Another phase

It is tempting to make this an Oscar appreciation page, but I know how boring other people's children can be and so will resist. These have been a strange few weeks however and getting back to normality will take a while, especially as we are now in the silly season of a general election.

It would seem that this will be no ordinary election as the populace seems to hold most politicians with little respect and some with a real hatred. Nothing is cut and dried and at the moment it looks as if there are three horses in the race rather than just the usual two old nags. The rise of the Lib Dems may seem refreshing to some, but the real danger is that apathy will win the day and a very low turnout at the polling booths could be a disaster. Support for the far right is on the increase and it is likely that these pernicious little bands will rally a great deal of support. We shall see in due course, I just hope that we don't end up with the government that we deserve.

Seasons

Having spent a few days meeting and getting to know Oscar has been wonderful. I have never really been one for other people's babies but I must say that seeing him was something very special.
Returning home was difficult but necessary, and his arrival has been made more poignant by the news of my Mother's death. She died last night, taken finally by pneumonia after a long struggle with emphysema, the price of a lifetime of smoking. I don't feel sadness, just a sense of relief as her suffering has been long and terrible. If there is a sadness, then it is that she didn't get to meet Oscar, though she did live long enough to be aware of his birth, and to know that she has become a great grandmother even if she could never enjoy that. I guess that now I am an orphan - Goodbye Mum - be at peace.

Welcome George

Last evening, just as I got to the pub to start the quiz, the news of George's birth arrived. He weighed in at 9lb 1oz and mother and child are doing well. He has been called Oscar Bailey Lander and this is quite spooky. As you might have already read, I used the name George as a matter of convenience, and unbeknown to me, that was also what my daughter had taken to calling him. What is more, the name Bailey was taken from her favourite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, the central character being George Bailey. How weird is that? I may have to think a little on this before writing more. Welcome to the world Oscar Bailey, may it be a better place having you in it!

Come on George

George seems to be either too lazy, too comfortable or too lost to find the way out. Maybe today will be the day, I do hope so for his mother's sake.
Uncertainty is a bit of a mixed blessing. It can be nice to be surprised, but it is a great convenience to know in advance when an event is likely to take place. Apart from anything else it makes planning a lot easier. I know, I don't have much to think about, let alone plan, and what I do on a day to day basis has little impact upon anyone else and even less on the world in general, but even I have commitments of sorts. I am having to prepare my monday night pub quiz well in advance and having to leave it with the barman in case I cannot be there. He doesn't like doing it one little bit but then he shouldn't worry as if I am not there, a whole team will be missing and that means it probably won't run anyhow and would it really matter? However I see it as something that I have to do, at least for the forseeable future.
Anyway George, I do hope that you make an appearance soon so that some semblance of normality, albeit a new type, can return to family life.


Oh ps - I don't suppose it will make any difference but whoever is posting their ads here, please don't!

Still waiting

Well George resolutely remains in a cosy and warm place, and who can blame him/her? Reality will arrive soon enough and the process of living and carving a niche in the world will begin. Perhaps George has been sensibly waiting for the weather to improve and today the sun is shining again and no doubt the temperatures are beginning to climb towards a seasonably acceptable level.
It isn't just George that is late, everything seems to be on hold at the moment. Spring flowers are late, the frog mating fest was late and the usual upsurge in insect life has been delayed. It is as if the natural world is holding its breath and waiting for the instruction to start. We have got used to a succession of mild winters and early springs I guess and also lost the ability to wait. Today's world is about immediacy; everything has to be here and now and the quality of patience is fading from our lives. No-one seems prepared to wait anymore, and that is a shame as quite often the wait and the anticipation is more rewarding than the actuality.
I believe that I am a very patient person. I learned patience in my childhood, there was little choice, and also through a career in the classroom, though I have to admit that it was stretched a little there from time to time. To teach patience to children is difficult, especially today, but I believe that to do so is to give them a gift that they will one day appreciate.

