I have spent most of my life listening to big pieces, symphonies and masses, never knew much about Schumann songs. I heard this a couple of years ago and it rips me up and then puts me back together again, just those couple of bars of Ave Maria at the end. I think it's what they call an homage. It is Liszt after Schumann, realised by Lang Lang and Steinway; inspiration, composition, performance and manufacture. And in that grand piano, trapped forever, lost and yearning, sing all the spirits of the forest.
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If you are a Schumann fan, Mr I, try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7ncjhSqtk
Horowitz in Moscow in 1986. The audience were in tears.
Better recording
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU_ccvjxq6o
Schumann is wonderful stuff Mr I. The symphonies are amazing:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSY78CUVCtE
As are the piano sonatas, eg:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afxr6pWwejk
Evensong is one of your posts I’ve missed the most over the past two years, they motivate me to find and listen to some of man’s most beautiful creations. God speaking through mere mortals.
Thank you mr I.
There is a tussle here, presently, mr inmate; mrs ishmael believes that without the ascendancy of (Judaeo) Christianity the Norse/Pagan religions would have wrought such art as this; I disagree, thinking that only the agony and ecstasy of the Christ Passion, real or imagined, only the Gutenberg Bible, only the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Great Commotion fertilised this creative field and it is, as you say, God - or our need of God- who speaks through Steinway - or Fender or Martin - and both soothes and unsettles us.
I am no musicologist and grateful, therefore, that these choices have moved you as they have me.
Thank you, mr mike and mr anonymous, I remember being impressed by Horowitz, when I was younger; there is just so much, isn't there?
I will try the symphonies. Right now.
Beautiful, thanks.
Very nice, Mr Ishmael. I often wish I could play the piano. Wastrel wretch that I was skipping the lessons my parents tried to make me have. But then they tried to get me riding horses amd fecking Irish danccing too.
There is something in the old understanding of quality in art - and not just music. One may not like something, Bach say, but one shouldn't be let argue that it is crap just because of it. The Monuments Men film twaddle was real apparently. The Allies really did have a team of people scouring the continent saving precious stuff and trying to return it to owners. Just for the saving of it. In times as straitened and perilous as those. We can't even save our libraries.
Bravo. Been expecting an Evensong since your return. Got tickets to see Abdullah Ibrahim later in the year. Jazz, innit?
You've been a big influence, mr bungalow bill.Sometimes it only takes a word.
My older brother and sister had piano lessons but my father's fortunes suffered a dramatic reversal by the time it was my turn and oddly, mr mongoose, I was the better intuitive musician. I still can't play the piano but I can figure stuff out in a way that qualified pianists can't, no matter, I'd love to be able to read and play that piece, above, and I never will.
I read about the monuments men years ago, somewhere, and I thought the film was very good. Wouldn't happen now.
Yeah, I love Dollar Brand, as he was, mr tnp, aside from Ali Farka Tourre I can't think of many African musicians who grab me but he just rolls with it all - classical, boogie, jazz, township and that captivating North African Islamic drone.
The Madagascan Justin Vali Trio were fucking amazing, quirky instruments and weird, Afro-French arrangements, like chamber music from the village.
When I was a proper choirboy, Mr I, I was taught to read the music a tad. A singer's part is much less complex in the ordinary than the above malarkey though. We looked for the punctuation - the gaps and the big bits - and piped up using that. That's what conductors are for too.
I had and have no talent beyond the ordinary, I am afraid. Mrs mongoose otoh joins herself to any choir that pauses in its march, even to tie a shoelace. It makes her happy just to sing. She comes back here after on tiptoe, beaming like a mad thing. There is more to music, isn't there, than the noise made. There's that joy in making it. I wonder: does any other animal in the universe really sing like humans do?
Mr Mongoose: listen to the birds - they sing. Where I play golf each morning there are birds (not sure what the name is) with a distinctive call: "fuckit", "fuckit", "fuckit".
I have tried reading the dots and there was a time when I could haltingly play a couple of pieces but it was always too slow, the time between the thought and the action, like writing, like anything.
Once sang the Messiah at the Albert Hall in a thousand voice choir with a proper band and soloists, so I know what entices mrs mongoose to the choral netherworld.
You read the dots, do cha, mr mike, for la gitarre, how's that going?
