Wednesday 18 May 2011

Ah. I have a red eye again, a big bulging one. So it’s back to the steroids and one artificially-dilated pupil for good measure. I keep bumping into things as I can’t see as well as usual on my left side. But I’ve signed off the Revenge CD booklet at last (again) and it’s off to the factory. Is our website sorted yet? If you can read this, it probably is. Sorry that took so long. On Monday I finally returned to a worklist I drew up for 8 March.  I think I even did one of the things on it.

I got a call from Sushil earlier, recovering in the Banana Leaf from appearing live on Later with Jools Holland last night: for the next few days you can see him here with his lovely red Futuruma bass, in action with Karine and the Burns Unit. They’re about 23’30 in.

I was very sad to hear of Bruce Haynes’s death yesterday. I only really got to hang out at his and Susie Napper’s house in Montréal once, in 2003 when Chris, DG and I were staying in their back yard for a week while making a record with Suzie. I remembering standing in the kitchen, a bit jet-lagged and enjoying what seemed to be a constant happy stream of interesting people wandering in and out, and a constant supply of really good food coming out of that kitchen at all hours of the day and night. I’ve written about his book The End of Early Music here before: maverick it (and he) may have been, but it (and he) also made me cheer many times for daring to express things that I’d thought but hadn’t got around to articulating in public.