A night off!

Morning blog fans,
Just to let you know (in case you have awoken this morning excitedly awaiting the latest post from Relative Pitch), Rudsambee actually had a night off last night. We are resting on our laurels (I love that phrase!) after the delights of Sunday night (and because half the choir were on holiday). So the Rudsambee-lets spent the evening alone in the community somewhere. A terrifying thought! Anyways, we'll be back next week to prepare for Christmas (in a vocal rather than a putting-up-tinsel sort of way).

So without a full length blog post to read, how else can you spend that hour before lunch? Two suggestions:
1) checking out the back catalogue of the late legend Les Paul on youtube. In a rather showbiz aside, I saw him in concert last year and got to have my picture taken with him. Sad news of his death this week but if I am still rockin at 93 two weeks before my death I'll be quite contented.
2) getting on to the BBC website and following the Ashes as either a) England lose in dramatic grabbing-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory fashion or b) the whole thing is rained off, Australia retain the urn by default and it all peters out in usual British-sporting-summer disappointment.
It's your choice folks.
Until next week then
CSW

While the cat's away...

Have you ever wondered what might happen to the sweet Rudsambee-lets if both Maestro Boy and Esteemed Leader Anne went away on their jolly holidays? Well last night this was our lot. King Editor valiantly led us while jazz man Sebastian beat the rhythms out. However, the Rudsambee-lets were for some reason on our worst behaviour and I felt both our supply teacher leaders were remarkably patient with us. So hilarity was the name of the game, started by the aforementioned jazz man who showed us some jolly beats that meant fervently beating our chests. Honestly some of our number have so little rhythm! Douglas' face was so confused that by the end of the ditty I was almost crying with laughter.

We rehearsed quite a bit of Tormis which sounded dreadful at first... and still sounded dreadful at the end - I joke, I joke! Tormis is a little like Marmite (other yeast-based spreads available), and I do not like Marmite very much. Despite the general misbehaviour (I would like to blame A-L for much of this naughtiness - don't be taken in by her innocent facade. She completely cracks me up!) we did manage to sing through Sleep which we remembered quite well, and Dark Eyed Sailor which sounded a little scary the first time through (the ladies have a tendency to shout the line "Oh welcome William, I've lands and gold" - in fact if someone welcomed me back from the dead in such a manner I might well have dived straight back into the ocean) but less scary with dynamics in the second.

We also sang Tourdion which is a terrific little piece. Once we'd worked out the general logistics of this, it sounded pretty good. Very quick! The speed continued with Jede Sedlak which we can now rattle out without folders at a tremendous tempo.

So how best to conclude a night of increasing mirth? Well, it began with A-L's mime of 'playing a very small keyboard'. Unfortunately it looked like she was pretending to be a small rodent. This led to one of the funniest and most ridiculous conversations I have embarked upon for some considerable time. Robin (who is, as we all know, going to train to be a teacher and, judging by his linguistic knowledge, will single-handedly reform our ailing education system) referred to such an action as murine e.g. like a mouse. Mrs Wexler did her best Susy Dent impression with dictionary open and ready to discover other animal-themed descriptive words, for example 'bovine', 'avine', 'feline' (for a full list check out this magnificent link - http://www.dnafrequencies.com/dp/terms.shtml). However, the Rudsambee-lets, as they are, decided that this could be pushed a little further and came up with 'beeline', 'borderline', 'conga line', 'pantyline', 'Serpentine', 'clothesline', 'Stenna line' and, my current favourite, 'fraulein'. Goodness how we laughed - thanks to Robin, Rach, A-L, and Susan for contributing to this one. Any others, please do add them via the comment function.

And on that ridiculous note I bid you farewell. Despite the general merriment that took over this evening's proceedings we will be ready for York in a week and a bit - promise!

CSW

Singing the benefits of egg on toast...

...indeed that is all I have been able to sing about this week having had two days off my work with a sickness bug and having to miss Rudsambee. Therefore, in spite of Christopher's claims to the contrary, I have very little of wit to share with you. Rather than write almost the same presumptive, imaginative post as last week I will refer you back to it and instead boast about the amount of Easter eggs we received this year. Goodness, we have twelve (minus three now it most be said) Easter eggs stacked in our kitchen. And very delicious they are too though I must say I doubt we will wade our way through them before Christmas! There is nothing better than Easter egg chocolate folks. Anyways, on that wistful note I bid you farewell until next week when hopefully normal service will be resumed.
Until then...
CSW

This rock chick is back!

