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Dead Lock

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff with tags , , on November 7, 2017 by telescoper

Well, as if I didn’t have enough to do these days, yesterday I managed to lock myself out of my house. Monday not being one of my regular work days (I work part-time at the moment), I had a leisurely morning in, eventually toddling around to the corner shop (Pontcanna Stores) to buy a newspaper and use the Post Office (which is inside the store) to send some correspondence overseas. 

I locked the front door as I left the house, which I always do. The door is fitted with a dead lock so it can be neither locked nor unlocked without using the key. That means I can’t lock myself out by leaving the key inside the house.

However, returning back to my house, I attempted to open the lock with my key only to find, to my dismay, that, although the cylinder within the lock seemed to rotate correctly, the door didn’t unlock. I tried dozens of times to no avail. I was stuck outside with no obvious way to get into the house. I didn’t have access to any tools, and didn’t have my phone either so I was at a loss to know what to do. Eventually I decided to return to the shop to ask if I could use a phone to call a locksmith. 

The shopkeeper (Mr Patel) would have none of it, arguing that a locksmith would cost me a fortune, and instead mobilised his handyman, Mike, who was working upstairs in the flat above the shop. Mike came with me to my house and, after quite a struggle, he managed to get the door open without having to damage the door or frame. I was mightily relieved. I might add that he also refused my offer of payment…

Looking at the lock it after removing it from its door it became obvious what had happened. Something had gone wrong with the mechanism inside the lock which meant that, although the key rotated the action, it didn’t engage the bolt fully which resulted in the bolt not being properly withdrawn from the rebate on the hinge. It’s an old lock so it was probably just internal wear and tear, and, the likelihood being that it would recur every time I used it, I had no choice but to remove the lock so I could try to find a replacement. There is another lock on the door, so it would be fairly secure until I fitted another dead lock, the old dead lock being dead.

Mike suggested I take it to the local hardware shop to find another lock that matched. I did so but he didn’t have an exact fit. Also I had – stupidly – omitted to take the plate from the front of the lock which had the name of the manufacturer written on it. He offered to sell me a new lock (c. £15) and fit it for £20. That seemed a pretty good deal, but he did suggest trying a specialist shop (not far from where I work). Putting a replacement lock into the space vacated by removal of the old one would be much easier than cutting a bigger hole in the door to hold a lock of different size. The man in Cardiff Lock and Safe Co Ltd managed to identify an identical lock but didn’t have one in stock. He ordered one that I can collect tomorrow, and I should be able to mend it then.

I’m posting this not so much because of the little crisis about the dead lock, but to say thanks to all those who helped me out yesterday. It makes a big difference living in a friendly community where people help each other out. Sadly, though, Mr Patel is selling up the business he has owned for over 30 years and it is being taken over by the Coop as yet another mini supermarket.

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The Emerson Quartet

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , on November 3, 2017 by telescoper

It’s been an enjoyably rich week for me in terms of cultural pursuits, rounded off in fine style last night with a visit to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for a concert by the Emerson String Quartet of music by Purcell, Britten and Beethoven. On Wednesday I made the mistake of going to a concert without having had any food, so this time I sampled the bar menu at the College before the performance. Very nice fish and chips, with very prompt service.

The first half of the concert consisted of three pieces by Henry Purcell, the Chacony in G Minor and two Fantazias (in D Minor and G Major, respectively). The Chacony (from the Spanish `Chacona’ via the French `Chaconne’) is a set of variations over a ground bass, while the Fantazias have a much freer structure with the instruments often mimicking vocal lines. This was followed by the String Quartet No. 2 in C by Benjamin Britten, the last movement of which includes a Chacony as a deliberate homage to Purcell (whose music Britten admired enormously). It was actually written to commemorate Purcell’s death (on 21st November 1695). Overall, though, this is more reminiscent of the approach of Britten’s friend Dmitri Shostakovich. It is full of jagged figures emerging from a background that alternates between dark and frenetic.

