Melody

Oh, I like :notworthy: - that's the one with the bowing emoticon, right? :banghead: is always handy for the times when the government comes along to explain why slashing arts funding is a good thing. And the one whistling innocently, and the one with the halo... There's also a nice little emoticon offering a flower, which is another way of saying "nice post" and also of softening a critical response. Still don't like the idea of a Dislike button though....

Oh, wonderful. It's about time this happened.

I'm not sure a "disagree" button would be better - it might cause fewer hurt feelings but it would still be a focus of contention. I think, if you want to disagree with someone's post about something, it's more courteous to that person and possibly educational for other members if you post a reply to explain why you're disagreeing. I recently read the thread from a little while ago about whether RB should be putting on more contemporary choreography, and I think a lot of the interest would have been lost if some of the members had just hit the Disagree button and not actually posted.

I've been involved with a lot of forums with very different topics over the years as a moderator, admin, and owner, and I don't think I've ever come across one where the use of the Dislike button didn't cause havoc. It really didn't matter what restrictions were put on it; as soon as someone got a dislike on one of their posts, they got defensive, mistrustful, upset, often left the forum (often after a bunch of drama and accusations), and the whole thing left a bad taste. In some forums the Dislike button was actively used as a bullying weapon while the mods stood by and let it happen; even when it obviously wasn't being used for that purpose, people thought it was, and we used to get furious and/or distraught PMs from members asking the admin team to DO SOMETHING. I particularly remember one smallish forum that was about science and philosophy (where people were presumably trying to let their heads rule their hearts); they felt, despite warnings from more experienced people who'd been there and done that, that a Dislike button would help raise the tone of the discourse, but as soon as one of the admins got a dislike on one of her posts she had a meltdown and threatened to close the forum. The Dislike button disappeared soon after. In just about every case (except for a couple of really vicious forums where the Dislike button was a weapon used to drive away people with contrary views), it was eventually decided to do away with it for the sake of having a functioning and mutually respectful community - often the Like button was done away with as well, for the sake of fairness, but sometimes it was kept because it was seen to be fairly harmless. It didn't matter whether the Dislikes were labelled with the person's name or not, they just caused problems. If the person's name was attached, then it was a good basis for retaliatory action and furious PMs; if it wasn't attached, then people would start guessing who was disliking their posts, and there'd be accusations of anonymous stalking, and the admin and mod team would be called upon constantly to fix things. Honestly, if the problem is that you disagree with the essence of someone's post, this is after all a discussion forum and a respectful dissent in a post is part of what makes a discussion interesting. If you don't think something is on topic, then you can say so or contact a member of the team to move it. Spam can be deleted asap and the spammer banned. If you think someone is being syrupy or curmudgeonly you can say so - but the problem is, a post that seems perfectly OK to most people may well sound syrupy to a curmudgeon and vice versa. At least, if someone keeps getting responses to their posts, from different members, of "that was a bit harsh," they might realize they're coming across a bit strong; if they just get a dislike, they won't know what the problem is (and will quite probably assume that the problem is with the people hitting Dislike). IMO the internet is already fostering intolerance because of the anonymity and the fact that you aren't there in the same room to look someone else in the eye and see what your aggression is doing to them. Being able to casually and anonymously dislike the posts of other people in a community strikes me as another step down that road. I don't care all that much about Like buttons, but Dislike buttons are a rather different animal. OK, sorry, I know this is a bit strong for a newbie, but it's a topic I feel really strongly about. *retires to a corner and waits for all the Dislikes*

I think it's sad that they should even be asking whether children should be taught theatre etiquette. Of course they should be. Kids need to be taught the norms of behaviour in different situations (heck, here's me thinking that this is part of the whole growing-up experience), and a crowded theatre is one of them. If "etiquette" sounds like too elitist a concept these days, it can be presented as simple consideration for others with an appeal to the golden rule: "even if you're bored, you don't want to spoil it for other people, just as you wouldn't want a bored person spoiling something you find interesting." I don't know when it became received wisdom that spending a bit of time feeling bored is totally unacceptable for children. It's part of life, and they need to learn to deal with it sooner or later. We're living in an increasingly overcrowded world, and people need to learn, as young as possible, how to get along. I don't think the theatre is necessarily to blame unless it's deliberately marketing something to children that's patently unsuitable for them. I think a lot of times it's the fault of the accompanying adults who want to see something and either think their little angel will be interested when s/he obviously isn't, or just doesn't want the hassle of paying a babysitter or whatever, and drag the kids along to a piece of entertainment that's too long and aimed at an adult audience. Somehow parents seem to be able to sit through the worst sort of behaviour of their own children without it even registering, and will then blame others who object (having been on the receiving end of that one more than a few times, I still marvel at how things have changed in the couple of hundred years since I was a kid). I think it's also a little sad that things have got to the point where they have to be dumbed-down to appeal to children - that they have to be interactive, they have to appeal to a short attention span, they have to be immediately attractive, etc. I suppose it's the influence of advertising, but really, it's almost insulting to the intelligence of young people that they're not perceived as being able to handle something a bit challenging.

