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BlackBerry Tour 9630 User Reviews
Overal user rating
The overall rating is the average of all user reviews, while the overall alternatives are the ones that has been listed most.
Call quality8/10Battery8.5/10Reception7.5/10Display7/10Build quality9/10Text input8/10Everyday usage7.5/10UI speed7.5/10Camera7.5/10Multimedia7.5/10Internet5/10
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Please note that each user review reflects the opinion of its respectful author and not of Phone Arena.
posted on 04 Aug 2009, 15:30
Amazing Phone
In the past i have always stuck with windows mobile phones and probably never would have switched to blackberry if it wasn't for the touch pro from verizon. Which i went through 6 in a month and now i have switched to the tour and love it theres no freezing the phone runs like a dream i have never have to restart it either. along with the website crackberry i couldn't like a phone anymore then i like this one its perfect.Design 10/10Features 10/10Performance 10/10
- qwerty keyboard
- speed
- camera
- design
- ease of use
- restarting and turning on which takes forever but once started it works like a dream
2 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 02 Aug 2009, 22:41
Love the Tour!
The tour is my first Blackberry. I love it! I had two Palm Treo's with Palm OS in the past, then the XV6800 (Windows Mobile) prior to the Tour. I always loved my Palm OS phones. I hated Windows Mobile from the beginning and will never have it again. I am addicted to and absolutely love the Tour! It is so nice to sync without problems and in seconds! Windows Mobile was continually causing problems. The screen on the Tour is fantastic. The Web browsing is better. Overall I trust it's performance. I love how fast I get and send my email on Balckberry. I am much more available to my clients now! I have had it around 2 weeks now and cannot put it down. Yes it has kind of short battery life, but if you give it a chance to get broken in and change some settings to reduce battery drain it is not bad. Also, Wifi would be a plus, but in 1 year on my Windows mobile that had Wifi, I only used it once. So I won't really miss it. THis is by far Verizons best phone right now!Design 9/10Features 9/10Performance 9/10
- Just about everything!
- Battery life, No WiFi, odd placement for the charging port.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 02 Aug 2009, 02:24 (Posts: 4; Member since: 21 Nov 2008)
The Smart Device For the Smartest Of Them All
I have been a WinMo user for about four years now. Having used it so long I kind of got used to expecting my device to run real slow & eventually crap out on me... at least once a day. My best friends all have been using BlackBerry devices for a long while now. So, I decided to jump on the bandwagon! I tell you what... its been a great ride so far. This device is so much faster that my HTC Touch Pro that eventually pissed me off to the point of no end! When I received it last Friday it pretty much activated its self with a little help from my service provider. My favorite thing about this device is how clear the speaker phone is. It sounds so amazing. Even at a very low volume it picks up your voice very well. The multimedia app allows you to shift through all your pictures, music & movies with a few swipes of the thumb. The option to completely customize your menu is so comforting. If you don't like clutter, its as simple as hiding, moving or even deleting the tiles and/or folders you what to get out of the way. Just like all BlackBerry's the email service is like none other. Super easy to set up & is pushed directly to your phones inbox. The only reason I did not give this device full 10's all the way across the board is because RIM could have done a lot better with the SMS layout. Tethered chat style SMS is the only real way to go these days. If you need to hold on to important messages for a while, its so much easier to be able to click on a persons name &...Design 9/10Features 9/10Performance 9/10
- Great screen resolution, Faster than previous BlackBerry models, Great speaker that's loud enough to hear in the noisiest of places, Multimedia app is good enough to actually keep & fun to use, Battery life isn't bad either
- No tethered Messaging for text or email
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 27 Jul 2009, 19:23
1st Blackberry
Wow this is my first Blackberry and i love it . I switched from a Treo 755P and it took a minute to get use to it but I do like it .Design 9/10Features 9/10Performance 9/10
- Nice Pictures
- Easy to use
- Clear screen
- nice ball movement
- easy to formate
- who cares about wi fi you have to have the online pk
- Charger is in a crazy spot
2 out of 9 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 26 Jul 2009, 15:36
I got my BB Tour just two days ago.Had it plugged in last night, battery got really hot...then this morning it just stopped working altogether.My short lived BB.I'm upsetDesign 7/10Features 8/10Performance 1/10
2 out of 18 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 23 Jul 2009, 19:37
My first Blackberry and it's great
The Tour is my first Blackberry (BB), so much of my plaudits will apply to other BB phones, and to other sophisticated PDA's (never had a PDA before either).
I've had it since it was intro'd. I like the easily customizable settings, and the intuitive way the menu system is arranged. I like the form factor, it's easy to hold and type on. I have rather large fingers, and I can usually type without error (ie most always get the character I want) on this phone.
In anticipation for getting this phone for my small business, I setup a 'hosted' Blackberry Enterprise Server system, and Outlook 2007 w/hosted Exchange, and getting the phone to work with it was very simple, took about 90 seconds. It is essential to me to have not only my email but my contacts and calendar automatically synchronize wirelessly, which works perfectly.
The camera works well enough, but I wish I could *manually* crop pictures from within the phone. It also does decent video as well.
I've used Verizon for many years, and the phone works in all the places I expect it to, signal-wise, with maybe a bar more in some marginal spots better than my old Motoloa Krazr.
Some have commented negatively on battery life, I have been 'messing with the settings' so much every day, I don't feel like I've really had a 'normal' business day with so far....with that caveat, the battery life bar shows about 1/2 discharged after such an intensive-use day.
About my only serious...Design 10/10Features 9/10Performance 10/10
- *Very* intuitive menu system, consistent
- Great form factor
- *Hosted* BES/Exchange/Outlook compatible
- Can customize it to your heart's content (well almost)
- Good audio quality
- Great screen
- No WiFi
- Moronic placement of charging connection
24 out of 24 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
Mr Bob
posted on 23 Jul 2009, 14:26
Blackberry Tour is a fine upgrade
Have had the Tour since the 12th. The migration from my 8330 was seemless. Screen is great. Fast. Keyboard is great. Battery life is fine. Either I got a good one or else you got a bad one. I am not sure what others are complaining about. If you got a bad phone exchange it. All models of every manufacturer has issues. All the LG's in my home have battery, shutting off issues. Just deal. I haven't had to do a battry pull yet at all. The unit feels great in the hand. Real solid. My only major complaint is that it isn't so one handed. Need to go through alot of menus. I am looking for a solid quick launch program.Design 9/10Features 9/10Performance 9/10
- Screen.
- Keyboard.
- Battery.
- Solid build.
- Speaker.
- EVDO- Rev A
- No Wifi. Can live without it. That will kill your battery for sure.
- Placement of micro USB.
- Not many themes.
- No so one handed.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 23 Jul 2009, 00:08
I could not wait to get my hands on this PDA. But once I did, I had it Touring back to Verizon Wireless. This phone is a "Storm" with a QWERTY keyboard. I had the Tour for a little over a week, and returned it today. It froze, the key lock would activate without even being touched. It lags just like the storm. It would restart randomly. I would wait for Blackberry to get it right. It's really sad that the Curve 8330 is a better model.Design 1/10Features 3/10Performance 1/10
4 out of 27 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 18 Jul 2009, 19:44 (Posts: 609; Member since: 26 Jun 2009)
Blackberry Tour, a welcome release for the business users
I bought this phone to release my Storm which I wasn't overly impressed with. I've heard both good and bad reviews of the Storm, but in my opinion it's not a business phone. Either way, to review the Blackberry Tour.
My first impression of the Blackberry Tour was great. The phone feels solid, yet not bullky or over weight. I like the sleek design and raised keys. I held this phone next to the Tmobile 8900 as I feel this is the best comparison other then possibly the Bold. The Tour is very comparable without WiFi.
The phone is very responsive, no annoying lag during requests. The camera functions as you would expect and keyboard is easy to use either one handed or two handed. I rarely hit the wrong key due to the new key design.
For anybody looking for a business phone, I highly recommend this phone. I feel it's the best phone offered to day 7/18/09 for business purposes. I expect company's to adopt this as the standard business Blackberry until the next latest and greatest Blackberry is released.
I multitask constantly on my Blackberry and this phone has been able to keep up so far.
Personal Preference: I bought the plastic holster for the phone, I'm not a big fan of the leather holsters. They aren't as easy / smooth to get your phone in and out when you look at it 100 times a day (I receive a lot of emails).Design 10/10Features 10/10Performance 10/10
- Quick processor
- Easy to use trackball (doesn't seem to stick like previous models)
- Sleek design
- Raised keys
- Sturdy design without being bulky
- No WiFi
- I liked the old design of plastic holsters better then the current design with a clip on top, although I understand the need for the change.
10 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
Peoples Hernandez
posted on 17 Jul 2009, 13:49
The Tour!!!
I had the Curve for Sprint and the Tour is a complete upgrade. The clarity, video, pictures and just the interface is just simply better. I have better connectivity and the web browsing is better. I have access to web pages i couldnt really access in full before. Plus now I can MMS pictures, which I couldnt do b4 on the Curve. The BBM is also configured and looks better.
Even tho the Blackberry App world was accessible on the curve, it just looks better in the Tour.
Only thing I have a problem with is the battery life - a tad short. Have to keep the charger or car charger with you! I used to carry a spare battery with my curve and I see I might have to go back to that with the Tour. but other than that, I am a happy camper!
I also had a tad freeze up here and there but nothing significant. This is my 3rd or 4th upgrade with blackberry since their old Nextel phone. I would never leave Blackberry life - it is truly a Crackberry.....Design 9/10Features 10/10Performance 9/10
- Camera
- shape
- Screen
- Clarity
- Apps
- Battery life is a little short.
- Hip case - prefer the curve case instead (Sleek)
- The charging port location - cant charge and text (Akward)
6 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
J Mas
posted on 17 Jul 2009, 13:34
great phone, bad battery
I was very excited about this phone, and anticipated its release date. Finally I got it, used it, and was very disappointed with the battery life. Comparing the actual text, call, and web usage, the battery life is half of the LG Dare. Also the tool CD included does not work. There is also some lag occasionally. I'm considering returning it, and getting my dare back. On the up side the b is small but works well. The camera is good and ringer is loud, but there is no ring and vibrate at the same time unless you download the app. You can really customize the phone, but may have to download many apps that should have already been included.Design 9/10Features 9/10Performance 7/10
- Keyboard
- Resolution
- Camera
- Features
- Battery, batt...,ba...,b....
- No ring and vibrate at the some time
- Occasional lag
5 out of 9 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 16 Jul 2009, 05:27
Great Blackberry, Highly Recommended
I have had the phone since it was released. I think the navigation is easy on it (much better than previous BlackBerry UI's). I do find that sometimes things can run a little slow, nothing like the Storm, but locking the keyboard or typing in Pandora can take up to 7 seconds from time to time, but this is usually not the case. I personally am not a fan of Windows Mobile so this suits my overall needs.
The application center for BlackBerry's is not as robust as something you would find for the iPhone, but overall the majority of apps for BlackBerry's are relatively useful.
Overall I would say this is the best smartphone out there for Verizon at this time.Design 10/10Features 9/10Performance 9/10
- Great User Interface
- Improved Keyboard Feel / Ease of Use
- Sleek Look
- Good Browser
- World Capable
- BES Capable
- Useful Applications
- No WiFi
- Shorter Battery Life Than Expected
- Some Lag From Time to Time
- Vibe Then Ring instead of Vibe And Ring
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report
posted on 12 Jul 2009, 20:39
i have only had the tour for a few hours and i love it. I used to have the motorolla q 9m and it is such a huge upgrade. let's just say it is almost exactly like the storm but without the touch function.Design 10/10Features 10/10Performance 10/10
13 out of 30 people found this review helpful. Do you?Report


