And more divine song again!

I have been blessed with being invited to yet  another heavenly performance: Yesterday it was the first time  that The Royal Opera House opened its doors again since March, allowing first and second year students of  their Jette Parker Young Artists Programme to perform French, Italian and Russian songs - Liszt Poulenc, Strauss, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky ...

Dear David took me and we had the best seats in the Linbury Theatre downstairs at the ROH- but then David is of course a Music Critic Extraordinaire and here is his revue: 

https://www.theartsdesk.com/opera/meet-young-artists-week-recital-linbury-theatre-%E2%80%93-four-big-personalities

I was childishly thrilled and proud to see that he took one of my suggestions on board-I am not an opera aficionado and normally don't have anything interesting to contribute-I am just happy to tag along... but this time  I thought the  Russian mezzo/contralto Kseniia Nikolaieva (above) was full of drama and had the look and sound of Azucena  in Il Trovatore and said so to David. And  he wrote in his revue:  "Hers is a big voice unleashed with enough power to tell us that with careful handling she will undoubtedly go where her compatriots Olga Borodina and Ekaterina Semenchuk have already trod, in roles with very specific voice-type requirements like Verdi’s Azucena in Il trovatore." (!!!)

                                

And meanwhile, back in Mali, another sort of song takes place as Maouloud has once more been celebrated. The festival commemorating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed  is the most important of all in  Djenne and I was often invited to the Fatias, or the Koran recitations held by the great Djenne families which I knew through the Manuscript Library. Sometimes the melodious chanting would carry on all night and  would hear it drifting across from the many Koran schools in town as I lay under the mosquito net in the warm night...

The Last and the First...

...visit to the English National Opera at London's Coliseum- that is to say: on the 14th of March I went to see the 'Mariage of Figaro' there with a happy little group of friends. We did not know that that was the very last evening such things were possible. It was the very last normal day in London before everything locked down.

And on this Saturday, the 24th of October the Coliseum opened its doors once more, and I was there again with my old Swedish friend Pia  for this first performance - 'socially distanced'  of course with only about one third of the seats available and filled. And once more it was Mozart- a performance  from  Opera students singing a selection of famous arias - the love duets at a safe distance...Nevermind that. The grateful audience was  loving being there again. The enthusiasm was infectious and the bravo's, clapping and whistling made it all sound like La Scala Milan.  

God knows we all want some reason to clap and cheer now as the light is fading and the temperature is sinking while the Covid count is rising and Pandemic fatigue is settling down on London.

But life carries on regardless in it inexorable way and the habits that have taken hold in during these strange months continue- such as my Chess Sundays with my friend Ralf from the German embassy- he kindly lets me practice my German on him, but he is less kind when it comes to the chess and does not let me win very often. Here is last Sunday's game, black to move. I am white and I have got him on the ropes for once- to be continued next Sunday.

And the walks continue- now the winter clothes have once more made their appearance as the year is turning towards its close. We started walking in March and we still continue to walk. I wonder how many hundreds of miles up and down and around the streets and Parks of London...?

Dreams and plans of moving to warmer climes or to the country still figure but nothing is decided yet- I have put my flat on the market but I am beset by feelings of uncertainty and a the future is just a huge question mark. Nevermind. I guess it will be OK. Or will it?
 

Good News, Duncan, and Little Venice.

First of all, we have probably all heard the very good news from Mali, where finally Soumi (Soumaila Cisse, three time Presidential Candidate) has been released from captivity where he has languished since last March, when he was kidnapped by Jihadists in the region of Nianfounke. At the same time Sophie Petronin, a French aid worker kidnapped in Gao in 2016 was also released. This was accomplished by the new interim government, showing some muscle. It did cost them in the region of 100 Jihadi prisoners in the exchange however... these have now been let lose in the North once more, and can be expected to cause further mayhem...

Other good Mali news includes the lifting of sanctions against Mali by the neighbouring ECOWAS countries who have recognized the fact that the Junta leaders have conformed to demands:  there is now a civilian interim  president, Bah Ndaw, while the coup leader Assimi Goita has contented himself with a second position as the vice-president. In addition, the transition will take 18 months rather than the 3 years first proposed.