Cheers to Claire 2 (who can I add is an infinitely better actress and creator of striking jewellery than your regular blogstress) who took the metaphorical reins in my absence on Saturday. Fab, matey! Sounds like Rudsambee had a rather marvellous day.

As promised (or threatened, depending on which way you look at it) a brief (I focus on the word 'brief' here - it could be decidedly non-brief if you liked) nod to the general greatness of Messrs John Wetton and Geoff Downes who played a seriously legend gig in London last weekend. May I say that I even wore a faux-leather jacket for the occasion and looked every inch the rock chick, especially cheering on the riffing prowess of the fabulous Dave Kilminster who could even flick his hair in true rock star fashion while in the middle of a particularly tough prog axe moment.

Anyways, I'll be back tomorrow (or Thursday if the blogstress is too sleepy upon her return to Warden mansions) for the lowdown on another night with 'Cloudburst'. The Rudsambeelets (I see in Claire 2's post) have learnt a couple of new pieces in my absence. So yours truly will be struggling to keep up tomorrow and hoping that A-L sings loudly in my left ear so I can sing a fraction behind. Time to get back to being a choral chick as well as a rock chick.
Until tomorrow then, I am off for a snooze.
CSW

Happy New Year!

The title gives it away...happy new year one and all. Two bits of information for you as we enter 2009: (1) My Mum received her copy of what are they doing? and, overlooking a brief listening of Peter Kay's Christmas song (more catchy than Tormis' little ditties), it has been on the ghetto blaster ever since; (2) Further to a blog post of yonks ago, I passed by Ecclefechan the other day. It is somewhere in Scotland, just off the road from Manchester. I must admit I can't tell you exactly where as I was fast asleep, awoken only by a live version of Fear of the Dark (a nice wee riff for all you rock fans) just in time to see a sign for Ecclefechan. Well, that's cleared that one up then.

Hope you all enjoy your merriment this evening. Tune in on Wednesday/Thursday for more from Rudsaambee-land - it's our yearly meeting so cue lots of quotable comments. Well worth checking out I should think.

All the best for 2009.

CSW

An exciting meeting...but nothing to do with Rudsambee

Morning blog fans,
Well as I was not present at Wednesday's rehearsal due to a jolly jaunt down to the capital, I can't tell you anything about the rehearsal other than (by the tone of an email from Ol) we still have work to do on the Carver!


Therefore I will tell you an exciting story from my trip (Chris, hallowed editor, has warned me not to put up rubbish about the life of Dr C [Chris says: not too much, anyway] but I will break that promise just once today). Getting on a train at King's Cross and a tall man walked past me with dark glasses. Now it is a fact universally acknowledged that a tall man in dark glasses must be a celeb of some kind or someone pretending to be a celeb a la me outside Tiffany's jewelers in NY this year. Shock horror but it was only the wonderful Julian Barratt aka Howard Moon of Mighty Boosh fame. Now, as Rach and Natalie will know (after a long rambling conversation), I am a bit of a fan. Cue very excited sharp intake of breath - but he got on the first class coach while I dragged myself down to busy coach E.


And I thought that was the end of it. However, I could not listen to John Wetton's greatest hits in peace knowing that comedy legend was on the train heading to York for a show. So, I made my way to dining coach (after finding £1.45 for a cuppa), smiled nicely at Geordie coffee man... and to cut a long story short, I ended up being dragged through first class by three excited National Express workers (who BTW had no idea who he was) so I could be introduced. Much embarrassment from yours truly! However, Mr Barratt was lovely and very sweet, considering I had just interrupted his quiet prep time. He signed his (very groovy) autograph (see here for the scary photo) and was so nice that he went up in my estimation.





One thing I did notice: he really does have very small eyes (one for the Boosh fans there). Anyways, this is turning into a rambling blog about me. Promise we will be back to normal service next week.


Enjoy the week
CSW


ps specially for Claire, here's some antique Barratt: