Friday Night with an Opera

What’s your favourite opera? Dido and Aeneas? The Marriage of Figaro? La Traviata? Tosca? Our answer is: all of the above, and many more. But our real honest-to- God favourite is a drink, gentle readers, not a load of people chorusing on top of a windy hill in Sussex, or close to a handy pub in Covent Garden. That’s right, you guessed that today we are going to present the Opera, one of the tastiest, easiest-to-make homages to a great art form that we know. So with due reverence to the handy Hamlyn Ultimate Cocktail Book-(23 years old and still a go-to)-here is our (adapted)delicious recipe

Take 5 of your best ice cubes and drop ‘em in a shaker. Add one measure of Dubonnet, one half measure of Curaçao, and two measures of your best London dry gin. Put on the overture to Carmen and shake for the first three bars. Pour to a chilled cocktail glass, sin hielo, and decorate with a sprig of orange rind. This will get you through the longest passages of difficult East European composers ,with the added advantage that it’s easy to sneak in to your box, provided the ushers are not looking.

So now imagine you are in your box in the Royal Opera House with your feet up sipping your drink as Bryn Terfel and the whole chorus belt out that sublime, that ultimate, that immense Te deum from Tosca.. Is your cocktail going to last right through? Go on, it’s a night out, and you’re going large.-Slip a tenner to the usher and send him off for another of the same! Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio !

#opera #cocktail #puccini #drinks

A Quick Roundup: Power from rain, a plea for peace, Base Pair goes big, reality trumps Trump-and Schubert on hubris

So many stories have crossed our screen in the last few days that the only thing we could think of was to run a quick round up and invite you to dive in for yourselves

Pennies from Heaven? The desperate need for renewable sources of power can produce some surprising ideas. For once the old Bing Crosby number may come true as this intriguing idea of generating electricity from raindrops shows. Popular Mechanics has the story:

_{thanks to P Seymour}

India-Pakistan: please don’t do it! We are ignorant of the quarrel between these two great nations. But the consequences of a nuclear war would be dire indeed. Apart from the millions of dead and wounded, the unprecedented waves of refugees would find a chilly welcome wherever they went. They too would be breathing the clouds of radioactive waste(and goodness knows what other toxins) from the burning cities. And, we know this is unsayable, but we will anyway: the only real winner would be China, with no strong powers to counterweight it. We have many readers in the subcontinent: what have you got to gain? Alright, we go with the Mail: but as George Orwell noted, even they can be right sometimes

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14686439/The-world-worried-tit-tat-strikes-hated-rivals-India-Pakistan-quickly-spiral-nuclear-Armageddon-countries

Base Pair Goes to market We have long sung the praises of new biochemical techniques like CRISPR Cas 9 and Base pair editing. But, we humbly admit, it’s always from a slightly academic, detached viewpoint. Some of our correspondents have a more hard-nosed commercial orientation. Which is why they sent us the exciting tale of companies taking it into real-world, commercial solutions

https://www.biospace.com/drug-development/safer-crispr-base-editing-breaks-through-in-the-clinic-as-beam-verve-advance?

_{thanks to G Herbert}

Donald Trump’s Cunning Plan won’t work Ever since February, a story has been drifting in and out of the financial columns; Donald Trump’s actions are all part of a Cunning Plan to crash the dollar and bring the rest of the world to its knees in Mar-a- Lago, where he will dictate terms as he pleases. It was scary, it was tempting to believe: but it relied on flawed assumptions as Kenneth Rogoff succinctly explains in this piece for the Grauniad (surely “Guardian?”-ed)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/07/why-donald-trumps-plan-to-weaken-the-dollar-is-flawed

Schubert : the queasy air of Pride before a Fall Ever since Griffin Johnson, the armchair historian [1] used it to accompany the French Army marching to Sedan, Schuberts Piano Trio in E Flat, No2 has really put the hook in us. You know, that outward confidence masking deep ineer doubts. Listen to the second movement if you don’t believe us. And wonder what happens to over-confident politicians just as the pass their peak.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=schubert+piano+trio&&mid=3A9911F1E9485D296FD63A9911F1E9485D296FD6&&FORM=VRDGAR

#donald trump #base pair editing #economics #CRISPR Cas 9 #india #pakistan #nuclear war #renewable energy

[1]https://armchairhistory.tv/en-gbp/

Lascivious Album Covers: But could you spare 1% for Brian Eno?

Photo by SK Movies & Photos on Pexels.com

Ancient readers of this blog, rummaging through the rubble of their memories, will recall the existence of a group of musicians called Roxy Music from the very early 1970s. It was not the lasciviousness of their album covers, nor the egregious prose of some of their supporters (or so it seemed to us) It was rather the way that ordinary rock and roll was combined with art college ambitiousness, blending allusive vocals, timely guitar licks and soaring synthesisers. The man responsible for the later was Brian Eno . After whose departure Roxy Music dwindled in to a good, but no longer very noteworthy, dance band, at least in the opinion of many early followers.[1]

But Eno soared into what can truly be described as an illustrious career. His list of collaborators reads like a list of some of the most percipient people of the last 50 years, including (hold your breath) David Bowie, Ultravox, Damien Albarn,U2, David Byrne, Grace Jones (that’s enough citations-ed) At 75, he is still one of the most sought-after producers and even such luminaries as Philip Glass cite him as an influence.

Yet Eno is nothing if not aware of the broader social and economic trends of our time. Also ecological ones, like global warming, which will kill most of us very soon if action to avert it is not taken shortly. To this end he and some colleagues have founded Earth Per Cent [2] whose founding aim was

Through the generous backing of our Founding Donors—remarkable artists and organizations committed to environmental advocacy—we’re able to channel the power of music into meaningful environmental change

Which in effect means all kind of restorative projects in all parts of the world.