After the interval wine break, it was time for one of my favourite pieces in all music, the sublime String Quartet No. 15 (in A minor) by Ludwig van Beethoven (Opus 132). I’ve loved this piece for many years and it became even more special to me five years or so ago when I was recovering from illness. Until last night, though, I had never heard it live.

This is a long work, taking over 40 minutes to perform, dominated by the central third movement, which is headed with the words

Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart

I take the liberty of translating the first two words, using my schoolboy German, as “A Holy Song of Thanksgiving”; Beethoven wrote the piece after recovering from a very serious illness which he had feared might prove fatal. The movement begins in a mood of quiet humility but slowly develops into a sense of hope and deeply felt joy. The most remarkable  thing about this movement to me, though,  is that the music seems to possess the same restorative powers that it was written to celebrate. I certainly found it extremely therapeutic when I was unwell.

Hearing the whole piece live has a much greater impact than hearing one movement on record, and I have to admit I found last night’s performance quite overwhelming. Judging by the rapturous applause from the audience in the Dora Stoutzker Hall, I think a great many people realised that they had just heard something very special.

Music from three very different periods, by three very different periods, all played beautifully with great passion and imagination. What more could you ask for?

Well, we did get something extra – an encore in the form of one of Dvorak’s Cypresses (No. 7 to be precise):

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The Hallé at St David’s

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , , , , on November 2, 2017 by telescoper

Last night, as part of an ongoing effort to enjoy as much culture as I can while I still have the chance, I went to St David’s Hall in Cardiff for a concert of music by Ravel, Debussy and Mussorgsky given by the Hallé Orchestra under the direction of Sir Mark Elder. It was a wonderful programme of music, performed with all the colour and verve and professionalism you’d expect from the Hallé.

First up we had the Rapsodie Espagnole, one of Ravel’s first compositions for the full orchestra (although in the original version was for two pianos, he orchestrated it a year after that version was published). For a piece of only about 15 minutes duration its four movements are full of changes of mood, tempo and tonality, which makes it a great piece to warm up both orchestra and audience.

Following that, we had the gorgeous Première Rhapsodie for orchestra and clarinet soloist by Claude Debussy. Written just a couple of years after the Ravel, and inhabiting a similarly impressionistic sound world, this was originally as a test piece for clarinettists at the Paris Conservatoire. The solo part was played with great agility and feeling by young Spanish musician Sergio Castello López. I’d never noticed before how similar the way the clarinet ends this piece is to the opening statement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, written about 14 years later…

And then it was time for Ravel’s little inspiration, Boléro, which is easily his most famous composition despite the fact that, as Ravel himself put it, `it has no music in it’. What he meant by that is that it doesn’t have any variation or thematic development or invention, but was written deliberately as an experiment to see how far he could get in writing a work that was entirely based on rhythm and repetition. The result was a smash hit and earned him a very great deal of money, but he grew to resent the fact that it was so much more popular than the other works he himself thought were much better. I know some people who hate this piece, but I think it’s great fun and always enjoy hearing it. Last night was no exception.

The composition of Boléro is so simple that even a non-musician like me can play it. It’s basically written in a slow 3/4 time signature on which is superimposed the following figure:

The second part is basically a repeat of the first, with the last two eighth notes replaced with triplet. The whole pattern consists of 24 notes. I once tried to count how many times it is repeated in a performance of Boléro, but gave up when I got to 100. I think it must be over 200 times.  This figure is introduced first on a single snare drum, which carries on playing it for the duration, i.e. for about 15 minutes in total. As the piece develops the same pattern is picked up by various other instruments, either alone in combination. A second snare drum joins in too. The key to the piece is to keep this all very strictly in tempo, as the piece gradually gets louder.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, my Father was a (jazz) drummer. I remember once borrowing his snare drum and attempting to play along with a recording of Boléro. The pattern shown above is not that hard to play in itself, but it’s not as easy as you probably think to keep in tempo as you play it louder and louder. At the start it’s fine: you begin by tapping the sticks on the skin of the drum very close to the rim. To increase the volume you gradually move the point of impact closer to the centre of the drum, which naturally makes it louder. However, to get louder still you have to increase the distance the sticks move, and that makes it tougher to keep to tempo. Playing along at home is one thing, but playing the percussionist playing this in an orchestra must leave the drummer feeling very exposed. One mistake, any speeding up or slowing down, and the whole performance will be ruined.  Percussionists very often have little to do for long passages in an orchestral work, but this takes it to the opposite extreme. It requires constant concentration, but no variation or embellishment is allowed.  I suppose professional musicians just get into the zone and don’t think about the possibility of screwing up. Last night, Principal Percussionist David Hext looked as relaxed as anyone I’ve ever seen starting this piece and seemed even to be enjoying it too, thoroughly deserving the warm applause he got at the end of the performance.

