Morning music

On this day a year ago

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/19/paradise-almost-lost-bypass-threatens-to-destroy-cambridge-farmland-rich-in-wildlife.

Cambridgeshire seems to be yet another “rotten borough” from the point of view of protection for trees and wildlife.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11876457/PETER-HITCHENS-Making-women-wage-slaves-suits-except-women-children-course.html.

Very true.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/19/if-we-get-out-of-here-it-will-be-a-miracle-a-family-at-war-in-the-hell-of-bakhmut

Untrained or scarcely-trained Ukrainian recent civilians being sent to the front line and ordered to perform unnecessary and stupid actions by incompetent superiors.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11873873/Stunning-replicas-London-New-York-Paris-sprung-China-no-one-lives-them.html.

I have to admit that I find modern China fascinating —from a distance— though I have never been there (I have been to Hong Kong and Macau, but never to mainland China).

Tweets seen

Good to know that cultural institutions are being maintained and rebuilt.

Interesting. I have blogged a few times about the day in 1994 or 1995 (I think 1995) when I visited the partly-privatized but still heavily-guarded Porton Down biolab campus in Wiltshire, UK, with the then Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK, a trained scientist who was later both a Presidential candidate and director of a biochemistry and biosecurity institute in Ukraine [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhiy_Komisarenko].

Well, OK, but that old woman can express her views freely on the streets of (?) Moscow, and have them broadcast without repercussions. If she had been in Kiev, and had opposed the regime of the corrupt Jew Zelensky, she would probably, almost certainly, have been arrested; the interview would certainly not be broadcast or allowed to be put on social media. Everyone involved would be arrested.

So who is “brainwashed“? The Western msm is more or less brainwashing people in the UK, USA etc, though many are “thinking for themselves” and not supporting the war or the Kiev regime.

The Twitterati were all so shocked to find that there was a majority in favour of Brexit (meaning,mainly, in favour of stopping immigration), and that America voted Trump in 2016.

As I blogged yesterday, Jeremy Hunt seems to have a political cloth ear.

Goodwin’s tweet about “1950s” is not quite right though. “1940s” would be better. It is a linguistic point. The 1950s were when Britain began to exit from the terrible privation of the unnecessary war against the German Reich. The poverty of Britain was actually worse in the decade (and especially the 5 years) after the end of the war than it had been during that misconceived war. The decline in living standards during the war itself lurched lower in 1946, 1947 and did not improve, substantially, until about 1954 or 1955. The last remnants of WW2 rationing ended in 1955.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that many poorer Brits actually had a better diet during WW2 rationing than they had had in the prewar 1930s.

Some of the (pro-immigration) replies to Goodwin’s tweet are unintentionally hilarious: idiots saying that the UK “needs” immigrants, that the UK is not “full” (despite housing covering more of our green fields daily), and one pro-invasion tweeter (one of the most vituperative) who lives on the Costa Tropical in Spain!

According to some tweets I saw, the decision was made by some black woman, by name Lorna Clarke: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lorna-clarke-3a19b415. She, it seems, is actually the “BBC Director, Music” and formerly “Head of Rock and Pop“.

“Education: Copenhagen Business School“…How odd.

That black woman who, on the face of it, knows little or nothing about serious music, made the decision. Even the Guardian has printed criticism of it: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/14/classical-music-bbc-orchestras-singers.

“How has this been allowed to happen? Early last year, the BBC’s music review recommended an extraordinary restructure. Alan Davey, the recently departed controller of BBC Radio 3 and the Proms, ceased to have direct responsibility for the classical ensembles that are now under the control of former head of rock and pop Lorna Clarke, while [Simon] Webb, the former director of the BBC Philharmonic, is the new head of orchestras and choirs in England.

The BBC’s timing is as calculated as its strategy is callous: ensembles struggling to recover from the pandemic, exhausted from keeping the show on the road throughout, three of the ensembles without a permanent director and all contractually gagged. There is not one single champion for classical music left at the BBC in any position of power or influence. Herod has been left minding the creche.

I no longer know if the BBC is a public service broadcaster; I don’t recognise it any more, or its values. If it no longer exists to do that which others cannot or will not, then what is it for? After 23 years of constant change, the ensembles of the BBC have never been more agile, flexible or willing to adapt, and they represent tremendous value for money in the grand scheme of the BBC’s budget and our licence-fee payment.

The role of cultural patron is not optional, and the responsibilities as custodian of music ensembles do not give the BBC permission to dispose of and dismantle them without serious public discussion, not to mention honest, transparent internal debate. The values and behaviour of what we are told repeatedly is “our BBC” must matter to all of us as much as the content.”

[Paul Hughes, in the Guardian]

Apart from the actual absurdity of having blacks and merely business-trained persons in positions of power in the cultural sphere, this damage goes right back to the 1990s, to John Birt [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birt,_Baron_Birt] and Greg Dyke [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Dyke]. Those two, who knew and worked with each other, both had poor educational and —initial— work backgrounds, yet were allowed to take leading positions in British television and radio.

More cultural vandalism

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/19/metropolitan-museum-art-reclassifies-russian-art-ukrainian.

Repin “reclassified” as “Ukrainian”!

Thankfully, Wikipedia still has him, as of today, as the Russian he was: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Repin.

“Ilya Yefimovich Repin (Russian: (pre-1918: Илья Ефимовичъ Рѣпинъ) Илья Ефимович Репин, pronounced [ˈrʲepʲɪn];^[a] 5 August [O.S. 24 July] 1844 – 29 September 1930) was a Russian painter.^{[1][3][4][5][b]} He became one of the most renowned artists in Russia in the 19th century.

Repin was born on 24 July 1844 in the town of Chuguev, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire, in the heart of the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine.^[10][11][12] His father, Yefim Vasilyevich Repin (1804—1894) served in an Uhlan Regiment of the Imperial Russian Army. He fought in the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828), the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29) and the Hungarian campaign (1849).“

[Wikipedia]

Alison Chabloz

More tweets

Poland reprising its 1939 performance? Madness.

If Poland fights against Russia in 2023, that would trigger a Russian response which might mean that there will be no Poland, and certainly no Warsaw, by 2024. In fact, Poland being now a member of NATO, it might just trigger WW3.

Late tweets

The SNP may have had its day in the sun, but it could reinvent itself if it became more social-national, opposed mass immigration and migration-invasion, binned non-whites/non-Brits such as Humza Yousaf as candidates and office-holders, and announced a policy of leaving NATO and closing down all RAF/USAF bases, as well as submarine bases, while asking Russia for closer relations. None of that will happen, of course.

The idiotic woman even wears a rainbow scarf. Like a red flag, a warning signal. Just looked her up on Wikipedia; she is actually Canadian! How mad is that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorna_Slater.

All this stuff, dozens of things included, is part of the gradual approach of something which will go well beyond the traditional “police state”.

Oh yes. I recall once running late at Gatwick, only to be told by some simpleton in uniform to remove my shoes! I only caught my plane because it was delayed by engine trouble.

Even worse are the self-important armed police, strutting around with their Heckler & Koch MP5s or other weapons. So, if there are suspected terrorists, will they just open up with automatic weapons in a crowded terminal? I hope not. They are basically there “for show”.

Late music