How old is HIPP ?

[Tapiola]

vinteuil,

I hesitated before typing the sandwich reference, but concluded that the good Earl had already invented it. However, upon inspection of french frank's link, I see no evidence of any kind of bread-related matter. My own artistic licence I'm afraid.

[Chris Newman]

Tapiola,
Perhaps you are recalling a Peter Cook/E.L.Wisty sketch. I cannot find it on YouTube but here is my attempt at a recreation.

Peter Cook is leaning on a farm fence sucking a straw with Dud who offers him a sandwich from a paper package. His reply is something like:

Pete: No thankyou. I am trying to eschew sandwiches these days.

Dud: Oh yes. Why is that?

Pete: Sadly, sandwiches remind me of poor Ludwig van Beethoven.

Dud: Ludwig van Beethoven?

Pete: Yes, that is the man of whom I am being reminded.

Dud: Why are you being reminded of him?

Pete: Ludwig van Beethoven was a dirty man,

Dud: Ooh..er.

Pete: He was indeed a filthy man.

Dud: Was he indeed?

Peter: Yes, he never bathed. NEVER BATHED. Occasionally he would have a good scrape with a blunt knife. He never did any washing. Once his underpants got too filthy he hid them in his piano. Same with his food. Anything left over got shoved in his piano. Crusts and half-eaten sandwiches went in there with his dirty underpants. If he heard a knock at the door all his detritus went into that piano.

Dud: Of course when he died he was discovered...?

Pete: that's right...found out. During the last years of his life he put more and more underpants and things in his piano and do you know what?

Dud: No. What?

Pete: The piano got quieter and quieter.

Dud: So what did he do about it?

Pete: Well, that's the tragic bit. He did nothing.

Dud: So what happened?

Pete: That's what's so tragic. Cos he couldn't hear his piano Beethoven, the stupid man, thought he was going deaf.

[Tapiola]

Chris,

Superb. I did not in fact know this sketch. But I do now.

This puts me in mind of another, Derek and Clive, sketch, concerning Richard Wagner in the back of a cab which, alas, is unrepeatable here.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A teacher with a Steinway!

(You still have those negatives of the Chair of Governors, then, Alpie? )

A teacher with a Steinway!

(You still have those negatives of the Chair of Governors, then, Alpie? )

If that were the case, I'd have a Loree cor anglais as well.

[MickyD]

Further leafing through the Scholes book, I fell upon a much more alarming colour picture by Batt of Beethoven "in middle life" - not far off the transformed portrait of Dorian Gray!

[Panjandrum]

Further leafing through the Scholes book, I fell upon a much more alarming colour picture by Batt of Beethoven "in middle life" - not far off the transformed portrait of Dorian Gray!

It's literally a real warts n'all portrait isn't it? There's an interesting book by Comini called The Changing Face of Beethoven which examines how the great man's image, as it has come down to us, has been manipulated and appropriated by a host of interested parties, not least Beethoven himself. I particularly enjoyed Schindler's description of the famous Kloeber portrait as making Beethoven look like a "master brewer", "without a trace of intellect". Paradoxically perhaps, Schindler was taken with the Schimon portrait in which Beethoven's eyes have practically rolled out of his sockets, giving him a somewhat demented air.

[vinteuil]

I did worry for a moment that "sandwich" might have been an anachronism - but a little bit of research has reassured me that it might, after all, have been a HIPP sandwich - 'cos the eponymous Earl had done his stuff by then....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mo...rl_of_Sandwich

... and interesting that the Earl of Sandwich was himself an "early music" man -

"After his Naval career, Sandwich turned his energy toward music. He became a great proponent of "Ancient music" (defined by him as music more than two decades old). He was the patron of the Italian violinist Felice Giardini, and created a "Catch Club", where professional singers would sing "ancient" and modern catches, glees, and madrigals. He also put on performances of George Frideric Handel's oratorios, masques, and odes at his estate. Sandwich was instrumental in putting together the Concert of Ancient Music, the first public concert to showcase a canonic repertory of old works... "