My favourite book

Wrote about Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle for today's Independent.

On a totally different tack, does anyone know anyone in London who can make Hungarian canapes for 80-100 at a reasonably reasonable rate?

Yehudi Menuhin said:

"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming the hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child's dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love."

He died nine years ago today. Here he is (aged 16) playing the first movement of the Bach Double with his mentor George Enescu in 1932 - a recording treasured by violinophiles the world over.

'ere we go...

The London Philharmonic on tour in South Korea, not to be outdone by the New York Philharmonic in North Korea, took the opportunity to play football against the Seoul Philharmonic yesterday and beat 'em 3-2. Two of the three goals were scored by ace first trumpet Paul Beniston. LPO concerts at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts and the Seoul Arts Center tonight, tomorrow and Thursday. Pictured: before...and after!

While the tomcat's away...

The LPO set off yesterday for a two-and-a-half week tour to the Far East and, briefly, nearer East. They've just arrived in Seoul and will be playing there in a few days' time. Then off to Hong Kong, Taipei and finally Abu Dhabi. I would like to offer a special Ginger Stripes prize to whoever it was who invented Skype.

While the Tomcat's away, the mice need cheering up, so we are watching Charlie Chaplin on Youtube. Here is that famous scene from The Great Dictator involving Brahms's Hungarian Dance No.5.

Culture minister with foot-in-mouth disease

Howard Jacobson has a brilliant piece in today's Independent about our so-called Culture Minister Margaret Hodge's foot-in-mouth about the Proms. Could someone please a) send her a DVD of the Buskaid/English Baroque Orchestra's Prom last year, b) actually force her to watch it, c) wash her mouth out with soap? The joke is on her in the end, because she evidently is thinking of the Last Night of the Proms (the good ol' jingoism debate), and therefore makes one suspect that she doesn't know what happens there the rest of the summer...