Well that's me told then..

Mini Troll to me, today, when picking up a letter addressed to me: 'That's not your name - you're MUM'

Nice to know my identity's been totally subsumed in the monster ego that is Mini, isn't it?

A salutory lesson

Yesterday I nipped into the tearoom in the village; to satisfy Mini-Troll's demands for sight of his babysitter Charlene (who is manageress there), pay her what I owe her brother (James the Chicken Boy) for various chicken-related chores he's done recently, catch up on the local gossip and, of course, slurp down my nth cup of tea for the day. I was a little surprised to see the place packed out - it's normally busy but not THAT busy! - but realised a coach party of older tourists had descended on the village and the tea room was their natural centre of gravity. So I settled down in a pokey corner and prepared to indulge in another of my favourite activities... people watching and eavesdropping.

And I can honestly say I wish I hadn't.

I don't think I heard ONE positive comment during my entire half hour stay ... perhaps it's a sign of our credit-crunch-depressed times, or perhaps it's just the particular band of aging Midlanders who were in there, but, trust me, that lot were moaning for Britain. Now, I know us Brits love a good old gripe - along with endless discussions of the weather, whinging is a National Sport - but this really was A Whinge Too Far. During my half an hour, I heard:

1. Dicussions centring around money - the most personal details of two old ladies' stashes were brought out for public view, picked over and dissected to the last farthing. None of the findings were positive, a fact mostly blamed on;
a) evil banks picking on old ladies generally and these two in particular
b) evil stockbrokers ditto
c) evil building societies who had converted to banks and therefore copped the same opprobrium as said institutions
d) The Government - also evil
e) Young people - who evilly want too much
2. Discussion centring around their families, none of whom seemed to attract any praise or pride. Chief amongst the perceived evildoers were, surprise surprise, In Laws; who were blamed for anything negative ranging from burnt food to juvenile delinquency.
3. A more extended discussion of Young People than that in 1(e) above which centred around the perceived pointlessness of any of them going to university. General discussion of
a) 'we don't need all these graduates - *I* didn't go to universtity and I don't see why they need to'
b) 'they don't learn anything worth knowing at university *I* have worked with graduates and *I* knew more than them' (although a grudging admission of the said graduates having more self confidence owing to their university experience was made)
c) 'they acquire a huge amount of debt at university which they just accept - I never owed anybody anything etc etc etc'
d) 'she never USED her university degree; she just got married and had children'

You get the picture?

Now, this was a bit of a lesson for me.. because at some point I have had a good old whinge myself about ALL of the above. So it was a bit of food for thought about how, perhaps, I should try to find a bit more positive to say about everything... down the road of time I DO NOT want to turn into a hideous facsimile of what I saw yesterday!

However, in my defence, I would point out in response to the whinges above:
1 a) and b) The said two old ladies by the sound of it had quite a large stash in stocks and shares, which MUST have been raking in a goodish bit when times were good. I somehow don't think they were calling banks and stockbrokers evil when that was going on... ladies, you have to take the bad with the good, I'm afraid, and at your age you should know you don't get anything for free: if the banks and brokers were greedy and irresponsible, were you less so? Because it was YOU who doubtless demanded your profits and dividends from them and would threaten to move your stash away from them if they didn't 'perform'...
1 c) Again, somehow, dear ladies, I don't think you complained when the lovely fat wodge of dosh you got when the building societies converted to banks landed in your account. And I suspect you didn't use the word 'evil' when you voted that they should convert either...
1 d) Judging by the majorities the present Government attracted in the last couple of elections, SOMEBODY must have voted for them. I suspect, from the comments made, this particular pair of old dears were up there like a shot crossing their ballot papers in the red box - ah, but - silly me - then Labour were offering them lots of deals... nuff said really...
1 e) Young people don't actually have that much money - especially not in comparison to the blue rinse brigade. Sort out your own house first, mesdames.

2. I can't honestly say I don't have a good old grunt about IN LAWS, especially as the Grande Troll would be No1 on my hit list were such things legal. But I can say that, if the English had any notion of family, perhaps society as a whole would be better off? And before anybody says it - I HAVE tried to integrate the Grande Troll a lot more into our lives - it's HER who has the problem with this, not ME. She's still Troll's mother and Mini's grandmother and I'd swallow 99% of her daftness for their sake if she'd show any interest in acting like a family member rather than a self-centred, self-obsessed, insular blonde prima donna. So there. My point to these ladies would be that THEY are family members too and if things are going wrong within the families THEY also have a responsibility both for the problem itself and its solution. I'm pretty sure if anything good happened they'd be in there like ferrets up a drainpipe, after all...

