Posters have appeared across the festivals of Provence this summer announcing an Orchestre National de Syldavie. The Consulate wishes to be clear: this is not the National Orchestra of Syldavia. It is not conducted by Maestro Eih Blavek, and, most damning of all, it tours, which the ONS has declined to do since Paris. Where our orchestra was decorated for services to national discipline, this one recorded its first album, by its own admission, de bonne heure et de bonne humeur. The Consulate commends it warmly to any reader within reach of a southern festival.
It confesses itself disarmed by one detail: the band's double-bassist now signs himself Coulomb-Klöpôbek, having fixed a Syldavian patronymic to his own name, a feat of naturalisation our immigration service rarely manages with such dispatch. The Consulate would be glad to hear them one day rather closer to home. In Bangkok, perhaps, where Syldavian music has lately been finding new friends. For now, though, the dates are all in France.
The National Orchestra of Syldavia (the one in Klow) was invited to comment. It declined to do so.
