Categories: annals-of-a-rock-nerd, rejoice-with-me
Date: 01 January 2008 18:02:11
A select few friends, lots of Marks and Spencer food, mulled wine, Scrabble and fairtrade champagne at midnight - all adds up to a recipe for a moderately merry and generally enjoyable New Year celebration. Followed this morning (after a necessary lie-in) by watching the whole of the New Year's Concert live from Vienna, with the usual mix of lots of Strauss, ballet and gorgeous shots of gorgeous Viennese buildings.
My parents did their courting in the Musikvereinsaal, where the concert is broadcast from, and every year while my Dad was still alive, they would turn on the New Year's concert and waltz round the living room to the strains of 'An den schönen blauen Donau'. I didn't attempt to emulate the waltzing bit with The Grouch, but he did come and listen to the encores with me. I ate my last Thornton's Continental chocolate to the accompaniment of the Vienna Philharmonic, which seemed appropriate.
Just to demonstrate how catholic my musical tastes are, have spent afternoon putting hits of the 60s - Beatles, Kinks, Stones etc - on my new MP3 player which Grouch gave me for Christmas (that and some new Bible software were the main presents).
Just as the Queen has two birthdays, as a Jewish Christian I am entitled to two new years! (in addition to the double Christmas we always celebrate, Austrian style on Christmas Eve and British style on Christmas Day. Greedy, moi?)