This week I came across the video made by cellist Felix Wurman about  Domus at the beginning of the group’s career. We were trying to publicise our concerts in our portable concert hall, a large geodesic dome which the players assembled out of aluminium tubes, putting it up and taking it down in each place […]

Last night, on Burns’ Night, my book group met on Zoom to read Robert Burns’ poem ‘Tam O’Shanter’. Several members of the group had grown up taking part in annual Burns recitations on January 25, with prizes given for the best or most dramatic performances. They recalled the sound effects and props used by winning […]

In response to yesterday’s outrage about an HM Government ad showing ‘Fatima’, a young ballet dancer as an example of someone who might switch to ‘working in cyber’, I’m posting an excerpt from ‘J is for Job (not a proper)’, from my book A Musician’s Alphabet (Faber, 2006). It seems to have new relevance at […]

I have been reading an enthralling book, ‘A Hundred Years in the Highlands‘, written in 1921 by Osgood Mackenzie. He was the founder and owner of the famous gardens at Inverewe. Osgood Mackenzie was an elderly man when he wrote the book and could recall childhood incidents from the 1850s, as well as many tales […]

For the past couple of days I’ve been at the Edinburgh Book Festival  (one of the world’s major literary festivals) listening to other writers’ talks –  that is, when I could hear them over the noise of the thunder, lightning and rain battering on the canvas roof (in August). Last night we were at a […]