I feel this next little post will amuse you all greatly – it only serves to humiliate me! I am an avid reader and try to digest a wide range of books. As a child I diligently trawled  through ‘the classics’ and read my Shakespeare. As you will recall (from my excitement at finding Marple and Holmes on the old television) I’ve always had a particular passion for crime novels (that ‘cheaper form of fiction’ as one notable critic remarked) and likewise enjoy the  macabre murder stories of Inspector Morse etc. It’s a strange fact that Agatha Christie remains the best-selling author of all time; her books have that wonderful cosy style that makes one think of a better time yet they are all concerned with killing people, often in the most gruesome ways! Horror is always good fun as well – that gothic touch with its overblown romanticism leaches down to us still in programmes like Jonathan Creek (although how ridiculous that became over time).  How odd then that I have, until now, never read a Stephen King novel. Of course I’m aware of him (who isn’t); I know he writes about the state of Maine and has had so many of his books turned into massively successful films; I also know he’s going blind. So it was with a desire for discovery that I selected a King book from a shelf a few weeks ago (I actually had started reading it in Wisconsin but got distracted by other books – and it did take a while to get in to it). It’s rather a large book and I thought I’d give it a try. Well Mr. King worked his magic on yours truly on Saturday and I’ll be the first to admit that I scared myself rigid!

I’ve never been particularly scared by ‘scary’ films – I suppose it’s all a bit anticlimactic, although if there’s a lot of suspense then I find that rather unsettling more than anything else. However, a book allows one free rein to imagine whatever one’s mind fancies. Without someone elses visual interpretation the mind can conjure up a whole world of frightening things. Such was my Saturday night – alone in the old, wooden house! I should explain perhaps that the book I was reading concerned a writer who is staying in a house all alone (with a porch and a basement) when he starts to become aware of some pretty awful ghosts and ghouls about the place. There’s all the usual letter magnets being arranged on the fridge and banging noises in the cellar; there is also rather vivid descriptions of creepy pasts and rather horrid tales of yore that induced the vengeful apparitions to be there in the first place. Coupled with this there’s the inevitable hostile local community who seem only to add to the writer’s worry and haunting. I can see why Stephen King is a rich man he has a nice writing style that really compels one to read on.

After a day spent walking about and playing the piano I settled down to read my book. It is totally typical that I should have to read the scariest portion whilst it is dark. The wooden floors creaked with the changing air pressure; the fridge motor occasionally sparked into life and somewhere, deep in the dark basement, there were the most strange clanging and grinding noises. Needless to say I terrified myself ridiculously. I’m not an illogical person (and I certainly don’t believe in the supernatural) but my mind really did do unkind things to me that night. I caught a glimpse of my own distorted reflection in a cabinet and it made me jump backwards nearly falling down the stairs in the process. This continued for many hours but still I couldn’t just stop reading the stupid book. Stupid Stephen King and his clever plot developments! When the time did come to sleep I even did the childish thing of leaping into the bed so as to not allow the clawed hand living under it to grasp my bare ankles!  I spent the night listening to the house itself murmur menacingly – for that one night I was not in suburban Chicago, Illinois but far north in the wild wooden hamlets of Maine. Scary stuff.

MISERY

As the above title implies – I have been left home alone. Sadly for your reading pleasure, this does not mean that I have suddenly morphed into a small blond child who is going to rig the home with fiendish booby-traps to foil a gang of intellectually-lacking burgulars! No, no, dear readers, I am merely house-sitting a large suburban home whilst a family troupe disappear off to New England – perhaps I should have ventured into the North East myself? As I am still playing catch up mode I fear I can only provide you all with a mere whiff of a vignette this time.

 I was up at the crack of dawn to ferry aforementioned people to the airport to catch a flight ot Boston. Oh the early morning run to the airport – how many of us have done such a thing? It’s little sad not to be getting on a flight but then I have been on a New York adventure recently so I can’t complain. There were a lot of police about considering the time but – remember my Wisconsin experience? – I drove with due care and attention so didn’t face the wrath of the law this time. It is very strange that these law officered seem to sit in a pull-in for hours on end just waiting to do something – still they do all have guns so I’ll not mock too much.

After almost losing my way on the return journey along Chicago’s grid of roads I made it back to base. How nice it was to be left in command of this large house with a baby-grand piano in the corner of one room. Luckily I’d brought my slippers so I wasn’t going to slide around the highly polshed wooden floors – always prepared and I was never even a scout! After all the recent ruching about either travelling or with musical engagements I was very much looking forward to some time alone to catch up with UK things and have a think. I put the kettle on and got my herbal tea fix for the hour and went for a long walk about the surrouding area. I’ve got used to being here now that all the roads and paths seems very second nature. I still think my daily costume still stands out rather – you’ll be pleased to know that I haven’t yet graduated to t-shirts and caps (thank mericiful God!).  It’s also very odd that I’ve done far more driving here than I’d ever do at home – I’m slightly concerned that I may never again be able to drive on the left and negotiate a roundabout!