The bolero rhythm is just one element of the composition, of course. There is a melody, in two parts. The first simple and catchy, the second bluesier and a bit syncopated. Each part is played twice, passed around the instruments of the orchestra, first individually and then in combinations. Sometimes the melodic line is doubled, but there are no complicated harmonies and the piece stays in C major throughout, apart from a sudden change of key near the very end. The second part of the melody allows the musicians to release their inner jazz a bit, playing behind or across the beat to generate the feeling that the tune is trying to escape the confines of the incessant rhythm. As is the case in jazz, this sense of tension only works if the basic rhythm is kept strictly in tempo as the crescendo builds

The third element of the composition is the simplest of all, but I feel that it is very important in determining whether a performance of Boléro really rocks. That is a rhythmic pulse based on the three beats of the underlying 3/4. When they’re not playing the melody or shadowing the bolero pattern, the orchestra play this figure and it ends up being boomed out by the timpani in tremendous style but also as the piece progresses the stress shifts between the three beats as different instruments contribute.

I know it’s a familiar piece but I really enjoyed last night’s performance. I’ll also reiterate that as well as making a great sound, a full symphony orchestra playing during a piece like this is a tremendous thing to watch, especially with the percussion section giving it some good old-fashioned welly.

Anyway, after the ensuing wine break interval we resumed with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (as orchestrated by that man Maurice Ravel).  I remember studying this in music lessons at school,as it was one of the teacher’s approved works. He never told us, however, that the `pictures’ concerned were not large-scale canvases but tiny drawings and design sketches done by one Victor Hartmann, whose sudden death led to the exhibition in question but also affected his friend Mussorgsky very deeply and inspired him to make a musical tribute based on the artwork displayed therein. Mussorgsky thus wrote the piano version which was then subsequently orchestrated by Maurice Ravel.

This is another extremely popular piece, also for good reason. It’s a set of ten movements linked by a `Promenade’ theme that represents the viewer walking around the exhibition (in different moods determined by the pictures). It ends with the most famous section, the magnificent Great Gate of Kiev which provided a suitable finale to a most enjoyable and varied evening of music.

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From the House of the Dead in Southampton

Posted in Biographical, Opera with tags , , , , , on October 25, 2017 by telescoper

It has been very hectic around here since I got back from India last week, so I’ve only just found time to do a quick review of Welsh National Opera’s production of From the House of the Dead which I saw last Friday at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. I was away for the two performances of this Opera in Cardiff earlier this month and when I mentioned to a couple of friends of mine from London that I was hoping to catch it while it was on tour we decided to compare diaries and see if there was any way we could go together. And so it came to pass that we all ended up in Southampton, me returning to Cardiff through Storm Brian the next day, and Joao and Kim flying off to Cape Verde for two weeks from Gatwick Airport.

