Thursday 12 May 2011

My favourite moment from last night’s concert in the Signet Library to the extremely well-informed audience from NADFAS was probably when the stage lights blew as Lorna Anderson was singing Robert Burns’s Clarinda, exactly at the words ‘No other light shall guide my steps (*lights fail*) till thy bright beams arise’ … and she didn’t corpse. What a pro. Lorna has long mastered the art of sounding like herself when she sings, even when projecting to a room the considerable size of the Signet Library: I like this.

Allan tuning in the Signet Library

It was a bit disconcerting to be reciting part of Monty Python’s philosophers’ song (as an introduction to the Tippling Philosophers, which is basically the same thing 250 years earlier) underneath the gaze of David Hume, one of the characters in the painted cupola above our stage.  Hume, of course, could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.  If I’d known the present Earl’s sister was in the audience I probably wouldn’t have said quite so much about the 6^th Earl of Kellie’s membership of the Beggars Benison - ah well.

don't we look posh when we've scrubbed up? (photo by Sandy Young)

Today I feel like I have a massive hangover, but I had no more than a tiny whisky at bedtime last night. It’s not until I’m in the middle of doing it that I remember that organising concerts is a very stressful thing to do when you’re playing in them as well. You’d think I’d have learnt that lesson by now.

The new website is taking longer to upload than expected. Of course there is no point in my typing this, because by the time it is posted successfully and you read it, will no longer be relevant. “Corrected version”: Sorry the website has been down: it took longer to upload than we expected. And then there was lots of hassle over permissions on the hosting server. Grr.