And moving on to Europe and other matters altogether, I was most intrigued to read in the Guardian yesterday morning that a large treasure of homo-erotic drawings by Duncan Grant have been handed over  to the  Charleston Trust. These drawings were supposedly kept under a bed for decades, out of view because of their 'private nature'. The picture below illustrates one of the drawings shown in the Guardian. There was also another, which involved four men- it was more explicit in that it showed erections.  It was quite a beautiful drawing in its composition, but it was very  difficult and intriguing to try and understand what was going on...

And this morning I read the same story in Svenska Dagbladet, which is my Swedish daily. I giggled a little, and was surprised that they had decided, coyly, to represent the drawings only by  a picture of three pillows! Presumably illustrating the fact that they were supposed to have been hidden under a bed... I mean, when I looked into it I found that even the Daily Mail had been able to show something of the drawings- albeit the top part of the men only...

 Now I decided to check back to what had been in the Guardian yesterday, and found, to my chagrin, that the athletic and intriguing orgy had been removed. So even the Guardian had been the victim of some censorship it appears...

I have always loved Duncan Grant's work  and I am the lucky owner of this  small drawing below. 

And meanwhile autumn is painting its warmth in the brilliance of the trees while the temperature is sinking elsewhere and  blue skies are infrequent...

I keep walking, and walking....

 

A Scam

 This self isolation is having an effect. I am beginning to have feelings quite rare to me. For instance, I am wondering whether life would be worth living if one is totally on one's own? The answer I come up with is a resounding NO. 

The interesting thing is that  when one feels really alone one often doesn't have the wish to contact anyone either- it is as if the batteries of life have run too low and there is not enough 'juice' left to ring anyone. 

And I don't really sleep very well- therefore I finally fell asleep about four o'clock this morning. At nine o'clock I was awoken by a phone call. A man with a strong Asian accent which made it quite difficult to understand him told me that he was calling on behalf of the HMRC Tax Office. He was seemingly calling from a call centre because there was a lot of noise in the back ground. He said that I had been under a random investigation by the HMRC during the last few months and that my tax contributions had been found to be fraudulent. He continued by saying that the phone call was directly connected to the police who were listening in. 

Maybe I should have  realized immediately that it was a scam and  just put the phone down, but it was somehow convincing for a little while- maybe because I had just woken up and not yet gathered my wits about me.  He proceeded to list the 4 charges levelled against me: 

1. Count 1: "Violation of HMRC code"

2. Count 2: "Violation of Her Majesty's Gov. Regulations"

3. "Tapped by Decaption"-( It was virtually impossible to hear what he was saying so I might have got this wrong.)

4. " Wilful Misrepresentation to Government Organization".

The government was giving me a chance to get out of this if I cooperated.  I owed  them  £1280. I objected and said I did not believe that the HMRC would use these kind of  tactics and that normally they would send me a letter notifying me that there was a problem and explaining how I could resolve it. He said that procedures had been sharpened and changed because of the Corona Virus crisis and these were extreme measure that were now necessary. ( He made this sound convincing somehow.) If I did not comply the government would freeze my bank account, I would have my passport confiscated and I would "have a black flag against my name". 

All of this was by now beginning to sound increasingly fishy, as I was regaining full consciousness. 

" So you mean that I have to pay you £1280 right now, without even understanding the charges levelled against me?" He replied that it was not about the money, but he was offering me a chance to escape being black listed and even arrested. I said " I don't believe you". He replied" the police is listening in and an officer will be arriving at your address within 45 minutes to arrest you". I said "Fine, let him do that" and put the phone down. Then I phoned the police. They told me it was a very common scam, and that it had been going for years. It had been particularly successful recently, as people believed that the Covid 19 had really somehow altered the normal procedures.

That is probably the most exciting thing that will happen today. At least I sincerely hope so.

Tomorrow I can start living a normal life again, maybe for a few days? Until they close us all down again. 

I will just have sustain myself by thinking  of happier days- here just two weeks ago in the hills of Bamako with Swedish Eira and Jakarta, Karen's dog.