Berberis' World

On 23rd March 2020, approximately 3 months after the first reported case of SARS-CoV-2, also known as Covid, Covid 19, coronavirus (or, by some, as ‘flu, a conspiracy, or fake news), the UK was placed under lockdown. The announcement of this state of emergency was made by the government on 17th March.

It should be pointed out that 4 days before the UK population was advised that gathering in large numbers might not be a good idea, planes were still flying in from Covid hotspots all over the world, with no thought apparently being given to having the thousands of passengers tested – at the very least – for the virus before they returned to their homes and communities and jobs. Worse, with a disease that would end up fifth in the list of the deadliest epidemics and pandemics in history spreading faster than anything even the experts had seen, the Cheltenham Festival took place. This saw at least 60,000 people attend each afternoon, with nearly 70,000 watching the Gold Cup. Let’s hope that for all of them the gamble paid off…

Just in case there is any doubt about how dangerous this virus was, of just two choirs that continued to rehearse in person, in the first 1 person infected 50 others, resulting in 2 deaths. In the second, almost 80% of members caught the virus, resulting in not only 1 member dying, but also the deaths of the partners of 3 other members.

Needless to say, LCS rehearsals became virtual, although there was nothing to rehearse for as live performance was out of the question. This goes some way to explain the gap in posts from November 2018 to November 2023, although not entirely.

In the September of 2019, I was seconded to the job of supervisor. I mean, I applied, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. (Thinking about it – which I try not to – had I been on the interview panel, I might have had second thoughts about offering me the role). I’d been in post for about 4 months or so when lockdown happened and, on several occasions during that time, I’d asked when the interviews would take place for the role I’d vacated. It was finally announced that they wouldn’t: I was expected to do both roles until things were back to normal.

Except that, as things started to get back to something approaching normal, it became obvious that the decision to not back-fill the post might have been a mistake. A steadily increasing workload, combined with restrictions on movement, and shielding at home for the more vulnerable members of staff, meant that there were fewer people in the office than before, and those who were there were starting to resent those who weren’t. Tempers began to fray, people bickered openly, and I was expected to resolve these issues, as well as do my previous job. I managed for maybe 14 months before the wheels fell off.

I was taking everything very personally at this point and, during an online meeting that seemed to be nothing but criticism of my performance I remarked that this was demoralising. I was told in no uncertain terms that this was inappropriate and (without using the words) to either put up or shut up. Within about half an hour I was at home, in a very distressed state. I stayed home for 2 weeks. Whilst the distress eased, the pressure at work didn’t.

Singing in either choir was not on the cards. I had convinced myself that I didn’t have the time or energy to rehearse and it wouldn’t make any difference to my low mood. In that it was something I found therapeutic (thank you, Dr Parker), this was nonsensical.

A gradual easing of lockdown restrictions towards the end of 2020 led to their eventual lifting in the UK on 19th July 2021. Rehearsals for Monteverdi Vespers started in January 2022, and I found myself looking forward to the concert on 2nd April.

Three days before the concert, I got home from work feeling a bit off. I took a lateral flow test more to prove that it wasn’t Covid… except that it was. After two years of managing to avoid it, at some point during the rehearsal on 28th March I’d picked up the virus. Several other choir members were also infected, and all of us missed the concert on the Saturday.

I was extremely relieved – and consider myself lucky – that what developed was not much worse than a bad case of ‘flu. Tens of millions of others were not so fortunate. I hope the woman who used the term ‘sheeple’ as she walked into the supermarket managed – along with all her family and friends – to avoid the virus. And I hope whoever wrote that Covid was created by the US in a lab in Ukraine on the ‘please wash your hands’ sign in the toilet cubicle has suffered nothing more debilitating than a bout of gastroenteritis.

Tomorrow. 60 is only a number. None of the others that ended in zero caused such discombobulation, so why should 60?

Well, it’s the first time I’ve taken the day off work. Actually, I’ve taken the whole week off – I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t. (The last entry was 5 years ago, and there are so many updates in the offing that it may be another 5 years before the next entry). To be honest, there is part of me which wants to celebrate, make it an event, mark it in some way. I’m just not sure that it’s a big enough part to make me want to make the effort.

