Lesley is here now - Message Board

Yes, thank you, Gary, it was good. The biggest thing was the concert in Ampthill on Saturday. The town orchestra played
- Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
- Grieg - Piano Concert
- Beethoven - "Eroica"

He mended a couple of things and we made a trip to the tip and one to the Heart Foundation shop... and we had lots to eat. :)

It was odd, after all the years of school and local orchestras where I knew most of the people, to go to college concerts and hardly know anyone. On Saturday there were people we both knew, and there will be more in mid-December, when he comes back to play in his old school's Christmas concert.

He came back two years ago, when the headmaster was retiring, and said he'd hung on deliberately to be there for the concert, and the music dept invited old boys to come back and sing or play. Or both. They got 22, which wasn't bad, considering how many will be too busy, too far away, too rusty, or just not interested. It's quite striking, however grown-up the sixth-formers think they are, to hear the difference a few male voices in their twenties make to the school choir.

This year, it's the head of music technology (as well as being deputy head of the music department), who's going to be head of music at an international school in India. Jonathan's been talking to a schoolfriend, who has just dusted his cello off for the first time in five years. (Jonathan hasn't put his violin down for long enough to gather dust.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There's a big article about my Alexander teacher in the local rag, and a six-minute video of her, with a journalist, on the paper's website. Fame at last! That's probably as exciting as it gets.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My favourite supermarket has triumphed again...

Had another little encounter with the woman who occasionally (thank goodness) appears on the customer "service" desk, the same one who stared into infinity while letting me talk, and pretending to listen, then asked me to write it all down "in this ledger" which she opened at 29.5.10 - nearly 18 months ago.

I spotted a product I hadn't expected to see, and asked her if it would be a regular line. She turned the package round and stared into her monitor for ten minutes. At last, she pronounced it a new and permanent stock item. The screen doesn't show any delivery dates, which proves that it's permanent. (Huh?) So I checked with the careline, and got the answer I'd expected in the first place: it's come in by accident, and the lack of delivery dates means that it isn't coming in again.

I've put in two requests: one for this product to be stocked regularly, and the other request for this woman to do her job properly, or put back in the office where she may do less harm.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The other little triumph was related to my loyalty card. I have a friend/neighbour who seems to get a constant supply of vouchers offering her £5 or £7 or £10 off a minimum spend of £50. I get double points. I'd rather have the money!

One suggestion was that I would get incentives like these if I went there less often. OK, but she goes there more often than I do, and she spends more.

Another suggestion was that I hadn't "registered" the card. I'm sure I have. Whenever I phone them up, they ask about the card, and there's a record of it. Perhaps then, when I registered, I said I didn't want offers and promotions.

At last, I got round to asking. Yes the card is registered, and yes they've been sending me vouchers. The only problem is, they've been sending them to the wrong address. They've left the final digit off my house number.

So, for months or years, all my money off stuff has been going to a house at the bottom of the road?
"Yes."
And whoever's been getting them has probably been using them?
"Yes."
Isn't that fraud?
"Yes."

Don't you just love phoning call centres?

Reply #4121. Nov 14 11, 1:04 PM

wow i love it when you get the bit between your teeth, i hate it a lot and think its bad that supermarkets are so inept.

I got my first xmas present to me today the Phantom of the opera DVD thats being heavily advertised on TV. I not had a chance to watch it yet need 2 hrs to enjoy it, Does have the phantom i saw in London. Still haveOne more crhristmas present to myself to come Alfie Boe's new cd.

On christmas front all my presents are bought and paid for just need to wrapthe last few pieces, then i am done.

Reply #4122. Nov 14 11, 1:35 PM

Is it my imagination, or are you exceptionally easy to buy presents for? Well done on being so organised!

Reply #4123. Nov 14 11, 1:46 PM

Not really Lesley have had a few rows about presents, My mum iss in no postion to get presents really so have said there is nothing i need or want, same been said to my friend in scotland.

I am a giver rather then a reciever.

Reply #4124. Nov 14 11, 1:59 PM

We're not bothered about the significance of the day, but Jonathan has always based here during the Christmas holidays. Not this year, it seems. His girlfriend's parents have invited him for Christmas. Oh really? When? A couple of weeks ago. And what about me? What about me! I don't suppose for one moment that he thought I usually spend most of the holidays with my mother, and it's obvious that her family forget I exist when they're making plans. Or perhaps they remember only too well!

