Still here....

I'm still here, kind of, but frazzled in the midst of a lot of diffferent trips. Lucerne last week. Rome this week, to interview another wonderful singer. Then home for four days, during which time I have to interview Yet Another Singer - what's going on with all these singers?!? I'll have met something like six of the best, so to speak. And I am trying frantically to finish the first draft of Novel No.2 before going on holiday to France the week after. So please forgive lack of blogging at the moment...

...and don't forget to tune in to the Last Night of the Proms tonight - it will feature KORNGOLD, no less, with the second half beginning with the suite from The Sea Hawk. Oh yes! Yes! Yes! About time too. Also, watch out for wonderful Paul Lewis playing Lambert's The Rio Grande, something one doesn't hear every day (though after reading Meredith Daneman's fantastic biography of Margot Fonteyn and seeing Tony Palmer's South Bank Show two-parter about her a few weeks back, I'll never view Lambert in quite the same way again...).

That cat...

A nice surprise yesterday, when BBC Radio Ulster invited me to be interviewed by phone on their 'Sounds Classical' programme with John Teale. They wanted to trail next weekend's Proms in the Park - there's a good big event in Belfast - and someone had stumbled across my Indy article on the nightmares musicians experience during outdoor performances.

So at a quarter to eight John phoned, we chatted over some Venezuelan guitar music and then the interview began. It was just long enough to bring out the story about the harpist and the birdshit and to explain what can happen to valuable musical instruments in extreme temperatures; and long enough, too, for Solti the cat to decide that since he's the resident conductor, he ought to be included. Solti has a miaow loud enough to be heard through the piano and violin being played together, so if he's in the room while I'm on the phone, winding round my ankles and protesting at full volume, everybody gets to know about it. I think that yesterday evening, the whole of Belfast met Solti.

So, any musicians who have trouble with birds at open-air concerts should stop and reflect: it could be worse. It could be cats.

Ciao tutto...

My blog stat measurer tells me that we've had a mysterious rush of hits in Italy, all looking at the photo of the Vuillaume Octobass.

Che cosa sta accadendo?

I hope that's correct. I got it from altavista's Babelfish translator...just wanted to ask what's going on?

Not that my stat counter is particularly reliable. It's under the opinion that Zakinthos is in the UK, that Hyderabad is in Italy, that anyone using AOL is in America even when they're in Europe and that I live in York (north of Watford? Moi?!). Still, it's enjoyable to do the detective work: pondering why some total stranger would be musing over Faure's quoted thought, who's looking for me in the BBC (a phone call solved that one) and how disappointed certain seekers will be when their search on a famous musician's name and the word 'gay' returns them a "no" somewhere from cyberspace.

Blogday!

According to the wonderful Drew McManus, 31 August 2005 is Blogday - a chance for bloggers to recommend other bloggers to our readership. Having been tapping away on Blogspot for a year and a half, I'm still amazed that we've invented a uniquely 21st-century medium with astounding international potential. Today alone I've had hits in the UK, US, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa, Morocco, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. Over the months, regular readers have popped up in the Philippines, Lithuania, Mexico, Argentina, Denmark, Spain, the Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Sweden and many, many more. Even the occasional hit in Iran, Urugay, Peru, Venezuela, India, Pakistan, Armenia and once (but once only, and my tracker may have made a mistake) Afghanistan. It's something extraordinary.

All my favourite blogs are listed on my blogroll (in impossibly haphazard order, I fear - I WILL put them in alphabetical order one day soon!). I was about to cite a select few, but don't want to upset any of the others, so I'll leave you with a plea to experiment with the list over to the left. To all my fellow bloggers - if you're on that list, it means I love you. Keep up the good writing!

The naked fiddler

Tom has gone to Berlin for the first leg of an LPO tour that will take in a) Germany, b) Italy and Switzerland, c) Bucharest, Zagreb and one or two other unusual places with long names. He arrived in Berlin this evening. His suitcase didn't. Here's hoping it turns up in time for the concert at the Philharmonie tomorrow, otherwise the Tomcat will have no tails and may have to go on in his birthday suit instead.....

Here's a very small something from the Indy today to provide a little diversion. I promise that the stories are ALL TRUE. Printed version is nice, if you can get hold of one, because they commissioned a fantastic cartoon for it. (No, it doesn't involve any nude violinists.)

Back home, I've just emerged from a snowdrift of book proofs, which I've now given back to my publisher, quaking. That's it. Anything that didn't get changed is going to be on a shelf somewhere for longer than I shall be on this planet. Every time I looked at it, I found something more than needed to be remedied..... Anyway, the jacket proof is wonderful - and all I can do now is sit back and wait. Time to get on with the next one. Theoretically, at least. Next week I'm going to meet Tom & the band in Lucerne for two days (hope it's stopped raining); the following week off to Rome to interview a very special singer; and a few days later a welcome holiday in France will be upon us.

More seriously, we've been massively churned up today by the pictures of New Orleans virtually underwater. Our very deepest sympathies from London to everyone caught up in the devastation brought to the southern states by Hurricane Katrina.