Melody

I think "ballerina" makes more sense when used to describe a professional female ballet dancer as opposed to someone doing ballet for a hobby, even at a fairly high level of performance. For a student to refer to herself as a ballerina is a bit pathetic but I suppose it does show ambition. As for "prima ballerina," I'd assume maybe that would most sensibly apply to current or former principals at professional ballet companies. Wikipedia (not the greatest source, I know, but I didn't get anywhere with Britannica or the OED) lists 12 assolutas but doesn't really go into detail about how the title is bestowed - there doesn't seem to be a recognised mechanism, which might be why there aren't any modern assolutas. If governments got into the act, they'd be sprouting like weeds. As for contemporary ballerinas who deserve the assoluta title, I've seen Uliana Lopatkina mentioned in that context more than once.

Well, my last word, speaking as a scientist married to a scientist engaged in relevant research, is that scientifically (as opposed to politically), global warming isn't at all controversial, and the consequences (unintended or otherwise) of doing nothing about it are going to be pretty dire. So even though people may laugh at us for doing so, we're happily switching all our light bulbs to LEDs and trying to conserve where we can.

I'm not so sure that farmers in the Central Valley wouldn't irrigate in a thoughtless manner. At least when we lived there, water was heavily subsidized for farmers (unlike for homeowners), and all sorts of water-intensive crops were being grown in what was basically a semi-arid climate. I think they were even growing rice in California at one time, which is insane in a country that also includes places like Louisiana. If you water in the early afternoon by spraying the tops of the plants from those overhead sprayer thingies, you're going to lose a lot of the water to evaporation. Which isn't that big a deal, I suppose, if the water isn't costing you all that much. It was just very frustrating to see it happening when we were under stringent water rationing at home (which tended to happen a lot more in northern California than Southern California when we lived there, although that might have changed now). Certainly watering at night isn't optimal, but they could at least take a break between midday and 2 pm, give or take; the nights are fairly short in summer, so they can start pretty early. I think a lot of the problem was pretty much what we're seeing now with the reluctance to do anything about global warming - it's a medium- to long-term problem so there's no incentive to do anything in the short term, especially if it costs money to do it. Not sure there are any crops that can't handle drip irrigation but there may be. Generally we kept being told in the nurseries near where we lived that in the sunny California climate, it was better to use drip irrigation because the water was available for the roots for longer and it was bad for the plants to get too much water on the leaves. The basic problem with drip irrigation, we found, was that the first you knew of a break in the line was when the plants downstream started dying. I know you can grow grapes with drip irrigation and I think that's one of the major crops in the Central Valley, at least the southern end. If the drought out there keeps going, they'll sooner or later have to rethink the business-as-usual mentality, and destroying the fish habitats in the Delta isn't going to make that big a difference to the southern California agribusiness concerns. As far as the snowpack is concerned - that's going to become a real problem in the next few decades if things carry on as they've been doing and the snowpack keeps decreasing. The San Francisco Bay Area gets most of its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierras, and a major long-term shortfall in the Sierra snowpack is going to be really problematic. Sooner or later I assume coastal California will have to resort to desalination to make up the deficit. Then again, there are people all round the world whose major water supply is under threat from retreating and melting glaciers and from dwindling snowpacks. That's bound to lead to conflict, especially if the countries causing most of the global warming aren't the ones that'll suffer the greatest consequences.

Gosh, a Telegraph article that actually acknowledges that global warming is happening. Must be a first... It was really frustrating when we lived in California and drove up and down Highway 5 a few times - not only were there miles and miles and miles of fields growing water-intensive crops like cotton and sorghum (and also apparently rice although I don't remember actually seeing them) but also being watered by automatic overhead sprinklers in the heat of early afternoon. And the canals taking water from northern California to the drier south, open to the elements, not with the water run through pipes, meaning that a lot of it was just evaporating off before it ever reached its destination. Sooner or later they're going to have to start getting real about what they can grow in the Central Valley and how they water it.

We had a CFL bulb explode a couple of years ago (that was fun...), but so far the LEDs seem to act like ordinary bulbs. There were some LEDs already installed when we bought this house nearly 10 years ago and we haven't had to replace any of them yet.

According to Snopes, the problems with breakage of CFL bulbs containing mercury have been considerably overstated, if that's any consolation: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp We're replacing our regular light bulbs with LED bulbs rather than CFL ones. It's expensive, but at least they don't need to be replaced every five minutes like regular bulbs. I know there are drawbacks with many of the alternative-energy sources, but the long-term drawbacks of not switching are likely to be a lot worse. I know windmills are causing problems for birds, but then so are oil spills (and runoff from mines cause problems for fish as well as birds that eat them). As long as humans need energy, nothing is going to be without some effects on the environment; it's just that the effects of business as usual are liable to be pretty awful in the medium to long term. And at least electricity-powered and hybrid cars get much better mileage than the petrol-fuelled ones, which hopefully is less of an overall drain on the environment. Taxi - sounds as though your boss should have consulted you before going ahead with that printer purchase! Men can be so dangerous sometimes when it comes to getting seduced by fancy electronics and forgetting about the basic practicalities.

That's what I was wondering, looking at the timing. I hope we're not seeing the date of her retirement performance there, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Not just that Widow Simone is a glamorous role but also that Widow Simone is the start of the ballet! Not surprising, I suppose, given the man's ego.

