Muesli for breakfast

Yesterday I had my first Covid-19 vaccination. Everyone said I’d feel odd afterwards, perhaps with a headache and exhaustion, but I was absolutely fine. 

Early this morning, my husband and I were at the breakfast table having coffee and I went to pour myself a bowl of fruity muesli. Our preferred fruity muesli is sold in plastic bags, so to stop spillages we decant it into a Tupperware box, which was on the other side of the kitchen. As this box was nearly empty, from a cupboard containing several bags of cereal I retrieved a fresh pack, opened it and poured one helping into my bowl and the rest into the Tupperware box. 

 

Then, however, I realised there were no raisins in it, and no almonds either. I had inadvertently poured porridge oats into the fruity muesli’s Tupperware box. I’d wanted to eat fruity muesli, but since I’d opened porridge instead, I thought ‘oh well,’ tipped my bowl of oats into a saucepan to make porridge, then took a large blue freezer bag from a drawer and prepared to pour the rest of porridge oats into it, so that I could instead fill the Tupperware box with fruity muesli.

 

‘Hang on,’ said my husband, ‘we can use the Tupperware box for porridge oats instead of muesli.’ That seemed sensible. I put the large blue freezer bag back in the drawer and fetched milk to pour into the porridge saucepan. ‘But if you want muesli, you can just put those in with the other porridge oats,’ my husband said. I put the milk away and poured the porridge oats from the saucepan back into the Tupperware box. 

 

Now we remembered that there had been a little bit of muesli that was not so fruity any more at the bottom of the Tupperware box before I filled it up with what I thought was fruity muesli but was actually porridge oats. ‘It’s OK to use muesli as porridge, or to eat porridge oats as muesli – isn’t it?’ said my husband. We thought about it for a minute, because there may be some kinds of oats that you are supposed to cook first and we were not certain. 

 

‘Here, I’ll do it,’ said my husband. I went back to the table and my coffee. My husband took the large blue freezer bag from the drawer and began to pour the porridge oats from the Tupperware box into it, which was what I’d been going to do in the first place.  

 

Suddenly, a noise and an exclamation. The porridge oats were now on the kitchen floor. I heard the cupboard opening and the vacuum cleaner clonking, then roaring as my husband took it out, assembled it and switched it on. ‘Stay at the table!’ he said, ‘I’m hoovering.’ I had a few sips of coffee. 

 

The porridge oats were now inside the vacuum cleaner. The large blue freezer bag was back in the drawer. The saucepan was in the sink. The Tupperware box was empty. Finally I could have breakfast. I retrieved a bag of fruity muesli from the cereal cupboard and filled my bowl and the Tupperware box.

 

I now have a headache and exhaustion.

How desperate are YOU?

Or... A Little Black Humour for Tuesday Morning. To begin, here's some music.

It's a tough old life, being a musician. Many of us in this field are reared by doting parents who, along with our schools, convince us at the tender age of 0 that we are born to be stars and have a talent second only to that of Johann Sebastian Bach. By the time we're 20, we've usually begun to understand that this isn't the case, and to wonder how we can make ends meet in such a cut-throat field. By 40, some of us are still at it.

How desperate are you? What does your future hold? 

Take the JDCMB quiz to find out...

1. You can't get a recording contract, so you produce your own CD. Do you:

a. Send a well-presented package to an 'artist-led' label and invite the manager to lunch with you, your sponsor and a famous advisor like Ivor Chestikoff to discuss market gaps and interesting repertoire.

b. Do it all yourself, hiring a good PR and making sure your distributors are reputable and respected, but neglect your practising in order to organise everything. Then you give a concert to launch the disc...

c. Decide it's not worth doing at all: it's got to be DG or bust. You devote yourself instead to learning the 48 and writing about how your interpretation is the definitive one and that nobody else knows how to play Bach properly. Only at that point do you make a demo disc and send it out with your tracts to blind everyone with your expertise.

d. Do it all yourself, but decide that PR and advertising is a waste of money: only word of mouth counts. You always carry a supply of your CDs, so that if a music critic happens to turn up at your mum's 80th birthday party, you can talk to him for half an hour about your achievements and give him a copy to take home and write about. You know he wants it.

