I'm mainly posting today to correct an error in a recent post, but I couldn't resist the title! Many of you will be aware of the controversy caused by the billboard poster that appeared just after Carlos Tevez moved from City to United a few months ago. Yesterday the teams played each other at Old Trafford, and the fans unfurled a banner in reply (above), except that this one was able to mention the silverware United had won, thus rubbing in the fact that City haven't won anything since 1976 :-)
The match was very exciting indeed, and could have gone either way, but United won 4-3 in the end, courtesy of a Michael Owen goal in the 95th minute. This being the case, I expect the police will be even more worried about what might happen on Wednesday (23rd September), when both teams are at home on the same night. This is the main reason for me posting today - I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I told you that these matches are on 23rd *October*, and they're not. (United are at home on Wednesday 30th September too.)
I watched Gareth Malone trying to teach Barber's Agnus Dei to his community choir, did you? (Oh, and later the same night he presented How a Choir Works, which was not quite as interesting as I'd hoped but DID feature a bit of our very own scratch performance of Spem in Alium, conducted by David Lawrence.) I was very unconvinced by his reasons for why this was the best thing for them to try for their FIRST EVER CLASSICAL PIECE, and he did actually seem to have doubts later on, but they did perform it, and it was better than you might think... although I got the impression that the community choir was only singing in 4 parts rather than 8. The commentary mentioned - VERY briefly - that some members of another choir joined the community choir for the performance so that all the parts could be there, but they didn't show ANY rehearsals with that happening, so it was very glossed over. Oh, and he also has a kids' community choir, and he got a few of them to join the adult choir so they could sing the very high notes that the sopranos in the adult choir were scared of, but I have no problem with that because they didn't try to hide what they were doing in THAT case. The rest of it, though... it just seems so odd that they would choose such a hard piece and then hide the full details of how they got away with it. Why not just choose something slightly easier?
Anyway, a few links.
This made me laugh a lot: a story about how a Tesco employee got in trouble over being a Jedi. The last line is my favourite.
It's a couple of days late for this year, but as a reference guide for the future, here are some hints on how to talk like a pirate.
You've probably seen all the recent fuss about how the new London tube map has no river on it (Boris is trying to get them to change it back) but here's an even simpler one.
I forgot to mention that our Gerontius recording is up for a Gramophone award.
Elbow played another Manchester gig the other day, and they think they might have set a world record for biggest backing choir.
I really, really, really, really want this, but it costs £5.99: a 4-track recorder for the iPhone!
And finally, I hadn't previously realised that there was a BBC Music Blog, but I've added it to my soundbar now I do.
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