I'm afraid not Mr I. I've long wished to play the flamenco guitar. Although there are "tabs" (written scores) its largely based on a recognised set of traditional folk palos (tunes or rhythms), which are aurally passed on, about which improvisation is expected. Study isn't what holds me back. Its having all 10 digits being able to function independently, and all 10 fingers are definitely required. I haven't given up yet though, but patience is not one of my virtues. If you watch the Horowitz clip you will see Traumerei looks a deceptively simple piece, but only he can make that sound. So with the guitar when you listen to a mater flamenco player.
Those who enjoy this sort of thing might keep an eye on a wonderfully promising Israeli pianist called Ariel Lanyi, some gift he has. He's on YouTube.
My best love is Sviatoslav Richter. There's a scored version on YouTube of him playing Rachmaninov Prelude Op. 23 No.2 which is utterly exhilarating. I've probably mentioned this on here before - I can't remember when I last brushed my teeth these days. Anyway, no apologies, because it will light you up.
Strange to tell, Mr I, but I have sung the Messiah too. I was however a descant at the time - trilling like one of Mr Mike's winged birds.
Well, Boris has certainly livened things up. Interesting 2-3 months ahead.
I'm not a Boris fan, but I've always felt he has cultivated the buffoon persona for public consumption, and is likely a bit cleverer than he pretends. Just read a Boris quote when quizzed about his need for multiple female companions: "I'm full of spunk".
Alas, Lang Lang's performance is too mannered to my taste. Have you heard the performance by Sergio Fiorentino?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbWbMhNmDBw
i have just one question to ask the morally whiter-than-white european union fanatics:
from you great defenders of human-rights...
where is the ethically required criticism of eu-facilitated niggercide and blood-mineral-trading in africa - and especially in congo?
please read all articles by "keith harmon snow" in order to educate yourself as to the true neo-colonial nature of the european empire and its deep dirty and historic collusion in the genocide - for mega-blood-mineral-profit - of many millions of africans.
please also research the manner in which the eu-customs union has always been deliberately deployed as a vicious and cynical tool of economic oppression against african nations.
socialists, liberals and self-professed progressives...
if you have the slightest commitment to the protection and promotion of human-rights, do not touch the european union with ten-metre bloody bargepole.
the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals, such as the clintons.
i have just one question to ask the morally whiter-than-white european union fanatics:
from you great defenders of human-rights...
where is the ethically required criticism of eu-facilitated niggercide and blood-mineral-trading in africa - and especially in congo?
please read all articles by "keith harmon snow" in order to educate yourself as to the true neo-colonial nature of the european empire and its deep dirty and historic collusion in the genocide - for mega-blood-mineral-profit - of many millions of africans.
please also research the manner in which the eu-customs union has always been deliberately deployed as a vicious and cynical tool of economic oppression against african nations.
socialists, liberals and self-professed progressives...
if you have the slightest commitment to the protection and promotion of human-rights, do not touch the european union with ten-metre bloody bargepole.
the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals, such as the clintons.
Sir
It would appear your long time prophecy of a Government of National Unity, the Demophobes, the Extreme Centrists have taken over the asylum.
The collaborators with the Herman’s and the Frogs have got their way; Mandeslime, the Kinnocks, the Clarke’s and the rest will forever remain untouchable, unaccountable, immune from prosecution and forever in receipt of their multi-million pound pensions.
The British saved Europe from itself on numerous occasions, alas those sacrifices have been long forgotten. Shame.
Mr inmate:
omnifuckingshambles doesn't do this justice. In more rational times there would be a civil war.
Mr Mike
I’m afraid we are too soft, too comfortable to get off our arses, scared by indebtedness.The people are demoralised, well apart from St. Jeremy’s fascist momentum thugs who just want violence reigned down on those who they perceive as ‘the rich’,oh and more free stuff.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would believe that this fuck up was planned, ever since the result of the referendum, the fucking dog-shooters have even said they would ignore their people’s vote if they didn’t get the answer they demand. Cunts.
One thick fucker, Labour’s Richard Burgon, “we will get a better deal”, but then would campaign to remain and reject their ‘better deal’ you couldn’t make this shit up.
Still, one ray of sunshine, Kenny ‘brown suede shoes’ Clarke won’t have his snout in the trough for much longer; he can then concentrate on selling tobacco to the African n Ahrab kids.
