Author Topic: A random thread for small entertainment things not warranting their own thread..  (Read 284384 times)

LEE

  • "Shut Up Jens" - Legs.
I've just watched Legs & Co dancing to Sultans of Swing on TOTP1979.

Were they dressed as Sultans and were they sat on Garden swings?

That was usually how the thought process went.
Some people say I'm self-obsessed but that's enough about them.

Ruth

I'm in the middle of watching Any Human Heart on the i-Player thingy.

It's just so wonderful.  Jim Broadbend, ah!  A real treat to watch  :D :D

A few minutes ago, on the World At One:

John Hegley declaiming Poem de Terre.

Wonderful!
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Some handy hints for would-be dramatisers of a Series of Books:

  • If a series contains five books, doing them in the order 3-1-5-4 is sub-optimal
  • Replacing the main character's lurrve interest with a female character who doesn't appear in the books is also sub-optimal
  • Throwing away most of the characters and even more of the plot of book 4 is highly sub-optimal, but given that you've already thrown away the main character's lurrve interest already, I suppose you'd have to

Yes, you, ITV Studios, with your so-called "Shetland".

Apart from that I quite enjoyed it.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
I awarded myself 5 points in RBQ for getting most of the answer right about Marilyn Monroe.

And again for the one about Jimi Hendrix.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Ruth

Ooh!  Vicky Pendleton live on Saturday Kitchen!  Her hair looks great and I love her red dress.

Dibdib

  • Fat'n'slow

Vince

  • Can't climb; won't climb
Thank you.

Is this because it is no-longer in the GCSE curriculum for not being British?
216km from Marsh Gibbon

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
The Clangers are coming back to TV next year. This should be so good, but as soon as people in official places start talking about something as having "subversive roots" and saying "it must not lose its nerve" you know it's past it. Still, it's worth it for the phrase "knitted satire".
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Andrij

  • Андрій
  • Ερασιτεχνικός μισάνθρωπος
Modern 'classical' music.  Why must it be so crappe?  A-rhythmic, dissonant cacophony*, beginning to end.  At best, it's planned noise.  Looking at the time, this premier of a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev will be over soon.

I try, I really do, but, but it does nothing for me - other than make me think 'why am I listening to this?'.


* Which, as my friends and I used to joke, is produced by an instrument called the kaka-phone. :-D
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
B&Q's background music is horrid "soundalike" cover versions.  That is enough to put me off going there, ever again.  At least Wilko play the originals.  The Co-Op is the worst - musak instrumental versions of modern pop records  :sick:
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Never heard (of) this Gabriel Prokofiev before, but could it be that the Prokofiev family musical gene is more akin to that of the Lennons than the Bachs.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
My erstwhile schoolmate and now Facebook friend, (an Oxford graduate) like me, possesses no TV.
I suggested he could watch the latest Dr Who on iplayer.
He posted he didn't have an iplayer so I had to explain.
I sent a linky to clicky.
Bless!

Modern 'classical' music.  Why must it be so crappe?  A-rhythmic, dissonant cacophony*, beginning to end.  At best, it's planned noise.  Looking at the time, this premier of a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev will be over soon.

I try, I really do, but, but it does nothing for me - other than make me think 'why am I listening to this?'
Grandson of the more famous Sergei, but his father Oleg was a painter. I once visited his house in London when I was a student (the family was away, & the young woman who was looking after it was a friend of a friend). Lots of his own paintings on the walls. A few I thought OK, but most weren't to my taste.

Gabriel would have been a toddler at the time.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
I see Bjarne Riis is moonlighting as a cellist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.  :)
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Dibdib

  • Fat'n'slow
Just ordered two tickets to see a "contemporary" M*cb*th Scottish Play in a couple of weeks. I am very curious to see if it's any good.

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Modern 'classical' music.  Why must it be so crappe?  A-rhythmic, dissonant cacophony*, beginning to end.  At best, it's planned noise.  Looking at the time, this premier of a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev will be over soon.

I try, I really do, but, but it does nothing for me - other than make me think 'why am I listening to this?'.


* Which, as my friends and I used to joke, is produced by an instrument called the kaka-phone. :-D

I am very inclined to agree, Andrij. I haven't been to a prom lately, but I attended one a few years ago in which Beethoven's 9th followed the premier of some work by Harrison Birtwistle. I wonder if the Birtwistle piece will ever gain a second hearing?

Many pieces were panned by the audience on their first performance. I think Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" is one such but it is widely acclaimed these days. I'm not at all keen on it. I do, however, like most of the stuff that I have heard by Bela Bartok. I do think that some pieced of music grow on you with more listening. Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste" was one of my A level set works so I had to listen to it quite a few times. Even though the first run-through was, as you say, cacophonous and incomprehensible, the more I listened the more I liked it.

Actually, now I come to think of it, I also had Bartok at O level - one of the volumes of his piano pieces "Mikrokosmos". I grew to like those as well.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
 :thumbsup: :thumbsup: to DJ Random for playing Cheap Trick's "California Man" as I pulled into a "gas" station in Ridgecrest, CA, at lunchtime.  However, if he could keep the likes of "Merry Xmas Everybody" and "Fairytale Of New York" under wraps for a while...
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

mcshroom

  • Mushroom
Modern 'classical' music.  Why must it be so crappe?  A-rhythmic, dissonant cacophony*, beginning to end.  At best, it's planned noise.  Looking at the time, this premier of a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev will be over soon.

