Friday 30 November 2007

Happy St Andrew's Day. The drivetime show on Sunny Govan Radio was playing Scottish music in celebration so I got to sing along to the Bay City Rollers while making the dinner - now that's community service. 

I can now reveal that Concerto Caledonia is going to be releasing a 7" single sometime soon. The major decision to be taken at the moment is what colour vinyl it should be on: I think my kids get to decide that one.

Musical institutions all have their problems: I suspect that the RSAMD is better run than many, but nonetheless you can see why some people prefer not to get involved with such places at all. I've given up trying to work out how much they pay me for my occasional lectures: there doesn't seem to much rhyme or reason to it, and it makes getting a payslip from them an interesting event. Today I got one in the mail for the grand sum of £2.34. The last time I went in to teach I was given a form to fill in for my travel expenses, which is great.  Rather than work out the running costs of the cycle journey, I put in the £3 return equivalent bus fare.  The payslip showed that they'd paid me £3, net of income tax.  They didn't pay me for the lecture, but they taxed my bus fare!  Um ...  given that they've already wasted I don't know how much money on making the actual transaction, I'm not going to waste any more of their time by pointing this out ...

I've been practising or rehearsing for several days in a row now: this takes a bit of getting used to.