Strewth: Notes for Naipaul

Much has been said about VS Naipaul since his death yesterday, but there is one lesser-known fact that is a real diamond.

Much has been said about VS Naipaul since his death yesterday, but we are indebted to our learned colleague Alan Howe for alerting us to one of the lesser-known nuggets: the Nobel laureate’s connection to one of the best-known pieces of music. Let’s roll back to 1961 when Monty Norman, a big-band singer in London, was asked to write music for a stage show of Naipaul’s novel A House for Mr Biswas. The show never happened. Perhaps Norman’s opening tune, Good Sign, Bad Sign, put people off the idea. Howe opines few moments in music are worse. The song kicks off with a corny sitar line; moments later, someone taking their first steps learning to play a tabla joins in — and that’s as good as it gets. The lyrics failed to reach even these modest heights. But Norman was a glass-half-full type and tucked the sheet music away in the hope he might some day recycle it. That day came sooner than expected when, just months later, US producer Cubby Broccoli called to ask Norman for some music to go with a film he was making of one of Ian Fleming’s novels, Dr No. Norman reworked the notes of Good Sign, Bad Sign, sped it up, and presto, the James Bond Theme was invented.

Ringtone cycle

Sticking with musical matters, a couple of nights back Richard Tognetti was in one of his accustomed spots — on stage at Sydney’s City Recital Hall, leading the Australian Chamber Orchestra through a couple of magisterial hours. The bulk of the concert was a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, 70 minutes of music so sublime we couldn’t help but think of sci-fi author Douglas Adams’sargument: “Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.” Roughly 20 seconds before the end, when it felt like everything we’d all been through together was nearing its final resolution, somebody’s pocket erupted with a jaunty mobile phone. But as befits a man who managed the feat of teaching Russell Crowe to play violin for his role in Master and Commander, Tognetti did not so much as let an eyelid flicker.

Before the alarm

Things followed a roughly similar path at the Kennedy Awards in Sydney on Friday night. It’s one of the standout nights on the journalism gong circuit, especially this year when Daily Telegraph political editor Sharri Markson was named journalist of the year and, flanked by Jana Wendt and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, delivered an oration that in scope, ambition and inventive examination of a theme got us thinking about the Goldberg Variations again. The interruption that ultimately came was at least more musical than that mobile at the Recital Hall. And a lot more musical than the fire alarm that enlivened the after-party when some journalist opted to puff a sneaky cigarette under a smoke detector, sparking an evacuation.

Mal content

Things have settled into a steady to-and-fro between the Coalition demanding Labor release its report on Emma Husar and Labor keeping things on an even keel by demanding the Coalition release its report on Barnaby Joyce. But Malcolm Turnbull provided a break from regular programming when, during his address to the West Australian Liberal Party conference in Perth, he delivered a two-part endorsement of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann. First part was to establish the tension: “Mathias, of course, is born in Belgium. He sounds like Arnie Schwarzenegger.” And then, mercifully, the resolution: “But I tell you what, he is a patriot and he’s doing an incredible job.”

Stepping on Beatles

Strewth, you will have noticed, has a soft spot for puns. So much so that one of our correspondents has asked — a little warily — what was our worst. After mentally sifting through some shockers we alighted on the one that crowns this (mercifully truncated) Strewth item from the 2016 federal election campaign: “Bill Shorten went to Yass, where he and Eden-Monaro candidate Mike Kelly … walked past a ute jauntily labelled, ‘Poo Carters — We’re #1 for your #2s’. It’s a Yass-based business that offers services including septic pumping, grease trap servicing, plus managing the grim practicalities of portable toilets. What would have made it perfect would have been if Shorten had stopped in his tracks next to the Poo Carters ute, channelled the Beatles and sang, ‘Yass turd day, all my troubles seem so far away.’ But that would probably have been a little too much to ask.” We presented this to our correspondent, who then suggested we should be arrested. Nevertheless, we stand by our words.

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