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Gary Quackenbush's father gave him a 1941 model Beretta, a gun he treasures. In fact, he still carries it from time to time, as he did when he took his wife to see "The Hobbit" last week. For him, it's probably the one gun to rule them all. The movie, however, apparently didn't do much for him as "he found himself in an uncomfortable seat, bored by a long film and pained by a tender tailbone." Which explains why he was so happy to get the hell out of there after the flick's 2 hour and 50 minute run time. Only one problem: he left the theater without his precious . . .
Seems that during all that uncomfortable wriggling and writhing, the vintage Italian gat managed to work its way out of its holster. And Gary, who's described by oregonlive.com as a concealed cary license holder and a registered gun dealer, was understandably upset when he finally realized he'd left it behind in the theater.
After Quackenbush discovered the gun was missing Tuesday night, he tried repeatedly to call the theater, but got no answer, he said. In a letter to the editor he shared with The Oregonian, he wrote: "By 11:10 I gave up but continued to pace the floor until dawn. I was sure they were busy cleaning up and couldn't hear the phone.
Too bad getting in his car and driving back to the theater never occurred to him. Well, not until the next day, at least.
"Wednesday I made sure I was at the movie house before their normal opening only to find that a school group had been there earlier. I had them call the police to inform them I was there to recover my property. Much to my shock the officer had a trail of media on his heels five minutes later. How they got there from Portland baffled me."
Yeah, having a couple of seventh-graders find a loaded firearm in a movie theater tends to garner attention, especially given the current anti-gun media feeding frenzy. And the local 5-0 were none too amused either.
Tillamook Police Chief Terry Wright said he's recommending that Tillamook County prosecutors charge Quackenbush with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it wouldn't affect his gun-selling license. "This is not something we can just blow off," Wright said, noting that the gun had a bullet in the chamber and the safety was off. District Attorney Bill Porter wouldn't comment on the case, other than to say it was under investigation.
Quackenbush is still kinda baffled by the kerfuffle he caused. "'You have people shooting up malls, building bombs,' he said. 'And I'm the bad guy.'" Go figure. Anyway, we'll make sure he gets a lovely piece of commemorative hardware to let him know that we think he's a very big deal.
25 Responses to Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Gary Quackenbush
FLAME DELETED A classic Italian pistol in an evidence locker is a crime.
I always check to see if my wallet is still there, pretty sure I would check to see if my pistol was too.
It's like a reflex. Every few minutes wallet, keys, pistol.
I do it more often if sitting, slouching or moving in an otherwise atypical way.
Maybe I'm just OCD about it.
Me too. A good thing to be OCD about.
Oh thank goodness. I thought I was the only one.
Same routine here. Just a little tap with my arm/elbow tells me all is fine.
+1 Movie theater seats are evil like that… always gotta do the check for wallet, keys, cellphone. Surprised this guy didn't check to see if his vintage piece was there either. Oops.
Beyond what a peckerhead this guy is…..
A lesson in equipment should be learned by those new to guns. Prior to our 09-10 deployment, my MPs were issued a POS holster for the M9. Handguns falling out of holsters was a daily event. Why the US Army bought and issued a bleeping holster that does not actually hold the gun is beyond me. My Sunday School class and a few members of our church bought Blackhawk Serpa holsters for every member of my platoon that did not have one. Not one issue for a year long deployment. A few os us in the platoon had purchased and tested the holsters.
There are some beautiful handcrafted holsters available. And there are some industrially designed highly functional holsters available. But regardless of beauty or design pedigree, a holster that does not HOLD the pistol is bleeping useless. You have to work with your holster for a few days to decide. If your kidneys quit functioning because of the pounding, not a good choice. If the gun falls out while seated or running, also bad. For concealed carry, does it print?
One of the slightly time-consuming responsibilities of being a concealed carry citizen is to ensure your holster functions appropriately.
I would never carry a gun that I treasured. To me, a carry gun is just a tool. If it has sentimental value or collector value why risk the wear and tear or confiscation if you ever needed to use it. There too many affordable carry options out there for me to consider carrying around grandads war piece.
Not to mention that the Beretta M34 is single action semiauto, and he apparently had a round in the chamber with the safety off. Not exactly the best choice for concealed carry, given all the modern alternatives.
seriously, I hope he had the hammer down at least. Not locked or co cked isn't quite as effective as the proper way, but it sure beats the alternative of co cked and not locked.
Wow! Just wow….wonder if would have felt like a bad guy had one of those kids started playing cops and robbers with classmates. Thank God no one was hurt.
Are kids in this era of extreme political correctness even allowed to play "cops and robbers" anymore?
Good point…
Did I totally miss the part where the gun was recovered????
Or is it still MIA??
I never officially took a CCW class – but I'm confident that losing track of a loaded gun in a public place is irresponsible. That definitely constitutes an emergency. This man needed to immediately drop his "to do" list and locate that firearm. I'm very glad that this loaded firearm did not wind up causing any more of an in incident than it did.
DeSantis fannypacks solve so many problems,of which this is one.
I have to confess to losing my pepperspray once at a Gallagher concert,though.
Fannypacks?! Seriously?!
Oh no! Accur81 is my 18-yr old daughter!
Yes, I'm a geek.
You couldn't blame the guy for not picking up his pistol if it fell onto the floor of the movie theater. The floor of the mens' toilet at the Eighth Avenue bus station is cleaner than the floor of the average movie theater. You don't pick anything off that floor without latex gloves and a tetanus shot — and that goes double for your shoes.
I'm guessing his pistol didn't fall out, and that he took it out and set it down (since it was uncomfortable), and forgot to pick it up when he left.

subset: commoncrawl


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Parliament, Cape Town - The DA will submit a bill in Parliament to regulate the business interests of state employees, the party announced on Tuesday.
"This long-standing Democratic Alliance policy has already been introduced by the DA-led government in the Western Cape through provincial treasury regulations," DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko told reporters at Parliament.
It was essential that it be extended to the entire country so that the fight against corruption in the public service was effective.
Much of government corruption was the result of public servants and politicians starting or becoming major shareholders in companies which did business with the state, she said.
"We support National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel's recent statement that no public servant should be able to do business with government. There should be consequences for those civil servants that benefit from state contracts."
The DA's draft bill sought, among other things, to ban government employees and their families from directly or indirectly holding more than five percent of shares, stock, membership, or other interests in an entity doing business with the government, unless approval was given by the relevant minister in accordance with certain criteria set out in the bill.
The legislation would ensure that, before the government entered into any contract with an entity for the sale, lease, or supply of goods and services, the entity should provide an affidavit disclosing whether it was owned or part-owned by government employees.
It would further require that all government employees disclose their business interests at prescribed intervals, in the same way that members of the Cabinet already did, she said.
Manuel hinted strongly last week that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan would address the issue of government's supply chain management during his budget speech in the National Assembly on Wednesday. - Sapa