Oh woe is me, that cunt Nicholas Soames, - the head of Serco, the biggest company nobody’s ever heard of; thieving, corrupt bastards- Grandson of Winston Churchill, how could they, such a great man. Great my arse, ‘s like condemning Fred n Rose West’s kids as all being Psychopaths n serial killers. Greatness ain’t in the genes you cunts, just fuck off.
And the BBC; save the planet, St. Greta, all the leave voters are racist but will soon be dead, so that’s ok, every tv drama family is mixed race good, all white people bad, especially Trump n Boris. It needs burning, with all the highly paid experts n auto-cue readers locked inside.
It’s fucked.
How’s life in the land down under?
Oops,
Soames’ brother is CEO of Serco, my bad.
Mr inmate:
Life down here is about as good as it gets. We are just moving into spring. The weather warming up and the first set of ducklings being sheparded around my golf course by their parents. I have never for one second regretted emigrating as all my worst fears for the UK have unfolded, in spades.
Of course, we have our own bouts of occasional madness, but nothing on the scale of what you are enduring. If I were still in the UK I would have either gone mad by now, or topped myself.
The Bercow Guvvmint, mr inmate, in the National Interest, has now threatened the Prime Minister of these lands with jail-time if he does not bow to their coup d'etat. It is beyond even Mr Ishmael's powers of parody and satire.
schkrewymann?
nein danke
alltraumalei splishy-splashy not-tones
best imbibed having dunked oneselbst fullisch im raving rheinstream und saferlich restrained to nahrest nuttenhausbett, odour?
exzerpt aus:
variationen über ein leitmotiv von lunacy
or
variations on a theme of insanity
i have just one question to ask the morally whiter-than-white european union fanatics:
oh you great defenders of human-rights...
where is the ethically requisite criticism of eu-facilitated niggercide and blood-mineral-trading in africa - especially in congo?
oh socialists, liberals and self-professed progressives...
if you truly have the slightest commitment to the protection and promotion of human-rights, then you shouldn't touch the european union with a ten-metre bloody barge-pole.
the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals - such as the clintons and the blairs.
please read all articles by "keith harmon snow" in order to educate yourselves as to the true neo-colonial nature of today's european empire and its deep dirty and contemporary collusion in the genocide - for mega-blood-mineral-profit - of many millions of africans.
please also research the manner in which the protectionist eu-customs union has historically been deployed as a vicious and cynical tool of economic oppression against african nations.
as a cia-sanctioned super-snob, i am selflessly putting aside all party political considerations and common democratic principles, in order to act in the supra-national, and imperial, interest of putting the bloody british plebs in their place.
oh dear me, plebs getting hold of principles is an extremely serious matter indeed, and could prove very dangerous...
ya, before you know it, this manner of mass-irrationality could even lead to popular legislation which prohibits parliament from bombing niggers for their own good.
fuck me - it's the end of democracy as we know it
mr mongoose
this current 'coup' against the uk government has actually been in progress since the mid-1970s, when prime minister harold wilson was deposed, by the cia, for refusing to send our brave boys to spray the viet-cong-commies, and all their civilian comrades, with liberal doses of democratic death and agent-orange.
it's a bit of a bloody long 'coup', if you ask me - so please, sir, could you settle upon an alternative description for the de facto colonization of britain by the united states of america?
as for the british empire's antique arsehole of perpetual propaganda, mr inmate, please leave it, and its cocky congregation of whatless wanking weather-cunts, to spontaneously self-incinerate upon the earth-shattering, psycho-slashing news that neo-liberal-controlled climate-change is a neo-imperialist hoax, that the sun does not in fact orbit the dense ideological mass formed by the anti-democratic collusion of planets clinton, obama and blair, and that the authoritarian ice-age cometh with an intransigent astro-physical fucking vengeance.
piers
schkrewymann?
nein danke
alltraumalei splishy-splashy not-tones
best only imbibed wenn saferlich restrained zu nahrest nuttenhausbett - following having dunked oneselbst fullisch im raving rheinstream - odour?
exzerpt aus:
variationen über ein leitmotiv von lunacy
or auf engerlisch:
variations on a theme of insanity
i met that pathetic pansy-poet schkrewymann, once, down der boozer...
it were the lieder und lederhosen, if memory serves me rightlich...
an' anyway, the dumme pisskopf only went und spilt an 'ole fuckin' maß-glass of deadly-dutch-doppelbock all over the last two movements of me h'unfinished symphonie...
so i smacked the blöde decomposing cunt 'round the 'ead with me 'trout', und left 'im desperatelich tryin' ter squeeze 'is bier back out the soddin' manuscript-papier inter 'is glass.
professor, the notion that those of the international socialist bent were opposed by those of the national and locally-democratic bent is not new to us here. And the Cold War was what it was. The post-war shenannigans on all sides is likewise part of the conversation. The decay of the mass-industrial raison d'etre of the left is pretty much all we talk about here when we have unravelled the complications of current events. Something is happening here but you don't know what it is.
