There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.

Every week, all around the country, orchestras, choirs and groups of musicians get together to rehearse and practise. Every weekend we play concerts and gigs in churches, halls and pubs; sometimes for charity, sometimes for beer, always for fun, and the excitement and exhilaration of making and playing music with others.

In between time we spend hours practising at home, and not with a hairbrush in front of a mirror. Virtually everyone in these groups makes absolutely no financial gain, but taking part is massively rewarding, and a truly important part of our lives.

We don’t posess the deluded self-confidence of X-Factor wannabes, in fact we’re often clouded with doubts. Last weekend the Stroud Symphony Orchestra played our latest concert. The final rehearsal on Wednesday was a bit of a shocker – no 1st Trumpet, Clarinet, Bassoon, no trombones. It was a bit rubbish. But on a sweltering Saturday afternoon it was electrifying, almost too good. Wonderfully, we were able to reproduce that in the evening performance. And then afterwards, we manhandled the heavy church pews back into place.

I’ve learnt a lot about teamwork playing in an orchestra… knowing my role, following direction, listening, playing to my (horn’s) strengths, letting others take the lead. I can bring personal interpretation to the performance, but not at the expense of others. It requires concentration and physical stamina, and the other players depend on me. I recommend it.

Last Saturday we played a tremendous piece by Arthur Honegger, Pacific 231, in which he evokes the sounds and power of a steam locomotive. Seriously. This challenged us as players and our audience: if you watch the clip below you’ll soon realise this isn’t Mozart. But we all rose to the challenge, and loved it. It’s exciting and evocative, and I hope left everyone else even slightly enriched for having heard it.

Thomas Beecham (responsible for this post’s title) had quite a range of witty repartee. Another one of his lines is…

It is quite untrue that British people don’t appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

This clip is a tremendous montage of archive footage, compiled to accompany the piece, as well as demonstrate the inspiration behind it. There’s not too much to understand. It’s more visceral than that. We felt it, loved the noise it made, and our audience did too.

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Been a long time since I rock and rolled…

RIP Dr John Mislow: 3rd January 1970 – 11th June 2009

I knew John  Mislow for only 8 months or so, when I was an exchange student at Princeton Day School, for his Senior Year in 1988. I had left the UK in the middle of a gap year, having just failed to get into Oxford again. I had recently split up with my first serious girlfriend (OK, she split up with me), and I was hoping that I could make a fresh start.

On the very first morning, John was at the heart of a group who welcomed me with open arms, not knowing anything about me except I was from England. I had never been at the centre of anything social at school, but he didn’t care for that. “Put the Zep on!” was the cry as we piled into Jamie’s car and fishtailed around the icy carpark, blasting into a snowdrift to a soundtrack of Robert Plant’s screams, John Bonham’s pounding drums and Jimmy Page’s electrifying riffs. This wasn’t like ‘A’ Levels.

Over the next few months, we shared some moments that come back to me clearly, even 21 years later. Midnight screenings of Rocky Horror, skipping classes to get ice cream from Thomas Sweet, multifarious parties and escapades. And yet while he certainly knew how to tear it up, he was also eloquent in a way few high school students can be. His words in my Yearbook resonate with me every time I revisit them.

This is our graduation day at PDS in June 1988.

Taylor Hwang, Courtney Shannon, John Mislow, Christian Friese, Winnie Roberts, Marc Collins, Chris Moody, Lily Wise, James Salkind

I fell out of contact with John only a few years after I left PDS, although through Facebook I have recently re-engaged with several classmates. They broke the news recently that he was killed, along with his long-time climbing partner, in a fall on Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak. He was a neurosurgeon, husband and father of two. His memorial site gives a better view of the man he had become, from the teenager I knew.

It’s clear John was hugely loved, admired and respected. I wish all his family and friends my deepest condolences. Part of me selfishly hopes I can look forward to such admiration. But that’s up to me now. I guess I have to earn it.

