At least they got the right school...

And a massive pat on the back to all those musicians and arts administrators enabling him to be "working as hard as ever". You're the real heroes. So brave and principled. Don't forget your gumshields.

Yes, happy birthday to the esteemed conductor, scholar, landowner, workplace bully and all-England, four-dimensional, tungsten-tipped c**t. Don't you go dying on me just yet, big guy. I'm saving up for a parade float and a skywriter.

"rebirth" (again) = I'm not dead! I feel happy!

"an electric, immediate experience" = like lobbing a toaster into SeaWorld

"make opera feel urgent, contemporary and alive for everyone" = some people assume they won't like opera, and they're right. It's rubbish. So we're putting a stop to it.

"a collective creative force with renewed energy" = everyone is tired, worried and pissed off

"deeply rooted in people and place" = this means less than nothing, but it's the sort of garbage that might get us another 50p from the Arts Council

"a new programming strand for chamber-scale work" = we would like to use (what's left of) our full-time, full-size orchestra and chorus as little as possible, thus making it easier to justify getting rid of them entirely in the near future

Let's stick Welsh National Opera's new season announcement through the ArtsSpeak Bullshit Translator®, because it's a belter...

"bold new era" / "new chapter" = no money

"powerful rebirth" = on life support

"progressive" = part-time

"reimagined" / "reshaped" = barely an opera company any more

Easily the worst thing to ever happen there.

No, don't. Don't give those bastards an inch.

Ah thanks. I've decided to take all the credit. All of it. Every last crumb.

The Naked Week - Series 4 - Swearing, Steeplechase and Strikes - BBC Sounds Following Trump's tirade, The Naked Week team bleep the hell out of the bleeping news.

#TheNakedWeek clears off out of it for the summer with some rule-abiding foul-mouthery and some stuff that will probably make you quite angry, but at least that proves you're not *completely* dead inside. Shows what you know, sixth different therapist this year. 📻

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

A few doors down is The Crown, a Grade II listed pub dubbed "the birthplace of heavy metal", one of the UK's most historically important music venues... closed in 2014 by a company called Toyoko Inn, who also definitely are not waiting for it to very accidentally catch fire and have to be torn down.

The first thing people see when they emerge from Birmingham New Street station is a cultural jewel, the UK's oldest working cinema... mothballed for over 2 years by a company called Glenbrook Property, who definitely are not waiting for it to very accidentally catch fire and have to be torn down.

Your annual reminder that it's pronounced "Sinjin" Passion.

Oh I do love an original idea. Especially when it's so really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good. Just really good. Really, really good. So great. Really, really great. Brilliant, even. Brilliant and great and good. Well done, broadcasting. You guys are amazing. 📻

The Naked Week - Series 4 - Who ya gonna call...? (Clue: It's Donald Trump) - BBC Sounds Who ya gonna call...? (Clue: it's Donald Trump)

#TheNakedWeek continues at pace. It's a sort of Reithian highway to hell, or "That's Life with nonce jokes", as one commenter so helpfully put it. Give it a listen. Maybe it'll drown out the noise of your appalling family. 📻
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Hire Sarah, for gawd's sake. She is the Funniest Person There Is®.

"Ultimate Calm"

The Naked Week - Series 4 - War, Law, and Operation Amol Rajan - BBC Sounds We go to war, flout the law, and launch Operation Amol Rajan.

#TheNakedWeek has returned to cover the series finale of civilisation (nice idea, too many kinks*, not enough irons**). Episode 1 includes journalism, jokes and some unusual shouting. 📻

*bombs
**not bellends

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

culture

This was four years after Andy Williams had mooned his last river.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA.

Terrible look for the paedophile community. Hard to see them recovering from this.

Simon Heffer has written his classical music article again.

ODE TO A RESTAURANT CHAIN

Frankie & Benny's
How I wonder
Why you are

What sustains you?
It can't be
The food

You should be dead
Dead, like your founders:
General Franco and
Benito Mussolini

100* for György Kurtág. Terrific knock by the young man. A less half-arsed body of work you would struggle to find. Drool reverentially before Stele ⬇️ - the greatest piece of orchestration since Australopithecus first picked up a discarded femur and twanged it on the side of a desk.

A tesseract of incoherent, patronising bilge. "People wrongly think that classical music is elitist. And they're right; it totally is, as proved by us saying so. TikTok! Mixtapes! Audiences are simultaneously up, down and dead. Be younger, you old f**ks! Your money is rusty and not on Instagram."

Tell me again what sort of "glorious, uplifting music is guaranteed to propel me through the weekend," Radio 3. Go on. I f***ing double-dare you. Some of us suckers have to work weekends, so unless I can pay my council tax with John Wilson's bang-average recording of Rach 2, pipe the flip down.

Simon Heffer: The Human Organ Symphony®. Which should absolutely be the title of his Vegas residency. Please, the Mob, give Simon Heffer a Vegas residency. One with lots of punctuation and chainsaws.

So is committing insurance fraud* but it doesn't mean anyone should do it.

*I've been told