Now BA says they're not letting any instruments into any cabins, but they're saying it's BAA's fault (=British Airports Authority, which is being widely blamed for the security chaos last week). It seems that everywhere else in Europe is fine...just here... A violin soloist friend tells me that her various colleagues are taking Eurostar to Paris & flying from there. A report in yesterday's Independent said that the Musicians' Union is going to do its best but can't do anything much at the moment because Parliament is in recess (=sun-tanning in Rome while the fiddles burn...?).
SO: our holiday is off, we lose £400 (neither BA nor travel insurance can't be bothered with musicians needing to take their instruments) and I suspect that in fact we're getting off relatively lightly. There are musicians around who stand to lose a hell of a lot more in earnings if they have to factor in extra travel time and cost to get out of Britain before they can get anywhere else. I'm seriously wondering whether two years from now, I'll want to carry on living in this country.
The best thing about London - a crazy, mismanaged, exorbitant place - is that it is a hub of world cultural activity at the highest level. It's immensely multicultural and cosmopolitan, musicians and other creative types gravitate here from all corners of the globe and our friends include people from Italy, France, Canada, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the US, Uganda, South Africa, Edinburgh, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and Denmark, to name but a few. If we are now going to turn into a xenophobic, paranoic, protectionist little island - as the USA appears to be doing its best to become - and our musician friends are forced to base themselves elsewhere, as may yet happen if this bloody mess is here to stay, then I just won't want to be here any more.
Of course everyone is delighted and relieved that this latest terrorism plot was caught in time: the security services did a fantastic job, the airports et al may have been in a mess but have probably done OK, realistically, given the circumstances. Of course all those cabin baggage restrictions are supposed to be for passengers' safety. But this degree of inflexibility is not reasonable. That's what's so frightening. Excessive, unreasoned, ignorant, knee-jerk reactions.
It would be very easy to say that the latest foiled terror plot was a result of Blair's support for Bush's insane policies in the Middle East - quite possibly it is. (I didn't vote for Blair, by the way, & wouldn't have touched Bush with a barge-pole.) That's too simplistic an explanation, but there's no doubt that this hasn't helped. Normally, I'm reasonably proud to be British, thanks to our amazing literary tradition, but frankly, at this moment, I am positively ashamed of it, something I never felt even in the darkest days of Thatcher.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Here we go, here we go, here we go...again
Late August, everyone's away on holiday and it's time to start blustering about the Last Night of the Proms. Yes, it's outdated, too British and pretty bloody silly. Yes, it's probably not the most appropriate programming at times when Tony Blair & co are helping GWB to blast apart his latest choice of adversary. No, it doesn't put people off music. Actually, it attracts thousands to imitation Last Night of the Proms concerts all over the place. And to some, it could also be classified as harmless fun. Naturally, the papers have to come out with the usual stuff all over again. Could that be because there's not much else going on here right now, bar a few nasty Russian operas, one of the most journalistically uninspiring Proms seasons I can remember and...um...?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
How not to write a book
Right now I should be battling my way through the difficult third quarter of my third novel. This is always a tricky point in the plot - how many operas, for example, founder exactly there? I'll save that topic for another day. Suffice it to say that I've been resorting to unfortunate displacement activities, and the latest I've discovered is the BBC Radio 3 Message Boards, onto which I had previously failed to venture.
I was amused by a discussion that had a good dig at Gramophone.co.uk's news section, which was a little slow at the Schwarzkopf obituary starting post. Readers commented on how annoyed they were that the site had posted next to no news for two weeks in July (er, was someone on holiday, perhaps?). Cue a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek contribution from BBC Music Mag editor Oliver Condy, inviting the said annoyed readers to try his online news section instead, and with a dry charm that few could resist. I think he won...
...You see how easy it is to get sucked in to this useless fun. You just pop a few details into the form, pick a user name (obscure composers are popular: in one sitting I found both 'Charles Valentin Alkan' and 'Sorabji'), click a response to the confirmation email they send you, and away you go. Did I come out better informed than before? Not sure. But I managed to while away a perfectly pleasant hour that should have been spent more productively elsewhere on my computer.
Still, with broadband it works out cheaper than your average 'Sex and the City' fan's retail therapy. And it's less fattening than chocolate.
I was amused by a discussion that had a good dig at Gramophone.co.uk's news section, which was a little slow at the Schwarzkopf obituary starting post. Readers commented on how annoyed they were that the site had posted next to no news for two weeks in July (er, was someone on holiday, perhaps?). Cue a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek contribution from BBC Music Mag editor Oliver Condy, inviting the said annoyed readers to try his online news section instead, and with a dry charm that few could resist. I think he won...
...You see how easy it is to get sucked in to this useless fun. You just pop a few details into the form, pick a user name (obscure composers are popular: in one sitting I found both 'Charles Valentin Alkan' and 'Sorabji'), click a response to the confirmation email they send you, and away you go. Did I come out better informed than before? Not sure. But I managed to while away a perfectly pleasant hour that should have been spent more productively elsewhere on my computer.
Still, with broadband it works out cheaper than your average 'Sex and the City' fan's retail therapy. And it's less fattening than chocolate.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Out?
I'm sorry to say that the latest on carrying hand-baggage on flights to/from Britain is that violins appear to be a no-no.
