Oh, Babe, What Would You Say

One thing one might miss when eventually passing up the opportunity to be paid good money for attending the office in favour of living off immoral earnings will be the joy of arriving home to a neat package and trying to remember which book or record it might be. The first challenge, though, is to not damage it as it gets wedged under the door or opened by orange knife.
Today's case in point is the Alban Berg Quartet's Complete Beethoven String Quartets. One must not live by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Buxtehude alone because I can entirely see why others put Beethoven in the same bracket. I gathered my own Complete Symphonies, taped from the wireless, on cassettes as a teenager but never played the Choral because I didn't trust the C120 tape it was on, which rather defeated the object but at least I knew I had it.
Op. 132 was on the radio the other week, from Wigmore Hall, and was entirely convincing in making its own case. CD's really are for nothing these days. I very nearly bought this no. 15 Quartet on a record by the Fitzwilliams, whose Shostakovich set is beyond all critique. But, not so fast. There was the Complete Quartets on 7 discs for, was it, £12.
Come off it, that's not fair. I almost wanted to insist on paying more.

There might be plenty to complain about regarding the price of 'top' sports events, like Premier football, test matches - and is it really £90 for a day at Gloroius Goodwood - or Covent Garden or Ed Sheeran. Don't go, then. But the Proms, Monday lunchtime at Wigmore, or Tuesday at Chichester are worth it and if one wants to go to a big race meeting, one just waits for Corals to offer a day out to your turf mate and a guest and make sure you're his guest.

But what is worth it is the BBC.
Much meaner than the move to ask over-75's to pay the licence fee had been George Osborne's sly move to not abolish it but make it funded by the BBC themselves rather than him. Why not abolish benefits and tell Tesco that they have to give food to the disadvantaged.
Radio 3 is worth £150 a year on its own so the telly, the rest of the radio and the website is free. I was relieved that R3 was not on the list I heard of things that might have to go but that doesn't mean it won't occur to a Boris government that Classic FM plays enough Elgar so that'll do.
Radio 5 was mentioned and, frankly, without Danny Baker, it is only a fraction of what it was so those who want to listen to the same football chat every week can go to Talksport, who I understand do little else.
It was never a penalty. Our club needs a new left back, midfielder and a striker who scores 20 goals a season. The ref was a disgrace. The chairman/manager has got to go. We might get into the play-offs if we can stop conceding 3 goals every time.
There you are, that's next season sorted.

But the worst thing is how it is assumed everything can be paid for. Like 40% or more going to University; the NHS keeping people alive to extraordinary ages which only costs them more on ever more restrictive resources; Civil Service pay rises (not justified and I work there so I know), police and now the elderly's right to watch Strictly Come Dancing.
But it's the same every week so if you've seen it once you've seen them all.
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But it's free here so tune in next week to hear about Faber & Faber, the Untold Story by Toby Faber. Now that it's arrived I can see the answer to the doubt I had about it before - why Philip Larkin was missing from the group portrait on the cover featuring its most famous names. He is sneaking furtively away on the back cover.
Very clever.
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And, for those who have been riveted by news of my recent high-flying internet chess career.
Reader, I nailed it.
The 15-minute rating has been raised to 1925, which makes me almost worthy of breathing air on the same continent as Magnus Carlsen. I nurtured a rating of 1923 for 10-minute games alongside it for a few days, sitting in my tent like Achilles. For a few days I maintained that in the upper 1800's until the inevitable collapse occured.
I saw recently the self-evident idea that a great poet has to be recognized as such by every succeeding generation or else they lose their place and soon aren't great any more.
Class is forever but form, I'm afraid, is only temporary. So that story is over. Mission was accomplished but it will be a long time before I can again slip the surly bonds of mediocrity to touch the face of competence. I will be like the West Indies when I saw them v. Hampshire.
It was a low-key morning. Viv Richards had a lie-in and came out after half an hour or so to replace the substitute fielder. Hants must have thought it was going okay at 120-2, with Courtney and Curtley languid in the outfield. But then one wicket went down, then another and after some adventurous slogging by the fast bowler, they were all out for 220.
I'll mooch about in the 1700's and wait for the next rush of inspiration.

The Beethoven is sensational. Six more discs to try later. Stuff worth having is not too expensive.