@beyond the virtuous valley of the politically correct plunderkinds
"the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals - such as the clintons and the blairs"
for more detailed information on eu-licenced blood-mineral-merchants...
their blood-bankrolled eu-businesses...
and their blood-emblazoned eu-political-backers...
please read the following bomb-shell-articles by keith harmon snow:
congo’s president joseph kabila: dynasty or travesty?
https://towardfreedom.org/archives/africa-archives/congos-president-joseph-kabila-dynasty-or-travesty/
gertler’s bling bang torah gang
https://dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/
please take especial note that star-billing in the multi-billion-dollar blood-fest goes to:
louis michel - former european commissioner for development and humanitarian aid
and his son, a chip off the old blood-drenched-block...
charles michel - belgian prime minister and president-elect of the european council
does the uk really desire membership of a nasty corrupt neo-colonial club, which has not only failed to implement binding end-to-end conflict-free-certification of euro-traded minerals, but which has also impenitently facilitated genocidal blood-mineral-operations in africa, and has continuously condoned perpetual neo-imperialist oil-war in the middle-east?
of course, it's no surprise that the neo-controlled labour party is just gagging to get back into bed with the great european genocide-gang...
glide between the glistening sheets of its glittering glass-palaces...
and grasp the irresistible imperial glory of its golden-haired gratuity...
i have just one question to ask the morally whiter-than-white european union fanatics:
oh you great defenders of human-rights...
where is your ethically requisite criticism of the eu-facilitated niggercide and blood-mineral-trading which is destroying africa?
where is your ethically essential condemnation of the european union's neck-deep collusion in crimes against humanity in africa, especially those committed as a barbaric by-product of western mineral exploitation in drc congo - a martial operation which, in terms of its laissez faire-lethality, may reasonably be compared to european colonialism and the atlantic slave-trade?
oh socialists, liberals and self-professed progressives...
if you truly have the slightest commitment to the protection and promotion of human-rights, then you shouldn't touch the european union with a ten-metre bloody barge-pole.
the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals - such as the klepto-clintons and the blagger-blairs.
please read all articles by "keith harmon snow" in order to educate yourselves as to the true neo-colonial nature of today's european empire and its deep dirty and contemporary collusion in the genocide - for mega-blood-mineral-profit - of many millions of africans.
please also research the manner in which the protectionist eu-customs union has historically been deployed as a vicious and cynical tool of economic oppression against african nations.
@beyond the virtuous valley of the politically correct plunderkinds
"the eu is and only ever has been a safe-haven for blood-mineral-thirsty war-criminals - such as the clintons and the blairs"
for more detailed information on eu-licenced blood-mineral-merchants...
their blood-bankrolled eu-businesses...
and their blood-emblazoned eu-political-backers...
please read the following bomb-shell-articles by keith harmon snow about our western establishment's multi-million-man-murder-spree in congo:
congo’s president joseph kabila: dynasty or travesty?
https://towardfreedom.org/archives/africa-archives/congos-president-joseph-kabila-dynasty-or-travesty/
gertler’s bling bang torah gang
https://dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/
please take especial note that star-billing in the multi-billion-dollar mercantile blood-fest goes to:
louis michel - former european commissioner for development and humanitarian aid
and his son, a chip off the old blood-drenched-block...
charles michel - belgian prime minister and president-elect of the european council
does the uk really desire membership of a nasty corrupt neo-colonial club, which has not only failed to implement binding end-to-end conflict-free-certification of euro-traded minerals, but has also impenitently facilitated genocidal blood-mineral-operations in africa?
does the uk really desire membership of a nasty corrupt neo-colonial club which has continuously condoned perpetual neo-imperialist oil-war in the middle-east?
of course not, but it's no surprise that the neo-controlled labour party is just gagging to get back into bed with the great european genocide-gang...
glide between the glistening sheets of its glittering glass-palaces...
and grasp the irresistible imperial glory of its golden-haired gratuity...