Tom has been carrying his violin into the cabin as hand-luggage for 25 years. Yesterday we hung on for about ten minutes to get through to the airline on which we are meant to fly to France next month, listening to pre-recorded platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service. Finally Tom was told by some idiot of a rep that he can put his violin in the hold. He explained that he can't: it's liable to be smashed by those shott-putting bag handlers, being 150 years old and worth a five-figure sum. 'In that case you can afford to buy another ticket for it,' said the rep, who evidently hadn't listened to the platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service.
Another call to the same company, answered by a different rep, produced the information that the new regulations about the size of hand-luggage have been in place since 1 August. A visit to the website produced, after much searching, a kind of afterthought suggesting that they've been in place since 1 July. Nobody mentioned this when we bought our tickets to France. We have the distinct impression that the airline is using the current crisis to cash in.
We're supposed to fly to Nice for a week's long-awaited holiday, then to Nantes for the St Nazaire Festival (hence Tom's need for his violin), then home from Nantes. We may have to ditch the whole plan and drive across northern France to St N instead, thanks to the airline, which by the way is refusing to offer a refund even though this situation is their fault, not ours.
Apparently orchestras on tour should be OK because they have organisational clout and proper equipment. It's the individual violinist, travelling between small chamber music festivals, who is basically up s**t creek without a fiddle.
BUT even as I write, conflicting information is still emanating from every orifice of the airline in question: the latest this morning is that the 'new' regulations about hang-luggage size are the same as the 'old' ones and that the airline can be 'flexible'. Confusing, but promising. So, no panics yet, please...
UPDATE: 12 noon. I think Tom has got it sorted, though I'll only believe it when we are actually on that plane. There's no problem with the French internal flight from Nice to Nantes - the rep we spoke to there seemed to think that Britain and the US have gone completely bonkers, and she may be right. Advice in the meantime: check with the airline before you travel, be polite and persuasive and try to get something in writing about taking the fiddle aboard. A forum on Violinist.com earlier this year about problems on a particular US airline saw several ladies advocating tears as a suitable last resort!
Tom has been carrying his violin into the cabin as hand-luggage for 25 years. Yesterday we hung on for about ten minutes to get through to the airline on which we are meant to fly to France next month, listening to pre-recorded platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service. Finally Tom was told by some idiot of a rep that he can put his violin in the hold. He explained that he can't: it's liable to be smashed by those shott-putting bag handlers, being 150 years old and worth a five-figure sum. 'In that case you can afford to buy another ticket for it,' said the rep, who evidently hadn't listened to the platitudinous messages about their wonderful customer service.
Another call to the same company, answered by a different rep, produced the information that the new regulations about the size of hand-luggage have been in place since 1 August. A visit to the website produced, after much searching, a kind of afterthought suggesting that they've been in place since 1 July. Nobody mentioned this when we bought our tickets to France. We have the distinct impression that the airline is using the current crisis to cash in.
We're supposed to fly to Nice for a week's long-awaited holiday, then to Nantes for the St Nazaire Festival (hence Tom's need for his violin), then home from Nantes. We may have to ditch the whole plan and drive across northern France to St N instead, thanks to the airline, which by the way is refusing to offer a refund even though this situation is their fault, not ours.
Apparently orchestras on tour should be OK because they have organisational clout and proper equipment. It's the individual violinist, travelling between small chamber music festivals, who is basically up s**t creek without a fiddle.
BUT even as I write, conflicting information is still emanating from every orifice of the airline in question: the latest this morning is that the 'new' regulations about hang-luggage size are the same as the 'old' ones and that the airline can be 'flexible'. Confusing, but promising. So, no panics yet, please...
UPDATE: 12 noon. I think Tom has got it sorted, though I'll only believe it when we are actually on that plane. There's no problem with the French internal flight from Nice to Nantes - the rep we spoke to there seemed to think that Britain and the US have gone completely bonkers, and she may be right. Advice in the meantime: check with the airline before you travel, be polite and persuasive and try to get something in writing about taking the fiddle aboard. A forum on Violinist.com earlier this year about problems on a particular US airline saw several ladies advocating tears as a suitable last resort!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Violin - or out?
You may find the comments on this BBC site interesting re the problems musicians are now facing because they're not allowed to carry their valuable and delicate instruments on to the planes. The security guard who says 'if you don't like it, don't fly, there's more to life than music' is rather missing the point: music is a musician's livelihood! Get real yourself, Laura.
Dear friends who play violins, violas, or anything else that normally flies as hand baggage - please write in and tell us your experiences about travelling over the past few days? What are you going to do? I haven't heard any reports that terrorists are planning to blow up planes using fiddles, which are not liquid, but the blanket ban on hand-luggage nevertheless is playing havoc with musicians' plans. I sincerely hope that the Musicians Union will be able to tackle the airlines and work out something sensible, and fast.
UPDATE, MONDAY 11.45am: this is the latest on the hand baggage situation here in the UK - seems to be easing a bit. As far as I can tell, this means that flutes, oboes and, I hope, violins will be OK, but not sure about violas, cellos and tubas.
Dear friends who play violins, violas, or anything else that normally flies as hand baggage - please write in and tell us your experiences about travelling over the past few days? What are you going to do? I haven't heard any reports that terrorists are planning to blow up planes using fiddles, which are not liquid, but the blanket ban on hand-luggage nevertheless is playing havoc with musicians' plans. I sincerely hope that the Musicians Union will be able to tackle the airlines and work out something sensible, and fast.
UPDATE, MONDAY 11.45am: this is the latest on the hand baggage situation here in the UK - seems to be easing a bit. As far as I can tell, this means that flutes, oboes and, I hope, violins will be OK, but not sure about violas, cellos and tubas.
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