A very amusing afternoon meeting in London, but another very unfunny journey, this time with WAGN who couldn't organise a train timetable to save their lives (or indeed anybody else's).

Sometimes I wish I was living in Germany again. They laugh and despise us for the third world standard of services that we in Britain accept with barely a murmur.

Alfred's been on holiday all week.

Isn't he sweet?

Well, it was a very long day, with a drive to Oxfordshire in the morning, meetings all day and then supper with the team in a pub called "Barley Mow" in the evening.

You are a bunch of incompetents who do not deserve to breathe oxygen on the same planet as me. So sue me.

(After spending 5 hours trying to travel from Cambridge to Leicester, leaving on time, arriving in Ely, being stuck there for nearly 3 hours before being returned by bus to Cambridge).

It was a dark and stormy night....

To-night the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day
The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), In Memoriam

I had an unsettled night, with too many things on my mind. The wind whistled around the turret of our bedroom and there were plenty of noisy club-goers outside the window. Well maybe my restlessness also had something to do with the combination of Veuve Cliquot and veggieburgers last night. Alfred and I lay awake for a couple of hours chatting about Life, the Universe and Everything. He's such a patient and good friend, absorbing the nuances of my moods and reflecting them to me.

I forgot that British Summer Time (!) ended last night, although I've been asleep so little that an extra hour hardly made any difference.

Time for some reading and a bit of catching up on Radio 4 programmes on the Internet, methinks.

We had a memorable meal at Joy King Lau restaurant just off Leicester Square yesterday evening. Three stuffed fried vegetables witha black bean and red chilli sauce, with coriander. Delicious tofu, green peppers and aubergine, stuffed with shrimps and fried. We also had crispy duck in yam paste and a green leafy vegetable with garlic. Very filling, excellent food.

Breath of Life was, unfortunately, just as the reviewers had led me to believe. Dull, dull, dull. Soliloquy upon dreary soliloquy. What a waste of such outstanding actresses.

At least Ralph Fiennes was sitting in front of us so I can name drop.

We had a drink at the Yard and then returned on a late train to Cambridge. I've had a quieter day today, although (guess what) I seem to have worked for most of the day. The weather is moody and storms are predicted, so put me off my stroll around Cambridge.

We’ve paid £40 each for tickets to see Breath of Life at the Haymarket Theatre Royal this evening. The Haymarket is one of my favourite theatres in London, and has been ever since I saw Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia there. But how can one look forward, other than with trepidation, to seeing Maggie Smith and Judi Dench on stage together after such caustic reviews?

The prospect of two great actresses – Maggie Smith and Judi Dench – raising each other’s game in the same play was one to drool over. How disappointing for them that David Hare provides them with so little to work with… As Dench has little to do as Frances but look glum, it’s sometimes hard to tell who is more unhappy, the actress or her character.
Jane Edwardes, Time Out no.1679 23.10.02

And that wasn’t the only one. Front Row on Radio 4 was dismissive of the change in style and quality of David Hare’s latest effort.

I know one shouldn’t take too much notice of reviews, but it’s hard to face the evening with equanimity when I’d been looking forward to it for so long.

There was a great review of the production of Wozzeck that I saw last week in today’s Time Out:

“As simple soldier, medical guinea-pig and moonlighting servant, Matthias Goerne combines Warren Clarke’s lumbering bearishness with Tim Spall’s ungainly pathos. Goerne also brings a Lieder singer’s phrasing and tonal beauty to Berg’s … expressionist masterpiece”

(Martin Hoyle, Time Out no 1679 23.10.02)

On a different note, we finished watching Porterhouse Blue on DVD. My favourite scene is still the one where the chaplain's shoe is smoking as he is sleeping too near to the grate. Instead of rescuing him, the Senior Tutor asks a butler to move him. It was a change to have cause for a hearty laugh.

I found her CV on the Cambridge Network web site at 20:30 yesterday evening, called her, arranged an interview this morning, took up her references at lunch time and offered her a job by 15:30.

This song is about a rather different Jenny :

Saga of Jenny

(Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin; from the musical Lady in the Dark, 1940)

Jenny made her mind up when she was three
She herself was going to trim the Christmas tree
Christmas Eve she lit the candles, tossed the tapers away
Little Jenny was an orphan on Christmas day

Jenny and her story point the way to glory
To all man and womankind
Anyone with vision comes to this decision--
Don't make up your mind

He signed up. Although he kept me going until 18:30 before he confirmed it.

