There was a meeting � I wasn�t sure how it was gonna go but it seemed to be OK, I was the host and there was only one other participant. On the strength of this I booked a course in Austin Court in the centre of Birmingham � just off the canal � a kind of Bostonian location quite convenient for galleries � esp the place where I bought that Bill Viola collection I can�t get into.

Earlier I had discovered that a consultation exercise � on management and leadership has been crammed into September when I was expecting it to stretch across October and November. I booked into the Coventry meeting about 2 weeks� time � then I discovered that this clashed with a presentation at DTI

Yesterday a Leamington born artist died � Terry Frost. He is one of the mid generation abstract artists that Patrick Heron thought deserved more credit from the USA. Frost lived in St Ives for much of his career in art . One of the obituaries I read mentioned how lucky Frost felt to have been friend with the great generation of AbsEx when he knew in his heart that he wasn�t quite in the same league. Frost took up abstraction in 1949 � about the same time the AbsEx were hitting their stride.

I dropped into a bar took the chance to browse 2 essays about Richard Long in a book James bought me for Christmas a few years ago.. The book claims that in global terms British sculpture is more important than painting - in fact the argument of the critics is once again that this British artist built on the insights of the New York object fetishists and was able to humanise their stuff by integrating it into the British landscape tradition. Maybe I ought not to engage with that here and now � but you�d think British critics might find another tune.

I am listening to Smith J, Burrell K and Turrentine S - Back in the Chicken Shack. Actually they are back in Rudy van Gelder�s place in Hackensack New Jersey. Burrell is one of the Detroit crew. You won�t be surprised to hear that I have been on a Detroit binge � MC5 Parliament and Whats Going On plus the story of WGO by Ben Edmond who dedicates the book to the people of Detroit �my adopted home�. They �show me every day what its worth.� Makes sense to me.

I have also invested in some People�s Music � Walk the Dog and Light the Light � the last studio album by Laura Nyro. People obviously make a fuss about about the first clutch of albums � Eli and the 13th Confession etc. I really like the mid 70s one about Mars and Money and I have a soft spot for Nested. Walk the Dog has Brecker Bros and Bernard Purdie on drums and was done in NYC. In one of the photos she is carrying a DX7. I have some live versions of some of these songs which come at the end of a great compilation double CD which came out just after she died. It includes that nice grove which starts �Sappho was a poet and Billie was a real musician.�

I read some stuff about Sappho when I was in St Ives � a review from the New York Review Books and a chapter in a book off James� history reading list. Sappho invented lyric poetry. This is clear even though most of what we have is fragments. She comes after Homer.