I remember a time when that music was actually part of the action - when they had a proper interval between Acts 2 and 3, and Act 3 started with a grand entrance to that grand music. I suppose with this need to wind up performances by a particular time they can't have a full interval between the two acts any more, but it does seem like a shame when people treat that lovely march like background noise.

I must admit that she was the reason my interest in ballet waned for several years. I got so fed up of hearing about Darcey Bussell, the great ballerina who was sooooo good that she could have been American, that here was someone who at last was going to jolt the Royal Ballet out of its old-fashioned rut and bring it up to date like an American company, that now we were finally going to ditch that dreadful Ashton because now we were able to do Balanchine and other lovely American stuff. This seemed to be the Tony Blair era where everything traditionally British was fusty and old-fashioned while everything American was sparkly new and exciting and wonderful, and Darcey Bussell happened to fit the spirit of the age. She always struck me as the Princess Diana of ballet and she always struck me as rather overrated (plus I've never been that thrilled with self-promotion and celebrity). There's a lot more to ballet than being exciting and glitzy, and I think we're still seeing the effects of this fixation on flashy technique rather than artistry.

That's exactly why I waited till I could pick up a second-hand copy for peanuts. I'd heard enough about this book to be curious but not enough to want to pay real money for it. Glad I didn't. So far there's nothing I didn't already know and a bunch of amateur medical stuff. To do her justice, she did pour some cold water on the "Wallis learned all these sexual techniques in Chinese brothels" stuff as well as on the accusation that Wallis was two-timing (guess I should say three-timing) Ernest and Edward with a car salesman. So not a total loss.

Just started reading That Woman, a biography of the Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba. So far I've learned that Wallis had (well, must have had, or, at least that is, possibly might have had) some version of DSD (disorder of sex development), meaning that she wasn't entirely female in one form or another, and that Edward had (or possibly had, or at least seemed to have had) Asperger's syndrome. All of which is stated fairly definitively but with a throwaway comment along the lines of "of course this is just speculation." Apparently this author is a bit of an amateur doctor. I hope she doesn't try diagnosing her own family with the same degree of confidence that she's doing to poor Wallis and Edward. Must say I liked Hugo Vickers' bio better.

Thanks!

Another quote in response ... Agreed. In addition, ..... the RB has a very rich rep--let's see it! ---------------- I, myself, can't but help feel that there may be RB supporters (I use the word in reference to 'interest') in Cardiff and/or Preston, say, --- or Penzance --- who might well feel the same way. This is especially true as I believe all four items have been previously screened. That same can't be said of the full Bolshoi seasons which often have more than one cinema release premiere. Meunier, where are you getting these quotes from? As an RB follower who lives in the USA, I'd be interested in having a look at the site where you found them.

There's a YouTube preview of the season. Looks good, but I'm surprised they're bringing Swan Lake and Month in the Country back so soon after the last performances. Then again, any time the Royal does Ashton is a matter for celebration.

Sheila's don't seem to be that expensive.

Helpful sign on a bag of frozen edamame: "Allergy warning! Contains soy!" Well, yes, edamame actually are soybeans, I think I knew that they'd contain soy. Honestly...

Well, spoke too soon. The Winter's Tale listing has disappeared from the cinema where I watched Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and doesn't seem to be listed anywhere in the USA. I wonder if it's because the National Ballet of Canada has the rights to US performances, even though this isn't a live performance (they arrive in cinemas over here the day after being shown in the UK). Back in February when I saw Swan Lake, Winter's Tale was listed for April, but when I went there for Sleeping Beauty a couple of weeks ago it was no longer showing, and it isn't listed on the Fathom Events website.

Well, it's nice to hear that the audience wasn't taking it out on her, at any rate. Glad to hear she did a good job.

Everything's being dumbed down these days and style is valued over substance in the media just about everywhere you look. I was looking at some of the comments about the ROH Swan Lake cinecast in the USA on the Fathom Events website, and just about all the comments were variations on the theme of "where was Darcey? I didn't like it without Darcey hosting during the intervals." Yanowsky and Kish weren't mentioned once, it was just "where's Darcey?" A perfect example of where the celebrity culture's landed us. Maybe the overlords of these programmes think that a focus on intelligence and depth (especially if not coupled with youth and beauty) would be too intimidating.

Doesn't that ballet have quite a bit of pointe work for the men? That would be unfamiliar and possibly lead to injury.

When that level of injury has happened in the past, it seems to have been put down to something systemic in the repertoire or the training. I wonder what the problem is this time around. Or does normal wear and tear really cause this much carnage?

Not sure if you were getting that impression from my post, but all I said was that I wasn't thrilled by his choice of neckwear! I do agree with Odyssey, though, that a less awkward interviewer would probably have helped him. I think the contrast between Darcey Bussell's rather strained presenting and interviewing style and the intelligence and fluency of Tamara Rojo in Good Swan, Bad Swan was rather painfully obvious. But since she's such a big name and is young(ish) and good looking, I'm sure she'll be the go-to person for this sort of thing rather than someone older like Lynn Seymour.

Just picked up a discounted copy of Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan at the bookstore in the mall last evening when I was there to watch the RB Sleeping Beauty at the cinema. The setting at the Paris Opera ballet sounded very appealing, although I've got such a huge backlog of unread books that I'm not sure when I'll get round to it.

Just got back from seeing it. Very enjoyable, and some applause from the cinema audience to go along with the applause from the live audience. My least favourite part of it was Darcey Bussell, who sounded as though she was reading from a script, and Kevin O'Hare's taste in ties.