The Critical Cynic

Classical Crossover Website Now Open

Nicola — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:07:54 +0000

You can support the site and spread the word by following/joining us at:

You can listen to our exclusive Classical Crossover Radio Station over at last.fm. Non-stop Classical Crossover music!

Catherine Blyth’s “The Art of Conversation”

Nicola — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:26:41 +0000

I simply could not finish this book since Catherine Blyth appears to be unable to write in a clear, concise and coherent manner. Too many times I found myself re-reading passages trying to grasp her meaning. She is at her worst when explaining her personal experiences; it took several tries to determine what was even going on, who she was talking about and who said what.

I cannot possibly tell you which is worse: her choice of diction or her sentence structure. They are both terribly bad and make for very frustrating reading. Having six clauses in one sentence and employing high-brow phrases and obscure words are not the marks of a good writer. This book has every sign of a wannabe writer trying too hard.

When I was at University, one my lecturers said: ‘If someone has trouble understanding what you have written, it is you, the writer, not the reader, who is at fault.’ This has never resonated so true. As great as the concept of this book seems (and it is) it’s simply inaccessible.

New Classical Crossover Website

Nicola — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:21:22 +0000

I am starting a new project. It’s also hosted on WordPress, but it will be less like a blog. It’s still in its starting stages, but it’s basically dedicated to the music genre ‘Classical Crossover’. It will aim to have profiles and reviews for as many artists from the genre as possible. Its unique element is that each artist are given star ratings on their different attributes.

It won’t be ready for a while, but if you want to see me working on it, check it out anytime: Classical Crossover

I won’t be stopping this blog, as although I do review a lot of my music on here, reviews for artist of that genre will be restricted to that site only. I will still reviews books, films, talk random stuff and review music from other genres.

Laura Whitcomb’s “A Certain Slant of Light”

Nicola — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:12:28 +0000

I was having a slow day at work, and when I was sorting out reservations for books, I found A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb. It was reserved by a work collegue, and since she generally has good taste in everything, I read the blurb, was intensely intrigued and left a post-it on the book saying ‘Let me know what this book is like once you have finished’. That she did, telling me that she blubbed like a baby at the end of the story.

Encouraged, I took the book up myself. The first quarter of the book is the strongest, with the protagonist’s love interest echoing the same air of mystery and puzzlement as the hero of the Twilight series. It all starts in a classroom in high school; the boy gives her particular attention that she does not understand, and she is uncontrollably drawn to him. She abandons the only existence as a ghost and drastically changes into a living form to be with her new infatuation.

So far. So Twilight. But where as Twilight goes on to become a ridiculous fan-fictitious farce, this novel remains more grounded and though it never verges on the ridiculous, it does seem to lose track and the impulse to keep turning pages slackens towards the end. The problem begins when the heroine is able to be a physical being, and the issue at hand seems to no longer be the protagonist and her new found relationship, but the family of the girl’s body she “saves”. The sudden and intense inclusion of fundamental religion is disconcerting and off-putting. My excitement from the beginning of the novel was positively cooled by the direction that the story had taken, and the ending did nothing to cause satisfaction.

This is by no means a terrible book. Whitcomb’s vision of the spiritual world is quite compelling and I found myself utterly curious about it from the moment I read the first page. This novel easily reigns you in, and its simple, yet beautiful, writing style makes it not only accessible but also a joy to read. There are some excellent metaphors and similies in here (one that made me chuckle was: ‘Stubbornly I bumped against the same window time and again, like a moth with no memory.’) There are also a string of literary references (the protagonist is obsessed with Literature), and if you are an enthusiast yourself, this adds another dimension to the literary devices of the novel.

It is, perhaps, too self-aware, and you can only cringe slightly when the author insists on her own talent (“Why was that a good description?” she has her Literature teacher ask his class), but I never once thought that something was clumsy or out of place (like one would do so often with Stephenie Meyer). The drawback of this novel is the weak ending – it’s mostly what led to this weak ending, but the actual ending in itself is really disappointing. If the novel had taken the same course throughout, I may have recommended it to you without a trace of doubt, but I would perhaps suggest that you borrow this book either from a friend or a library to be on the safe side.

