Tuesday 11 November 2008

British Library Rare Books and Music Reading Room, desk no. 106
I made it to London last night in time to catch the end of a party at Lucy’s (which I wasn’t expecting) and was surprised to find that I knew all but one of the people there. That’s the Walthamstow early music collective for you. It’s always great to catch up with Lucy, and I enjoyed the benefits of Peter McCarthy’s wisdom too. Peter is that valuable asset, a musician who has worked out when not to play. In his case as a bass player, he’s learnt from his research that 16-foot bass wasn’t played that much in a lot of the repertoire he specialises in, so he’s essentially put a lot of effort into putting himself out of work. Which I guess isn’t a lucrative way to make music, but it is an honest one.

I’m just waiting for a pile of 18^th century books to be delivered to the issue desk, and in the meantime I can enthuse here about what an excellent building this is. To my shame I haven’t visited the British Library since it was in the British Museum, and it’s a deeply impressive place. I’ve just had a rather good pot of tea and some excellent cake downstairs in the café to help me while away the allotted 70 minute wait, and passed on some Oswald scores to Maeve’s hard drive in the foyer.  It’s just as well I’ve finally got myself a laptop as otherwise I really wouldn’t feel like I fit in here.