A word about GMG

I just wanted to put on record that I was sorry to have to cease my membership of the GMG Classical Music Forum a week or so ago. There were at least a half-dozen members there whose contributions I valued highly (Harry, Vandermolen, Karl Henning and others, for example). There were dozens more who were utterly decent people with a lot to contribute. There were also terribly pretentious Irish members, as well as at least one Australian member with zero sense of humour; but these were in a minority, whom it was easy to ignore.

Unfortuately, there were several members who thought that, presented with a CD album art image of a female artist, it was OK to comment on her cleavage. One in particular, was recorded to have posted, "Poor girl. She can't even find a dress to fit", because a bit of cleavage was visible in the black dress sported by the fine, professional and highly-skilled pianist in question. The poster was 74 and, I think, ought to have known better that women do sport cleavages but that one doesn't reduce a highly-skilled, professional woman to her cleavage. Some of us could hear the heavy breathing and dripping spittle accompanying such commentary. [...] 

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