I am still getting the hang of this back in the UUUK lark especially as far as sleep is concerned eg not falling asleep on the sofa.

The meeting on Monday spun off some investigative activities � in particular looking at a recently formed French company and also the latest developments in EC industrial policy. I discovered that I had agreed to go to Loughborough this evening to catch up on all of this staying overnight for a proper meeting tomorrow morning � all rather sudden but pretty important just now.

I have written a further draft of Nick Drake and the Cambridge Poets � A Transatlantic Agenda . But I am in two minds whether to push to deliver it at Tanworth on 21 August. It seems the concert runs from 5pm and 8pm. Before will be rehearsals and after people will be eating and relaxing. Currently it is around 2200 words long which would take about 40 minutes to read I think. We�ll see.

When I was in Lycia I took the Chinese piccolo and some CDs � the chalets came with a player and so in the heat of the day I could cool off in the chalet work on my embouchure and maybe play along with some CDs. In particular I took Tutu which is the first CD with Marcus Miller and a live recording of a concert in Avignon with Kenny Garret on sax which uses some of the same material. I also took the last Miles Davis/ Gil Evans collaboration which was incidental music for a play called The Time of the Barracuda and is the only example of Miles 2nd great 5tet working with Gil Evans.

This has propelled me towards a Charlie Parker tune � Ah Leu Cha � which was in the repertoire of the first great 5tet. The tune looks at first sight like a clasic bop tune derived from the AABA pattern which underlies I�ve Got Rhythm and certainly the middle 8 is the standard cycle of 5ths. But the melody doesn�t sit over the harmony in quite the normal way. I have been playing it on the flute � partly because such tunes are really good for building or consolidating technique. But I also started to work on a guitar version which is using a lot of fourth chords � rather to my surprise because they are essentially static and these tunes usual have dynamic harmony. I am beginning to wonder whether in some way this tune anticipates, say, ESP which is the defining composition for the second great 5tet. There is some kind of odd symmetry to the way the line is put together which I can�t quite fathom � and so I�ll just have to learn it off by heart.

I seem to have brought swollen ankles bank from Lycia with me.

I have consolidated all the different articles that I have downloaded on recent US and UK poetry into a single file. Unlike me to be even a little bit organised in this way.