Category Archives: Op-eds

The Great British Home Chorus

Eight members of our (not so extended) family work in the music industry, as performers, teachers, publishers and music producers. So it’s not surprising that I have spotted many online musical performances given in kitchens and sheds over the last few weeks. My daughter-in-law’s brother multi-tracking himself playing jigs on his violin; a friend playing Happy Birthday to his grand-daughter on his euphonium; choirs apparently singing together on Zoom.

The latter is a bit misleading because it just isn’t possible to sing together over the Internet – the time delay is significant. Instead singers have to listen to a backing track on headphones and video themselves singing, then submit it to someone who can then synchronise the voices.

I learnt that from Gareth Malone. Every weekday at 5.30pm I join his Great British Home Chorus, as does Paul Walter, my colleague here on Lib Dem Voice. So far over 120,000 people have registered. On most days Gareth Malone leads the half hour rehearsal live from the shed/music studio in his garden. Occasionally he pre-records when he is making live appearances on other platforms. When he first started two weeks ago he was clearly experimenting a bit; he has received a huge amount of friendly advice and suggestions via the rolling comments thread, many of which he has taken on board.

A typical rehearsal begins with some of the most fun warm ups I have ever done. Yesterday he threw in “We’ll meet again” taking his cue from the Queen’s speech on Sunday. One day last week we all sang along to “Lean on me” in tribute to Bill Withers. Both those songs were highly appropriate and quite moving, although I find myself laughing through most of the warm ups.

Still life with yogurt

The big supermarket delivery which I ordered three weeks ago arrived this morning. In fact I have been looking forward to it for days – I am getting excited about quite simple things now.

When the doorbell rang I said a heartfelt thank you to the driver for doing such an important task. He told me that he really appreciates it when customers thank him; some of them don’t and are quite rude. Unbelievable!

I had been checking the order during the week before, noting items that were out of stock and adding new items. But when the final confirmation came through this morning I discovered that almost all of the meat was unavailable. At that very moment my neighbour texted to ask if she could get anything from the shops, so I mentioned the meat. She kindly picked up some sliced ham for me, but said that again fresh meat was in short supply.

It’s very strange learning about so much of what is happening locally, like food shortages, third hand. I spotted a Facebook post that referred to the cost of petrol – around £1 a litre!!

I have a confession to make. I have been stockpiling. Unintentionally, but the evidence is there.

The order I had placed with a food wholesaler finally arrived, four days late, but nevertheless very welcome. The main item was a veg and fruit box, which was extremely good value at £19.80. They had even thrown in some surplus mozarella.

To reach their minimum spend I had also ordered a few other things, including two catering tins of tomatoes. But the photo shows what arrived. I checked the invoice and it was indeed what I had inadvertantly ordered, forgetting that this was from a deli wholesaler who normally sells items in multi-packs. It reminded me of the time when – in an parallel universe – I received a single mushroom in a paper bag instead of the pack I was expecting.

Although I haven’t been near a shop in weeks, I have gathered that tinned tomatoes are in short supply along with pasta. Presumably people are thinking the same as me – with pasta, tinned tomatoes and cheese on hand you always have the makings of a meal.

This post deals with issues around death, so please do not read it if you would prefer not to.

Escher: Day and Night

It is so tempting to spend all the extra time watching box sets. I do spend most evenings these days doing just that, or catching up on Netflix and favourite TV programmes. With that in mind, don’t miss the National Theatre’s online premiere of One Man, Two Guvnors tonight at 7pm.

I do try to avoid sitting on the sofa during the day. That doesn’t mean I’m not looking at a screen, but it is usually at my desk with my laptop or Kindle. In fact, I start the daytime hours with Joe Wicks and end with Gareth Malone. However, I was looking around for something more intellectually challenging and came across the Gresham Lectures.

As its website explains:

Gresham College was founded in 1597 and has been providing free lectures within the City of London for over 400 years.

Today the College upholds its founding principle in maintaining the highest possible academic standards for all of our appointed Gresham Professors, Visiting Professors and visiting speakers. In recent years three additional Professorships have been added in Business, Environment and Information Technology.

The College’s 130 annual lectures and events are free and open to all.

Since the restrictions were put in place they have been live streaming some of the planned lectures. There are also over 2000 previous lectures to watch on a very wide range of subjects – it’s a real treasure trove.

Small local businesses are struggling, but some have come up with ingenious ways of keeping the income flowing whilst supporting the community. And that means we can continue to support local businesses while we are in isolation.

As I write I am expecting a delivery from a food wholesaler in South London, who would normally supply restaurants and pubs. At the weekend they started home deliveries, so I put in an order for some essentials to tide me over until the main supermarket delivery arrives next week.  They were offering a veg and fruit box, dairy, eggs plus an eclectic mix of catering packs. They didn’t ask for any money, so I realised that they had not yet implemented the transition from invoicing to taking payment in advance.

I phoned them on Monday and heard a message saying that they had been inundated with orders and would phone when the order was ready. Sure enough, yesterday a cheerful staff member phoned up, took my credit card details and told me it would be arriving today. If that works I will certainly place more orders, even if that does mean buying cheese by the kilo.

Just Google “Food wholesalers home delivery near me” to find local companies that you can contact.

Probably the most heartwarming example of an inventive business strategy came to my attention a few day ago, in the comments under one of these diaries. Gordon Lishman told me about Helen Tamblyn-Saville who runs a children’s bookshop in Retford, where she was our Parliamentary candidate last year. She is now inviting customers to “pay it forward“, by donating cash to provide books for local children and young people.