N's birthday party

And the birthday celebrations continue!  It's actually N's birthday tomorrow, but we had a big party for her this afternoon down in the communal garden. Lots of traditional games: Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Pass the Parcel, guess how many objects there are in the jar, throwing beanbags in a bucket, etc. Pizza, another great Liz-made cake and soft drinks for the children; salmon, avocado and hard drinks for the adults. 

Two friends stayed over for a sleepover which was fine, except for one thing. Our two generally go to bed at 8 or 8:30pm, but N's friends are night-owls, which made for a rather fragmented late evening. 

Academy of Ancient Music

Pleasant evening after madly busy day winding down in the company of the patrons of the Academy of Ancient Music. The orchestra is touring East Asia and a dozen of their supporters have come to China on a special package which combines tourism and AAM's (not AMM's) concert at the Egg tomorrow. Tonight the Deputy Ambo and I host a dinner for them and some Chinese contacts. The patrons, usually retired, are invariably interesting and from all walks of life; on my left a successful child-psychologist, on my right an American lady who had been at the vanguard of the computer industry in the 70s and 80s. 

Sadly I will miss their performance tomorrow. I will also miss a couple of very enticing concerts in London: a Mute weekend at the Roundhouse, and Nurse With Wound at Koko. While last night I could have picked from ether Tony Conrad at Corsica Studios or a special evening of Robert Wyatt music at the QEH. So much choice.    

Logo

So, we have a logo for the UK Now festival. Did it in a month, which was pretty quick all things considered: brief, tender to five China-based companies, pitches, focus groups, approvals, tweaks... all done in time for a reception this evening for the great and the good. I think it works well: a skew-whiff Union Jack with Olympic colours, bit of blue-patterned Chinese porcelain, and title in both languages, although the Chinese actually translates as something like 'Britain seen through the arts' which is perfect. Sounds straigtforward but these things are always much harder than you think and there's always someone who'll take issue with it. Since you ask, it was domne by the Beijing office of Ogilvy - who masterminded the Burberry event a few posts ago.

China Club

Busy busy day of meetings, including a very positive one at the National Centre for Performing Arts (aka The Egg) with its President, Chen Ping, and ending with a reception at the China Club. The Club is owned by David Tang, owner of the original one in Hong Kong, patron of the arts, cigar affecionado, CEO of Shanghai Tang stores and married to Lucy, my sister's husband's niece. So that makes us related, though we've never met. Anyway, gorgeous place in the hutong backstreets. Used to be a wealthy home, then a Sichuan restaurant, now select, impressively renovated club.    

Saint Cyr

After 9 months, I finally registered with a doctor. Count myself lucky that I haven't needed one. It's a 5 min cycle ride from the office in a sparkling new shopping-cum-office centre which could be anywhere in the world: Starbucks, Fatburger, O'Briens Sandwich Bar, Wellness Club... Registering, form-filling, waiting and paying takes 30 mins, consultation for a minor ailment 5 mins. My (American) doctor has the strange name of Richard Saint Cyr. Turns out that Cyr was a 3-year-old child who achieved martyrdom around 300AD. It's also a French film with Isabelle Huppert. You can see I'm desperately scraping around for something to write today.

Squash 2

Played my second game of squash in China this evening with Stuart. Won the first game a month ago which ended with bashing my head against the wall, but honours even this time and no injuries. Good workout. The court is in the basement of our management block. How convenient is that?

I'm not a great player. Took it up for a while in the late 70s and have a hazy memory of Leonard Rossiter playing at the club one evening. Also that Heather McKay was the top womens player in the world at the time. And by top, I mean top: she never lost a match between 1962 and 1981!  Then there was a huge gap before taking it up again in Bangkok (see post a year ago) which had the added post-game attraction of a nearby pub, pool table and fish & chips. Haven't got that here... Couple of interesting facts: squash isn't an Olympic sport (why not?) and England has the most courts - 8,500+ - in the world (why?).

V is for...

Hard-pressed to name 10 great Vs, so here are five:

• The Velvet Underground
• Vangelis
• Nana Vasconcelos
• Richard Vimal
• Luke Vibert

The inclusion of Velvet Underground goes (sort of) without saying so let's move swiftly on to Vangelis... whose long career has had its ups and downs but the one constant has been the quality of his film music. Chariots of Fire, Bladerunner and 1492 are pretty peerless, but I also like his 70s documentary soundtracks L'Apocalypse des Animaux and Opera Sauvage.

Of the rest: Richard Vimal is an unsung French keyboardist from the late 70s/early 80s whom I have fond memories of interviewing with my friend Wolfgang in a tiny village near Dijon. I could have added another French keyboardist, Patrick Vian (son of musician, novelist and surrealist Boris). Or Verto, a French experimental band from the 80s. Or Video Liszt, who made one album in 1981 and kept their identitities behind fencing masks; one of them was Richard Pinhas for sure, and I think the other was Herve Picquart, the two having previously played together as Ose. I even saw them once, supporting Pinhas in Paris in '81.

Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos is easily included. Some great solo albums (particularly Saudades), fine band (Codona), and wonderful contributions to other people's work, not least Jon Hassell's.

Luke Vibert gets in, partly for music under his own name but also as Wagon Christ. Other electronica acts almost worthy of inclusion would be Sven Vath, Vapourspace, Vladislav Delay, Christian Vogel and (ha!) Visage.

And then there's Christian Vander who would definitely be included if he wasn't already under M; a couple of Vegas - Alan and Suzanne; Tom Verlaine; Andreas Vollenweider (on a good day); and a few bands like The Verve, Violent Femmes, Virgin Prunes, Voice of the Beehive, and The Vibrators. But I'm afraid I've never 'got' Van Der Graaf Generator.