Came down to London last night; forgotten quite how much I dislike this place. Within 10 minutes, I found myself turning into a miserable enemy-of-humanity, having experienced the isolation and rudeness characteristic of the place. Of course, it has to be admitted that the first (re)experience of London involves travelling in the tube, at 5.30, with luggage. Truly, London at its worse. Still, spent the evening, outside the pub, with Aengus Stewart from CRUK; highly entertaining discussion, which is, I guess, London at it’s best.

I’ve generally been reasonably impressed with wordpress since I moved to it from my old, emacs-driven system. It seems to work mostly and it’s reasonably easy to manage.

I’ve been meaning to go and see one of the outdoor performances in Jesmond Dene for a while. Last week, I finally got to one — Emma, by Jane Austen, on a lovely, bright friday evening.

On Saturday, Newcastle was host to an Americana festival; anything with lots of music anywhere is always going to make me happy. In this case, we ended up a music boat; there’s a company that regularly cruises up and down the Tyne, and I’ve long thought it might be fun to give this a go; what better than to combine this with a bluegrass band (the midnight ramblers) and Devon Sproule, who is always good to see. It was a good fun; the cruise itself was entertaining, especially with the weather being so nice. Unfortunately, you couldn’t hear the band from the top deck, but as I’d forgotten my floppy hat, staying atop wasn’t an option anyway. The band were fun; very competant, professional and fluid. Poking around their website, they appear to be part-time, which belies their touring schedule; if it’s still true then their suggestion that they are gaining success as a result of their hard work is no lie. Devon Sproule was great as always, even though she looked rather irritable when she started; performing seems to make her happier. It was a pleasure to see her in a small (floating) venue again, as she is at her best in this sort of venue.

Following my holiday, I’ve decided to create two new categories for my blog, one for all my professional pieces and one for my personal.