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All the clubs have been closed down…

I had just joined Barclays in 2000 when they launched their infamous BIG ad campaign, around the same time as they closed down nearly 200 local branches around the UK. Apart from the crass arrogance and appalling PR planning, they suffered because in many instances other High Street banks had already abandoned these small towns. Barclays was the scapegoat because they were the last to leave.

9 years on and Economies of Scale continue to impact upon communities. The decline of ‘local’ services under the relentless march of The Big 4 Supermarkets is well documented. Minor chains have been bought and sold, refitted and refurbished just trying to keep up.

We were recently in Kingsbridge in the gorgeous South Hams of Devon. The only real supermarket in the town was closed for a month as it changed brand from Somerfield to Morrisons. The town does have a couple of ‘extended’ convenience stores, but for a real family shop, the residents  (and indeed tourists like us) had to travel 25 minutes. At the same time there are mobility problems – bus services there can be infrequent and not especially convenient. Many of the fabulous beaches are only accessible by car as public transport was cut years ago.

Most of these sorts of decisions are made for solid rational reasons. But who looks after the towns when the banks or chemists or supermarkets leave? Who cares for the landscape when farmers go to the wall? There are huge knock-on effects that are rarely considered. And all this rational capitalism only serves to isolate and alienate communities (wow – I’m sounding a bit like Marx!).

Travel behemoth First Group had been running a social media experiment in Bath this year, to great acclaim from local travellers. But now, it seems that economic sense has got the better of them and they’re closing it down, as they create a regional customer services centre in Exeter. Nearly 70 miles away. So, really helpful for up-to-the-minute stuff like weather, traffic incidents, staff issues and so on…

People can be more connected than ever: social networks reunite long-lost friends across the world; cheaper phone tariffs make it easy to stay in touch; I can commentate on a Take That concert or The Apprentice as it happens. Yet businesses seem stuck in old models, isolated and insulated from the actual effects of their decisions on real people and communities.

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When I find myself in times of trouble…

I’m catching up on the first stunning series of Mad Men. About 15 minutes into Episode 1, the tremendous Don Draper declared to his tobacco client that

Advertising is about happiness…it’s the reassurance of driving past a billboard that tells you, whatever you’re doing, it’s OK.

When old faithfuls like cigarettes suddenly became dangerous, “it’s OK” could be a comfort. Brands are a comfort. They reassure the brain that they are a safe choice, like our primeval brains became hardwired to know that certain berries were tasty and others made us distinctly poorly.

Comforting advertising is all around us today. Brands are falling over themselves to remind how long they’ve been around, and how that makes them a friendly familiar in these times of trouble. Hovis was one of the first last year, and Persil have also done it:  beautifully made films, evoking history and our relationships with the brands, who hope to assert themselves as timeless, irreplaceable parts of the fabric of the nation. On the other hand, the gruesome crowing M&S ‘celebration’ ad must surely be the self-congratulatory nadir in the genre…

But is this conservative, reassuring nostalgia enough any more? Whispering ‘It’s OK’ softly in our ears is one thing. But aren’t those days gone? These adverts disconnect us from reality, harking back to the smell of Bird’s Custard on a Sunday lunchtime and making us feel better. But today is different.

The sepia glow of nostalgia can be stripped away far more easily these days. Hundreds of TV or radio channels and millions of websites provide the real context for our lives. Their existence has made us all too aware of the gulf between nostalgia and reality. Ideas, adverts, jokes, scams can all be communicated worldwide in seconds, which makes us more knowing, more aware, more marketing-savvy, more stimulated, challenged and challenging.

Advertising is about happiness. But more importantly it’s about relevance. It needs to resonate with today, indeed with this very moment. This doesn’t mean you can’t do ‘heritage’ advertising, but that history needs to have a purpose and a meaning for today.

Despite the bickering with M&S over who was first with avocados(!), I like the Sainsbury’s ad much more. It integrates their ‘Try Something New’ campaign as though it’s been at the heart of their business for decades, with issues that feel relevant today. A massive piece of post-rationalising maybe, but still very nicely done.

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I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not gonna take it any more…!

