Celebrity blogger

As mentioned in my last post, I have become the official chorus blogger for Glyndebourne. You can view this new incursion into cyberspace here.

Yet again, this throws this blog into a strange limbo of purpose. I have been specifically encouraged not to write about work in any setting where editorial control cannot be exercised - which is fair enough - and even William has let me down in my last attempt to write a post that remained even vaguely relevant to my blog title. He is not, it now transpires, going to have his Botox injections. His consultant has decided that nothing should be done that might in any way deflect Birmingham Children's hospital from putting him on the transplant list for his bowel. Everybody is now getting very serious about this possibility. In matters of life and death, walking can, apparently, wait. Rather throws my woes of the last couple of years into relief. William remains on top form, however. Given the attempts of the last few years to find a 'best-fit' diagnosis based on his various eccentricities, the medics must surely include his inability to ever stop talking as a key symptom.

Just as when I couldn't walk, I dreamed of strolling through the countryside, William is now obsessing about food. His favourite book is currently a cookbook, and he is rarely seen without a biscuit shoved to his nostrils. He is such a connoisseur of things olfactory that he can now tell what biscuit you may have eaten just before you bent down to talk to him. Perhaps a career as a master of wine beckons: 'Chateau Cheval Blanc 2005. A complex vintage, where a background of brambly fruits is complimented by overtones of Garibaldi. A soft first mouthful is followed by a lingering taste of custard cream with slight overtones of rich tea. A huge jammy dodger of a wine.' Robert Parker needs to look to his laurels.



William is not only developing his palate, but he is getting quite literate. The attached video shows him in a bookshop. (He 'wants to look at one more Mr Man' - thirty minutes later he was still using the 'just one more' line) He is already cracking through the 'Oxford Reading Tree'. An early title that Sarah kindly chose has a picture of 'Dad' on the front cover with his leg in a huge bandage. Not only can I provide assistance in his intellectual development through my past as an English teacher, it seems I can educate through illustration too. Ever the consummate professional. Unfortunately, I have managed to educate him in less impressive ways too. As his nurse approached him tonight with yet another device to take his vital signs, William responded with the obvious borrowing - 'Bugger that!". I'm not sure that the widespread hilarity that followed did anything to persuade him that he was in the wrong. Fortunately, work is about to get very busy indeed. Maybe William needs some time off from Daddy's contributions to his intellectual 'hothousing'.

William's legs

How oddly things turn out. Just as I was wondering how I could continue to blog when it would doubtless mean either ignoring my work, or risking appalling indiscretions, Glyndebourne have asked me to be the 'chorus blogger' on their official website. This could be a disaster. Either they have given me a long enough rope with which to hang myself, or the blog will have to be so anodyne as to be entirely uninteresting. At least walking the tightrope will prove interesting in itself. Especially after those late shows when we've had a couple on the train. If and when they decide to publish, I will provide a link.



Meanwhile, it is now William who justifies a blog on the subject of his legs. As if the poor little blighter hasn't enough to worry about, the 'orthopods' have decided to correct his increasingly eccentric gait by injecting Botox into his calves, and putting him into plaster casts for a month. I can see this going down like a cardboard submarine. It's especially galling as we've been asking for their input for months to no avail, and now they've turned up, everything seems so urgent that they are going to do the procedure tomorrow. As the attached video shows, Wills likes to get around the hospital quickly, and will not be impressed with the prospect of a month without being allowed to walk. Things are getting rather urgent on other fronts too. He is running out of adequate sites to attach his IV feed, and so the prospect of an assessment for a small bowel transplant looms ever closer. It's likely that he will be considered for the 'list' within the next couple of months. It's great to think of one's son as being at the cutting edge, but not necessarily when it comes to his participation in surgery. Anyway, William has given up calling me his father. Instead, as soon as I appear, I have to play the role of which ever engine is involved in his latest game. So I am Mavis. Or Donald. Or Gordon. etc. etc. If I didn't already have an equity card, I'd certainly be due one by now. Perhaps it will mean I can still qualify if Glyndebourne fire me when they find out what really goes on.

