Mark mentioned the other day that the volumes on Frakctured were slightly off their peak � the same seems to be happening on Kwase-Kwaza. June looks like it will be down on May. Maybe its just seasonality � hot weather keeping people away from their terminals. But Mark is right that it requires a psychological adjustment � at the moment I can�t really take any action to see if I can boost the volumes, if anything I am cutting back on the amount that I post.

Anyway turning to a cheerier subject, yesterday evening Yvonne and I went to the Vann Recital given by the Galliard trio � bassoon, clarinet and flute. Vann is a house and garden in darkest Surrey � the youngest bits of the house, where the recital takes place, is Edwardian whilst the oldest bits are late Medieval. The garden is always good but it was really looking great yesterday.

The programme included some pieces that I know � Syrinx and the Poulenc Sonata for Bassoon and Clarinet, one that I am trying to get to know � Stravinsky�s Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet, one I think I used to know � Arnold�s Fantasy for Bassoon and some completely new material to me � Tomasi�s Concert Champetre, Milhaud�s Suite d�Apres Corette and Villa-Lobos� Choros No 2. The new stuff was great � Tomasi was a Coriscan who died in 1971 � an easy comment would be that he�s rather like Vaughan Williams � modal, some quite hard fourths and fifths. Apparently his stuff is hardly played at all now � I certainly can�t understand why if the rest of it is anything like that. Milhaud was very engaging � especially in that setting � attractive without being too pretty. Villa � Lobos was fun as well. I was sitting just behind Katherine Spencer the clarinettist and I really enjoyed the character in her playing.

So that was a picture book episode � luckily it was my birthday treat � which more than made up for the uneventful day itself.

I spent some of the weekend throwing out bits of old stuff that have accumulated over the years. I always have difficulty deciding that something which could be �archival� is in fact just old dross and needs to go in the black bag. I have decided that a load of old off-air tapes from Radio 3 from about 10 years ago just have to go. I have almost decided that the vynil also is on the way out.

Vita is away in Derbyshire doing her DoE Silver walk � hope it isn�t too hot � she hasn�t phoned at all.

There are a couple of things that I am not really looking forward to this week.