Gala Flamenca in Hong Kong 2015 (星耀佛蘭明高)

A small silent stage in utter darkness. Suddenly one hears a deep voice singing, almost crying, in barely recognizable Spanish about the pains, the sorrows and the feeling of impotence experienced by the people living at the margins of society in their harsh life. The stage lights up and reveals the form of a man. He is a flamenco cantante (singer) singing a cante jondo (deep song). Soon he is joined by other singers, male and female, two guitarists, a violin player, a cajon (improvised hand drum) player and singers cum dancers. They are the members of a group of very talented flamenco artists who combine tradition with innovation, called the "Flamenco Festival", led by 53-year-old but wonderfully charming Antonio Canales, from the home of flamenco music, Andalucia in southern Spain.

A Sound not of this World (不屬這世界的聲音)

The year of the horse in Hong Kong just passed. It was a year full of noise, a year of quarrel, a year of strife. A new year has just begun. I want to welcome it not with firecrackers. They're banned any way, even if I had wanted to rely them to start off the new year. I want to welcome it with some music. It's music of an artist whose sound struck me as out of this world when I first heard it many many years ago in a small alternative CD shop right in the heart of Central close to the then Central Market in a stroll I used to do every weekday after my simple lunch. The music is that of an artist who has had a most unusual career. It's the music of Ray Lynch.

Language Difficulties (語言障礙)

Language can sometimes be a problem for foreigners,especially in their daily life. Not infrequently they can be the cause of some unexpected fun. What do I mean?

A German woman married an American gentleman in New York and although the  poor lady was not very proficient in English, she somehow managed to communicate quite well with her husband, with the assistance of body language.

But she had a real problem  whenever she had to shop for groceries when the maid was off. 

Planet Earth in Concert(地球行星音樂會)

The BBC and the National Geographic are two of the greatest producers of quality documentaries on nature and scientific discovery. Last night we had the chance to see excerpts of the BBC series Planet Earth to the sound of live music created specially for by the award winning composer  George Fenton (b 1950) and performed for us by the HKPO under the guest baton of Benjamin Northey and whenever there are vocal parts, they are performed by the wonderful voice of Haley Glennie-Smith. It was an indescribably enjoyable to experience one spectacular image after another of life on planet earth in high definition on the screen suspended over the stage. As there were no verbal explanation in the excerpts shown, originally done by the inimitable David Attenborough, the conductor introduced the various episodes to us before he began the music, adding a kind of intimacy to the music which it would not otherwise have. 

The first episode was about the creation of the moon and the inclination of the earth's axis after the earth was hit by a meteor the size of Mars.

Saturday Fun (星期六趣味)

Mexican maids, often working as illegal immigrants, are often much sought after. They are usually young, spontaneous, easy to get along with and often quite obliging and would agree to take on work above and beyond the call of duty, whether or not they are hardworking or always efficient sometimes may not really be that important to their employers. Why. Don't ask me. Find out.

A Mexican maid asked for a pay increase from her boss.

The boss's wife was none too happy about this and decided to talk to her to find out why.  She asked: "Now Maria, what's all this fuss about a pay increase?"

Maria: "Well, Señora, there are tree reasons why I wanna increaze."

"The first is that I iron better than you."

Wife: "Who said you iron better than me?"

Maria: "Jor huzban he say so."

Wife: "Oh yeah?"

Maria: "The second reason eez that I am a better cook than you."

Wife: "Nonsense, who said you were a better cook than me?"

Maria: "Jor hozban did."

Wife, increasingly agitated: "Oh he did, did he?"

Maria: "The third reason is that I am better at sex than you in the bed."

Wife, really boiling now and through gritted teeth: "And did my husband say that as well?"

Maria: "No Señora....the gardener did."

Wife: "So, how much do you want?"

Have a nice weekend.

    

From Bayerischen Staatoper to Broadway(由德國巴伐利亞國家歌劇院至百老)

Wagner was a perfectionist: he wanted a theatre specially built to his specifications : the Bayerischen Staatoper. Broadway theatres, however, are much more flexible because Broadway musicals are supposed to be pure "entertainment". Their style is much freer and much less stilted. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Broadway productions are any less enjoyable. Last Saturday, we had a Filipino brother and sister team from America who gave us a taste of their own version of Broadway classics: Lea Salonga, singer and Gerard Salonga, conductor.

We had quite a collection of different numbers from various composers in the first half of the concert:  Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)'s Overture ( Symphonic Broadway), Something Coming (West Side Story). Ennio Morricone (b 1928)'s Remember (Cinema Paradiso), Richard Rodger and Lorenz Hart's My Romance (Jumbo) Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez's Let it Go (Frozen) Sara Bareille (b. 1979) 's Brave, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly (b. 1960)'s True Colors; Rodger and Hammerstein's I Enjoy Being a Girl (Flower Drum Song), Claude-Michel Schönberg (b 1944) and Alain Boublil's  I'd Give my Life for you and Too Much for One Heart (Miss Saigon).