I was near tears as the gods rode, uncaring over the rainbow bridge into Valhalla’s empty halls, whilst the Rheinmaidens pleaded for the return of their gold. It was a superb performance, and so much better without the staging. The Barbican is so much more comfortable than the Coliseum. The orchestra comes across better on stage than in a pit.

I travelled back via north London and had supper with Mum and Dad. It’s a pleasure to see them so busy, although Dad was looking tired. Sunday evenings can be like that.

We had a long project meeting for our new client in Cambridge during the day. But will he sign up? I think we can do a good job for him.

So what do you think is on my mind today?

From Scene 1: Rheingold

Woglinde
Nur wer der Minne Macht entsagt,
nur wer der Liebe Lust verjagt,
nur der erzielt sich den Zauber,
zum Reif zu zwingen das Gold.

.......

Alberich
Das Licht lösch' ich euch aus;
entreisse dem Riff das Gold,
schmeide den rächenden Ring;
denn hör' es die Flut: so verfluch' ich die Liebe!

I've been listening to my Solti recording to remind myself of the details, from the opening triad chord, which gives such a benign and melodious commencement to seventeen hours of pleasure (or hell, depending on one's viewpoint) to the march over the rainbow bridge to the spurious haven of Valhalla.

I found these illustrations by Arthur Rackham, from around 1910:

The Rheinmaidens tease Alberich

Loge, Wotan and Alberich as a serpent

The Rheinmaidens plead fruitlessly with Wotan to recover their gold

Only a couple of days away and a pile of emails, post, tenders etc to wade through. Alfred went off to hunt for food (at Sainsbury's), isn't he a sweetie? I had a meeting with some French guys who are setting up a business and looking for some help.

Now it's the afternoon and I've had a jacuzzi, listened to Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, spoken with Mum & Dad, tried again to reach my aunt, and realised that I need to go down to London again tomorrow for Rheingold at the Barbican ENO series. I know I've seen it before, but I did rather enjoy it, despite the translation. I've turned against the performance of opera in the vernacular. It sounds so much better in German.

Time to relax, methinks. All those Swiss francs and Euros confused me.

OK. I said I had a marvellous meal in Covent Garden, but you have to take your hat off to the French. Some colleagues from CERN and I went to a super restaurant last night. I deliberately took the all duck option and had fois gras with a bottle of Rully (not bad at all), followed by Barbary duck with a rather tinny Marsannay (did it deserve that AC)? I finished with an ice cream with marrons glacés. It's a hard life.

It kept on raining. Geneva is unbelievably dreary when it rains.

The day at CERN was a little better - there is some super technology there. I went to the British Consulate-General this afternoon and met a super Irish lady who should be a great supporter for this project.

The flight back was uneventful except for being half an hour late, so I didn't get into Cambridge until gone 22:00. I wanted to buy something for Alfred but could't find anything non-tacky. Flopped out with a drink and "Will and Grace". Back to reality! I fell asleep during the Graham Norton show - sorry Graham.

There was even milk in the fridge for a cup of tea.

I've been to CERN a few times already, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. I guess it was the awful reality that I've agreed to work for three years to help promote technologies from there into the UK. I love the technology and get on with most of the poeple, but it's awfully hard going. The culture of CERN is rather like the institutionalised academic stereotype of a 1970's ivory tower, with the added overlay of a mélange of twenty nations.

Having grumbled like that, the culture can change over time and, with a few successes, people will realise that spinouts and industrial collaborations will be very much in their interests.

So they're pussy cats, but spiky ones.

I flew to Geneva this afternoon. Easyjet is so much less pretentious than British Airways, although I hate feeling penned and herded when travelling. Doesn't everybody?

I spent part of the day on a rainswept railway platform in Hemel Hempstead. Please don't ask me how I got there.

We had an excellent meal at Zilli Fish Too in Covent Garden. I can't recommend the place highly enough. That is a rare statement, given my record with restaurants. Friendly, efficient service and excellent food. Reasonable value, especially with a Tastecard, which is itself one of London's better inventions (waits for horrified contradictory voices off). Please note, I really did say friendly, efficient service - and yes, this is England.

