Roger Whittaker – possibly The Last Farewell

It feels so final. I don’t want this to have been the last Roger Whittaker tour, or the last concert, but if it was, then we’ve had a good many years, tours, concerts, not to mention songs. People think it’s perfectly normal for a 77-year-old to retire (to already be retired) so it goes without saying that one day Roger will retire too. For real.

But maybe he will start to itch one day, when the resting gets too much. I favour individual concerts, somewhere easy to get to for a lot of us.

Not having been able to travel to Germany this time, I am hoping my fellow fans had a great time. I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing this photo of Roger and his drum from Rocco Meier who went to the last concert in Vienna.

Roger on tour

Tomorrow Roger Whittaker starts off on his latest (or will this one really be the last?) tour. It is much shorter than before, and it sounds like they hand-picked the towns and cities he will be appearing in. The first concert is in Halle/Saale.

Then it’s on to Rostock, Cottbus, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Berlin, Dresden, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Hamburg and finishing in Wien on the 10th of May.

I’m not going this time. It would have been nice, but it’s an awkward time of year, while hopefully being clear of the flu season for Roger and his band. And the dates and the venues didn’t match well for travelling from where I’d be travelling from.

Maybe next last tour??

So far, so good

It begins with a machete in Kenya. I remember when I read it that I admired the great first line. First half page, in actual fact. More so, because I sort of considered Natalie and Roger Whittaker mere amateurs when it came to writing books. I’m talking about So far, so good, which is the autobiography they wrote together.

The book left me exhausted, because the couple seemed never to take a break. I couldn’t understand how they could live so frenetically and for Roger to produce his wonderful music, and for Natalie to do ‘all the rest.’

Because she did. It was home and family and admin for Roger and god knows what else. All over the world. And the pets! They must have had a real zoo at times. An unexpected side effect of reading the book was that for months I was so annoyed with Roger for putting Natalie through all this. I ended up being her fan instead, wondering how she put up with him.

Babe magnet, I suppose we would call him today. I’d had no idea that he was being chased by women all over the world. I mean, not quite like that. But Natalie gave as good as she got, I reckon. Fantastic woman.

And, I realised that he’d ‘lied’ in concerts. Or at least made the truth less obvious. Talking about their children, Roger made out it was really quite easy to end up with five of them. Whereas in reality they had to struggle to become parents, and there was a lot of heart-break involved.

But now, they have five adult children, and countless grandchildren.

Written when Roger was fifty, So far, so good contains all that you want an autobiography to have. It’s got things about which you’d had no idea, as well as the obvious stuff.

It ends with Roger’s appearance on This Is Your Life. I believe they have often intended to write the ‘second half’ of Roger’s life, but today when he is 77, I’m guessing they are too busy to get round to doing that.

That’s how life should be. Live it, rather than write about it. And from a singer, I’m sure we’d all rather have more songs, if we must choose.

Back when I bought the book, we’d searched the early internet for somewhere that would sell it, and found a shop in Canada. (There were other copies, but this one was signed.) I worked out when it would be daytime for both us and them and phoned the lady who ran the shop. She was flabbergasted someone would call from so far away just to buy a book. A paperback.

Today when checking again, I see it’s available from the famously tax-evading online bookshop, for only one penny, plus postage. It’s easier today, but it was more exciting back then.

I have stopped being annoyed with my favourite singer. I enjoy his voice, and I’m glad he’s got such a great wife. Roger probably is too.

Happy 77th Birthday!

Song for Marion

My companion cried buckets, and I have to admit to having been not totally unaffected. But at least I didn’t disgrace myself by being lukewarm about Song for Marion. It’s another film full of old people, and it’s high time film makers realise that old people have a place in films. In fact, Song for Marion only had a few token young people in it. About time.

To be perfectly honest, I thought that Vanessa Redgrave as the dying Marion wasn’t all that marvellous. But Terence Stamp as her loving, but unsmiling, husband Arthur was pretty good, and the group of elderly singers Marion meets every week at the community centre were great fun.

OK, they were only singing about sex, but otherwise it was my second film in a week featuring OAPs and community classes and sex. It must be the thing to do. Gemma Arterton as the music teacher got her oldies to go metal and sexy and generally quite young and with it. Never mind that some had to be carted off in an ambulance for over-stretching themselves with the dancing and prancing.