Yes, it was very interesting, although she was rather guarded when talking about her more controversial sisters, understandably. She's been the Dowager Duchess since 2004 but is still quite active by the sound of things. She definitely has the Mitford gift for writing! I've just downloaded The Glitter And The Gold by Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough, onto my Kindle for light relief when the books on war and disease get to be too much. Having finished "To Marry An English Lord" a little while ago (a book about all the American heiresses who married into the British nobility and aristocracy at the turn of the 20th century), I was interested to hear this story from one of the heiresses herself.

That is one of my all-time favourite books. I didn't like Lionheart so much, mostly because I'm not so interested in the earlier Angevin period. But I really think Sharon Kay Penman is one of the best authors of historical novels (along with Susan Higginbotham and Brian Wainwright) if you're interested in the 14th and 15th centuries. I'm always grateful for authors who can make sense of the Wars of the Roses. Thanks for the details, Fiz. I'll definitely have a look for the aspirin and cholera books. Ever since reading Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex, I've found the topic of diseases, cures, and their effects on society to be fascinating. I read a wonderfully gory book about the black death years and years ago while I was recovering from pneumonia but I don't remember many details (just that there are worse things in life than pneumonia!).

Well, in between the bits of nonsense, she's making some good points. I always wondered about the usefulness of sports like hockey and lacrosse in school, because, honestly, how many women will keep that up as a hobby into adulthood? I think the "wisdom" that team games are somehow good because they foster team spirit is questionable - you can foster team spirit with group projects in regular lessons, which seems to be a trend these days; you don't need to send a class of girls out onto a muddy hockey pitch in order to foster team spirit. I mean, not that schools should stop offering hockey and netball, but it'd be nice if there were also options for sport that didn't involve chasing balls round fields. It seems to me that it'd make more sense to emphasise the sort of sports that girls might want to do after leaving school, like tennis or Pilates. And different sorts of dance are a good basis for fitness programmes later in life. Plus, I don't think it hurts to have ballet classified as part of PE in schools, which might help give people the idea that it isn't just a bunch of airy fairy wafting around but is serious physical exercise. That might actually give people more of an appreciation of what it takes to become a professional dancer, which might also help bring some more public support behind vocational ballet training before this government decides it's yet another luxury that regular people can do without.

Just got back a couple of hours ago from seeing the RB Swan Lake movie. SO wonderful, I can't stop smiling - such a lovely evening. It's decades since I've seen RB do the big classics, and it was really, really lovely. Must agree with the critic who said that Zenaida Yanowsky's Odette was more interesting than her Odile; they were so different that Prince Siegfried must have been exceptionally stupid (or bewitched to stupefaction) to not understand that he was being tricked. But his reaction when he realised what had happened was heartbreaking; I don't think I've ever seen a person grow up so fast, from clueless youth to horrified adult in the space of three seconds! Now to work on my husband for a trip back there next month for Sleeping Beauty. I haven't told him yet, but I bought a ticket today along with the Swan Lake one.

Fiz, you've mentioned some really interesting topics in this thread, but could you specify the actual books? Your posts make me want to rush over to Amazon but then I'm not sure what to search for. At the moment I'm reading Roy Hattersley's book on the Dukes of Devonshire, which has finally got me to read Amanda Foreman's "Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire." I've also recently finished Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness series and am collecting her Constable Evans series second-hand at Amazon, having just read the first one. Oh, and I've just finished a fascinating book about geisha, complete with absolutely gorgeous photos. And I'm starting Jeremy Scahill's book "Dirty Wars" which will no doubt be endlessly depressing.

Hi Alison - yes, British expat living in the USA but with relatives in Britain that we keep in close touch with. So my ballet experience is watching the Royal Ballet and Festival Ballet in the 1960s and 1970s, San Francisco Ballet, Oakland, and Smuin in the 1980s to early 2000s, and nothing very much at the moment except on DVD and YouTube. Somehow our trips back to the UK seem to coincide with when the RB is either not there or sold out. Regarding subcontractors - I'd hope that there's someone at the ROH whose job includes keeping tabs on their various contracts and making sure that the other party is doing what the contract states. Otherwise there'd be something illegal going on, especially if a subcontractor takes ROH money to pay wages at the London living wage but doesn't do it.

I heard, in a TV programme about Margot Fonteyn, someone saying that she had such a perfect body for dance that she tended not to get injured. And then there was also the fact that dancers in her day didn't have to manage such extremes of movement that they do nowadays, and I don't think, especially later in her career, that she was doing the range of different types of dance that dancers nowadays are expected to handle simultaneously, which also leads to injury. But I did also read (wish I could remember where) a description of Fonteyn and Nureyev backstage before a performance, both in such bad shape that the author said they looked as though they should be in traction. And then they went out on stage and did a perfect performance. And then no doubt staggered offstage and carried on hobbling around like a pair of geriatrics.