We were away in time to ascend to the Amphitheatre of Covent Garden to see Alban Berg's Wozzeck. Amazing. Shocking. Futurist. I was too stunned at the end to do more than clap, it was an outstanding experience. Matthias Goerne was all I remembered - a thoroughbred actor with a commanding voice. Even the production, my least favourite aspect of British opera, was challenging and interesting in its own right. Pity about the lighting, which was incorrectly judged for the set and unkind to a few weathered faces. The story is of a man's humiliation, despair and, finally, the deathly consequences of his descent to madness. Not a cheerful tale, I grant you, but a memorable one nonetheless. From the programme.... "Wozzeck, a poor man, a worker, is forced to submit to the sadistic and humiliating demands of his superiors. Already subject to hallucinations, he finally loses the balance of his mind when he learns that Marie, the woman he lives with, has been unfaithful to him. He stabs her to death and drowns herself". The structure of the opera is mathematical and calculated in three short acts, each of five scenes. There is no key, only madness replete with Leitmotif, except in the climactic interlude in the third act. This orchestral interlude is, guess, in D minor. Good on you, Alban.

Given that it was first performed in Berlin in 1925, it makes a fitting end to the era of Wagner, with a horrifying glimpse into the Germany beyond.

I may be stressed out from work etc., but evenings like this enable me to appreciate my existence.

It's my aunt's birthday today and I particularly wanted to wish her HB. I don't really like sending people cards, so rely on them being around to receive felicitations by telephone. It's a funny type of event anyway. After "a certain age" (and I'm afraid even I've reached that point), it becomes a pain to be reminded of exactly how irreversible is the process of advancement of lines and wrinkles to us poor mortals "doomed to die". So why are we all so obsessed with wishing one another "Happy Birthday"? For those younger than me, it feels like schadenfreude, whereas for those much older than me it can feel like checking up. Well, I don't feel that way about Muriel at all - "may she live to be a hundred and twenty". More importantly, may she always be present as a friend, role model and (I have to admit it) a source of amusement in the form of family gossip.

No recruits then, the one I offered turned us down and I rejected all the others. Bother.

A varied day after far too early a start.

We went down to London in the rain, which topped up my reservoir of bile. I managed to sleep a bit on the train, so felt in better humour by the time we arrived. Coffee with Paul, who is off on a fantasy singing holiday next week.

I then spent over four hours with a group of people who are looking to set up a new business. Lots of discussion about the potential for their business, and it sounds really interesting - it's a pity that I don't know the market well enough to be really helpful, but I hope they manage to find the right people to complete their team.

I then trapesed over to Covent Garden and met up with Alfred and Erik (who I hadn't met before). We had supper at Guili Gulu, but I wasn't that hungry (I've not had much of an appetite for the last couple of days). Over to Sloane Square to see A Number by Caryl Churchill at the Royal Court Theatre. A short, dense play with Daniel Craig and Michael Gambon, who I last saw in Pinter's The Caretaker a year or so ago.

It took us hours to return to Cambridge, as the bastards had decided to replace the train with a bus service for a night-time tour of rural Hertfordshire. I wish I was living in London. I hate the railways with a passion - but doesn't everybody in this miserable country?

Alfred keeps reading my blog. I guess that's to be expected, but it's very unnerving. I'll just have to be more revealing in future.

I awoke at 3:30 from a restless sleep

The week ended with a bang. The lava flow from Borsetshire hit Cambridge as Alfred and I had one of our periodic rows. So unfair on him really, as he'd been to the supermarket and bought some tasty steaks for supper. And he'd cooked them perfectly as well.

Our arguments often start with domestic trivia such as who has or hasn't pulled their weight in the cooking, washing, cleaning, repairs in the flat and so on. The underlying cause is, however, my resentment that he shares my living standard without really contributing to it. He works many less hours than me, and has paid holidays, so a bit more help around the house would take some pressure off me.

I appreciate that I also give mixed signals. I don't feel comfortable with people doing things for me (even Alfred), as I like to feel self-sufficient. But I am also finding it hard to cope with my workload - and I'm very fussy about wanting the flat to be kept ina good state of cleanliness and repair all the time.

