Nicholas profile picture

Nicholas

“It was the first time I had the opportunity of drinking champagne by the pint and it was a reward

About Me

Good Gracious!!! This is very naughty indeed!
And this is OUTRAGEOUS! Lasciviousness is a matter I do not take with a mere pinch of salt I can assure you of that if nothing else!
This is much more like it...
Hello there, I am left handed and as a consequence find a great many things such as opening bottles of wine difficult. I share my birthday with Morrissey, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Wagner, and, most wonderfully, Humphrey Lyttleton! "Why most wonderfully?" you may ask. It is because he hosts the GLORIOUS BBC Radio 4 programme 'Sorry I Haven't A Clue'.
I like to go running, sometimes running as much as 4 (four) miles a day. Funnily enough though, when at school I hated PE and to this day I loathe sport in all it's many forms. I also hate walking slow and I always sit in the front carriage of both overland and underground trains, despite the fact my mother tells me "It is the most DANGEROUS thing you can do!"
As I age, I am finding the great Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and the American saxophonist John Coltrane to be the most inspiring figures I can think of. I also have a profound belief that Thelonious Monk will be considered one of the GREATEST! composers in musical history, right up there with the 3 B's (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) and that this whole Lennon & McCartney business will all blow over.
Some interesting facts:
1) I know a lawyer whose 1st name is Andrew!!!
2) My sister-in-LAW (make not of my emphasis on the word "Law" or "LAW" if you will) is a lawyer (LAWyer) too, but her name IS NOT "Andrew"!!!
3) My grandfather's personal physician always jokingly refers to him as "Carlton Brown of the FO" (in reference to the film of the SAME name). He says this often because, alas, as we increase with age, we increase the frequency of our audiences with doctors!!!
4) I can't drive, although I did have lessons and learnt all the moves!!! Including reverse parking in a very large and high car park in Milton Keynes (Milky Beans)!!!
59) I stopped drinking for a while, and when I started again a favourite wine of mine - Morgon - just didn't taste the same anymore!!!
6) I have friends with names like Steven/Steve, Jennifer/Jenny (I NEVER refer to her as "Jen"), Edward/Eddie/Ed, Jack/Jackalous, Simon, Daniel/Dan, Hugh/Huw/Topgear, Nigel/Nige, Stig, Harry/Harriet (Harry hates it when I call him that - Harriet - that is! My, my...), Sean, Luke/Lucas (only I refer to Luke, occasionally, as that, mark my WORDS!!!), Clive, Katarina/Kat, Sally/Sal, Hayley, Michael/Mike, Mark, Sam/Samuel, and Esther/Es. But I have no friends called Larry!!!
3.984) I would like - no - I would LOVE to be friends with Larry David!!!
8) I can't dance but my friend Sean is the BESTEST dancer I ever did see!!! [Please dear reader, do not HATE me for being deficient in dancing! Please oh PLEASE!]
999) Nor can I cook, but I LOVE watching cooking programmes on the television!!!
10) I can't even cook an omlette!!!
2042) However, my friend Steven (24, musician, single) and my brother Russell (29, music teacher, in a relationship) are very good cooks!!!
1) One (1 [1)])
GET YOUR DIRTY THIEVING HANDS OFF OUR CATTLE YOU GIANTS!!!
While the giant men & giant men-children commit grave misdeeds with our cattle, the giant she-women make a mockery of our air defences...
I sincerely hope we do not perish at their mighty hands.

My Interests

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Playing music (although I can't imagine I'll ever be as blissfully happy as he, the pictured. Sonny Greer)...

...and listenting to music.

Excellent wine.

Brilliant exhibitions of art.

The Gentlemans' Tailor of Buckingham - Dennis.

Hanging out with Michel Gutty and drinking his wine in his cave beneath Chateau Gaillard in Villie-Morgon, France, Europe

Oslo
Austin, TX

I'd like to meet:

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (but he is sadly dead), Bill Evans (passed on also), Thelonious Monk (RIP), Egon Schiele (deadified), Juan Miro (ditto), Leonard Bernstein (him too), Brian Blade, Wayne Shorter, J.G. Ballard, Jon Christensen, Thomas Quasthoff, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, and these lovely, lovely chefs: Richard Corrigan, Rick Stein, Keith Floyd, and Jeremy Lee (luckily they are ALL alive!!!).
Oh yes and I'd like to meet Bernard Doove, the man who creates this sort of thing:

I'd imagine the encounter would be very brief, but I'd just like to see what he wears and hear his talking voice. Is that too much to ask?

Music:

Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity
J.S. Bach - Goldberg Variations [Gould '55 & '81 recordings]
Iain Ballamy - All Men Amen
Kenny Barron - Other Places

Beethoven - Violin Concerto [Zehetmair/Bruggen recordings]
Beethoven - 4th Piano Concertos [Kempff/Leitner/BPO recordings]
Beethoven - Complete Symphonies [Gardiner]
Sir John Betjeman & Jim Parker - Banana Blush
Harrison Birtwistle - Punch & Judy

Johannes Brahms - German Requiem [Gardiner]
..
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
John Coltrane - Interstellar Space
Deaf School - 2nd Honeymoon
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left

Bill Frisell - Ghost Town
Sir John Eliot Gardiner - Pilgrimage To Santiago

Stephane Grappelli - Flamingo

The La's - The La's
Mahler - 2nd Symphony [Abbado recording]
Mahler - 5th Symphony [Bernstein/Wiener Philharmoniker]