Lookalike

Looking at yesterday's photo of William, I was reminded of a famous scene from the movies.

William-












ET -











I always knew my offspring would have movie star good looks.

Older

Two years after I phoned in sick to Glyndebourne, and I am finally back. Surely a contender for the world record sickie attempt. An odd feeling. It partly feels as if I have never been away, and partly as if I am coming back as some sort of veteran, battle-scarred but not bowed by my years in rehabilitation. That it was my 30-xth birthday last week didn’t help this last sensation. So, in attempt to make the best of it, and as my birthday happily coincided with the beginning of Glynditz rehearsals, I instigated an evening in the pub. I then spent the evening carefully cultivating the next morning’s hangover whilst enjoying the ageist taunts of the Glyndebourne whippersnappers. I enclose a photo of a whippersnapper. Of course, I had a great time, and am delighted to be back. Even though there are now potentially 11 moths of Carmen stretching ahead of me. And after the smoking ban, it can only have lost its magic.

Glyndebourne does, however, present a slightly difficult issue for the continuation of the blog. The more comic anecdotes – and there are plenty – are really best kept off the web in the interests of maintaining the mystery of the theatre, and, more importantly, in the interests of me maintaining my job. Only yesterday I sat down for a cup of tea, and was told that a colleague’s wife had found my blog, and that a decent score had been logged on the ‘shoot the tenor’ game on my website. I guess a little discretion is required if I am to talk about work at all. And it will be difficult to talk about anything else for a while. We are working six days a week for the foreseeable future.

William has been less than impressed with his Dad’s new extended absences. To make up for it, he has been indulging in dirty protests, and cramming his more bizarre behaviour into our morning slot. This morning, he came out with the memorable comment that ‘Spoons don’t smell of snowflakes.’ Yesterday, having provided a voice for everything else within sight from his cuddly toys to his duvet, William finally got round to asking me the inevitable. That I provide a voice for his willy. For the record, it has a slightly high-pitched cockney accent, and is slightly grumpy. If William were ever to make it as far as requiring a father-of-the-groom speech, he may wish he hadn’t. He is currently snoozing, surrounded by his ‘friends’. I enclose a photo.

My flat continues to provide gainful employment for seemingly endless layers of insurance-related bureaucracy. Two days ago, a veritable committee of professionals working deep into the night were involved in an extensive email debate about the nature of my kitchen sink. I was copied in, but at no time was asked to contribute. I chose to anyway. I’d had a couple of drinks and was beginning to lose patience. The race is now on. Before the place is finally finished, will house prices fall and the rebuild/administration costs rise fast enough to make the place an insurance write-off before I can move in? So long as this doesn’t happen, I plan to have a flat-warming party when the job’s done. I might combine it with my 40th. And invite those whippersnappers.

Lenten abstinence

In the spirit of my Tosca costume and my weekly Lenten incantations against the sins of the flesh, I went to Paris this week and ate a dozen oysters and a steak tartare. The trip wasn’t made for this reason – there was a genuine work-related reason – but it was certainly this meal that made a lasting impression. Things were already feeling a little unsteady as I sat in a traffic jam on the M1 coming back from Luton airport. By 24 hours later, there was a definite backlash in the tummy department. Undeterred, I set off for Matthew’s stag night the next afternoon. Six hours later, I had made several emergency stop-offs, consumed three quarters of a packet of Immodium, slept for an hour at Keele service station, and was staring at a road closed sign in the middle of the Peak District, with only a vague idea of where on Earth I was going. Perhaps somebody upstairs was making a point about my non-compliance with the Lenten fast. Either way, by the time I got to the stag festivities, I was only able to manage a Diet Coke. These are the sacrifices we make for our pals.

