From gigs to pigs

Last Thursday saw my first ever ukulele gig, and what a blast it was. Performing in a benefit at Streatham's famous Hideaway club with some members of Balham Ukulele Society, we did a range of songs from Jonny Cash through to Keston Cobblers Club, stopping off at the Everly Brothers, the Jungle Book and many others on the way.

It felt a good tight performance (OK - I have no direct experience to compare it with) and it seemed to go down really well with the audience. We then got back on stage at the end with closing act MyFlat, to do a couple of numbers, which also felt great.

On Saturday I was back in audience mode when a couple of mates were singing at an open mic in Streatham - and very good they were too, and then a further uke practice on Sunday.

In the meantime, I took the boys to Bodeans in Balham. If you don't know the place - well, where to start? Brash, very 'American style' - lots of noise and sport, and above all lots of animal produce. Looked like a huge selection of interesting beers too, though none of us went near them.

Really not the sort of place to go as a delicate vegetarian or indeed an eater of small portions. I watched them as they polished off probably about an entire animal between the three of them, and then followed it with waffles and chocolate ice-cream. They loved it, and for that sort of family or quite-blokeish do, it was perfect. I suspect that if you wanted a quiet or romantic dinner for two, you would be better pretty much anywhere, including Nandos or the local chippy.

Rehearsals continue apace for Christmas gigs (with uke ones now figuring in the list as well as two different lots of choir stuff of course), and to close the musical journey, I'm off to see Difford and Tilbrook (as in Squeeze)at the Union Chapel on Saturday - should be fun.

All this doesn't leave a lot of time for sitting around and having a restful evening, so I am pleased that I am managing to keep reading. I must admit though that looking through the year, quality has not held up as well as quantity. Heavy tomes do not work well when I am tired, so it's been pretty fiction-based. 

I've just finished the three volumes of S M Stirling's Draka series - which is an alternate reality, dystopian nightmare - a bit like Croydon in that way I suppose. Bought in part because I like alt-history stuff, but largely because it was incredibly cheap on Amazon. It was OK. I think my slight disquiet is that it is written about some pretty nasty people (minor spoiler but necessary - the Draka is a civilisation based on slavery - the competing Alliance is based on tech) and because it is written in a point of view style (Game of Thrones-like) you start feeling sympathy with people for whom you should clearly have none. 

This sort of thing shouldn't matter - either the book entertains (and to be fair, it did - in a geeky way) or it does not, but there was an unease. There is no doubt Stirling does not advocate slavery, torture etc, but they weren't really eyes I wanted to look through.

Now looking for the next thing to read. As my search is based on 'Science Fiction under a quid' the same experience is entirely likely to occur.

What ever happened to plate-spinning acts?

It's been a fairly quiet weekend, for which I am quite grateful. Not sure if 'burning the candle at both ends' is the appropriate phrase, but I've had quite a few late nights in the last couple of weeks - a mixture of rehearsals, evenings in the pub that have gone on just a bit longer than they should have etc. So I took the opportunity Saturday and Sunday to recharge and do nothing more than have a wander around and a trip to the gym etc, and make use of my extra hour to sleep in a bit.

From here on in, weekends are starting to hot up with more rehearsals - this year I am doing a good number of gigs at the Albert Hall with London Concert Chorus, plus Voxcetera's Christmas concert on 13th (only one gig but lots of music to learn, plus at least one Xmas gig with Balham Ukulele Society - which will be songs I know, but do not know on the Uke. So there is a lot of practising to do as well. This may come across as a moan - it really isn't - I love doing this sort of stuff (otherwise why would I...) but put it on top of the usual social whirl and it all gets quite busy.

Other than that, work continues on apace. We've had a number of people out over the last month - a mixture of conferences and holidays and the colds and 'flu that are always around at this time of year. I'm hoping that now everyone is back I will be able to move things forward rather than just feel like one of those circus plate-spinning acts. (What happened to them - as a kid you couldn't go a fortnight without seeing one on TV - presumably they are all working in call centres or stacking shelves?)

And it's my birthday next week - which really isn't a big deal - I've reached the age where even the ones ending in a '5' aren't a big deal (this one doesn't) - it's pretty much only the decades you want to commemorate. But it's an excuse for a bit of a celebration if I want one, and to buy a nice book or similar (I need *no* excuse for the latter of course).

Anyway, that's a quick 'no news' that his filed my lunch break. Will write a little more later in the week.

Five Years

When I was 24 a friend of mine was killed in the street.

I can never know exactly what happened, but my friend was (in my considerable past experience) entirely non-violent and someone hit him outside a fast-food restaurant one night. His head hit the ground and basically that was that. 

