Birmingham Rejuvenated

I went up to Birmingham on Sunday. I had been invited to an organ recital in the Town Hall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of my friend Thomas Trotter becoming the City Organist. I first came across TT in 1987 when I was doing Crossroads (just down the road from the Town Hall in the…

Downturn for the Abbey

We watched the last two episodes of Downton back to back last night. The only way to watch the programme is via a recording so that you can fast forward through the interminable adverts. The scripts for the fourth series are better than for the third which were better than the ludicrous second, but goodness…

THIS MONTH’S PARODY (Oct 13) Cautionary Tales

Cautionary TalesĀ for Children: Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years is a 1907 children’s book written by Hilaire Belloc. There is a long tradition of ‘Naughty Children’ verses designed to terrify youngsters, the grand-daddy of them being the rather too frightening German collection Struwwelpeter. Belloc’s are far more…

Fiddling about

I’m generally a fairly sanguine chap but occasionally I read something that makes my blood boil. The excellent BBC Music Magazine has just published another of its Greatest of All Time polls. These polls always cause controversy and passion – it’s their raison d’etre – but they do provide a bit of harmless fun and…

The Art of Dubbing

There was a really excellent documentary on the telly box the other night, a BBC4 survey of how major film stars have had their singing voices dubbed over the years. The most famous exponent of the art is Marni Nixon (still with us at 83) providing Deborah Kerr’s singing voice for The King and I,…