Anyway, to the Opera. From the House of the Dead is by Leoš Janáček, and is based on the autobiographical novel of the same (or similar) name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is set in a Siberian prison, in one such establishment Dostoyevsky himself spent four years of his life. It’s a grim story that starts with the arrival of a nobleman, Goryanchikov, to start his sentence. He is stripped of his fine clothes, beaten and tortured, then joins the wretched ensemble of captives until he is unexpectedly released at the end of the Opera. In between the prisoners take turns to describe their life stories, holding on to the past as people do who perceive that they have no future. There is little plot other than this series of narratives apart from a quasi-comic interlude provided by an Easter `show’, in the form of a pantomime. The work is in three relatively short acts which, in this production, run together without an interval. The whole performance lasts about 90 minutes. The picture above, taken during a previous run of this production in Finland, conveys the look and feel of this revival of a production by David Pountney that was first performed in 1982.

From the House of the Dead was written in the last years of Janáček’s life and was not performed until two years after his death. It opens with a prelude that reminded me a lot of his superb String Quartet No. 2 (`Intimate Letters’), written around the same time (1928) but whereas that work is about the nature of love, this Opera is about loneliness, isolation and brutality. The musical score is very rich and varied, but the vocal lines rather constricted, as if to emphasise the sense of captivity. It’s also really an ensemble piece rather than one in which the principal vocalists stand out from the chorus. This works very well for Welsh National Opera, as the chorus of WNO is exceptional. The Orchestra, under the direction of Tomas Hanus (himself a native of Brno, where Janáček lived for much of his life), played superbly, bringing out the subtleties of the orchestration by adding contrasting notes of optimism and hope to the intense, unrelenting darkness.

In short it was well worth the trip to Southampton, even if it did take me five hours to get home via two trains and a rail replacement bus service. This production has deservedly been very positively reviewed in the national media and I strongly recommend you see it during one if its remaining dates, in Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol or Llandudno.

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Prize Port

Posted in Biographical, Crosswords with tags , , on October 20, 2017 by telescoper

Way back in July I went to the Third Day’s Play of the Test Match between England and South Africa. On the way to the ground I bought a copy of Money Week, a publication I have never read before, as requested by my old friend and regular commenter on this blog, Anton, who got the tickets for the match. During a lull in the play we did the crossword in the magazine, which was a not-too-difficult thematic puzzle. When I got back to Cardiff I posted off the solution, as a prize of a bottle of vintage port was on offer. Not hearing any more, forgot about it.

When I got back from India this week there was a card waiting for me saying that ParcelForce had attempted to deliver a package while I was away. This morning I went to the main post office to sign for it and pick it up. This is what I got:

I don’t know why it took so long to deliver the prize but it makes a nice change from the usual dictionaries!

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Back to Blighty

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on October 18, 2017 by telescoper

Just a brief post today to say that I got back safe and sound last night. I was up at 4am Tuesday Pune time (which was 11.30pm Monday UK time) and finally got to bed at about 11.30pm UK time last night, so apart from about 45 minutes doze on the flight I had been awake for 24 hours. Not surprisingly, I slept in this morning!

After another white-knuckle taxi ride (with the added complication of thick fog) I got Mumbai airport in good time. The flight itself was almost empty. Not only did I get a row of seats to myself in economy class, but the two rows in front in and the two rows behind were also unoccupied. I’m not entirely sure why the flight was so underbooked – as the outbound flight was absolutely crammed – but it may be that the festival of Diwali takes place this week (on Thursday or even today in some regions). Relatively few people are probably leaving India at this time compared with the many coming home to celebrate with friends and family. It’s a nice coincidence that Monday’s announcement of simultaneous detection of gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation came so close to the Festival of Light, traditionally celebrated with fireworks and gifts of gold!

Despite liberal helpings of wine from the drinks trolley and the ability to lie down across three seats I still didn’t really sleep. I just don’t have the knack for sleeping on planes. Still, I did get to watch the film The Imitation Game which I hadn’t seen before and thought was very good.

We arrived back on schedule without the (usually) obligatory air traffic delays around Heathrow and, the arrivals hall being empty, I was out of the airport less than half an hour after landing. That’s a bit of record for me!