It turned out that he had had an awful day at work, which contributed too his own fragility. That, combined with my short fuse today, made for an explosive combination.

It wasn't all kiss and make up at the end, though. I really do feel that he could spend less time staring at his computer screen and just a bit more keeping the flat looking just right.

Our occasional rows are so awful as he can be so twisting and manipulative in his perceptions and argument. I always end up feeling humiliated and totally in the wrong, even though I'm not. Do you understand me? We have such different views of right and wrong.

Maybe I'm just realising, yet again, that I'd be better off living on my own?

I didn't attend the conference today, and spent my time instead trying to get some interesting work done for a customer. The others spent the first half of the day interviewing. What arguments we had after the interviewees had all left! One personality really divided us all - I think he's great, but nobody else does. Anyway, we've made an offer to one person, who I hope will accept.

Growing a business is a constant struggle. Dunno why I do it.

I heard on the radio that there has been an earthquake in Borsetshire. Rumblings and tremors have been building up for months. In yesterday's quake, at least two homes were said to have been destroyed.

It's a remarkable change over the last eight years that I have been able to meet so many people through the medium of the Internet.

Stop there.

In this case, it was an enquiry for the business, where somebody came across us by searching for our type of technical marketing service, and was impressed enough with our web site to call me. Jonathan and I went down to Bracknell to see them yesterday - they were a pleasant bunch, who I feel we could really help. I've drafted a proposal for them, and they'll probably balk at how much work there is to do, but I hope we'll get the contract.

I also had supper yesterday evening with a former colleague. it was a pleasure to catch up with him. We ate at the Fishes pub in North Hinksey. He seems to be doing so well for himself now that he is free from the shackles of corporate life.

I still can't get that amazing climax from the first movement of Mahler's 3rd out of my head.... it's with me all the time at the moment.

I've been in far too introspective a mood recently. I was thinking the other day about the roots of my interest in music. This is almost certainly down to my father, who loves pieces like Rigoletto and Mahler 4, and my mother's fascination with the lyrics of Sondheim, the singing of Cleo Laine and Barbra Streisand. (I know, I know). For some reason, I wanted to listen to a childhood favourite record Tubby the Tuba and Sparky's Magic Piano. I managed to find Sparky on CD at Amazon, and I had some gift vouchers, so bought it online. Given that I also purchased Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled and Geoffrey R Moore's Crossing the Chasm, some packer will have had fun in his cod psychoanalysis.

Sparky was so magical. A little boy's dream of being able to play the piano better than his teacher, better than anyone. On stage in concert performances, playing the most wonderful music such as the Flight of the Bumble Bee and Rachmaninov's Prelude in C Sharp Minor Opus 3 No 2.

And then the realisation that the magic has ended. The piano will no longer play for him and he makes a fool of himself onstage. "Sparky, Sparky.... wake up". It was all a dream, but he has received the gift of inspiration - he'll practice harder now.

What a treat - and what ludicrous sentimentality! But with it I too have the priceless gift of music from my parents.

Another week begins, with Japanese guests in the morning and a company visit in the afternoon. This is going to be a busy week, with a lot of darting around. After my lassitude at the weekend, I'll probably have to miss Thursday's conference, which I had already booked and paid for.

Haydn's Creation Oratorio has been buzzing round my head all day.

I spent some time today writing text for my new personal web site, JustNathan.com - I'm still not sure why I'm doing it, as it's bound to be oversentimental, self-indulgent and offensive to those closest to me.

The text was hard enough to write, and I found the style difficult. I opened a box of photographs and sifted through them to find pictures that could be scanned to illustrate some of the text. After ten minutes I found myself in tears as I saw pictures of my younger brother, his wife and children, who are growing up without a family.

All those pictures of Scotland, Japan, Germany, America, Mexico, Peru, friends, family, loved ones. Only fifteen years have passed since the earliest snap in the box, and we are all so old, and some of us faded or dead. I couldn't stop crying.

The introspection of the exercise has robbed me of any levity which remained when I started in so foolhardy a fashion a fortnight ago. The text reads as over-earnest, and perhaps reads for that reason as insincere, a pose.

