Been a bit quiet...

....this week, what with restarting the studying, the piano and reading Martin Amis' 'Experience'. More about that as soon as I have finished it; suffice to say that I am very pleasantly surprised after hating his 'Time's Arrow'.

The piano is moving along gently; have reached my first Bach and Beethoven...ok, Beethoven wrote this particular piece aged 13, and it will be some time before it is fluent, but nevertheless, we've got past the awful children's songs. Let's hope we'll bypass 'Fuer Elise', too. Being a bit of a retiring sort, I hate using the pedal on the piano - with all that noise ringing out.... Also today found a Bach flute sonata which seems to be feasible on the flute.... with a lot more practice (gee, when? my poor neighbours); so that's all quite promising.

My friend Jessica's new book came out today, 'Alicia's Gift'. It's her second fiction book, although she has written plenty music books, such as biographies of Korngold and Faure. Come to think of it, I am sure I have read or even own a book about Korngold; not entirely sure how this came to be - I wonder if it is Jessica's? Her day job is/was writing articles on music for the Guardian (formerly) and the Independent (these days). You won't believe the people she has interviewed for her articles. And of course she has her own, highly respected blog. Her first excursion into fiction, 'Rites of Spring', was, whilst a fairly easy read, a tortuous excursion into a severe family break-up with anorexia, music (guess which piece) and post-holocaust trauma thrown in. 'Alicia's Gift', like 'Rites of Spring' also features the back of a skinny young girl on the front cover. I gather it is to do with a talented child musician and associated pressures. One can kind of imagine the scene....Not that any of my family would know about that; the only really talented person was, I hope, under not too much pressure (apart from that non-ending choir singing at prep school).

International Women's Day today - here in Georgia it is a public holiday (5 days after mother's day). On Sunday a friend and I will be setting a feminist hash trail - still trying to work out how to make flour look pink......