And yet. There is SO MUCH that is shit in this world – no, in this country – that is conspiring to beat us down, make us feel powerless, that not celebrating seems like just another way of giving in to it. The current government – lying, corrupt, arrogant, unaware and unfettered by any and all criticism – continues to flaunt its lies, its corruption, and its arrogance as the price that the rest of us (i.e. anyone who isn’t one of them) have to keep paying for the ever-shrinking carrot at the end of the ever-lengthening stick.

And no, it’s not small because it’s far away, it’s small because the those with wealth – more than they could possibly ever spend in their entire lifetimes – want even more. Worse than that, they truly think that they are entitled to more. It is unbelievably depressing.

My stress monitor is telling me to pay attention.

Have rearranged the books. It’s not really helped.

Friday, 25th December, 2015.

I left Dr Parker’s consulting room in 2004 with a ‘prescription’ for a course of acapella singing. It was part of an NHS initiative (then) that sent people to places other than home to do something other than just take antidepressants.

If someone had told me that, 11 years later, I’d be part of a group who’d beat everyone else to have the Christmas No 1, I’d’ve told them they were mad.

But that’s what happened.

It’s a funny old world.

Saturday, 5th July, 2014 to Saturday, 28th February, 2015.

I was sitting in the pew at St Stephen & St Mark in Lewisham waiting for the rest of the Lewisham Hospital Choir to arrive when I finally decided to tell Dan that I wouldn’t be attending any more rehearsals for Lewisham Choral Society’s July concert in Cadogan Hall. The programme included James Whitbourn’s ‘Luminosity’, Vaughan Williams’s ‘In Windsor Forest’ and ‘Serenade to Music’.

I’d started practicing these during the rehearsals for Verdi’s Requiem at Croydon and had been, frankly, underwhelmed. However, this wasn’t the main reason for deciding to not participate. The truth was that I’d let the many problems I was having at work affect my not-work life. It seemed easier to ditch the two hours a week I spent doing something I enjoyed for more time doing something I didn’t.

Put like that (and, if I’m going to be honest, this is being written very retrospectively) it sounds mad. I hated ‘African Sanctus’, but went to every rehearsal and gave it my all. I wasn’t even close to hating this programme yet I abandoned it to spend more time in the office. (Cadogan Hall, though lovely, is acoustically dead. This is not a valid reason for not singing there.) Not just that, I was abandoning something that gave me joy for something that was, at the time, quite literally making me ill.

Actually, if that honesty clause is still in effect, it wasn’t something. It was someone. I won’t name them. Not because I’m scared of being sued. I just don’t want to have to type the name and then have to see it in black and white. Or black and blue. (Or is it gold and white..?)

[That last, parenthetical, comment shouldn’t even be here unless I’m time-travelling. Which I’m not. If I could this post wouldn’t exist.]

So, getting back on track. From the start of 2014, the admissions team (which will be referred to henceforth as ‘we’) had had new managers. Both of whom were, by a daily vote with a show of hands, the worst we’d ever known. Ever. Even the one before the one before one of them had been better, and they’d outright lied to us, so that was saying something.

It wasn’t just the emails (each with an unreadable spreadsheet attached) per day, it was that they would then (a) ring to ask if we’d read the emails and the attached unreadable spreadsheet and, after an hour or so, would (b) come to the office to discuss said email and the attached unreadable spreadsheet, now helpfully printed on A4 paper with a font size so small you needed a microscope.

[By ‘unreadable’ I don’t mean it was in a foreign language. That I could have coped with. No, I mean that 95% of the information it contained was irrelevant, and it was set out in such a way that the relevant 5% was almost impossible to find. By ‘helpful’ I mean very, very unhelpful.]

On its own, this was impediment enough to a job that is full-on, head-down, non-stop from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. If you add to this having the one member of the team on whom I could really rely being on various types of leave for six weeks out of the first twelve of 2014, as well as being regularly prevented from leaving on time by a “2 minute” dissection of an unreadable spreadsheet starting at 4.55pm (in reality 30 minutes of the same question being asked over and over again), together with being prevented from leaving the office by someone sitting on the floor with their back to the closed door then you have some idea of the pressure I was under. It wasn’t pretty.