They had fun!

So did we when we weren’t weeping and snivelling into our hankies. Which only leaves me wondering why the film lasted barely any time at all in the cinemas?

Christopher Eccleston did well as the grieving son, not getting on with his cantankerous father. Very easy to identify with what he was feeling. Perhaps the northern characters were a little bit too northern. We don’t all live in the south.

The judges in the choir competition were clearly modelled on certain judges on television. Perhaps too stereotyped, and something that might not age well with the film. Would people know why they were so rude, and suddenly so weepy, ten years from now? That’s if a film like this survives into the future.

Violeta se fue a los cielos

Forty years ago Chilean folk singer Violeta Parra struck me as old. She was also dead, which probably made her seem older still to a teenager. I listened to more of her songs sung by others, than to her own soundtracks. I found her voice a little scary at the time, whereas in the biographical film Violeta se fue a los cielos, it was the woman Violeta who scared me more.

She had a hard life, which makes her most famous song Gracias a la vida all the more surprising. She committed suicide at the age of 49, and in the film it seemed as if she was falling out with everyone around her. She acted crazy, and I’d guess people close to her never knew whether she was going to be nice, or scold them.

But she wrote fantastic songs and her legacy to the world is a powerful one. Hearing Arriba quemando el sol in the film gave me the goosebumps. Violeta was very determined, even from a young age. The film jumps back and forth a little too much, and it’s not always easy to know if we get the child Violeta or the woman, or what age adult she is.

Àngel Parra is someone I do remember from back then, but I had managed to forget about him in the intervening years. Here he was as the young son tramping the Chilean countryside with his half crazed mother. She travelled around to learn traditional songs from other singers. Then she wrote her own.

She was a worthy heroine to have, back when we still believed in the possibility that a revolution might be successful. We thought it could be done with music. Violeta must have hoped so, too. And then perhaps she realised it was not to be.

I don’t know.

Powerful, and heart-wrenching, film. It’s worth it for the music, though.

(On at Cornerhouse on Sunday as well.)

Music while you stuff

I went and stuffed some more envelopes this morning. I’ve not been for some time, so didn’t know about the ban on rubber bands. Now I do.

It was a good Hallé stuffing group, and plenty of variety as regards the topics we covered during conversation. They were on horse (meat) as I arrived, and we soon trashed a number of recent films. The jury was out on whether Les Mis is a must see or whether not to bother.

But it was other kinds of music I had in mind for here. Obviously most stuffers (probably all except me) are heavily into the kind of music played at the Bridgewater Hall. I’ve always felt a lightweight compared to people who can rattle off names of composers and conductors like they are their best friends.

Apart from the rubber band situation, it appears they have discussed whether to have music while we stuff. The thinking is along the lines that we are all music lovers and it’s stupid to sit in silence (horse meat discussions aside) when you could enjoy music.

People felt it ought to be something highbrow but perhaps less well known, so that we could find new things to like. But then when pressed, several people had more popular music suggestions to make, once they let go of the classical obligations. I didn’t dare say I’d bring Roger Whittaker if I could, but he’d be better than Take That, surely?

The more I thought about this, the less suitable I feel classical music is. You work better with something lighter and more upbeat. Maybe some experimenting is required to discover if the speed of envelopes being filled and sealed goes up with a particular type of music.

Now to see if they can unearth something on which to play this music! I gather that has been the temporary stumbling stone.

As long as the quirky discussions don’t go away completely, and as long as no one sings along. We have at least one Hallé choir member in our midst. He’d be all right.

(As I returned home and put the iPod to good use I came upon this, which I reckon would be eminently stuffable; Ich kann ohne country music nicht leben.)

Pitch Perfect

This film did such a swift disappearing act from cinemas that we barely caught it, back in early January. While Pitch Perfect is not the best film I’ve seen, it’s far from bad. (It beats Les Mis…)

A cappella is nearly always fun, although they did make this group of college girls more awful to begin with, so they could be seen to improve. The boy group was better, especially towards the end, with the exit of their idiot lead singer. But the girls had to win, because it was their film.

Oh well.