Why You Should Shop At CD Baby

Nicola — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Aside from the fact that CD Baby is a great place for independent upcoming artists to go to release their albums when their sound is not commercial friendly enough to be picked up by record giants. And aside from the fact that it’s recommendation system is superb and precise. And aside from the fact they have so many genre and sub genre categories that you cannot possibly go there without finding something you like, CD Baby have this to say in your dispatch notification e-mail:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole partymarched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, June 30th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…

And that is why you should shop at CD Baby.

Escala’s Debut Album: “Escala”

Nicola — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:01:23 +0000

Have I ever mentioned that I hate self-named albums? It’s lazy, it’s boring and it makes the titles of my articles particularly awkward. It’s not on. Especially when it’s such a crap name for a band, anyway. Scala is a very good name, and I’m not without sympathy that they had to let it go, but as coincidences have it, I have been a big fan of the “obscure Belgian choir” (as a tabloid described them, hey, they have only released seven albums!) that had first dibs on the name for a few years, and so I’m siding with the choir on this one (have you heard their rendition of ‘Teenage Spirit’? It’s bloody creepily fantastic, check it out here).

So, after changing their name from Scala, to eScala and then finally to Escala, they finally released their debut album. It kept being delayed but common sense tells me they wanted to release the album on the week of the Britain’s Got Talent live shows for maximum impact on sales, which has worked tremendously. After their live performance on the show, they ranked number one on the Amazon charts the next day above Eminem. I was expecting a modest but respectable top 30 album if I’m honest. I knew such an album would sell but not that well. It demonstrated the impact that Cowell’s shows have on the music industry.

So why would this album have selled either way? If you look a few years back you will find the answer in the embodiment of a string-quartet named Bond. They were an enormously successful classical crossover act, one of the few that sold extremely well in America. They were exactly as Escala are now: a sexy, leggy, string-quartet that punched out popular tunes on their custom made string instruments with a multi-techno layered production. Other bands came and went whilst Bond were still active (interestingly, Wild was one of them, two members of which are now in Escala) but Bond truly had the market. Bond, however, quit whilst they were ahead and left the music scene long before the public were ready for them to do so. They were lamented, and by the time it was clear that Bond really had disappeared, the public had missed the boat with the other quartets who had since disbanded or had been dropped.

So the string-quartet has been a gap just waiting to be filled up over the past few years, and what better way to fill it than with a group that are an exact replica of Bond and burst into the scene in one of the biggest promotional shows in the UK? Yes, Escala had success served to them on a plate but are they any good?

In classic Cowell style who can only emulate and not innovate, he has simply reproduced the tried and tested formula that Bond produced. The tracklisting is desperately unoriginal with the typical crossover material such as ‘Kashmir’, ‘Palladio’ and ‘Sarabande’, which , quite frankly, are no different to Bond‘s renditions. Whilst many arrangements are quite uninspired, Robert Miles‘s ‘Children’ is well executed as is the instantly recognisable ‘Requiem For A Tower’. The shame is that you may feel you are playing the soundtrack to Britain’s Got Talent as some of the songs has been used relentlessly on the show. It rather taints the material.

There are only two respectable classical standards on here, ‘Chi Mai’ and ‘Adagio For Strings’ (you can include Handel’s ‘Sarabande’ if you like, though the piece is easily manipulated for techno influences), and thankfully, they are treated with respect in their production (only a mild drum machine). Sadly their actual performance of ‘Adagio For Strings’ seems a bit static and I didn’t lose myself in it as I have with other renditions.

If you are new to classical crossover, a lot of this may seem quite new and special in which case, good for you, but for listeners of Bond, Vanessa-Mae and Lucia Micarelli this has all been done before. If this band really wants to replace Bond, the best thing to do is to record different songs from them. It’s common sense. No Bond fan wants to hear these songs again – they already have them. The good thing about Escala is that Bond‘s later albums were immersed in computer wizardry and the strings could barely be heard, this is not the case with Escala; they are never drowned out by drum machines. Even so, I hope for a little bit more originality from their next album.