By way of recompense, the next day was a performance of the John Passion in Hertfordshire. Rarely has a piece of music proved to be such a self-fulfilling exercise in penance. The tenor soloist is offered the Hobson’s choice of singing either the Evangelist or the two fiendish arias. Either will leave you bleeding from the throat, and neither is particularly audience pleasing. In fact, the second aria regularly comes in at an extraordinary ten minutes long, by which time the audience are getting their sole pleasure from wondering whether or not you are going to make it unscathed. I did, but doubt it was particularly beautiful. As it is about Christ’s agony, perhaps that was all right. I just wish Bach didn’t take the concept of word painting so literally. Bach clearly had a personal vendetta against his tenor, and conversely seems to have been rather taken with his alto, to whom he routinely gave the best tunes. The Alto gets to stand up twice, deliver a couple of the greatest audience pleasers of the Baroque period, barely break into a sweat, and look smug. Evangelist and tenor aria soloist get to exchange wounds at the end. And my favourite part of the John Passion is the end. This is because the final words refer to praising endlessly. After two and a half hours of implausibly difficult yodelling to the accompaniment of scraped cat-gut, this is surely proof that Bach had a sense of humour, if a somewhat dark one.

At the end of the concert, I had the choice of a three-hour drive back up to Derbyshire to admire the depth and breadth of my friends’ hangovers, or to drive home in the certain knowledge that William would demand that I woke up at the crack of dawn. I chose the latter, and William didn’t disappoint. At least I’d taken the morning off church, and so had a glorious hour and a half on my own.

Missing church services. What an excellent idea for a Lenten fast.

The end of Tosca

Tosca has finally taken her last death leap at the Albert Hall, and thank goodness she seems to have stayed dead this time. Cavaradossi died too, of course, but the effect was somewhat diminished by his later appearance in the pub. The suspension of disbelief had been rendered difficult anyway, as in an early performance his dodgy wig had fallen off just as the firing squad dispatched him. Sadly, the wig was not given a separate bow.

The full glorious experience of the Gubbay chorus was neatly captured by a Times Journalist who briefly shared my dressing room desk. ‘Like a rugby changing room, but more camp’ apparently. There was not a lot for us to do in Tosca, but despite the enormous amount of wasted time, it was great to find myself back with my chums, as well as making some new ones. Glyndebourne starts in a fortnight, so the treadmill really gets going in earnest then. And a full twelve months of back-to-back Carmens begins. At least there’s a lot to do in that opera, but I suspect that by this time next year even the sniff of a toreador will be enough to bring on palpitations. And they’re a sweaty lot.

My flat looked briefly as if things were getting sorted out. The Poles moved in, work was done – it was great. And it was never going to last. The guys dealing with the contents seem to have gone completely AWOL. Five minutes before I was due to meet them in Tooting, they rang to say that they were in Brighton. I am not at all sure that this can be put down to the failure of a Sat Nav. As things currently stand, these guys have thrown away 90% of my belongings, hidden the other 10%, not showed me any paperwork to show what they’ve done, and then proved impossible to find for four months. My gathering nervousness is perhaps not entirely surprising. Still, Thames Water is due to have a look at the drain tomorrow, so perhaps I shouldn’t relinquish any belief in miracles just yet.

William is enjoying a pleasantly bizarre period of development. He has just run up to me and asked if I had a big face. I have also been required to provide the voice for pretty much every inanimate object in the house. His taste for anthropomorphism has even extended as far as having conversations with his buggy. These are episodes that must surely tempt a few passers-by to consider calling the authorities. And this might not necessarily be a bad idea. George Phillipson at the City of London School has just sent me the department photo taken last term. An alarming transformation does seem to have taken place recently.

Last November:









Last week:













For a boy brought up as an atheist, this is a worrying development. Especially as I've had to intone the litany at church for the last fortnight. "From fornication and all sins of the flesh, Good Lord deliver us". Indeed.