I was, by turns, deeply depressed, extremely angry, and lost-for-words frustrated. In May I fled, in tears, to the HR department where I was almost incoherent in my attempt to try to get someone – anyone – to understand what I was putting up with.

[Just noticed that the word count at the end of that paragraph was 666. If I was superstitious, I might read something into that. I’m not. I do, however, say “Hello, magpie” to solitary magpies. So perhaps I am.]

The cherry on the cake was that, around this time, the one member of team on whom I could really rely told me they were leaving. There would, of course, be a handover to the new team member. Given the complexity of the job and the knowledge which needed to be passed on I suggested two weeks. Not unreasonably, I thought. I was told we could have one. In reality, what we got – what the new team member got – was two and a half days. And that was with the departing team member already doing their new job.

[Later, I learned that, had the incompetent bunglers who called themselves managers and who drew a salary for being thus, the handover could have been four weeks. At this point, I felt that it wasn’t just appalling management, it was an actual conspiracy.]

I took a week off, expecting, on my return, to feel better. I went back and things were, unbelievably, worse.

In August, I learned that a patient with whom I’d had dealings was at death’s door. This is never good to hear, but how much worse it was when I realised that I might have been partly to blame. I was devastated. I’d been asked to do one thing and I’d not done it. And now this patient was dying. It was that simple. It seemed that simple. Of course, these things rarely are and this was no exception.

[I’m not going into detail, save to say that the investigation is nearing its end. The patient reached theirs on Boxing Day, 2014.]

Luminosity, then. Astronomically, 4πd²b. ‘The intrinsic brightness of a celestial object (as distinct from its apparent brightness diminished by distance)’. Or: ‘The rate of emission of radiation, visible or otherwise.’ As opposed to illumination, which is what I badly needed as far as the job was concerned, and which was sadly lacking.

I still have the music. I’ve always purchased scores, only ever hired when purchase – even on the vast-and-getting-exponentially-vaster interweb – wasn’t an option. I may even, as in the case of Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, get to sing it at some point in the future.

[What was the point of this? Hang on.]

Drift. Actually, I’m not sure this has a point, or even that it needs one. I’m listening to the audio book of Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ at the moment. You have always to bear in mind that it was written in 1974, otherwise it’s just some biker dude banging on about how a cheap brand of baked beans is not, can not, and will never be, as good as Heinz.

It’s not. It’s a lot more, and then some. For those who care, I can be found walking to work with a frown on my face occasionally saying out loud “I have no idea what you’re talking about”. I understood most of Parts 1 & 2. It’s Part 3 that has me frowning.

I also finished listening to ‘Catch 22’. I wasn’t sure what to make of this for a long time. Then there was a lightbulb moment when I actually started to care about the characters. I felt sad when they died. I felt happy when they got a break. And just when I wanted to find out more, it ended. Damn you, Heller. Write more next time. And make me care about them sooner, you bastard.

Audio books do force my thought to focus. And it’s only when they focus that things like this happen. A random focussing of seemingly unfocussed ideas amounting to over a thousand words. I wish my other writing was as easy right now. I’ve heard it said that writer’s block happens because a story isn’t ready. There are analogies to which I will not allude.

The source of many of my work woes actually appeared in the office recently. In person. Even though I expressly asked that they be kept away from me. To my surprise, the urge to punch was absent, even if my fingertips tingled ever-so-slightly. I could not, in all conscience, bid them welcome. This, I am pleased to report, was noticed. You? Yes, you. You sweaty, whey-faced, panicky, incompetent excuse for a human being. I am SO over you. I have more space now, and daylight, and fresh air. And I will have a plant soon. One I have propagated myself.

And you have Croydon.

I win.

Tuesday, 19th July 2011.

The time has come, the walrus said…

There are many, many quotes about failure to be found on the exponentially increasing fount of all knowledge good and bad and ugly, this being but one. This post’s title comes from one of Churchill’s.

