Stumbling on melons

I have lapsed recently, but for about 8 months up to about a month ago I lived an abstemious life almost totally off the booze and the cigarettes.

A couple of months ago, I was walking out of the opera house talking to a friend after a concert. I was stopped not once but twice by the bouncers of the “Opera” bar. I could in fact just have been walking home past the bar (because it is an outdoor spot with a right of passage through it to the carpark, the bouncers seem to enlarge their jurisdiction to extend to this) but in fact I was planning to meet a friend from interstate who was waiting for me there.

Was it my gait? Was it my garb? Was it my age? Both, and the second more than the first, asked me those questions about what I had had to drink. These are questions which I am not asked often, and certainly not when I haven’t had a drink for some months.

In the end they let me in. I suppose I could have called my friend out and gone elsewhere, but I didn’t want to make a scene. Still, it was unpleasant and I think entirely unfounded. I wondered and wonder if they just didn’t think I was the right customer for their trendy (though quite uncrowded: it was early in the week) bar.

Which is one of two reasons why I feel sorry for the unsuccessful plaintiff in Sleeman v Tuloch Pty Ltd t/as Palms on Oxford (No 3) [2013] NSWDC 92, who sued a bar for the way its bouncer turned him away.

Even on the bouncer’s account, if true, you can see where things take a wrong turn, at [37]:

When the males got to the front of the line I, I just each male, as I always do, “Gentlemen, where have you been today? How are we?” And I saw one male, I describe as being approximately 50 to 60 years of age, tall, which I now know to be Mr Sleeman, had reddish complexion, dark red complexion, so it’s my, my experience and, and skill to be able to see that this person may have consumed some drinks. I do not know how many, and that’s why I asked, “Excuse me, sir, how much have you had to drink tonight?”
He stated he had none. His two friends, I said, “How much have we had to drink?” His two friends then said, “We’ve been to dinner and we’ve consumed a couple with dinner,” so now I had conflicting stories with his friends, so I said to each male, I said, “Excuse me, gents, which one is it? None, or one, or two? Can you help me out?”

That’s Mr Unwin, described by Her Honour as a “public servant.” He’s obviously picked up a bit of police-speak somewhere along the way (“conflicting stories”, “the males”). (Google suggests: Customs.) I don’t know what skill he has at telling whether someone has consumed drinks. The uncontradicted evidence seems to be that Mr Sleeman rarely drank and had not drunk that night. To see that someone “may have consumed some drinks” surely means nothing at all.

Postscript:

See Bounced Again! for the fate of Mr Sleeman’s age-discrimination complaint.

It appears that Mr Unwin is employed as a plain clothes investigator in the Australian Customs & Border Protection Service. He said his basis for concluding Mr Sleeman was drunk was Mr Sleeman’s red complexion.

Indeed, the Tribunal felt Mr Unwin’s evidence was more credible precisely because he was “a trained professional investigator with the Australian Customs Service.” Is that really a reason for considering a witness more credible? It is a small step from professional investigator to professional witness.

Last night to hear the SSO conducted by Charles Dutoit, whose hair is darker than ever.

It was a battle to get to the concert as the city was crowded with one and all who had come to see the last night of the “Vivid” illuminations.

In the past I have been told by an orchestra member that they were all a bit scared of Dutoit. Certainly, and particularly noticeably in the Mozart Symphony No 29 (a slightly old-fashioned performance), he elicited a higher than usual unanimity and silken refinement from the violins, guest-led by a be-sequinned Wilma Smith from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Roger Brooke retired as associate principal of the SSO. A banner was unfurled from a side box at the end of the concert which read “Farewell Roger” : I suppose he knew he was going already though the thought passed my mind that in the modern-day workplace you could conceivably receive the news from management in this fashion.

Brooke’s biography (he was a soloist in the concerto for 7 winds and percussion by Frank Martin and I guess his retirement was behind the extra special acknowledgement Dutoit gave him at the end of this) noted that he had been a pupil of John Cran, long-term principal bassoon of the SSO. That set me to thinking of the “blood-lines” of players about town: Sydney is full of Cran’s pupils (though not the remaining SSO complement); all of the present SSO oboe section other than her husband has learnt from principal Diana Doherty; the Australian flautists who have a tuitional descent from Margaret Crawford are legion, and if not Crawford, then Vernon Hill.

I particularly liked the slow movement of the Martin which features a kind of slowly treading beat which changes colour as it moves through the orchestra.

Paul Terracini, brother of Winston and Lyndon, was slipped in as third trumpet in the Saint-Saens Organ symphony. It was a rousing rendition. To my own taste the last movement was a bit heartless, but I think that’s the piece rather than the performance.

Beforehand I picked up a cheap ticket to Monday night’s concert to be given by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. It looks as though somebody is about to lose a bit of money on this – the prices I was quoted were appreciably lower than those set out in the special brochure still on display near the box office, and I gained the impression that there are still plenty of tickets. I hope my weekend work commitments will let me go: I especially want to hear Schumann’s Rhenish symphony.

I have a busy weekend with an impending trial starting on Tuesday, but I shall try to squeeze in a trip to Wylie’s Baths for what looks (courtesy of this great picture from the CSIRO via the SMH) like the last chance for a dip before the water gets too cold for me.

In news just in (for me), Richard Mills has “withdrawn” from Opera Australia’s production later this year of Wagner’s Ring, which he had previously been due to conduct.

He was, to me, at least, a surprising selection in the first place for this very important role. It’s not as if he has done a lot of Wagner.

That doesn’t necessarily explain what happened. There’ll be speculation but the general rule with these things is that nobody who thinks they really know and has some basis for that belief is likely to tell even the truth as they see it.

No replacement has yet been announced,

Never mind, experience is not required. It’s time for a national living treasure to step in.

The first comment on the Limelight Magazine page where I read the news has a suggestion:

“I can imagine this happening. I hope AO considers Richard Gill, couldn’t imagine a better conductor for the Ring.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!