Many of you who listened to early Roxy Music on a stereo in those far off days in someone’s mum’s front room will have grandchildren now. At the present rate of things, those grandchildren are unlikely to boast of the same. Can you do something to help Brian Eno?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno

[2]https://www.earthpercent.org/

#roxy music #brian eno #global warming #earth percent #climate change #renewables

Our Choice for Easter: JS Bach, St John Passion

You don’t have to follow the Christian eschatology to realise that “easter” has a far deeper meaning which predates the birth of Jesus by millennia. Fans of The Golden Bough will recall that legends of the Reborn- God- in- Spring, are almost universal among people who live and farm across the northern hemisphere, and have been ever since the Neolithic. The sense of renewal after a hard winter, and the hope of fresh beginnings, address something extremely deep in the human psyche.

Bach‘s great Easter oratorios, the St Matthew Passion and the St John Passion speak to this sensibility as well as any work of art we know. Bach wrote the St John Passion in 1724. Like many such works, it was revised and cut many times, not least by the composer himself. The versions we hear now are are result of centuries of study, and of course the early music revival of the 1980s, when period instruments and orchestrations were rediscovered and tried out.

This year we have chosen the St John Passion as, frankly, we are a bit St Matthewed-out. So it is wonderful to try to understand a fresher set of rhythms and harmonies from a master artist, and relate them to Bach’s sense of the universal, creed-jumping essence of this work. Of course, we would not dare to tell you which bits to like, nor why. For one thing, we lack the musical knowledge. But we really liked the opening prologue, Herr, unser Herrscher, and we hope you will too. And meanwhile wish all of you a happy Easter, or whatever you call this break, and hope the world improves as the summer opens before us.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_Passion

[2]https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-features/bach-st-john-passion/

#JS Bach #St John Passion #Easter #Neolithic #belief #christianity #music

Ronnie Lane: why we are into medical research

Here’s an experiment younger readers can try on their grandparents. Ask them about The Faces and they will probably start on about flamboyant front man Rod Stewart. Ask them about the Small Faces and they will say the same about Steve Marriott. Yet alongside these undoubtedly gifted individuals there played-and, more significantly, wrote-a quieter, slightly self-effacing figure called Ronnie Lane.[1] Who was no less talented, but whose life was cut dreadfully and horribly short by the dreadful disease Multiple Sclerosis at the sadly early age of 51.

Younger readers, if you want to explore the back catalogue of Lane and his various collaborators, we promise you some real treats. The Small Faces were an iconic sound for the modernising London of the 1960s. The Faces were the quintessential good time rockers, whose sense of humour and fun in being alive shines through every album. Lane could bring a wistful, slightly melancholic line as well, giving emotional depth to run alongside the more raucous productions of Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Yet after leaving, Lane never achieved the world-brand status of his erstwhile chums. And before he really found his feet, the disease struck; apparently it was hereditary in the family.

And that , ladies and gentlemen, is the point. Because we say; it shouldn’t have happened like this. We offer this man as one personal example of how chronic disease can rob the world. But MS, like other neurological diseases afflicts millions, making life hell for sufferers and their carers alike. The answer of course is research. And, here’s an article of faith: we think research in one area will spread its benefits into many others.

So now, as a tribute to Ronnie, imagine you are Parka-Clad Mod, speeding on a stylish Italian motor scooter through the streets of swinging London, on your way to your favourite coffee bar. The song paying will be All or Nothing[2] And that’s how we want you to treat the research and discoveries which will one day end this disease forever.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Lane

[2]https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=small+faces+all+or+nothing&&mid=DB77E21A8419DB96B9F9DB77E21A8419DB96B9F9&&FORM=VRDGAR

#ronnie lane #small faces #the faces #rod stewart #ronnie wood #steve marroitt #mods #multiple sclerosis

Beat the winter gloom with two great stories on cancer

There’s something about the dark and cold of February that chills like no other month we know. But do not be disheartened, gentle readers! For today we offer not one, but two stories that promise hope, optimism, and , who knows, maybe even a long term cure for the terrible disease of cancer. So, without further ado:

Welsh Wizard You may have heard of Duran Duran, but what about Sir Christopher Evans? According to Maria Lally of the Independent, [1] Sir Christopher has been on the trail of a cancer cure since he was six years old, when his family in Port Talbot bought him his first chemistry set. Not only has he been working with Andy Taylor, a key member of Duran Duran. but he and his organisation are at the forefront of research, pioneering new techniques such as Lutetium-177. In an age of selfish aggression and violence, it’s nice to come across someone who has devoted his time to the public good!

Rwanda hope Cervical cancer is a deadly killer, blighting lives and quashing the hopes of millions. One sure way to eliminate it is better vaccines. But how to get a vaccine programme underway in world full of ignorant superstition, where all the money is spent on armaments and SUV motor cars? One country showing the way ahead is the plucky little East African State of Rwanda who realised the solution was social, not medical. To quote Nature, [1] the key insight was

As Rwanda shows, strong, trustworthy and reliable collaboration between all stakeholders is key

For us, the key concept is stakeholder. Get everyone onside, and you’ll be amazed what you can achieve. Degrading, despising and turning people into others is the sure way to fail. In anything.

So before you utterly surrender to the late winter blues, here are two stories to show that someone, somewhere out there is refusing to bend. And, maybe, Spring is just around the corner after all.

[1]https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/top-cancer-specialist-explains-why-it-s-time-to-rethink-what-stage-4-means/ar-BB1hKxsp?cvid=30ca68cc771a4e11a5de2db2c08c992c

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00241-2?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=5093011eda-briefing-dy-20240202&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ (via Nature briefings)

#cancer #medicine #celsis #cancer awareness trust