Anyway, I’ve various things to catch up on now that I’m back so I’ll try to get on with them. I’ll just end by thanking my hosts at IUCAA again for their hospitality and, while I’m at it, send a Happy Diwali message in Marathi to them and anyone else celebrating at this special time:

 

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Homes from Home in Pune

Posted in Biographical, History, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on October 16, 2017 by telescoper

Since I’m coming back tomorrow I thought I’d wander around this morning and take a few pictures of where I’ve been staying most of the last 10 days or so. First, this is a snap of the housing complex which contains my guest apartment.

I’m actually in the first building on the right. Here is the front door.

The faculty at both IUCAA (Pune) and TFIR (Mumbai) live in housing areas provided by their respective institutions, so they form quite a close-knit community. Some of the senior staff in IUCAA are housed just round the corner from my place.

IUCAA is on the Pune University Campus (except that it has its own entrance from the main road that runs along the Northern edge of the campus, where there is a security post. There are a few of these around the IUCAA site itself, so it is very secure and quite private. The campus is large with many tree-lined roads. At its heart, on a small hill, you can find this building:

This is (or was) the Raj Bhavan (`Government House’) and it was essentially the Governor of Maharashtra’s residence during the Monsoon season. Built in 1866, it was a sort of home-from-home when Bombay (the state capital) became too unbearable.

When I was last here in 1994, this was the Main Building of the University and was quite busy. Now, however, it seems to be disused and is in a state of some disrepair, the gardens also need a bit of love and attention. There are many new buildings around the University of Pune campus (including a modern administration block nearby). Since this building is a relic of the old colonial days it may be that it will be demolished to make way for something that better suits modern India. By the way, there’s a stone slab just next to the site of this building that displays the preamble to the Constitution of India, as adopted in 1949.

Anyway, this afternoon and evening promise to be quite busy. There is a press conference at IUCAA at 6.30pm about the gravitational waves discovery I mentioned a few days ago. There will be presentations before a viewing of the live feed from Washington DC then there’ll be a panel answering questions from the press. They’ve asked me to be on the panel, so I might appear in the India media, but as I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning I probably won’t see any of the coverage!

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Before the Storm…

Posted in Biographical, History with tags , , , , on October 16, 2017 by telescoper

Nearly at the end of my short visit to India I find myself checking on the UK news. Home thoughts from abroad and all that. Anyway, it’s quite a coincidence that Hurricane Ophelia is arriving,  exactly on the thirtieth anniversary of the famous `Great Storm‘ that wrought destruction across the South-East of England in 1987. The path of Ophelia is rather different from that of the 1987 `Hurricane’, and it looks like Ireland will bear the brunt over the next day or two, as the storm will weaken as it encounters land, though there will be strong winds far outside the path denoted in this map:

 

I hope the damage from this storm  isn’t too bad and that people in its path stay safely out of harm’s way, especially in Ireland. It’s possible the winds may affect my current home in Wales too. I hope I don’t get back tomorrow evening to find the roof has blown off!

Thirty years ago today I was living in Brighton as a graduate student at the University of Sussex. On October 16th 1987 (a Friday) I woke up to find the electricity had been cut off. Without breakfast I struggled out to find the street lined with fallen trees, smashed cars and houses with broken windows. I got to the railway station to get the train to Falmer (where the University of Sussex is located) only to find that no trains were running. I walked home and went back to bed. It took several days for normal service to resume. When I did get up to campus the following week, I found that almost all the trees in Stanmer Park had come down and were combed flat on the top of the hill.

The Great Storm of 1987 , according to weather forecaster Michael Fish, was “not a hurricane” had nevertheless caused enormours destruction. And I had slept through the whole thing…

Here’s the infamous weather forecast broadcast on the Thursday evening:

and here is the BBC News from the following day:

 

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Farewell to TIFR

Posted in Art, Biographical with tags , , , on October 15, 2017 by telescoper

I got up early again this morning to travel back to Pune for the final few days of this trip. Last night I had a pleasant dinner with my host Subha Majumdar at the Indigo Deli to round off my short stay in Mumbai. The food was nice, but it was a tad overpriced in my opinion. We passed by the Leopold Cafe on the way home; that was the scene of a terrorist atrocity in 2008 I remember having tea there in 1994, after returning from a boat trip to Elephant Island.

