under another sun

Another glorious day, although it may betoken the end of the world. Lorraine and I up and off to Sussex University, to the Attenborough Centre to see some classical music from the Castalian Quartet. Sadly their number had been redu ced to three, but they played two trios and one two-person pieces instead, which were rather good. After the interval they were abetted by Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhard for the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor Op 34. All rather splendid, and it took us to a happy place. I knew none of the pieces they had played. The event was introduced by Andrew Comben, who turned the pages for the pianist, which I always think seems a stressful job. A highly appreciative audience. We drove home afterwards, the day cloudless and gorgeous. In the afternoon Lorraine and I popped around next door to for tea and a slice of cake with our neighbours Philippa and Harvey. Their son Magnus able to walk about and say words a bit now. Then after a spot of dinner, I went out to T...

Write club Busy day. Up fairly early and working on project pamphlet (now reframing and transforming) then girding my loins to schlep off to London to interview Andrew Comben the new Chief Executive of the Brighton Festival. Having not done an interview for a bit, I thought I'd take my mp3 recorder as a back up. However the dratted thing decided to freeze up when I tested it on the train, which was galling and made me want to stamp on it. Had to rely on good old fashioned scribbling. More about all that in the daywork blog. Feeling somewhat coldy today, but coffee kept me going. In the evening I took myself off to something called The Write Club (alluding to Fight Club) where people are supposed to have arguments about literature. Instead I ended up having a really good time and chatting with four (count 'em) published novelists and others who were nice too. One woman had published a "chick lit" novel (which sounded rather dark when she read a piece from it) and I fo...