MULTI-FACETED word, fanatic. It can mean anything up to and including people flying into skyscrapers. Cut it down to “fan”, though, and it becomes something much cuddlier. Last week, which was the start of Wimbledon, was largely for fans, although fanatics got a look-in too.
It was unlikely that many fanatics had taken advantage of the Beeb’s offer of free downloads of the first five Beethoven symphonies during Radio 3’s recent week of non-stop Ludwig Van. The offer was a success to the tune of 657,399 hits. In theory, yes, a raving lunatic could have downloaded the symphonies 657,399 times, but that’s as unlikely as 657,399 milquetoasts downloading only one each.
Still, whatever the actual number of participants, it was an impressive figure, particularly when you realise that neither the ever-popular Sixth nor Ninth was available. Never underestimate the potency of free music, as Noël would have said, only he was a bit of a coward.
Joyce Grenfell, quite possibly the funniest British woman to write her own stuff, liked a nice tune. Every year from 1962 to 1979, when she died, she would pack hampers, blankets and husband into her wooden-sided Morris Traveller (all Joyce Grenfell cars were Morris Travellers, regardless of make) and go to Aldeburgh, on the Suffolk coast for the music festival.
We know this because she wrote voluminous daily letters — she was an Olympic standard fanatic when it came to letter-writing — about her experiences to her lifelong friend, Virginia Graham, and last week Maureen Lipman read out chunks of them in a series to mark the start of this year’s Aldeburgh festivities on Radio 3.
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To be honest, Grenfell’s old-tech blog was hardly the sort of stuff to get any lifelong chum awaiting the arrival of the postman with quickening pulse. Yes, she could fill pages with stuff, but she had a remarkable capacity for turning everything into mulch — music, flowers, bird-watching, everything became an object to be observed, and recorded, and that was it. People fared hardly better — it took time to realise that when Grenfell wrote of “ Ben and Peter” she was talking about her close friends Britten and Pears, so little did we learn of them. Great events, too — like the burning of Snape Maltings in 1969 — just sort of happened. It was as though Grenfell was desperate not to cause any possible offence, even in private letters.
Her polite anaemia could not have been thrown into greater contrast than when considering the contributors to Bruce and Me on Radio 2 last Saturday. It was presented by Sarfraz Mansoor, who had contacted a load of fellow Bruce Springsteen fans to talk about their shared obsession. You could tell, though, that what Mansoor really wanted to do was spend an hour talking about how much he loves the Boss and wants to have his babies. But being a journalist he had to have other people along to say more or less the same thing.
We heard from people who took career paths and even had children because they figured that was what Springsteen wanted them to do. Which is fine, but does mean we have to hope that the Boss continues to be a force for good, and they don’t start hearing lyrical instructions to start a Third World War.