Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Richard Clayderman

The World Famous Peace Hotel Jazz Band (di Shanghai, N.d.R.) was out for the
evening, but a deputy band was playing in their place. The promise is that
this is one of the only places in the world where you will still hear the
music of the Thirties played as it was played, where it was played. Maybe
the World Famous combo keeps the promise, but their deputies did not. They
banged their way through endless repetitions of "Edelweiss", "Greensleeves",
and "Auld Lang Syne", interspersed with the occasional bash at "New York,
New York", "Chicago", and "I left my heart in San Francisco."
There were two odd things about this. First of all, this wasn't just for the
tourists. This was the music we heard everywhere in China, particularly the
first three titles: on the radio, in shops, in taxis, in trains, in the
great ferries that steam continually up and down the Yangtze. Usually it was
played by Richard Clayderman. For anyone who has ever wondered who in the
world buys Richard Clayderman records, it's the Chinese, and there are a
billion of them.
Douglas Adams, da "Last chance to see", 1990
Ciao
Anna

 Douglas Adams, da "Last chance to see", 1990
Dear Lady Ann,
Only to say your post brought a smile to the undersigned's face, having been
involved in promoting one of Monsieur Clayderman's concerts in Hong Kong in
a previous life. It was quite a revelation to see:
a) just how popular he really is among the Chinese - they were able without
hesitation to name all his albums and recite from memory the running order
of the tracks from each one and
b) the cream of Hong Kong society, donned out in minks (and I would remind
you I am speaking of a city in the tropics) and baubles equal to the GNP of
many Asian cities, (subtlety not being a strong point of the Chinese) go
absolutely ga-ga over this rather shy and unassuming young man who was
barely able to fend off the many almost indecent proposals being thrown at
him from all sides.
If only for having brought this all back to mind, thank you for your post.
--
I remain, as always,
Bambi
dtb

 a previous life...
My turn to say thank you. I must confess that, in posting the passage, I
hoped you would have a story to share from one of your fabulous previous
lives!
I'll add a few more lines for... political correctness:
------------
...that music was clearly complete foreigner to them [...] Every extempore
flourish the trumpeter added, every extra fill on the drums, were alla
crashingly and horribly wrong. I suppose that Indians must have felt this
hearing George Harrison playing the sitar in the Sixties, but then, after a
brief indulgence, so did everybody else; clumsy replications of Indian music
never supplanted the popular music of the West. When the Chinese listened
avidly to mangled renditions of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Little Brown Jug",
they were obviously hearing something very different than what I was hearing
and I couldn't work out what it was...
Douglas Adams
------------
Ciao
Anna

 and I couldn't work out what it was...
Dear Lady Ann,
Picture this (cfr: Sophia 'The Golden Girls').
You have decided that it is time to  get back in touch with your 'softer'
side. You embark to the somewhat murky depths of Chatham Road, purchase a
ticket for the one-day only screening of Love Story. You sit through nigh on
ninety minutes of pathos, violin music and saccharine sop. Your eyes try
vainly to make sense of the images barely visible through the smoke-filled
haze of the packed theatre, your ears having long given up trying to
distinguish between the dialogue, the violin music, the incessant and
multitudinous cacophony of mobile phones going off around you in every
direction (not to mention the all-too-familiar guttural sound of a throat
being cleared for the umpteenth time).
The scene is set. Our heroine is in the throes of dying. The theatre becomes
deathly quiet - in keeping with the celluloid images on the screen. All
Western females in the audience have long since extracted their hankies and
tissues in preparation and anticipation for a good cry they've come
for...the camera pans in for a close up...the soundtrack is stilled...and
suddenly........
 uproarious hoots of laughter tear through the air, followed by guffaws and
giggles from the more restrained among the audience. Hearty belly-laughs
which seem to last an ungodly length of time.....
It is at this time that one realises, as Douglas Adams has noted, that what
you are hearing and what you are seeing are quite obviously something very
different from what the majority is hearing.
Nostalgia? Probably.


 for...the camera pans in for a close up...the soundtrack is stilled...and
Excuse me, Bambi, but since this is a group interested in language: a camera
does not pan for a closeup, it either tracks or zooms depending on whether the
entire camera is moved or the lens is extended.
Ciao,
Ron
USA

 wrote in message
90ba92$jbch$1...@ID-55125.news.dfncis.de...

Dear Ron,
'Where do I begin....'
....to  apologise should I have caused any confusion, especially because, as
you say, this is a group interested in the English language and I thank you
for your exactness. Caught up as I was in nostalgic remembrances, I
carelessly used the wrong term.
