NP : Les Miserables - Basil Poledouris<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was going to listen to Les Miserables, but I couldn't find it, so I'm playing Farewell to the King now - which I haven't heard in years. I never liked it that much, but as I hear now, there's much beauty in it.

Generally, while Poledouris was a great composer for bombast, and scores like Conan, The Hunt for Red October or Starship Troopers are among my favourites of his (and not only his), it's the lyrical bits of those and his other scores that are some of the standout moments - that wonderful little bit in Asteroid Grazing from Starship Troopers for example. Theology/Civilization and The Search are my favourite bits from Conan. And that's what they have in common with his less action-oriented scores like Les Miserables.

If I recall correctly, you once met him by chance when you both attended a John Barry concert?[/B]<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's right Marian, it was in April 1998 at the after show party, champagne in hand chatting to Basil and another chap ( could have been Robert Townsend or Richard Kraft, I'm sorry to say I can't remember? ), after a few comments about the concert, and he was awestruck by Barry's music, and me mentioning how good it would be to hear Conan played at the RAH, something he would have loved to have done but wasn't sure where he would be able to fit the choir , the rest of the conversation was about sailing....of which I know nothing, and hiking in the Himalaya's, of which Basil was fascinated. I spent, perhaps, 20 minutes chatting with him, a very brief time, but time enough to understand I was talking to a warm, generous and friendly human being who had time for people