Christmas

Perhaps it’s the lack of focus that’s delayed my blogging of late. Or perhaps it has been the return of the prodigal, and all that entails. William is back, and I have had to re-adjust my orbit to his gravitational pull. His subtle approach to life at home includes such discreet measures as shouting "DADDY WHERE ARE YOU!" every morning at six o'clock. It's great to have him back. In fact, his return has been just one of many extraordinarily positive recent developments. Whilst various middle managers have been squabbling incompetently about their share of Direct Line’s payout to sort out my flooded flat, the Poles have moved in, and are quietly actually doing the work. And if that wasn’t enough, another seriously grumpy call to Thames ‘nobody can speak to you now, as we’re all on lunch during February’ Water, has finally yielded results. Engineers are coming to see if they can do anything about my flat being the sewage outlet valve for SW17. Wonders will, apparently, never cease. And the final steps in the treatment of my leg have been taken. In fact, they were steps into a box of polystyrene beads, as this was how I was measured for my special insoles. As a special treat, the kind orthotics man in the white coat pointed out that I was flat-footed on the other foot, so would throw in a bonus insole on the NHS. Hurrah for the welfare state. I really must sort out that tax return.

All of this good news is entirely appropriate, as today has been designated Christmas day in Sarah’s house. The overall effect was slightly spoilt by spending this morning intoning twenty solid minutes of dirge-like lentern responses at church, but once I'd pocketed the cash it was a little easier to summon up a degree of festivity. So after consuming an enormous roast, I am now sitting surrounded by the detritus of Christmas; looking at a tree, tucking into a mince pie, and surveying the minefield of discarded wrapping paper that I will later have to try and avoid if I am to not to suffer significant personal injury on the way to the bathroom. My present from the girls was a box of aftershave samples that they mistakenly won on a 50p tombola in the belief that it was perfume. It is, as we all know, the thought that counts. William was finally able to take possession of the train table that I’ve been working on for the last three weeks. He took to it immediately, which was hugely gratifying. Within seconds, engines were crashing all over the place. I was contemplating a re-touch within half an hour. I think I need to let go.

Perhaps the most significant development of the last few weeks, however, has been my return to the treadmill of opera work. I have missed it enormously. Though I did have to remind myself of this constantly as I sat through rehearsal after three hour rehearsal in a freezing warehouse for the dubious honour of striding on, singing three words and then hiding in the shadows at the back of the stage for the rest of the act. And after I’d spent an entire afternoon playing a small role in ensuring that Tosca’s suicidal 30ft leap from the battlements of the Castel Sant’ Angelo went smoothly, I was beginning to wish that she would consider doing the job properly so that we could all go home.

Raymond Gubbay’s Tosca should be a good show. It is a great opera, and with some cracking performances. There is not a great deal for the chorus to do though. We come on at the end of Act 1, pretend to be in a church with as little camp affectation as possible, and leave by the nearest exit. Annoyingly, a couple of offstage moments mean that we have to hang around until the end of the third act, which means that we can’t go straight to the pub, and have to loiter for two hours playing card games in nineteenth century ecclesiastical costume. If that didn’t ensure enough time-wasting, I am covering the role of Spoletta; a scarred henchman who has virtually nothing to say, but manages to pop his head into every scene in the opera. Act 1. Come in, look scary, agree with the bad guy, loiter. Act 2. Come in, gabble key plot details over 30 seconds, look scary, loiter. Act 3. Come in, loiter. A pattern emerges. I have pondered over a number of crosswords during cover rehearsals. There are highlights. Spoletta gets to torture the lead tenor in Act 2. The risks presented by this are usually minimised by doing it offstage, but it’s all spelled out in this production, so it’s not a role for anybody too ambitious. But the crowning point of the role is as he gets to run/limp after Tosca at the end of the opera. This means that I have had a clear view of the most astonishing feature of the piece. This is the booth half way up the ramp to the battlements where Tosca enters as a well-endowed dramatic soprano with life experience, and exits as a twenty-something gymnast ready to take the death-defying thirty-foot plunge. If anybody was ever looking for the definition of the magic of opera, then this is it. It’s great to be back.

