I tracked down Ray Ancill today. He was in the year following me at Hoggwarts and a medical student-songwriter. He ended up in a band called Thunderbox with Jon Cole which sort of evolved into the Movies. Jon gave up a classics lectureship at Trinity Dublin for this band � it was part of the ascent of Joan Armatrading. It seems that Ray is now on the psychiatry faculty at the University of British Columbia and he will shortly get an email out of the blue with some fascinating updates about his old jamming partners. Ray comes from Glasgow and I have a vague recollection that he knew Linda Thompson�s brother.

I drove into central Birmingham today via the Junction listening to Mary J Blige. I had a good meeting with Stephen Bates on his economic stats and picked up a lot of interesting material from the DTI regional unit library � I had a talk with Nigel Goulty about the city car project and mailed Tracy about this to dig deeper. Dropped in at a music shop opposite the Conservatoire and riffled the sales boxes � two flute sonatas by an 18 Century Scottish composer caught my eye � a snip at �2. Didn�t buy some Debussy songs but did buy some very early Cage piano pieces. Have I mentioned that Nick Brown and Steve once bumped into John Cage and went for a drink with him? Who else would be thus blessed by synchronicity?

Nigel and I talked a bit about the history of Birmingham � there is a house in Aston where Charles I stayed before the battle of Edgehill that he told me about. I said I drove past Edgehill a lot and I wanted to look at the battlefield. Nigel explained that it was a draw and after that it was a race to London � Parliament got there first and there was a stand off at Turnham Green. I said that my sister had taken my children to a recreation of the Battle of TG which is more or less or her patch � and on reflection this kind of thing had fuelled James passion for history. We went on to discuss how Cromwell had abused his Scottish prisoners in Tothill Fields which is round the back of the DTI. I made a flippant comment about contemporary parallels which I think Nigel got pretty well. If it comes to hard-edged irony he can probably see me off.

I am listening to the last piece but one which I had quite forgotten about. And now the current piece � does it deserve a similar fate. At least the last piece has a saving narrative � in harmonic terms. This one is slightly about a tone row conception � two minor seveth chords separated by a tritone and a diminished chord which splits the difference. Oh yes I also bought Schoenberg Opus 33a for piano in Bham.

I thought about the links between Lauren Hill and MJB. The latter is pretty upfront about what she thinks � and delivers her stuff with a mighty passion which indeed first attracted me to her � when I saw her do it on TV. The range of metaphysical reference in MJB seems to be similar to that in LH � and her miseducation. However the LH story has a second chapter where she explains how constrained she felt when she was a major blackmusic property. Will we hear the same kind of confessions from MJB.

Of course don�t know � but suppose we do. Part of the MJB proposition is the contrast between the passion and authenticity of her delivery and the smoothness and artifice of the setting. But suppose that juxtaposition is indeed artifice���

I read an article Paul W sent me about D Hockney � an interview. I was really impressed � I think all the stuff about the lenses and Vermeer etc is pretty hot in its own right. But he seem to have moved on from there to a position which claims realism for the artist�s perception � over the camera.. He cites Lucien Freud�s portrait of himself � 100s of hours sitting as exemplar. That the concentrated artistic focus on the presented personality delivers a truth beyond the camera�s specific instant however �typical� it may be. It�s a kind of neo-conservatism � tendered against the whole declining YBA bandwagon � indeed outside the ambit of any kind of pomo ironicising. Its like the literary critics who claim that the Victorian novelists � Dickens and George � with their ambitious realist agenda were actually getting closer to �it� than anything that has come since.

Gilbert mailed with some great ideas � I mailed back straight away.

Maybe that second piece can continue.

I really liked Ricardo�s story about missing the class � especially as it was an improv class � that really put the cap on it � the students have no grounds for complaint whatsoever.

Michele Landsberg is (I think) married to Stephen Lewis. Stephen has something in common with Leonard Cohen in that they both received honours from the Canadian government in the New Year�s list. The latest piece in the www.kwase-kwaza.org News section gives Stephen�s views on Iraq and the African situation. I would guess that he is still suffering from his experience in a Zambian hospital where he saw a number of orphans in the latter stages of AIDS related illness. Its his job to link the UN and the African AIDS crisis � and I imagine its efforts here that secured the honour although he may well have a long and distinguished career. Anyway he is exasperated that the world is about to embark on the enormous waste of more deliberate destruction � when there is more than enough destruction around if that�s what you are into. It is � Stephen points out � some seven months since any country gave funds to the UN Global Fund to Fight AIDS Malaria and TB. The last donor country was Germany.

Michele is a journalist and you can sample her craft on www.kwase-kwaza.org - also in the news section � I think the entry is around 7 January. Go and have a look at it � it is the most powerful slice of rhetoric I have read � maybe ever. Go and see what you make of it.