American houses are rather stange. As I’m staying in a relitively old suberb all the homes are rather different from one another. There are big ones, small ones and, perhaps, some as big as your head. What they all seem to have, however, are porches with steps and those double layered doors one sees in films (one proper wooden one and then a guage type thing). Unfortunatley we are not in the land of ‘Deliverance’ so there are no banjo pickers of dungeree wearing men toting ice-tea and shot guns – oh Dixie, why are you so far away?! Perhaps next time I venture Stateside I finally make it to the Deep South – linen suits will be packed in readiness. Oh well, back inside to sit down at the piano.

Sorry for the mundane nature of all this information but I’ve been rather indulgent with tales of schools, theatre and food – you need a rest as much as me. So, dear readers, take your favourite book, brew up some tea and sit down in your softest chairs. Till next time.

OH I WISH I WAS IN A LAND OF COTTON

Well continuing the hilarity of my American sojourn, today I experienced a little slice of home amongst the metropolitan gleam of the Windy City. I am, of course, talking about taking tea in the afternoon. Having made the acquaintance of a Europhilic individual (a friend of a friend), a small group of us were invited to a rather posh tea-time celebration in a rather posh Chicago hotel. I wasn’t sure what to expect – surely not slices of ‘chicken fried steak’ on silver platters? As those awful folks at Ryanair yell ‘brace, brace’!

As it was a birthday occasion and I was told it was a posh hotel, I thought it appropriate to dress up a little. I’m not talking about Morning Dress or anything as elaborate as that (although that’s always fun) – a lounge suit for a lounge setting thought I - I even went all ‘Call me Dave’ Cameron and didn’t wear a tie (shocking!). As I wended my way along the Chicago public transport system I stood out like the proverbial injured thumb amongst the sea of denim, T-shirts and hooded tops! Sadly I really needn’t have bothered at all. Upon entering the (admittedly rather posh) hotel I found a sunlit tea lounge containing some of the worst dressed tea-takers I’ve yet come across. On a glorious Sunday afternoon one may sit in the tea shop of a National Trust property and glance sideways to see a swathe of Middle England dressed in suitable frocks, blouses and corduroy; here everything has become so terribly Americanised that it now seems perfectly acceptable to sit there in silly Hawaiian shorts, a t-shirt emblazoned with a ridiculously crass slogan, a ‘fanny-pack’ (careful English folk! – this means a bum-bag here!) and topped with a baseball cap (yes, a hat on a man’s head inside – unthinkable). This sartorial slackness didn’t fill me with confidence as I wove my M&S clad body between starched linen tablecloths.

As we sat (5 of us – and I’m still wondering how I managed to get invited into this inner circle of birthday celebrants!) round our elaborately laid-up table everything looked as it should; the little pots of various preserves, heavy silver cutlery, floral arrangements etc. As all around me opted for some kind of champagne style tea I swiftly followed suit whilst secretly wincing at the amount of dollars displayed next to said item on the menu. It really is a license to print money this kind of thing. I’ve always rather fancied retiring to the country (although I live there already I suppose) to keep bees (like Sherlock) and run a small tea shop. How satisfying it would be to serve lots of exciting teas and bake wonderful pastries and cakes – ‘perchance to dream…’!

Having champagne in the afternoon is rather indulgent, but what is life without these little oases of indulgence to oil the grind of day-to-day existence? The tea was fine as were the rather ridiculously fiddly ‘sandwiches’ that arrived on their tiered platters – little pieces of herby brioche surmounted with cream cheese and (I’m guessing) salmon, all with the amusingly American addition of a pickled gherkin to give it that authentic BigMac touch! I have to quibble with the scones also. I’m used to big floury scones that crumble seductively into little chunks with which one can mop up the remnants of the Rhodda’s clotted cream (apparently clotted cream is unheard of in the US so I was forced to make do with the mediocrity of double, whipped within an inch of its dairy enriched life), here the ‘scones’ are rather small, hard and stupidly sweet – I also wasn’t overly taken with the addition of little fruity bullets that (according to one fellow initiate) began their ignoble existence as cherries. ‘Curiouser and curiouser’, as Charles Dodgson was wont to remark.

