I have joined the roster of speakers represented by the Ed Victor Agency. If you are interested in booking me as a speaker, Visit their Speakers’ Bureau and scroll down the alphabetical list until you come to T. I’ve always enjoyed speaking to concert audiences, and in recent years I’ve  found it satisfying to talk to [...]

Last summer we brought back some pink garlic from the French village of Lautrec, where we visited a memorable exhibition of tableaux created using pink garlic cloves as the raw material. When we got home, we divided our garlic bulbs into single cloves and planted them in the back garden. Lo and behold, a year later, we [...]

This morning in the park I was trying to take moody silhouettes of my old friends the Egyptian geese (see photo). ‘I wonder where the word ‘silhouette’ comes from?’ I said to Bob. He thought for a moment and replied, ‘Probably named after Alphonse Silhouette, the first man to stand sideways.’

Yesterday I adjudicated a scholarship whose auditions were held at the Royal Academy of Music. Their Josefowitz Recital Hall is set into the ground at basement level. Half way up the wall behind the stage is a large half-moon-shaped window as wide as the room. This whole window is actually above ground level. The lower [...]

Last night I saw the Japanese edition (published by Shunjusha) of my book ‘Out of Silence’ for the first time. Its translator, the concert pianist Noriko Ogawa, flew back from Tokyo yesterday and very nobly came straight from the airport to visit me, bringing me a copy of the book. What a strange feeling, to [...]