This morning I kept on with extra parts for Adam Postgate � its heading in the direction of Dayindayout in that it shows Minstyle antecedents but has been invaded by free improv. Some of the improv has come in via the Tascam 428 interface out of the Dhorn. In fact I even thought of trying the Yamaha Dhorn on that path but was frustrated by flat batteries. The patches in the softsynth that came with Cubase Go are pretty good and when linked into a freeblown MIDI line sound quite convincingly like genuinely improvised instruments.

I actually managed to get all the Shortstories out of the portable onto a CD. I was encouraged by a message Gilbert giving the thumbs up to the rework of Track 3 and his first site of tracks 15 and 18. I knew 18 had something unusual about it but Gilbert is not worried by the lack of salient parts on 15. I still have to get track 11 to him somehow � it seems to be too long to go down the wires. I am listening to it as I type this � if I had to find a back reference to the Shortstory project I was say it was the album that John Cale arranged arranged and produced for Nico � the Marble Index. Maybe this sounds like hubris � but I chose this because it is also in a European space between modern classical and jazz � parts adventitious and other parts more considered and schematic. Anyway getting it to the point where its all sitting on a CD and can be listened to end to end for 20 minutes is satisfying. Cubase Go comes with some mastering software which I have just started to use. It has normalisation and the kind of sound enhancement that can really lift a track. The main problem is that I still have no idea how to get the WAVS onto a CD>

I discovered that my course starts tomorrow � which is in many ways an advantage � as it means that I can give at least one whole day to it and probably quite a bit of the next one leaving Friday free for some other activities which are inescapable,

A brief arrived on accreditation of competence in purchasing. I thought the structure of this particular route to professional status was pretty impressive and could easily be part of something grander and more fashionable. I passed it onto Geoff Dale and gave Kevin a paragraph to put into the project plan for DTI on accreditation.

Laurence mailed asking me to expand on some of the passing remarks I had made on his paper for Ashridge and I tried to put some beef on the bones. He mailed back thanking me for the thoughts. I tried Keith out with a simple leadership diagnostic � it seemed to work in that he liked answering it and his responses provoked quite a good discussion. The results suggested that automotive leaders needed to be strongly extrovert and quite oriented towards possibility but not so much that they didn�t lose site of factual constraints. The surprise was on the analytical versus the value-driven dimension which came out pretty evenly balanced � and on Keith�s judgement that even if this was the goal then for many people it would mean becoming more analytical. The judgement/perceptual dimension was also pretty evenly balanced � suggesting that these leaders need to know how to make up their minds but be careful about rushing to judgement.

I rooted through my old papers from the college and found some quite good material about project management � some of it from the US � and a risk appraisal test which looked potentially very useful.

I went into Solihull at lunchtime � partly to follow a suggestion about how to do it � not an obvious path. But then paths round here are not obvious. I went through Hampton in Arden which is nearly as good as its name suggests.

In Solihull I went to the upper floor of BHS and spent �20 on some essentials. I glanced into HMV and they had the re-issue of A Love Supreme which includes the sextet experiment of December 1964 and the Juan-les-Pins live performance of the next July. I nearly bought but then I realised that they had a not terribly legal version of the last item for a third the price � so that was the thing. This is the only live performance of Coltrane�s most famous and best selling album � and it was exceuted about a month after the recording of Ascension � the album which marked the start of his last phase. In the light of that, I think its surprising that the live performance is as close to the recording as it is � because the piece is really defined by the recording, you can�t easily judge how much of that performance is essence and how much is how the improvisational elements fell out that time. The main difference that I heard was in the third section where in the live performance there is one of those incredible duets between Trane and Elvin Jones � there is also one on the CD I bought in Manchester.