Activity

At the Sydney International Piano Competition I sat in the second row where one can see the sweat splashing off their noses and chins and soaking the hair on the backs of their necks. I’d been in a mood for never hearing Mozart again, but a Frenchman played a rondo with such airy clarity and creamy…

I’ve been offered a job reviewing movies for a monthly magazine. Out of the depths of my ignorance I take it. The editor, gossiping about a certain journalist, says, ‘Like all bullies and authoritarians, he’s very easily wounded.’ Later I report this to V. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘that’s good, isn’t it. Di…

‘I think you should learn the second Czerny,’ said my piano teacher. ‘They make a pair. You’ve been on the first one long enough.’ ‘Okay. I love boring exercises.’ ‘I’ve noticed,’ she said. ‘You must be looking for something deeper in the music. Something spiritual.’ We laughed but I wasn’t quite s…

While I was cleaning the bathroom basin V came in and we had an interesting discussion. Leaning against the door jamb with his arms folded, he advised me that it was time for me to stop writing ‘about the 70s’. Oh? Why’s that? Because the 70s was a ‘period of bullshit, of clapped-out theories that …

Woman after woman, five of them in a few days, came up to me to say they liked ‘Recording Angel’. And each of them said a version of ‘It’s full of love.’ I’d better get used to this. Men see it one way, women another.