Yes, darlings, I'm off to Exeter this afternoon and evening for two highly important activities. First, to provide the 'Memsahib' with a new 'grazing ground' by which I mean that we are not at all familiar with Exeter and the chance to browse new shops will keep her very happy; but second, we shall end the day at The Great Hall watching and listening to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra perform an almost ideal concert programme. By "ideal" I mean that the programme does not include one of those totally, and usually deservedly, obscure pieces by a minor composer from somewhere like Translyvania, or Peru, or even, dread thought, Australia, of whom I have never heard and whom, if there is a God, I will never hear again! No, no, the good old BSO know that the average age of their audience will be around 87 and thus they know by now what they like and what they definitely do not like. Also, the BSO recognise that much of their audience will be slightly deaf and that it is a shrewd move to avoid anything quiet and subtle, so tonight we will blasted into the back of our seats by some Wagner, enchanted by Tchaikovsky's violin concerto (which might encourage a little hand-squeezing from the 'Memsahib' - sexy old thing, she is!) and, finally, lifted to the stars by Beethoven's Fifth! Suffice to say that if you held a gun to my head and told me to choose just one piece of music for a desert island, I think Ludwig's Fifth would be it. It takes you higher than LSD ever would and leaves you feeling better about yourself afterwards.
