I started the morning with more flute playing. It may be addictive - like jogging perhaps � all that breathing as a means of getting some the grot out of one�s system.

There�s a piece that kind of got thrown together recently � quite long � indeed much longer than I would normally consider viable at about 12 minutes. It has 5 flute parts and one Dhorn part � and when I played it through this morning from the MD there was more in it than I was expecting.

The next step might be to copy it onto the CD of pieces to go to Gilbert. I am wondering whether to do this via the effects stack that is currently sitting in the back of my car in a rack � compressor, reverb, Behringer multi-FX and enhancer. There�s a fair amount of spaghetti to unravel in doing this. And also some room reorganisation. I think I have to invest in some bookshelves. I share Gilbert�s frustration at the delays in the post.

One of the pieces that floated to the surface this morning was a piece which Stravinsky wrote in 1919 or thereabouts � for solo clarinet � in a set of three pieces . It suddenly struck me that this could be realised on the Dhorn. I had tried it once before on guitar. There�s a whole bundle of issues about interpretation which are just not how I wanted to engage in music � by a painstaking construction of an interpretation. Looked at it from the other angle � that�s not how I would expect anyone to engage in anything which I offered. I think the marks on the page ought to be regarded in the same way that a set of chord symbols are treated in a jazz piece.

I went over to the Solihull R&D site this morning � my presentation seemed to go reasonably well. The building was put up at the end of the 1950s and there is a very futuristic staircase that I had the opportunity to walk up. When I got back there was some useful material in my in-box following up a line part of the Chancellor�s budget speech last week � I thought this trail might have run cold but it still has some mileage left in it.

Listening to the 12 minute piece I decided it was going to be a limited edition recording entitled Bodyspace Lament.

I played the first the Stravinsky on Dhorn, then on flute to get the shape of it into my system. Not there yet . Then there was an outbreak of standards playing on guitar � Corcovado for example � and Night and Day � then the old blues tune Cocaine � in the version from the Jackson Browne album Running on Empty.

I am having a break from writing just now � lots of ideas flying around but none getting down on paper!

I went to the Warwick Arts Centre and I picked up a leaflet about the Birmingham Music Festival � you can enter a five minute composition (longest) � no score asked for � just a performance, Do I have the nerve? Maybe One Point Two or Fifths?

I listened to Paul Wheeler�s first album � Rain Over the Island � there are some real desert island tunes on that as far as I am concerned.

I had an idea for an algorithmic piece � approximately

�Play at least four bars which were initially improvised by Louis Armstrong

Play a 32 bar bebop head originally based on a standard

Play a blues head where its still not clear if Charlie Parker or Miles Davis wrote it

Fill in a bit between the first and second and the second and third items.�.

I might refine this a bit � I was thinking of a Coda which might go

�Take a transcription from the Coltrane Sheets of Sound period and play it much slower and more expressively as if it were written by Ravel or Debussy�

I sent Stefan a copy of �Slightly All the Time� � he said that he was really enjoying the remixes of ELP � a 3 CD set � but then he is a completist.