On topic

As Bid pointed out to me over a pint of Harvey’s a few days ago, this blog is in danger of becoming ‘off-task’. It is sadly true that I very rarely find myself with my foot up these days. But if I am to briefly remain on-topic, there have, in fact, been some key recent developments in my rehabilitation. I have started work again as a full-time opera singer. If freelance opera singing can ever be described as full-time. And yesterday, I was signed off by my physiotherapist. It is a little disappointing that my first cover role after the accident is as a chief of police with a scar, and that I found myself in a physiotherapy department today trying to make William do what he was told, but the general news is good. The only remaining elements of my recovery involve getting some insoles made, and doing enough stretching and exercise to ensure that if I ever have to break into a run, I don’t resemble a cross between Olivier’s Richard III and a pregnant penguin. I really must get to the gym. Anyway, for the sake of continuity, I’ve attached a picture of my most recent x-ray. This is me ‘healed’.

Further astonishing developments have occurred elsewhere. Despite some lingering incompetence from various sub-contractors dealing with my flat, there is every chance that some builders might start work there this week. A huge step forward, despite the fact that Thames Water will doubtless flood it again within the month. And, even more pleasingly, it seems that William’s release papers have finally been signed. If all goes according to plan, he should be at home by the middle of next week. The challenge of looking after him gets ever more complicated – I have now taken to trying to make sense of them in a ‘manual’ – but life should still be significantly easier with him back. And if I no longer have to sleep on the floor, then Hope will have somewhere to sleep when she is driven out of her bedroom by her sister’s snoring. Earlier this evening I discovered evidence of an aborted attempt at camping out in the bath.

Sarah is determined to celebrate the return to family life by celebrating the Christmas that we didn’t have. I must admit to struggling a little with this concept. I’m not sure I fancy another round of crippling hangovers and being force-fed brazil nuts and brussels sprouts. I might be more agreeable if I could convince the family that a Bond film is an essential part of the traditional festivities. I don’t fancy my chances. However, I have thrown myself at sorting out William’s present. I decided to build him a wooden train set that would perch on the coffee table. Which seemed a great idea until I tried to put together the track. As I started a third hour fruitlessly trying to jam together pieces from assorted Ikea trips, charity shop buys and presents from relatives, it was becoming increasingly clear that this was a task approaching the building of the new Wembley in terms of its complexity and likelihood of arriving late and enormously over-budget. I had no idea that the construction of a track designed for three-year-olds would require such expertise. A glance at the various layout plans on the web should have alerted me to the problem. Grown men spend significant portions of their time building these tracks, and creating detailed architectural plans. I had been hoping to get the job done in time to finish a glass of wine in front of Newsnight. I am pleased to report that the track is still not created.

No quality footage today I’m afraid. But some fairly grainy and, I’m afraid, sideways footage of William mugging to camera. As the face of CHASE – his hospice – William managed to raise them a record sum of over £40,000 in their winter campaign. As you can see, such photogenic quality doesn’t come without hard work.

Catching up

Time for some catching up. After a week that was mostly concerned with William recovering from his operation, it was time to catch up with some admin. So, after ensuring that I had enough of a hangover to make the morning really enjoyable, I spent some happy hours yesterday listening to the on-hold muzak of various different organisations. The prize for the most ridiculously tortuous set of menu options followed by the excuse – ‘Sorry, I can’t put you through as our computers are down’ – went to Thames Water. Of course. The prize for the employee who spends most time ‘on lunch’ went to ‘Nikki” of the escalations department of Thames Water, who has been on lunch since just before Christmas. But a late overall winner of the prize for the most optimistic on-hold muzak went to Direct Line Home Insurance claims department for their glorious choice of Frank Sinatra’s ‘It Was a Very Good Year’. Inspired. And after a morning of back-to-back phone calls, I managed to sort virtually nothing out. But felt virtuous for trying.