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A MAN viciously attacked his partner after watching the first England World Cup match, biting off part of her ear and fracturing her jaw.
David Barr's victim was throttled and feared she would be killed.
But a court heard how the couple said she had fallen over the dog when she received medical treatment.
The matter was not reported to the police until a week later – a friend who was concerned when she saw the state the victim was in contacted officers.
Barr, 38, admitted a charge of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm when he appeared at Mold Crown Court.
He will be sentenced next month and was told to expect a lengthy custodial sentence.
Barr was bailed by Judge Rhys Rowlands to live with his mother at Heol Nanteos, Penparcau, Aberystwyth, he is not to be drunk in a public place and he is not to approach the complainant or prosecution witnesses either himself, via a third party, or through social media.
Barr, a business development manager who worked at NWN Media Ltd at Mold, appeared at a preliminary hearing but asked that the charge should be put to him immediately.
He then admitted unlawfully wounding Gemma Dykins on June 14 at the home they shared at Bryn Garmon in Mold.
Damian Sabino, defending, said he was a man of previous good character who had co-operated fully. He was pragmatic about the ultimate sentence but wanted time to put his affairs in order.
An earlier hearing in the magistrates court heard how he attacked her and tried to strangle her.
He broke her jaw and bit off part of her ear.
Police attended and noted that she had troubling injuries, extensive bruising to the face and body, there was a dressing to her left ear and they arrested Barr on suspicion of assault. He told police "It was just an accident."
She provided a statement in which she said she had been in a relationship with him since November 2013 after meeting through Facebook.
He moved in with her in January 2014. At that point she noticed he drank alcohol daily, they argued and she was frightened of him.
On June 14 she and the defendant had been drinking all day and they sat up to watch the first England match in the World Cup.
At midnight she was on the phone and he grabbed it off her to look at its contents.
He followed her to the kitchen and was very angry. His fists were clenched and he was shouting at her. He punched her hard to the left side of her face, she hit her head on the tiled floor and she lost consciousness. Prosecutor Matthew Ellis said Barr was "pumping" up and down, shouting at her and calling her names.
He punched her to the side of the face again, he knelt down over her and bit her left ear and she felt a sharp pain and there was a lot of blood.
He put his hand around her neck and started to strangle her. She could not breathe and she genuinely thought he was going to kill her. The defendant picked her up and put her on the sofa.
She fell in and out of consciousness, she was unable to walk and she believed Barr thought he had killed her and appeared to calm down. He helped her upstairs and she had an overwhelming urge to sleep because of the injuries.
The following morning Barr called the ambulance, she was taken to hospital where she was found to have a hairline fracture of the jaw, multiple soft tissue injuries and bruising, and part of her ear had been bitten off.
Initially she denied there had been a domestic incident and said she had fallen over the dog. That was challenged and she confided that she had been assaulted but would not make a complaint.
Interviewed, Barr admitted assault but did not remember biting her ear. He could not explain the injury other than she had fallen in the bathroom and hit her head – the ear could have come off then, he claimed. The assault came about because of "trust issues".
He believed she had been texting another man and was suspicious that she was doing that again.
Barr said he locked her out of the house for a short time while he looked through her phone and felt "incalculable hurt" and "saw red" and assaulted her and smashed her phone in anger.
He had never done anything like that before. He denied strangling her or intending to take her life.
Barr said he sat up all night to look after her and was horrified by the injuries.
She did not want to get him into any trouble and they came up with the story that she had fallen over the dog. He went with her to the hospital, he had looked after her for a week, was full of remorse for what he had done and was very sorry.
See full story in the Leader


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I listen to music a lot. I like lots of different styles, i subscribe to lots of different podcasts and try to keep up to date with what's happening. I'm a reformed metal/punk/indie music enthusiast, these days there's plenty of electronic styles in there. I indulge in some serious raving a couple of times a year.
I have recently relocated to Aylesbury; but still cross the border to deepest darkest Oxfordshire every day for work. I live on my own for the first time; it like convincing the outside world I'm an adult. I'm not. I don't know many people here so applicants for Friends and offers to do things greatly appreciated!
I can't spell for toffee, or any other confectionery for that matter.
I'm one of these people that genuinely loves his job, I enjoy the work, mostly feel appreciated, although i have a tendency to work too many hours and need to be stopped from reading my emails at home. Like hit me or something if you catch me!
About to start studying for a degree with the open uni as well; because you know I don't need sleep.
I've recently started going to that gym thing in a vague attempt to get a bit thinner, seems to be working a bit and i'm a bit disgusted to say i'm actually quite enjoying it!
i'm often out on adventures travelling the country and trying to many exciting new things. I like travel and intend to do much more of it.
I probably said "that's what she said" Sorry.
(b) i watch lots, faves include die hard series, terminator films, pulp fiction, back to the future.... the list is massive and I always want to go to the cinema to see more.
(c) rock, indie, ska, chill out, hard and progressive dance music, EBM , punk drum and bass dirty electro, pretty much anything good, music changes with mood and the situation! I still like lots of technical music, prog rock like 70's pink Floyd , more modern stuff like tool, a perfect circle and at the drive in/the mars valta.
vnv nation are the legends that i listen to at least once a day.
most people are surprised with my eclectic collection but it comes part and parcel of my previous life DJing in dingy clubs! People are usually surprised that i tend to actually like the majority of music, despite my cynical opinions! I still love listening to Gomez on a sunny day!
I love 80s electronic music like new order and the human league. Probably why I listen to so much future pop now! Electric dreams is probably the best song ever written.
if your really unlucky; i mean special! i'll make you a mix sometime :)
(d) anything that is whole heatedly crap for me! Although i'm starting to get into this healthy eating a fair bit, i still do have a massive soft spot for a mexican! and for anyone else from middlesbrough a parmo!!!
Caffeine, I physically need it in the morning.
Down time. It's very important to me to have chill out time. I love my weekends.
My friends, they keep me sane and grounded. I like that.
Hugs, if you don't like them your probably a mental.
My phone rather sadly, not the work one though, I can manage without that one!
Why it is possible to buy beer from the post office at 11pm on saturday night in this city, but Tesco is shut!
where did i put my keys/wallet/that CD i'm looking for!


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Half Man , Half Giraffe Sweatshirt
Product Color:
Product information
Sweatshirt Half Man , Half Giraffe is the all-time ultimate in comfort with its classic, relaxed fit. On the surface rich cotton with Half Man , Half Giraffe, inside flannel for the softest sensation. Medium to heavy weight ensuring warmth and makes it great, weather as a throw-over in rainy and windy weather or to protect against the snow and ice in the winter.
Crew-neck for those that don't like the common hood. Stretched cuffs and hem assure a lasting shape. Giraffe Sweatshirt comes in 12 basic colors. Heather Grey: 80% Cotton/20% Polyester. Remaining Colors: 100% Cotton.
Sku: SR1BL0000029082020200176ORWH00000


text:
Hawthorn Hat by Andi Satterlund
Welcome! You are browsing as a guestWould you like to see projects made from this pattern and much more? create a free account What am I missing?
© Quail Publications, 2014
Hawthorn Hat
Knit in the round and using the fair isle technique, this hat offers a bold stripe of color to create depth in the stranded design.
From the Knit Rowan website:
Knit these ladies matching accessory hat and handwarmers from The Knit Generation. Designed by Andi Satterlund using our superwash yarn Pure Wool DK (wool), this pull on hat is finished with a contrasting pom pom and the matching fingerless wrist warmers are the perfect accompaniment.
Finished dimensions:
Completed hat measures 50 cm (19½ inches) in head circumference.
Yarn information:
A - Port 037
1 skein
142 yards
B - Anthracite 003
1 skein
142 yards
For more information, see: http://www.knitrowan.com/designs-and-patterns/patter...


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Gone Fishing by Hélène Rush
Welcome! You are browsing as a guestWould you like to see 10 projects made from this pattern and much more? create a free account What am I missing?
Gone Fishing
This pattern is available for $6.25 USD
buy it now or visit pattern website
buy it now or visit pattern website
Materials needed:
Linus: 50gr/98-yd (47%wool/30% acrylic/23% alpaca)
4 (4, 5) balls Oak #811
1 (2, 2) balls Hemlock #573
1 (1, 1) ball Cherry #257
Stitch markers
Finished Chest Measurements: 28.5 (31.5, 34)"
Needle Sizes US 7 and US 8 needed
For more information, see: http://www.knitonecrochettoo.com/linuspat.htm


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Easy Photography Photographer
ms_lisaModel Female Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
My Website: Like Me on FB
Mayhem # 1773123
About MeHi my name's Lisa, I'm from Melbourne, Australia.
I am beginning my modeling career and currently have studio/home studio experience and on location experience. Please feel free to message me with any ideas you may have, I am happy to work for TFP/TFCD should the concept interest me and/or it helps benefit my portfolio.
I have joined MM to network and looking forward to collaborating with models, photographers, make up artists and hair stylists to further build our portfolios. I work hard and learn fast and I'm looking forward to what the future holds.
I'm particularly interested in trying my hand in the following genres of Modeling: Pin-up, Old Hollywood Glamour, Fetish, Classic Horror, Burlesque, 1920's Femme Fatales, 1930's Silver Screen Sirens, 1950's Bombshells, Alternative Fashion, Fantasy Art and in the elements i.e in the Snow and Underwater.
I am currently working full time and therefore am only available nights and weekends.
Thank you for taking time to view my profile.
Please note if you have a model release form it is preferable that I view this before we shoot.
Like me on Facebook where more images are available http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisas-Modelling-Page/150347945003037
Have you worked with ms_lisa? Add Credits for ms_lisa! >>
Credit NotesPhotographers:
* Denotes photographers which I have worked with on more than one occasion.
Andrew - XtraSimplicity #1932646
Kate - Back to Black #2547291
ChrisMitchell #1400390
John O'flaherty (No MM)
Paul Hammond Photography #207744
Jonathan - Veracity Photography #901284
Jono - Jem_Photos #1997180
Peter - PTP photo #890372
Justin Matthews #1537423
Daryl Lynch #507994
Preben Nesheim #1162779
Peter Kelly #685552
Shot By Martin #1822219
Brett - InspiredOz #1766562 *
TerrenceCPhotography #860844
Simon - Gem Photographix #1707133 ****
Joseph Darmenia #836593
Kate Smethurst #1798592
Sarah Godenzi #1745315
Fred - zingglPhotography #715652 *
Rob ji #1696716
Tony Shearer (No MM)
Luke (No MM)
Angelique van wyk #2507309
Camille-Jade Moul (No MM)
Danielle Reardon (No MM)
Jackie (No MM)
Jessica (No MM)
Aksoy #1171274
Georgina O #1848158
Natasha Antill OBrien #1832271
Vicki Venomous #1867470
Morose Rose #1662513
Easy Photography Photographer
Susan Louey Photographer
The Daily Runway Photographer
Miranda Leigh - Makeup Makeup Artist
Desire Production House Photographer
Ruffwan Photographer
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I am looking to meet someone who is fun, kind hearted and a joy to be with.
So if you would like to find out more it will be a pleasure to hear from you :) If not, then I truly wish you good luck in your search.
|Straight, Man, Single, 5' 11", Fit
|White, Speaks English
|Never smokes, Drinks socially, Doesn't do drugs, Might want kids
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While plenty of high-yield opportunities exist, investors must always consider the safety of their dividend and the total return potential of their investment. It is not uncommon for a struggling company to suspend high-yielding dividends and subsequently result in precipitous share price declines.
TheStreet Ratings' stock rating model views dividends favorably, but not so much that other factors are disregarded. Our model gauges the relationship between risk and reward in several ways, including: the pricing drawdown as compared to potential profit volatility, i.e. how much one is willing to risk in order to earn profits?; the level of acceptable volatility for highly performing stocks; the current valuation as compared to projected earnings growth; and the financial strength of the underlying company as compared to its stock's valuation as compared to its stock's performance.
These and many more derived observations are then combined, ranked, weighted, and scenario-tested to create a more complete analysis. The result is a systematic and disciplined method of selecting stocks. As always, stock ratings should not be treated as gospel — rather, use them as a starting point for your own research.
The following pages contain our analysis of 3 stocks with substantial yields, that ultimately, we have rated "Buy."
Plains All American PipelineDividend Yield: 4.10% Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA) shares currently have a dividend yield of 4.10%. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the transportation, storage, terminalling, and marketing of crude oil and refined products in the United States and Canada. The company operates in three segments: Transportation, Facilities, and Supply and Logistics. The company has a P/E ratio of 17.65 The average volume for Plains All American Pipeline has been 1,054,000 shares per day over the past 30 days Plains All American Pipeline has a market cap of $18.9 billion and is part of the energy industry Shares are up 23.4% year to date as of the close of trading on Monday TheStreet Ratings rates Plains All American Pipeline as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, notable return on equity, good cash flow from operations, solid stock price performance and compelling growth in net income. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated. Highlights from the ratings report include:
- The revenue growth came in higher than the industry average of 13.3%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 15.2%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
- Powered by its strong earnings growth of 149.01% and other important driving factors, this stock has surged by 42.10% over the past year, outperforming the rise in the S&P 500 Index during the same period. Turning to the future, naturally, any stock can fall in a major bear market. However, in almost any other environment, the stock should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed nice gains in the past year.
- The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry and the overall market, PLAINS ALL AMER PIPELNE -LP's return on equity exceeds that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
- The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry. The net income increased by 129.6% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $230.00 million to $528.00 million.
- Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 208.83% to $979.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, PLAINS ALL AMER PIPELNE -LP has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of -24.27%.
- You can view the full Plains All American Pipeline Ratings Report.