Waiting

I am awaiting the arrival of my first grandchild. He/she was due on saturday, but as is common with these things, the due date and the day of arrival did not co-incide. It is a strange feeling waiting for the appearance of a stranger that is likely to bring about changes in ones life and I find myself thinking about his/her future and what it might have in store.
So many children come into the world each day and the path that lies before each and every one of them is a lottery. Many are born into terrible situations, even in so called civilised countries like those in the west, while others have every advantage known to man. I suspect that George, I'll call it George for now as that is a pretty unisex name, will have a great start in life, with a beautiful home, loving parents and hopefully, the support of the rest of the family.
Even so George faces a hazardous and unpredictable future in which a tiny decision can make so much difference to the rest of the life that they face. Many hazards are beyond anyone's control and the future of human life as always remains in the balance. It seems that humanity must make some choices soon in order that we as a species can continue to evolve and make all of our lives better. George will be born in a world that lies on the brink of major changes and I can only hope that those changes will be positive and that one day George can make a contribution to it.
I am unlikely to see George grow up and can probably make very little difference to his/her life. I will plant a tree for George on the day of the birth and maybe one day George will look at the tree and see it as my substitute for a prayer on his/her behalf.

I'll drink to that

British pubs are closing at the rate of nearly 40 a week, or was that a day? It is no surprise though as landlords (and ladies) are being squeezed buy heavy taxation from the government, hyped costs from the big businesses who own the breweries and suppliers, massive rates applied by local authorities and on top of all this the recession that is crippling all but the bankers who caused it.
The pub is a part of the social network. A place to meet people from the locality, to talk , to argue and to find out what is going on in the world. For some people it is a lifeline, and it may be the only place they can go to find company without the need for an invisible friend.
I run a pub quiz. This was instigated on a monday night in an attempt to draw in punters on the quietest night of the week, and sometimes it works. Last night there were just the two teams however, a total of 12 people, all of whom of course bought drinks at the bar. Had we not been there there were 6 others in the pub and by the end of the evening that was down to two. The landlady is of course worried for the future.
I maintain that village pubs in particular are worth saving and it is time that the community realised how important these little gems can be. It seems that churches can generate huge amount to rescue their crumbling fabrics and are often the recipients of lottery grants to keep these edifices growing and yet the numbers of sheep that heed their shepherd on a regular basis is waning.
I will assert that many pub communities actually do more good in the community than some of the churches, and should therefore be elevated to a higher status, or at least given the same tax consideration that the churches get.
We need the pubs. They add colour and variety to our towns and villages and the big advantage they have over the church is that pubs do not have pulpits.

just a thought

On the fringe

Schools are being told that it may be illegal to enforce the wearing of skirts by girls on the grounds that it may discriminate against transexuals. Do the people that make these decisions believe that transexuals are not going to be discriminated against for other reasons? We are all subject to discrimination and have to learn to live with it. People are people and all have their prejudices. I confess to being prejudiced against those with extreme right wing views and those at the other end of the spectrum. I am prejudiced against those who worship stupidity and see it as a badge of honour, and those who put religions in front of their regard for fellow human beings.
I am discriminated against all of the time, on the basis of my age, my gender and probably the way that I dress and the opinions that I hold. It is all part of living in a society, or in my case on the fringe of society.
I was wondering how far t his PC madness can go, perhaps the following could become illegal in the future

Taking driving licences away from blind people or alcoholics.
Locking prisoners in their cells without a bedtime story.
Giving kids homework
Not giving unemployment benefit to those in work.
Speeding fines
Maths tests
The list is endless - unless we wake up and realise that all of this is just a terrible dream!

Contrasts

This weekend, for reasons that I will not go into, I saw The Brits Awards and also the BAFTAs. I am not a fan of either show, though I do believe in praising achievement, as long as that achievement has been the result of effort rather than circumstance.
We seem to have evolved a culture where the concept of praising achievement has been taken to silly extremes. I some schools children may be rewarded for just turning up, and others for managing to behave in a civilised way. Others who do this as a matter of course, receive nothing other than confusing messages.

Anyhow, the two "ceremonies" were fascinating in the sheer contrast that they demonstrated. On one hand we had a slick, well presented and civilised display of talent, with intelligent people being given well deserved accolades for, in some cases, years of work, honing their craft to the highest of levels. And then there were the Brit awards.

Ok I know that I am a grumpy old git, as my son likes to remind me, but there was a time when Britain produced a plethora of talented young people who could outshine the rest of the world when it came to pop music. There was little of that talent on display this year. The most memorable talent was an American and the rest, bland, ordinary and unoriginal.

All that we can seem to offer is surface. We have pretty boy bands who sing reasonably but are utterly dull unless you happen to be a twelve year old girl, sexy girl bands who appeal to most men until they start to sing, and the rest seems to be Hiphop, a brand of sound that seems to me incomprehensible and of no worth whatever. Britpop is in a sorry state, and like all aspects of modern culture becoming dominated by women. It is a shame as there are many talented bands out there, producing new and original stuff, but alas they do not fit the moulds that the likes of Simon Cowell produce. The only saving grace is that the average act these days has the life expectancy of a mayfly.

