MaW’s Blog

Well it is according to this BBC News article. I can see where it’s coming from, as I certainly don’t feel like I had any say in the election of the current government. I voted, sure, and I voted for someone else, but what good did it do me? Nothing at all, as they continue to come up with and pass ridiculous laws and stupid policies (alongside the occasional good ones, I must give them that).

According to the article, the report on which it is reporting suggests that power needs to shift away from ministers to MPs, and from central to local government. Sounds good to me. We’re supposed to be a parliamentary system, so the continual emphasis on the Prime Minister and what the Prime Minister wants and the surprise evident in the reporting when he doesn’t get it mystifies me. The Prime Minister is not a dictator, not an emperor, most certainly not the King. I’m leaning quite heavily toward the notion that banning political parties might be a good move. Or at least banning party policies that force MPs to vote with the party line. Let each MP vote according to the best interests of his or her constituents, the people who in some way voted for him or her. Let each MP be more involved in his or her local constituency. Let it be felt that writing to my MP will actually get me some attention, that he or she will take notice of my opinion.

It also recommends a 70% elected House of Lords. That scares me in a way. If not done right, it could just be a puppet rubber-stamping chamber that approves everything the Commons vomit up to them. An elected House of Lords would have to be carefully separate from the Commons, their priorities different, their campaigning and affiliation nothing to do with the government. Perhaps we could supplement it with a randomly-selected sample of voters (well almost random, in some sense representative of the country as a whole, so drawn from the entire country and from a variety of backgrounds and communities), who are picked for say a year, and during that time are required to (and compensated for) weigh in on Acts which are about to be passed, giving extra opinion to be heard in the Lords’ debate on the subject. That would offer a direct line between the people and the upper chamber, but perhaps it wouldn’t work in practice.

Pipe dreams? Bit like true democracy itself, but if we’re going to be a representative democracy, can we at least feel like the people in charge represent us?

Another rambling random idea comes to me. Continue to have MPs for constituencies, but also have MPs for groups. They’d draw their support from votes nationwide, and sit in the Commons or maybe the Lords, or possibly both, representing issues or groups or causes which are particularly important to the voters at the time. Might be tricky to set it up right, but it could cause an interesting shift in the power structure.

Anything to stop the impression that Tony Blair can do whatever he wants and Parliament will automatically approve it. That idea is dangerous and needs to be stopped immediately.

The TV series, that is.

1. In the USA during the Second World War, approximately 5% of the population were Nazi agents, well-organised and in constant contact with Germany.
2. Said agents had little difficulty travelling back and forth between the USA and Germany.
3. All such agents have excellent American accents, but very poor German ones.
4. A person sitting in a transparent aeroplane is impossible to see while in flight, for some reason.

So the concert was yesterday. It went well! Much better than last time.

We kicked off with the recorders playing the six-part Courtly Masquing Ayres by John Adson. Nice tunes, but they could have done with a bit more polish from people, as I felt it sounded a little weak and uncertain, particularly at the start of each piece and at the time change (both of them go into triple time about halfway through). So we got a polite applause for that, then there was a much bigger applause for the viol consort, because they were much better.

Then it was back to the recorders for William Byrd’s six-part Fantasie number 2. I’ve been stressing about this piece for months, and consequently I’d practised it to death and then some more after employing the services of a necromancer. I’d also sought advice on it during recorder lessons (the benefit of having a teacher who’s also the musical director of the ensemble). As a result of all this effort I’d actually learned to play it sort of properly, and I don’t recall making any mistakes during the performance of that piece. Evidently everyone else did okay as well, because it sounded better than any rehearsal we’d done of it, and we got an excellent reception from the audience.

After that epic piece (okay so it’s not really all that long, but it’s certainly the longest piece I’ve ever performed), it was the turn of the baroque string group, who played a couple of interesting pieces, and then Kendra and Wendy did a viol duet. Then everyone on stage again for the final piece: Giovanni Gabrielli’s Sonata Pian E Forte. Reputed to be one of the first pieces of music written with dynamic markings, it’s arranged for two choirs of four parts each, so we had the strings as choir two, and the recorders as choir one, with the organ providing a continuo part.

Now, it’s very hard to do dynamics right on a recorder, because the only really feasible way to make it louder or softer is to blow harder or more softly. Unfortunately this also alters the tuning, so one has a very limited range in which to work before you just sound out of tune. Still, it came out well — particularly since most of us had only seen the piece for the first time three weeks ago.

I’m actually looking forward to the next one now.

So here it is: the second lunchtime concert in which I’m expected to play. We’ve got a nice selection of music to perform in a number of configurations, but I’m still incredibly nervous. Hopefully some of that will wear off during rehearsal amidst the simple concentration of actually playing.

In fact, that may be the most valuable part of the rehearsal. I’ll post more later when it’s all over.

I wandered into the Co-op after my recorder lesson last night looking vaguely for something to have for dinner, as I’d not really made any plans and dislike doing rapid defrosts in the microwave of things which I forgot to get out earlier. The Chinese takeaway is closed on Tuesdays, so I was saved from that particular vice at least.

Now the Co-op have a reasonably-sized chiller cabinet full of ready meals, and another one that’s usually pretty devoid of uncooked meat and fish products, because their selection is typically terrible. Imagine my surprise when I found there some very nice-looking packs of sirloin steak (British, too) for a slight reduction in price. Okay so it’s still not cheap, but I’ve not had steak for ages…

Five minutes later the steak was mine (and an 8 for 6 pack of cans of Coca-Cola, a weakness I should probably do something about). Ten minutes after that I was home, and spent the next forty-five minutes or so battling with the SNS connection, which has switched to a new billing system and thus needed complete re-registration, required the installation of anti-virus and anti-spyware software and generally made itself a pain. I should’ve registered from Linux, it might have given me less hassle that way.

So eventually I made it into the kitchen, put one of the two steaks in the pack in the freezer for another day, and stuck the other one in my wonderful frying pan, which had been heated until rather hot. No oil necessary. Just put it in and leave it for a number of minutes, turn it over, leave it for another number of minutes, then remove it to a warm place to rest. The number of minutes of course depends on how bleeding you like your steaks (please don’t think I’m trying to tell you how to cook a steak, no doubt all my readers already know. I’m just telling you how I did it for the purposes of documentation). I was aiming for slightly pink, which is my usual preference, but by the time I’d finished cooking some onions in the pan (exploiting the juices which leaked out of the steak after it had rested for a little for extra flavour) and toasting a couple of rolls drizzled with olive oil, the steak was rather less pink than intended. Not steak and chips I know, but I don’t have a deep fat fryer. Or any potatoes, for that matter.

And there I had it. The steak had gone just past pink and was the very very earliest stage of being brown all the way through, but it was still surprisingly tender and generally extremely fantastic. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the other piece, but I suspect it might be something similar, although it may also involve the creation of a sauce. I’m quite keen on expanding my sauce-making skills.

Does anybody know any good sauces to have with steak that don’t involve cream? I’m not a huge fan of creamy sauces, but the real reason to avoid it is that it’s a pain to get cream and keep it in the fridge, which has these days virtually no space for me at all.

Speaking of that, does anybody know how much little fridges are?