At the weekend, several newspapers carried photos of thieves in China using chopsticks to pick people’s pockets as they browsed market stalls. The chopsticks are used essentially to make the thief’s fingers much longer and thinner – a sort of variant on the Edward Scissorhands look. It also means that the pickpockets don’t have to stand [...]

I practise the piano in a room at the front of the house. People walk past in the street all the time, and I’ve always been amazed at how few of them turn their heads in the direction of the sound, or appear to notice it at all.
I mentioned this recently to a concert pianist [...]

During lunch in a tiny village in the forests of Le Sidobre, in Languedoc, we got into conversation with an elderly lady who told us that she spoke Occitan as a child, before she was required to learn French. At our request, she spoke some Occitan to us, the only time I’ve ever heard it [...]

An exhibition of artistic sculptures based on pink garlic – how could I resist when I saw the poster outside the tourist office in Lautrec? Pink garlic is a local speciality, but despite its undoubted charms it didn’t seem a promising material for sculpture. I imagined tiny netsuke figures whittled from cloves of garlic, but [...]

An interesting conversation at lunch today about choosing music as a career despite the misgivings of one’s parents. Everyone at the summer school had had some form of The Conversation about whether music was an acceptable profession. Many recalled that they were strongly encouraged in their musical endeavours right up to the point where they [...]