R3 Unwind

[Roger Webb]

...............There are probably many more besides the one's you've also mentioned, Roger. Berlioz might perhaps be considered the originator of the notion in Symphonie fantastique!

Thanks for those examples S-A.....I'm sure there are many more. Berlioz, yes - but he might have heard Beethoven's 6th!......another of those that have rendered thunder with musical instruments (incl. the extraordinary 'thundersheet'....a picture of an example is in John Culshaw's book 'Ring Resounding'), and one of my favourite 'unknown' Symphonies is Kurt Atterberg's 3rd 'West Coast Pictures', the second movement has an effective and relentless storm. To find a single thunderclap like I experienced Culshaw's recording (Solti) of the moment before the 'Rainbow Bridge' appears at the end of Rheingold has that singularity.........I didn't get a rainbow!....or a new house to walk over it to!

[Roger Webb]

You'd probably find a mooring space hard to find in the Paddington Basin these days, sadly. And the London Council is now intending upping the mooring rates to beyond what many who have chosen this hitherto relatively cheap living alternative to London's exorbitant rents will be able to afford, making narrow boat into yet another luxury lifestyle

Yes S-A, it has become very difficult generally in London - in my Prom-going days it was free. I first moored on my fathers boat in the mid sixties at Blomfield Rd moorings...in those days they were old trading narrowboats some of them with retired boatmen living aboard, and one night we moved up to Regents Pk and spent the night next to the aviary...the cries of exotic birds making it sound like a night in the jungle!

I used to love the stretch through to the East End....in those days one could moor at Victoria park...safely!.

My narrowboating days are over, except for the occasional hire - for example we had a boat for a week last year on the Monmouth and Brecon Canal so as to visit the Brecon Baroque Festival, and we'll probably do it again this year.