World AIDS Day: a different take from Will Nutland

Read this in the New Statesman:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/12/hiv-world-gay-red-health-usual

Dante night by night

A new project: to read a canto a night from Dante's Divine Comedy. The edition: Robert Durling's OUP three volume, dual language version with end notes that inform rather than patronise. Best read sotto voce I find rather than silently. Letting the images created by Dante, augmented by Botticelli's, merge in the hypnogogic slide into the unconscious. Then see what happens......

This week's Thursday lunchtime concert in Leicester

One of Leicester's better kept secrets is the cycle of fortnightly Thursday lunchtime concerts held between October and April. The setting, a gallery in the New Walk Museum, is an ideal size and acoustic for small scale musical performances. The concerts are put together by Nicholas Daniel and he talent spots some of the best young musicians, nationally and internationally, who are clearly going to be the stars of the future. The audience is large, knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Increasingly, there is a queue for returns. The draw backs? To fit in the audience the seats are cramped and I find the paintings on the room's walls are a distraction. 

Mike Wheeler writes the excellent programme notes and Mike Baker introduces the musicians precisely on time with geniality and great warmth. The whole is a joy to have on our doorsteps. Next concert, tomorrow:

Thursday 1 December 2011 1.00pm – 2.00pm

Priya Mitchell (violin)

Natalie Clein (cello)

Katya Apekisheva (piano)

Tchaikovsky: Trio in A minor, Op.50

Piazzolla: 4 Seasons piano trio

http://www.leicesterinternationalmusicfestival.org.uk/

Sapori Italian Restaurant in Anstey

Just north of Leicester, Anstey stands between the city and the posh villages in Charnwood such as Rothley, Newtown Linford and the rest. A former working men's club, the modernist interior of Sapori gives a feeling of being somewhere rather more sophisticated. The welcome was warm at lunchtime as we arrived, the first there - always a worrying sign. Service throughout was fine but not rushed.

The food was good and simple. The bill was not expensive. Certainly worth a detour.

http://www.sapori-restaurant.co.uk/menu/

Booking necessary in the evenings.

Lyle's Golden Syrup

From the University of Nottingham Department of Theology ......

Hockey print

This Hockney print came earlier in the year from Goldmark Galleries in Uppingham, They framed it well with a plain black edged frame. The image is one illustrating a volume of poems by C P Cavafy. Anyone interested in owning it please let me know.

The Rainbow and Dove

The events at the Rainbow and Dove some weeks ago were tragic, almost fatal. Someone went in and allegedly threw a combustible liquid at two of the customers. One is still in hospital but is now reported to be conscious. At first the Rainbow and Dove was named as a gay bar. Then, the the police and the media appeared to stop calling it a gay bar. It was reported quite soon after the event that the police thought it unlikely that the crime was 'homophobic'. In the absence of evidence, of course, it is hard to know one way or the other. 'Intentions' are always problematic.

A number of people seem to have been questioned but no one, so far, has been charged. I wonder why the Rainbow and Dove is no longer called 'a gay bar'? If the attack had been on any other minority social space I am pretty certain it would have been so named. Why not in this case?