Talk To Rex

I gave one of my piano pupils a sight reading test yesterday. It seemed like a good idea and she played it quite well.

What I noticed was that it was headed “homage to Tallis”. I remember this from my own exam-taking days: actually in the exams themselves you’d occasionally get a “homage to Byrd” or “homage to Herbert Howells” (he presumably needs a first name to mark him out from all those other famous Howellses). You’d play them through and they sounded nothing like the composer they’d been written in homage to, both because you were playing mostly wrong notes, but also because sight reading tests are written to be slightly atonal to seperate the sheep from the goats in the exam, so never ever sound like real music you’d want to listen to.

And I wondered, as I gave my piano pupil her allotted thirty seconds to cast her eye over the music, why on earth do the people writing sight reading tests feel that it’s appropriate to do this?

At best these little “homages” are only going to confuse the poor sods taking the exams – they’ll either be wondering who the hell Herbert Howells was, or what “homage” means. In any case, what kind of a shoddy homage is a simple but slightly atonal eight-bar sight reading test? I bet Tallis is up in heaven feeling really pissed off that he gave the world a glorious forty-part motet, and all the world’s given him back is a shitty eight bars which schoolkids mostly can’t play.

Deja vu?

Is it just me wondering if he’s decided to resign every year or so because the acolades that come pouring in from a Mr T Blair of SW1 are good for his ego?

I’m starting a sweepstake on how long before he’s put back in the cabinet. I reckon five months.

The special diary for Impromime is now underway and you can read it here. There’s not a lot in it right now, but soon it will be bursting with exciting anecdotes and insights from the construction and performance of an improvised pantomime.

I’m really ill, so please send messages of sympathy.

John Finnemore’s Sketch Night is a lot of fun. The concept is simple: John Finnemore has written some sketches and they have been put into a night. But you know, it really works. Maybe it’ll catch on…

Aside from knocking back a few drinks afterwards with an old friend who still resents the fact that my Dad didn’t offer him a cake in 1998, I spoke to some of the (needless to say talented and beautiful) cast, and indeed the great Finnemore himself. Who said to me, at one point, ‘I like your weblog’.

This means, of course, that I can’t write anything in the least bit negative about his show, because it’s not unlikely that he’ll sooner or later cast his eye over this entry and start to think ‘hmmm….is “the great Finnemore” meant as a genuine accolade or is Lark being sarcastic? And when he says “I can’t write anything in the least bit negative”, does that mean he didn’t like my show and really wanted to slag it off?’ God knows what sleepless nights I’ve already given the man.

But it really is worth seeing (I realise this probably all sounds totally insincere now) if only for the song about shoes which I loved, the bit about Bifidus Digestivum (you really have to be there) and the bit where somebody draws on Marianne’s face, which feels almost sacrilegious.

My friend enjoyed it a lot too, in spite of the years of simmering cake resentment.

In the bar afterwards I also persuaded Marianne to put David Bowie into her novel, so everyone was a winner.

Is it wrong to feel a rush of euphoria each time I get back from London and discover that my bike hasn’t been stolen?

My sister got me the complete Camberwick Green DVD for my birthday – it arrived kinda late, but it’s a brilliant present so she just about gets away with it.

I’d forgotten quite what lovely picturesque stories they are – it’s like a model of how this country ought to be. But I can’t help finding the music box at the beginning and end a bit frightening; maybe it’s the fact that you spend each episode getting to know a character then suddenly they’re whisked away into the depths of a music box which closes over them in a sinister way.

I’m a tiny bit worried that real life’s like that too. Could it be that one day I’ll be going about my business when Brian Cant’s voice will say “what a busy man you are, Mr Lark!” and suddenly I’ll find myself turning around and around and disappearing inside a music box?

Bye bye Howard Shore…

Was it “differing creative aspirations”? Or was it that he’s no bloody good?

I make no secret of the fact that I think Peter Jackson is overrated, but my respect for the man has just shot up. If he’s realised what the biggest problem with Lord of the Rings was, then maybe there’s hope for him yet.

Would love to have been there for the moment of revelation…

Jackson: So what are your creative aspirations for this film, Howard?

Shore: Oh, I’ve got BIG creative aspirations for this film.

Jackson: (excited) Really?

Shore: Yeah, you remember on Lord of the Rings I had those big minor chords played by brass instruments with a choir in the background?

Jackson: (really excited) Yeah! Yeah, I remember!

Shore: Well, this time I thought I’d do more big minor chords…

Jackson: (in suspense) Yeah?

Shore: But…

Jackson: (bursting with excitement) Yeah?

Shore: …with even more French horns!

(awkward silence)

Shore: Like, you know – fifty more!

(more silence)

Shore: (uncertainly) And a bigger choir?

RIP the Tories. Again.

Overrated children’s author Philip Pullman has criticised Disney’s new Narnia film, describing C. S. Lewis’ books as “a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice”.

Now hang on…I’ve never bought the racist argument myself: when you’ve got fauns and beavers mingling with unicorns and centaurs, I would say the side of good is pretty multi-racial – whilst the villain of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, need I point out, is white.

And misogynistic? When the person who discovers Narnia, who is shown great favouritism by both author and fictional characters, and is the only person in the story who is always in the right, is a girl?

As for “reactionary prejudice”…Mr Pullman, how exactly do you justify this accusation in the light of your own rabidly anti-Christian propaganda?

If there is a problem with the film, it’s that it looks like a clone of The Lord of the Rings. Bet it’s shorter, though. And considerably better structured than Pullman’s execrable The Amber Spyglass.

Gutting news, if you’ll excuse the weak pun, of a fire at the Aardman warehouse. I remember having it pointed out to me when I went down to Bristol once to work on a boat.

Anyway, fare well, Aardman memorabilia. I’m sure there’s a better place for you.

(If you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting anything recently, and are perhaps miffed that you went to the great lengths of bothering to read this entry only to realise that you’d already seen it on Sky News at lunchtime, well, umm, it’s because I’m busy, all right?)