Seen and heard: August 2013

Proms in the Park - with the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and Polymnia (in which I sing) belting out the popular standards (Zadok the Priest, Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, Jerusalem, Rule Britannia); great fun!

Chopin Saved My Life - beautiful Channel 4 documentary featuring people for whom Chopin piano pieces have been transformative, including one brought back from a coma by the Ballade Number 1.

The BBC Proms season - highlights for me being Naturally7 (American a capella group, like a hip-hop version of the Swingle Singers); John Elliot Gardener and the Monteverdi Baroque Choir doing Bach's Easter Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio; Nigel Kennedy and Palestinian string players performing a remix version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (which I though really worked, like Stravinsky's remix of Pergolesi's Pulcinella); and the John Wilson orchestra, delivering a belting full-force (double orchestra with integrated dance band) rendition of film score music both familiar and unfamiliar.

Miss Marple, the old Joan Hickson versions, showing on the Drama channel, still head and shoulders above the more recent pretenders to the franchise. I'd say the best female detective on the telly at the moment, except that Vera has just started a new season.

The Social Network, film (recorded off air) about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. Neat presentation of the thesis tracing the technology to the interests and social psychological needs of American college students, and since the script is by Aaron Sorkin even the rowing jocks get witty funny lines.

Salvador Dali's house at Port Lligat. Or rather, we didn't see it, because it turned out you needed to book in advance which certainly wasn't clear from the brochures. But we bought a DVD tour and watched that instead, and found Dali (perhaps through Gala's influence?) a much more grounded and practical person than his waky output would suggest.

Iain Banks, The Quarry. His last novel - ironically, since the events centre on a character who is dying of cancer. Nicely written, well-paced (with gradual introduction of the large cast of characters), and a gripping acceleration towards the end. The misanthropy of the dying character, and the sense of disillusion for this group of '90s film and drama students, is quite painful, though.

A falcon (? some kind of bird of prey anyway) in the hills above Joch, "turning and turning in the widening gyre" - now I know what W.B. Yates was talking about.