Actually it was all rather nice if one forgives the incongruities that the Americans had overlaid upon our noble tradition. The staff were most attentive and obviously expected their hearty tip (more on the oddities of  US tipping procedures later I feel). It will amuse all my tea taking friends that this place employed the use of some rather odd sideways teapots. One poured in the hot water then the vessel, seemingly defying gravity, was turned onto its side. I can’t see what is to be gained from such geometric vagaries but still… ‘curiouser and curiouser’, I suppose.

I’LL POUR

Yesterday was sadly a rather dull day. I was still not feeling on top form and I had still to complete a mountain of paper work that I had allowed to build up. These programme notes that I keep referring to were due the next day so I needed to stop procrastinating and get down to some serious work, on some not so serious music.

It was rather comical to sit at the table in a bay window with the place spread with musical scores and my poor old laptop whirring away – the poor old thing might be coming to the end of its life I fear (it sounds like a wheezy asthmatic dog). After fuelling myself my peppermint tea (which I seem to be developing something of an addiction too) I got down to the churning out of meaningless words and trying not to distract myself by playing with the BBC’s ‘election calculator’ on their website! It’s such fun to twiddle with the swingometre and see what would happen if nobody bothered voting for Labour or if the SNP suddenly had a surge – oh the simple joys of Spring! Not far from where I’m siting now is where Ernest Hemingway was born. What an amusing man he was; cultivating such a wild public image (that was not entirely invented) and yet writing in that peculiar ‘iceberg style’ of his. He did like a bit of gin so I hear, so that’s good, although we’ll swiftly pass over his depression and eventual shooting of himself in 1961.

Thankfully I managed to make progress with the writing and found that it was all done come the evening. I sent it off to Liam (or Noel) and he seemed to think it was all marvellous. It’s funny to think that my observations on that masterpiece of choral writing ‘The Lord Bless You and Keep You’ will be printed in some US programme and dished out to all the old ladies that come and see Mr. Rutter conduct his choir. I’ll think of them all and smile! Still at least it’s all done and dusted – I feel my obsession with Rutter was starting to reach scary levels (especially when I consider how many times I seem to have been mentioning him recently); no more – I exorcise him. I’ll only listen to ABBA for a week to recover!!!!

After all the recent excitement of late night quizzing a quite evening watching the cathode ray tube and playing games was called for. Too few games of late me thinks. Good old Yahtzee – there’s nothing like a game that has almost no skill and simply involves throwing dice and writing things on a chart. The Warhammer fans looked disdainful as I suggested we all take part in some kind of Yahtzee Olympiad. I suppose there’s no storyfor them to take part in; the dice are merely cubic number displays and not mystic alien artefacts that one must battle to protect with zombie ray guns and galactic blasters! If they’d only asked I would have constructed them a suitably lugubrious narrative about damsels held captive by space mutants. Oh well as long as there’s at least one opponent one can still have fun. For those of you who are unfortunate enough not to know what this game is then it is rather simple to explain (those of you who do, please hold still). One rolls five dice in an attempt to get certain combinations listed on a score sheet (the same combinations each round). There is a score attached to each combination based on the relative probability of getting it. You then get two subsequent goes to complete your turn and try to get what you want. All very simple. Silly gaming enthusiasts with their over complex rules! Hours of endless fun were had rolling dice over and over again. It may sound dreadfully dull to you all, but there was something rather soothing and cathartic in the simplicity of the game. Sadly I don’t think I can persuade these three to learn bridge then we could have a proper game!! Tomorrow it’s High Tea at a posh Chicago restaurant for the pretentious Ukrainian’s birthday – can you wait? I thought not! Til then comrades.

AN INTELLIGENT MAN MUST BE DRUNK TO COPE WITH HIS FOOLS!

Yesterday (Wednesday) I undertook two new experiences for your delectation and delight of consumers of all matters bloggish! The first involved a highly stereotypical American food (by way of Italy) and the second, a session of everyone’s favourite trivia-based entertainment (well mine anyhow). Sit back, relax and let me lead you into a world of mozzarella topped dough and sport rounds…

As the warm Illinois sun rose and I glanced out through the blinds I remembered that the day was the today when I would be going to a pub quiz. There’s something very satisfying about trivia – I don’t know if it appeals to my habit of list making, or the way it leads on to other knowledge like some eternal Wikipedia where one link leads to another and to another; perhaps it’s the sense of smug self-satisfaction one gets when one knows who was Prime Minister in 1903 and can just drop the nugget of information in at the right moment. I think it’s a combination of all three things. (It’s Arthur Balfour if anyone’s interested!!!) There’s two wonderful things about pub quizzes: the first is that it’s a quiz, the second it’s in a pub. Win win! I was a little concerned, however, that my personal brand of random trivia would not extend to American knowledge – if there were questions on Presidents or US history fine but baseball, basketball and ‘football’ well…I don’t really even know what those things are!