An unpleasant experience

I have an old lady friend who I visit from time to time. We drink tea and laugh a lot, she talks about her childhood and some of her happier times, and if necessary I do odd jobs for her. Like many older people she gets into a state of panic very easily and I have told her over and over again to call if she needs help. She is reluctant to do so and so yesterday afternoon as I was settling down to a post lunch doze, she called, and I knew that she was panicking.
When I got there, she was indeed at her wits end. Something had got into her fireplace and was making a great deal of noise. Now this is an old large Edwardian fireplace that has been fitted with a gas fire of considerable vintage. It is sealed in with a sheet metal screen that is screwed into the fabric of the fireplace and the fire itself sealed in with gaffer tape. The whole thing was moving and it sounded as if some large beast was fighting to get out. The sheet metal bulged outwards and bits and pieces were clearly cascading down the chimney.
I ushered Liz very slowly out of the room, not wanting her to be there when whatever it was was released, made her a cup of tea and proceeded to dismantle the arrangement that had lain their untouched for decades. Of course the screws were corroded in and could not be budged and so I eased the fire away from the chimney, disengaging it from its flue and from the heavy duty tape that held it in place. While this was going on the occupant of the dark space behind had fallen silent. Beneath the fire was a hole that led into the cellars below. What on Earth could have come up? However that thought was dispelled when I realised that there was no connection between that hole and whatever lay beyond. Unable to free the sheet metal barrier I could only thrust my hand through the flue to investigate what had been making the noise and that hole wasn't very big. Tentatively I groped around in the dark, half expecting to be bitten or dragged screaming into oblivion - I watch too many bad movies! Nothing! Whatever it was had moved out of reach.
I found a walking stick near to the front door and returned - thrust said stick up aforementioned chimney and waggled it around. Mayhem in the chimney resumed as the trapped beast sprang back into action and I caught my first glimpse. A large and very scared Wood Pigeon was struggling to get back up the sooty passage that it had come in by and was hopelessly failing. Almost as scared as it was, I resumed my attempts at grabbing it, grasping it's tail firmly I endeavoured to release it from its prison. I succeeded with the tail but alas it had become detached from the poor bird in the struggle and i was left with a large handful of warm feathers. There was now less of the bird to struggle and the poor thing flapped and floundered while i tried to grab it by something else. I found a wing and eased it from the hole, most of the wing feathers came out in my hand an the now dismembered bird escaped into the room in a cloud of feathers. On all fours I chase it around the room, under chairs and around furniture, under curtains and over sofas until the petrified beast ran out of will to live and I grasped it with both hands. I could feel its heart pounding in my grip and see the fear its eyes. I couldn't bring myself to wring its neck and so released it outside the back door. To my amazement it flew away. I still don't know how it managed that with no tail and one and a half wings. No aircraft could have achieved that I am sure.
I returned to the room of carnage, picked up the feathers and reassembled the fire, feeling quite shaken by the plucking of a live bird and feeling very bad about the pain that I must have inflicted.
The consolation of course was that Liz was back in posession of her peace of mind and that should the pigeon meet a swift end in the jaws of a fox, it will be preferable to a long death in a fireplace.

Pie in the sky

I am well aware that what I think may well be completely wrong, and that others hold completely opposite viewpoints that probably have the same validity or otherwise. It would be a duller world if we all thought the same.
We are running towards a general election and the two contending parties are squaring up to each other and beginning to show traces of their true colours, though I don't suppose what they say between now and whenever the election happens, will make much difference to the outcome.
We as a nation are in a financial mess, and have been put there by mistakes made by a greed that is inherent within our society. Everyone seems to want something for nothing, and the banking world took things into their own hands, attempted to make a few too many fast bucks and now we all have to pay for what they have done. The bankers however continue to recieve their huge bonuses, and will receive unending support from the conservatives on both sides of the house. Budgets are being designed and ways of clawing back the bankers losses from the rest of us are being proposed on one hand and rejected by the other. The current government want to increase taxes, especially on the wealthy, while their opponents prefer to rob the poor and keep them in their places, forcing the elderly to sell their homes in order to fund their care in later life. This will of course remove the last incentive to invest one's earnings in property as those without houses to sell will be looked after anyhow, and those recipients of big bonuses will have cash to spare.
Voting at the next election will make little difference to most of us however. Only the wealthy can gain from a new Tory government and almost no-one can gain from maintaining the status quo. Surely we should consider the end of party politics, and strive to elect a government that represents the interests of us all.