Van Zweden's Das Rheingold (梵志登之萊茵的黃金)

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) has always been a controversial figure. At the beginning of his writing career, the no less controversial German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) praised Wagner in his early work "The Birth of Tragedy of the Spirit of Music" (1872) as the greatest German artist because of Wagner's adoption of what Nietzsche thought of as the Dionysian ethic of abandon but when Wagner began to turn to Christian appeasement later, Nietzsche reversed his opinion of his youthful idol in his later work "The Case of Wagner" (1888) where he even questioned if Wagner was human at all: " Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches--he has made music sick." . Whatever the truth may be, we had a sample of Wagner's work in the concert I heard just before my trip to Huang Shan. Wagner was certainly ambitious: he wished to combine all the arts into a single "mega-art": the theatrical and operatic musical drama. To give a sample of one of Wagner's most impressive "operas": Das Rheingold ( which in fact forms part of a much larger oeuvre of 4 parts collectively called "Der Ring des Niebelungen"), Van Zweden managed to assemble an impressive coterie of world class operatic singers, including Matthias Goerne (as Wotan, chief of the gods), Michelle de Young (as Fricka Goddess of Marriage and Fidelity), Anna Samuil (as Freia, goddess of youth and love), Kim Begley (as Loge, the god of fire), Charles Reid( as Froh, the god of light), Oleksandr Pushniak (as Donner, the god of thunder and lightning), David Cangelosi (as Mime, one of the dwarfs of Niebelung) Deborah Humble (as Erda, the goddess of earth and wisdom), Peter Sidhom (as Alberich, the chief of the Niebelung dwarfs), Kwangchul Youn (as Fasolt one of the two giants who helped Wotan build Valhalla, his dream palace over the Rhine) Stephen Milling (as Fafner, the other giant who helped built Wotan's palace), Eri Nakamura (as Woglinde, one of the three guardians of the Rheingold), Aurhelia Varak (as Wellgunde, Woglinde's sister and another of the Rheingold guardians) and Hermine Haselböck (as Flossilde, the third such).

杭州式週末笑話

剛從浙江及安徽小旅回來 , 天氣既濕且冷不在話下, 還惹來滿肚子的<氣>, 挺不舒服。 為何會無端端的弄得這麽糟糕!!!??? 百思不得其解, 但不服氣, 一定要將這讓我折磨多日的<問題>作一終極式的<解决>。
最後, 還是不得不低頭求救於巳成為現代人不可或缺的網上<天書>, 才<解决>了多日的<懸疑>及<憋氣> , 找出罪魁禍首和多天折騰我肚皮的元凶及幫凶。 原來<問題>的<癥結>是早午晚都以不同形式及數量但必然出現在每頓飯中的豆類食物: 豆漿 , 豆腐 , 豆腐卜 , 腐皮 , 腐竹 , 枝竹 , 腐乳 ,豆豉 , 麪豉 , 麪醬 , 豆板醬及各式各樣的黑豆 , 青豆, 黃豆, 扁豆, 花生 , 大豆芽 等等! 所以到了現在才能對症下藥。 是消消氣的時候了!

1.

她：老公，你啥時光落班啦？
我：子啥啦？
她：我飯燒好的，等你回來吃愛.
我：真當地啊？ 個我馬上打的回來.
她：快一點哦
我：有數，有數.
她：不古表忘記到菜場裡帶點菜
我：！ ！ ！ ！ ！ ！

2

她：老公啊，我們啥時光搬新房子啦？
我：馬上，馬上.
她：個你啥時光七買啦？
我：我們窩裡個鈔票不是歸你管地嗎？
她：恩，是地
我：個我們賊了多少的啦？
她：你北我皮夾兒拿古來.
我：子啥？
她：釀我數數看.
我：1 , 2, 3, 4 ....183！ 183...183..

3

她：老公啊，再古兩天就是我們個結婚紀念日的
我：哦，哦
她：個你送啥個禮物北我啦？
我：我啊沒想好類
她：個你就北我鈔票吧
我：太庸俗了吧
她：鬧，禮物我自家買好的類
我：啊？
她：前兩天銀泰里打折，我實在熬不牢
我：183 183.