@beyond the virtuous valley of the politically correct plunderkinds
@eva evilduster - euro-chambermädchen
oh gosh, so many bubbly black parliamentarians now just desperately pretending to be white by displaying their undying afro-centric allegiance to the european empire of ethical nigger-hating*...
init?
cunts all fatally consumed in their exalted establishment-career-struggle for the personal dispensation of expedient ethnicity-erazure...
but hey, c'mon man...
i mean, it's really no big deal pretending to be white...
coz y'know...
i once pretended to be black...
init?
[*formerly, the european empire of neo-colonial nigger-hating...
originally, the barbaric bastard progeny of the belgian, british, french, spanish and italian empires - communally raised in the protective neo-colonial nursery of the cia to drain the african continent of all humanity and equity]
@blenny henry
"i once pretended to be black"
i must say i’m surprised...
and i was more surprised when i saw the number of times...
@mongoose
"the decay of the mass-industrial raison d'etre of the left"
mister bobby "lobby-luvva" piston says e' likes 'is grapes left natural an organically shrivelled too haha...
naughty bloke - taught me everything i know about the on-goings at westminster and its whacky parties...
anyhow, so yeah...
basically, what yer saying is...
ummm...the left's become the establishment...
an the right's gone an turned all anti-establishment like...
an the result is that the over-privileged 'n morally bankrupt bourgeois british left's now jussa buncha bloody brain-dead-an-ethickly-brainwashed establishment-pussies wot are too chickin ter join in the working-class fuck-eu-revolution against the nazisty neo-imperialist establishment...
an this is basically becoz the left ackchewally is the fuckin' neo-imperialist establishment.
yeah, now yer mention it, i see exzactly wot yer mean mate...
an in fack i reckon i could draw an appropriate analurgy with me tits...
yer see, i jus' can't fathom why, but sumtimes me left boob looks bigger than me right boob, anat uvva times, me right boob looks bigger than me left boob, yeah...?
an so sumtimes i think me left bap is me right bap an me right bap is me left bap, if yer get me point...?
so it can all be very confusing really...
jus' like the transformable powers of the transferable tits in the palace of parliament...
or do i mean the the transferable powers of the transformable tits in the palace of parliament...?
search me bro'...
well yeah, i didn't mean that literally, piston, haha, yu dirty ole bastard...
but yer know wot...?
sumtimes i reckon it's all politits, anyway
Hmmm... your Blog appears infested by vermin Mr I. Time to summon an exterminator, if you are able to. Hope all is well!
I am, for my sins, in Hanoi. Upon God's work, since you ask. A young person espying a foreigner just a while ago this afternoon came up to me and engaged in conversation, as practice of his English. As they do. And not all of them are hookers. When asked where I came from, I replied "England". "Ahhh. Brexit!", came back the connection. The other side of the world, barely 20-y-o this lad, much shite to be waded through in his yet young life and the first conversational thought he had was fecking Brexit. I have lived too long. Bored now. Can we pls move the fuck on?
Where are you, Mr Ishmael, you slacker? To the barricades!
Greetings Mr Mongoose. I've traveled a fair bit in Vietnam and I very much like the country, the people, the food, the culture and the heritage. In particular, I've found the people invariably friendly. Yes they like to practice their English; do you like to practice your Vietnamese? Hoping for a holiday in Laos this Christmas.
For my sins, I've just returned from England (funeral). Suffice to say it will be my last visit. Particularly noticed how much prices have gone up since my last visit. Don't know where they get their official inflation figures from.
Re Brexit: I suspect the tactic is to bore everyone into submission. I'm not a Boris fan, and I feel a sellout is imminent. Hope I'm wrong.
Think you're probably right, Mr Mike, about the sell-out. The rage and confusion look choreographed and nothing bad was ever going to be allowed. Some bollocks about the backstop will suffice and then back to Eutopia.
Hope I'm wrong too.
Or, Mr BB, the Eutopians could simply ‘take us out with a phone call’ to the ‘Government of National Unity’s’ ambassador, the dwarf Prince Bercow - “accept the treaty that we negotiated with our placeman, Olly Robbins, or leave without it...
@beyond the virtuous valley of the politically correct plunderkinds
@eva evilduster - evil euro-chambermädchen
oh gosh, so many bubbly black parliamentarians now just desperately pretending to be white by displaying their undying afro-centric allegiance to the european empire of ethical nigger-hating...
