Death of a Master

Maurice André  V

My favourite trumpeter in classical music, Maurice André, has died last night in Bayonne. His recordings with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonics of Haydn, Hummel, Mozart (Leopold), Vivaldi, Bach, Albinoni, etc ... are the best trumpet music ever produced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5zpaKJDnY8

He single-handedly led me to Baroque music. I did what I could to show my support for him whilst he was alive, and attended a number of concerts, and owning a string of classical recordings of him. I am thankful for the world of music he opened up for me to enjoy for the rest of my life. And I am glad he had a rich and fulfilled life with music that he so generously shared with the world. RIP

Chez-Sois

http://www.france24.com/en/20120224-cinema-paris-godard-karina-costa-gavras-en-culture

The last we'll see and remember of Whitney Houston

What would we do without the rainbow press, eh? Well, we couldn't see the very, very, very, last and final picture of nicely tanned Whitney Houston. But here it is: —

After the Fox

Everyone has - or should have - a political home base, a political grouping or party that best reflects one's own beliefs and convictions. In the 1980s that was the Republican Party (which was relatively easy with a moderate President, Ronald Reagan, as its leader). That has changed as my geographical gravity shifted from Washington to London. Work for the front bench team around John Major, IDS, William Hague and Michael Howard satisfied my curiosity and intrigue enough to become Party member in 1993, and to remain one ever since.

This close affiliation was rocked last year with the resignation of Dr Liam Fox as Minister of Defence. Previously I had supported Mr Fox' campaign to become Tory leader in 2005, a race which he narrowly lost to David Cameron. BUT, it's good to see Mr Fox return to the political fray.

Peculiar vote in Germany; again

A splinter party (FDP), which runs currently near 3.5 percent in the polls, has forced a weakened government of CDU/CSU to accept an obscure and semi-senile private individual to become the country's third president within two years.

The showdown with this peculiar result rings in the end of the Merkel era, maybe the only welcome side effect of the otherwise disgraceful boiler room acclamation of a champion of the SPD and the chaotic Green Party, behind closed doors and hidden from Germany's public. Germany has embarked on a dangerous path now, with a huge vacuum left for extremist parties to fill to represent conservative voters.

 

If Mr Gauck were the civil rights advocate some try to portray him as, he would himself object to the way he was picked. He dismisses the real vote of 2 years ago in which he had lost, and finds no word to the permanent undermining of democratic values in the European Union.

Sarkozy: wrong man, wrong time, wrong place

[From my professional blogsite]

GETTING RID OF THE BUFFOON IN THE ELYSEE

The degree of public self adulation from French president Nicholas Sarkozy is as ridiculous as it is misplaced and outright awkward. This past weekend the man in the Élysée Palace at last dared to come out of his cocoon and announced his reelection effort in front of a few hundred less than enthusiastic followers.

The muted response from his own support group, coming just 8 weeks ahead of the election, did not irritate the miniature Napoleon (same size, half the empire), as he ranted on about his socialist rival (and leader in the polls) François Hollande - "he's lying from dusk to dawn" - and praising himself as the savior of the nation, the man who brought France back from the brink.

Unfortunately for the little man, his renditions of self described and self prescribed glamour did not escape the attention of outside spectators (like myself), nor the scrutiny of France's intelligentsia in the media. His record cannot be reconciled with how Sarkozy portrays himself, and his swipe at Monsieur Hollande - the part of "lying from dusk to dawn" - can easily be applied to the president himself.

For, the man with some sixty days left in office has ushered in an era clearly the opposite of an image of a Grande Nation: his first term commenced with riots and mayhem on the streets of Paris and all other major cities (alone in the capital nearly 4,000 cars and hundreds of businesses went up in flames), isolation in global affairs, subordination to what the French consider the arch rival, a perception just a whisker away from the neighbourly arch enemy of the past to stalemate in the permanent and acute crisis of the eurozone. In diplomatic circles this bonmot makes its rounds and is beginning to gain traction with the common folks as well: "If you got a friend like Germany, who needs an enemy?"

Mr Sarkozy's approval rating is the worst of any sitting president since Charles de Gaulle a month before the famous plebiscite which ousted him. The public gaffes of Mr Sarkozy, both in words and in gestures, are innumerous, and have filled the pages of publications like Le Canard, and the comics pages of reputable dailies such as Le Figaro and Le Monde. His private life is the domain for clownery and caricatures.

The man, who demeaned and emasculated French virtues like no other leader before him since WW2, is rife for retirement, and his anachronistical public sermons cannot gloss over the stale, hollow and uninspiring message he conveys. The awkwardly animated man, like a kid who overdosed on sugar, should be the butt of Saturday night comical jokes, not a resident of the Élysée Palace.

Booked

The next trip abroad has been booked:
22 Mar 2012 : 51st ACI Financial Markets World Congress 2012,
United Arab Emirates, Dubai

I am scheduled to be in Dubai March 21-24

EUROZONE: A Continental Divide

THE EUROZONE CRISIS &

A CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

Supposedly, if one ventures far enough to accept Germanic manifestations of the past 20 years, the project "euro" was designed to bring to the glum and until then irrelevant continent everlasting peace and wealth at home, and unprecedented greatness and potency outside. However, ten years after the introduction of the common currency, the ageing continent is rocked by huge tectonic rifts. The continent is profoundly divided by the gap between North and South, the rich and the have-not, between creditors and debtors.

Increasingly the EU evolves into a catalyst for deeply rooted conflicts, political skirmish, stupor and further economical inequalities that threaten to plunge the region into even armed conflict. Greece and Portugal appear to provide the fuse that might spark the fiery implosion of the eurozone: German and EU flags are already being burned in Athens and other Greek cities, foreign-owned or affiliated banks and enterprises looted and set ablaze. From hereupon, even graver attacks on foreigners and tourists are entirely thinkable; in fact it seems only a matter of time when foreigners become victims of violence which the EU architects can only blame themselves for.

Emily

Emily is back in the recording studio these days (today is the eighth day of scheduled eleven days of recording the new CD). It's her fourth album and much anticipated as you can imagine.

The strains are visible (and audible), and we try to keep it quiet at home. We also look forward to visit her sister in 10 days, down in Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Leaving Saturday, 11 February at noon, returning Monday, 13 February at midnight.
Saturday in Reims, Sunday and Monday in Luxembourg

Emily

Unearthing the ghost of the past

Invoking the Nazi past with relevant diatribes is not limited to Austrian parliamentarians. A French Socialist MP caused an uproar in the French parliament yesterday, and an exodus of the ruling party UMP and the cabinet of Premier Fillon.

Video:
http://www.france24.com/en/20120207-ruling-ump-party-deputies-storm-out-parliament-over-nazi-remark-guent-fillon-france

On Saturday Interior Minister Claude Guent made this indisputably factual statement:"Contrary to what the left's relativist ideology says, for us all civilizations are not of equal value: Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred."