step up to the mike...

"Impartiality is not neutrality. It is partiality for justice." - Stanisław Jerzy Lec (1909-1966)

 

A good day for democracy and free speech!

BBC report...

The government has suffered two shock defeats over attempts to overturn Lords changes to the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

In a blow to Tony Blair's authority MPs voted by 288 votes to 278 to back a key Lords amendment to the bill.

Analysis of the division list showed the prime minister voted in the first division but not in the second, which was lost by one vote.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told MPs that the bill would now become law.

He claimed what had happened had been "a purely political act" by Tories, Lib Dems and members of his own side to defeat the government, rather than a genuine consideration of the issues in the bill.

'Victory for Parliament'

The government has only suffered one defeat since 1997 before Tuesday night's vote and that was on the Terrorism Bill in November.

Shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve said the defeats were "a victory for Parliament".

He branded the bill a "foolish manifesto commitment" introduced to "appease" some minority groups, and which had "threatened freedom of speech".

Mr Grieve said in multicultural Britain people had to accept that freedom of speech may mean people could be offensive to them, as well as vice versa.

He said: "This (bill) was completely contrary to our national tradition of free speech."

Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats human rights spokesman, said: "The government just failed to understand that they can't take liberties with freedom of expression.

"This has showed tonight that we will stand up for freedom of expression."

Joke restrictions fear

Labour rebel Bob Marshall-Andrews said: "It was an awful misjudgement to believe you could get a bill like this through in the teeth of opposition from so many of your backbenchers."

Labour's John McDonnell, chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, said the vote showed that "democracy has broken out".

Shami Chakrabarti, of Liberty, said her organisation "takes great heart as Parliament stands up for our rights and freedoms once more".

Earlier in the Commons, Home Office Minister Paul Goggins told MPs that moves to combat religious hatred would not damage freedom of speech and only those who intending to "stir up hatred" would be caught by the government's plans.

But objectors, including comedian Rowan Atkinson, feared the proposals would limit artistic freedom and might have stopped comedians making jokes about religion.

Safeguards

The votes came after hundreds protested against the bill outside Parliament on Tuesday.

In the first vote, 27 Labour backbenchers rebelled and more than 40 others did not vote. At least 15 of these were Scottish MPs believed to have been campaigning for next week's Dunfermline and Fife West by-election.

Mr Blair was recorded as voting with the government line in this division.

In the second vote, MPs voted by 283 votes to 282, majority one, to back the Lords - but Mr Blair was not recorded as having voted.

The Commons confrontation followed a series of defeats inflicted on the bill by peers in a bid to safeguard freedom of speech.

The peers said only "threatening words" should be banned by the bill, not those which are only abusive or insulting.

They also called for the offence to be intentional and specified that proselytising, discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence.

Ministers had urged MPs to reject the Lords' amendments and back instead a government compromise instead.

posted by: Oborski at 22:35 | link | comments |

Searching for the wrong eyed Jesus...

Came across this review...

pawned from a desire to capture the ambiance of the American South, Andrew Douglas's Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus proves to be an atmospheric investigation into the surreal, artistically inspirational mixture of religiosity and criminality that hangs like a pall over the rural communities of the country's lower half. Douglas's tender and terrifying film is an impressionistic pseudo-documentary interspersing confessional interviews, staged scenes, and musical performances with leisurely travelogue footage of its backwater community settings. Imbued with an otherworldly vibe largely absent from his torpid remake of The Amityville Horror, it coasts along like a twangy country music melody, a seductive, slightly melancholy mood amplified by the participation of alt-country musician Jim White as the film's guide and de facto narrator. In the film's clear-eyed portrait, the South is revealed as a place in which Christ, mysticism, superstition, and the yin-yang forces of the sacred and the profane combine, creating a delicate blend of the real and the unreal, the known and the unknown.

"Choose Jesus or choose hell" is White's summation of the options afforded to those who live in these impoverished parts of the nation, an opinion echoed by prison inmates who concede that available recreational pastimes for good ol' boys like themselves (namely, poor, uneducated denizens of ramshackle small towns) are limited to attending church or frequenting a watering hole. The paths of the devout and the deviant constantly intersect in these run-down locales, where even the pubs and fried catfish joints are adorned with signs informing visitors or passersby that "Jesus Saves" and "Jesus is Coming." In White—whose album The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus spurred the making of the film—Douglas finds a bluesy conductor (in a gigantic 1970 Chevy) for his magical musical ride through the misty swamps, school bus-littered junkyards, and off-the-highway bars where drugs, sex and Pentecostal passions freely mingle. A California native who embraced the South ("an enveloping culture," as he puts it) as his home in order to become "closer to God," White has a laidback wisdom that, in its simplistic folksiness, only very occasionally borders on country bumpkin affectation.

There's an unvarnished openness to White's affection and awe for (as well as disappointment with) his adopted region that, when complemented by performances by (among others) Johnny Dowd, David Johansen, and White himself in diners, motel rooms, and barber shops, creates an enveloping, sensual sense of time and space. Via its glimpses of toothless boozehounds shimmying to classic rock in darkly lit dives and zealous churchgoers convulsing, crying, and speaking in tongues during Sunday morning sermons, Douglas's detached camera (functioning as a fascinated, bemused spectator) presents a world straddling a fine line between reverence for Heaven and fondness for Hell. As White says, a place's essence can't be grasped by looking directly at it; it's in the blood of its inhabitants, on the edges of one's senses, on the periphery of one's vision. And thus it's no surprise that somewhere deep within the very fabric of the film's gnarly tapestry of anecdotal stories of death and heartbreak, lyrical landscape cinematography and plaintive homegrown songs, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus truly captures the bewitching, somewhat unsettling spirit of the South.

posted by: Oborski at 22:13 | link | comments |

It's "fun at work" day! Enjoy!

posted by: Oborski at 11:47 | link | comments |

CHEMO CHRONICLES again...

Well, I'm half way through the sixth cycle out of eight! Each one gets a little harder. The exchaustion is pretty rough and the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet are cracking up. However I've got some good cream which really helps - although I'm still suffering from slippery sock syndrome as a result. The exhaustion is just totally frustrating. It hits hard and sudden without reason or warning. Sometimes it lasts 5 minutes and sometimes it runs for hours. I'm extremely lucky that things aren't worse so I can't complain. It's just frustrating.

posted by: Oborski at 11:37 | link | comments |

Hopes Fade

BBC report...

Hopes of finding any more survivors are fading after a building collapsed in southern Poland, killing at least 65 people, rescuers said.

Some 500 people were in the trade hall in Katowice for a pigeon exhibition when the roof caved in - possibly under the weight of snow - on Saturday.

Among the dead and some 140 injured were Poles, Belgians and Germans.

President Lech Kaczynski has announced a day of mourning for what he called a "catastrophe" unprecedented in Poland.

Rescue official Leszek Suski told a news conference: "With such a low temperature the chances of finding someone alive are slim but we still have hope."

'Panic and chaos'

A central section of the roof collapsed at 1730 local time (1630GMT). A second collapse happened more than an hour later, during rescue operations.

Hundreds of rescuers with sniffer dogs worked through the night as temperatures dropped to minus 15C.

Rescuers have been blowing warm air into the wreckage to increase the chances of survival for those still inside.

Police said people had been telephoning from inside on mobile phones, reporting dead bodies near them.

But no-one had been found alive since 2100 GMT Saturday.

Officials confirmed that at least one child was among the dead.

"The dogs have located 13 places where there are bodies but it is impossible to determine how many people will be found there," local fire brigade official Kazimierz Krzowski.

Survivor's story

One of the survivors described the scenes of panic and chaos immediately after the roof collapsed.

"We heard something snap like a match breaking and people started to panic right away, realising what was happening," the unnamed survivor told private television TVN24.

"I started to run and something fell on me, others trampled over me and I was able to crawl out on hands and knees," the survivor added.

Many people, some clutching head wounds, milled around ambulances.

Some of the victims were in serious or critical condition, officials said.

New building

The cause of the disaster is not yet certain.

Jacob Parade, a journalist with TVN24 in Poland, told the BBC the collapse was a surprise as the hall - built in the late 1990s - was so new.

The fire brigade and police said the weight of snow on the roof was responsible.

But the building's manager told Polish TV that snow had been regularly cleared from the roof.

This was backed up by at least two people in BBC interviews.

One woman whose father had been at the scene, Sascha Kraus, said there had been little snow on the roof.

Graf Pietro also told the BBC the snow on the roof was not heavy and that those responsible for clearing it had done a good job.

Another theory is that the extreme cold caused steel beams to fail.

There were more than 120 exhibitors from countries across Europe at the Pigeon 2006 fair.

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz arrived at the scene, pledging a public inquiry into the accident.

Fifteen people died on 2 January when the roof of an ice rink collapsed under heavy snow in the southern German town of Bad Reichenhall.

In December, at least 14 people, 10 of them children, were killed when a roof collapsed at a swimming pool in the Urals region of Russia. Snowfall was again thought a possible cause.

posted by: Oborski at 11:31 | link | comments |

here is an article from today's new york times:
or here's the link- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/arts/music/29herm.html

Don't Tell the Indie Fans: Jenny Lewis Likes Country Music

By WILL HERMES
Published: January 29, 2006

THE C.M.A. awards - "Country Music's Biggest Night," as the ads branded it - found Manhattan overrun by Nashville music-biz types for a week in November. And while platinum acts like Trace Adkins and Brad Paisley rehearsed for a special Grand Ole Opry broadcast just around the corner at Carnegie Hall, Jenny Lewis sat in a Greek restaurant chatting over beet salad. She was in town promoting her first solo record, titled "Rabbit Fur Coat," a set of country-style story songs filled with gospel harmonies and verses about God. The timing, however, was purely coincidental.
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Autumn de Wilde

The singer said her acting past had no bearing on her music: "I was an actress, not a writer - and not a very good actress."
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Forum: Popular Music

"I find most modern country virtually unlistenable," said Ms. Lewis, who will not be singing duets with Kenny Chesney anytime soon. "I can't relate to the music or the lyrics. But I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it; it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12. Ultimately, though, my voice, and the songs I did with Rilo Kiley, were revealing - I had to fess up to being a country fan."

Ms. Lewis's day job remains lead singer for Rilo Kiley, the indie-rock band whose 2004 album "More Adventurous" topped many critics' best-of lists, as well as that of Elvis Costello, who said it showed "the best lyric writing I've heard in many a day."

The recording, which sold more than 100,000 copies, was a breakthrough. First, it showed Ms. Lewis coming of age as a writer; she wrote about half its songs, the most memorable ones - the Southern soul doppelgänger "I Never" and the adultery narrative "Does He Love You?" - predicting the direction of her solo debut. It also aligned the band with a major label, Warner Brothers, and helped spur a string of arena dates opening for the megaband Coldplay.

Yet Ms. Lewis has released "Rabbit Fur Coat" on the Team Love label, run by her friend Conor Oberst, the singer/songwriter who performs as Bright Eyes. "One of the only reasons I made this record when I did was because, a couple of years ago, Conor asked me to," she said. "At the time it didn't make sense, but I was honoring that moment, and Team's support of artists in general. I didn't know I could do it until he asked me; that's the funny thing. When someone you really admire puts faith in you, and ultimately dollar bills, it counts for a lot."

A petite woman with understated features and a spectacular mane of red hair, Ms. Lewis, 30, is one of indie rock's strongest female personalities - she is often referred to as the scene's "queen," or at least "princess," and she walks like she talks it. She wears oversized sunglasses, but with an attitude of irony, and mentions a thrift store in Detroit as the source of a striking purple knit dress she's wearing ("I got three, in different colors"). Exuding a blend of self-possession and self-effacement, she alternates snappy retorts with worried confessions as if acting the role of the skeptical indie artiste. Which makes sense: the singer's performing career began as a child actress in Los Angeles, where she did everything from a Jell-O commercial to decidedly sub-classic movies like "Troop Beverly Hills" and "Big Girls Don't Cry ... They Get Even."

She doesn't regard that career as training for this one. "I was an actress, not a writer - and not a very good actress," she said. "This has more to do with Bobbie Gentry." But she still likes to act. The photos in the CD booklet could be stills from an early Robert Altman film: Ms. Lewis, wearing a scarlet dress, haunts a budget hotel with a young child and a pair of adult twins in matching turquoise blouses and eye shadow. The photographs suggest a meta-narrative for lyrics involving familiar Los Angeles themes like adultery, cocaine use, cosmetic surgery and house arrest.

While the child in the photos is not Ms. Lewis's, the women are the Watson Twins, Leigh and Chandra, her musical collaborators on "Rabbit Fur Coat" (the group performs next Sunday at the Angel Orensanz Center in Manhattan). For all the Southern influences on her record, Ms. Lewis's main inspiration was more Northern: Laura Nyro and Labelle's 1971 collection of Brill Building and Motown classics "Gonna Take a Miracle." Ms. Lewis thought the Watsons - whom she met in Los Angeles through her band mate and ex-boyfriend Blake Sennett - would be perfect at that style of gospel-flavored backing vocals; they agreed.

The Twins, who will release their debut this month ("Southern Manners"), hail from Louisville, Ky., where they grew up singing in church choirs and admiring R & B singers like Candi Staton. They say they especially like Ms. Lewis's lyrics, which invoke God and the Devil, often in surprising ways. The old-time gospel of "Run Devil Run," and the new-age soul of "Raise Up With Fists!" suggest a familiar struggle to do right in a dirty world, while the wickedly jaunty "The Charging Sky" presents a disbelieving, free-associating narrator who prays "as insurance" and wonders "What if God's not there?/ But his name is on your dollar bill/ Which just became cab fare."

Ms. Lewis, who is Jewish by birth ("although everyone assumes I'm a little shiksa," she says) and currently lives alone in Los Angeles, said the religious inquiries on "Rabbit Fur Coat" partly reflect her own spiritual musings. "God ... he's a funny guy," she said. "I'm not a religious person by any means. But I'm curious. And most of the time I feel really left out in the religious-slash-political climate of the country these days. Like, am I really missing out here? Everyone seems so completely faithful, and so happy about it."

Trying to imagine herself into the heads of religious believers (as kindred singers Steve Earle and Dar Williams have in recent songs) was also a way out of writing strictly about herself, although Ms. Lewis coyly suggests "Rabbit Fur Coat" is "all autobiographical, in the end." That even extends to her remarkable cover of the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care," one of her "all-time favorite songs." She gave the parts originally sung by Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison to her fellow indie-rock stars Ben Gibbard, M. Ward and Mr. Oberst (who, having long been billed as a "new Dylan," gets to ape him here).

The song is a marvelous mirror of a classic, right down to Mr. Gibbard's shimmering 12-string guitar work. But being a bona fide writer now, Ms. Lewis elected to alter the lyrics just slightly, replacing "fobbed" in Harrison's line "I've been fobbed off" with a more familiar expletive.

"It's rough to take liberties with a song that's perfect," she said. "But 'fobbed'? I tried, but I just couldn't sing it; it made me laugh every time."

posted by: Oborski at 21:09 | link | comments |

The Pet Police will soon be on the prowl...

According to The Times here is The Code of Conduct to be imposed on Cat "hosts" (cat's don't have "owners") by HM Government and duly enforced by the Pet Police. For the benefit of overseas visitors to this site - NO, we are NOT making this up! It's for real! Here is, according to The Times, the Code of Conduct for Cats...

THE CODE OF CONDUCT

The 18-page draft code tells cat owners that they should:

Keep cats indoors at night to protect them and the local wildlife

Neuter cats at four months old. Females can produce up to 18 kittens a year, the code says, and “motherhood takes a lot out of a cat”. Cats advertise their availability by screeching, fighting and wandering off, it adds

Provide areas where cats can hide, such as an enclosed bed or box, or a high ledge where they can escape from children and other pets

Ensure that cats have enough “mental stimulation” so that they do not become bored or frustrated

Use lightweight rolling balls, or toys that stimulate “catching behaviour”, such as fishing rods

Make sure that cats do not become overweight, and know their ideal weight at every stage of their life

Ensure that cats’ preference for privacy is met by giving them a hidden away place with cat litter to relieve themselves. This advice forms part of a nine-point guide for “going to the toilet”

It gives us so much confidence in the powers that be to know that HM Government, having solved every other problem we face now has the time to ponder at length on appropriate proceedures for cats to go to the toilet! We are all truly privileged to live at such a time.

In terms of the actual advice the response from our cats is as follows:-

Keep cats indoors at night to protect them and the local wildlife - "Hang on we have "cat flaps" at the front and back of the house and come and go as we choose at all hours. No one is telling us we can't take our night time strolls! Incidentally our day time kill rate is more than our night time kill rate so there!"

Neuter cats at four months old. Females can produce up to 18 kittens a year, the code says, and “motherhood takes a lot out of a cat”. Cats advertise their availability by screeching, fighting and wandering off, it adds - "Yup, we''ve all been done!"

Provide areas where cats can hide, such as an enclosed bed or box, or a high ledge where they can escape from children and other pets - "Now listen, we have the full run of the place. We can open doors. We decide on our own nooks and crannies. We will NOT be told where to go! Mind you most of the time we just kip on the nearest bed with whoever is in it at the time!"

Ensure that cats have enough “mental stimulation” so that they do not become bored or frustrated - "Us? Bored? Frustrated? You must be joking!"

Use lightweight rolling balls, or toys that stimulate “catching behaviour”, such as fishing rods - "Yup, we have all that. Scratching posts are nice too - and cat nip. Mind you nothing beats clawing furniture and curtains." 

Make sure that cats do not become overweight, and know their ideal weight at every stage of their life - "Are they suppose to know our ideal weight or are we suppose to know our ideal weight? Read it again carefully!" Mind you we all eat out t houses round and about so nobody can actually control what we eat!"

Ensure that cats’ preference for privacy is met by giving them a hidden away place with cat litter to relieve themselves. This advice forms part of a nine-point guide for “going to the toilet” - "Listen mate we don't pee or crap in the house. We pop out through the cat flap and use a conveniently dug portion of flower bed! Much better! I can't wait to see this nine point guide on going to the toilet!"

posted by: Oborski at 20:50 | link | comments |

January 27, the date the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz was liberated, is International Holocaust Commemoration Day. How are people in Poland commemorating this event?

Michal Kubicki reports for Radio Polonia 

A tram rolling through the streets of Warsaw is one of the ways in which Poles remember the Holocaust victims.

It bears the Star of David instead of a number and takes no passengers. It is identical to the one that traveled through the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, which was annihilated by the Nazis during World War Two. The idea of this unique commemoration came from the Warsaw-based Polish-American Shalom Foundation. Jacob Weizner.

‘This is to symbolize the people who could have taken this streetcar today had they not been exterminated. There are the souls of these people who are physically no longer with us and we don’t want them to be forgotten’.

The tram makes only one symbolic stop – at Umschlagplatz in the centre of Warsaw, a square from which Nazis began sending Jews to death camps in 1942.

Outside Warsaw, the main commemorations take place at the former Auschwitz camp in southern Poland, the symbol of the Holocaust. Alicja Bialecka from the State Museum of Auschwitz

‘As every year lots of people are coming to Auschwitz on this day for the commemoration, former prisoners and groups of students with their teachers from the whole region. Many people in the area witnessed the Marches of Death shortly before the liberation of the camp and the memory of the Holocaust is very important for them.

The Shalom Foundation has also called on Poles to light candles in their windows to remember the Holocaust victims.

The Catholic Church joined in the appeal, with special letters to the faithful from both Cardinal Glemp, the Primate of Poland, and the archbishop of Krakow Stanislaw Dziwisz. The latter, the former personal secretary of the Polish Pope, called on believers to reflect on the suffering of our elder brothers in the faith’.
Jacob Weizner of the Shalom Foundation again.

‘The purpose is two-fold, not only to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust but also to fight against the denial of the Holocaust, also fight the new trends that promote racial, religious and ethnic discrimination’.

In Mrągowo, in the Mazurian Lake District, a young historian Mariusz Lupkowski with a group of people has embarked on a project aimed at commemorating the site of a former Jewish cemetery which was destroyed by the Nazis.

‘Our initiative is ecumenical in spirit. We want to show that we can do something important for the local community and overcome existing barriers, myths and prejudices regarding Jews and Judaism’.

In the nearby Olsztyn, young Germans have visited the town’s former Jewish cemetery to mark the first International Commemoration Day for victims of the Holocaust.

posted by: Oborski at 14:07 | link | comments |

Votes are NOT arguments!

I was amazed to hear a commentator of BBC Radio 4's PM programme last night saying thar Blair "would not be adverse to winning the argument on the Education Bill with Tory voutes". Now, I don't know if the exact expression originated with Blair or with the BBC. Either way it is indicative of the arrogance at the heart of new Labour.

You win votes with votes and that means that often people vote in Parliament or the Council Chamber not because they believe in the case that's been made but because the Party want them to and Party unity and loyalty to the leadership comes first.

By contrast you win arguments by having the better case - the better argument.

I wish I had a pound for everytime I've heard politicans - national and local - gloating because they've won a vote - as if winning the vote sanctifies and validates the arguments they deployed even though they had in reality a weaker case than the opponents whose better arguments they simply ignored and whom they simply out voted by numerical predominance.

 

 

posted by: Oborski at 08:49 | link | comments |

CHEMO CHRONICLES

Hospital today!  My super Doctor decided to give me an extra week off the chemo because my hands and feet have been drying out - the result being real pain!  My left heel has a cracked skin split like the Grand Canyon! He has also slightly reduced the dosage when I start again. I think I'll be glad of the break.

When I was in Hospital one of his colleagues discovered I was being prescribed beta-blockers for high blood pressure. He promptly swithched me over to a modern cocktail of far more effective drugs. My blood pressure is now 127 over 58! Wow!

P.S. Nobody warned me about the psychological impact! I've started talking to the pills and to playing Warren Zevon tracks very loudly!

Talking of Warren Zevon...

Here's the lyrics to one he wrote when he was dying of Cancer. It's the final track of his final album "The Wind". Quite beautiful!

Keep Me In Your Heart

written by Warren Zevon & Jorge Calderón, Zevon Music, (BMI)/Googolplex Music (BMI)
 

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Sometimes when you're doing simple things

around the house

Maybe you'll think of me and smile

 

You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on

your blouse

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams

Touch me as I fall into view

When the winter comes keep the fires lit

And I will be right next to you

 

Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

These wheels keep turning but they're running out

of steam

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo

Keep me in your heart for awhile

 

Keep me in your heart for awhile

posted by: Oborski at 20:34 | link | comments |

Piotr Anderszewski enthrals the listener by the sheer beauty of the sounds that he conjures from the piano. Although each phrase seems to be carefully nuanced, Anderszewski captures to perfection the music's almost schizophrenic changes of mood, from the dreamy and hypnotic to the ironic and capricious. The Third Sonata is no less impressive, particularly the dynamic ecstatic account of the fugal finale. Although alternative versions of these works... have many undeniable virtues, Anderszewski outclasses his rivals in the extra degree of imagination he brings to the music.

(Five stars)
Source: BBC Music Magazine

Anderszewski's playing reveals the glories of Szymanowski's piano music like no other. He has never been one to rush into things, and these interpretations speak of lengthy deliberation about the composer's musical language and the ways of assimilating and conveying it.

Pianistic colour is paramount in these pieces, but, as Anderszewski so dynamically shows, atmosphere goes hand in hand with animated texture and a volatility of temperament that give the music a flavour - sometimes pungent, sometimes delicate and elusive - that is all its own.

Geoffrey Norris
Source: Daily Telegraph

Such music calls for a pianist of unlimited, superfine virtuosity and a complete temperamental affinity... and in Anderszewski it has surely found its ideal champion... Anderszewski's razor-sharp clarity and stylistic assurance make you hang on every one of the composer's teeming notes... Every aspect of the music's refined and energetic life is held in a blazing light from which it is impossible to escape...

All these performances have been superbly recorded.
Source: The Gramophone 

New discs from Piotr Anderszewski are precious commodities... This collection of Karol Szymanowski's most substantial works for solo piano is only the Polish-born Anderszewski's sixth solo-piano disc, but like several of its predecessors... it is a revelation, clearly the work of a master pianist who has emerged as one of the greatest of the present day, and one with the rare ability to transform whatever he plays, making it seem as if it is being heard for the first time... Great performers really can turn the everyday into something very special indeed.

(Five stars)
Source: The Guardian 

The most influential champion of the underappreciated Polish composer Karol Szymanowski was his devoted friend and countryman Arthur Rubinstein. For decades after Szymanowski's death in 1937 at 54, Rubinstein kept his idiosyncratic piano works before the public. Now Szymanowski has a new champion in the young Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski, whose riveting Virgin Classics recording of three major piano pieces should help the cause...

Mr Anderszewski plays these works with breathtaking pianistic command, keen intensity and utter involvement. It's hard to imagine that any doubts about Szymanowski's piano music will withstand the sheer impact of the performances captured here.

Source: New York Times 

The set of character pieces entitled Métopes is riveting, especially the piece called Calypso, in which Anderszewski exactly captures the contrast between Calypso's threateningly erotic music and Ulysses's dreamily nostalgic melody. The most impressive thing about Anderszewski's playing is the way he gives a sense of shape and purpose to Szymanowski's often wayward and over-rich textures. He has a wonderful way of making the climaxes seem massively impressive and yet evanescent. And how well he controls those dying-away endings, with their endless trills fading to stillness, like ripples stretching out across the surface of a pond.

(Five Stars)

Source: The Times

posted by: Oborski at 19:52 | link | comments |

posted by: Oborski at 11:50 | link | comments |

ID Cards?

See here!

posted by: Oborski at 11:38 | link | comments |

Nationality?

Am I the only person to be prplexed by Gordon Brown's attempt to define British nationality?

The trouble is I don't think it is something you can 'find' or 'define'. The feelings are either there or they are not.

Nor do I see how you can invent a "British Day" if it doesn't already exist by popular expectation. Taking over Rememberance Day is idiotic. Rememberance Day in the UK is exactly that and has no other meaning or association here. Empire Day, which I vaguely remember from my youth, is long gone and nothing has sprung up from the national conciousness to replace it. May Day has gone as well both in it's Socialist and rural incarnations.

Being half British and half Polish with dual nationality and two passports puts me in a different position from many of my British friends.

The Polish National holidays - Constitution Day (May 3rd), Soldiers Day marking the "Miracle on the Vistula" (August 15th) and Independence Day (11th November) have real historical resonance and truly reflect the great historical Polish national preoccupation - the struggle for independence. The sharing of the Oplatek wafer on Christmas Eve is perhaps the most emphatic emotional demonstration of Polishness.

Britain has gone down a different road and I don't think you can simply invent a demonstration of Britishness just because a politician thinks we should.

posted by: Oborski at 17:30 | link | comments |

Oaten? Liberal England puts it well...

It has never been clear why Mark Oaten thinks he is qualified to lead the party. Certainly he will have to do better than today's launch statement, unless it was meant to be amusing.

Try these extracts for size:

Lembit and my wife Linda were up till 2.30 a.m. deciding ... whether or not I should put my name forward to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Since Charles resigned on Saturday my office has been literally flooded with hundreds and hundreds of e-mails...

You know it is 100 years since the Liberals were last in power. Frankly, that is not good enough.

I believe I am a 21st century Liberal...

posted by: Oborski at 15:20 | link | comments |

Simon Jenkins gets it right in today's Guardian...

All this drivel does is bring Basra to our doorsteps

Blair's Respect plan is just another example of the centralising mania that has dismembered our communities

posted by: Oborski at 11:17 | link | comments |

"Typos"...

Everyone who regularly writes leaflets dreads "typoss" - those textual errors that leave you looking stupid or incompetent. We've all done it. The strange thing is how yoy can check the small print to perfection and still leave a major blunder in a headline - even after extensive proof reading. Still there is really no excuse for the otherwise excellent "Wyre Forest Sports & Leisure Centres" - currently dropping through your letter box - carrying on large print at the top of the front pagethe words  "Spring & Summer Programme 2005"!

posted by: Oborski at 09:22 | link | comments |

Good! He deserved it!

posted by: Oborski at 11:36 | link | comments |

It's get over it day! You can do that here!

posted by: Oborski at 11:34 | link | comments |

posted by: Oborski at 02:52 | link | comments |

posted by: Oborski at 02:51 | link | comments |