2. Your sponsor hires the Wigmore Hall for you. Do you:

a. Plan your programme carefully, featuring the works Ivor Chestikoff says you're best in, and tactfully try to avoid the concert being on a Monday evening or a major public holiday. You engage a good PR person at least six months in advance, organise a drinks reception after the gig to which you can invite more potential sponsors, critics and all the people to whom you 'owe one' for their support over the years. You practise like the blazes, give some trial runs at friendly private salons and make sure your concert outfit fits you snugly and elegantly. On stage, you forget about everything but the music.

b. You decide you're going to play Bach's 48: 24 in the first half, 24 in the second, everything by memory, even though so far you've only learned 12 of them. You love a challenge! And what an opportunity: this could make you a real splash. You're so busy memorising the fugues that you forget you need to publicise the gig until a week beforehand. Oh well, perhaps Facebook and Twitter can sort it - "Please RT".

c. You don't need to do PR - everyone will come to hear you anyway, because you're the best, even if nobody knows it yet. It's all down to luck in any case.

d. You splash out on a Vivienne Westwood outfit, have your photo taken in it and put it on your Facebook page and website. Then, to save money, you write your own press releases, though there's no time to have them checked or proofread, and you badger every publication and website with them, plus phone calls, sending emails four times if no reply comes within the first day to the first one. Finally, on the underused blog section of your website, you embed the tags "Vivienne Westwood", "Luciano Pavarotti" and "Katherine Jenkins" to ensure more hits. 

3. You've managed to get backstage to meet a famous conductor. Ivor Chestikoff introduces you and the maestro holds your hand, gazes into your eyes and says it's a great pleasure to meet you. Then he tells you to call his secretary to arrange an audition. You do so; the PA says you can go to play to him in Los Angeles, Berlin or Hong Kong. You can just afford Berlin if you go on a budget airline, but it's in the middle of your holiday. Do you:

a. Cancel the holiday and go to Berlin, taking the pieces that Chestikoff has suggested that you are good at and that he knows the maestro will respond to well. You arrive the night before and make sure you're well rested despite your nerves. You arrange to fly back on the last plane on the day of your audition to save the hotel bill. When the maestro asks you what you're doing later that night, you explain you have to get back home to prepare for your concert in three days' time.

b. You can't bear to miss your holiday. You decide to go to LA and you twist a sponsor/parent's arm into paying your fare and a cheap motel for two nights. You get there ready to audition the next day - but you're jet-lagged. Will you play your best? Will you notice the inference when the maestro asks you what you're doing later that evening?

c. You laugh and say you couldn't possibly afford to go to LA or Hong Kong and you can't miss your holiday, so what about looking further ahead? The PA checks the schedule and suggests October 2012 in Moscow or Sydney. 

d. You choose whichever is soonest - hang the air fare and the holiday. You play the most difficult piece you know. You wear sexy clothes and you smile a lot. When the maestro asks you what you're doing later, you're free. He invites you to dinner and you go; you get a bit starry-eyed that you are quaffing expensive champers with the maestro and he's flirting with you something chronic, even though he is decades older than you and you'd maybe hoped he'd be fatherly and caring. Then he suggests you go up to his room where he can give you some of his latest CDs. You don't have the contract or a promise of a concert yet, but you go. You will do anything for your art. 

Results:

Mostly a: Your feet are on the ground and you have a good chance of achieving a certain amount of recognition; with luck and talent you might have a breakthrough. Do you take enough risks to get the extra edge of danger that sets concert halls alight? 

Mostly b: You take risks, but you're erratic. If you hit the jackpot, it'll probably be by sheer fluke. You may have something special to offer; or you may find yourself passed over as a harmless eccentric. 

Mostly c: Take a teaching diploma or business course, or learn to touch-type. You may need a job.

Mostly d: You're desperate. Very desperate. Someone will notice. See 'Mostly c'.