The Emperor’s New Clothes

What a busy Thursday! It started with an early morning and ended with a late night with nary time in the middle for rest.

First up, we had a viewing this morning at 9am so I was up early, generally moving things around to make them more presentable, before hitching the poodles up for an early, freezing walk.

Actually the temperature was slightly above freezing until the wind hit up in the Avenue of Trees. I’m always amazed when winds from the frozen north (Russia) are still bitterly cold when they reach us. It was something like -20 in Moscow this morning and the wind hadn’t warmed up one little bit.

For all that, the park still looked lovely. As the real estate agent said to me, whenever she walks around the park, when she passes our street, she’s very jealous of our being so close. I’m not sure why she doesn’t buy our house then.

Our castle on a winter's morning

There were a few hardy souls up and about with their dogs but none of them within hailing distance so we wandered, more-or-less, unmolested, returning in time to meet the agent at the front door. I was fooled by the lack of two unknown cars at the end of the street, otherwise I’d have taken the girls around again.

The absent car was easily explained, however, when the viewer came out of the house. She is a friend or relative of a woman who lives a few doors down from us. I know because the friend or relative was with her and said hello.

The woman who’d come to see the house actually liked it very much (or so she told the realo) but wanted to think about it (not that that means anything, we’re still ‘thinking about’ houses we viewed years ago). The one thing she was disappointed in, and the realo thought I’d get a good chuckle out of it, was the lack of lawn. Yes, that’s right, she didn’t like the path. Our wonderful, magical path. How is such a thing possible? As Mirinda said, had the path not been there, she wouldn’t have seen a path so much as a swamp leading to the back.

I’m fairly sure I couldn’t sell to someone who didn’t like our path. If I had my way, I’d have it written into the deeds of the house that the path had to stay. It would be an awful waste for it to be dug up before it was twelve months old!

With that frightful announcement, the realo left and I quickly grabbed my stuff for the Talking Newspaper. By the end of 2011 I’d been swapped out of all my February recordings by other presenters with more pressing engagements so I guess it was only natural that I’d end up swapping some back in.

David rang me two weeks ago. He’d been given some work to do and couldn’t attend today so would I swap him one of my April dates. And so I was down for today’s Haslemere edition of the paper at 10am.

The group doing the Farnham edition were there, quietly beavering away in the editing room. As it turned out, it was but a short-lived quiet once Judy and I started gabbing away. Judy is one of the other presenters. Included in her team were the Evans’, who I’ve spoken of before. After their recording they told me they listened to our last recording with great joy because they love the sound of my voice. This is odd because I love the sound of theirs’!

After the Mutual Admiration Society had disbursed (by them having to go into the studio) I set to with my own presenter duties.

On my team (well, David’s team, really, though two of them had been swapped as well) were Ron, Lieutenant Colonel David and Christine, with whom I had so much fun late last year with all the stories about Christmas goats, something she still laughs about in quiet moments. Pete the ex-pilot was our engineer.

The recording went smoothly enough with only a few fluffs and nothing as serious as to warrant swearing. I even managed to read my own writing this time. The most interesting find was one of the Letters to the Editor, which was from someone who was equally as damning about Neighbourhood Watch. Mary Stewart, the writer, went so far as to write to the theatre and tell them it was rubbish. Here’s a few bits from her letter:

As long term fans of the playwright we eagerly looked forward to this production and have since contacted the Yvonne Arnaud theatre to express our disappointment, also mentioning that we couldn’t decide whether the theatregoers who left during the play, or didn’t return after the interval, were bored or cold, as the temperature in the auditorium was uncomfortably cool.

I disagree with the last bit. If anything, the theatre is generally too hot for me though, in saying that, the fact that I didn’t notice the temperature probably means it was too cold for normal people. She continues:

It is appreciated that we all have different tastes, but despite the cast doing their utmost, in our opinion, the play and the set were third rate and uninspiring.

Go Mary! She also gives a reason for all the wonderful reviews the play received in Ayckbourn’s home town, where all his plays premiere:

Perhaps the glowing reviews received at the premiere in Scarborough, can be compared to the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

I must say that that cheered me up, considerably. Not that I needed cheering up particularly but it did put a spring in my step on the walk home. Apparently the reviewer in the local paper was also less than complimentary, which prompted Mary’s letter.

Back at home, I just had time to feed the dogs, shower and change because I was soon out again with Dawn. Weeks ago she asked if I’d like to go and see some guy called Steve Knightly at the Farnham Maltings and, having never heard of him, I said yes. Dawn’s taste is pretty much as eclectic as mine so I figured I’d enjoy it. At least I knew it wouldn’t be some of that awful punk stuff that Nicktor likes so much.

Well, it was fantastic. He is part of a duo called Show of Hands, the other guy being Phil who, apparently looks remarkably like the eccentric Marquis of Bath. Dawn looked him up when she arrived home and said he did. Or does…I mean, he’s not dead or anything.

The thing that struck me about Steve was his amazing stage presence. He has a natural charisma that is like a magnet. He came on at the beginning to introduce his support act and we immediately were transfixed by him. I should add that about 99% of the audience were already firm fans, hanging on every word he spoke.

The support act (a couple Steve had heard busking who he walked up to and asked if they’d play support for his upcoming tour) was a couple. Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin were fantastic. He plays (among other things) a mean slide guitar while she fiddles and, sometimes strums her banjo. They play, what I would call, modern folk music with a lot of wandering around the tune in a sort of jazz style.

Phillip Henry and his slide guitar

They are both incredibly talented and their love of music is obvious. I particularly liked Hannah’s song about her grandfather (The Painter) for which she played her banjo. (You can listen to it on their website – it’s the fourth one down on the left.) Her voice is also quite special. My only criticism (and it’s tiny) is that I thought Phillip’s slide guitar was a bit loud and overpowering. It tended to dominate a bit too much, as if the sound engineer (if there was such a thing) only had ears for the treble. Even so, they were superb.

And then, following a short interval in which I bought their CD, Steve came on. He was just brilliant. It has to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. I’d compare it to Don McLean who managed to hold the entire Hodern Pavilion mesmerised for his entire concert, which was just him, his guitar and a chair.

Similarly Steve was alone on stage apart from a load of waiting instruments and he held us all gripped. He is not only incredibly talented as a singer, musician and song writer, he’s also very funny. I would recommend him to anyone who likes folk music and will definitely go and see him again if I get the chance.

Steve Knightly tuning up at the Farnham Maltings

And that was it. Dawn dropped me off at home to a couple of manic poodles. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Carmen was manic but Day-z gets very sulky if we go out more than once a day so she basically ignored me for a bit.