Before any potential quizzing could take place it was time to refuel the old noggin. Of course this was the evening - I’d the day spent churning out programme notes and researching things on a wonderful website called www.johnrutter.com (no joke) – I think I may now have Type II diabetes from having it open on the old electronic type-machine for too long! When all the Italian immigrants arrived in America they brought two very important things (I suspect perhaps a few more besides), the mafia and pizza. Now, in Italy pizza is a rather curious affair – a very thin crisp dough laden with all kinds of exciting fruit and vegetables. Ask for ham with chunks of pineapple and you’ll get an eye brow raised in an arch higher than the Duomo in Florence. In Chicago (where there’s a lot of Mafia as well as pizza) they took this and transformed it into the ‘deep pan’. Before you shout at your flashing screen, dear readers, I’m aware you know what that is – but I put it to you that you don’t. What you know is the version you get in Pizza Hut with that crust that’s about an inch think – am I right? Here the term deep pan is taken to its absolute limit. As I hadn’t had pizza since being here I thought the time was nigh and sought out one of the original restaurants to serve this style of baked dough product.

The place was dark inside with narrow gaps between all the tables. Every vertical service was plastered with newspaper clippings from ‘back in the day’ when some chap had the seemingly revolutionary idea to make a pizza thick. I sat down to await the inevitable enthusiastic power-point style spiel by the waiter/ess. I ordered what seemed to be the correct thing, although I did ask about the sizing as I didn’t want to be caught out with something approaching the size of a small continent arriving in its ‘deep pan’. I was informed that because everything’s so wonderfully fresh etc etc it would take 45 minutes. As I wasn’t due to hit the quizzing action (I hope you’re all liking this lingo!) for a while yet I had ample time to allow chef to get to work with his pots and pans (deep or otherwise). Words can not describe what arrived. Deep here means Pacific Ocean Trench deep – the sides of the pan rising up like some black cauldron; the creature (as it surely must be) contained within was about three inches thick with cheese, tomato puree and chunks of meat of dubious origins. Actually it wasn’t at all as I thought. Here the tomato goes on the top and the cheese (used reassuringly sparingly) beneath it. Far from being the greasy, doughy mass I had envisioned what I actually got was a satisfying, utterly filling and highly tasty meal. Don’t be fooled by those cardboard packets in the supermarket that’s not real ‘deep pan’ – come to the Windy City to see what’s it’s all about.

The quiz was highly entertaining. Mostly because we won. I was in a team of 6 (4 of whom were strangers to me) and things started badly. The first round was mostly about American sports and I began to sink low on my bar stool. One point of amusement to you all will surely be the person who kept serving us. In America it seems to be the way that they come to you and you rarely need to venture to the bar. This one rather sour faced blonde woman gave us our initial flagons of terrible lagery stuff and then returned when things looked low – instead of politely enquiring if we’d care to partake of another beverage she slapped the table and shouted ‘READY?’. I was rather shocked and only acquiesced due to my nerves being splintered around the base of my stool. This performance was continued all evening – most bizarre and rather intimidating. The quizzing got better when the picture round consisted of obscure animals – yes! I swiftly named the gharial (caiman indeed!), dugong and other hilarious beasts – 10/10, things were looking up. After a few more reasonable performances the ‘quiz master’ announced his special round of the night. ‘Please not baseball, please not baseball’, I prayed to the trivia angels – they didn’t let me down – ‘assassinations’ he announced! Jackpot! There they were all the old favourites Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Guiteau, Mark Chapman, Jack Ruby – all surrounded by groans of ignorance by the rest of the room. Thank goodness I managed to redeem myself again and we got another 10/10 and won the quiz. Paxo would be proud! Our prize was some shots of something awful and a pitcher of ale brought by Little Miss Active-Agressive who slammed it onto the table and announced ‘BEER MEANS FUN’! I’m sure it does dear, I’m sure it does.

YOUR STARTER FOR TEN

A short little entry today folks as I was feeling somewhat under-the-weather (although the weather was actually rather nice) so not much to record for posterity.

I spent the morning trying to catch up on emails and other such matters. Trying to organise aspects of one’s life in the UK from the US is not always that easy, especially when it comes to filling in forms. Also it would seem that some websites only display certain content in the UK so I spent many gleeful hours trying to fathom out how the deuce I could look up bank information and complete other forms relating to my activities in the coming months. It’s also getting to the stage now when I’m starting to consider my next operatic project in August and had to deal with a multitude of questions and queries – it’s difficult to have a creative discussion about dramatic through-lines and staging issues down some kind of wire or via a satellite. Oh well, the price we pay for modern living I suppose. Still, don’t think I’m complaining, dear readers, I chose to be here and very gladly too!