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Beyoncé and Blue Ivy Spotted in Brooklyn [Photos]
Over the weekend, the "Bow Down/I Been On" singer was spotted strolling down Court Street in Brooklyn with one-year-old Blue Ivy in tow. The tiny music royal, who appeared to be sleeping, sported Timberland boots and a hoodie while Mama B rocked a black coat and black shades. No word on what Mrs. Carter was doing in the Jay-Z's favorite borough, but she gave a warm smile to pedestrians.
The new face of H&M has been truly enjoying New York City's outdoors lately. See her most recent New York-inspired pics below.
Photo Credit: Honest Hour


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The Phaser 3635MFP is no longer sold as new.
Using Xerox® Genuine toner and ink in your Xerox printer will ensure that prints are delivered with consistent quality. Testing conducted by independent printer evaluation laboratories proved Xerox Genuine Supplies are more reliable and deliver up to 27% higher page yields than aftermarket alternatives.Learn More
Print management software and cost recovery solution for colleges, universities, K-12 schools and their libraries
BERTL awarded the Phaser 3635MFP/X multifunction printer an Exceptional Rating of 5 out of 5 stars. BERTL reviews hundreds of devices each year, but "only a small number are recognized with the prestigious 5-Star, Exceptional Rating," the certificate says. "This rating is reserved exclusively for devices that deliver an outstanding range of business-critical features and functions, are innovative, easy to use, well designed and represent exceptional value for the money."
view Phaser 3635MFP/X BERTL Exceptional certificate (PDF)
March 2009
Better Buys for Business
An Editors Choice designation was awarded to the Phaser 3635MFP black-and-white multifunction printer in the Better Buys for Business 2008 Printer Multifunctional Guide.
1Average standard pages. Declared Yield in accordance with ISO/IEC 19752. Yield will vary based on image, area coverage and print mode.


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Keeping things simple and versatile, the new RAM Ball Wedge Mounts are a great way to provide a mounting point to practically anything. Simply slide the wedge into the round opening of your rod holder base and tighten the screw. The new RAM Ball Wedge Base expands to accommodate holes from 7/8 in.- 1 in. diameter and locks in tight. Once installed, you have the perfect way to mount anything from RAM Rod holders, GPS, Cell Phone, Cup Holder, Fishfinder, or Flash Light which can all be supported and perfectly positioned using this great new product. The RAM Ball Wedge Mount features a 1.5 in. rubber ball.
|Item #:
|1.5 in / 3.81 cm
|Made in:
|Part Number
I have these in the 1" and 1.5" versions and like them allot. The allow me the flexibility to use a flush mount scotty mount for scotty or ram accessories of any size/type at will. It would earn five stars if it were designed to be installed/uninstalled without need for a tool.
This product would probably work well for holding a gps, fishfinder or a rod that you just want to keep off the deck of your kayak. It is not suitable for trolling and that was how I had intended to use it. Even after tightening the screw down very hard, it is still posible to rotate the ball by hand. With the additional torque provided by a 7' rod, a very weak pull on the line will cause the adapter to rotate in the base. I tried this with both a scotty gear head and also a scotty flush mount. Do not buy this product if you want to use it in a trolling set up with Scotty mounts. ACK refunded my money with no hassle, however I did have to pay return shipping costs. I hope somebody reading this review will be able to avoid that expense in the future.
Product works excellent.
Worked great on my Hobie Kayak where I have mounted a Sony video camera. Thanks.


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Brooklyn, NY, US
This residential design project was to to create a luxury apartment for a client of our choice. We were given the choice of various apartment layouts, and had to chose which style best suited the needs of our client.
I chose to focus on Feng Shui as a means of organizing my spaces and choosing colors. I used the Pa Kua, a compass-like tool used in Feng Shui design, to layout each space and apply various organizational and decorative elements to them.
Status: School Project


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The Rugby World Cup final has made ratings history, beating Australian Idol to become the country's most watched show this century and landing itself the title of Australia's most watched football match.
Not only did it unite a football-crazy nation normally split between two other codes, but it briefly lifted rugby union above its richer, noisier sibling, rugby league.
The final averaged 4 million viewers in the mainland capitals and peaked at 4.3 million. That put it ahead of the 3.3 million audience for last week's Australian Idol final, the 3.3 million for the AFL grand final of 1996 (the previous record holder for Australia's most watched football match), and the 2.7 million for last year's World Cup soccer final.
In Sydney, the rugby final averaged 1.5 million viewers - well up on the 1.2 million who watched the rugby league grand final this year.
The figures for the final and related shows (the closing ceremony attracted 2.7 million, The Cream with Roy and H.G. 1.8 million, and Thursday's France v England semifinal 2.1 million) brought Channel Seven a higher audience share than its rival Channel Nine for one week of the ratings year.
The match concluded an amazing week for television, with every network trying to achieve an audience spike for the dying days of the ratings year.
Nine tried a second edition of The National IQ Test, which had been the most watched show last year, but could only draw 1.7 million this year. Ten drew massive numbers with the final of Australian Idol but offered little else to hold viewers' attention. Seven's prime time share for the week was 31.3 per cent, Nine got 28.5 per cent, Ten 23.9 per cent, the ABC 12.6 per cent and SBS 3.8 per cent.
When the most watched programs of the year are announced next Sunday, Seven will own five of the top 10 - all of them rugby related. Nine will still celebrate the biggest audience share for the year, but thanks to the past eight weeks Seven will be able to hold its head high.
National | World | Opinion | Business | Technology | Sport | Entertainment | Multimedia
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Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald.
|advertise | contact us


text:
|editJirōchō Wasabi
|ワサビ次郎長 Wasabi Jirōchō
|Naruto Episode #97
|Appears in
|Voice Actors
Jirōchō Wasabi (ワサビ次郎長, Wasabi Jirōchō) is the head of the Wasabi family in the Land of Tea, which is a clan warring with the nearby Wagarashi family.
On a winter day, Jirōchō was confronted by Idate Morino and the young latter attacked Jirōchō. However, he defended himself with his umbrella. Upon meeting Idate, Jirōchō realised the young boy was just a starving thief, who tried to steal money from the latter. The boy tried to attacked Jirōchō again, only to be restrained by him. As he released Idate, Jirōchō gave Idate a pocket knife and gave him a lesson. Noticing that Idate didn't have anywhere to go, Jirōchō took the young boy under his wing, letting him join the Wasabi family.
He is depicted as kind, sympathetic, and honest, in contrast to the Wagarashi family's leader, Kyūroku Wagarashi, who is very dishonest and manipulative. He apparently took in Idate Morino after finding him on the streets. While Idate was racing, he expressed great faith in Idate, even to the extent of betting his own life.
Jirōchō has grey shaggy hair and light black-coloured eyes. He wears blue upper which complements his green robes.
He seems to at least have some skill in hand-to-hand combat as seen when he was able to stop an incoming attack from a genin-level shinobi.
Part I
Search for Tsunade
Jirōchō is first shown to be an old friend of Tsunade, meeting her in a small town and gossiping with her of the old times when they were young. He subsequently helped her in telling the loan sharks Senta and Bunzō that Tsunade's debt to the Akagi Gang had been paid and that the head of the Akagi family had allowed the two to return.
Land of Tea Escort Mission
Presumably as a sign of his unwavering friendship to Tsunade and after learning of her appointment as Hokage, he commissioned a mission for her from the Land of Tea which Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura took. He is shown as the head of the Wasabi family and his clan had to run against the Wagarashi family to show who gets to run the Land of Tea for the next four years. As shown at the beginning of the race, Jirōchō had complete faith in Idate even though it seemed as if he was running away. After Idate won the race, Jirōchō was very proud of him.


