Last night we watched an enjoyable BBC4 programme, ‘The Great American Songbook’. Various artists such as Paolo Nutini, Melody Gardot, Krystle Warren, Gwyneth Herbert, José James and my own personal favourite, Claire Martin gave us their own, updated versions of classic songs from the 1920s onwards. I love the ‘golden age’ of American musicals (Gershwin, [...]

At the moment I have seven or eight new pieces on the music desk of my piano. I have to learn them all by the summer. Some are works I’ve never heard played, and in such cases I find it helpful to listen to a recording before I start work.
The internet has made things far easier [...]

An intriguing exchange in Sainsbury’s this morning. Two women were standing at the flour section frowning at a tiny bag of flour which one of them held in her hand.
‘Do you bake?’ she said to me. I nodded. ‘Could you tell me whether I’d get 24 fairy cakes out of this amount of flour?’ ‘I’m not [...]

Bob and I were arguing over breakfast about the theme tune at the end of ‘Frasier’. We’re working our way through a box set and enjoying the Frasier ambience all over again. But we had rather different memories of what notes he sings to the words ‘tossed salad and scrambled eggs’. The lyrics are enigmatic ( ‘Hey, [...]

Weekends in London are becoming a nightmare of public transport challenges. Every week we’re notified of which tube lines will be closed or partially closed at the weekend. The list often seems cheekily long. The whole Victoria Line is often closed, the whole Circle Line, portions of the Jubilee Line, parts of the Northern Line, [...]