Nick Davies’ excellent Flat Earth News is a coruscating dissection of the state of the media today, uncovering poor fact-checking, little or no analysis, simply reporting what someone, anyone says. Then when that turns out to be BS, just report the opposite story later and pretend like the first article never happened. Kind of like Dory from Finding Nemo.

The latest example comes from The BBC. I’ve been getting slowly depressed about the state of BBC News (ridiculous TV graphics, sensationalist radio talkins), but this article on the website today just bugged me. “Puncturing the hype” of Twitter, it cites Harvard Business School research, as though this source is supposed to make us believe it unconditionally.

But the thing is, the BBC article massively oversimplifies the researchers’ original article. The Harvard blog never uses the word ‘hype’. It’s research, designed to understand and explain. But of course, that doesn’t make for a headline. So the BBC writer highlights a ‘quote’, citing the researchers, saying

Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends

But you see, the original article doesn’t say that. Rather more prosaically, it concludes

This implies that Twitter’s [sic] resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer publishing service.

Mmm, catchy.

It should come to no surprise to anyone with an ounce of understanding that a small core of Twitter users generate most of the ‘content’. Handfuls of web consultancies and bloggers create hundreds of posts every day, mostly just linking to each other. Media channels (like, er, the BBC) have multiple feeds for News, Sport, specific radio stations, all churning out ‘breaking’ stories. Every presenter has their own feed, broadcasting their show’s content. So the BBC is at least involved in this ‘hype’ it now seems so keen to puncture.

Of course lots of people sign up to Twitter and never come back. Pareto is a rule for a reason. Most brands and services have a core of loyal users who generate most of the sales. If only the BBC writer had bothered to think about that for a moment, or perhaps read and reflect the original research. But that’s too complicated. I don’t think the BBC News Team hate Twitter, I’m not even sure they care very much. They just need to write something, anything about it. And that bugs me.

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Let’s go fly a kite…

I love flying kites. A gentle tweak of the wrists for a tight spiralling turn, or diving vertiginously only to haul it back from the brink can be tremendous fun and extraordinarily satisfying. Flying from a beach, or hilltop or breezy common certainly makes you feel you truly are ‘up where the air is clear’.

In the final scenes of Mary Poppins, practically half of ole’ Lahndun Tahhn descends on the park and stands in a line, kite-strings stretching high into the bright blue sky. Everything is right with the world, families are united.

With tuppence for paper and strings, you can have your own set of wings.
With your feet on the ground, you’re a bird in flight! 

But, like the little girl with the little curl, when it’s good, it can be very very good. But when it’s bad, it’s horrid.

Launching a kite isn’t an easy thing to complete on your own, least of all if you’re only 6. Struts and strings have to be connected, assembled and untangled, and then there’s the business of actually getting it up in the air. This needs patience, and even then if the wind gusts in the Wrong Way, you won’t be sending your kite soaring so much as watching it stutter and fall to earth. After, say, 8 or 9 aborted flights, the attention span of many kids (and adults) has waned, especially when the recent promise of an icecream is still hanging in the air (unlike the kite).

So when this happens, as it did on our last excursion to Minchinhampton Common, don’t do as I did and persevere, hoping against hope that it will come good. When asked “why isn’t it working”, don’t reply through gritted teeth with barely-suppressed rage, just give it up. Put the kite down, sit on the grass and enjoy the icecream. That’s something all the family can enjoy.

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With fronds like these, who needs anemones?

Finding Nemo is a masterpiece. Not just a great family film, but a bona fide masterpiece. After the two Toy Storys, and Monsters, Inc., Pixar has already set the bar for animated films pretty high. Remember that at the turn of the century the core Disney studio was putting out stuff like The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear. Hardly all-time classics.