If you’re disappointed the drum-machine trick, there is another string quartet on the market with considerbly less publicity called Raven who are probably the best out there at the moment. One of its members is renowned violinist’s Nicola Benedetti‘s sister!

Score: **********

Philippa Gregory’s ‘The Boleyn Inheritance’

Nicola — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:01:09 +0000

This is only my second outing with Philippa Gregory, and it took me a while to decide that she was worth my time. The Other Boleyn Girl, was, of course, my first and I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I though Philippa a beautiful and intelligent writer, on the other, the content and characterisation irritated me. Gregory as often stated that her books follow fact but only fills in the gaps where facts are either unknown, uncertain or speculative. She chooses to fill in these gaps with the most outrageous theories that she can possibly find about these historical figures. It’s a little bit annoying.

I can’t quite forgive the heavy hints she made in The Other Boleyn Girl that Anne Boleyn did commit incest with her brother. That did not make good reading, it made it offensive. Offensive to Anne’s memory and a mockery of all the historian’s that have found that Anne was executed solely on trumped up charges. Only the other day I read on a message board from a reader asking if Boleyn really had sex with her brother. I despair that someone even has to ask that question.

In this book, Katherine “Kitty” Howard, Henry VIII‘s fourth wife is to suffer the same treatment from Gregory. I commend Gregory’s treatment of Anne of Cleves which I found admirable (she uses the language barrier as a reason to why she was, wrongly (according to Gregory) often regarded as a bit dim). Howard is yet again the silly little slut. I could not believe how thin her character was. I will be the first to admit that it was amusing that many of her narratives opened up with ‘Now, let’s see, what do I have?’ but Gregory does not explore her any further than a ridiculously stupid little girl. As a result, she is repetitive; she only concerns herself with dresses, jewels and how she looks. I found this as boring as anyone in their right mind would.

Jane Boleyn, the wife of George Boleyn and Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law is probably the most drawn out character of the book. Gregory explores her regrets of giving evidence against them in detail, but unfortunately, it also makes Jane’s narrative repititive. If I were a lesser reader, I may have well skipped many of her paragraphs that had her expressing her undying love of George, yet again, but I gritted my teeth.

The book as a whole could have done with a lot more editing. I found nothing lacking or repetitive in Cleves’ narrative, but the other two characters needed a lot more slicing and chopping. This could have been almost half the book it was and would have been a lot better for it.

I did, however, enjoy this book, though I was getting bored by the end (I had heard everything the characters had to say before). I do love her portrayal of court life (though the politics is lacking) and her repitition aside, I still find her a lovely writer, but I think that I will leave Gregory to rest now. Indeed, she seems to only serve as a reminder for to pick up some Eric Ives or David Starkey. I may well leave Tudor fiction for good. The Tudors are such interesting people, with enough political intrigue that they are easily sustained by fact alone. They do not need the further soap opera treatment.

Score: **********

Trudi Canavan’s “The Magician’s Apprentice”

Nicola — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:54:57 +0000

I do like a bit of escapist fantasy, and when I want to read a good fantasy book, I know that turning to Trudi Canavan is a good idea. Her narrative is not perfect, and her habit of italicising characters thoughts is actually very grating and something I am still not used to. But who cares? Canavan is creative and knows how to tell a story.

The Black Magician trilogy is the only story other than Harry Potter to make me cry at the loss of a character. This is not a ‘boo-hoo-character-died-closed-book-and-forgot-about-it’ type cry. No. It is a loss that puts a nasty unsettling feeling at the pit of your stomach that could go on for as long as three days. Sad, isn’t it? Yes, it is, but do you know how satisfying it is to become attached to a character in such a way? It is what makes a good read into a great read and only the most talented writers that specialise in characterisation that can acheive such a feat.

