whoops - just lost some text. The last of the five day break and I feel quite low on energy - something to do with a clutch of things on the todo list today. Lots more that I might say about todo list management but I guess we all wrestle with that stuff.

Yesterday I worked on a version of the Bach Em Flt Sonata first movement - half improvising a middle line off the keyboard part. I think that part is only a development of the figured bass -so the technique is not too far out. I intend to use Dhorn on the clarinet patch.

The minidisc has developed a transport problem which is intermittent at the moment. I guess one has to reconcile oneself to the thought that these portable devices inevitably lead a rough life and wont always last long. The next one will always have someextra features. If this one does give up the ghost then I'll just have to get one with a UBS interface.

Simon Schama was good fun last night on TV talking about images of feminity in Victorian life - more original than the topic might suggest. He spent some time on Victoria herself and her personality and relationships - that story will fascinate historians to come I am sure. How she became a teenage queen and fairly rapidly hooked Albert - how she relied on him - how he found her quite hard work. Schama's thesis seemd to be around the thought that the feminine in Victorian society worked to ameliorate social tension. He likes Mrs Gaskell's Mary Barton for example.

And he thought that it was genuinely suprising that Great Britain unified itself round the Great Exhibition while Continental Europe was recovering from failed Revolution. He had a good quote from Victoria about the religious awe she felt as she entered the Great Ex for the first time. Will future historians be wondering about the symbolic role of Brian May's rendering of God Save the Queen at the Jubilee? Its a good subject really when you go back to the Star Spangled Banner. Are Marshall stacks more radical than Vox clusters?