As I needed to post some letters I thought I should walk to the nearest postal office to dispatch them. I’ve already posted several things back to the UK since I’ve been here and can’t quite believe I failed to let you in on the hilarity of the US postal service. The Post Office nearest to my location is a large pillared building – an altogether imposing edifice. On entering one discovers a long vaulted area where you are able to fill in forms regarding postal matters, passports and whatever else may take your fancy. Sadly the actual place where you speak to someone is this pitiful little desk where two rather grumpy looking women disdainfully stamp your parcels and mail. When I came here before, I was charged all kinds of arbitrary amounts to send the most pathetic amounts of mail. It would seem that a first class stamp in the US means that it’ll get there sometime this week (just sometimes), anything else then you’ll have to hope and pray. There are so many different postal methods that it reminds me of the vast array of tickets on sale in British railway stations. There, as here, surely one just wants to do something in the simplest way for the least amount of money – too much choice, that’s the problem. Anyhow, today I stood in the line for about 20 minutes before going up to the front to ask a little man (one of the grumpy sentinels had gone on a break – one presumes to suck on her lemon) who seemed to be rather cheery. When I was small I always wanted to work in a post office and have a row of stamps I could pound onto different paper and envelopes, this chap seemed to be of the same ilk although his dream had been made flesh. He rolled my envelope over his palms before covering every conceivable space with stamps, stickers and marks – never have I seen a simple letter so adorned! The simplicity of Postman Pat seemed far away.

On leaving the office of confusing postal matters I had the sudden urge for some kind of dairy based product. I know not where the urge came from but I did know this seemed to be the land with the potential to sate it! I wended my merry way to this little place called ‘Oberweis’ which is some sort of dairy product dispenser. Inside were gleeful little children lapping eagerly at their cones of lactose-enriched fun. This is certainly the place, thought I. I selected the most Americanly hideous thing on the menu – a milkshake made from cookie-dough ice-cream; doesn’t that sound amazing?! Needless to say it was, that is until the fourth sip and then I started to feel the deep unsettling sensation of supreme nausea. Never one to waste anything (especially when I’d just handed over my hard-earned dollars) I finished it off whilst moving sluggishly towards the nearest bench where I could, hopefully, ease my growing lactic unrest.

The park in which I found myself contained a lot of young adults ( as I suppose one must call them) throwing a frisbee about in a kind of team event. Some (males, obviously) didn’t have their tops on, those who did had specially colour coordinated bands. They chased, dived, dodged and weaved all the time yelping with Mid-Western delight. What a strange game this was. That noble tossing of a plastic disk that one is wont to do after a picnic of pork-pies and lashings of ginger beer bastardised into a teeny team game. I learned later this is called ‘Ultimate Frisbee’ – just what is so ultimate about it I never did guess. Anyhow following the course of the match took my mind off the war my stomach was currently waging with the cookie dough deep within.

AND HIS BLACK AND WHITE CAT

The British Public House is a peculiar institution. Its very name alone is enough to cause a degree of confusion; a house (that sacrosanct arena of privacy) that is public? In truth the idea of a space in which people meet to drink, converse and exchange views is an ancient invention to be found in Egypt, Greece and Rome. However, it was in Britain that the ‘pub’ really took hold. In the 18th century the introduction of gin (that godly elixir) greatly increased the demand for ‘public houses’ in which to consume this drink and take part in frank discussions on the political wranglings of Whigs and Tories at the time. The pub in its truest form has changed little. A place where one may drink good drink, meet good people, talk and make merry (in a way that remains true to the idea of what it is to be ‘public’). Sadly something seems to have gone wrong along the way. Proper pubs are closing in Britain at a rate of knots; landlords are being forced between a rock and a hard place by debt-laden breweries and the strangle hold of over complex legislation. Instead of the British public enjoying such an integral part of our cultural heritage we are treated to an epidemic of ‘gastro-pubs’, wine bars and other such entertainingly named institutions. My father lives in one of the most beautiful villages in the country (that is an officical, not just personal, opinion), Hinton St. George in Somerset. The village contains a wonderful old public house called ’The Lord Poulet Arms’ – this hamstone building is a wonderful institution and would probably be perfect if not for its gastro-pub status (noted as one of the country’s best). I don’t blame the owners, they’re only trying to make a buck in the best way they can – sadly though the onus of the establishment is now on placing laid up tables over every available space and charging ‘second-home-owner’ prices. Sadly all this has meant that many locals (in this village that means many with generations of affiliation) have been alienated and now travel 2 miles away to the next village for their authentic public house experience. You are, by now, wondering what all this has to do with my American adventure – I am coming to it. I thought I’d been describing my day-to-day routine too much and you’d all benefit from a bit of a rant (how generous of me you may think!). 

