"Gloria - it's a better name than Chardonnay!"

So, tonight there were Markisms rather than Jamieisms, because it was the piano rehearsal for the Poulenc. It went pretty well - in fact we finished really early, so it must've been good! Mark arrived while we were warming up, and as usual a huge grin appeared on his face when we did our tractors - that always amuses him. In fact, he suggested that sometime we should do one of our warmups for the public - he reckons they'd be amazed...

I didn't feel quite as unimportant tonight as I did on Tuesday. I forgot to say at the time, but Tuesday was one of those rehearsals that's really frustrating, because Jamie kept telling *all* the altos off for not doing things that I, and the people round me, were actually doing. This happened so many times that Clare and I started to wonder whether he could actually hear us singing at all! I suppose we *were* heavily outnumbered - in the second half of the rehearsal on Tuesday there were 17 1st altos and only 5 2nds. A few people had left at the break because they weren't doing the Tavener gig, but not many. It's definitely quality rather than quantity in the 2nd alto section these days, but all the quality in the world is no use if Jamie (and therefore presumably everyone else) can't actually hear us!

Anyway, as I said, it was better tonight. Although, we always love Mark's rehearsals anyway! His Chardonnay quote related to a radio play he'd heard in which there was a woman who called her children Wayne and Chardonnay. I'm not entirely sure what made him think of this when trying to explain that he wanted the word "gloria" to sound a bit different, but there you go. Oh, and I was amused that he asked "Why do you sing that quieter?" about the very same bar that caused Jamie to say "It's almost as if the composer wrote 'piano, slightly slower, please'..." :-)

(Mark told us, by the way, that Poulenc's idea of the Gloria is that the words are being sung by "angels poking their tongues out and Benedictine monks playing football" - i.e. slightly irreverent.)

The Markism that got the biggest laugh of the night was actually "It's like first aid, isn't it?" (which referred to Jamie teaching the tenors their notes in the 2nd movement). But I was more amused by "It's a question of finding the music in the coo" ('coo' being the first syllable of 'qui') :-)

I've finally decided what it is that the "Domine fili unigenite" movement reminds me of - it's a song from Oklahoma! called "I cain't say no". I'm not entirely sure why, though - it's not THAT similar...

Now, you'll notice I haven't mentioned my trip to Milan! You may well think that this is because United got hammered, but in fact it's because it occurred to me that I quite often don't get round to mentioning choir stuff till I've written for ages about other stuff, and maybe it puts people off.

Plus, United got hammered :-(

However, apart from the result, it was a great day. I visited the Cathedral and La Scala opera house, both of which were fabulous. But I'd known beforehand that they were there, and had planned to see them. What I didn't know was that the Cow Parade was there! I'm sure most of you will remember it visiting Manchester (in the summer of 2004 - seems much longer ago!), so you will understand how thrilled I was to find it again (not the same cows, of course - they're always specially designed by local artists). Anyway, for those who are interested, I've put my photos online (and they're not ALL of cows!) - go have a look. Hint: if you go for the slideshow option you can see the photos without having to keep clicking, but you'll miss the accompanying text.

I got home at 6.30 on Thursday morning, having got off the plane at 3.30 a.m. (That may seem a slightly long gap, but that's because I got home by public transport, which is not as frequent as I might have liked - but it was much cheaper than getting a cab!) I was quite startled to be met by a row of photographers and reporters when I emerged in the arrivals hall - several of them took photos of me (no idea what papers they were for, though), and I was interviewed by someone from Key 103. This is not because of any special competence on my part - I suspect it's because everyone else put their coats on when they got off the plane, but as usual I was too hot, so I was the only one who was visibly wearing a United shirt :-)