John Barry RIP

Hats off for JB, soundtrack composer extraordinaire, who died yesterday aged 77. Midnight Cowboy, Born Free, Zulu, Ipcress File, Out of Africa, The Persuadors, Chaplin, Dances With Wolves and of course ten or so James Bond films. Reading the obituaries, I'd forgotten that he didn't actually write the Bond theme - 'just' orchestrated it. I have a Best Of which regularly gets played. It is the epitome of retro-cool. David Arnold put it nicely: "You could be stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 in a Ford Fiesta, but if you're playing a John Barry score, you're in an Aston Martin".

PS. Little known fact? His music for Beat Girl (1960) was the first British soundtrack released on LP.

Skiing

One doesn't associate China with skiing but in the last ten years it's become quite popular, in the north at any rate. There are around 15 resorts within 100 miles of Beijing and today we went to the nearest, Nanshan. The hills are real but the snow comes from machines rather than the sky. It was slightly odd looking down from the top: white slopes framed by a parched, brown landscape. The last time Liz and I went skiing was in Japan nearly ten years ago - in fact that's where I learnt - but this was the first time for the girls. We hired instructors and they did really well. And you can do the whole thing in a day.

White & wallet

Finally... finally... some decent Chinese music. Andreas and I went to see White at the tiny D22 club near Beijing University. They're a duo: a guy called Shou Wang (who's also a member of Carsick Cars, who've just split up) and a gal called Shenggy (who lives in London), best known for their 2009 abum produced in Berlin by Blixa Bargeld and released on his Open Note label. The album's OK, but live they were fantastic, except tonight Shenngy was nowhere to be seen and it was Shou Wang + unknown drummer. Think Neu! meets Richard H Kirk. Relentless 4/4 rhythm with Wang's seering electronics & occasional treated vocals over the top. Fabulous.

What made the evening particularly memorable, though, was an astonishing act of kindness from a gaggle of young staff at the nearby underground station. They'd aready connected Andreas and me when we arrived at the station at different exits. Then, on arrival at the club, Andreas realised he'd lost his wallet. So we turned back with the feint hope that he'd dropped it in the station. Halfway along the road we met one of the subway staff who'd taken the initiative to try and track us down. They'd found the wallet and between them hatched a plan to find us. Amazing. It's the kind of thing that might have happened in Japan, but we were touched that it could happen here. Restores one's faith in humanity.

Dry

It hasn't rained in Beijing for three months, the longest period without precipitation in 40 years. I'd expected dry (which is nice, especially with the blue skies we've also been having), but not this dry. Bad news for farmers and everyone really.

Office Party

China doesn't do Christmas parties, but it does do Chinese New Year ones... big time. A hotel conference room was hired, a big stage & two large video screens erected, besuited & frocked MCs press-ganged, smoke-machine switched on, lights dimmed, and let the entertainment begin! We had:

- a pop song in Chinese sung by western interns
- a short play about office-working, which turned out to be a thinly-veiled dig at hot-desking with staff dressed as sheep
- a picking-up-eggs-with-chopsticks contest
- a kung fu show: part home-made video, part live action (the girls swooned as Xuebin did his serious, non-smiling moves - hilarious)
- Simon & Garfunkel's Sound of Silence sung by my colleague Haining wearing a pork-pie hat
- a very funny re-enactment of Catherine Zeta-Jones doing Entrapment (you had to be there)
- a mother & child who-can-drink-the-milk-from-the-baby-bottle fastest competition (see above: Licy and I won!)
- Scottish dancing, with the weirdest kilts I've ever seen
- a live version of Super Mario
- and finally I did a silly art quiz

To be honest, I was dreading it beforehand. Ritual humiliation and all that. But actually it was great fun, professional, but not too professional.

RIP (again)

Second anniversary of Andrew Cox's demise, commemorated by listening to some of his solo stuff: the ear-piercing Arioch (1980) and the more considered Methods ('80) and Hydra ('81) and Songs from the Earth ('83), all on YHR; then a couple of very long, unreleased pieces from the 00s involving heavy processing of single sound sources - very dark ambient, very minimal... to the point of hardly anything happening. The temptation to see in Andrew's music the reflection of inner turmoil is obvious, as it is with any troubled artist. Suffice to say it's difficult listening, whether you knew the guy or not.

Madame Mao

Unlike last Thursday, today was very much a Chinese day. Sounds obvious - I mean we live in China - but actually there are days when I go to work, speak English and deal with British arts all day, come home, eat Western food, and I might as well be in Britain. But today...

Liz went on a Chinese cooking course in a Hutong somewhere in Dongsi; A went on a school trip to an ice palace north of Beijing; and I went to a small bar-cum-cafe in another hutong to see a fairly obscure comedy made in 1935 called Scenes of City Life. Shanghai was portrayed as glitzy, on-the-make and amazingly western, which it was to a degree. All the women looked like Gloria Swanson and the men like Al Capone's younger brother. But it was fairly unsophisticated and with the weirdest sound effects. Interesting cameo appearance though from Jiang Qing aka Madame Mao.