FAVOURITES

I used to listen to Desert Island Discs before I largely fell out of the habit of regularly turning on the radio. If I do listen now, rather than the constant jabber of flustered politicians being interrupted by tetchy interviewers, it tends to be Classic FM. For my sins, a good symphonic piece does far more for me than this week's pop. Or PM's Question Time, for that matter.
That's not snobbery, as far as I know. I hope it isn't, anyway. It is just that I deserted pop in, I think, 1956 when I first heard Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock being played on an endless loop at a fairground in Spalding, next door to the football ground. I wasappalled. By the music, that is.
I was weaned, musically, on War-time music and more particularly on swing bands and jazz instrumentalists. The silky rhythms of Count Basie, the soaring trumpet artistry of Harry James. I just couldn't take to these brash youngsters who simply plugged their instruments into the mains supply, switched on, and shouted into microphones. Thus it goes without saying that, to my mind, Gene Krupa had more rhythm in his little finger than any automated electronic gizmo.
So, what sort of things do I like? I'll try to tell you.
I like family life, woodland and fieldscapes, the coast and the sea. Cats and football and the cinema.  Harvest fields, poppies in harvest fields, wide skies, history, travel, and Berlinner-sized morning newspapers. Flapjack and ice cream. Scotch whisky, red wine, liquorish allsorts and fudge. Wild natural areas, autumn, and autumnal colours. Hemingway, Steinbeck and HE Bates; Benny Goodman, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand. Swing bands and symphony orchestras. Sea frets, old roads and tracks, and green lanes. Lasagne. Second hand bookshops, books in general, reading, coffee, chocolate and qwerty keyboards. Monet, Paul Nash, Ravilious and Seago; Brahms, Bach and Beethoven. Always and forever Beethoven. And piles of books waiting to be read.
That's what I like.
There's actually more. Mornings, for example. I like mornings, particularly pulling back the curtains to let the sunshine in. And old clothes that I've trained to be comfortable; and walking, when I'm able to, especially walking in old clothes on sunlit mornings. And custard. Must not forget custard. And writing, and researching something I'm writing.
I'm not quite certain what sort of a person all this makes me, though the list is not by any means complete. But bookish, I suppose, someone a bit on the solitary side, because if you like writing and reading then you have to, as it were, shut yourself away every now and again.
Then again, it occurs to me that perhaps I'm getting too old to keep writing for much longer. But if I'm too old for writing, though, then it also helps underline why I'm also too old to appreciate pop music.
Mind you, these sorts of definitions are a little misleading. After all, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman and Doris Day were top of the pops once.