Hidden down a small road in the north of that city of dreaming spires, Oxford, there is a proper pub. I need not bother with reminding all my Oxford chums because you all know, like me, that this is a true representative of what a British Public House should be. There are excellent ales, excellent every other type of beverage, a local devoted clientele, good conversation, wonderful atmosphere and one of the warmest welcomes from the proprietors as you are ever likely to get. There is also a wonderful menu of unpretentious ‘pub grub’ (and the best chips in Oxford!) – what there certainly isn’t is a pool table, blaring jukebox (playing which ever asinine tune is the flavour of the month) and a lot of tacky faux-historical, conglomerate, corporate rubbish. Anyone who even remotely passes near Oxford should stop at The Rose & Crown, North Parade (that is a strict order I assure you).  Surely we all must do our utmost to support our British pubs and stop the domino effect of their decline that is afflicting every town in the country. Rather like the Beeching Axe but for pubs not trains and not really as necessary (although just a brutal). Do we really wish to drink in a face-less chain establishment being given curt lip-service by which ever 12-year-old they decided to make a ‘alcoholic dispensing service manager’ that particular day?!

It was with thoughts of British pubs and, in particular, the wonderful Rose & Crown (how I miss thee) running nostalgically through my brain that I stood outside the door of ‘an authentic pub’ amongst the streets of suburban Chicago. It didn’t really look very authentic to me  but then again it didn’t look part of a chain either and it certainly wasn’t a wine bar. I thought it high time I visit a proper American drinking establishment and this ‘pub’ seemed like a good bet. We will see…

Inside it was a most odd combination of things; rather like some all-American 50s diner had been genetically spliced with some kitsch retro tourist pub to be found in one of the more run down areas of London. It was most surreal. Little red booths along with wooded benches; a long wooden bar with real ale pumps; free pop corn as soon as one’s backside had barely begun to warm the chilly tinted leather; a chalk board of the ‘specials’ from the brewery; bar staff skipping up to your booth with baseball caps through which their long ponytails bobbed. All most entertaining. I suppose it’s like a metaphor for America itself – so many different aspects of various cultures, traditions and histories cherry picked and rolled into one and served with a good slice of have-a-nice-day US tackiness!

Actually it was quite a pleasant evening spent sampling various little bottles of beer from local breweries. Some of them were remarkably like the Trappist beers one finds in Belgium and were ludicrously strong. If this is what constitutes an ‘authentic’ pub in the Mid-West then a hearty British bravo for it – however, lets all try to keep the real McCoy going back home shall we? If only for a little longer at least…

DRINK UP

I’m aware that this is the second time that Sir Paul McCartney has cropped up in my epistles to you all. How very odd! Today he makes a musical, not personal, reference – fear not, you shall not have to gaze upon his wrinkled visage flush after counting his millions and waving his two fingers at the crowd with those antiquated words ‘peace man’!

You’ll all recall the choir that I went along to a while back? The one I’m writing the programme notes for? (Keep up, keep up) Well today I had the honour of accompanying their rehearsal and all the delightful music that would go with it. Once  more behind the wheel of the jade gaz-guzzler. This time I was not caught unawares at the ‘gas’ dispenser and managed to fill the tank with go-juice without the Swan Lake style antics of that previous memorable occasion! Off into the suburbs once more. Before the rehearsal proper started there seemed to be a break away group going through some music that I was asked to play for also. This octet was led by the main choir conductor’s brother – I don’t know if they’ve got some kind of Gallagher brothers things going on and there is really enormous amounts of creative sibling tension coursing underneath the gleaming grins of their evangelical sincerity, but it’s fun to imagine that’s the case. I fudged my way through some Mozart (forgive me, Wolfgang) and some delightful (!) John Rutter (that already contained ample amounts of aforementioned foodstuff) – that was to be expected. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was the merry eight people clumped round the piano to suddenly burst into ‘When I’m Sixty Four’ in one of those hilariously brilliant arrangements that only the King’s Singers create. There was Liam (or was it Noel?) bobbing along singing the solo part in, what I can only assume was, a Scouse accent. It brought a smile to my Sunday!

