Out of tune

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Highg

 

I have never been praised for having a good singing voice for a good reason. That is because  I do not have one.

I entered north London’s Highgate School, my secondary school, in 1965 having passed the fairly tough Common Entrance examinations. On the second day there, I took part in a football trial, and was advised not to play football at school. Soon after this, all of the new entrants to the school had to take a voice test. This involved standing in a long queue. One by one we reached a grand piano at which the senior music teacher, a Mr ‘Cherry’ Chapman, sat. As each boy arrived at the piano, Mr Chapman pressed one of the piano’s keys, and the boy made a sound. Depending on this sound, Mr Chapman was able to determine who had a voice good enough to be used in a choir and who did not. When it was my turn, I must have made a sound resembling that which you make for the doctor when he asks you to stick out your tongue and say “aaaaah”. My sound disqualified me from joining the choir.

One day a week, those in the choir spent an hour before lunch at choir practice. The rest of us were confined to classrooms where we were expected to read a book of our choice for one hour. This was no hardship in my case.

The pupils at Highgate School were divided into ‘houses’. Each house contained pupils from throughout the school. I was in Heathgate House, a ‘house’ for day boys rather than boarders. There were numerous inter-house competitions for various sports activities. Once a year, there was an inter-house singing competition. Each house had to produce its own choir, choose a song, practice it, and then sing it on the day of the contest. The first time that this competition occurred after I entered the school, Heathgate chose to sing (in French) the aria L’amour est un oiseau rebelle from the opera Carmen by Bizet.

Apparently, my voice detracted from the quality of Heathgate’s choir, and I was asked to leave the other singers. This was possible because the rules of the competition did not insist on every member of a house being included in the choir. Without me, Heathgate managed to win the contest.

Whenever I hear the aria, which was sung in the competition, I remember that event back at Highgate School. Unlike Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar which I had to study for a state examination and grew to hate, I still enjoy listening to performances of Carmen.

 

Picture source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

A vulgar audience

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music

 

I enjoy attending events at the Nehru Centre, the Indian High Commission’s cultural centre in London. However, the audience can become quite unruly occasionally. 

Only afew days ago, I attended a concert of Bengali and Hindi songs pertformed by an excellent Bengali male vocalist, Soumyen Adhikari who accompanied himself on a harmonium. He was also accompanied by a superb tabla player. 

The audience was, as is often the case, restless. People arrived late throughout the performance. Others kept moving from one seat to another or leaving the auditorium only to return a few minutes later. All around us people in the audience were chatting to each other loudly whilst the musicians performed. They would not be silent even after having been asked repeatedly. All of these disturbances are quite normal amongst Indian audiences and are more or less tolerable.

What really upset me at this particular concert was the ignorant comments shouted by some members of the audience. After the singer had sung several beautiful songs in Bengali, some people began shouting things like “Sing something in Hindi”, “we can’t understand Bengali”, and “enough of Bengali songs”. 

I cannot understand either Hindi or Bengali, but that does not detract from my enjoyment of songs sung in these languages. What is important to me is that the singer has a good voice and that the musicians play well. Just the lovely sounds of the songs and the music is a great pleasure for me. It upset me that so many of those around me lacked the  ability to appreciate the beauty of what was being played. Their approach was so parochial that all they wanted was something familiar, which they had heard over and over many times before. I felt sorry for the singer, who is clearly a masterful performer whom I would happily hear again.

Save the planet, lose your life

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In January of this year, I posted a piece about drinking straws, https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2019/01/24/drinking-through-a-straw/,  and how plastic straws are being replaced by paper straws, which go soggy before you finish your drink.

Well, now you can obtain re-usable drinking straws made of metal. Some of these come with fine brushes to help clean the straw after use. Great idea, you might think, although I would have some concerns about maintaining the hygiene of these straws. Also, I wonder how much energy needs to be expended to create a metal drinking straw.

Today, 9th July 2019, I spotted a worrying item in the Metro, a London daily newspaper. The article described a terrible accident during which someone fell on to her metal straw, which then pierced her eye and entered her brain. This resulted in the poor woman’s death.

Even if it does help save the planet, you won’t catch me using a metal straw!

 

 

A keen salesman

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Elephant_240

Many years ago when we vere on holiday in India, we visited a historic Hindu temple complex in the State of Karnataka.