Royal Opera House tweeted that Swan Lake will be shown in the USA on 20 Feb (not 19 Feb) and linked to this page: www.roh.org.uk/showings/swan-lake-live-2012 Now to work on my husband for a lift to the nearest cinema that's showing it, which is bloody miles away.

I've just seen a map of the UK and it looks as though the whole country is covered by this latest storm. I have family in an area that's prone to flooding but so far I'm being told that things aren't as bad as in 2007, so I hope that record isn't broken. In the meantime we're at the front end of what's promised to be about a foot of snow interspersed with freezing rain. Our local power company doesn't seem to be able to get power back on for days after major storms in summer or winter, so I'm hoping the power doesn't go out. But with an ice storm expected sometime tomorrow afternoon in between the two snowstorms, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the power staying on.

Can just hear them now. "It drowned."

I was always amused by a sign on a wire fence round a disused petrol station explaining that "In order to serve you better, this location is closed." This was followed by directions to the next nearest one, which if memory serves was more than 5 miles away. So glad they were trying to serve their customers better. Then there was the wonderful billboard a few Christmases ago, advertising a local jewellery shop: "Ladies, come in any time. Gents, see you on Christmas Eve." Obviously the owner knew a thing or two about the Christmas shopping habits of men and women.

Well, at least the minimum wage in the UK is quite a bit more than in the USA, and there are serious calls for it to be abolished altogether here. Glad to see the workers managed to get their management to agree, although I wonder how long this might have dragged on if not for the BAFTA awards.

Part of the reason that companies outsource to subcontractors is so that they can claim not to be responsible when the workers are treated badly. But it's not as though the companies are at the mercy of the subcontractors - presumably there are subcontractors out there who treat their employees well, or who at least can be persuaded to pay a living wage as part of the contract. When a company is saving money by going through a subcontractor that treats employees so badly, there's very little point in the company trying to distance itself from what's happening, because in a free-market economy there's always a choice. Apparently the ROH has chosen to save money on the backs of the workers, and I don't think many people are being fooled by the "we're not responsible" line.

It is indeed on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4-q6N3Ib1M

Well, it is the Daily Mail...

That article struck a chord with me too, especially this paragraph: "They're so lovely," Young sighs after the class. "And their legs go far higher than ours ever did. All this, though…" And here she strikes an attitude, the position pliant and alive, her arms framing her face with subtle épaulement. "All this is gone." But if her pupils go for eye-catching hyperextensions and "six-o'clock arabesques" rather than nuance and refinement, it's perhaps because they know that in an audition they have to grab a director's attention fast. In a mercilessly unforgiving milieu, their instincts are fine-tuned for survival. When one of the RBS teachers is saying that what used to be a vital part of training for British dancers is being jettisoned in favour of the current trend toward more and more acrobatic dancing, then I think Luke Jennings is right to wonder what this means for the identity of British ballet and the prospects for British trainees.

My grandmother took me to Festival Ballet's Nutcracker when I was about 5. My parents didn't like ballet so I had to depend on my grandmother taking me when I was a kid and we visited her in London. I did manage to see Swan Lake with my dad (mother refused to go because she thought Tchaikovsky was beneath her dignity), and La Fille Mal Gardee a couple of times, when Sadlers Wells came to our town. I always wanted to see Giselle but somehow it was always Fille that we got tickets for.

Well, yes, but this is also partly the point I was trying to make. They get the kids in the lower school from year 7 or whatever and they give them this slow, careful, unflashy training. And then they go out to all the international ballet competitions, which don't tend to include British dancers all that much because of the unflashy training, and they hand out scholarships to some of the foreign dancers to spend a year or two at the Upper School before they go into the company with the prospect of eventually being soloists or principals. Whereas the British kids seem to mostly be on track for the corps, or on track for being assessed out of school to make room for the Asian and South American prodigies. I seriously doubt that being British is the problem for these kids - it's not as though young Brits aren't on the fast track to stardom in some of the other arts. It just seems unfair to the kids, and the taxpayers who subsidise their vocational education, that the very school that's teaching them to be low-key from the ages of 11 to 15 or 16 is then salivating at the prospect of glitzy performers from the international competitions, which the British kids aren't being prepared for.

Looking at some of her other interviews (at least as many as I could stand without getting a sugar overdose), she seems to do celebrity interviews and it doesn't seem to matter what sort of celebrities they are. So she very probably doesn't know much if anything about ballet, but that doesn't seem to have been the point of the interview anyway. The whole interview seemed like a bit of a waste of space - Daily Mail readers who aren't into ballet will probably have never heard of the guy, and the ones who are into ballet won't find anything interesting in the interview, other than the fact that he seems to get embarrassed by interviewers who only want to talk about sex.

It worked! Thanks so much. I've tried it before and just got an x. Not sure what made the difference this time but that's fine. OK, you can go back to Gravatar now...(nice poodle, btw ).