The main rehearsal, led by the other Oasis brother, was similarly amusing. Luckily they were going through a large amount of a cappella stuff that day, so my contribution was limited to banging notes when I sensed the pitches were wandering. As they are singing Britten’s ‘Five Flower Songs’ it was necessary to reorient the notes at frequent moments – at times it felt like the altos and basses were taking some kind of rambling tonal path more at home in a Wainwright guide than a Britten piece. Still it sounded a lot better than a few weeks ago so progress is being made. All you English singers don’t know how lucky you are – these American mouths find it difficult coping with all the flat vowels (especially in contrast to their Mid-West drawl) and it is always entertaining when half the ensemble go for the English pronunciation of a word like ‘route’ and the rest plunge fervently into ‘rowt’! 

As my ears started to clog up with a sugary residue from too much Rutter (including the most hilarious piece called ‘Black Sheep’ which is about as musically flimsy as a suspension bridge constructed from soggy sponge cake and angel delight!) the rehearsal drew to a close. As I’ve now been to many of these rehearsals and am writing the musical notes I am rather annoyed I’m not going to be here when the actual concert is performed and I won’t get to meet the deity himself (or so they believe in the US), St. John of Rutter. I expected to get paid for my trouble but was somewhat taken aback when a ridiculously large bundle of green paper was pushed into my hand by the choir’s fiscal representative person – after all, all I did was just sit there and poke a few ivory keys every so often. If only those people in the Oxford G&S worked to such a pay scale I’d be up there with Warren Buffet (and Paul McCartney!) by now.

A relaxing weekend enjoying the growing intensity of the Illinois sun and a bit of playing, whilst resting my legs after seemingly leaving half of them imbedded in the asphalt of Manhattan. Serious programme writing this week and UK election catch-up – come old UKIP!

DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER

I like zoos. One of my earliest memories is being taken to Bristol Zoo when but a tiny tot and wheeled about to look at the animals. I think that nearly every member of my family has taken me to some sort of zoological garden in my life. Due to this exposure at an early age I’ve always held zoos in special regard; I wouldn’t say I was a particular animal lover per se, but I am keen to learn about wildlife, avidly lap up Sir David Attenborough’s exquisitely glossy and academically sound series, and do think it’s utterly abhorrent that the Chinese slaughter tigers by the dozen to rub on their warts and bunions. Whenever I travel I invariably go to the local zoo – it’s always interesting to see how different some places are. Thankfully we now live in an age when zoos are primarily concerned with preservation and research rather than shutting large cats in tiny cages for the amusement of snot-nosed children (as I suppose I was all those years ago in Bristol) – is there a worse naturalistic sight than a big cat pacing in boredom? Having been in Chicago for over a month now I thought it high time for a zoo visit.

When I was in America in 2006 (based in St. Louis, Missouri) I went to the zoo there and was amazed to find it gratis. We pay rather large sums in Britain to go to such places (although I suppose it’s for a good cause) and it seemed rather incongruous for many American zoos to be free. Such is also the case for a rather quaint zoo in the heart of Chicago’s Lincoln Park – a free zoo on a hot sunny Saturday, I could foresee an army of visitors. After a pleasant stroll through a rather nice area of the city the zoo gates appeared in view. What a pleasant place it was with many of the usual animal suspects. My particular favourite has always been the giraffes and it was nice to see the long-necked folk wandering about their ‘arena’ stripping the bark of rather thorny looking bushes – what must go through their minds I wonder? The most amusing thing about this zoo was perhaps a slight lack of actual animals – in the elaborately decorated ‘African Experience’ there was a lot of dense foliage, imitation desert rock, kitsch rope bridges (was I in an Indiana Jones movie? – if only) and lots of bright display boards, just not so many living creatures (apart from the obligatory herd of rather fat children banging on every glass pane they could reach with their flabby hands). It was nice to gently amble about the landscaped gardens for a few hours – not quite Whipsnade but enjoyable none the less. Something else to tick of the list.

In the late afternoon it was time to meet chums for some kind of eats and a chat etc. One of the chums in question seems to have pretensions of European cafe culture and, as it was their choice of location, I found myself in the Chicago branch of Julius Meinl, a rather upmarket delicatessen/coffee shop; I was somewhat disappointed not to be able to continue my all-American exploration with a trip to another fast-food outlet. In a rather ironic twist I was actually in the real Julius Meinl in Vienna over the New Year so it was rather humourous to be sat looking at a rather faux-Austrian menu with a McDonald’s in clear view! Still I’ll indulge the American’s in their esoteric desire to buy into these type of traditions – I’m not too sure what the discerning Viennese would make of ‘schnitzel with nutella’ though! I drank my pretentious tea and ate my pretentious sandwich – which apparently had truffle in it (I did wonder if it would be of the fungal variety or if the American’s had got confused and inserted a Ferrero Rocher between the bread!).

