UEFA Cup Final madness

William Wallace, 50, from Glasgow, who produced his bank card to prove that is his real name, said: "There's been a tremendous atmosphere here and we've been made to feel very welcome."

If you don't follow football or keep an eye on my football-fixture-annotated choir schedule, you may have been unaware before today that there is a major football match in Manchester tonight. If you work in the city centre, though, you'll certainly be aware of it today! I've been telling people in my office for the last week that there would be chaos today, but they all seemed surprised to be delayed by it on their way to work today. Manchester has gone MAD!

EDIT: Now the trams have stopped running and there are 60 mile queues on the motorways....

The William Wallace quote is my favourite (although a close runner-up is the report that they're chanting "we're gonna deep-fry your vodka!"), but if you want a taste of the atmosphere, see also the main BBC News story; the BBC Sport buildup; photos from the BBC; photos from Manchester Confidential; and finally the story that includes William Wallace. However, you need to be here to feel what it's like. The whole city centre is absolutely buzzing... I knew it was going to be this busy, but I was a bit taken aback by how early it started. They were hundreds of Rangers fans in the city centre YESTERDAY, and this morning when I went through Piccadilly Gardens on my way to work, every single bench was occupied by Rangers fans with flags, and the fanzone appeared to be full - there were people queuing to get in as well, and the beer tents weren't even due to open until 10am! Quite a bit of buildup for a match that doesn't kick off till 7.45 pm....

Anyway, if you were planning to drive to choir tonight, I'd take all this into account if I were you. The M61, M602 and large parts of the M60 have been gridlocked since very early this morning, and I imagine it will only get worse. I'll see if the buses are managing to move at all out of Piccadilly Gardens - if not, I won't be able to get to choir, so I'll go home and watch the match!

FURTHER EDIT: Some discussion and photos of the event and its aftermath. And I didn't make it to choir in the end... I had every intention of going, but by the time I managed to walk across Piccadilly Gardens - which took me more than half an hour - I couldn't face getting on a bus which (although theoretically running normally) looked as if it wasn't going to move very fast, so I went home instead. Not that the match turned out to be exciting - and Rangers lost anyway!

I still have The Mystic Trumpeter stuck in my head, by the way. So much for reviewers saying it wasn't memorable! Not much choir-related news other than that. A few links, though:

How many of you who are football fans knew that the Champions League Hymn had words in three different languages all mixed together? It's actually quite easy to make them out if you listen while following the lyrics, but I must admit that until I saw them written down, the only bit I could understand was "the champions"!

There is a large new production of Carmina Burana at the o2 Arena in January. (The Guardian has an opinion on this!)

An interesting article from The Stage about the recent spate of musical reality TV contests.

Norman Lebrecht writes about Vaughan Williams being nice to choirs (and many other things).

Julian Lloyd Webber is upset that Jerusalem has apparently been banned.

Essentials of Music is a very good general guide to classical music which I hadn't seen before.

A story about how the lead tenor in an opera caught a cold and a member of the chorus had to fill in for him.

An interesting article about the effect of loud noises on orchestral musicians' hearing. (I was intending to write about deafness last week, with it being Deaf Awareness Week, but I didn't get round to it for various reasons. I will soon, though, along with the promised explanation of RSS feeds!)

And finally, I'm sure I'm not the only person hugely disappointed by this year's BBC Young Musician of the Year - not the musicians themselves, who seemed fabulous, but the TV presentation. Susan Tomes explains the problem very well (and the comments are well worth reading too - there wasn't a single person who thought the format was a good one, last time I looked) and adds further thoughts following the final. Such a pity! And I really enjoyed the performance of the boy who won, in particular - I just wish I could have heard more of him!