Inappropriate beauty

RUPERT THOMSON (Pe B 66-73) reads extracts from his 2007 "Myra Hindley" novel, Death of a Murderer (2 minutes):

String driven thing

CONGRATULATIONS to Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop on winning a Rural Spark Award from the Carnegie Trust, to go with last year's Community Action Group of the Year award and the Hands Up For Trad award in 2005.

The driving force behind starting the workshop in 2002 was Dr Linda Morpurgo (Horsham Staff 81-86) who is still its convenor (and used to be convenor of Glasgow Fiddle Workshop). Learn more from this 2005 interview.

Mission impossible?

AS Chief Executive of the Science Council, Diana Garnham (6's 66-71) must try¹ to achieve harmony among a "naturally factitious² bunch of prima donnas" - or so her interviewer puts it.

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Conscientious scientific footnotes
¹ With the aid of her PA, Tamasin Barnbrook, who could well be the Old Blue (Ba B, LHA 87-94) of that name.

² Factitious means "produced artificially rather than by a natural process". Probably the writer means factious: "given to faction; dissentious".

Damn, we missed it

THE London Contemporary Orchestra premiered two works by its composer-in-association Jonathan Cole (Md A 82-89) last month, one of which, in Jonathan's opinion, may or may not have been an opera. The flavour's caught by this friendly review.

(Old) Blue Moon

TWO minutes with the a capella group The Oxford Clerks, one of whom - the tallish one on the right in the early shots - is Jonathan Howard (Ma A, Gr E 98-05):

"There is never one way of seeing things"

EURASIAN-BRITISH artist Mich Maroney (1's 73-78) paints on everything from cotton duck to galvanized steel, and makes prints and drawings too - not only in London but in Hong Kong and mainland China. (Many thanks to Mich for this authentic photo of her studio.)

Two veterans gone

THIS typically rambling thread on the Unofficial CH Forum discloses the recent deaths of Miss Nancy Cordery (Hertford Staff 50-82) and Miss G H Pye-Smith (Hertford Staff 43-59).

Breakwater bards

THE contributors to Three Sussex Poets exude lyrical South-Saxon-ness on Worthing beach (with Russ Bravo (Th B 71-78) on the left).

They've done their share of performing at pubs, clubs and festivals but this is their first published collection.

Immortalised

DAVID MASON (Ba A 36-42, Governor) tells how he came to play the trumpet solo on "Penny Lane" (1 minute):

First hand

STRIP-SEARCHED, tear-gassed, doused in sewage, fired on: Ben Beach (La A, Gr E 01-08) blogs his way through Palestine.

Fall of an oak

OLD BLUES don't come any more full-blooded than John Gillham (Th B 28-35), Governor, Almoner, chairman of the Construction Committee, vice-chairman of the Sports Centre and member of the Benevolent Society, the Amicable Society and the OBRFC, who died last month aged ninety.

A short obituary from the Hertfordshire press; Bob Craig (Md A 52-57) has more to say.

Make a meal of it

FORMER Foreign Office Sinologist Tim Collard (Col B 72-77), seen here in the Nineties, has begun writing a blog for the Telegraph.

White horses in the surf

THE famous Guinness ad created by visual effects maestro Paddy Eason (Ma A, Ba A 78-85) (1½ minutes):

Peterloo massacred

ON 24 June this blog flagged up a new book by Stella Davis (Young, 1's & 3's 59-64), published by Peterloo Poets.

It then emerged that Keith Chandler (Th A 56-64) had his fourth collection of poems, The English Civil War Part 2 (£7.95), published by the same firm last year - a pleasing coincidence.

Pleasure turned to dismay with the news that Peterloo ceased trading in April, when Stella's book was due to appear. As far as I can see, it never did. Will another imprint take it up?

Meanwhile the only way to obtain Keith's collection seems to be to email Peterloo and they'll pass your request on to him.

A disappointing business; my sympathy to both authors.

Film of the week

COMING up tomorrow at 5.35pm on Five is Zoom: Academy for Superheroes, directed by Peter Hewitt (La A 73-?80).

His other movies include Garfield, The Borrowers, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and Thunderpants.

Man of her dreams

THIS week's Times obituary of wartime diarist Joan Rice quotes her rapturous first impressions of her husband-to-be, Hugh Rice (Ma B 27-33):

"refreshingly unsentimental and with unbelievably beautiful manners… My heart is singing wildly and madly with joy. Here he is come at last…"

It also gives a solid summary of his career, which is more than The Blue could offer when he died in 1988.

He and Joan were the parents of the lyricist Sir Tim Rice.

Big Café Diary

AN impromptu interview with the wildlife photographer and broadcaster Jonathan Scott (Col A 59-68) (4 minutes):

And who better qualified?

WITH twenty years' experience as a broadcast journalist (Sky News, Newsround, Six O'Clock News, etc), Kate Chacksfield (3's 79-81) has set up shop as a communications coach.

My uncle

IT wasn't always easy at CH being Richard Burton's nephew, recalls Guy Masterson (Mastroianni, Pe A 72-79).

My aunt

JAMES ROTHWELL (Th A 71-79) affectionately portrays the oboist Evelyn Barbirolli, wife of Sir John.

Far out

A ten-minute live performance by Resonance FM's Circuit Workshop, involving Fari Bradley (Ba B 85-92):



This took place at BonkersFest 2007, where Fari was billed as a "performer who delights in experiments, does DJ mash ups (ICA, Bestival), performs unlikely field recorded soundscapes (Barbican, Truman Brewery) and mutates Indian classical by sticking it over drum and bass (Corsica Arts, V Festival)." The workshop seems to have evolved into Oscillatorial Binnage, with Fari still part of it.

Lads' mag geezer

BEN TODD (Md B, Md A 84-91), editor of ZOO magazine, talks to The Independent in December 2007.

Yankee links

AFTER sixteen years as headmaster of Queen Margaret's School near York, Dr Geoffrey Chapman (Staff 88-92) is retiring - and plans to play golf in all fifty United States.

In his CH days, the saeva indignatio of his Colts rugby reports was one of the great joys of reading The Blue.

The Path to Rome

JOSHUA BELL (Pe A, Gr W 02-09) leaves CH today after seven strenuous years. Time to catch his breath and put his feet up? Not a bit of it. Before the month is out he'll be walking from Durham to Vatican City, and he's already blogging about it.

In times gone by, Josh was the frontman of the band in Rock School; these days he's well known to the Unofficial CH Forum as "Eruresto".

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Possibly relevant historical parallel
In 1850 the Rev Canon Dr George Townsend travelled from Durham to Rome with the intention of converting the Pope to Protestantism. Edmund Blunden (Col A 1909-15, Senior Grecian) tells us in Christ's Hospital: A Retrospect that Townsend was an Old Blue, but I've never been able to confirm this.