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The Deal
- $99 for a Hydra Facial treatment ($150 value)
Oceanview Med Spa
Weight-loss programs are more than prescriptions and restrictions at Oceanview Med Spa. Instead, Dr. Kenneth Deeb and nurse practitioner Colleen Deeb empower their patients with education, teaching them to apply their personal strengths to fact-based weight-loss regimens. The staff does provide invaluable assistance throughout the four-stage programs, though, and they help patients feel lighter by introducing them to detox strategies, giving dietary guidance, and administering helium injections.
The center's aesthetic treatments adopt a similarly scientific approach to generating dramatic cosmetic changes. Microdermabrasion treatments and chemical peels target blemishes and uneven skin tone, and the med spa's cosmetic laser system and broadband light-based technology noninvasively effect change further beneath the surface.


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|Designer Aluminum Clothing Hangers (Set of 10)
Price: $29.90
|Six-Tier Blouse Hanger - Chrome
Price: $4.99
|Heavy Chrome Hangers (Set of 8)
Price: $14.99
|Four-Tier Swing Arm Clip Hanger
Price: $10.99
|Six-Tier Blouse Hanger
Price: $7.99
|Friction Shirt and Coat Hanger (Set of 3)
Price: $6.99
|Slack Hanger
Price: $15.99
Sale: $9.59
|Lingerie Hanger
Price: $10.99
|Five-Tier Swing Arm Slack Hanger
Price: $9.99
|Camisole Hangers - Silver (Set of 2)
Price: $10.99
|Friction Open Side Pants Hangers (Set of 3)
Price: $6.99
|Tank Top Organizers (Set of 2)
Price: $14.99 - $14.99
Sale: $8.99 - $14.99
|Comforter and Blanket Hanger
Price: $4.49
|18 Hole Scarf Hanger
Price: $8.99
|Open End Slack Hangers (Set of 2)
Price: $3.99
Wire clothes hangers are an ideal solution to organizing an entire wardrobe and closet on a budget. Check out sets of wire hangers that will help you coordinate the look of a closet, unique tiered hangers that provide clothing storage for a number of garments while only taking up the space of a single hanger on a closet rod, and open-ended pant hangers that make it easy to hang and retrieve your favorite pants. The Comforter and Blanket Hanger pictured here is great to organize, hang, and store all your heavy bedding on a closet rod or clothing rack, instead of a sloppy pile on a closet shelf.
Wood Hangers | Friction Hangers | Tie & Belt Hangers | Clothing Racks | Garment Bags
Hanger Organizers | Closet Rods & Brackets | Wire Closet Shelving | Hanger Valets


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LG Versa ReviewLG Versa
5 Comments
1. Legion (Posts: 397; Member since: 12 Dec 2008)
22 seconds to load phonearena.com??!!?? That is 100% not true. 5-6 MAX! What were you on 1x? You know thats not accurate. You actually expected to be able to play flash games?? You subtracted points for that?? Wow, can I have some of what your smoking? "Video playback is limited to Verizon's VCast Video Service" - Now thats just misleading, your review of video playback is one sentence long about the ability to stream clips? How bout supported formats and quality of playback for starters!
4. PhoneArena Team (Posts: 258; Member since: 27 Jun 2006)
Thank you!
2. Mr_LaZy (Posts: 21; Member since: 30 Jun 2008)
I don't understand why they can't just improve the firmware of the older phones to be identical to this one. The Dare's firmware is so full of bugs and is extremely sluggish and ugly. This thing's is beautiful, especially the QWERTY touchscreen keyboard. If they could put that on my Dare, I'd be happy. And Verizon giving free game demos? =O How many years has it been since they did that!?
3. Da Jay Man (Posts: 5; Member since: 26 Dec 2008)
they dont upgrade the firmware, because they want you to buy the new phone.
|3.0 inches, 240 x 480 pixels (179 ppi) TFT
|2 megapixels
|4.16 x 2.07 x 0.54 inches
(106 x 53 x 14 mm)
3.81 oz (108 g)
|1100 mAh, 4.83 hours talk time


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WASHINGTON (Mar. 28)
Two programs for American Jews and a series of strong appeals to bring about improvement in efforts to extend Jewish continuity marked the closing of the 40th anniversary conference of the American Jewish Congress' Women's Division at the May flower Hotel here today. The 500 delegates attending the four-days session adopted two resolutions on Jewish continuity. One vowed "Our determination to search, to study and to learn about our Jewish heritage so that our personal lives and life styles will serve as role models for our families."
The second resolution reiterated the organization's call on the American Jewish community "to reinforce and support all forms of Jewish education and Jewish cultural activities on all levels." Other resolutions adopted at the closing session favored equal rights for women and minorities, amnesty for expatriates who refused military service in the Vietnam war and unfettered emigration rights for Soviet Jews. A resolution opposing quotas in hiring and college admissions, called for "goals with appropriate safeguards" to increase the participation of minorities and women.
Mrs. Jacqueline K. Levine, of East Orange, N.J., who marched in Selma, Ala. for civil rights and in Washington for peace in Vietnam, was installed last night to her second two-year term as president of the Women's Division. Mrs. Thelma Richman, of Philadelphia, Lillian Steinberg, of New York City and Mrs. Virginia Snitow of Westchester, N.Y., were named honorary presidents. A new category of officers–six senior vice-presidents–was established. The first such officers are Florry Blumenfeld and Esther Polen, both of Philadelphia; Leona Chanin, Esther Smith and Lily Mars, of New York; and Sylvia Kaplan, of Miami Beach. Mrs. Chanin will head the executive committee. Lilyan Simels, of New York City was named Treasurer, Ann Robinson of Cleveland, financial secretary, Raya Kamaiko, of North Bergen, N.J., recording secretary and Sara Gold, of Philadelphia, corresponding secretary.
In the conference's closing address, Dr. Leon Jick, director of the Institute for Jewish Life in Boston, warned that American Jewry "cannot rely on tribal loyalty and nostalgia for survival." Another speaker, Ambassador David Rivlin, the Consul General of Israel in New York, predicted that "four or five million Jews" will be living in Israel in our lifetime." He said the "partnership" of American and Israeli Jewry "which sets the tone in the diaspora, will go on in deeper strength to the benefit of both."


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Giveaway: Epistory and Roccat Ryos MK Pro
The awesome folks at Fishing Cactus and Roccat have been kind enough to set you folks with an awesome giveaway! What can you win? Well the grand prize is a brand new Roccat Ryos MK Pro keyboard and a Steam copy of Epistory. Ten runner ups w... read