[formerly known as the european empire of neo-colonial nigger-hating...
but originally recognized as the barbaric bastard progeny of the belgian, british, french, spanish and italian empires - all communally raised in the protective neo-colonial nursery of the cia to drain the african continent of all humanity and equity...]
init?
cunts all fatally consumed in their exalted establishment-career-struggle for their personal dispensation of expedient ethnicity-erazure...
but hey, c'mon man...
i mean, it's really no big deal pretending to be white...
coz after all...
i once pretended to be black...
init?
@blenny henry
"i once pretended to be black"
i must say i’m surprised...
and i was more surprised when i saw the number of times...
@mongoose
"the decay of the mass-industrial raison d'etre of the left"
mister bobby "lobby-luvva" piston says e' likes 'is grapes left natural an organically shrivelled, jus' like yu haha...
naughty bloke - taught me everything i know about the on-goings at westminster and its whacky parties...
anyhow, so yeah...
basically, what yer saying is...
ummm...the left's become the establishment...
an' the right's gone an' turned all anti-establishment like...?
an' the result is that the over-privileged 'n morally bankrupt bourgeois british left's now jussa buncha bloody brain-dead-an-ethickly-brainwashed establishment-pussies wot are too chickin ter join in the working-class fuck-eu-revolution against the nazisty neo-imperialist establishment...
an' this is basically becoz the left ackchewally fuckin' is now the neo-imperialist fuckin' establishment.
yeah, now yer mention it, i see exzackly wot yer mean mate...
an' in fack i reckon i could draw an appropriate analurgy with me tits...
yer see, i jus' khan fathom why, but sumtimes me left tit look bigger than me right tit, anat uvva times, me right tit look bigger than me left tit, right...?
an so sumtimes i think me left boob is me right boob an me right boob is me left boob, if yer catch me drift...?
so it can all become very confusing really...
jus' like the transformable powers of the transferable tits in the palace of parliament...
or do i mean the the transferable powers of the transformable tits in the palace of parliament...?
search me bro'...
it's all polytits, anyway...
well yeah, i didn't mean that literally piston haha yu dirty ole bastard.
@katie kwik-fit - ph32d polytechtits
oh i know dear...
the workers' revolution against the nepotistic neo-imperialist establishment finally arrives...
and then the lush-'n-lazy lifestyled 'left' don't even fuckin' show up...
fuckin' social sell-out scabs...
fuckin' two-timing turnvote-class-tractors...
fuckin' cia-slush-puppets and sneaky snow-gob-snobs...
fuck me, we ain't given the poncey political establishment such a comprehensive kick-in-the-nuts since nineteen-forty-fuckin'-eight...
what's the limp-picked labour party's fuckin' problem, man?
Mr Mike, yes, Vietnam is great fun. The people, as you say, more personally courteous than the average set of bears, and there is more fun in them than one normally meets. It looks as though I will be going to Hanoi a few more times over the next three years at least. Certainly twice more by the summer. There is time then to learn the language a bit, though I have no ear for it yet beyond the right sort of noises for please and thank-you. I don't think I am ever going to be eating pho for breakfast though.
The Brino stitch-up does loom, I think, but there is every reason for saner heads to have sensed the real purpose and mentality of the EU-elite who care very little for anyone of any nationality. It is all about the project and the project dies with this generation, I fear.
mr. mongoose, mr. mike mr. bungalow bill – I trust this message finds you all in the rudest of health.
I can only agree that the fuckin pantomime (euphemistically referred to as “Brexit” hitherto) is a confection carefully prepared for the consumption of the unthinking and uncritical masses – who have, needless to say, swallowed it all hook line and sinker. The buggers in the EU (and in the USA + NATO come to that) and Her Maj’s Quislings here at home would never let a true Brexit happen; if Mrs. Johnson’s little boy ever managed to haul us out of the EU with no strings attached, the bastards would bend every effort to queer the pitch. Every conceivable impediment would be brought to bear in a rearguard action to bugger things up: currency manipulation, passport fuckups, deliberately engineered shortages of everything from medical supplies to quilted bog-rolls; the Speaker of the HoC (Mr. Bercow, who has been elected to post in perpetuity by a majority of refusenik MPs with a collected IQ in the low teens) manipulating every aspect of parliamentary procedure for the benefit of his EU masters; and all aided and abetted by President “of course American citizens have every right to go about their business mowing down innocent locals hither and yon” Trump.
And breathe …
The above from Caratacus, who seems to have been demoted to anonymous ..
Mr mongoose: pho ga is the way to go (chicken not meat).
Highly recommend Essence Hotel in the old part
https://essencehanoihotel.com/
Excellent pho ga at breakfast.
Yes Mr Caratacus. Strong smell of stitch up in the air. Last minute deal so everyone will breath a sigh of relief, but in effect BRINO.
I stay at the Golden Rice a couple of hundred metres to the south. The client makes the reservations and it would be rude to moan. It's a bit more tired than yours but I have no proper gripes and the beds are as big as god.
Pho? I cannot do it - not in the morning. I am Irish FFS. I was about my business very early one day. Three AM start and done by six. They all stopped and ate Pho Something (the dried fish one) at 7am. I cannot. Will not. OTOH Asia has such fruit that breakfast of such is a joy. Every day, up and at them and a couple of plates of fresh loveliness. It is wonderful.
And so bad are they at it that I have almost stopped drinking coffee.
Mr mongoose: if you haven't already, try a margarita. The best limes are in Vietnam (and Thailand), small and sweet, and they are not stingy with the tequila. There are very good coffee shops in Hanoi - one I've been in is very close to where you stay (which looks very good), just can't find it on google maps. You choose your beans. Vietnam is a big producer of coffee. Its a long road trip from Hanoi, but Halong Bay is well worth a visit. If you have a few free days, a visit to the Imperial City of Hue is worthwhile. Get a private guide, and you will learn all about the American War (a big experience for me). If you go via Da Nang, then Hoi An is well worth a visit also (there is an Essence in Hoi An). In fact, there is so much to like about Vietnam.
Mr Mike, yes, I have seen but not tried but then I'm trying to stay out of coffee shops.The hotel breakfast coffee is indescribably bad which is useful actually. There isn't much time for trips longer than an afternoon but my idle colleague tacked on a few days to this last trip and has gone down to Da Nang and Hue. Maybe that is an idea. I am back there at the end of November for a week.
What I like about them is the slightly odd humour. The young lady on the desk this last trip pretended that I had not handed in my key card one day and had me emptying my pockets and knapsack on the counter. A few tens of seconds of rootling about and she had had her fun, and handed the card over. I took it to mean that I had served my time in some way.
Father Diamond, see back up the road, would be pleased that almost my favourite part of VN is to sit outside the Viet-French bistro sipping a cold one while the faithful overflow the cathedral for Sunday evening Mass. You can take the boy out of Catholicism but...
@lady jazz-mag
pas de problème: brigitte's busy building un bog-roll-berg bigger than mont bleedin' blanc
@unknown charaktercuss
evil eu-bastards holding our quilted bog-rolls to ransom would be the last fucking straw, in my opinion; the freedom to experience the subtle shite-shifting-sensation of arse-friendly waitrose cashmere is all that distinguishes us from common bloody communists, for fuck's sake.
time to bust out the task-force, boys...
@blenny 'enry
now don't you go beating yerself up too much about encouraging all this dangerous disregard for equity's racial demarcation-rules, because to be honest, blenny, if black performers were only allowed to play black characters, then well...given the british blond-casting corporation's pervasive prejudicial penchant for producing pathetically pale period dramas...black guys would never get much work, would they...?
an' i mean what sorta sad terminally satisfied twat wants ter end up as a reliable radio-four-regular, hey?
yeah, yer know, this ethnic-extremist campaign for the racial regulation of character-casting...it's actually just 'n evil white-racist plot to do black an' asian actors out of equal job-opportunities.
on the other hand, 'owever...i'd say the strange case of the shade-shifting politicians, in the palace of westminster, seems to be of 'n entirely different nature altogether.
yer see, although older members of black 'n asian communities - an' certain eminent rastas - 'ave, due to their deeper existential appreciation of british politics, twigged that the european onion might just not perhaps be the best thing since sliced brown bread...
and 'ave - as a result of such 'omespun insight - sensibly voted ter leave this latest crude re-incarnation of racial exploitation's eternal euro-enriching empire...
i would, in all fairness, not really expect their current cia-controlled cohort of establishment-re-educated reps - loungin', lunchin' 'n lyin', as they are fuckin' well wont, on the great greasy green banks of parliament's popcorn-demo-discourse - ever to firmly grasp the subtle ethno-centric essence of euro-sceptic ideology...
