Cravat Twats

The Map Twats went indoors yesterday, for a performance by the National Youth Orchestra at Birmingham Symphony Hall. Before that, we went to The Wellington, a fine real ale pub in central Brum which encourages customers to bring their own cheese. Dan did the honours, providing some fine Brie, and Oxford Blue, some goats' cheese, good bread, Greek olives and onion marmalade. I turned up with Italian salami and game pie. The other customers seemed to be divided between admiration and contempt for our effete picnic. 

The concert was partly aimed at getting under-25s into classical music. Musically, it was a great success, but demographically it was an utter failure. The thin crowd consisted of players' relatives, very old people and the Map Twats (average age 33). The 12-year old behind me loftily informed his mother that the NYO are 'copying the NCO and aren't nearly as good this year as they were last year'. I moved seats. Unfortunately, the man next to me was no improvement. He poked me every time the Berio and Strauss pieces quoted from Mahler, recommended Bruckner's Fourth because 'Hitler played it after supper every evening' and then poked into my shopping bag. I'd bought a new shirt from Lewin, reduced from £85 to £25: he told me that when he worked in the city, Lewin used to make 'good' shirts but now they might come from anywhere…

Anyway, audience aside, the concert was stunning. The Berio was complex, fun and compelling, the Wiegold piece they started with was a nice piece of lightweight contemporary theatre, and the Strauss (Richard) was, well, German. Huge orchestra, kitchen sink, post-Romantic but impressive in its way. 

Today, it's the university's Black Wednesday meeting - I'll be live-blogging my last day in employment.

Cutting back on the luxuries

I watched David Cameron's speech about the economy yesterday and agreed with his main point: that 'spend spend spend' is not the way to get out of a recession partially caused by rampant consumerism. Inspired by his message of hair-shirt self-denial, I invite you all to join me in promising to never again indulge in high-end accessories and decor, particularly those retailed by Smythson of Bond Street (director: one Samantha Cameron - gifts available under £100) and Osborne and Little, the source of Gideon 'George' Osborne's wealth. 

Unless, of course, you think that Mr. Cameron's point is that government should stop spend spend spending money on poor people (public transport, infrastructure, the environment) so that the rich can pay even less tax, and so that Cameron's gloriously retro monetarist/small government/Friedmanite plans can be implemented. Naomi Klein's latest, The Shock Doctrine, points out that disasters are merely opportunities for these bastards to seize power. If you don't believe me, watch Niall Ferguson's appalling recent documentary, The Ascent of Money. Sponsored by a tax haven (!), he praised the Pinochet dictatorship for its embrace of monetarism, repeatedly referred to Allende's 'communist' 'regime' (e.g. its democratically-elected socialist government), but couldn't find enough time to discuss the thousands of deaths, torture chambers etc. etc. etc.