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Kenneth MacMillan's greatest ballets are pillars of The Royal Ballet's heritage and style. His powerfully dramatic ballet Mayerling exemplifies the choreographer's ingenuity in combining compelling and unflinching dramatic storytelling with steps that push the boundaries of classical ballet. More than that, Mayerling demonstrates a characteristically 'Royal Ballet' combination of technical expression and dramatic acting – a trait fostered by the works MacMillan created on the Company – making each staging of Mayerling, or of any other of MacMillan's great dramatic works, a milestone for individual dancers, the Company and audiences alike.
Since Mayerling's premiere in 1978 many dancers have relished the richness of its roles: the opportunity to explore the emotional complexities of desire – conflicted, passionate or obsessive, angry, fearful or vulnerable – through the relationships between the deeply troubled Crown Prince Rudolf and the women in his life. Such intensity comes at a personal cost, though. The creator of the role of Rudolf, David Wall, reported feeling as though he'd been 'run over by a steamroller' after each performance. Wall described how, when creating the ballet with MacMillan, there was an atmosphere of daring and experimentation – '"Kenneth, I can't do this position", I would say, "my arm doesn't bend that way!"'
A revival therefore requires careful planning. Monica Mason, former Director of The Royal Ballet, once said that she could only programme Mayerling when she was sure there were enough male dancers who were up to the challenge. She programmed the ballet in 2002 in her first Season as Director, and on her invitation both Wall and the original Mary Vetsera, Lynn Seymour, returned to coach the lead dancers. Many dancers have the opportunity to watch others performing the roles whether live or recorded, but the insight gained from those who created the roles with the choreographer is incomparable.
This tradition of inheritance continues. Among those who danced the roles in 2002 were Irek Mukhamedov and Jonathan Cope, both of whom have since coached new Rudolfs. In 1992 Mukhamedov's Mary Vetsera was Viviana Durante, and she too returned to coach new female principals. Other memorable Marys include Leanne Benjamin, who first danced the role with Zoltán Solymosi in 1992 and then again with Carlos Acosta in 1994. Her last performance in the role was with Acosta in 2013. Benjamin has coached some of the Principals for this Season's performances.
The pay-off of all this careful preparation is performances of electrifying intensity in which the dancers lose themselves in MacMillan's tormented characters. In 2013, Mara Galeazzi gave her farewell performance before retiring from The Royal Ballet as Mary Vetsera, with Edward Watson as her Rudolf. The pair had danced the roles together in 2007 and 2009, and had danced many other MacMillan partnerships together, and in ballets by many other choreographers too. The friendship and dance chemistry between two such accomplished dancer-actors was palpable. Transposed to the passionate obsession between the characters, the silence at the end of the ballet, as the couple seal their suicide pact, was unbearable. Audiences could hear the two lovers breathing from the Amphitheatre, as both dancers and audience were completely rapt in the emotional intensity of the moment.
Though entirely individual, this performance is one child in a large and increasing family, as each new generation of dancer-actors interpret this essential text.
Mayerling runs until 13 May 2017. Tickets are still available.
In October 2017 The Royal Ballet and dance and ballet companies from around the UK mark the 25th anniversary of MacMillan's death with Kenneth MacMillan: a National Celebration, a series of performances to pay tribute to MacMillan's remarkable legacy. Find out more.]]>
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works have inspired us for almost 250 years. They speak to us today as freshly and as radically as they did in his own lifetime. This is partly thanks to the adaptation and reworking of Goethe's works by composers and writers including Mozart, Nietzsche, Beethoven, Freud, and Mahler; who were all influenced by the Frankfurt-born writer and ensured that they resonated in their own times.
Two of history's most popular French operas – Gounod's Faust and Massenet's Werther – are Goethe-inspired. Their two unhappy heroes live today through these operas as much as through Goethe's words, communicating with us in ever-evolving ways.
The eponymous characters Werther and Faust share a similar preoccupation: neither of them is very satisfied with life. Werther wishes the world approximated more to his ideal and Faust's thirst after knowledge and new, more exciting experiences is never slaked. Both characters attempt suicide: one is ultimately successful; the other is averted by voices singing.
Goethe's first novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther) is often credited as the first 'psychological novel', with the sensitive young hero enraptured by the wonders of the world but ultimately disappointed by its failure to live up to his ideals. Wracked with grief over the private and indulgent tragedy of his unsatisfied desires, Werther finds no alternative but self-destruction. Massenet's opera highlighted the powerful relevance for fin-de-siècle Europe of this cautionary tale of the conflict between reason and passion.
Just as Goethe had created a new genre in Werther, he sent the familiar Faust legend into unchartered territory in his most famous work, the verse drama Faust. Goethe invents the character of Gretchen, a figure who becomes so fraught with guilt that she refuses to escape to freedom with Faust. In Gounod's opera, the helplessness of the human condition that Goethe explored clashed with the mid-19th-century vogue for the theatrical spectacle of human suffering.
In Faust Goethe added a new element to Faust's pact with the devil: if he, in his new life of adventure, becomes so utterly satisfied in any one moment that he would wish to remain in that moment forever, he will die at that moment. There's possibly an echo of this in the way Massenet's librettists altered the ending of Werther in their adaptation. In the novel Werther never knows of Charlotte's love; unable to live without it, he takes his life. In the opera Charlotte rushes to the dying Werther and admits she really does love him. Perhaps for Werther the realization that he was deprived of what he wanted, but at least not rejected, was a moment that, were it to last forever, would be paradise, but in its transience is beautiful enough that one might immediately die.
What sustains in both Werther and Faust – and the operas they inspired – is Goethe's belief in the power and vitality of individual human experience. We must 'dream big' (for small dreams have no power to move the hearts of men); we must yearn for the impossible and seek after new and diverse experiences, rather than settle for dissatisfaction or imperfection within the constraints of arbitrary conventions. What has been accepted for a long time, or what remains of it, is not necessarily a comfortable paradise. But we can learn from both heroes that in the pursuit of our ideals we must be wise to the nature of our passions, for in self-destruction lies folly.
Werther runs until 13 July 2016. Tickets are still available.
Cinemas around the world will be showing encore performances of Werther until 27 August 2016. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is generously sponsored by BB Energy and is given with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, The Taylor Family Foundation, Susan and John Singer, Spindrift Al Swaidi and the Maestro's Circle. The production is owned by Paris Opéra.]]>
The story of how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein came to be written is well known. It was 1816; Mary and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley had followed Lord Byron to spend the summer months in Switzerland. During the long, often wet and stormy evenings, so the story goes, they recited poetry and read to each other spine-tingling tales. Eventually bored of the stories, Byron proposed that they should each write a supernatural story of their own.
The Frankenstein idea came to Mary in a waking dream. She imagined a student, who had pursued forbidden science to discover the 'cause of generation and life', finally bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. Mary developed the idea, nurturing it over nine months, and finishing it in the spring of 1817. Frankenstein was published the following year.
A preface to the first edition of the novel, purportedly by the author but actually penned by Percy, declared: 'The event on which this fiction is founded, has been supposed by Dr Darwin… as not of impossible occurrence.' Dr Darwin was Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather, and the 'event' was a series of strange experiments he described in 1802, in which he had apparently caused inanimate matter to move of its own accord.
But did another nightmare inspire Frankenstein too? Early in 1815, Mary had given birth to her first child by Percy – a daughter – but the child was born prematurely and lived for only a few days. Mary was devastated. The feelings of helplessness in the 17-year-old mother haunted her dreams. She wrote in her diary: 'Dreamt that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby.'
Had discussion of Darwin's experiments given her a glimmer of hope that science could one day discover how to reanimate a dead human? And what was the vital need, the vital spark that separated the animate from the dead?
Mary was acutely aware of many of the cutting-edge scientific debates and discoveries of her time. The second half of the 18th century was alive with scientific debate and discovery. Notions of 'vitalism' became newly controversial and, in the 1790s, respected scientists publicly challenged each other on the subject of the nature of life, of what lay at the heart of the vitality of all animals.
But Mary may also have been exploring another principle of life that the pioneering male scientists of the age had overlooked. Her sensitivities to nuances of character and the valencies of human interaction brought to vivid life the real significance of the thrilling and terrifying knowledge she absorbed, and her novel became a profound reflection on the complexities of human nature. Reflecting, in part, her own world, her characters combine features of the real people she met, knew and loved.
When Mary and Percy first eloped to Europe in 1814 they caused scandal at home and embarrassed her father, William Godwin. Financial and legal concerns brought them back to England but Godwin would have nothing to do with his daughter, ordering family and friends to shut her out of their lives. Such glimpses of Mary's private anguish resonate powerfully in the exchanges between Victor and his creature in the novel: 'Begone! I will not hear you', Victor tells his creation. 'There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies.'
Perhaps Mary's imagination stitched together her nightmares of the dead being alive, her fears and responsibilities as a sister and as a mother, her needs and joys as a daughter, a friend and a lover, to create something deeply and humanly ambiguous; at once childlike and gigantic, fatally clumsy yet sensitive and erudite; monstrous and vulnerable at the same time. As her father had written in 1791, 'The points in which human beings resemble are infinitely more considerable than those in which they differ.'
This is an edited extract from Will Richmond's article 'Principles of Life and Death', available to read in full in The Royal Ballet's programme for Frankenstein.
Frankenstein runs 4–27 May 2016. Tickets are still available.
The production is a co-production with San Francisco Ballet and is generously supported by the Monument Trust, The Taylor Family Foundation, Sarah and Lloyd Dorfman, Simon and Virginia Robertson, Will and Beth Gardiner, Karl and Holly Peterson, The Shauna Gosling Trust, The Constance Travis Charitable Trust, The American Friends of Covent Garden, the Frankenstein Production Syndicate, Bently Foundation, The Hellman Family and E. L. Wiegand Foundation.]]>
Monteverdi's Orfeo retells a very old and very well-known tale: the demigod Orpheus – son of Apollo and the muse Calliope – marries Eurydice, is devastated when she dies, and goes to the world of the dead hoping to bring her back. 'It's a very simple, human story', explains director Michael Boyd. 'A man can't stand it when the woman he loves dies; he wants to be with her but he's not allowed to; and so he is left without her.'
Yet this simple, human story is also one of the most enduring myths of the ancient world, and its themes and symbols reach deep into the human psyche. The Orpheus myth is about the power of poetry and music to lift or calm the spirits of humans and even to influence the will of the gods; about the special genius of the poet or musician who harnesses that power; about the restrictions on human power, and the power of the gods over human lives. It is about those rare humans who dare to cross boundaries.
With Orfeo being one of the first operas, audiences seeing the piece in Monteverdi's time were not familiar with the peculiar kind of performance he and his librettist Striggio had created. One excited courtier commented that 'all the performers speak musically'. In our own times audiences new to opera or new to Orfeo may be similarly excited. With a new translation of the libretto by Don Paterson, the opera is revived for the 21st century.