Coming and going

People come into and leave our lives all of the time. I have been lucky enough to have met a large number of wonderful people, most of whom have sat before me in classrooms. Of course not all of them were in any way close and our relationship was both fleeting and professional, but nevertheless our lives did brush for an instant in time and we may have learned a little from each other.
As we grow from infant to child and from child to adult it is probable that more come into our lives than leave; I can still remember becoming aware of the finite nature of existence when just a boy, and being told of the demise of an elderly neighbour who i was quite fond of. The memory is crystal clear and the profound nature of that realisation represented a real turning point in my consciousness. He had gone. Forever. The end. Even then I had no belief in afterlives; those concepts are there to comfort those who fear death and cannot handle not being here. A hundred years ago, none of us were here. We did not exist by any definition of the word and in another hundred years we will be in the same state and the world will have moved on.
I am at the stage when few people come into my life, and those that do are often not welcome. Many people that I have cared about have gone; some have died and others simply gone along different pathways. Just a select few remain and those I value beyond material things.
I am not easy company, and do not make friends at all well anymore. I share my mind with very few and my feelings with less, and guess that makes me at best self centred. I rue some of my past and some of the friends that I have lost and have learned much about trust, and feel that on days like today, that I have changed little over the years. I am self contained to a great extent and realise that I will probably never feel fulfilled, but that is true of most people so there is no cause for complaint.
In just over a month my daughter is expecting her first child and I am looking forward to meeting someone new. I hope that this new life will be one filled with good things, but mainly that he or she will, when she gets to my age feel a sense of accomplishment and that their life has been well lived. Good luck little one, you will need it.

a short rant

So our first Asian Judge has proclaimed that Sikh children should be allowed to wear their ceremonial daggers to school. The claim that no Sikh child has been involved in knife crime strikes me as being rather irrelevant, and surely it is time that such ludicrous claims should be dealt with unsympathetically. It seems that as long as you can tie in a behaviour or a habit to a religion then every one else is scared witless to challenge it. Sikhs have no more right to carry knives in public than anyone else and they should be stopped from doing so, because it is the law of the land. We are not a Sikh society; sick perhaps, but thankfully we are not yet ruled by any religious sect.
In the same day's news we hear of a sixteen year old girl, buried alive by her father for talking to boys. Where were her rights? Once again we see that religion is not about peace and goodwill to one's fellow man; it is about bowing to the will of an idea or to another human being who expounds upon that idea. When oh when will people wake up to the true source of evil in this world?

Waxing lyrical?

I like to think that I have an eclectic taste in music; I do listen to a lot of it and generally tune in to radio 3 for mornings and listen to my collected stuff in the afternoons and evenings. As i write I am listening to Beth Gibbons and Rustic man, a band I know nothing of but the noise that they make is very pleasing.

I do try to listen to whatever comes my way and try to understand what musicians are trying to do. There was a time when they were more about making music than making money, but I am afraid that those days are long gone. I am sure that there are plenty out there for whom the music is far more important than the paychecks but everyone has to live.

What we listen to and enjoy is a very personal thing and there are genres of music which to me have no impact or meaning and i am sure that is so for everyone. I cannot relate in any way to Rap or Hip hop, and at the same time cannot comprehend the music of many modern classical composers. I don't particularly like Johan Strauss of Franz Lehar, and most traditional scottish music irks me.

I can understand then that many people can not relate to what I listen to. The leap from britpop or indiepap to Mozart or PinkFloyd is a huge one and therin lies a chasm which some will never cross in either direction.

Pop music is about youth culture and history shows us that the quality and type of music is an audible commentary on the times, or at least it has been since the forties and fifties. Good times and bad times have a way of producing music with impact and meaning for those to whom the music is aimed.

Good music has power to move people, either thought the overall sound, rhythm, melody or lyrics, and no one has yet managed to have a universal appeal. Even the Beatles at their best never achieved that, and they probably reached more ears than Beethoven ever did. And so when I hear what seems bland, banal and tediously plastic song releases, I must remember that someone out there actually relates to this and that makes it valid.

Bring it on!

Well the struggle for equality continues with the government attempting to change the ground rules and remove glass ceilings allowing freedom of opportunity for all. Now I do agree that we should all have access to the same opportunities, but we should also be realistic.