4

她：老公，我們生個毛毛頭好不好？
我：當然好地鬧，我老早想當爸爸的類
她：我毛歡喜跟毛毛頭搞搞兒類
我：但是我怕你管起來太個辛苦的
她：個我負責搞，你負責管好的
我：昏倒

5

她：老公，我明天要出差七的
我：真當地啊？
她：騙你釀我變成一付蔥包鬼兒，滴鹵掛醬沒身材
我：奇怪的，你個文秘有啥個差好出地？
她：大概領導要重用我的吧?
我：領導有沒說為啥要派你出差捏？
她：他說我每個月地電話費比人家跑業務地差旅費阿要多.

6

她：老公，我想讀夜校學英語七.
我：哦她：個你支不支持我啦？
我：支持地，支持地.
她：你認為我接個學好個個英語啦？
我：學語言最好有環境，比如英語角啦.
她：個你把三年地學費加接我回家的打的鈔票都北我
我：子啥？
她：釀我到英國七盪一圈鬧
我：……

7

我：老婆，有種事體要看得開，闢如當闢如.
她：我是蠻想得開地愛
我：沒的就沒的，古七就古七的.
她：你拉沃啥西啦？ 越聽越糊塗的.
我：鬧，我昨天打電話北你個時光，聽到你說：我地投資接個都沒的.
她：啊？ ！ 我昨天拉琴琴窩裡抄麻將，頭子跌了地高頭秦不著的愛.

8

她：老公，明遭我要七開初中同學會的
我：哦她：我穿哪件衣裳七啦？
我：隨便，隨便
她：到底哪件好啦？
我：都好，都好
她：快沃愛，要不然吃頭磅的噢
我：個你穿老底子個校服七好的
她：嗚嗚嗚...我就曉得還是表北老早我們付班長歡喜我地事體告訴你好，你今糟來報仇的
我：？ ? ?

9

她：老公，個里好稱體重地鬧.
我：哦
她：釀我稱一個鬧
我：窩裡不是地稱，磅稱，電子稱有好幾隻拉東.
她：我歡喜，我歡喜.
我：哦
她：老公，你七秦秦看個里最近地公共廁所拉哪裡
我：哦，啊？ 子啥啦？
她：我要先七上趟廁所再迴轉來稱，要不然不准地！
我：……


10.  必剩塊

她：老公，我發覺老外都毛聰明類
我：哦
她：我好崇拜他們哦.
我：你想離婚啊？
她：哪裡啦，我發覺他們取地名字都毛髮厭類
我：我沒覺得
她：個是你木鬧，闢如肯德基就是啃的雞.
我 (真當地鬧)
她：星巴客啊好翻成緊巴客，噶貴地咖啡還要自己動手拿來拿去
我：個必勝客捏？
她：個個最貼切的，我每次七吃地時光最後必定剩落一塊.

11. 近視眼動手術

我：老婆
她：叫了不夠親熱
我：老婆!
她：恩，個次叫了啊差番不多，子啥啦，老公~
我：我想問你借點鈔票好不好啦？
她：想藉多少啦？
我：七千塊
她：啥西？ 噶西多！ 你二奶要打胎啊？
我：放心，我秦二奶肯定會秦一個倒貼地
她：個麼派啥用場啦？
我：鬧，我個段時光上網上了結棍，眼睛毛近的，想七動個手術
她：你活該啦我：個你快借北我鬧
她：哎，悔氣，拿去吧，哪個叫我是你老婆啦
我：接個只有三千五？
她：哼，哪個叫你每次吃飯個時光一隻眼睛拉看我，一隻眼睛又七盯另外個姑娘兒！
我：....

12.

她：老公，今遭我太晦的
我：接個的
她：今遭北老闆闢頭闢腦個罵了一頓
我：為啥啦
她：今遭我到老闆辦公室裡，老闆剛剛拉揩手，個時光他手機響的
我：哦
她：他叫我幫他接一個，但是信號不是毛好
我：哦
她：我就听到電話里個老郭用普通話語問
我：你有做​​雞嗎？ 他罵我是雞愛
我：啊？ 個你捏？
她：我就罵他六兒，流氓的鬧趾
我：結果捏？
她：原來他是老闆個朋友。 拉問我旁邊有沒有座機.



13  細悶毒淫

我：老婆，奧少古來看
她：啥西啦.
我：高頭有人沃我們杭州話語是垃圾鬧.
她：啊？ 個啊了得，釀我來仔細瞄一瞄
我：你看鬧
她：哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈~
我：你笑啥西啦？
她：你看看他個名字鬧，西門獨行，哈哈哈哈~~
我：很好笑嗎？
她：是地鬧，我讀起來是細悶毒淫愛
我：接個解釋解釋啦
她：東西細，心裡就苦悶，嘴巴高頭就陰毒，行動高頭就淫蕩的鬧!
我：哈哈哈哈，高手高手.