With really only evidence from the puncher, who portrayed the incident as a ‘fight’, there was never going to be a murder charge here, and the judge eventually handed down a five-year sentence for manslaughter. Of course, it is only post-conviction that you find out that the guy has only come out of prison two weeks before and has ‘previous’ as long as your arm.

I felt five years was light, and looked into it a little – and actually it was at least consistent with sentences given out in similar cases at that time. Meaning that if it was too short, all such sentences were too short. But still, five years (and out in half that) seemed a small price for a life.

You know where I am going here don’t you?

One punch. A fall. Five years.

A gun. Several shots through a locked door (you do wonder why she felt the need to lock it don’t you?). Five years.

OK – different legal systems and twenty years apart (so not a like-for-like) and it does seem South Africa has a more-relaxed attitude to death than we do here. But it seems a very small price to pay for ending someone’s life in the way Oscar Pistorius did.

Don’t know about you, but I feel no sense of justice today.

I have two other thoughts here.

Firstly – guns never help. Without a gun there can be a lot of shouting, but a gun and an angry man escalates things rapidly.

Secondly – televising trials turns them into a circus, and that is no way to do justice.

A reminder

Nothing posted here for a little while but I have been busy elsewhere - remember my music reviews page which is here and which has got reviews of the James Taylor gig from a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of more recent things too.

Sweet baby James

Having separated off my music blogs I am going to cross-post for a while to help those who want to find it.

So here is my review of last weeks James Taylor gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

http://rossonmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/sweet-baby-james.html

Enjoy.

And then there were three

Greetings. Following some feedback from my loyal reader I've decided to split the blog in three. I will leave the previous posts here, but will copy key ones across at some point, so everything historical will still be here.

Why, you ask? Nothing sinister. I just find that I have a desire to write on three very different fronts. Some of you will want to read on each of these, but some won’t, and it might be easier if I compartmentalise them a little bit.

One is to carry on with what has been going on in my life. That will be here – though I will link to the others from here too.

I have also tended to do a bit of writing around gigs and other outings which I have tended to review. The first of those will be up shortly, particularly as I went to three gigs last week and owe you a report on each.

The third and most separate is the more political musings that I feel compelled to write. In the aftermath of Clacton, and with only seven months to the general election this is an area where I suspect more involvement coming up. Watch this space for those.

In terms of the general stuff, life is pretty good – just very busy. That explains the week’s delay since the last blog post. When I went through the ‘big changes’ in my life earlier this year I deliberately took on lots of stuff – mainly musical – to make sure I did not have too many lonely and empty evenings. It’s now got to the point where I have plenty to do, and am comfortable enough that the odd quiet evening is either fully occupied with domestic chores, or is a welcome chance to read a book or have a long and relaxing bath.

This is great news – not that I was worried about being on my own, but it is nice to know that I am coping with it just fine.

So – anyway. My music-only blog is here and the new posts will be up soon. Enjoy

...when you're the driver of a train

I'm not really sure where the last week has gone. I was convinced it was only a few days since my last blog post, and it was all the way back on Wednesday.

What makes this even more difficult to fathom is that I've not been out every minute since then. Yes, a gig and a party pretty much booked up Saturday. Nice to catch up with a very good friend who is off to work in New York for a year, and I think I managed to conceal my huge levels of jealousy quite well.

But Sunday wasn't too full – I easily had time to write something. In part I think I am clearly getting more used to living on my own – the early need to fill every minute and keep really busy has gone. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to be busy and have never coped well with sitting indoors and vegetating, but four months ago a free night would have had me in a panic – now it’s a welcome chance for a rest and a long bath with a good book.

That’s another issue – I bought lots of books for the summer on the grounds I was bound to have time to read them, and I'm pretty much through them all. Most had the unifying feature that they were under a quid on Kindle, but actually there were only a couple that I discarded as not worth reading on the way. And I have consciously tried to stop hoarding books – I used to own hundreds which I never re-read, but couldn't bring myself to get rid of. They have pretty much all gone now and someone else can get some pleasure from them. So I need to replenish stocks in the coming days. Recommendations welcome.

I've a few days to make my mind up as my Kindle has also decided to pack up this week. It works, but only on Wireless rather than 3G, and has the battery life of an IPhone 3. Amazon are being very good and sending a new one – but it makes me realise how much I use the thing – “don’t know what you've got till it’s gone” etc.

Anyway, feel better for putting something up here – even if it is just a quick update written while eating my sandwich. I will write in more detail later in the week with a review of James Taylor at the Albert Hall.