I learned some new things about American college life, while still not grasping why new students put up with the ridiculous rules for joining societies on campus. (Couldn’t help wondering if – when – they did any studying.)

Not being an Anna Kendrick fan, I spent most of the film fascinated by her teeth. Her love interest was cute enough, but Skylar Astin seemed a bit old for his role. They all did. I loved Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy, and was ashamed that our audience laughed as soon as she was on screen. Being fat is in itself not amusing. Hana Mae Lee was so quiet I mostly couldn’t tell what she was whispering.

The brawl that sent the heroine to jail was fun, but I do wish someone would explain why they sang in an empty swimming pool.

Pitch Perfect is good to look at, with some great accompanying noise. I’m not sure there was an awful lot of plot there, though.

Miserable, with music

I’ve been reliably informed that my company will not be required ever again when Daughter goes to see a film. I’m not allowed not to like a film, nor am I permitted to lie when asked for my opinion. It’s tough.

It was Les Misérables that clinched – or unclinched – my presence. I didn’t like it enough. I didn’t hate it, although it was long and slow. Felt it would have done better without the singing, or better with actors who could sing better. The females all sang well, so surely they could have unearthed a few male actors who can carry a tune?

He is nice to look at, that Hugh Jackman. But I won’t be buying his collected albums any time soon. It was good that they all sang as they acted, but at times I just wanted to speed them on a bit. Also, in this day and age when we have abusive adults on our minds at all times; a scene like when Valjean meets Cosette for the first time is pretty disturbing, even when it’s not bad.

The photography was excellent. Even the Paris sewers looked ‘good,’ albeit not very tempting.

And I cried at the end. How could I not?

Too long. But educational. Relieved I never saw it on stage, although the voices might have been better. It’ll get a lot of Oscars, this one.

At the Richmond Tea Rooms

You know facebook? And those fb friends you have that you don’t really know, or whom you’ve never met? One of mine lives locally and she is a Fascinating Aïda fan, just like me. So – obviously – when she recommended a great place for tea, I needed to try it out. Especially as another fb friend happened to mention it soon after.

I decided to wait until I had company, because whether a new place is lovely, or awful, it’s best shared. Finally, Daughter was here, and we were going into Manchester anyway, so I said we’d go to the Richmond Tea Rooms as a treat.

We went. We saw. We liked. Very much. And that’s not just the amount of cake we consumed. It was our kind of place.

When we’d ordered, I let my eyes rove the room to check it all out. And – obviously – there she was. The fb friend I’d never spoken to. So I popped over and introduced myself and we chatted. She and her companions were having their regular ‘office meeting.’ On the red velvet corner sofa! I want job meetings like that.

Anyway, I had to pop back to my Earl Grey, which turned out to be Earl Grey with flavour. None of this wishy-washy stuff some places serve. Daughter tried Assam, which she liked. She had Alice’s Rarebit, which surprisingly – for her – did not contain rabbit. I had a very, very freshly made scone with clotted cream and Tiptree jam. And, a little something afterwards. That Pear Frangipane must have seen me coming. It was pear with almost nothing but marzipan..! It was wow!

Mismatched crockery and lace, table service and generally crazy decorating makes for the perfect place to sit and stare and relax. It’s all pretty Alice-y. They had signs ordering us to Eat and Drink, so we did. One does under such circumstances.

(I did wonder about the lack of hot water, seeing as the tea was leaf tea in pots. But I didn’t wonder for long. Instead of letting the hot water go cold, someone comes round every now and then with fresh hot water, and adds it to your pot.)

And I don’t know if I’d ‘met’ the other guest before. It felt like I had. Almost like old friends. Not facebook ones, but people like me. Only thinner.

Physicists for the Christmas number one?

Now that they’ve sat their exams, The Other Guys can concentrate on becoming the Christmas number one single.

Christmas Gets Worse Every Year is a catchy sort of title. I quite like the voice of the lead singer, and I’m slowly coming round to the merits of the song.

(Between you and me, I have very little idea of how you make it to that coveted top position, but never mind.*)

A reliable source tells me that two of The Other Guys are Junior Honours Physics students at St Andrews, and you need to encourage an alternative career, should the Quantum Mechanics paper turn out to have been more nightmarish even than anticipated.

*Had another look. Apparently you should download it. Legally, presumably.