Wednesday 6 November 2002

I've had lots of listening to do, what with the session tapes from last week and a real copy of 'The Caledonian Flute' arriving from Chris.  I have to learn the entire album (some of which I didn't play on) for next week's gigs in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but it's not really a hardship as it's all great stuff.  A fellow BBC producer bounded into the office this afternoon beaming 'what a great CD' after listening to it all the way through, and I have to agree, even if I'm on it.  I'd forgotten that I'd agreed to play Corri's Duncan Gray (on the Mungrel Stuff album) next week, which I've never actually played in public and is a bit hard. So I'd better do some practice.  And there's the other little problem to be overcome which is that my melodica's pitched at A444 and Chris's harmonium's at A440 - it's not a problem when you're making a record because you just slow down or speed up the track, but when you're switching instruments in the middle of a set of tunes, it's a bit unreasonable to expect everyone else (and the audience's ears) to retune.  So the tuning meter and the sawn-off chainsaw file will be  coming out of retirement I think.

I read the Guardian's obituary of Philip Brett at the weekend. When I was doing my PhD he was a huge encouragement to me: I would send him my work by mail to Berkeley and it would come back to Scotland a few weeks later (usually with an apology for not doing it sooner) carefully annotated with helpful patient comments and pointers for improvement.  Generous and kindly.

On Saturday morning I made an ill-advised trip to the local jumble sale and returned with a pile of products from Dundee's legendary publisher D.C. Thomson - comic annuals for my son, and some 1940s Oor Wullie and The Broons for me.  When I was growing up, they were still reprinting Dudley D Watkins's work in the Sunday Post even though he'd died when I was two - it took them nearly a decade to find someone to fill his shoes.  At its best, his work is quite brilliant, simple but full of character - when I was 8, I dreamed of playing Wullie on stage!