Nils Petter Molvaer - Khmer
Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners
Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music
Thelonious Monk - Alone In San Francisco
Thelonious Monk - Big Band & Quartet In Concert
Paul Motian - Sound Of Love

Prokofiev - October Cantata [Gergiev/LSO]
Ike Quebec - Blue & Sentimental
Ravel/Rachmaninov Piano concerto in G major/Piano concerto no.4 [Michelangeli recordings]
Django Reinhardt - Swing/HMV Sessions
Max Roach - Freedom Now Suite

Schubert - Winterresie [Staier/Pregardien recording]

John Scofield - What We Do
Wayne Shorter - Native Dancer
Wayne Shorter - At Barbican Hall, 10th November 2006

Bobo Stenson - War Orphans

June Tabor - At The Woods Heart
Michael Tippett - A Child Of Our Time [Hickox/Haymon/Clarey/Evans/White recording]
Clark Tracey - We've Been Expecting You
Stan Tracey - Under Milk Wood
Edgard Varese - Complete Works [Chailly]
Dan Weiss - Tintaal Drumset Solo

Movies:

A bout de souffle [Jean-Luc Godard]
Ascenseur pour l'echafaud [Louis Malle]
Barry Lyndon [Stanley Kubrick]
Belleville Rendez-Vous [Sylvain Chomet]
Brothers of the Head [Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe]
Casablanca [Michael Curtiz]
The Cow [Dariush Mehrjui]
Cul-de-Sac [Roman Polanski]
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas [Terry Gilliam]
Le Feu Follet [Louis Malle]
Gattaca [Andrew Niccol]
It Happened Here [Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo]
Laura [Otto Preminger]
The Madness Of King George [Nicholas Hytner]
Planet Of The Apes [Franklin J. Schaffner]
Plaza Suite [Arthur Hiller]
The Return [Andrei Zvyagintsev]
Stepford Wives [Bryan Forbes]
Straight No Chaser [Christian Blackwood]
Tales From The Far Side [Marv Newland]
Twelve Angry Men [Sidney Lumet]
Vera Drake [Mike Leigh]

Withnail & I [Bruce Robinson]

Television:

Ever Decreasing Circles
Seinfeld
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Channel 4 News (especially Jon Snow)
Twin Peaks
Family Guy (I know someone who ALWAYS! calls it 'Family Man'!!! How murderously funny!!!)

Question Time
Primeminister's Questions (I like big old rooms replete with teered seating housing a great army of suited and booted people, many of them nearing their twilight years, jeering at one another and waving paper in the air. "Rrraaaaa!")
Katie Derham from ITV news (you can read about her here: http://www.itv.com/news/presenters_658341.html)
Documentaries about people with exceptional maladies
Anything that has been touched by the hand of God - Armando Iannucci
Chris Morris' 'Jam'
Peep Show
Jeeves & Wooster
Anything that involves Keith Floyd, Rick Stein, or Richard Corrigan.

Books:


Martin Amis - Money

J.G. Ballard - The Kindness Of Women
Paul Bowles - Let It Come Down
Italo Calvino - Our Ancestors
Albert Camus - The Outsider
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass
Anton Chekhov - Early Stories
Gabriel Chevallier - Clochemerle

Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm

Armando Iannucci - Facts & Fancies

Guy de Maupassant - Selected Short Stories

Sherwin B Nuland - How We Die

Alan Paton - Cry, The Beloved Country
Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff - Here Me Talkin To Ya

Heroes:

Ludwig van Beethoven
Jon Christensen
Bill Evans
Philly Joe Jones
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Thelonious Monk
Egon Schiele
Wayne Shorter
Clark Tracey
Leonard Bernstein

My Blog

Marco Pierre White

Last night I dreamt Marco Pierre White cooked me an omelette.  I was over at his, I'd really come for a haircut but he just wanted to sleep, so I started mixing up some eggs to make an omelette ...
Posted by Nicholas on Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:14:00 PST

Terrifying

Strange powers are at work! I've been waiting SOME PRETTY BLOODY TIME for an order from www.hmv.co.uk which would form part of my little sister's Christmas present for this year. Only today I logged...
Posted by Nicholas on Sun, 26 Nov 2006 07:24:00 PST

MY ENTHRALLING SCISSORS

My grandfather Carl (he turns 88 years young on Wednesday) had some coupons for a free pair of scissors that he kept attempting to palm off on me, hoping I would make use of them and acquire a new pa...
Posted by Nicholas on Sun, 05 Nov 2006 04:30:00 PST

My adventures in facial hair and removal thereof

Due to a great deal of laziness upon my part of late, I have not found myself in a shaving mood and before long a beard sprung forth (Fig 1.1).   Fig 1.1   I thought I should shav...
Posted by Nicholas on Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:27:00 PST

Moscow

Well, well, well, it isn't everyday that I find myself receiving a text message like this: "Hi Nick, could you text me the dialling code for Moscow...Love Nige" Isn't this how spy films start?  N...
Posted by Nicholas on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 03:54:00 PST

My name

I just found out that my full name meaning reads thus: Victorious of the People, Gracious, Guardian of the Mill. From here on in, I shall respond only to that name, and that name only! Caravaggio's A...
Posted by Nicholas on Wed, 28 Jun 2006 03:06:00 PST

I was amused

I just heard a BBC Radio 4 comedian refer to the football "star" Wayne Roooooooney as "...the potato one with the dickey foot."  Oh how I laughed. ...
Posted by Nicholas on Sun, 18 Jun 2006 02:07:00 PST

Not long...

...until Kandinsky at Tate Modern! I hope it doesn't dissappoint....
Posted by Nicholas on Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:35:00 PST