Reply #4125. Nov 14 11, 2:35 PM

Had a chance to discuss it for a few minutes, when he wasn't dashing in and out of shops... he reminded me that he spends as much free time as pos in Bedford, and apparently they asked him what he normally does, and would he like to join them for the day... it's only one day, it's not the whole week. Sounds better, doesn't it?

Reply #4126. Nov 14 11, 3:09 PM

I need to think before i comment Lelsy, off to bed now.

Reply #4127. Nov 14 11, 4:26 PM

Sleep well. I'll be off soon too. Night. :)

Reply #4128. Nov 14 11, 5:21 PM

That's a coincidence, I went to a concert (rock) in Ampthill Town Hall half a lifetime ago, I presume you were in the same venue as there isn't a lot more there. I went to one in Luton shul as well (rock again) even longer ago. Same paths at different times, from SPEC onwards.

Reply #4129. Nov 14 11, 5:36 PM

This one wasn't in the town hall, it was in an Upper school - perhaps schools are more amenable to multiple rentals for rehearsals before the concert - and cheaper.

The frum shul burnt down a few years ago. :(

Reply #4130. Nov 14 11, 5:58 PM

trojan11

Grieg's piano concerto - Beethoven's Eroica. Wonderful.
I have never been inside a synagogue but I have entered a couple of mosques in North Africa. The acoustics there lent themselves splendidly to music. Is a synagogue the same, high ceiling and spread walls?
Did the school's acoustics do the music and orchestra justice, or was it all sort of muffled. Oh, it doesn't matter, as long as you both had a nice time.

Reply #4131. Nov 14 11, 7:19 PM

The synagogue concerts are usually held in the hall rather than the place of worship itself, but as there's a choir there and most are large open halls with balconies then the acoustics are pretty good, and most of the service is sung by the cantor as well with the choir joining in, so each service is a concert as well.

Pity about Luton shul, I went around 1978 and it was a disco in the hall (not very big) with a very good live band. We took the coach from Stanmore. Not that it was a wonderful building from the little I could see at night but better than what they don't have now.

Reply #4132. Nov 14 11, 8:02 PM

I've been inside a few synagogues, and they're all different.

Musician's considered opinion on the hall: "Oh, like any school hall. Wouldn't work with a bigger orchestra."

I enjoyed the Grieg (soloist from the Royal College of Music) and the Beethoven. Not sure why they added the Brahms. Never sure why anyone plays it - wasn't once enough?

Reply #4133. Nov 15 11, 4:12 AM

I've mainly been in the traditional ones myself, Kinloss, Dunstan Road, Muswell Hill etc, which are variations on the theme, but of course anywhere there's a minion there can be a service, but I always get a mental picture of the traditional style when I think of one as it's what I remember. Except it's been 9 years since the last time...

Reply #4134. Nov 15 11, 11:40 AM

There are probably as many services in stiebls as there are in shuls.

Did something significant happen nine years ago?

Reply #4135. Nov 15 11, 12:54 PM

I'll say, one of my friends got married in Dunstan Road, a very nice service and one of my favourite shuls. Weddings are the short ones which don't last long enough for the absolute tedium to kick in that normally does after half an hour or so for me. She's kicked him out since for another man, after having two children, and had been married before which is never a good sign for new victims. It also had the woman I mentioned there who emigrated over ten years earlier, looked just as good and seemed a shell of her former self after getting married herself some years earlier, although he had not come with her. It was ironic looking at her across the hall for the service wishing it was us on the bimah instead.

Reply #4136. Nov 15 11, 1:47 PM

That must have been hard to watch. Is that what put you off, or have you simply not had cause to go in one again?

Don't most women look like shells after they've been married for a while?

Reply #4137. Nov 15 11, 4:03 PM

time for bed just listening to radio 2's tribute to phantom very good programme with lots of facts.

Nite Lesley

Reply #4138. Nov 15 11, 4:41 PM

I rarely have cause to go to shul otherwise- the usual weekly service besides being in the morning goes on far too long for me, so just the evening one if I ever wanted to pop in to keep up, and not many places do those nowadays. The woman looked the same but seemed to have lost all her get up and go and seemed totally drained when I spoke to her, quite unlike who she used to be as I saw her quite a few times since when she came to visit (with her boyfriend mind you). One more for the dustbin of history...

Reply #4139. Nov 15 11, 5:05 PM