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Richard Harwood, Finghin Collins, Elizabeth Cooney, Carol McGonnell, Ian Wilson and Gavin Friday during rehearsals.

One more time before the new year I followed the music abroad, bringing me to a bitter cold Paris for a third time this year.

Though I found the second part of the concert, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, a little hard going, I did enjoy Gavin Friday’s narration of Marquez’s ‘The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World’ as set to music by composer Ian Wilson better than I did the first time I saw it, in Brighton. It was the venue’s ‘recital’ setting, placing the musicians amidst the audience, that much improved the sound and intimacy. Gavin, hindered by the low lights and the yellow marker ‘popping’ on his print out, fluffed up a few times, but he also hit some sweet marks. Particularly the part of the text that goes ‘and the hidden strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt’.

Afterwards musicians, crew, friends - among which the lovely Fiachna O Braonain - and yours truly retired to a restaurant cellar where rustic food, sangria, wine, calvados and hearty laughter kept us warm, happy, handsome and quite, quite drowned.

Surrounded by Irishmen and women, I sometimes got a little lost - this Dutch fallen Prod doesn’t really ‘get’ the holy Host or Mise Éire, but it’s endlessly fascinating nonetheless and somehow I always feel more at home than I do amongst my own.

“While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, set to music by composer Ian Wilson. Performed at the at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris on October 9, 2008.

More pictures of The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

Cast - Drifting and Tilting - The Songs of Scott Walker

Drifting and Tilting - The Songs of Scott Walker
Barbican Theatre, November 13, 14, 15

review to follow

This is my most favourited picture on Flickr. Sixty-one people, mostly from Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, have clicked the little star since I uploaded it in 2005. It has only around 1300 pageviews.

It is my most favourited picture not because of my photographic skills, or my wonderful eye, but because it features Chanel decoration. It appeals to young, rich brand… well, let’s use the word fiends rather than invoking the w-word. I much prefer the picture next to it.

I’m *this* close to deleting this snapshot from my stream.

Most of my other favourited shots are of ‘pretty’ girls, like Shirley Manson, Summer Glau and, um, Brandon Flowers. Or cute animals. Ouch.

Canal Parade, Amsterdam Gay Pride 2007. View the whole set.

Me: ‘I’d like to send this package to Greece, please.’

Woman weighs package and looks at pricing table. Then she starts giggling nervously.

Woman: ‘I’m not sure if Greece is in Europe or not.’

“Because you’re still asking that question”.

Sad but true: I’m refreshing my favourite bittorrent page every few minutes, because I want to see David Hasselhoff cry on American Idol. right. now.

As for other bad television… I have succumbed to Big Brother (UK). Oh noes!

My only previous experience with the show was the finale of BB 1 (NL), seven (?) years ago. Yes, I have been strong for the best part of a decade. Anyway, not going to explain myself. Just… freakshow! They must all die a thousand deaths, these uncouth members of Generation Beck’s, these loose moraled bullies, these sluts and dunces. Vile Sezer in particular, with Nikki ‘want a pony or I’ll hold my breath till I explode’ a close second and Richard the scheming bastard third.

I feel dirty. Time for some expressionist art.

Hadn’t been in town for Queensday since… well, since before I moved here. Didn’t take long before I remembered why I never bother.

Queensday is when everybody:

1. sells crap in the streets
2. drinks a lot of crap beer
3. eats a lot of crap food
4. wears orange

Orange is probably my least favourite colour. Looking at it through a lens just makes it worse.

I’ll try again in 2012.

Oh heavenly salvation
our precious city has been spared
the storm is passed
and vanished above us

the storm has ended
and Death steps back into the water
once more

Oh heavenly salvation
Oh heavenly salvation

(iTunes served me this Kurt Weill song just a minute ago. I’d forgotten all about it.)

Utrechtsestraat, Saturday afternoon. I’m in search of pork belly but the luxury butcher is all out of pig.

‘We had to send it back, it wasn’t right.’

Poor piggie. Murdered to death and then discarded.

I try my luck at the butcher on the other side of the road. Inside, it’s like going back to the very early 70s. Knorr products on the shelves, the packaging bleached by the sun, sparse cuts of pale meat on show. A little dusty. Very open air museum. This is the Holland you want to forget.

The butcher looks more like a penny-saving grocer. Protestant and painfully repressed. One manky eye looks sideways, while the other stares straight ahead. He helps another client, taking his time. I’m in no hurry, so I wait while he makes their cut meat sandwiches. Finally, they’re done.

“Do you have any pork belly?” I ask.

“I do,” he says and makes for the storage room, then returns. “You’re going to make babi pangang, aren’t you?”

Balls. He’s cut the skin off. I’m not making the chinese roast pork dish he’s referring too, but I do need the meat uncut for my epaisse tranche de lard dans son jus. Should I slap his wrist for assuming an Asian-looking woman must be cooking Chinese food?

“I’ve cut the skin off, you see.”

I see.

“I cut the skin off the minute I get it in, before I store it,” he says in a way that there’s no mistaking… cutting the skin off is. the. right. thing. to do.

Oh.

“You have a better chance finding some at the Albert Cuyp market. The butchers there…” he sniffs, “I call them dirty butchers.”

I smile thinly and thank him. He’s sorry I had to wait so long. I’m sorry I ever met him.