Daily Archive

So I moaned quite a bit here about how much I dislike August and gave some (though by no means all, believe me) of the reasons why I felt that way. But we are now more than half way through the month and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

A number of things are conspiring to help me get through the month with only a modicum of my usual summer grumpiness:

• my Crime Month book reading is going well and I’m keeping my reviews up to date;
• from tomorrow I start working at home for a proportion of each week, so no more daily commute on hot and horrible trains; and
• the BBC Proms have been really good this year (so far)

Yes, I have been enjoying my summer fix of classical music; in particular,  I headed off on a sunny, sultry London Saturday to the Royal Albert Hall, and despite the best efforts of London Transport got there in plenty of time to enjoy the lovely Ilan Volkov’s final appearance at the Proms with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Ninth. And it was absolutely wonderful, almost enough to make August worthwhile (but only almost).

Seriously, if you can access the BBC iPlayer I recommend that you have a listen; it’s Prom 40 and is available for the next seven days, I think. The concert itself will be broadcast on TV on BBC Four on 11 September, and again available on the iPlayer where allowed. Well worth a couple of hours of your valuable time, if you like that sort of thing, of course………