When we left the enclosure containing the amazing temples with thier intricate stone carvings, we were approached by a little boy, who could have been no more than ten years old. He wanted to sell us some quite attractive miniature elephants carved in stone. Out of politeness, rather than curiosity, we asked the price.

“200 rupees,” he said.

We told him that we did not want the carvings.

“100 rupees,” he said, hopefully.

“We don’t want them, thanks,” we said.

“50 rupees?”

“Really, no thanks”

“25 rupees?”

“Really, no”

“10 rupees?”

We tried to make it clear that we did not want the carvings at any price.

“Have them for nothing,” the little boy offered.

We still did not take them. I often wonder what would have happened next, had we accepted his three elephants as a free gift.

Broadband on the blink

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Does it not drive you mad when in the middle of doing something using the Internet, there is an ‘outage’ during which the Internet service signal becomes disconnected and you become unable to access the Internet?

My service provider is BTinternet, which is usually satisfactory for months on end. Then, out of the blue for a few hours or even a few days, there is either no connection with the Internet or irritating short bursts of connectivity punctuated by frustrating breaks in the service.

In the past, I have rung the BTinternet helpline. Their polite operators make all kinds of suggestions about what can be done with my equipment to improve the service. They also test the line carrying the Internet signal. This is always in perfect condition, so they say. However, even after doing what has been suggested (including installing brand-new routers) and sometimes after an engineer has come to look at our connection, the problem persists, only to correct itself after a few hours or days.

It seems to me that BTinternet is trying to shift the blame on breaks in their service onto me and my equipment. They never admit what I suspect to be the case, namely, that there is a failure in their provision of the broadband service. Having looked at postings on Twitter and the interesting downdetector.co.uk website, it seems that when I am having problems, which BTinternet ascribe to my end of the Internet connection, so are many other people! If BTinternet is correct about faulty equipment at the receiving end, it seems a strange coincidence that so many users’ equipment should go faulty at the same moment.

No need to worry

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adult ambulance care clinic

 

While I was studying to become a dentist, I took advantage of an optional fortnight shadowing anaesthetists. It was not a hands-on experience, but it was totally fascinating watching anaesthetists keeping patients healthy whilst they were deeply anaesthetised.

One day during a morning coffee break, I was sitting having refreshments with a senior anaesthetist and his team. Suddenly, I heard a shrill prolonged sound coming from a nearby room. I asked a technician what it was. He told me not to worry about it.

A few moments later, the senior anaesthetist asked me:

“What is that high pitched noise?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, ” I answered confidently.

“Really?” I was asked.

“Oh, yes. there’s absolutely no need to be concerned,” I advised the senior anaesthetist.

If it had been fashionable at that time, I might have told him to ‘chill’, but in those days chilling was reserved for cold weather and refrigeration.

“Hmmmm,” he replied.

After a few moments, he said to me:

“Well, actually that signal is the warning sound made by an oxygen cyinder that is about to become empty. I would really worry about it, young man.”

At that moment, I felt like a complete idiot and hoped that the ground would open up and swallow me.

 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

 

 

Pigeon English

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Creatures real and imaginary_500

 

Pidgin English is a simplified, often colourful, form of the English language used by some people for whom English is not their mother tongue. The various forms of  Pidgin English, and there are many, are typically mixed with the speaker’s native language. Well, for many years, I did not know that. I must admit that this was a symptom of my ignorance. Also, when people referred to ‘Pidgin’ English, I used to think that they were talking about ‘pigeon’ English, which in my ignorance I believed to be English as spoken by someone who knows as little of English as, for example, pigeons. True, people who speak Pidgin probably know less English than fully fluent English speakers, but they know a great deal more about English than pigeons.

I used to visit Italy often during my youth and early adult years. During this period, I picked up a smattering of Italian. I knew enough to have simple conversations with Italians. Although my Italian was mostly ungrammatical, people could make some sense of what I was trying to communicate.

Once, I was travelling through Italy on a train, having a chat with an Italian passenger. He praised my Italian, probably out of politeness and because I was making an effort to speak in his language. Modestly, I told him that I was speaking ‘pigeon’ Italian, when what I really meant, without knowing it, that I wanted to say I was speaking ‘pidgin’ Italian.

I said:

“Parlo italiano come un piccione” (Meaning: ‘I speak Italian like a pigeon’).

The person I was talking to looked at me as if I was mad. And, he was right to do so, because of my ignorance of the difference between ‘pidgin’ and ‘pigeon’.