rome than Rotterdam. The only similarity is that capital R.

Rotterdam gets a big fat thumbs up. The buildings are well architecture (I was able to namedrop Renzo Piano and sound like I knew what I was talking about) and there seemed to be a background hum of exciting stuff happening across the city. You know? Like art and culture and stuff?

Just been on a bike ride through that there rolling Utrecht countryside. Cycled through the red light district - most bizarre - just like the Amsterdam one, with its knocky windows, but on a series of houseboats right next to a motorway.

One thing I've learned this weekend is that my phone doesn't work abroad. I don't know what's more surprising, that in 2012 there are phone networks which don't have international roaming as standard, or that it's taken me four countries to notice.