But I digress, this review is about the prequel to the excellent Black Magician trilogy. This prequel is The Magician’s Apprentice, and it is, unfortunately, a stand alone book. Because of this, the characterisation in this book is no where near as strong as the original trilogy, as it does not have time to develop the characters. Anyone that has read all of Canavan’s books will recognise recycled characters (Tessia is so similar to Auraya from Canavan’s other trilogy The Age of Five, that it is rather off putting) but to get bogged down in characterisation for this book is missing the point, for this prequel serves to flesh out the history and world of the trilogy and not much else.

It is not that I did not care for the characters, I certainly liked the protagonists, and they have their own stories, even if they are a little thin, but these characters are mainly mechanisms to tell the story of the history of Kyrilia. It does this very well, and as soon as I finished this book with all of this new found information, I was itching to read TBM all over again, just to catch references of the world’s past. This prequel covers how the Wastelands in Sachaka were created, the origins of the Magician’s Guild, the discoveries of healing magic, fighting and defense magic and so on. It was surprising, when reading it, how primitive the magician’s were only 200 years before the event of The Magician’s Guild took place.

All of this is explained to us through the backdrop of a war that takes place pretty much for the whole of the book. There is a band of outlaws from Sachaka that are quite determined to take back the land from Kyrialia, for there’s not enough land to go round in Sachaka for the surplus magicians. The Sachakan’s also happen to be ruthless thugs that relish cruelty and slavery, and is led by perhaps the worst of them all. The technological and magically primitive and unorganised Kyrilians spend the book trying to drive out the threat, and it’s through this, with all Kyrilian Magician’s together, that they begin to make discoveries and create guilds and such.

You will also find familiar themes that were introduced in the trilogy: feminism, gay rights, class and slavery. Feminism, in this book, is particularly strong, with a whole sub-plot dedicated to its cause through the character of Stara; it has nothing to do with the rest of the book, or with the trilogy. I can only assume that Stara ’s story becomes relevent in the coming sequels to TBM.

Other than Stara, it all fits together like a neat jigsaw puzzle and makes for a satisfying read, but do not expect to be as gripped as you were for TBM, for though it is a good book, it does not beat the trilogy. I do not recommend starting on this book before the trilogy as it is written to pin point key areas of the coming story, and if you are ignorant of these points, the importance may be lost on you, which is a shame, since it is recognising the important bits that makes it so enjoyable. Whilst it is not a necessary read to fans of The Black Magician trilogy, it would certainly make a satisfying one and I feel quite confident in recommending it.

Score: **********

Visit Trudi Canavan’s Official Website

The "I-can't-recommend-enough" Black Magician Trilogy

The Age of Five Trilogy

Stephen King: Hates Stephenie Meyer, Loves J.K. Rowling

Nicola — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:48:28 +0000

After reading this article of Stephen King praising J.K. Rowling and slagging off Stephenie Meyer, I have to say, I became rather more positive about the state of the world.

To make sure I would stay happy forever, I was cheered by this article that had a poll between Harry Potter and Twilight, and Harry has over three quarters of the vote. I have to admit that I was worried that people would forget just how great Harry Potter was now that it is all finished and dusted, and with the Twilight series still very much in the lime light. But I needn’t have worried. Not to mention that the quarter of people that voted for Twilight are probaby fourteen year old fangirls.

The human race. I have faith in you yet.

Customers Are Never Right: The Woes of Working in Retail

Nicola — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:12:13 +0000

As you may or may not know, I work in a library. All in all, I like the job. I am surrounded by books all day, the staff are really nice, and… on the whole the customers are kind of grand too. But oh. Whilst I spent my years studying for A Levels and eventually my degree I spent five years in retail, and there, I thought I had seen it all. It’s not much, working in a supermarket, but that’s what a majority of students do to get some money on the side. But unless you have worked in retail, you will not understand the variation of people that you meet on the job. I, for one, didn’t know that really stupid people actually existed until I worked in retail.

As I was saying, I thought I had seen it all. Here are some examples:

*Middle-aged Asian man urinates in the middle of an aisle in view of everybody*
Customers and Staff:
Manager: Ever heard of a toilet? Get out.
Asian Man: Eh?
Manager: You just urinated over my freezer cabinets.
Asian Man: I didn’t.
Manager: I just saw you do it.
Asian Man: If I were white you wouldn’t be accusing me of this!
Manager: Yes, I bloody would, because I just saw you do it!
Asian Man: Racist bastard!

Man: Excuse me?
Nicola: Can I help you, sir?
Man: Please. I was wondering if you could explain this to me?
Man: *Points at some POS*
Nicola: *Fails to grasp his meaning* Explain what?
Man: This! This sign says ‘Buy… One… Get… One… Free…’
Nicola: Yes, that is what it says.
Man: Well?
Nicola: Well, what?
Man: What does it mean?
Nicola: What do you mean, what does it mean? It means what it says.
Man: *Stares blankly*
Nicola: *Stares back at man in disbelief*
Nicola: *Resigned* It means that when you buy one of these products, you will be able to get another of the same product, free of charge.
Man: So… if I buy one of these, I get another one for free?
Nicola:

Woman: Do you have any milk out back?
Nicola: I am really sorry, but we don’t.
Woman: I want 4 pint semi-skimmed, do you have any?
Nicola: We don’t have any whatsoever, I’m sorry.
Woman: (In a temper) Aren’t you even going to check?!
Nicola: I’m sorry, madam, but I already know the answer, and don’t want to waste your time checking for something that I know isn’t there. I’m really sorry.
Woman: (huffs)
*Another staff member, James, walks by*
Woman: (to James) Excuse me, do you have any milk out back?
James: I’ll just go check.
Woman: Thank you! (to me) You see, that’s what unlazy staff do!
Nicola: (getting annoyed) Madam, I know for a fact that we have no milk outside. I run this section, I can name every single product, and every last unit I have in my chillers. That staff member who has never worked on chilled in his life, went to check for you because he did not know the answer, but he will come back and he will apologise and tell you that there is no milk outside.
Woman: (sarcastically) Oh really? And if that’s the case, I will apologise!
*James comes back*
James: I’m sorry but we don’t have any milk.
Woman: (quickly, nastily and grudgingly to me) Okay, I’m sorry!
Nicola: No problem.

*An angry man comes back in store with receipt in hand*
Man: Excuse me, you have over charged me!
David: Really? I’m sorry, sir. How so?
Man: These nuggets were “Buy One Get One Free” last week, but I have been charged for both!
David: Well, sir, offers do change, but I’ll get someone to check it out.
*turns out the nuggets are now half price instead of Buy One Get One Free*
David: Ah, it’s okay, sir, the nuggets were half price.
Man: Half price? I want a refund.
David: But you’re getting two for the price of one, anyway…
Man: No, I’m not. Last week, I could buy one, and the other for free, this week, I am being charged for both!
David: But “half price” is essentially the same thing. You still get two products for £2, as you did last week.
Man: Bollocks! Give me a refund!
David: But-
Man: -NOW!

Nicola: Hello, Iceland, North Finchley, this is Nicola speaking, how may I help you?
Customer: Hello, is this Iceland?
Nicola: Yes, it is.
Customer: Is this the North Finchley branch?
Nicola: …
Nicola: Yeah…

*Drunken Man attempts shop lifting and causes general chaos*
Nicola: Could you please, leave?
Drunken Man: How dare you? Do you know who I am?!
Nicola: A thieving, drunken old man?
Drunken Man: (becomes very serious and threatening) You. Never. Say. That. Again. I will get my girls to kill you. They’ll kill you. Do you see this? (he points at some tattoo on his arm)
Nicola: …yeah.
Drunken Man: This signifies my gang. You will die. You do not call me a drunk.
Nicola: Right… Okay…

There are actually tonnes of incidents that happened almost every day, and you come across some very wacky and stupid people, but unfortunately, too much time has gone by, and I do not have that many clear memories to recall. Which is why, with this library job, I am going to try to remember every incident by writing them down! The library is far more interesting, because you tend to get the poorer and more crazy people in, because the library is a public, free service, so everyone is invited! SO, I am going to make a new page dedicated to Library Incidents. The only shame is, that if I started this seven years ago, the retail page would be a mile long, but I guess I have to abandon the retail incidents.

If anyone has some funny retail stories though, feel free to spill.