Everyone's been writing about...

...this.... and this. Surprised to see pop stars gracing the covers of, respectively, BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM Magazine, I thought that as everyone else was getting their teeth into them, I could escape without covering either. My editor, though, has other ideas, so I've agreed to take about 48 hours to get to grips with the merits or otherwise of both, not to mention the principles (the which?) behind them. Watch this space.

Sokolov

My article for International Piano about Grigory Sokolov is now available to read on my permasite. Click here.

Anyone who remembers me writing a few months back that I had just done an interview with someone who may be the world's greatest pianist will now know what I was talking about. I went over to Barcelona to hear and meet him back in March, in company with a valiant Russian cellist as interpreter; we heard a most stunning recital at the Palau de la Musica, interviewed the great man after his concert - around midnight - and even found ourselves having breakfast with him in the hotel the next morning. Sokolov's performances have been among the greatest revelations of my musical life. And I've had a few. Read on...

Tour blues

Tom's back - briefly - from a European tour with the band. Last week they did Leipzig, Braunschweig and Hamburg. A week from tomorrow they're doing more Germany, plus Amsterdam at the beginning (15th) and Budapest - yes! - at the end (26th). Solti and I get a bit blue when Tom is away.

Speaking of blues, we finally met Maurice, sunning himself outside his front door. He's what my father would have called a 'real boofka' of a cat. Solti isn't the smallest cat on earth, but he basically doesn't stand a chance here. If Maurice is indeed a Russian Blue, he'd have been employed in the highest echelons of the KGB - indeed he looks not unlike a particular piano professor and frequent competition jury member whom I met in Salzburg years ago and who is rumoured, fairly or not, to have such connections (one way or another, his pupils do keep on winning things).

My thanks to Veronique, a music-loving vet from Paris, who wrote in with some sensible advice about how to deter unwanted feline visitors. Much appreciated! Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the Russian Blue to start putting in the bugs. I'll report back properly about life in music a.s.a.p....

Gatti

Not Daniele. Mine. And one down the road. Fighting.

Solti is in a lot of trouble. He's been to the vet 4 times in 10 days and 'scarface' doesn't begin to describe it.

Does anybody know a good way to a) keep other cats out of one's garden without upsetting one's own, b) keep resident feline (neutered) from straying beyond the fence?

Of course, the rogue cat who's beating him up may be a reincarnated orchestral musician with a severe grudge against Sir Georg. A friend suggests I change puss's name to something more innocuous: Hickox?

Or, I guess, Gatti.

The agony and ecstasy...

... No. Just agony. In other words, proof-reading. ALICIA'S GIFT is done, packaged up & ready to go back to Hodder, covered in pen, pencil and, I'm afraid, paw-marks. But to the inevitable question from my pals, "Are you pleased with it now?", all I can say is that the more I go through my own work, the more agonising the whole business becomes. I've tidied up some crucial moments, spiced up others, neatened a sentence or two here and there, but the fact remains that when I finished writing the thing I was pleased with it, whereas now I'm finding holes of many varieties all over the ruddy place. Comforting words from publisher and agent, impatient words from husband ("Just send it off!") and get-this-in-perspective-cos-it's-suppertime miouws from Solti all do their bit to ensure that the pages will wing their way back to the Euston Road rather than hitting the shredder.

If you're giving a concert, you play the music and it's gone for good, unless you're fortunate enough to have a CD company present to record your every move. But if you're writing a book, that book is going to be on the shelves for ever. It'll be there - somewhere - long after you're taking harp lessons in the great conservatoire in the sky (or violin lessons in the other place). If you think about this too much, you can start going bananas. The manuscript stage is fine: it's your new book, it's real, you've done it, hooray! Even copy-editing is fine: you can change anything and everything, phew! But proofs...this is when you see the thing in print, laid out on its pages, and it's your last chance to change anything. And when you are still waking up at 2am thinking "Oh my God, is ABC what really happens when XYZ is starting?" and "How many instances do I have of W saying, 'HCHRTYSVDYE'? and should there be any at all?" and "Oh heck, can a dog can live that long?"....it gradually becomes clear that some of us are simply incapable of ever being happy with our own work, whether for a good reason or not. And then you have to "just send it off".

Waiting for the courier to arrive now.