I try, I really do, but, but it does nothing for me - other than make me think 'why am I listening to this?'.


* Which, as my friends and I used to joke, is produced by an instrument called the kaka-phone. :-D

I am very inclined to agree, Andrij. I haven't been to a prom lately, but I attended one a few years ago in which Beethoven's 9th followed the premier of some work by Harrison Birtwistle. I wonder if the Birtwistle piece will ever gain a second hearing?

Many pieces were panned by the audience on their first performance. I think Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" is one such but it is widely acclaimed these days. I'm not at all keen on it. I do, however, like most of the stuff that I have heard by Bela Bartok. I do think that some pieced of music grow on you with more listening. Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste" was one of my A level set works so I had to listen to it quite a few times. Even though the first run-through was, as you say, cacophonous and incomprehensible, the more I listened the more I liked it.

Actually, now I come to think of it, I also had Bartok at O level - one of the volumes of his piano pieces "Mikrokosmos". I grew to like those as well.

I would like to bet there was just as much rubbish around in the past as there is now. As with many things the good stuff rises to the top and we lose the bad stuff as noone wants to keep playing it.
Climbs like a sprinter, sprints like a climber!

Andrij

  • Андрій
  • Ερασιτεχνικός μισάνθρωπος
Great 'Late Night Proms' tonight.  Wish I felt well enough to actually be there.
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Modern 'classical' music.  Why must it be so crappe?  A-rhythmic, dissonant cacophony*, beginning to end.  At best, it's planned noise.  Looking at the time, this premier of a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev will be over soon.

I try, I really do, but, but it does nothing for me - other than make me think 'why am I listening to this?'.


* Which, as my friends and I used to joke, is produced by an instrument called the kaka-phone. :-D

I am very inclined to agree, Andrij. I haven't been to a prom lately, but I attended one a few years ago in which Beethoven's 9th followed the premier of some work by Harrison Birtwistle. I wonder if the Birtwistle piece will ever gain a second hearing?

Many pieces were panned by the audience on their first performance. I think Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" is one such but it is widely acclaimed these days. I'm not at all keen on it. I do, however, like most of the stuff that I have heard by Bela Bartok. I do think that some pieced of music grow on you with more listening. Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste" was one of my A level set works so I had to listen to it quite a few times. Even though the first run-through was, as you say, cacophonous and incomprehensible, the more I listened the more I liked it.

Actually, now I come to think of it, I also had Bartok at O level - one of the volumes of his piano pieces "Mikrokosmos". I grew to like those as well.

I would like to bet there was just as much rubbish around in the past as there is now. As with many things the good stuff rises to the top and we lose the bad stuff as noone wants to keep playing it.

You may be right, but the "modern" trend for completely tuneless stuff is something previous generations didn't have to put up with, I am sure. I think it's very difficult for us to imagine what music was available to ordinary people before the days of radio and the record industry. I suspect that there were a lot more good amateur musicians around than there are today, because there must have been a demand of some kind. Today we are fed a diet of non-stop radio and, whatever our musical tastes, there's never any need to go to a concert in order to hear stuff played.

There's also quite a bit of good stuff from years ago which just isn't fashionable any more. Composers go through phases of fashion - after all, J.S. Bach was pretty much unknown until Mendelssohn introduced a few of his works to the 19th century audiences. Apparently there was a family link - Mendelssohn's great aunt learned music with one of J.S.Bach's sons. Can you imagine a world without the Brandenburgs, the Orchestral Suites, the 48 preludes & fugues, the chorales, the Passions, the violin concerti etc? How many ordinary people would have ever had the chance to hear some of Bach's stuff before the days of braodcasting? Very few, I'm sure, but I'd be surprised if any British adult today didn't recognise the opening of the toccata & fugue in D minor (OK, experts think it wasn't one of Bach's after all) even if they couldn't put a name to it.

It's quite rare to hear performances of stuff by Tallis and Byrd, but I'd rate "Spem in Alium" up there with some of the best music ever composed - but you hardly ever hear it today.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

clarion

  • Tyke
You're doing what to my alliums? :o
Getting there...

mcshroom

  • Mushroom
I'd agree there are far fewer amateur musicians (and I'll add choristers) than there used to be. There is still some good music being produced. One example in Choral music is Philip Stopford. His reinterpretation of Lully, Lulla, Lullay was the highest choral piece in the Classic FM Hall of Fame this year (Number 1 going to Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending again).

Also there is some good music being written for films. I would expect Howard Shore's compositions for the Lord of the Rings films to be popular for a time to come; and personally I found the pieces composed for the Pirates of the Caribbean enjoyable (much better than the films at any rate).

We do have so much music available to us now that sifting the good pieces from the bad ones can be difficult, and it will be interesting to see what from now is still popular in 50 years time (or 94 like the age of The Lark Ascending today).
Climbs like a sprinter, sprints like a climber!

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
You're doing what to my alliums? :o

They're receiving junk e-mail from poshos.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

menthel

  • Jim is my real, actual name
I bought a banjo and now my fingers hurt!