But there is another strange aside. In a recent match at Wimbledon, the winner asked one of the ball boys to get something from his coaching team. It turned out to be a watch which he promptly put on for his TV interview.
Was it possible that he was late for a restaurant booking or had somewhere else to go? No it was obviously our old friend sponsorship. The player was being paid by the watch company to be seen wearing their watch so they could claim in their advertising "as worn by xxxxx on the Centre Court at Wimbledon."
I wonder if this makes people think "Wow I must go out and buy one of those watches because xxxxx wore one at Wimbledon." Isn't this all a case of fakism? I note boy wonder Carlos Alcaraz was also wearing a watch for his interview. I couldn't help thinking that if he escaped from a tricky situation he could just call himself Carlos Alcatraz.
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Something that annoys me is that when a company messes up or changes something it's us the customer who have to pick up the pieces.
Our family uses the Dartford crossings over and under the Thames quite a lot. I pay the toll fee automatically online. I have a number of named vehicles and the money comes out of an account which gets topped up when it gets to under £10. I do the same thing for Oyster cards in London.
The Dartford toll has changed suppliers and so all credit cards have to be re-validated. If this isn't done the card won't be recognised and a fine could result. That's a fine initiated due to their processes.
And beware those evil words "it's a simple matter to re-validate. Just follow the link below." So I followed the link and it went nowhere. I went into my account, cancelled my credit card and put in all the details again all the time thinking "I really have better things to do with my time than this. Particularly if I have no idea whether what I have done is going to work."
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The preposterous pseuds are back - the sycophantic drivellers have returned. Yes I refer to the BBC proms which this year are hosted by Clive Myrie. Every season the presenter has a panel of so called experts whose job is to froth wholesomely on every work performed.
Each year there's a plethora of new works. Friday night's first evening featured Finlandia by Sebelius and Grieg's very famous piano concerto which was made even more famous by the Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn. You know the one "I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order."
Now I'm aware that Sebelius and Grieg do not produce new works anymore but the first night also featured a new work by a Ukrainian composer which represented his country's struggle in the current war.
As usual this new piece was full of horrible dissonance and IMHO had little musical merit. The guest commentators were Sandy Toksvig and another woman whose name escapes me. Of course they thought the piece was extraordinary. Sandy got carried away on a barrage of verbosity that included the phrase: "it was like a dandelion growing amongst rubble."
The conductor of the piece was either very hot or reduced to tears and I think it was the latter. Later the pianist playing the Grieg seemed to be in an unhealthy trance.
Mind you I'm not knocking him. As somebody who pootles around on the piano and can't play anything from memory, I'm absolutely in awe of somebody that can play a whole concerto without music in front of them and never ever hit a wrong note. My mind cannot take this ability in.
I hit so many wrong notes, it's not true, but I am hampered by always having to have the music in front of me and I can't imagine playing in public to hundreds of people.
Which takes me nicely onto pianist Mike Garson. I have found a biography of the man I mentioned a couple of days ago in my piece about David Bowie.
Garson was Bowie's pianist for many years and he enhanced so much of Bowie's material. Garson was/is different. The book opens by telling is that he has never taken drugs, doesn't drink alcohol, has been married for over 50 years and dotes on his family. This is the kind of man I admire.
He practices the piano for eight hours a day - in other words it's a full time job. I have never practised for that length of time on one single day let alone week after week. The most I have done in one sitting would probably be two hours. I wonder what my playing would be like if I did eight hours a day? Maybe one day I will put in that length of time just to see what it feels like. Bet I would still play duff notes though.