coz basically, it's deep white-man-shit see.
ya, i must confess i find myself in total agreement with you, gobbyscum, my good man...
it is generally evident that, in contrast to their more conscious constituents, black and asian mps have become suspiciously spellbound by the evil electo-plasmic power of traditionally brewed euro-magic - which, it is rumoured, their charming fellow white politicians are secretly sourcing from the back of a nigerian-flagged luton-van.
oh my word, what mirthful multi-cultural irony doth here assail us ho ho...
right-ho moggy, i'm afraid i can't afford the classic eton-education required to understand that joke, but thanks for the support anyway, pal...
@blenny 'enry
now don't you go beating yerself up too much about encouraging all this dangerous disregard for equity's racial demarcation-rules, because to be honest, blenny, if black performers were only allowed to play black characters, then well...given the british blond-casting corporation's pervasive prejudicial penchant for producing pathetically pale period dramas...black guys would never get much work, would they...?
an' i mean what sorta sad terminally satisfied twat wants ter end up as a reliable radio-four-regular, hey?
yeah, yer know, this ethnic-extremist campaign for the racial regulation of character-casting...it's actually just 'n evil white-racist plot to do black an' asian actors out of equal job-opportunities.
on the other hand, 'owever...i'd say the strange case of the shade-shifting politicians, in the palace of westminster, seems to be of 'n entirely different nature altogether.
yer see, although older members of black 'n asian communities - an' certain eminent rastas - 'ave, due to their deeper existential appreciation of british politics, twigged that the european onion might just not perhaps be the best thing since sliced brown bread...
and 'ave - as a result of such 'omespun insight - sensibly voted ter leave this latest crude re-incarnation of racial exploitation's eternal euro-enriching empire...
i would, in all fairness, not really expect their current cia-controlled cohort of establishment-re-educated reps - loungin', lunchin' 'n lyin', as they are fuckin' well wont, on the great greasy green banks of parliament's popcorn-democratic-discourse - ever to firmly grasp the subtle ethno-centric essence of euro-sceptic ideology...
coz basically, it's deep white-man-shit see.
ya, i must confess i find myself in total agreement with you, gobbyscum, my good man...
it is generally evident that, in contrast to their more conscious constituents, black and asian mps have become suspiciously spellbound by the evil electo-plasmic power of traditionally brewed euro-magic - which, it is rumoured, their charming fellow white politicians are secretly sourcing from the back of a nigerian-flagged luton-van.
oh my word, what mirthful multi-cultural irony doth here assail us ho ho...
right-ho moggy, i'm afraid i can't afford the classic eton-education required to understand that joke, but thanks for the support anyway, pal...
@blenny 'enry
now don't you go beating yerself up too much about encouraging all this dangerous disregard for equity's racial demarcation-rules, because to be honest, blenny, if black performers were only allowed to play black characters, then well...given the british blond-casting corporation's pervasive prejudicial penchant for producing pathetically pale period dramas...black guys would never get much work, would they...?
an' i mean what sorta sad terminally satisfied twat wants ter end up as a reliable radio-four-regular, hey?
yeah, yer know, this ethnic-extremist campaign for the racial regulation of character-casting...it's actually just 'n evil white-racist plot to do black an' asian actors out of equal job-opportunities.
on the other hand, 'owever...i'd say the strange case of the shade-shifting politicians, in the palace of westminster, seems to be of 'n entirely different nature altogether.
yer see, although older members of black 'n asian communities - an' certain eminent rastas - 'ave, due to their deeper existential appreciation of british politics, twigged that the european onion might just not perhaps be the best thing since sliced brown bread...
and 'ave - as a result of such 'omespun insight - sensibly voted ter leave this latest crude re-incarnation of racial exploitation's eternal euro-enriching empire...
i would, in all fairness, not really expect their current cia-controlled cohort of establishment-re-educated reps - loungin', lunchin' 'n lyin' on the great greasy green banks of parliament's popcorn-demo-discourse - ever to firmly grasp the subtle ethno-centric essence of euro-sceptic ideology...
coz basically, it's deep white-man-shit see.
I've told you many times, mr many names, that you, like all of us, need to edit yourself, this is not the place for contrived stream of consciousness; find a publisher or start a blog. Everything you say is right, just tediously expressed.
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