Yup, recognised this one

"If you find your partner irritating and can’t resist constantly picking them up on their habits then the writing is on the wall. Relationships require empathy, compassion and compromise to keep going, so if you’ve jacked all that in in favour of snapping and bickering it’s time to get out of there." Pity I didn't know that symptom when my (now ex-)wife started doing this. Here's the link.

A Tweet that struck close to home

Read this today, and thought it could have been about me and how my ex-wife, through a barrage of insistence that I wasn't socially normal, ended our marriage:

@PinkWaferBelle depersonalizes, creates confusion, doubt and self-loathing

— kim moore (@floellaella) December 28, 2013

Caliban awakes

I don't know if any other male of a certain age sometimes feels as if they were Caliban. I used to be a stage hand for a very good amateur ballet company, which included a ballet, The Infanta's Birthday, based on Oscar Wilde's tale and set to Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole. I first saw that ballet as a member of the audience when I was about nine: the costumes were after Velázquez's famous picture of a young Infanta "Las Meninas":

I was a little too young, or a little too naïve, to realize that the Infanta was meant to be a pretty but horrid, spoiled and heartless child. I just was deeply moved by the hunchback who fell in love with her, wished to dance for her, only to discover for the first time his own hideousness when he waits for her and sees himself in a mirror. He dashes himself to death. When the Infanta and her courtiers discover his body, she stamps in frustration that he is no longer alive. On being told he has died of a broken heart, she insists that no one may come to entertain her who has a heart.

Years later I became a stage hand for that company. It was hard work, and I had little time to dream. Yet there was one dancer who spent time talking with me when the company was on tour. I was flattered by her attention, but I imagined it was just friendliness on her part. Meanwhile the music had insinuated itself in me in ways I did not fully appreciate.

Hearing Rapsodie espagnole again today for the first time in ages stirred memories - Calibanesque memories: the kind where he longs for a hedonistic existence of being stroked, of hearing music, and of the promise of bliss with young maidens. I guess there was something of Caliban in me in my teens - and his spirit revives when I hear that music. Yes, I know it sounds creepy to say so - but I suspect there must be others who feel this way from time to time.

Barenboim's speech about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Last Friday (27 July) Daniel Barenboim, after conducting the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra through Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Choral) at the London Proms, gave an impassioned speech. Here is my transcription of its final and most important stretch:

'As to the Middle East which I suppose you expect me to give you a last minute analysis of the latest few minutes. I shan’t do that, but I want to tell you maybe two things. We were going to go – we play in Berlin on Sunday, and we were going to go on Monday to play a concert in solidarity with civic society in East Jerusalem, in solidarity with Palestinian civic society in East Jerusalem, and there were factions, Palestinian factions who protested about this concert and we are not going there. [Disappointed noise from audience] Never mind the concert: much worse is the reasoning. The reasoning behind it is that we represent for them “an instrument of normalization” – in other words of accepting the present status quo with the occupation, the settlements and all that that means. And I want to tell you one thing: we are *not* a political project – we don’t have a political programme, but we have a certain amount of social conscience, and solidarity with civic societies who suffer. [From audience: ‘Bravo!’] Wait, I haven’t finished! And what makes this orchestra what it is, besides the individual talent and the musicianship and the hard work, the dedication of each one of its members, is that they play together with this homogeneity because here in our little society of the West-Eastern Divan they are all equals. [Applause] And so I want to tell you that there are many people in the Middle East from all sides who have all kinds of different agendas. We know perfectly well that we will not be able to change the Middle East; but I can assure you, we are not going to let the people who are now in power in the Middle East change us. [Applause] And outside of the music we have only one agenda and one hope for everybody, and that is total justice for all the inhabitants of the region and equality of rights for everybody, so we can start thinking about how we can approach each other. And this is our mission; this was the mission of Edward Said who founded this orchestra with me, and I thought this was the appropriate moment to tell you, who have shown us such loyalty over the years, not to speak of this week, that you know what our feelings are. Thank you for listening to me, thank you for listening to this orchestra, thank you for listening to this wonderful chorus and the soloists, and thank you for listening so quietly to all the works of Pierre Boulez. [Audience laughter] Thank you!'

Here is the url to the video of that entire speech:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00wnhkl

The evil king of 'Happy Valley'

I've been following with increasing horror the revelations about the once highly revered coach of Penn State's football team. The headline story, about the actions of the now convicted paedophile Jerry Sandusky, is horrific enough on its own; but perhaps most chilling is the sheer hypocrisy and self-serving behaviour of Joe Paterno ('JoePa'), now known to have actively covered for Sandusky for at least 13 years, enabling him to rape ten or more boys in his care. 'JoePa's reputation has surely hit a new low with this story from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-got-richer-contract-amid-jerry-sandusky-inquiry.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=todayspaper

Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out

by Jo Becker

In January 2011, Joe Paterno learned prosecutors were investigating his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexually assaulting young boys. Soon, Mr. Paterno had testified before a grand jury, and the rough outlines of what would become a giant scandal had been published in a local newspaper.

