If you have played any musical instrument at all, you may have imagined how wonderful it would be to be playing in an ensemble, while knowing that you would never be good enough to do so. The Portsmouth Sinfonia was created in 1970 to meet such a need and was open to anyone who wanted to play. But while expertise was not required, attendance at rehearsals was mandatory and orchestra members were expected to take it seriously and give it their best shot.

The orchestra spokesperson Robin Mortimore told Rolling Stone that they played as well as they could and did not intend to caricature professional orchestras. Bryars said the notion that members were required to be novices was a “scurrilous rumour” spread by the BBC. [Brian] Eno said the orchestra included a mixture of skilled and unskilled players, which created “a very blurry version, a soft-focus version, of classical music” and “produced some beautiful music … There were some exquisite moments — the mixture of chance and choice.” Nyman described the orchestra as avant-garde and found it moving and exciting. He argued that the music was profound and subversive, and that the members were serious artists and experimental musicians, not deliberately incompetent. He said “the combination of everybody’s individual errors built a musical structure that was incomparable”.
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On 28 May 1974, by which point they had 82 members, the orchestra performed a sell-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. They were joined by an accomplished pianist, Sally Binding, who transposed Piano Concerto No. 1 to A minor as the orchestra was “unnerved” by sharps and flats. In 1979, the Portsmouth Sinfonia released the album 20 Classic Rock Classics, inspired by the Classic Rock series of albums by the London Symphony Orchestra. That year, they performed at the Rainbow Theatre, London. They last performed in 1979. Prompted by the 1981 album Hooked on Classics by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Portsmouth Sinfonia released a single, “Classical Muddly”, that reached number 38 on the UK singles chart in 1981. Plans for the BBC to broadcast a film about the Portsmouth Sinfonia in 1994 were cancelled as the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra feared the public might confuse the orchestras.

Here they are with the fanfare of the tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, which I am sure that everyone has heard, at least from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I wish I had been able to play with them. I would have fit in so well.

I am not sure what caused the entire FtB site to go down for five days but will update when I know more.

UPDATE: PZ has an explanation.

There seem to be two iron rules of American consumerism.

The first one is that people love to buy stuff even if the don’t really need the items. This habit has become hugely magnified by companies making it extremely easy to buy stuff on impulse. You see something online that interests you? Just one click and it appears at your door the next day. The second one is that people hate to get rid of stuff that they do not use and perhaps should never have bought in the first place.

I know people who have ever increasing amounts of stuff even as their need for it decreases. They buy things because they met a specialized need, like some tool or a kitchen gadget that is designed for a specific task, and now lies unused They hang on to them for sentimental reasons or with the idea that at at some point they may need it again, however unlikely that is.

I tend to be of the opposite frame of mind. I am an anti-consumer and try not to buy anything, however small and cheap, unless I absolutely need it and nothing else can substitute for it or it serves multiple useful purposes.Recently I was in the supermarket in the kitchen items aisle that has lots of gadgets. I make omelets and recipes for that and other things often call for the use of a whisk. I picked one up to buy but after a few moments decided that a fork would be an adequate substitute and put it back. Then the other day, I saw a video of a neat little gadget. You put a raw egg in it, close it, and then open it and the two halves of the egg separate cleanly, with no bits of shell or a broken yolk. But did I really need it? I usually crack an egg on a sharp edge of a skillet or a bowl and most of the time it separates just fine but occasionally there will be bits of shell or the yolk breaks. But I figured that the occasional mishap did not warrant getting such a specialized gadget. But clearly there is a market for such items. Because of my attitude, although my apartment complex provides additional storage space, I have not used it at all.
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Some time ago I was in the kitchen chopping onions and started singing “Onions, onions, ha, ha, ha”. My daughter who happened to be there asked what on earth I was singing. She refused to believe that there could have been a song that was that silly and implied that her wacky old dad must have just made it up.

Thanks to the internet I was able to quickly pull up this song to prove that it did indeed exist in the days of my youth and that there was a time when silly songs like this got play time on the radio.

Readers may recall that at one time I was becoming frustrated with the tone of the comments in this blog, with few people endlessly and acrimoniously sniping at each other over trivial things, treating them with disdain, being needlessly sarcastic, acting superior, and generally creating an unpleasant atmosphere for everyone.

So I introduced some harsh measures such as a limit on the number of comments that could be made to a single post and what I would not tolerate. You can see that policy here. As a consequence, a very few people were either banned or received private messages from me that they were skirting the line.

I must say that the blog comments have become so much better. People are actually talking to one another, responding positively and collegially to others even they disagree, and contributing very useful information that I find enlightening. Sometimes people ask questions and others respond thoughtfully with answers instead of being dismissive. The comments on this post are a good example of what I am talking about because in them I learned a lot about naval logistics.

It is just what I hoped the comments section should be like and a rarity in the world of the internet. I find the comments section to be very pleasurable to read now and hope others do to.

So thanks everyone!

My family is visiting over the next few days so there will be little or no blogging until around Wednesday.

In any sports, one can always engage in endless debates as to who was the greatest ever player in some capacity. But in cricket it is universally acknowledge that Garfield Sobers was the greatest all-rounder the game has even known, and it was announced today that he had died.

Sir Garry Sobers, an undisputed cricketing great and widely regarded as the sport’s greatest all-rounder, has died aged 89.
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The late Richie Benaud, a revered broadcaster and former Australia captain, described Sobers as “the greatest all-round cricketer the world has seen”. He wrote: “Sobers was a brilliant batsman, splendid fielder, particularly close to the wicket, and a bowler of extraordinary skill, whether bowling with the new ball, providing orthodox left-arm spin or over-the-wrist spin.”

Cricket, as in many sports, has players who excel in one particular facet of the game. In cricket, the three areas are batting, fast bowling (where the bowler uses sheer speed to get the batter out), and slow bowling, where the bowler spins the ball using fingers or the wrist in order to get the ball to change directions after bouncing, and thus fool the batter. An all-rounder is someone who can both bat and bowl well. Most all-rounders are those who are primarily batting specialists who can bowl reasonably well, or primarily bowlers who can bat reasonably well. But Sobers was someone who could bat, bowl fast, and bowl slow at the highest levels. He could also field very well.
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