October 3rd, 2011
What a civilised place the Wigmore Hall is! Members of Classical Partners who gathered there on Sunday 2nd October for one of our regular visits to Coffee Concerts enjoyed a fantastic recital followed by delicious lunch in the Wigmore Restaurant.
The quality of the performances seems to be better every time we go and the Hall’s marvellous acoustic enhances the recital even more. This week we were treated to the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, named after the Swedish town in which they gave their first performance and where they have established an annual festival. Their programme combined a couple of Beethoven’s most impressive works for piano trio along with a brand new work by Hans Henze which was equally stirring but in a totally different style. The packed hall seemed to lap it up.
Forthcoming treats on offer at the Wigmore Hall include the Nash Ensemble, Nicola Bennedetti, Paul Lewis, Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough. See http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on
After the recital we adjourned to the Bechstein Room downstairs for the complimentary glass of sherry that accompanies one’s coffee concert ticket and then in to the stylish and elegant but oh-so comfortable Wigmore Restaurant for a leisurely three-course lunch.
After a couple of hours of delicious food, wine and lively conversation, CP members went their various ways, eg one lady on to her choir rehearsal, and another small group of members were last seen heading towards Oxford Street, for a cup of tea and spot of shopping in John Lewis.
We will be back at the Wigmore Hall early in the New Year for another relaxing Sunday outing. Meanwhile members of Classical Partners have some great concerts, theatre and opera to look forward to. If you are interested in attending top class cultural events and meeting like-minded people at the same time – see our Events page for details of what’s coming up http://www.classicalpartners.co.uk/Events.html
Posted in Find Love, Food, Intimate music, Live Music, Relationships, Social events, classical music, meet others, music | 2 Comments »
September 28th, 2011
The Daily Mail today reports on fraudsters who target ‘lonely hearts’ on dating websites.
Apparently as many as 200,000 people may have been persuaded last year to give money to fraudsters using false identities to pursue relationships with them. But because of the shame victims feel, fewer than 600 cases were reported.
The fraudsters, usually tied to organised crime and based outside the UK, often use pictures of models when making contact with their victims on dating sites and then act swiftly to move the ‘relationship’ away from the monitored sites to personal online services such as private email accounts to carry out the fraud. This would usually be claiming to be in need of urgent funds and asking for loans of money, or involving their victims in money laundering by asking them to accept payments in their bank accounts.
Recent research carried out by Leicester University – the first to measure the scale of this relatively new crime – found that in a YouGov poll of more than 2,000 British adults, one in every 50 knew a victim.
Of course it seems hard to imagine anyone handing over money to someone they’ve never met in person but these scammers are highly skilled in the art of manipulating vulnerable people.
Although awareness of online romance scams is increasing, millions of people in the UK remain at risk and the psychological impact experienced by victims can be considerable, even leading to suicide in some cases.
Of course there are plenty of people signed up to internet dating and social networking sites, who are genuinely seeking friendship or romance, but it can take time, a degree of nous and good luck to find the right people. Introduction agencies recommended by the Association of British Introduction Agencies (www.abia.org.uk) will have already screened members so are a much safer bet for those looking to find love or new friendships. To find out more about the sort of people you can meet through Classical Partners, see http://www.classicalpartners.co.uk/Member-profiles.html
Posted in Datng trends, Find Love, Relationships, Safe Dating, Society, Uncategorized, meet others | 1 Comment »
September 13th, 2010
Most of us spend our lives striving for happiness. Recent press reports point out that money, up to a point, can bring contentment. Apparently a salary of up to £50,000 a year can bring happiness but after that more money does not increase happiness. As this is pretty well double the average salary in the UK, this would suggest that the average worker is not happy.
Fortunately, money is not everything. Professor Shira Gabriel in her paper “suggests that the events that end up being most important in our lives, the events that bring us the most happiness and also carry the potential for the most pain, are social events – moments of connecting to others and feeling their connections to us….. It was not independent events or individual achievements like winning awards or completing tasks that affected participants the most, but the moments when close relationships began or ended; when people fell in love or found a new friend; when a loved one died or broke their hearts. In short, it was the moments of connecting to others that touched peoples’ lives the most.”
I have always known that humans are social animals. Professor Gabriel has now shown that we humans experience our most intense experiences when we interact with other individuals. It follows then that to increase our happiness we need to get out there and meet others. So if you are single start dating, expand your social circle, perhaps find a soulmate – and make your life more fulfilling.
Posted in Find Love, Relationships, Society, meet others | 3 Comments »
February 22nd, 2010
Lori Gottlieb caused a bit of a storm back in 2007 with her article suggesting that women should settle for a man who is ‘good enough’ rather than holding out for Mr Perfect who may never show up. Not content with this she is now publishing a book which she says will back up her ideas.
Whilst I sympathise to a certain extent with her views, I do have problems with some of the statistics she quotes. She claims that “less than half of women over 40 will ever marry.” Conveniently she makes no mention of how many of these women actually want to get married, she simply uses this statistic to scare women into thinking they are a lost cause. Incidentally, The Times, commenting on figures published by the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales, makes a similar error. Proudly proclaiming that women are going to be overwhelmed by offers as there are now more single men than women in every age group except the over 75’s. Again they do not consider how many actually want to get married. The definition of single as “never married, divorced or widowed” is also a problem. How many are in happy, stable long term relationships? The old adage ‘Lies, dammed Lies and Statistics’ springs to mind. Numbers are great when trying to understand trends but you have to be very careful how you use them.
Back to Lori Gottlieb, she puts forward the view that feminism has encouraged women to think that they can have it all – the perfect man, lifestyle, family and career. In some ways she is right about this. There is not really a whole lot wrong with setting yourself high goals and aspirations. However you do need to be able to be flexible whilst trying to attain them.
Remember to give yourself a good pat on the back when you land on the moon even if you were aiming for the stars.
Posted in Find Love, Relationships, meet others | 7 Comments »
February 8th, 2010
Apparently, Harriet Harman wants to engineer a new social order with her equality bill. On the face of it this is fine in principle. After all nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of their sex, colour, creed or any other aspect of their person. However, some groups believe that the bill interferes with their freedom. The Pope in particular is up in arms. It seems to me the real problem here is that legislation is not the answer. People just don’t respond to being forced into a corner. In addition there is the problem of unforeseen outcomes.
Recently there has been a lot written in the press about women who are increasingly finding that feminist ideas and legislation are actually holding them back rather than helping them as they were intended to. Feminism was supposed to liberate women and allow them to make all the choices in their lives on their own merits. However they are now finding that sometimes this ideal itself actually has the opposite effect. It is now illegal to ask a women in a job interview if she plans to have a family. Fair enough, but employers know this so don’t ask and women who have no intention of having a family do not get the chance to say so and the employer hires the man as it is less risky for them.
All forms of equality legislation almost by definition have a flip side that encourages positive discrimination. The obvious end-point of positive discrimination is mediocrity and I for one do not want to live in a mediocre world.
What has this got to do with Classical Partners, well, we sometimes meet people with pre-concieved ideas which are getting in their way of finding what they want. These pre-concieved ideas are their prejudices and there is no way we can legislate against them. What we can try and do is educate them to find a better way.
I think it is exactly the same with the proposed equality bill. Learn from the mistakes of feminism and instead of legislating try educating.
Posted in Relationships, Society | 3 Comments »