That same month, Mr. Paterno, the football coach at Penn State, began negotiating with his superiors to amend his contract, with the timing something of a surprise because the contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents and people with knowledge of the discussions. By August, Mr. Paterno and the university’s president, both of whom were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation, had reached an agreement.

Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.

The university’s full board of trustees was kept in the dark about the arrangement until November, when Mr. Sandusky was arrested and the contract arrangements, along with so much else at Penn State, were upended. Mr. Paterno was fired, two of the university’s top officials were indicted in connection with the scandal, and the trustees, who held Mr. Paterno’s financial fate in their hands, came under verbal assault from the coach’s angry supporters.

Board members who raised questions about whether the university ought to go forward with the payments were quickly shut down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

In the end, the board of trustees — bombarded with hate mail and threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Mr. Paterno’s family — gave the family virtually everything it wanted, with a package worth roughly $5.5 million. Documents show that the board even tossed in some extras that the family demanded, like the use of specialized hydrotherapy massage equipment for Mr. Paterno’s wife at the university’s Lasch Building, where Mr. Sandusky had molested a number of his victims.

The details of Mr. Paterno and his family’s fight for money seem to deepen one of the lasting truths of the Sandusky scandal: the significant power that Mr. Paterno exerted on the state institution, its officials, its alumni and its purse strings.

Since Mr. Paterno’s death in January, Mr. Paterno’s family, lawyers and publicists have mounted an aggressive campaign to protect his legacy. The family and its lawyers have hammered the university’s board of trustees, accusing members of attempting to deflect blame onto a dying Mr. Paterno. This week, they angrily disputed the conclusions of an independent investigation that asserted Mr. Paterno and other top university officials protected a serial predator in order to “avoid the consequences of bad publicity” for the university, its football program and its coach’s reputation.

On Friday, Wick Sollers, a lawyer for Mr. Paterno and his family, said that it was Penn State that last summer proposed the lucrative retirement package, and that many of the aspects of the proposal — use of the plane, the luxury box — had existed in prior contracts.

Information about the salary paid to Mr. Paterno, one of the longest serving and most successful college football coaches in history, had for many years been hard to come by. In recent years, though, it became fairly common knowledge that he earned about $1 million annually, not counting his television deals and his contracts with shoe and apparel companies.

But speculation about just how long he was going to remain the well-compensated coach of Penn State had been going on for a decade or more. Mr. Paterno survived an attempt to force him into retirement in 2004, and before the Sandusky revelations, his most recent deal ran through the end of 2012.

According to university records, Mr. Paterno first expressed a desire to revisit his contract in January 2011. It was very early in that month that he learned he had been subpoenaed to testify before the Sandusky grand jury.

But it was not until summer — after Mr. Paterno, the university president and two other senior officials at the university had all testified before the Sandusky grand jury — that the idea that Mr. Paterno might retire in exchange for a multimillion-dollar payout gained traction.

By August, a deal had effectively been reached, though it and the idea that Mr. Paterno might make 2011 his last season had not been announced at the time. Details of the agreement were known to a handful of board members but not shared with the full board, according to people with knowledge of the events.

On Nov. 5, 2011, Mr. Sandusky was arrested, and two Penn State administrators — men who were Mr. Paterno’s superiors — were indicted on charges of failing to report to the authorities a 2001 allegation that Mr. Sandusky had attacked a young boy in the football building’s showers.

Quickly, it became clear that Mr. Paterno, too, had failed to go to the authorities or even to confront Mr. Sandusky after he had been told in person of the episode. The prospect that Mr. Paterno, a revered figure, might be fired by the board of trustees was suddenly real.

Mr. Paterno quickly issued a statement saying, in effect, that the board need not act, that he would resign at the end of the season. Neither he nor the university revealed that he had effectively agreed to do so already, in return for an expensive financial package.

The board fired him anyway, a decision that caused rioting and led to an angry and often very personal backlash against the trustees, but it agreed to honor his contract. It was then that the full board came to find out what the university was obligated to pay Mr. Paterno.

Over the ensuing months, as revelations about the role Mr. Paterno and other university officials played in the scandal mounted, a schism developed among the board members, according to several people with knowledge of the events.

There were some who argued that it was unseemly to pay the remainder of the money and other perks owed to Mr. Paterno, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions. They wondered whether, given Mr. Paterno’s failings, it might be possible to nullify the contract, or at least renegotiate it and reduce the payout, the people said.