I have to admit to more than a slight loss regarding something I’ve resisted writing about since it happened. However, time is indeed a great healer. New readers start here…

I joined the London Philharmonic Choir on 23rd July 2008, following a somewhat hurried audition by Matthew Rowe. Choir rules are that you must reaudition either every year or every three years, so I should have reaudtioned in 2010. At that time, the committee were way behind on their scheduling and each time I found out someone had been called to reaudition I breathed a sigh a relief for this… and began to panic anew. Inevitably, though, the committee finally got up to speed. Following a failed first attempt (when I didn’t get the summons until after a joint performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) on February 21st, following a rehearsal of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, I steeled myself to (literally) face the music that was my reaudition.

Short story shorter: I failed. I was told afterwards, by genuinely sympathetic choir members that Neville let those who didn’t get through reaudition perform whichever piece was currently being rehearsed and, for a while, I did consider doing this. In the end, other commitments and a great deal of horribly wounded pride prevented me from doing so.

(Ironically, Dream of Gerontius is the piece I didn’t get to sing with LCS as I left before they started work on it. My score remains, as yet, unmarked.)

It was about a week before the realisation fully sank in. One evening, with the rest of the family out at the cinema (I hadn’t wanted to go to what was a techo-noise fest) I settled down with a bottle of wine to watch ‘Anchorman’. I had a good laugh before repairing to the study to listen to some music. Having the house to myself for the first time in ages, I intended to listen to some VERY LOUD music (or is that some music VERY LOUD?) probably to try to convince myself that, whatever I’d been told, I could still belt out a tune. Everything was going fine until I tried to get my PC to play music through the main speakers (via some little gizmo currently hanging innocently over the radiator). However, no matter what I did, this bloody thing would not work. After about an hour or so of changing settings, unplugging and replugging, rebooting and rebooting, I had had enough. A week’s worth of anger and embarrasment and frustration and, yes, grief at the loss boiled up and over and I retreated to bed to howl and cry like a wounded animal for what seemed like forever.

Immediately after this, I lost all interest in singing as well as all confidence in my ability. Even remembering the words of a much respected singing teacher didn’t help me, and I don’t think I sang anything (not one note) for about a month. Singing had been a major emotional outlet for almost 7 years and its loss was nothing less than a bereavement.

To be truthful, what hurt most is that I felt – still feel – that I simply capitulated. Whenever I think about what happened during that reaudition, there is a HUGE temptation to start every sentence with either ‘if only…’ or ‘what if…’

If only I’d said I had a sore throat… what if I’d actually read that book on sight singing?… if only I’d taken singing lessons… what if I’d done what I was supposed to do and wait to be invited in?… etc etc etc etc… The fact was that I hadn’t, I hadn’t, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t. The only person I can blame – if blame if the right word – is myself. I was responsible for what happened, and it hurt like hell. It still hurts, but less and less.

So, that’s it. I’m no longer a member of the London Philharmonic Choir. This means I will miss the Proms again. I’d been otherwise engaged previously – ironically, not this time – and was really looking forward to singing Verdi’s Requiem, as well as the Xmas performance of Beethoven’s 9th. (I may try to find a way to do the latter…)

I’ve not been completely idle, though. I recently sang in the 1000 voice choir for Karl Jenkins Peacemakers at Abbey Road, performed Carmina as part of the Really Big Chorus at the Royal Albert Hall and have (provisionally) joined another choir.

Nevertheless, I miss the challenge of working with a world class choir. Although it wasn’t the same after Steph left, I really do think I was up to the task; I practised at home, knew a lot of the pieces from memory but, on the day – when it really mattered – this obviously wasn’t enough. Maybe there’s a hidden agenda. Maybe whoever makes the decisions just want the choir to be the best it can be… I don’t know. I can’t know. And, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter now. I sang Brahm’s Deutsches Requiem on stage at the Royal Festival Hall under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, one of the most inspiring conductors I will ever work with. And it’s on CD. I’ll take that… with a great deal of enthusiasm.