Back to its roots

Just when it seemed I had forgotten, the topic of the street we live on returns (cue shark attack music from jaws). As the photo shows, they've decided to resurface it. Compared to some roads I have to drive on, ours didn't seem to be in too bad a state. But it's going to be a nice, new, shiny surface in a couple of days.
Going by my previous experience of these things, it will only take a couple a weeks until the gas, water, electricity or phone company realise they have to dig a big hole in it for one reason or another.

In memory of a wonderful man

I met Patrick Bashford (1929-2011) when I started to learn classical guitar at school. The love of the instrument that he expressed was an inspiration to me from the first lesson. As I became a more competent player, I realised that as much as he loved the guitar, his real devotion was to musical expression, and that he would never be satisfied by mere correct playing of the notes; he would encourage each student to discover an interpretation that balanced musical understanding and emotional content. He started me off as a teacher of classical guitar by suggesting  I take over some of his duties when the popularity of the instrument in the early 1970s led to a surge in demand for guitar lessons. I had always been aware that he had a great gift for teaching, but at this stage I was able to appreciate how creative his approach was. When we discussed a technical problem that a student was experiencing, he would delight in exploring that difficulty and coming up with a unique exercise that addressed it. Sometimes these exercise were of such worth that they were incorporated into the general programme for all students, while others were so specifically tuned to a particular problem that they would only get used to overcome that particular stumbling block.

I was privileged to be able to get to know Patrick well enough to count him as a friend as well as a teacher and colleague. He was warm and generous, had incredible charisma and masses of charm. He threw open the door to music for me, and, through his decency, kindness and humanity, also taught me a huge amount about life and how to live it.

Tribute to John Cage

After my last post I was going to keep the political theme going but then . . .

. . . while on the way to my morning coffee, I passed a gallery where the bright sunlight was producing an image of the other side the street on a glossy black chair. The chance combination of this natural phenomenon and the (unrelated) arrow on the wall struck me as more interesting than any of the works on display.

Democracy

I went to a meeting at the House of Commons yesterday. It was arranged by Unlock Democracy on the topic of reform of the House of Lords. The most impressive speaker was Paul Tyler who is in action in the photo below. He's in the House of Lords but is a democrat of such conviction that he sees that it needs to be reformed into an elected body.

While I also see the need for reform, and would love to see a totally elected body, I came away more convinced than ever that the party system is real problem with our democracy. Unless we fix that we'll have a second chamber of self-servers (sorry Lord Tyler - you are one of the few exceptions) and very little chance for independent voices to be heard.