A night at the opera

I went to a Cymanfa Ganu on Sunday, which is hymns in Welsh, sung by everyone. It was at the Tabernacle and part of the Machynlleth music festival, and because it was special they got a local Welsh male voice choir in to sing along. They were absolutely amazing so I decided I’d come back to hear the proper version, a full male voice choir concert, which was tonight.

The choir was from Anglesey so I don’t think it was the same one but they had a trick up their sleeves which was that they’d got in this fantastic tenor called Gwyn Hughes Jones with them who was absolutely superb, or iawn iawn iawn as the compere said. The first song he did nearly brought me to tears, it was so absolutely amazing, lots of soaring notes and a really long high one at the end. The choir did loads of lovely Welsh songs, none of which I can remember the name of obviously, apart from ‘O Cymru’ which is a song all about how wonderful Wales is.

I was stuck at the back craning round a head-mover in the first half (you know the type, he’s taller than you, he’s got a great big head and just as you’ve found a position from which you can see round him, he shifts to the other side). After a cup of tea and pink wafer (!) in the interval I returned to find my seat had been swiped by an old lady who said she had been sat at the front but it was too noisy J So without delay I took up her spot and spent the rest of the concert being blasted full on with tenor and male voice choir, fantastic.

The tenor did a trio of songs that he said were ‘a tenor’s staple’; these were Nessun Dorma, something else and ‘O Sole Mio’ (I think that might actually not be called that though). Unfortunately I am such a pleb that whenever I hear ‘Nessun Dorma’, I hear the beautiful tune and words but in my head I still hear the insistent cry of Robert Newman in the Mary Whitehouse Experience singing ‘and let go flat my fizzy drink! Fizzy drink!! Fi-zeeeeeeee DRINK!!!!’. The Mary Whitehouse Experience were a comedy program around at the time of the 1990 World Cup and did a parody version of Nessun Dorma complaining about irritating people that leave tops off things (toothpaste, fizzy drinks). I guarantee that anyone else who was between 12 and 21 at the time will have exactly the same problem. A similar problem also applies to ‘O Sole Mio’ but this time it’s a gondolier punting around Venice singing about Cornettos (triumphantly finishing ‘from WALLS ice cream!!’).

Despite my plebitude the evening was marvellous. I have decided I’m going to try and join a choir when I go to Loughborough.

Speaking of Loughborough, I phoned them up today to check my accommodation had gone through, and got some details about what I was meant to bring. I can’t wait to go now, it’s less than a month until I move, and only 2 ½ weeks till I go off on my trip to France. Woo hoo, something’s happening!

Footnote: England won the Ashes on Sunday, hooray! A victory that was fully deserved given that we played brilliantly in the last test, which is not at all like us when the chips are down. Flintoff did an inspired run-out of Ricky Ponting, which I watched on YouTube in the library today because our internet’s down at home. A dangerous thing to do if you’re going to whoop and holler at the end of the clip.

Double bad blogger update

I'm resolving to write this blog a bit more because things are finally getting a bit more interesting. Since the last post I have:

• Installed a lovely solar water heating system on Cottage 1 of the Site Community buildings at CAT (how come these buildings have such bland names? Get thinking, CAT community people!)
• Had a midday naked swim in the reservoir at CAT, after a very hot installation day outside cottage 1 in May. I now consider myself a fully-fledged hippy, having also discovered a herbal tea that doesn't make me want to throw up and having uttered the immortal words 'it's a nice space' when describing the decor of a house or building
• Sorted out the move to Loughborough
• Spent another week at Glastonbury, and had a Moment of Great Importance watching Blur. That's what it felt like anyway, could have been the special 'cocktail' I was drinking, gin with white wine mixer. I've since realised that this is basically a Martini, we should call it a Blur Martini or something. It was horrible anyway so I doubt it'll go much further in its fame than me and Ellie (who I shared the Moment with).
• Got older and had a very nice cocktail party to celebrate (I learned how to make Martinis and the rest of the evening is a bit hazy)
• Worked on Reception at CAT. I have seen a lot of families and a very large range of human behaviour, ranging from puke-inducingly nice to tear-inducingly dispicable. I have learned how to make my voice heard over 15 people talking at once, control school children (get their teacher to do it), and how to win over the angry old couple who have had a shit journey to get there and are presenting us with an invalid 2-for-1 voucher (give them free tea tokens). Fun but tough, and exhausting.
• Moved house and been introduced to the delights of sourdough bread which my lovely housemate Tom makes
• Become obsessed with Manu Chao
• Been rejected by the Leonardo Project, who didn't fancy my engineering and German skills. I was meant to be going June-September, but instead have earned some money, built on my promising people skills, had one last summer in Mach, and been to Glastonbury for free, not a bad compromise eh.
• Made Bara Brith
• Sold Sid the Mini, having spent a week at home with my Dad sorting out all his (Sid's) problems. I sold him to a girl in London who was just about to go to University...poor thing, she doesn't know what she's in for. Although she seemed to be loaded so will probably take better care of Sid than I did and will hopefully have fewer problems.

So, sorry I missed out on reporting all of that...I'll try and do better now my career is progressing a bit.

I've been musing a bit about what's going to happen after my course, which will take me until Sep'10 to finish. I'll have about 5 months before I have to get back to the Engineering degree with OU which I'm still planning to finish. I'd like to get a job as a Wind or Hydro specialist, or perhaps go into research...we'll see. Only three weeks till I finish my job, then about 2 1/2 weeks until I move to Loughborough. Hopefully going to France in the gap between. Meravillieux!! Or something like that :)