What a mug!

Christmas is now almost over. Just the relaxing bits left thankfully.
It was hectic all of December for me due to a scheduling mistake in mid November leaving me with 17 days work to fit into 15 days, with 2 of these days blocked out for training. Plus a project manager having a hissy fit leaving me more to do.
Luckily it was all done on time (more or less) but I just wasn't feeling Christmassy.

Christmas Eve Ciaran arrived and cooked steak for the three of us. Felt a lot better. Then he and I went to midnight Mass with a carol service before hand. Finally I felt in the Christmas spirit.
Christmas morning was quiet. Ciaran is at that age where a lie in is more desirable to opening presents, but we did gather around the tree and then I made French Toast before dropping him off with his mum.
I then spent the rest of Christmas day and Stephen's Day with Fiona at her mum's with her grandad.
Finally got my first games of Rummikub this Christmas! (Didn't win any though)

Amoung the many presents were a total of 4 mugs.
My sister got a Keep Calm You're only 40 in honour of her birthday on Christmas,
Ciaran got Fiona a Keep Calm and Drink Coffee mug, and I got the 2 right most mugs shown below.
The leftmost is my Libra mug, a birthday present from years ago. Its a normal capacity, 250ml, but a little short and wide, like me. The elephant mug is my normaly everyday mug. It holds a manly 400ml. Fiona, her mum and my mum all have special mugs for when I visit all of which hold about the same.
Fiona got me the red one which can hold a hearty mugful at 500ml while Ciaran's gift of the blue mug will hold over 900ml of tea. That's almost 1kg of milky tea goodness, enough to make Mrs Doyle weep.

New Year's Eve now approaches. This years costume theme is Song Titles...

School Concert 2012

Just back in from the school Christmas concert. For the second year Ciaran was performing with the Woodwind Ensemble.
As with most things with a 14 year old boy, it was laden with difficulty.
It seems, for some unknown reason, the school didn't want any one to attend because they never announced the time until this afternoon. At least that's Ciaran's story...

"What time do you have to be there?"
"It starts at half seven so I guess half seven"
"Yes, but do you need to be there early to set up?"
"I don't know"
"Maybe we should get there a little early, to maybe park, and then get in, and so you can find where you're supposed to be"
"OK, I guess we have to be there at 7:15"

Anyway we got there in time.
Bang on time the Youth Choir began to enter. Row upon row. They sang a single song and then filed out. The song was nice though.
Then it was the Guitarists. It seemed to take ages for them t get the kit ready and begin. Sadly there was trouble with the amps so I don't think it sounded right but they enjoyed it.
The senior choir was followed by a lovely duet of "Safe and Sound" from the Hunger Games. I must find out who sings it for real and see if its as good.
Then three more girls were followed by the string orchestra who completed the first half with a slowed down can-can.
The second half started with the brass band doing carols.
Another song by the senior choir led to Ciaran and the rest of the woodwind ensemble.

This was followed by an excellent guy singing "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis. Absolutely fantastic.
The youth choir filed back in, sang another song and filed back out.
Then, keeping it Scottish, we had pipers and drums.
The brass band then led everyone in "Hark! The Herald"

I got culture me

We were out to see the BBC Symphony Orchestra last night at the Town Hall in Ayr.

The main reason for this is Ciaran's current fascination with guitars and the fact that this was billed with Sean Shibe on guitar.
Like many people I'm really not that well educated about music. I know what I like, quite often don't know what it is or simply know it from TV use. I do have a number of classical albums which I will listen to, and one of my favourite pieces is Pachelbel's Canon. My (limited) interest started when Marillion released a live album back in '88 called The Thieving Magpie which has them play a bit of Rossini's La Gaza Ladra. I then found a copy of Rossini Overtures in HMV which had this track. That's when you realise how much classical music is out there. One of the tracks is "Guglielmo Tell" which contains the Lone Ranger theme. Its also go the music they use in cartoons when there a bad storm and giant waves. Its funny how much was familiar, and how good it sounded.
Last night was different.
I'm not saying it wasn't good, but it was different. Almost all of the new 'classical' music I would hear now is on film score and I think my mind now tunes into that - the idea that the TV can be on in the background and you just hear it.
The first piece last night was a new Scottish composition getting its first performance. There were 3 movements and the story was included in the programme, which I didn't read until after the first movement. The first one started off and I felt it was quite jarring. I felt it was quite similar in style to the music from Ghost, and suddenly I was getting an image of that sort of scene. The second movement started with percussion sounding like drips in a  cave. I connected that since the piece was titled 'Cave'. In this piece I got an image of old 50's B&W drama movies, maybe just continuing the Ghost image from earlier. The final movement had a battle which was easier to distinguish once I had read the programme.
The piece was interesting and full of sound but all three of us didn't think it was great.
The main reason we were there was the second piece was from Rodrigo. Think Spanish guitars. I was thinking spaghetti western. Again technically brilliant but really making no connection to me.
After the interval was came back to the final 2 pieces both by Mozart.
The first was a re-arrangement of a piece for the glass harmonica. Since this instrument is so rare these fays it was re-arranged for woodwind with violins to give the resonance. I though this was a beautiful piece. I've since spent some time on wiki reading about the glass harmonica and listening to the sample piece there. This is one fantastic sounding instrument!
The final piece was all of Symphony 41. This was amazing. I didn't have any images of films while listening - I was just captivated by the music. The sound just filled the room, building upon itself. It all fitted together and I think this was the greatest difference between the brand new modern piece and this 225 year old piece. There was no jarring - it all fitted together.
Knowing nothing about music (much to Ciaran's disgust at times) you could hear why after all this time Mozart is still popular.