A la Daily Mail style if we were to be writing a hit piece.
A former British public schoolboy and promising classical musician faces years in a Chilean prison after bring caught dealing cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy.
Alexander Harrild, 29, who was educated at the £35,000-a-year Dulwich College, moved to the South American country to pursue his career as a French horn player but told a court in Santiago that he turned to a life of crime after a separate business venture struggled, according to The Mail on Sunday.
If we were hoping to beat up on Farage we might say something like “Farage sent his son to school with suspected drug dealer”.
If on Worstall, perhaps “Worstall’s brother in law taught suspected drug dealer” (for the music master at Dulwich is indeed my brother in law).
That none of us have any connection with him wouldn’t matter: it’s terribly easy to do those sorts of hit jobs.
I’ve an old friend who used to live in Dulwich.
And I’ve driven past the school.
I know what a French horn is. And a music lesson.
And another friend married a Chilean woman.
Plus I’m British, and I was a schoolboy. And a, er, boy.
No way on the Daily Mail spectrum, doesn’t mention the parents’ house price.
moved to the South American country to pursue his career as a French horn player
I might be a bit dim but who goes to Latin America to further their career as a French horn player?
(It must be a widely hated instrument. We call it a French horn. They call it a cor anglais. Which puts it up their with syphilis and cockroaches.)
Talking of French horns…
For your amusement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_BFM_wJMU
The cor anglais is a sort of large oboe. There must be a joke in there somewhere struggling to get out.
Quite, similar to the relationship between a clarinet and a clarion.
Bloke in Wales – “The cor anglais is a sort of large oboe. There must be a joke in there somewhere struggling to get out.”
I stand corrected. However I continue to maintain that either this bloke’s father threw a lot of money away or his story is a old of old cobblers. Who goes to Chile to play the French horn? Is it a euphemism for some sexual practice I am unaware of?
Chile is a fairly prosperous country of nearly 20 million people with an educated metropolitan middle class i.e. the sort of country with sufficient excess capital to support a symphony orchestra. Why shouldn’t someone go there to play a musical instrument. It’s like asking why someone would move to Portugal to sell scandium, or Costa Rica to write software.
Bloke in Costa Rica – “Why shouldn’t someone go there to play a musical instrument.”
Because people run away from Los Angeles all the time so they can become actresses in places like Kansas. If your career has tanked, you move to Chile. If you are young and hopeful, New York seems a more obvious place to move to me. But what do I know. I don’t even know what a cor anglais is.
“It’s like asking why someone would move to Portugal to sell scandium, or Costa Rica to write software.”
Two very good questions. One suspects the answer is that two people who are already established in their field might choose life style over networking. But it would not be very good advice to tell a newly graduating class of eager young programmers that they might like to try Mali for their first job search.
To repeat: Mali ≠ Chile. Plus, I was 29 when I moved to Costa Rica. Established? Huh.
Jobbing classical musicians go where there are gigs available. If that happens to be Chile, so be it. Answer me this: who was the last French Horn player to get his name in the news? Probably Dennis Brain, and he died in 1957.
Never mind the drug-smuggling nematode – Dulwich gave us Raymond Chandler and PG Wodehouse.
Answer me this: who was the last French Horn player to get his name in the news? Probably Dennis Brain, and he died in 1957.
Spencer Brown.
“moved to the South American country to pursue his career as a French horn player”
Surely that’s a euphemism? Or perhaps a euphonium.