Clifton Suspension Bridge

 

42

As I hurried up the hill today back from work, an earnest looking man stopped me. 'Do you have a moment now to find out about the meaning of life?' Unfortunately I didn't. 'Do you think you might have some time soon to find out the meaning of life?' my questioner continued. Hmm, think I'll have to check my diary about that one.

Weir and wonderful

A lovely concert of Scottish composer Judith Weir's music tonight on Radio 3 at 10:35, as part of the Weir festival Telling the Tale. Take a listen...

Lyon Abroad

Lyon is city of doubles. Not just one river running through it, two. Not just one hill overlooking the centre, two. And now Lyon itself is to be duplicated. Not just one Lyon, two. Buti Saeed Al Gandhi, an entrepeneur in Dubai, plans to build another Lyon out east. As well as a second Lyon-2 university, a small-scale city based on Lyon, with a hotel school run by Paul Bocuse, museums, and an Olympique Lyonnais football training centre are to be created there. But buildings without history? Msueums displaying artefacts without meaning? How can that feel anything but false? On the other hand, a Lyon in the sunshine sounds rather wonderful. But surely rebuilding a city without any of the problems of the original - I presume the Dubai version won't include graffiti and social division - will end up with a sanitised theme-park version of a wonderfully diverse and, so far, completely unique, city. And, really, a Lyon without the French? Impossible.

Bourges Cathedral

 

Cycling Creatures

Every city has its own breed of cyclist. In London cyclists are a cross between thoughtless sheep, brave lions and nimble gazelles. They nip through the traffic, braving road rage, pedestrian rage, black cab rage and bus rage. In Cambridge, cyclists are like a herd of cows, trampling over pedestrians as they thunder along the cobbled streets on the way to lectures. In Lyon, velo'V-ists resemble tourists riding elephants, looking slightly taken aback at the bulky means of transport they've ended up on. In Bristol, it is the continually rolling hills that determine the breed of cyclist. Think mountain goat or mule. Or perhaps an animal that is more red in the face, having puffed and panted its way up the unforgiving slopes, would be more suitable? Maybe Bristol cyclists are like red-faced monkeys?

Martha Argerich plays Chopin

Chopin's Polonaise No. 6

Lift off

The lift is a never-ending source of comment in our office. Not only because the voice announcing the imminent closing of the doors bears an uncanny resemblance to Judi Dench's Dame-worthy voice, but as a result of the temperemental nature of its movements. Up? Was that the button you pressed? Are you sure you wouldn't prefer down? Well, as I'm an adolescent lift testing my independence, I'll take you down rather than up anyway. When one of the two lifts is playing this favourite trick, prepare yourself for a trip around the floors which you never normally visit. Oh yes, the lift will happily deposit you on all those empty floors between the ones to which you actually want to go. So don't be surprised if the person you've just met getting into the lift you've got out of reappears two minutes later in the second lift after an enforced detour. Or perhaps they are just avoiding work...

At the Piano

Pianist Susan Tomes writes in the introduction to her book Beyond the Notes, 'In my experience, pianists tend to read and study more than many other players... It's true that their relative isolation within the world of musicians gives them plenty of time to think.' The truth of Tomes's observation is underlined in Radio 3's At the Piano - five programmes forming a pianistic treasure trove. Five pianists select and discuss performances by those they admire, with the articulate explanations of each choice suggesting that if pianists are isolated beings, their thinking is put to good use. Take a listen at the Radio 3 website.

Happy 2008!

New Year’s morning—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

A huge frog and I
staring at each other,
neither of us moves.

Blossoms at night,
like people
moved by music[.]

Extracts from After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa
by Robert Hass