I went sightseeing yesterday morning but forgot to take my camera with me then. I left reasonably early so that I could wander around before it got too hot – the afternoon was sweltering on Friday – but when I arrived at my main destination (the National Gallery of Modern art) I found it didn’t open until 11am, so I had to find somewhere for a cup of tea (which wasn’t difficult). When it opened I found a pricing strategy that is common in India: 20 rupees for Indians and 500 rupees for foreigners! Still, 500 rupees is only about £6 and though small the gallery is well worth seeing.

When I returned to the TIFR `Colony’ I picked up my camera and took a few snaps of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research before spending the afternoon in the office. As you can see, TIFR is set in lovely grounds with some gorgeous trees. It’s also right next to the sea, but the view wasn’t great yesterday as it was misty. Later on there were heavy thunderstorms.

Now I think I’ll take a short nap. It’s just after 10am, but I was up before 5am after just a few hours sleep. I hope I wake up in time for lunch!

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Going Doolally

Posted in Biographical, History with tags , , on October 14, 2017 by telescoper

Yesterday evening, after my seminar and discussions I went with members of the cosmology group at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research to a place called the Doolally Tap Room which is not far from TIFR. Thundery clouds had gathered and rain was in the air so we took a taxi there and back.

It’s a nice, modern-looking bar with a range of craft beers and food. The Belgian Witbier and Abbey Tripel went down well, but I wasn’t tempted to try Mango Cider. It was a very pleasant evening, but I was dog tired after it and crashed out as soon as I got back to the TIFR guesthouse.

The name Doolally Tap Room is a very clever name for a bar. The word Doolally (or sometimes Dolally), as it is used in English especially in `going Doolally’ etc, generally means `deranged’ or `crazy’ (often as a result of being confined somewhere involuntarily, rather like cabin fever), is thought to derive from Deolali a place in Maharashtra (the state which contains both Mumbai and Pune). Deolali was used as a transit camp for British Army soldiers waiting to be deployed, many of whom became extremely bored stuck there in the heat.

Interestingly though the original phrase describing the madness induced by such boredom was `Deolali Tap’ (the latter word from a Hindhi word meaning `fever’). Doolally Tap Room therefore works rather well as a play on words.

There are of course many words in contemporary English that have their origins in Indian languages: here are 50 of them, which may or may not surprise you: atoll, avatar, bandana, bangle, bazaar, Blighty, bungalow, cashmere, catamaran, char, cheroot, cheetah, chintz, chit, chokey, chutney, cot, cummerbund, curry, dinghy, doolally, dungarees, guru, gymkhana, hullabaloo, jodhpur, jungle, juggernaut, jute, khaki, kedgeree, loot, nirvana, pariah, pashmina, polo, pukka, pundit, purdah, pyjamas, sari, shampoo, shawl, swastika, teak, thug, toddy, typhoon, verandah, and yoga.

Reminded by the above old British Army connection with doolally I can’t resist mentioning the phrase `When I was in Poona…‘. One doesn’t hear it much these days but aficianados of older humorous novels and radio comedy will recognize it as a kind of catchphrase introducing a boring old ex-soldier. It appears thus in Eric Patridge’s Dictionary of Catch Phrases (2003):

The legacy of Pune’s past as a large British Army base is still apparent: a large area in the centre is still called `Camp’ and there is still a tendency among some to refer to non-vegetarian restaurants as `Military’ (though I’m told this is more the case in Southern India, where the traditional local food is entirely vegetarian). In Maharashtra the diet is very mixed, but I’ve eaten relatively little meat since I came here.

All of which rambling might suggest that I’ve gone Doolally, or indeed that I’m turning into an old bore, but I’m actually enjoying this trip very much indeed. It’s fascinating not only to see what has changed in India in the 23 years since I was last here, but also what has remained the same. Moreover, everyone I have met here has been so friendly and hospitable that it’s been an absolute pleasure all round.

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