I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how...
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The glimpse at what BBC executives claim as expenses and receive in terms of corporate hospitality does not include anything that relates to "journalism, art or literature".
This is because of exemptions within the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000, as explained on the BBC website:
It is important to bear this in mind when considering the Freedom of Information Act and how it applies to the BBC. The Act does not apply to the BBC in the way it does to most public authorities in one significant respect. It recognises the different position of the BBC (as well as Channel 4, S4C and the Gaelic Media Service) by providing that it covers information “held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. This means the Act does not apply to information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output (TV, radio, online etc), or information that supports and is closely associated with these activities.
As the BBC's main purpose is to create output for TV, radio, online etc this means the great part of the BBC's activities are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. An interesting situation when one considers that the BBC's annual income is more than £3 billion, and that the income is raised by a legally enforced poll tax.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/about.shtml
My view of the good Sir Nicholas is forever coloured by a lunch I had with him 20 years ago, when he was editor of, I believe, that soaraway publication Early Music News.
Lunch was on my expense account and, if I remember rightly, Mr Kenyon (as he was then) ordered the most expensive items on the menu and a big cigar afterwards. He was clearly thinking big in those days too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F7497566?thread=4922946
Plus ça change. BBC Radio 3 controller Roger Wright's contribution to the Guardian Stockhausen tribute was to namedrop the London restaurant he took the composer to -
http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/story/0,,2226684,00.html