'Don Paterson is a musician and a poet', says Boyd. 'He's brought to the libretto the daring and skill of the poet and the respect of the musician. It is an extraordinarily vivid new version, and the more I work with it the more I find it miraculous. It is so un-stuffy; lyrical but not flowery, punchy but beautiful, and it is genuinely and thoughtfully singable.
'The music is just so exquisite. I'm hoping that for audiences new to Monteverdi – or new to opera – it will be like listening to Shakespeare. After the first five minutes, you forget that this is an unfamiliar experience in a strange language, and you begin to hear it… . And then we can let Monteverdi break our hearts.'
Boyd is no stranger to Renaissance theatre. After five years as Associate Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was the company's Artistic Director from 2002 to 2012. The time Boyd has spent with Shakespeare and his contemporaries has influenced his new production of Monteverdi's Orfeo – his debut as a director of opera.
'What Shakespeare was so good at', Boyd explains, 'was telling fables about abuses of power with the implication that the noble patrons of the art form – "you, my great and most serene lords" – were lending their support to a moral tale. Artists of Renaissance courts who openly rebelled against authority found themselves out of work, in prison, dead, tortured, or their works burned. But, like in Shakespeare, in Monteverdi any hint of commentary is perfectly poised and perfectly ambiguous'.
Boyd and Olivier Award-winning designer Tom Piper see such a fable in Orfeo, which they have set in an environment that suggests imprisonment. 'It's a kind of custodial situation. There's the feeling of imposing judgement, a hierarchy with a lot at stake. The notion of Orfeo, Euridice and their companions being at the mercy of the gods was something we wanted to capture in some way. They're singing for their lives, for their destinies. They're singing for the truth to be told, whatever that may be.'
This is an extract from Will Richmond's article 'Between Heaven and Hell' in The Royal Opera and the Roundhouse's programme book, available during performances at the Roundhouse.
Orfeo runs 13–24 January 2015 at the Roundhouse. Limited numbers of tickets are available from the Royal Opera House and Roundhouse websites. The production is a new collaboration between the Roundhouse and The Royal Opera.]]>
Cervantes's Don Quixote tells the story of Alonso Quixano, a gentleman of about fifty. He has lost his wits, having read too many popular stories about the adventures of chivalric knights and deprived himself of too much sleep in the process. He fills his mind, we are told, with 'enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, torments and other impossible nonsense'. The fictions that entertain him become more real to him than real life.
Quixano assumes the role of a knight-errant (a roaming hero and defender of the good) and sets out across the plains of Montiel in La Mancha to find adventure and achieve amazing feats, in the manner of his favourite fictional heroes. He renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, because it sounds nobler, and his horse Rocinante – more appropriate for a knight, he thinks.
He dusts off an old suit of armour (a family heirloom) so that he might really look the part. With spurious promises he convinces a neighbouring labourer, Sancho Panza, to abandon wife and children and serve as his squire. And to remain true to the nature of a knight-errant, he attaches to his cause a fair maiden, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, in whose honour he might accomplish all prospective deeds of valour.
The narrative he constructs for himself is a fantasy. The reality is quite different: his trusty steed is old and emaciated. The antique armour is in poor condition; to replace the helmet's missing visor he fashions one out of pasteboard and binds it to his head with ribbons.
Having reinvented almost everything about himself, he sets out on his quest and encounters a multitude of ordinary people. Don Quixote interprets situations so creatively that they make sense within his fictions. It is unsurprising that he gets into violent fights with people (and inanimate objects), thinking they are enemies to his cause or perpetrators of some evil that must be vanquished. He imagines windmills as monstrous giants, innocent Benedictine friars as malicious magicians and flocks of docile sheep as hostile armies.
Don Quixote does not act in such a peculiar way simply because fantasy and invention are more interesting than ordinary life. Cervantes shows us something more. Don Quixote's stories are necessary to his very being and, what's more, he seems to know it. He is determined to be the kind of person he wishes he were. He sees himself as acting precisely as a knight-errant would act, indeed must act if he is to be called a knight-errant. The fiction provides him with a structure by which to live.
By overstating the ordinary, entertainment offers us fantasies of greatness in place of the recognition of our own comparative insignificance. In the ballet, Don Quixote's private need to act and live as an example of heroism is writ large in enormous and colourful stage sets with turning windmills and an ingenious puppet horse. The quite ordinary love between Kitri and Basilio is presented in flamboyant, passionate pas de deux.
Like Don Quixote, we are entertained by the impossible nonsense presented to us in fiction or dreamt in our own fantasies. And like him we sometimes yearn to live and learn from some of that nonsense, or use it to confirm our own desires and ambitions. We imagine what it might be like to emulate the lives of fictional characters and famous personalities, and for entertainment we steep ourselves in stories of their 'noble' deeds. We embrace stories and theatrical displays – and like Don Quixote's 'madness', we absorb them into the narratives of our everyday lives, making ourselves seem larger than life. From art, from our dreams, we shape those stories we tell ourselves in order to live.
This is an extract from Will Richmond's article 'Real Life? Impossible Nonsense' in The Royal Ballet's programme book, available during performances and from the ROH Shop.
Don Quixote runs 25 November 2014–22 January 2015. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by the Friends of Covent Garden.
The most celebrated young poet in England at the time, W.H. Auden had controversially emigrated to America in January 1939. The writer felt he had come to an impasse both in his poetic career and in his personal life, and he sought new beginnings. America was famous for such opportunities, as he told Louis MacNeice: 'In England today the artist feels essentially lonely, twisted in dying roots…in America, he is just lonely, but so… is everybody else.'
When Germany invaded Poland that year, Auden wrote one of his most scathing poems, September 1, 1939. A thematic precursor to The Age of Anxiety, with the poet sitting in 'one of the dives' on 52nd Street, it identified the 'waves of anger and fear' across the world as symptomatic of more than the threat of another world war: this anger and fear, he wrote, was 'obsessing our private lives'.
Auden began writing The Age of Anxiety during wartime, in July 1944. 'When the historical process breaks down', begins the poem's prose prologue, 'and armies organize with their embossed debates the ensuing void which they can never consecrate, when necessity is associated with horror and freedom with boredom, then it looks good for the bar business'.
While The Age of Anxiety is an obscure, challenging and – ultimately – enormously rewarding read. Its scenario is nevertheless quite simple and mundane. Four ordinary, lonely, unacquainted people – Quant, an ageing Irish businessman; Malin, a retired medical officer in the Canadian Air Force; Rosetta, a Jewish buyer for a department store; and Emble, a handsome teenage naval recruit – get drunk in a bar in New York during wartime.
When The Age of Anxiety was published in 1947, many thought Auden had characterized the times: he had given a name to the confusion and concern of a paranoid world reeling from the international disaster of World War II. But 'the age of anxiety' is as much an acknowledgment of personal limitation – the precarious co-existence of freedom and necessity, the perpetual interplay of boredom and horror, which can only be navigated by embracing our shared humanity.
Leonard Bernstein read the poem in the summer of 1947, finding it 'fascinating and hair-raising' and 'one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of British poetry.' By his own report the composition of a symphony took on an almost compulsive quality, and he worked on it steadily for the next two years, finally completing it in New York in March 1949 and playing piano when the work had its premiere on 8 April.
Bernstein's outline of the symphony shows how faithful he was to the poem. A short prologue begins Part I, finding the four characters alone, then drawn together by a common urge – a 'lonely improvisation by two clarinets, echo-tone' before a long descending scale takes them into the unconscious realm.
Auden's seven ages – where the characters discuss the progress of human history – are a series of seven variations, each introducing 'some counter-feature upon which the next variation seizes' in a sort of 'musical fission'. Similarly, the seven stages – a symbolic dream journey in which the characters travel through their individual and collective unconscious – are seven more variations as the four try all means of homecoming, singly, in pairs, exchanging partners, 'always missing the objective' awakening to a shared experience of their humanity, and inebriation.
Part II begins with the 'Dirge' as the characters mourn the loss of the 'colossal father', and a contrasting middle section 'in which can be felt the self-indulgent, or negative, aspect of this strangely pompous lamentation'. The 'Masque' is a scherzo for piano and percussion with 'a kind of fantastic piano-jazz' ending in anti-climax with four bars of 'hectic jazz'. When the orchestra stops, a pianino continues with waning energy: a separation of the self from the guilt of escapist living, the solo-piano protagonist free again to examine what is left beneath the emptiness.
This is an extract from Will Richmond's article 'Affirmative Gestures' in The Royal Ballet's programme book, available during performances and from the ROH Shop.
The Age of Anxiety appears in The Royal Ballet's mixed programme with Ceremony of Innocence and Aeternum and runs from 7–17 November 2014. Tickets are still available.
The programme is given with generous philanthropic support from Richard and Delia Baker (Ceremony of Innocence) Simon and Virginia Robertson, Kenneth and Susan Green, Karl and Holly Peterson, The Age of Anxiety Production Syndicate, the Friends of Covent Garden and an anonymous donor (The Age of Anxiety) and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.]]>
For all its surreal, dreamlike qualities, Kafka's fiction often inhabits the world of ordinary working life. In The Metamorphosis, travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes one morning to find himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin. Yet one of the first things he thinks about is what an 'exhausting' job he has.
The protagonists of Kafka's two most famous novels both have desk jobs. Josef K. in The Trial and K. in The Castle are white-collar workers – what some social philosophers have called 'the cognitariat'. They are people whose labour is cerebral; who think for a living.
Josef K. is senior administrator in a large bank; K. is a land surveyor, and both are presented as diligent and respectable workers. In The Castle, K. is so conscientious that he remains bewilderingly determined to carry out his duty as a land surveyor, even after he's informed that he was summoned in error and no surveying is required after all.
In The Trial, Josef K. discovers one morning that he is under arrest 'without having done anything wrong'. He knows neither what he is accused of nor who has accused him. The two men who turn up at his boarding house to inform him don't know either – their role is merely to tell him. When he is summoned to his first hearing, the courtroom is nightmarishly difficult to find and, once there, nobody else really seems to know who he is or what he is charged with.
Josef K.'s freedom is not limited by his 'case' – it doesn't interfere with his job and he seems free to go about his daily business – but a feeling of responsibility looms over everything he does, from his work to his amorous pursuits and social interactions. When no notification comes for him to attend a second hearing, he goes anyway, compelled to face his accusers though he doesn't know who they are. Josef K.'s plight expresses something of what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he famously wrote that 'man is condemned to be free.'
Kafka began writing The Trial in 1914, just as he had broken off his engagement with Felice Bauer. Many readers are spurred by Elias Canetti's interpretation of the novel, and Kafka's own pronouncement that it was 'her book', to read it as a response to the limitations to his creative freedom and individual self-consciousness that Kafka felt marriage might bring.
