Cultural Notes

[poliphilo]

I quite like Bowie's new song. What an arch-manipulator he is- dropping it on us out of the blue after letting us believe he'd gone into a retirement home! Melancholy old man is a novel mask for a rock star to wear but Bowie has always been novel (if sometimes a bit cheesy). That it is only a mask is suggested by the images towards the end of the video of him looking trim and slim (if a little frail) in a comedy T shirt. But who is that woman? Is it Bjork? Probably not. Probably some random person from an agency.

Richard E Grant gave us a warming programme about artists and the Riviera last night. I din't exactly watch it because I was too busy losing a string of games of spider solitaire but I listened with interest. I didn't know Renoir and Cezanne palled around together; I have them pegged as temperamental opposites, which doesn't, of course, preclude friendship. I was surprised to learn that Monet struggled to come to terms with the Mediterranean light; I wouldn't have expected him to be fazed by anything.

Judy tells me she's teaching the Mendelssohn and Wagner wedding marches in a course on Jewish music. I had to go to YouTube to remind myself which was which. When I was a kid we used to sing a lyric to the Lohengrin that went-

Here comes the bride
All fat and wide.
Had to take the doors down
To get her inside.