Another Cerne Abbas festival has come to an end. Remembering last year’s dreadful weather, during which one of the group had to drive to Dorchester to buy some thermal undergarments, I had packed some rather warm concert clothes, which I regretted as soon as I realised how sunny this year’s festival was going to be. [...]

Someone has drawn my attention to the fact that last Saturday, in the Family section of the Guardian, a reader submitted a favourite recipe along with a recollection of her childhood, in which her late mother played the piano music of Billy Mayerl on the family’s beloved upright piano. The reader, Nikki Copleston, mentioned that [...]

I’m coming towards the end of my week in Fiesole, a week of baking heat during which I have realised that much of the music we’ve been studying must have been written in a cooler climate. In this kind of intense heat we can hardly face playing, or even hearing, some of the more energetic [...]

A few months ago, disheartened by the difficulty of ‘growing’ my blog readership, I consulted some of my students about the situation. I say ‘students’ but in fact they are all high-achieving young professionals who come for the occasional coaching. They all agreed that it’s nearly impossible to persuade people to go to the trouble [...]

The Guardian weekend magazine has a page, ‘Your Pictures‘, where they ask for photo contributions on a given theme. For today, the theme was ‘produce’. I sent in a photo of our favourite Egyptian geese, whom we’ve been feeding for years on visits to Richmond Park. They have never before had any offspring (at least [...]