3. And on to university education.. now, here, don't worry, I'm not going to go off on an hour long rant. Because I do agree to a limited extent that we don't need as many graduates as the government think we do and I don't think that doing a course in Leisure and Tourism at the University of Nether Wallop (formerly a FE College)is actually doing much good for anybody: the people doing such courses would probably be better off doing a vocational qualification with a practical component rather than a 'degree', which should be an elite symbol. I don't have a problem with elitism - if something is elite it is to be striven for - an attitude which should raise standards more effectively than fiddling with exam structure. However I DO have a problem with the, very English, assumption that 'you don't need to bother with university because the School of Life will teach you more'; if somebody has put the work in to go to university, has the intellectual capacity for it to be appropriate for them to go to university, and there is a place for them at a decent university then they SHOULD go to university. And in those circumstances it it monstrous that as a society we should expect them to carry a crippling debt for years afterwards.

I also have a big problem with anybody saying that a degree wasn't 'used' because somebody did a job which wasn't immediately linked to that degree, or because they got married and had children. Something which a lot of people have lost sight of (in England I question whether many held the view in the first place) is that intellectual development is not something which should end when you graduate, but rather something which should continue throughout life. I believe you SHOULDN'T just stop learning when you get a job, but unfortunately that is very much the attitude in this country. Ideally, in the Angevin ethos anyway, universities should be a nursery bed where you are given the tools to enable your lifelong intellectual growth - and graduation is therefore just an indication that you've mastered these tools; not that you know everything you should and can now give up. Just because your job isn't directly using the knowledge you gained at university doesn't stop you developing that knowledge further outside of work. Also, in terms of confidence, problem-solving and just self-knowledge, university can give you so much that it's very hard to acquire in the School of Life. As a society if we all continued to embrace learning after our formal education had finished, don't you think we as individuals, and society as a whole would be better for it? All these are things which you can also pass to your children, funnily enough; my (Welsh) great-grandmother used to say 'educate a woman and you educate a family'. Something which obviously didn't occur to yesterday's pair. By the way, I had to get up and leave when they really started going to town on this issue because I would NOT have been able to keep quiet and I didn't want to create a scene to embarrass Charlene - which I doubtless would have done. I stomped off in a high old mood back to Chateau Angevin to take my temper out on the ironing...

So... what have *I* learnt from this experience?

Firstly, I think, as I said above, to try to be more positive about the world around me - yes a good moan is cathartic from time to time, but do it too much and it just means you lose the energy and will to try to change anything.

Secondly, to try to be more positive about the PEOPLE around me - it's easy to just whinge about the Grande Troll, for example, but she IS Mini's grandmother and I, perforce, have to rub along with her for a good few years yet, God willing.

And lastly?

Not to go into the flipping tea room when a coach load of Midlands OAPs have descended ...

Something to show my non-Facebook fans we really DO sing!

I thought I'd prove we really DO do serious stuff on tour and not just eat, drink and take the mickey out of sat-navs...

This is a shot of us singing in Autun Cathedral.. I think before the bats came out to fly over our heads!

OK OK I know I know ...

... but it's taken me some time to get over everything and get back from an even keel! I don't talk about it much, but I DO have M.E. and doing something like a tour means I have to lie quite low for some time afterwards before normal service is resumed. In this instance I'm quite grateful Troll toddled back off to the Algerian Autistic Man Camp pretty soon after I got back, because he, unlike Mini, is not content if there is too much slinging together of varying forms of pasta... Mini would happily eat pasta for breakfast if I let him, so suffice it to say he's been a happy bunny for the last two weeks!

Anyway, enough excuses...

The tour. As you may have gathered this was a great success both artistically and socially. We had a hat-trick of standing ovations, got onto French TV and had a rave write up in the press, so everybody is happy. We also had an absolutely fab time reverting to teenager-dom when we weren't being terribly serious artistes; everybody said they didn't want the tour to end and real life to begin again so we must be doing something right. Enough cremant was imbibed and snails eaten to maintain our honour and nobody was arrested... not quite anyway...

