Thursday 22 February 2007

From yesterday's Guardian, this wonderful piece by John Tusa about what it's like to run an arts organisation. I think I agree with him on virtually everything, except that in my experience, health and safety officers have been a fount of calm intelligence and common sense: maybe I've been lucky.

I took a couple of hours off yesterday to go back to the RSAMD to hear Karen McAulay give a research paper on Scots tune accompaniments in the late 18th and early 19th century. It was unusually refreshing to be in a room with some other people who were interested in taking old Scottish music seriously.

later, flying to Luton I'm sitting here contentedly re-reading Bill Drummond's book of scores, when an announcement comes over the PA. They are selling 'fun cards' on the plane. Fun cards. OK, I think, that's got my attention, now what the hell is a fun card? Oh. The chance to win up to £20 000. It costs a quid. It's a scratch card. That's how much fun you get for a quid. I can think of better value fun opportunities myself. I feel like going to an old-fashioned sweetie shop just to show them what £1's worth of fun can look like. And now I'm lost in a reverie about boiled sweets. Perhaps I should have had some lunch before boarding.