I listened to my Solti Maher 3 - it lifted me beyond the cares of the world, to a place where intellect and nature fuse in joyous harmony.

---------

I've reproduced the text I composed for the home page, just in case I remove it from there.

Thank you for visiting JustNathan. I've written the first version of the text for this web site in early October 2002.

JustNathan may come across as being rather self-indulgent, oversentimental, and telling you more than you may wish to know about my thoughts, interests, my family and friends. If so, I apologise. I realised as I was writing that you will receive a somewhat distorted view of me. This partly reflects my view at the moment, and is perhaps also a function of the introspection caused by the need to write and, particularly to summarise my life to date. Some of it hurts, but I'll let you work out what - it's not all obvious. A former manager called me "intellectually terrifying". I felt that to be less than perspicacious, and didn't reflect the true balance between my heart and head.

Reading this myself, some trends seem apparent:
- The influence I have had from people such as Gustav Mahler, Jeremy Rosen, Tom Stoppard, Douglas R Hofstadter and Mario Vargas Llosa (see the connection?)
- Sentimentality and romanticism (how does that fit in the classical versus romantic scale, given my earlier comment?)
- Questioning of orthodoxy in thought of all sorts, including politics and religion. But is that free-thinking?
- How important is the "gay thing" really in my life?
- Given to too many highbrow pursuits (I assure you that is a distortion)
- If I describe myself as "a Jewish eclectic iconoclast", how much of that is real, and how much a pose? And can I distinguish that myself?

And I'm probably rather too fond of D minor. Entartete Kunst, indeed.

Anyway, I suggest that you either use the little "x" in the top right hand corner of your screen or read, decide for yourself, and perhaps correspond with me. After all, JustNathan is merely another human being sharing your planet and the air that you breathe. Probably.

JustNathan
6th October 2002

I worked, it seemed like forever, to get my admin up to date, but the day improved as it went on. I spoke with Mum & Dad and most concerned to hear about Dad's impending operation and the trepidation so evident in his voice.

When I bought tickets for the Opera House, I bought extras for Wozzeck and Meistersinger, assuming that somebody would want to come with me. But nobody does. What a saddo - oh well, I guess I'll have to return them.

In the evening, I cooked a rather un-PC meal of seafood salad, calves liver with shallots and chestnut mushrooms with fresh runner beans, baby new potatoes and organic carrots. Then a pleasant panna cotta for dessert, all washed down with a decent bottle of Givry-Chambertain. Candles and roses on the table, Carmen from Glyndebourne on Radio 3, with Anne-Sophie von Otter in the title role. Now you see how the day improved.

You know how many films there are that you miss at the cinema? The ones where people say "it's great", but you just don't get to see it. Well, the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski was just such a film for me. We saw it on DVD last night. Quotes by the bucketload. Go see.

I'm working too hard. Of course that's mental exhaustion, rather than overexertion in the physical sense. As the weekend starts, I know that I haven't completed enough in the last few days, so I'll have to work over Saturday and Sunday just to catch up with myself.

Of course I love the work I'm doing, but I seem to be taking on ever more pressure from myself - sales, recruitment, admin, alliances, staff - I can do it quite well, but the pressure is relentless.

It now doesn't look as though I need to go to the West Coast this month. I would have looked forward to a few days there, but this had been planned as a 2-day visit, so I'm happier without it. I'm still off to Switzerland on 16th-18th.

A funny experience today. After having coffee with the lady in question for nearly an hour, i became aware that I was being chatted up... and I hadn't noticed.

Off to London now for a shindig with the great and the good of the physics community. I've never heard the Standard Model explained to a general audience in 15 minutes before.

I sometimes seem to get on the treadmill of a week (or month) and lose sight of the passage of time. I was convinced at the end of today that it was still Tuesday. I think that's because of Monday's high - and I've worked solidly since then.

For some reason, people say they liked my talk yesterday evening - I had lots of cards pressed in my hand and half a dozen emails this morning from people wanting to discuss things further. Funny that, I was tired and felt I'd lost my thread a bit.

More cattiness from Edwina Currie today.

This evening, I was asked at short notice to give a presentation about the company. Why do laptops have so much trouble with data projectors? Anyway, it was a reasonable event and I (mostly) controlled my urge to ramble.