A Crush on Taz

Taz is lovely. He is probably about 25 and works in PC Garage by Ladbroke Grove Tube. He always amuses me. I like to watch him interacting with people : unfailingly polite and patient he deals with everyone in the same friendly and helpful way. He is not a flirt really, but people flirt with him endlessly, hoping for something a little more perhaps but  he just  responds kindly to everyone. I have had reasons to go in there over the last few weeks because I need IT stuff.  I am normally a really impatient shopper. But at PC Garage I don’t mind. I just settle in happily, watching Taz dealing with the other customers, calming them and reassuring  them with  his soothing manner and his slight Indian accent  before turning his attention to me.

The other day there was a  woman in her fifties with long bleached blonde hair, short skirt, a large  pot belly  and an enormous amount of badly applied make up talking to Taz about her cheap mobile phone which had stopped working and couldn’t be mended. Since it didn’t work anymore she needed some on line information about her up- coming trip to Rumania. She had Taz checking up the time schedule for the tube to Heathrow on the day of her trip, then she wanted some other  information, totally outside of the services PC Garage offer. And I was waiting patiently, enjoying myself while Taz continued supplying the information she needed. And finally she said « thank you so much ! I must take you out for a drink when I get back » and winked at him. And dear Taz said ‘ Yes that would be nice !’  Meanwhile a pretty woman walked past outside the shop window and caught his eye. She blew Taz a kiss. He smiled back and waved. Then a large Somali woman and her grown daughter, both in Hijab, arrived and both started flirting away quite shamelessly while discussing a broken mobile phone screen and trying to bargain. Taz is open to bargaining and that makes Taz-watching even more fun. Quite a gruesome looking type arrived (one couldn’t help thinking he was probably a drug dealer) and tried to buy a £25 mobile phone for £20 but was not successful. However, Taz’s polite refusal was a marvel of diplomacy.

Taz has successfully downloaded Chess Titans on my Windows 10 new computer- quite a feat, since many others have tried and failed. I am not sure that Taz knows the game of chess, but he thinks I like games in general : in this respect I have had to take a firm lead : No, Taz,  I don’t want Candy Crush Soda Saga. And definitely not Bubble Witch 3 thanks. Just Chess Titans. And then I walk away, happy with my little visit to PC Garage, a smile on my face like countless other Taz fans  in the neighbourhood.

So I am now quickly  becoming enmeshed in the technology of Europe : I am gathering an impenetrable forest of pass words and codes in order to access all my new appliances and software. I have been Spotified and Netflixed, I am having a 40¨ flat screen TV arriving tomorrow morning. 

But not only new technology :  tonight dear David took me to the Wigmore Hall for a song recital. (Dire picture below, of the rather beautiful early 20th c. décor.)

 He calls it the Wigmire, and thinks it is a frightfully dull place, although we have seen and heard the most marvellous performances here together, like tonight when the lovely German soprano Anne Schwanewilms sang Lieder from Shubert, Liszt and others. 

                                                                              

This is perfect bliss to me and belongs to Old Europe. There is always something wistful about a good Lieder performance:  old fairy tales spring to life with echos from childhood and half  forgotten poetry, like a delicate piece of Bruges lace. But there is much passion and strength too in a good Lieder performer: and there was plenty in the lovely Ms Schwanewilms: I would love to see her perform Brecht and Weill's Surabaya Johnny... David's review:http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/anne-schwanewilms-charles-spencer-wigmore-hall-review-going-deep-schubert

I am keeping up the Sunday lunch habit, and yesterday came Kathy and Dan, my dear sculptor friends with their children who are quite grown up now, and we ate nice Roast Pork with apple sauce and played fun games.

And meanwhile, back in Timbuktu, the little team is finally receiving the last touches of their digitization teaching from Suleyman, the teacher  from SAVAMA in Bamako who braved the insecurity on the road up to Timbuktu. The project is on route again, after a long delay caused by the jihadist attack in August.

                                                                    

Standing up to the right  is Oumar Bily, fluent in Arabic and French, who will work on the meta data. He is the one who has spent three years in a Mauritanian refugee camp. This is his first real job!