Saxism?

Did I mishear that? On The Archers, BBC radio's long-running soap drama, Brian asks of ex-offender Matt on tonight's episode:
'What was he like? Was he a bit odd?'
'Well he hasn't got two heads. Or a saxophone,' replies Matt.
Is the sax weird? The clarinet normal? 

This from Collins Encyclopedia of Music  (Wm Collins, 1957): '(It: sassophone; Ger. Saxophon). In 1846, Adolph Sax patented the saxophone, an instrument, although made of brass, belongs rather to the woodwind group.'And mark this: 'Of the seven members of the family the little used soprano in E flat is straight like a clarinet.'
Here we are, already deferring to clarinet (Fr. clarinette, Ger., Klarinette; It., clarinetto), a single-reed instrument, dating from the late 17th century.
'Why does Matt not say - "Well he hasn't got two heads. Or a clarinet."' 
I may write to the BBC advocating an anti-saxism approach to programming.

Wet busking

Too wet to busk. In Leominster the street slicked with rain. No passers-by passing by.

In Teguise, Lanzarote, this guy found a novel way to busk in bad weather. He plays from an upper window, but leaves the pot downstairs in the street. 

Teguise is home to the Casa-Museo del Timple, the world's only timple museum. The timple is the Canary Islands' national instrument, a cross between a guitar, mandolin and cuatro. 

Here's mine: wish I was competent enough to busk with it. Check out  http://youtu.be/n_qonKQSE9o

Monmouth – an hour

Dinamic playing in Hereford's High Town

We checked out the lie of the streets; now the market’s been misplaced in the municipal car park the town is uncomfortably divided between the old and new town. So, while my partner goes furniture foraging, I set up in an acoustic corridor adjoining the Co-op midway down the High Street. In the entrance.

Town side.

In the sun.

Pause.

Set iPod running with my recorded backtrack playing through Roland.

‘Blue Moon’

I take the sax out, run the duster over it, watch and am watched. Adjust the neck band (they must have a name) and . . .

‘Blue Mooooon’

A little sharp, soften the embouchure, better

‘You see me walking alone’

Better, hitting the high notes now, relaxing, a touch of vibrato, letting the sax do the work

‘Without a love of my own’

The sound of small change dropping into the case.

‘Diolch. Thanks you.’ To an older lady. Does she like it? Do I look poor? I’m just delivering a service. Did she, maybe, once have her own Blue Moon?

It was a slow old hour, but the change kept coming (‘Thanks, thank you, diolch yn fawr’). Sometimes I forget how to play, then the notes come back. Not too many bum ones.

Try A Little Tenderness comes with the serendipity of the Shuffle command, but I’m losing my lip-o-suction. Time for a coffee.

Thank you Monmouth.

Clare Balding and the Black Hill

The Black Hill in winter

Packing the car, I slipped the sax in beside thermos, walking boots and wetproofs before heading up the Black Mountains for Radio 4's Ramblings with Clare Balding and Nic, the erudite geography teacher.
We're to wander up the Olchon Valley, crest the ridge at The Garth and return along the spine of The Black Hill, reflecting for radio on the landscape and its inspiring qualitites: Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill, Francis Kilvert's Diaries, Raymond Williams' People of the Black Mountains and Owen Sheer's Resistance spring, somewhat prepared, to our lips.
I want to touch mine to the sax while we're up here, add a surprising note to the keening buzzard's, the high-up lark's and the raven's kraak.
But it's neither the time, the place or in the script.