But Nemo is fantastic on any number of levels…

• Monsters, Inc. had a gimmick for the techie animation geeks. It did fur more realistically than ever before. In amidst all the slapstick and stunning action sequences, Sulley looks brilliant. But Nemo took this further with the most realistic depiction of underwater landscapes, motion and lighting there has ever been. From the reef to the fishtank, from the EAC to Sydney Harbour, each environment has its own rules and feel.
• The plot is brilliantly simple, and appeals to our most fundamental basic humanity. A bereaved and over-protective father loses his son, and sets out to get him back. This purpose gives the film both narrative drive, but more importantly, it resonates emotionally with us far more than many more recent animated blockbusters, like the utterly forgettable Monsters vs Aliens and Kung Fu Panda.
• There is real humanity and depth to every character that Marlin encounters in his quest. From the sharks to the community in the fishtank, the turtles to the pelicans. Even the ‘collective’ shoal of tuna (voiced by the excellent John Ratzenberger) have more personality than many newer characters driven more by merchandise potential…
• The voice work is uniformly brilliant. Albert Brooks and Ellen Degeneres are perfect, Willem Defoe is inspired casting as Gill, Allison Janney as Peach the starfish, Barry Humphries as Bruce (a shark in remission) and Geoffrey Rush as Nigel the Pelican. There’s never a sense of showboating ‘star’ performances, like Seth Rogen, or Robin Williams.
• The writing is sensational. Every scene is terrific and there are truly hilarious lines from start to finish

Shark bait woo ha ha!

Don’t hurl on the shell, dude – just waxed it

And I know funny.  I”m a clown fish!

Fish are friends, not food

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…

We did it, we did it, there’ll be no eating here tonight, no eating here tonight, you’re on a di-et…

First you were all like “whoa”, and we were like “whoa”, and you were like “whoa…

That’s the shortest red light I’ve ever seen!

All this makes Nemo charming, laugh-out-loud funny, breathtaking, exc iting, touching, memorable, and eminently rewatchable. I should know, I’ve probably seen it more than 30 times… good job my kids like it too!

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And I used to fly like Peter Pan…

Last week in Devon I had my first surfing lesson, with the excellent team at Discovery Surf at Bigbury. I was lucky to have a private session, as alongside me in the waves were a class of schoolkids on half term, all of them better than me. Or at least that’s how it felt.

Surfing is terrific fun, even if you’re rubbish, like me. A useful pointer to men-of-a-certain-age thinking they might have a go would be: lie down in a prone press-up position. Now stand up as smoothly and quickly as you can. How was it? If it’s not easy on the solid floor, it’s not going to be easy on a floating board. I’m about as flexible as a surfboard, so while I did manage a few very brief moments of success, I was mostly in, rather than on, the water.

Surfing also hurts. It used muscles I wasn’t really aware of before. And it made me feel just a bit old. I was creaking and cracking, and realised that I don’t like learning. More pointedly, I don’t like being shit at stuff.

I have forgotten how to be a beginner. We talk about comfort zones and shy away from new experiences, but it’s more than that. We forget how to learn things, right from the start, how to be unconsciously incompetent. I knew standing up smoothly was going to be my downfall (and I was right, constantly). And that affected my commitment, technique, everything. The children had no preconceptions: they might fall off and swallow a load of water, but they didn’t have the concept of ‘can’t’. The instructors were telling them what to do, how and when to move, and if they did it, there was a fair chance they would stand up and glide across the surf. Why wouldn’t there be?

I, on the other hand, was filled with doubt. I have no physical memories of surfing, so it’s not like re-learning a skill. Last week I also read Jasper Rees’ entertaining “I Found My Horn”, in which he retells his year-long rediscovery of the French Horn. As a horn-player myself I liked it a lot and I must practise more(!), but it’s a whole different game from being a complete novice. I’m a decent player, but I have a massive fear of learning piano, something my young daughter is doing pretty well.

All because I need to learn how to learn again. Comfort Zones are simply places we can easily relate to previous experiences. We construct a framework of references, so even if the task is challenging, we mentally and physically perceive it against something from our past, something we’re good at. Truly emerging from a comfort zone means setting aside your experiences, not trying to categorise or classify stuff, and just being there. Try to be like a child. What would they do?

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