Well the ex-Nazi leader of the most powerful religion in the world seems to be planning a visit to England because he fears that the new legislation will give free access to positions in his church to homosexuals of all things. How terrible that would be? No longer would they be able to discriminate on the basis of sexuality - or anything else for that matter. Within decades they could be taken over by men in dresses, waving handbags in strange ceremonies.

This is an organisation that preaches tolerance, and yet displays very little of that to anyone who lives outside of their faith. It values poverty as a virtue as long as they don't have to endure it, and like all big companies has vested interests in it's own power and survival.

In my opinion an influx of homosexual bishops could only do them good! A lot of choirboys would be far safer than they are now.

Just how stupid can we get?

Surely we have reached rock bottom in the stagnant pool of political correctness, when it is not permitted to advertise a job for a reliable worker on the basis that it discriminated against those who are unreliable. Does this mean that to demand a qualified or experienced worker is unfair on those unqualified or inexperienced? There has to be a point beyond which we cannot go without losing touch with both common sense and the world of reality.
Some people clearly still believe in equality, and yet this has never been realistic. Our society only works because of inequality, it always has, and as long as there are people it always will. All animal populations are made up of individuals that are different. Some are stronger, fitter, prettier or more able to breed than others. Some are better fighters and some are better at finding food. It is this fundamental inequality that drives the process of evolution, and although those with religious faith would have us believe otherwise, the principles of evolution still apply to humans. Apart from biological inequalities we are also subject to inequalities of geographical and cultural bases and so although laudable in principle we do not even come close to equality of opportunity.
I hope that when I travel by air, that the pilot is far more able than I am in handling an aircraft. I hope that the surgeon to whom I entrust my life has not been given the job because someone thought that he deserved a chance, and I hope that the car that I drive has been designed and assembled by some sort of intelligence.

Retail things

One of the benefits of the world wide web is that it by and large protects me from shopping. I have never liked it but my reasons for that have changed as I have grown older. As a youth, I would trail around with my mother, knowing that we could not afford to buy the things that I would have liked and always having to settle for what was affordable, which of course was never very much. Shops for me were placed that offered temptation and made me painfully aware that I was poor.

Of course things change, and for now at least, money is not an issue. I still trail around the shop, pushing a trolley and watching time passing so so slowly. My input is rarely required and mostly irrelevant and this morning I spent a while composing a list of reasons for hating the whole experience. Near to the top of the list are strangers. People with long faces, ambling around like myself, blissfully unaware of those around them, shuffling from aisle to aisle all probably feeling the same sort of antipathy to each other. There seems to be a rule, that wherever you happen to be you are always in someone else's way, so it is impossible just to stand in neutral and disengage from the whole experience.
Following someone while pushing the trolley is a nightmare, far worse than driving in a convoy. Take your eyes off the leader for one instant and said leader vanishes into the maze of aisles, evoking another rule, that being whichever way you go is the wrong way.
I hate trolleys - I always seem to get one that has a wheel that sticks, making steering difficult, and as the load increases, impossible. Mostly I am tempted to pick up the trolley and carry it around, though the ergonomics make that tricky and plainly it would be a stupid thing to do.
I hate the fact that it is impossible to buy just a jar of coffee without having to choose between hundreds of combinations of brand, type, size etc. I loathe the uniformity of fruit and vegetables and the fact that one store is much the same as any other.
I despise the appalling attitudes of some of the staff who in some stores seem to imagine that they are doing you a favour, and I loathe the use of psychological opportunism in the way that supermarkets display goods persuading people to buy what they do not need.
For me, the perfect shopping experience is to search through my favourite sites, make my selection and simply type in my credit card details. To enhance my experience i really do want an iPad, and that I will order online.