Others worried about the hostility they would face if they tried to strip Mr. Paterno, still beloved in many quarters of the campus, of money that he was contractually owed — a prospect that grew even more worrisome after he died on Jan. 22 this year. During a conference call, one board member worried aloud that failure to make good on what was owed to the Paterno estate could lead to another “reign of terror” by Mr. Paterno’s supporters, according to a person who was on the call.

With rumblings that the Paterno family was thinking of suing the board of trustees for defamation, the board dispatched its lawyer to negotiate the final payments. All the board wanted in return was a release protecting the university from such a lawsuit.

The Paternos refused. Mr. Sollers said in his statement that “the retention of their legal rights in a case of this magnitude and complexity is customary and appropriate.”

The board of trustees ultimately agreed to make good on the full package anyhow, and in April paid what was owed to the Paternos. Additional demands, like the desire by Mr. Paterno’s wife to make use of the athletic department’s hydrotherapy facilities, were met. The board did draw the line at the family’s request to use the university’s corporate jet, arguing that the contract limited that use to the coach himself. And it refused the family’s demand to retain use of the stadium box next to the university president’s, the one reserved for the head coach, offering the family the choice of two other suites on a different floor.

Still, Frank T. Guadagnino, a lawyer hired by the board in November to handle a variety of aspects of the scandal, suggested that the board felt it did not have much maneuvering room when it came to the discussions with the Paterno family.

“We were providing for payments due under the contract,” he said in an interview Friday. “So we weren’t really negotiating.”

He added that, given revelations in the independent report released this week that suggest that Mr. Paterno knew about allegations of child abuse involving Mr. Sandusky as far back as 1998, the question over whether the university could rightfully renege on paying the Paterno family what was owed under the August amendments was “complicated,” and one that “we haven’t looked at.”

At a board of trustees news conference Friday, Karen B. Peetz, the board’s chairwoman, made clear that the issue would not be revisited. “Contracts are contracts,” she said.

The men who formed childhood memories

Something I do from time to time is to Google vinyl records I used to love as a kid: these include several spoken word LPs from Argo - Voices; Rhyme and Rhythm; Alice in Wonderland (somehow I originally typed 'Alive in Wonderland' - an interesting slip) starring Jane Asher, then a wonderful child actress; Through the Looking Glass (ditto) - and now those Tales by Beatrix Potter narrated by Vivien Leigh and adapted with songs by...?

That's what I set out to discover, and was astonished to discover the scripts/adaptations and lyrics were by the man behind Dad's Army, It ain't half hot Mum and 'Allo 'Allo! This was David Croft, and he was great friends with the musician and composer Cyril Ornadel who wrote those ever-so-sweet but memorable tunes. Ornadel was also a conductor who was involved in the original London productions of My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music and The King and I. With such experience, no wonder the Beatrix Potter songs came out sounding the way they do.

I also discovered the source (I'd forgotten) for the acidulous voice I gave to baddies as a kid: Graham Stark, who sounds thoroughly vile (still) as Squirrel Nutkin. Apparently a great friend of Peter Sellers', he also appeared in several Pink Panther films (the one I remember is the sweaty-faced man in Return of the Pink Panther who through the film gets more of his fingers injured).

More of a pleasure was tracking down a Youtube of The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, which (as well as the feistily sung 'We don't care') includes a song which continues to haunt my imagination 'Follow your heart', hedonistic yet touching, sung by Barbara Brown. Here is the Youtube with that song, which can be found near the beginning (2.20) and towards the end (from 11:30) - I was touched to read that Su Pollard sang this at David Croft's memorial last year.

Don't mention the war!

Given that today's the anniversary of a certain 'visit' by several thousands of uninvited Germans to Russia, it's interesting to hear from an English historian her first-hand experience of how Germans today remember that excursion:

"I've been over to give some talks in Berlin [on the siege of Leningrad during World War II] and had quite a lot of feedback from German readers, and it's very, very interesting hearing what they have to say as well; because for them the Eastern Front is seen as a place of suffering for the German army - it was the place where you got frostbite and you were scared and you were herded into big prisoner of war camps and left to starve. It's not seen as a place where the army itself was involved in atrocities; and that is only just in the last few years coming to be understood in Germany - that the army was a) involved in the Holocaust and in rounding up and murdering Jews on the Eastern Front; and b) was directly responsible for the decision to besiege and starve Leningrad. We now have all the internal memos from to and fro within German high command on that, because it was a decision of the German army. It was the military high command which came up with this strategy - not the party: it was not a Nazi atrocity, it was an army atrocity. And that, I think, is something which is quite tough for Germans to come to terms with." Anna Reid, being interviewed (February 2012) about her book Leningrad: Tragedy of a city under Siege 1941-44.