Surrealism
30/9/2009
As you might know, my college Choir have just returned from touring Hong Kong (if you're interested, you can also check out my photos from the tour). It's been a wonderful week, and I think we performed pretty well, but I'd like to take you through the steps that made it one of the most surreal weeks of my life, starting some months ago when it was first announced:
- It's Hong Kong! - this, if nothing else, was a pretty big deal; recent tours have been to Spain, Italy, and the like. To go across continents was a big deal.
- 4-star hotel! - or possibly 5, we never quite found out for sure, but it was certainly rather more than anywhere I'd imagined going before... The sort of place where your bags magically arrive in your room without you having seen them since the airport, and the carpets are as deep as your feet.
- It's free! - OK that's really very unlikely... not only are we going somewhere more exotic than usual, but we're not paying a penny.
- Performing with Li Yundi and Yang Peyei (the kid who actually sang at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony); Niu Niu, another child prodigy, was added to the bill later, too.
- Broadcast. The show hasn't gone out yet, but our big concert was recorded by RTHK, and will be being beamed across south east asia shortly. Not something I'm used to... But I think it's the small touches that are the least likely.
- 10 Star banquet. After the big concert on our final night in HK, there was a slap up dinner cooked by two five-star chefs... As it turned out the choir didn't get that dinner, so a near miss there, but it did happen. And it was so important that:
- Roads closed. Such a dinner can't be kept waiting, so the HK police force closed the roads between the concert hall and the hotel where the dinner was happening so the cream of society, who'd paid so much for their evening, would not be inconvenienced or arrive to a cold starter.
- What seemed to me one of the oddest things, given it's distance from what I can count as my normal life, was the night that we were taken clubbing by Adrian, the son of Michelle, the lady who organised everything (and paid for much of it). We ended up in Dragon-I which, I'm told, is the most exclusive club in Hong Kong, haunt of such folk as Rihanna, David Beckham, Naomi Campbell, Sting, Boy George, Coldplay, Jackie Chan... And of course given magnums of free champagne (the prices of which were solely listed in the thousands of dollars, or hundreds of pounds).
- As a final touch, I'd like to tell you about the 60kg of excess baggage we were going to bring back to the UK, at Michelle's request. Her two children are at Robinson, so one might expect it to be some of their stuff for the new year, but no. I don't believe you'd ever guess if I gave you 'til the sun burns out. It was in fact the stand and mould for a chocolate model of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Of course.
On the night of the final concert we were considering how the week could get any more surreal, and it was suggested to me that one possibility would be if we were all dressed as the beatles, from their Sgt Pepper phase. Ridiculous, you say? Oh no, it was a very real suggestion made during the planning phases of the concert... I've done some weird things in my life, but few have been less likely than the last week. Now off for a new year, to do it all over again in Cambridge, the town where unlikely grows...
Wayne Rooney is underpaid
17/9/2009
I've been considering the analogy, fairly widely accepted I think, that sportsmen are the "warriors" in modern society. One can see all the reasons why this analogy is made - they're proud, competitive, ritualistic - but I don't think I've ever really thought about the implications of this.
I am, as most of you will know, no fan of football, and would never have considered saying this before, but if football is (as can logically be argued on this basis) a key factor in the maintaining peace in Europe, then Rooney's $20 million a year is, frankly, very reasonable. The old cliché that "you can't put a price on human life" may be entirely falacious (cost-benefit analysts do it every day), but that's not to say it's not hugely valuable. My own CBA would put a single life above $20 million, tho I don't imagine that's industry standard ;-)
This idea should also be applied to the question of sport-related violence (I don't think the term "football hooliganism" really works - not just because it only applies to football, but also because it seems to be more meaningful than the senseless destruction "hooliganism" implies). If one sees one's replacement warriors failing, it's only natural to want to engage in the warfare oneself. Add to that the urge to physically defend the individuals who have this "warrior" baggage when they're in danger of defeat, and then take away any obvious way of doing so, and it's not hard to explain the outbreaks of violence that have followed sports people care passionately about. Indeed, it seems to me quite impressive that such violence is so rare...
I don't know if I've really learnt anything from these thoughts, or come up with any new ideas, but it's a perspective that interests me. Any thoughts?
Site stewarding
1/9/2009
I don't know quite what the essence of it is, but these girls quite clearly get it... whatever "it" is:
Maybe that makes no sense out of context, or if you're not a greenbelt steward yourself. But I've got to say that there was nothing that brought such a smile to my face this greenbelt as realising that other people really do see what I see in our job, and love what I love.