2024

 "When affairs get into a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy." 

- P. G. Wodehouse

It's review of the year time. I didn't do one last year because the illness that has plagued me on and off in 2024 started with unlooked for precision on 29th December 2023. That's bad news for posterity, because I had a lot to write about and would no doubt have done so most entertainingly. This year has seen a much reduced programme of activities. Apart from funerals; I don't think I've ever been to so many in such a short space of time.  I won't write about those.

Opera: I've only seen sixteen operas this year. The clear best among them was the Hallé's 1857 'Simon Boccanegra', with a nod to 'Aleko'. Of those I've not bothered to mention here before my favourites would include 'The Sign of Four', apparently the first opera ever written about Sherlock Holmes, Albert Herring, and Peter Brook's take on Carmen at the Buxton Opera Festival.

Theatre: Only twelve plays, so another drop year on year. Best was 'My Fair Lady' of all things. Even more surprising was my enjoyment of  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at York Theatre Royal, with a genuine circus clown as Bottom. This blog normally has a strict 'clowns are not funny' policy. Perhaps as another sign of change I went to two comedy gigs for the first time in decades. 

Music: I saw eighteen gigs, so maybe that's why I couldn't find time to go to the theatre. Best were the mighty Southern River Band, but also excellent were Mississippi Macdonald, Brave Rival, the Milkmen, Errol Linton, the Zombies and others too numerous to mention; except that I am contractually obliged to mention both Martin Simpson and Fairport Convention.

Film: I only saw five films, must try harder in 2025. I think Conclave was the pick.

Talks: I attended nineteen talks this year, the shortfall being in part because I fell out with one of the groups whose talks I used to attend. I should probably do an annual award for which organisation I have had the biggest row with that year. The best talk was on the subject of J. B. Priestley, which is obviously a good thing, with a special mention for one on the somewhat more obscure subject of Washington Phillips.

Exhibitions: I've seen a few, too few to mention. I would strongly recommend both the Silk Road at the British Museum and the Van Gogh at the National Gallery.

Your bloggist buckles his swash

Books: Obviously, if one can't go out then one stays in and reads, consequently I have read 128 books this year. Too many. My favourite fiction was probably 'Scaramouche' by Rafael Sabatini; I do like a swashbuckler. The best that wasn't a century old was 'Gabriel's Moon', a spy thriller from the ever-dependable William Boyd. From the non-fiction, Bruce Springsteen's autobiography was very good. I'm not sure why I was surprised that he can write. I read lots of perfectly adequate military history, but nothing so outstanding that I'm going to highlight it here.

Boardgames: 168 plays of 91 different games. My current favourite is definitely Dune Imperium, which is one that I would have thought might to appeal to most wargamers.

Wargames: Which, after all, is what it's all about. The most memorable was Wellington vs Sault during our Peninsular campaign, for all sorts of reasons.

So, UK election result aside, it wasn't a very good year really. I think we all know that globally it is going to be even worse next year. I suggest we approach it stoically.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” - Epictetus

“Life? Don’t talk to me about life!”

I am afraid that this blog has done it again. My recent post about W.B. Yeats contained an allusion to a quote by Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. No sooner had it been published than Stephen Moore, the voice of said Marvin on radio and television, sadly died. He was of course a most distinguished actor - I remember seeing him as Hector in the NT's touring production of 'The History Boys' - but I'm afraid he will forever live in an awful lot of memories as a depressed machine.

Speaking of distinguished actors I have been to see David Suchet speak about his life. Just as Jeremy Brett is the definitive Holmes, so surely there is no other Poirot (who, just like Marvin, had a brain the size of a planet) to rival Suchet's.

He either finds it very easy to slip in and out of character as the Belgian detective or, despite having played many other parts in his career, the boundaries between life and fiction are beginning to blur for him. In fact he told one story about one lady who encountering him in costume just off set on location expressed a fervent hope that there hadn't been a murder locally, and when being told by him in Poirot's accent that he was merely on holiday replied by thanking him for choosing her hometown in which to vacation. It was all very entertaining and it is always thought-provoking to note what a contribution migrants to the UK and their families have made to national life: as well, of course, as his broadcaster brother John, his father was one of Sir Alexander Fleming's assistants in the early days of penicillin and his grandfather was the Fleet Street photographer who took the first photograph of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson.

Potpouri

This post has more to do with latent OCD than anything else but here goes anyway:

• Excellent news that Vauban's Wars is going to be played at Historicon. I shall definitely make this a priority as soon as I have somewhere within which to prioritise anything.
• I watched Star Trek, the 2009 version, on DVD as a precursor to a cinema trip to see the sequel next week. I'd never seen it before; what a load of tosh. I thought the original engineer's Scottish accent was bad enough, but Simon Pegg's is worse. He makes Mike Myer's Shrek sound like Kenny Dalglish.
• Oddly - or maybe not - there were some similarities between the plots of Star Trek and the Sherlock Holmes play that I saw the other night. 
• No re-enactors at the Armouries this weekend, but there does seem to be a convention of crusties (think Swampy) congregating outside. I'm not entirely clear why. Then there's the hen party that has taken over one of the apartments opposite mine and who spent all yesterday afternoon on the balcony in their finery (short skirts, sashes etc) shouting down at passing blokes that took their fancy to get their kecks off. Sadly, no many how many times I walked to Tesco, my strides stayed on.

She moved the dishes first

And so to the theatre. Visceral is a word that is often used metaphorically in reviews of all sorts of things, but applies literally to the play currently on at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Among the attractions of the superb design and staging is an on stage post mortem during which a woman has her liver removed and shown to the audience. The same dead woman makes a gruesome, but gutsy, reappearance during a rather fine druggy dream that Sherlock Holmes (for it is he) experiences. If you are squeamish then don't sit on the left side of the auditorium.

Anyway, the fact that I am referring to the strengths of the set probably gives a clue to the fact that there are problems with some of the other apsects. The acting is OK; it's a bit shouty at times, but that's probably the director's fault. The real issue is with the play itself. Despite being a great fan of the Conan Doyle canon, I have no problem with re-imaginings, pastiche, or any other new mysteries for the great detective to solve. However, in my opinion, the best of these are those that take on a straightforward middle-of-the-road story. You know the sort of thing: local squire is victim of a mysterious crime that turns out to be related to nefarious doings somewhere in the Empire a generation ago. It's not easy to write a Sherlock Holmes story - even Conan Doyle wrote some stinkers (The Man with the Twisted Lip anyone?) - and that's why the closer to the base model the better.

The world's greatest detective

But authors often just can't resist shovelling in as many references as possible from existing stories. Anthony Horowitz did just that with House of Silk, and undermined the strength of his spot-on version of the Watsonian authorial voice. Mark Catley does the same here, throwing everything into the mix: Irene Adler, Mycroft, unrequited homosexual passion, steampunk and of course the drugs and it's all too much. Less would have been more. The plot isn't so brilliant. Not only is it obvious where it's going, but the solution relies on a coup de theatre rather than rationcination. There are some funny moments and the author manages to include the phrase "No shit, Sherlock." to the delight of the audience.