I believe

An accusation that is often thrown my way by those that have religious convictions is that unless i believe in something then my life must be without meaning. At this point in any discussion I usually bring things to a halt, as to argue further leads to a circular debate that goes nowhere.
It is impossible not to believe in something; it is part of being human, and with most people it is possible to change beliefs in the light of experience or when presented with evidence. Most of us at some time in our lives believed in Santa Claus, Fairies,the bogey man, God and the Easter Bunny, because we were told that these things existed. Parents pass on these untruths as a means of controlling their children, either by threat or anticipation of something good. Most of us grow out of these fictions and do not hold our parents responsible for misleading us, but some do not and hold onto those beliefs with grim determination. There are even those who believe that the earth is flat and many that believe that the holocaust never happened. Fundamentally some people can be induced into believing anything.
I am a natural sceptic and yet I too have beliefs, and there are many things that I believe that I cannot prove. I believe in Science as a process. Where Science scores highly is in it's scepticism. The scientific process is based upon hypotheses formed from observations. These hypotheses are tested experimentally over and over again, until the outcome of an experiment allows the formulation of a Law. A law might state that under circumstance A, B will happen, but with Scientific laws, this only applies until it can be proved otherwise by different experiments. There are many principles that have stood the test of time and can be accepted as truths, and even the most rabid fundamentalists cannot argue that.
I believe that there are probably other life forms in the universe, and that the universe is so large that we will probably never find evidence for their existence. I believe that the universe is eternal and that there is no creator nor need for one. I believe in energy as the currency of the universe and its transmutability.
I believe in the Atom and its structure of fundamental particles, and that one day we will understand the very nature and origin of those particles.
I believe in Evolution and that we are merely a part of an ongoing process that too few people understand.
I believe that people are intrinsically good and that some are made evil by the life into which they are brought. I believe that adherence to the writing in one book leads to a narrow view of life that hinders the moral progress of humankind.
I believe that capitalism is wrong, but as yet we have no workable alternative. The system has produced huge benefits but has also produced a world that is obsessed by property and material things. We have become greedy and self obsessed and this in turn has fuelled religious backlashes and the terrorism that is a canker on civilizations.
I believe that we are failing to make good use of extending lives and that many people are left to rot by the rest of us. We think more of pets than we do of fellow humans and many elderly folk die without dignity in squalid conditions.
I believe that our children are neglected by parents and society in general, and that many children should be taken away from their abusive parents while they still have a chance.
I believe in friendship, family and freedom of thought and expression. I also believe that there is no God but of course I cannot prove it, any more than I can prove that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! I believe that saying something is true, however frequently, does not make it true.

Desert Island Discs

We have a long running Radio programme called Desert Island Discs. The program selects someone of worth, a celebrity of someone eminent in their particular field, and during a fairly personal interview, they select eight records that they would choose to take to a desert Island, along with a book and one luxury item. This programme has been running for decades, and is as popular today as it has always been. Unlike most chat shows, it seems that those involved are more relaxed and more likely to share their memories than they otherwise would.

I will never be famous or eminent, but I often wonder what I would choose given the opportunity. Choosing eight records/songs is really very hard, and justifying those choices even more so, because to justify a choice is to give something of oneself, and that is something that I have become very wary of. To give of oneself is dangerous in that it makes one extremely vulnerable. In this Blog I do come close to that but as readership is limited to a very select few, I am prepared to take that risk - up to a point that is.

I am sure that my choices would vary according to time of day, season of the year and my own frame of mind but for now my list might, in no particular order, look something like this -

1. Bruch - Violin Concerto. This is one of the first Classical pieces that I ever owned. I played it over and over again. It is a sublime and very emotional work, and one that was very significant in some of my darker days as a young student.
2. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lot of Love. As a student I, like many others in the late 60s discovered heavy rock for the first time. There were two of us who owned the Led Zep 2 album and we would strive to play the song in synchrony at each end of our corridor. Alas our players operated at different speeds so we never achieved anything but the irritation of others.
3. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb. Probably the best ever live performance that I have ever witnessed was the last Floyd tour. I always knew they were good but that night I was transported to a different plane!
4. Monteverdi - 1610 Vespers. For me this is possibly the most wonderful music ever written. To hear this performed in ST Marks Venice would be the most remarkable of experiences.
5. Beatles - Hey Jude. A simple song but one that to me represents the end of those heady hippy days when we were yojng careless, healthy and happy.
6. Richard Strauss - 4 last songs. The last of these Im Abendrot (At Gloaming), was the last thing that Strauss wrote. It seems like he knew that he was dying and this was his farewell. If there was a last piece to hear then this would be it.
7. Beethoven - Symphony number nine. It is difficult not to choose something of Beethoven. Such a brilliant mind and such a tragic life. He strove though the most horrendous difficulties and produced the most sublime music. When he wrote this he was completely deaf and yet he was able to hear the whole thing in his mind. It reminds me that my own hearing loss is nothing compared to his.
8. Loreena McKennitt - Dante's Prayer. I discovered Loreena in recent years and even travelled to Brittany to attend a concert. She has the ability to move me, and this song rarely fails to bring tears to my eyes.

If I had to choose just one of the above it would be the Monteverdi, though the choice would be difficult.

A book? Well I'd have to choose something that would never become a bore so maybe it would be the Oxford English Dictionary.

The luxury item would have to be a supply of pens and paper. That way i could perhaps learn to write and draw.