Perhaps not a particularly exciting read today blogoconsumers but I’ve ladled too many calorifcally rich entires into your open mouths of late – a little low-fat rusk will not hurt you. Anyhow, it was good for me to have a relatively quite day after all the stress of a Broadway theatre trip (the stress, oh the stress of it!!!).

INDIANA? WE CALLED THE DOG INDIANA!

It seems to be a common precept that the sublime is quickly followed by the ridiculous. Yes, travel mishap has afflicted me once more.

When we awoke in the morning it was with large smiles of humourous self-realisation. What a wonderful day was had the day before. There is always something satisfying about waking up in the morning knowing one accomplished so much the day before. Sadly this feeling lasted about as long as it took my poor brain to register the fatigue in my limbs and the over exposure to our dazzling solar friend. We had plans to pace the streets once again looking for new adventures and more things to randomly photograph – unfortunately we were either too lazy or rundown to move more than a few metres so decided it was best to recuperate a little before making plans to travel back to our airport (him to return to Berkshire, me to Illinois). In one of those strange anomalies of ‘on-line’ flight booking my outbound flight was from the other New York airport. This is John F. Kennedy – named after that erstwhile chap who made the supreme error of driving slowly past that book warehouse in Dallas. Being the main airport for NYC it’s a bit out-of-the-way so was always going to prove more difficult to access. In hindsight we should have taken a cab and stoically winced at the huge cost, but I, always on the lookout for a bargain, thought that we could cope with navigating the mile after mile of subway and make it on time. (My flight was at three his at six thirty – so I was always going to be the one who would get into difficulties). As it was now about half 12 I thought that left ample time – I did not reckon with the utter randomness of the subway timetables and their tendency to stop-start-pause-falter along those dark tunnels deep under the sidewalks of that mighty city.

I’ve missed coaches on occasion, I’ve even missed trains on more than one but, until that day, I’d never missed a flight. As we made our way at achingly slow pace towards JFK I began to realise that I was unlikely to make it in time – oddly worry didn’t really set in as it probably should. On arriving at the correct terminal (again I wasn’t sure about that!) I had 25 mins before the take-off time but was unable to check in due to some policy or other – I was instructed to get into the queue and speak to a ticket person. I know queues are meant to be a peculiarly British institution and I am starting to agree. The ‘queue’ I found myself in looked suspiciously like any normal one in a British bank or supermarket however, ones position in the said line didn’t seem to be directly proportional to ones proximity to actually getting to the row of counters. At various intervals random people just pushed through the barricade of bodies and sauntered up to the desk and nobody seemed to argue. At one point my indignation almost rose to sheer annoyance when a line of nuns processed to the front of the line – I’m aware they may think they have gained some right to do such a thing in the queue for St. Peter’s desk but not in the terrestrial reality of an American Airlines terminal!

I was, at this point, starting to get rather concerned that I’d have to pay the full price of a new ticket (that is the policy as displayed in their brochures) and the constant random movement of the line didn’t help quell my burgeoning nerves. After the cast of ‘The Sound of Music’ and a gang of gymnasts had been dealt with it at last came to me (I’d been in that appalling line for nearly an hour now). As I’d recently employed Bertie Wooster like antics with other officials to great effect I thought it was worth a try on this occasion, although the rather tired and stern face I saw looming over the counter as I trotted up didn’t perhaps seems the most potentially receptive to such a ploy! Never underestimate the power of simple politeness and charm etiquette fans – that coupled with a few choice rather florid English phrases and you’re away (well in certain parts of America it would seem). I calmly explained my problem and the stern face of the big black lady behind the desk melted away into a broad smile. How sorry she was that I’d had such problems and of course she’s put me on the next flight (sadly at the other airport as JFK hadn’t anymore that day); no, I needn’t pay anything – it was all complimentary. I must admit to being rather stunned – what a marvellous turn up for the books.

Needless to say, readers, I bid farewell to my travel companion (‘until Princess Ida’ I think was the parting gambit) and made my way to LaGuardia – this other flight wasn’t until 9pm so I thought, under the circumstances, I’d tempt fate again with another jaunt on the public transport network. After sitting at the other airport for hours I eventually mad it back to the Windy City – tired, sore but back. I can at least say I’ve been to JFK airport although never in a plane – what fun. Good old New York – not sure if I found myself ‘top of the heap’ or ‘a number one’ but I did find myself better for my trip and with a mind full of memories to cherish forever.

ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU…