I have to get something off my chest, something that has been haunting me now for four years. I need to apologise to Greg Wise.
I don’t know Greg Wise but I know who he is. You must do too. He’s an actor, now married to Emma Thompson, who played the dashing villain in the movie of “Sense and Sensibility”. Yes, him. The one on the horse. …
A few days ago my cold water tank started overflowing at a steady trickle. So I emptied the loft cupboard of all the old tennis racquets, puzzles and bits of wood and carpet that I have bunged in there in case they might one day be useful, and I climbed inside on my hands and knees to have a look at the tank. I checked the ballcock and adjusted it a bit but couldn’t find any problem. Thinking that as I couldn’t find any problem there mustn’t actually be one, and that somehow the mere act of climbing into a cramped cupboard and fiddling about with a ballcock might suffice to make the non-problem go away, I gave up and did what all good DIY-ers do: just hoped it wouldn’t happen again. Much to my surprise the overflow trickle seemed to have stopped so I must have done something right and I felt suitably smug.…
Sad Banter
I actually feel a jab of pain and stress when someone who should know better calls Don Giovanni “Don Jee-oh-vahn-ee” or sounds the g in tagliatelle. When a pretentious American – and I have no idea why it’s only pretentious Americans who do this – pronounces the great tenor’s name “Pah-va-roh-ti” I want to slap them. I can’t help myself. We singers spend so much of our working lives perfecting this stuff that when someone cocks it up, it seriously grates.…
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