For Kafka, institutionalized life – whether the propriety of marriage, the necessity of employment or the system of justice that governs both – have an effect similar to Samsa's transformation. He wrote to Felice: 'beware of thinking of life as commonplace, if by commonplace you mean monotonous, simple, petty. Life is merely terrible… . Often – and in my inmost self perhaps all the time – I doubt whether I am a human being.'
The condemnation of Josef K., and K.'s nightmare-like feeling of the responsibility that ordinary work instils in institutionalized humans sheds light on something Kafka wrote (again to Felice) in 1916: 'To be free from the office is my only possible salvation, my primary desire […] the fever that heats my head day and night comes from lack of freedom, and yet as soon as my chief begins to complain that the department will collapse if I leave […] I cannot do it, the conditioned official in me cannot do it.'
K. and Josef K. show us this 'conditioned official' – and the absurdity of his condition.
Music Theatre Wales perform Philip Glass's operatic adaptation of The Trial in the Linbury Studio Theatre 10–18 October 2014. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available.
The production is a co-commission and co-production between Music Theatre Wales, The Royal Opera, Theater Magdeburg and Scottish Opera.]]>
Don Juan has appeared in a multitude of incarnations. He can be a hero or a villain, an example of unrepentant unruliness, a romantic or political libertine, a lover unrivalled in his talent or in the number of his conquests. Don Juan is often as likeable - and even as commendable - as he is condemnable.
Don Juan was first introduced to the stage in early 17th-century Spain, in El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest). Its protagonist, the handsome trickster Don Juan Tenorio, is certainly a villain. He seduces several women by deception, force or spurious promises of marriage. He kills the father of one of the women and then mocks the tomb of the dead man. His Catholic punishment is that he is taken off to Hell, to burn in the fires of divine justice. His eventual appeal for mercy is dismissed simply because 'Your intention condemns you'. This Juan was a character for his age - his lifestyle as a trickster undermines all the principles upon which a good Catholic society depended and a suitable comeuppance was essential.
But later in the 17th century the French playwright Molière reinvented the anti-hero as an irreverent intellectual who prides himself on playing the 'honest man' as opposed to indulging the 'fashionable vice' of hypocrisy. Molière's Juan is flippant with divine disapproval and remains unrepentant to the end. The play was withdrawn almost as soon as it went on the stage, but those who denounced its bold and irreligious rationalism were as much concerned that the play was so entertaining – that the audience laughed. Less than half a century after Juan had first been dragged to hell, this fate didn't seem enough of a comeuppance. Worse, the whole thing was rather witty.
Our own era has been no less perplexed by Juan's ambiguity. In 2006 Patrick Marber reworked Molière for London's West End. Don Juan in Soho presented 'DJ', an aristocratic, metropolitan playboy as much appalled by contemporary hypocrisy as Molière's Juan. Stan, his long-suffering 'dogsbody', wistfully reflects, 'I wish there was a hell he could burn in forever', but without such divine retribution we are left with the secular justice meted out by the vigilante brother of DJ's abandoned wife. DJ remains defiant to the last and when asked 'Don't you want to live?', he replies 'Yes! But only as I please', before being horribly stabbed to death.
The 1990s sent forth Don Juan in the form of a troubled, handsome and desirable young man (played by Johnny Depp) in Jeremy Leven's 1994 film Don Juan DeMarco. Juan is deluded: he thinks he is the 'original' Don Juan, 'the world's greatest lover', ridiculously dressed in a cape and mask in modern Manhattan. Psychiatrist Jack Mickler (Marlon Brando) tries to cure him of his illusions after he finds him attempting suicide from the top of an advertising billboard.
Juan appeared again in the 2013 film Don Jon, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Jon is an ordinary twenty-something Catholic boy, obsessed with the repetitive, narcissistic rituals of his lifestyle. The only salvation for this modern seducer is his own seduction by an older woman, whose soulful, realist circumspection can undo his obsession with image.
By contrast, Juan, Kasper Holten's 2010 film version of Mozart's opera, captures the sophistication of a self-conscious, civilized, modern Don Juan. Holten's Juan is playful, charming, wealthy and (of course) alluring – but Holten suggests his awareness of the necessity of civil respectability, even if his instincts lead him to upset its norms.
We have certainly not finished re-inventing Don Juan. He exists in the modern mind in a variety of forms: sometimes irredeemably villainous, sometimes irredeemably heroic or romantic. But he is most engaging as a character when he occupies a space somewhere in between.
This is an extract from Will Richmond's article, available to read in full in the Don Giovanni programme book. This is available in the theatre at performance times and from the ROH Shop.
Don Giovanni runs 1–24 February 2014. A small number of tickets are still available. The production will be broadcast live around the world on 12 February. Find your nearest cinema.]]>
Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory was published in 1984 – the year George Orwell had imagined a dystopian state in what was once Great Britain. The relevance of Orwell's vision to the political climate of the 1980s is certainly thought provoking, and Banks's first published novel may be regarded as an update. We find in it an alternative dystopia and a caution against the emergence of a differently reprehensible state.
The Wasp Factory is a controversial novel. The Irish Times said of its publication, 'it is a sick, sick world when the confidence and investment of an astute firm of publishers is justified by a work of unparalleled depravity' and the Sunday Express described the book as 'a silly, gloatingly sadistic and grisly yarn of a family of Scots lunatics.' The Times Literary Supplement decided it was sensationalism in the face of the writer's previous rejections: 'the surest way to make an impact with a first novel, if not the most satisfactory, is to deal in extremes of oddity and unpleasantness.' We have the benefit of hindsight.
In place of the Stalinist-style political control that Orwell saw as the undesirable endgame of European totalitarian socialism we see untrammelled freedom. Banks gives us a scenario in which a teenager with a tendency towards megalomania and an obsession with torturing animals roams free, unmonitored by any form of authority. We are shown what disturbed humans are capable of when nobody is watching.
Frank, the protagonist, is not a legally registered citizen (a sort of Orwellian 'unperson') and his father keeps him hidden from the authorities on a 'nearly-island' on the North Sea coast of Scotland. Frank's dominion over the 'island' and its fauna is slightly ridiculous, recalling the imaginary war games many children play. But there is nothing ridiculous in his dispassionate and sadistic capacity for murder, nor in the family saga of abuse and neglect that is described in the margins of the story.
Paul Morley, in his programme article for Ben Frost's opera (which received its premiere at Bregenz Festival this summer and gets its UK premiere in the Linbury from tonight) was keen to keep much of the plot concealed. He wrote, 'it is best for the audience to know nothing about what is about to happen, other than they are where the action is, and one more crazed thing leads to another, to more and more change, until there is, incredibly, nowhere else to go.' We are presented with the story of a dangerously cunning sociopath who, left to his own devices, commits barely believable transgressions of what we might sentimentally (nostalgically?) call 'conscience'. Few in today's national climate would accept that it is best they 'know nothing' and let one crazed thing lead to another.
If The Wasp Factory struck a keynote in the early eighties, Banks's seventh novel, Complicity (1993), pursues the tune. Margaret Thatcher's government spanned the decade that separates the two books and Complicity describes a series of sadistic murders committed in retribution for the victims' selfish exploitation of the permissiveness of the Thatcher years. Banks's response to Thatcher's death in April 2013, two months before his own, was to comment that while he was respectful, her 'baleful influence on British politics remains undiminished.' His strong feelings go some way towards explaining the tone of these two shocking novels that bookended the Thatcher decade. Thatcher's keenness to free the British economy from state control and the stranglehold of the unions could be seen as partly responsible for the barbarity of unregulated enterprise that has proceeded at the expense of other forms of freedom. Banks certainly saw degeneration and savagery in the societal changes linked to the free market of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In the wake of the Cold War and in the name of democracy, the project to avert an Orwellian nightmare has failed to take responsible precautions against the proliferation of simple, unconscionable selfishness. The Wasp Factory can be read as an allegory of what happens when sociopaths are allowed to wreak unbridled dominion over a small island. Perhaps rather than (or as well as) a sensationalist novel that launched the career of a highly political writer, The Wasp Factory is a leveled caution of the Orwellian kind.
The Wasp Factory runs from 2 – 8 October 2013 in the Linbury Studio Theatre. A limited number of tickets are still available.
The production is staged with support from Capital Cultural Fund Berlin and Nordic Culture Point.
About ten years ago the American illusionist David Blaine performed an extreme endurance stunt in London – he starved himself for 44 days, suspended in a transparent box over the Southbank. As he entered the box he told the crowd why he was doing it: 'The feeling of wonder is amazing… I'm going to push myself as far as I can.'
Eighty years earlier, Franz Kafka published A Hunger Artist – a short story about a man who confines himself to a circus cage and starves himself to death. But when Kafka's hunger artist is asked why he has chosen such a performance, he unexpectedly replies: 'I couldn't find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss about it and stuffed myself like you or anyone else.'
The more cynical of Blaine's audience speculated that his test of the limits of human endurance was actually an inauthentic spectacle. He is an illusionist, after all – perhaps his water was laced with vitamins, or his blanket steeped in salt for him to suck out. Hunger artists have always courted scepticism, and for Kafka's perhaps dying was the best way to demonstrate his sincerity.
Kafka's writing reminds us that the limitations of existence are commonplace, and he is the more engaging for being matter of fact about it. He treats the deaths of his fictional creations (many of them displaying aspects of his own personality) with far less reverence than fans treated Blaine's experiment.
Kafka himself had been losing weight when he conceived and wrote A Hunger Artist and he would die from tuberculosis a little over two years later. He was also in a relationship with a journalist called Milena Jesenská, to whom he vented emotions, imaginations, nightmares and ailments in almost daily letters. 'So the thought of death frightens you?' he wrote in one, 'One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark.' For Kafka, like his hunger artist, life was a brief window of futile searching: a yearning for higher understanding foiled at every turn by its impossibility.
When György Kurtág composed his Kafka Fragments song cycle (1985–7) he compiled the libretto from scraps of Kafka's writings collected over years; diaries, letters and aphorisms, variously cryptic, mundane, confessional and aphoristic. There are hints of haiku-like sense: 'Like a pathway in the autumn: hardly has it been swept clean, it is covered again with dry leaves.' There are reflections on the tedium of everyday life: 'Slept, woke, slept, woke, miserable life,' but there are also genuine-sounding confessions: 'I can't actually… tell a story, in fact I am almost unable even to speak'.
Kafka's writing is infused with this awareness of human limitation – from the protagonist in The Trial and his anxious pursuit of an explanation of the unspecified crime an inscrutable court has charged him with, to the frustration faced by the protagonist of The Castle who will never be admitted to the castle and yet cannot return home. In a letter to his friend Max Brod, Kafka wrote, 'Literature helps me to live, but wouldn't it be truer to say that it furthers this sort of life?'
Kurtág's song cycle offers a rare opportunity to read Kafka through the prism of music. We have a glimpse of this from Kafka himself, in a line from a letter to Milena included in the Fragments – 'None sing as purely as those in deepest Hell; it is their singing that we take for the singing of Angels.'
Kafka Fragments runs from 28 – 30 March 2013. Tickets are still available.
The Metamorphosis runs from 16 - 23 March 2013. Returns may become available.