One thing which struck me in particular was the way in which group mentality can be a positive force. Without mentioning names there was one of our number who, let us say, does lack a few social graces (mostly I suspect, because his daft wife hasn't walloped some notion of respect and manners into him over the years, but that's mere speculation on my part) and initially this was a bit of an issue. However, by the end of the week, he'd almost grasped the notion that saying 'please' and 'thank you', even to people he considered friends, was actually a good idea. Let's hope his progress continues - but this is not the main point I'm trying to make. Rather, it is that if any change in his attitude has been achieved it's been done through good humour, a bit of gentle (and not-so-gentle it has to be said!) ribbing, and, most importantly, everybody else setting a good example. In short, amongst ourselves it was the culture to be polite and so it became harder NOT to follow suit. I don't expect the guy to change overnight, but I am hopeful he'll get the idea that if he wants to be treated with respect he has to show some to the rest of us too. Watch this space!

Now, here's a thought... what if the Dodecantus ethos could be extended to the world at large? WHAT IF - perish the thought - people by and large WERE actually polite to each other and showed some respect and love for those around them? Would we actually see the rude, self-centred, crew shaping up as they realised it made sense to play nicely? Or would they just make little ill-mannered ghettos for themselves and their like-minded pals and stay there?? There's a thought to ponder whilst I go and make some more pasta....

Pass the Alka Selzer please...

.. because I arrived home from the 2009 choir tour of Burgundy at about 4am this morning. It is with some horror I note I haven't actually posted during August, and will uncharacteristically beg forgiveness from my fans - pleading the necessities of actually setting up the tour really did take up all my available time.

Naturally, when the hangover's subsided a bit, I've caught up with the zeds and discovered where Troll has hidden everything during my ten-day absence I'll be back terrorising the blog boards.

Watch this space....

Celtic chortling...

... over the fact the BBC have apparently only guaranteed the rugby matches featuring WALES will be given live coverage. Apparently this is in recognition of the fact that Wales, as a nation, are a lot more into their rugby than any other of the home nations.

Cheers BBC... now let's all sit back and laugh as the Twickenham mob start mouthing off about it hehehe....

End of an era

Some of you will know I'm a bit obsessive about history, in particular military history, which is considered a bit of an odd thing for a woman to get into. Do I care?? Not really - it fascinates me and that's that.. since when did subjects for study come with a gender-tag anyway? To be honest it was a toss up when I was considering university whether I'd read music, history or politics - naturally for ME there was no contest (if you are a musician there's just no fighting it) but I remember my history and politics tutors both being a bit sad I wasn't going to take THEIR subjects further. As, unusually again, I kept in touch with both of them when I left school and they could see I didn't just drop either topic (as my groaning bookshelves will testify I still read tons of books about both!) I hope they became a bit happier over time that I wasn't just rampaging around on stage and letting what brain I had atrophy in the general atmosphere of musical hedonism. Both of these ladies were superb scholars, wonderful people generally, and I am lucky to have had them in my life - they enriched it immeasurably as only the best teachers really can.

Getting back to the point, people who know me will understand the last couple of weeks have been tinged with a bit of sadness as they have seen the passing of both Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - the last veterans of WWI still living in the UK. It really IS the end of an era, as the only first hand memories we now have of that conflict will be recordings of those involved. In common with a lot of military historians I find the whole period fascinating and, although I am extremely grateful to anybody involved with getting as much on record as possible from both of these veterans it's naturally a sad day when we can no longer refer to the primary source in person. I've been digging out a few books, scanning through the pictures and generally giving myself an excuse to sit with a cup of tea and ignore domestica whilst I answer the siren call from the bookshelves.

The thing which has most struck me about the whole thing really is the motivation for both old soldiers to talk about their experiences. Neither Harry Patch nor Henry Allingham WANTED to remember WWI and their part in it - they felt they HAD A DUTY to talk about what happened to them and try to get people to understand that it should never be allowed to happen again. To my knowledge neither of them gained any benefit from doing so and often it looked as if they put themselves through a lot of mental torture in their attempts to educate us all. Compare that with the 'modern soldier' accounts from the likes of Andy McNab whose sole motivation for talking about his experiences during the first Gulf War, as far as I can see, was purely self-aggrandisement. Oh, and, silly me, the quick buck thereof. What an encapsulation of the change that's happened in our society over the lifetime of Henry Allingham, huh?

Now, for various reasons I am not likely to reach Henry Allingham's tally of 113 years; nor am I sure I'd really WANT to. But it's interesting to see his recipe for doing so is 'cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women'.... no macrobiotic diets, pilates and clean living there, then. The singing sort of cancels out the cigarettes for me; wild women aren't really my bag even if they were interested in ME so that leaves the whisky...

Henry, God bless you, I'll be raising my glass of Laphroaig to you every time I dip into my collection of WWI books... and if you can see your way to sending some wild, wild MEN my way we'll conduct a little experiment with regard to whether they're an adequate substitute ingredient in your recipe for longevity...