William has taken a little while to recover from his operation. He discharged himself early from paediatric HDU simply by constantly declaring to anybody who would listen that he wanted to go back to his room, and generally refusing to co-operate unless his demands were met. I can’t think where he gets his stubborn streak from. However, progress has been slow since then. He took a while to be weaned away from his morphine pump, and confidence in his ‘magic bag’ (the ileostomy bag) has been knocked by the realisation that there was a deal of initial pain involved. The ileostomy itself is none too pretty, and William is keen to ‘clean it off’. In fact, he has two chunks of his small intestine poking through his abdomen wall – ‘stomas’ - and cleaning them off would not be the way forward. But they are doing their job, as they are constantly leaking the unpleasant fluid and gas that were making him so uncomfortable before Christmas. The slight downside is that they are leaking so efficiently that William is now on enormous amounts of IV replacement fluid and still suffering symptoms of dehydration. He has also developed a slightly disconcerting habit of unconsciously farting through these ‘stomas’. As I earlier blogged, there is some quality toilet humour ahead of him.

He is really on the mend now though, and has gingerly returned to his habit of toddling around the ward with his daddy literally in tow. He is re-asserting himself as the ward character, although more through his fantastic eccentricity than any charm offensive. After he had told yet another nurse (Simone – a wonderfully efficient and caring professional) that he didn’t ‘want that one’, I thought it best to start trying to address his issues with politeness. “Let’s role-play,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll be Simone. When I say hello, you say hello Simone.”

‘No,’ suggested William, ‘you be a giraffe.’

A little more work is required.

It is, however, reassuring to see William returning to his old self. Here is a photo of him asleep last night with his ‘friends’. The prominent black creature that looks as if it part of a voodoo ritual is his current favourite. Bizarrely, it was given to him by Boris Johnson MP, as part of a photo call arranged by the Evening Standard whilst William’s lifelong Labour Party supporting father was out of the loop. What on earth was going on when this photo call was arranged? Boris Johnson, London Mayor hopeful, giving voodoo dolls to sick children? The Tories don’t believe in decent funding for the NHS, but are prepared to turn to black magic instead? I arrived as the photo call was in full swing, and paced angrily outside the playroom as the flashbulbs went off inside. ‘But he’s a lovely man,’ intoned the play-specialist, as I grumped in the corridor. Of this, I have little doubt. But having William’s illness exploited by a politician whose policies I would never support was always going to be a difficult pill to swallow. Even if William did receive a voodoo doll that is now his favourite ‘friend’. Anyway, in the spirit of the whole extraordinary episode, William has named the doll ‘Sally’. Naturally.

2008

2008. New Year’s resolution? To stop offering hostages to fortune.

The year so far has included two nasty hangovers, a dose of man-flu, a couple of grumpy exchanges with Thames Water, and a nagging sense that my tax needs sorting out. Why would anybody celebrate New Year?

Sarah and I went to see the fireworks on the Embankment. They cost £1,000,000 apparently. £10,000 a minute. We walked about four miles up the river and huddled in the drizzle on a jetty at Millbank to watch the show. I have attached a photo. The money would surely have been better spent on decent drains in Tooting. By the time we got back to the Chelsea and Westminster, they were already taking down the Christmas decorations. And my leg hurt. Bockers was celebrating New Year in a lodge in Scotland, hunting. If I was handed a shotgun as the year turned, things might have got messy.

William is finally going to be operated on. It has taken some time for everybody on his team to agree that this is the way forward. Agreement was reached when his doctors took the radical step of talking to each other, rather than making a decision then going on leave so that the next chap could make a different decision. His op is next Wednesday, if all goes according to plan. He will have two new openings on his tummy. His nurse confidentially agreed with my summary of the situation. William will have three bottoms. If he grows up with the same sense of toilet humour that defined my childhood, he will not be short of material. He is, however, going to have to improve his personal hygiene. The following video highlights the problem. Apologies for the gratuitous nudity.