Saturday 14 January 2012

I have a stinking cold so have spent most of today immobile on the sofa or in the bath, trying to chase illness away with steam, daal, or industrial quantities of elderflower and tonic.

Yesterday Matt Wadsworth came over to give an impromptu gig at the university (persuading me to join in on virginals), which was a great excuse to sit in the University Café for an hour afterwards with rolls & sausage, and ice cream in the proper plastic dishes with raspberry on it. You can watch Matt’s latest motorbike-jumping exploits here.

I haven’t been on the subway in Glasgow for ages – is it normal to have two policemen on every train now, or is that just on Friday afternoons?  Our journey into town was diverted via the south side after someone fell onto the tracks at Shields Road station, which prompted Matt to tell me about the time he’d done the same on the Jubilee Line after a bit too much refreshment: that’s what happens when a sherry company sponsors a chamber music prize at a music college …

The latest on the ‘are orchestral musicians allowed to have opinions’ question was in the news today and features the spectacularly crass statement from the orchestral management that “for the LPO, music and politics do not mix”.  If you go to their website, you’ll see that their current project is entitled ‘Prokofiev: Man of the People?’.  So ... no politics there at all, then.

Speaking of politics, the referendum debate prompts these excellent videos of stereotypical Scottish people: check out the detail on this one (especially the Buckfast), and this old favourite of Jack Docherty as cultural commentator McGlashan. I sent this last one to a few people at New Year with a ‘does this remind you of anyone?’ prompt, and they were all reminded of different people!  It’s not like us Scots are chippy or anything, is it?