Oh, Babe, What Would You Show Off

When I saw that President Trump had accused someone of being a show-off and grandstanding, I assumed his use of the internet had extended to reading me. Fair enough, I thought, it does seem a bit jejune to be posting crossword solutions. But then I realized he'd sacked somebody else and it was them he was growling about.
But we will see. I dare say he is saving his humility for when it's his turn to be thrown out, which can't be far away now.
But it was a thrill to finish that TLS crossword, which looked impossible at first. The main reason for beginning it was that there wasn't much else of interest in the comic this week. But the crossword seems to be constructed as an educational aid, leading you to things you never knew if you care to investigate, like Edmund Spenser's poem on the death of his daughter, Daphnaida. Although whether I read it or not remains to be seen.
The flowing, surging Romanticism of the first two Schumann symphonies accompanied the early inroads, Schumann having been judged worthy of further investigation as the favourite composer of Stephen Isserlis and the first instalment of last weekend's windfall from the turf accountant. But, pleasant though Schumann may be, it was instructive to move to Handel's Acis & Galatea, second hand at £0.01 +  £1.28 p&p, can't argue with that, for the vital finishing touches and be reminded quite spectacularly of how much better Handel is than almost anything else.
The simple story of love torn apart by the murder of Acis by the jealous baddie, Polyphemus, and then in a typically Ovid metamporphosis, turned into a stream, is the sort of thing that happens round here all the time and likely to happen even more often once the Liberal Democrats have legalized cannabis. But it is a masterpiece. And tonight, we begin with Simon Rattle's Brahms 1 from his cycle that last week's treble also paid for.
It is magical the way that sensible study of horse racing can be turned into a record library and I'm sure that all those who warn against gambling, as well as the school music teacher who knew I couldn't play the glockenspiel and so expected no more of me than to suggest corrections to his spelling of Dvorak, would appreciate the ongoing project.
The other arrival today is Murakami's Men without Women, so the question is whether to continue louchely with Jean Rhys' fine Collected Stories or break from them temporarily to freewheel my way through Murakami's latest over the weekend.
If only I knew which my faithful audience wanted to know about first. It's Murakami, isn't it.
Okay then.  
A further happy outcome of not much going on elsewhere was the other night when Radio 5 was droning on about football, Radio 3's often studiously eclectic Late Junction was offering some especially dreary jazz, Radio 4 had some of its so-called 'comedy' on and so I turned to Radio 2 and found Suzi Quatro's Quatrophonic, where she was playing an impressive list of doo-wop records which she was saying was what she grew up with. Good for her. Some people insist on becoming successful and don't care how they do it - who knows what sort of poet might belatedly sell a few records as a Country songwriter- and Devil's Gate Drive didn't cause me to swoon over Suzi when, aged about 13, I had a poster of Beethoven on my bedroom wall. But If You Can't Give Me Love soon comes to mind on You Tube excursions these days.
And so, with the compulsiveness not of a fool soon parted from his money but like a judicious magpie that knows what he wants when he sees it, it's a Doo-wop box-set for me and I have a postman who has no idea what treasure he is delivering and how grateful I am to him. Such service should not be demeaned by the profit-motive and, in line with a dreamy Labour party manifesto, it should be nationalized so that we can all enjoy it for what it is.