These men are full of new wine

Still rehearsing The Kingdom, which I think I must be enjoying more than I expected, given that I've had bits of it on the brain all week! It's still not my favourite piece, but it does have quite a few bits I really like. Actually, I think its bittiness is possibly the main thing I don't like about it.

There was a bit of seating chaos this week - if anyone had looked at the area of the choir in which I was sitting at the end of the rehearsal, they would have wondered how on earth we ended up in the formation we did. It was a real mess! The first cause was that we started the rehearsal with the ladies in the main hall and the men in the tea room, and it was only tutti after the break, so everyone had to move seats. This always causes problems! But I think more of the problem was caused by the fact that sometimes we sit with choir 1 at the front and choir 2 at the back, and sometimes we sit in wedges so that both parts have people on the front row. Last week the seating plan told us to sit in wedges, but this week there was no indication as to how we should sit, so the 1st altos defaulted to all sitting at the front (which has been more common in the past) while the 2nd altos attempted to follow last week's instruction and sit in a wedge... and also people hadn't moved across far enough to let the basses sit in their places... so there was a huge crush in our corner, and a whole row of empty seats at the back of the 1st altos, and we were trying to get some 1sts to move there but they didn't realise, and then the rehearsal started so we all just kind of sat in a huddle. And to make matters worse, we had to stand up a few times, and lots of us 2nds are quite short, and we can't see the conductor AT ALL when we're standing up, unless we're at a venue with tiered seating.

I can't believe I wrote so much about that. It wasn't actually a huge deal!

Anyway, a few links for you. But first, please can I repeat my request from last week? Do any of you know of a swing band or big band in Manchester or Salford or Cheshire, which is accepting new members? The person who asked me is a Grade 8+ tenor sax player who is keen to find a band to play with, and I have been unable to come up with any suggestions.

The BBC Music Magazine rounded up the Proms season and said that our Mendelssohn 2 was their best new discovery.

Here's a lovely post about performing the American national anthem. I really like this.

A very interesting and detailed review - by someone who describes himself as an audiophile - of the recently-released remastered Beatles albums.

If you didn't sign up to Spotify any of the first few times I told you about it, you've missed your chance for the moment (unless you sign up for the non-free premium version). Due to hugely increased demand, they've reinstated their invite-only system, which means that for the time being you can't sign up unless you have an invite from someone who's already signed up. And before you ask, I can't give anyone an invite, presumably because I only have the free version myself. Those of you who DID sign up when I advised you to can now feel smug :-)

There are going to be ghost hunters at Chet's! I never saw a ghost when I was there, but every so often someone would insist they'd seen the Grey Lady.

There's a plan to make St Peter's Square traffic-free - hope they fix Metrolink before they do that!

The Guardian is outraged about the sacking of the guy who reads the shipping forecast - and so am I, now I've read what they say.

There are only allowed to be three days of heavy snow this winter - Calderdale Council says so.

While running my Silver Surfers courses, I've usually started by explaining to each new group how the internet works, and they're always amazed to hear about the broadband cables that run under the sea to connect continents etc. together. I've found that it's not just my silver surfer students who don't know that these exist, so you may be interested in this picture of where the cables are. (Note: when you load the page it shows you the 1999 cables - drag the slider at the bottom to show where they are in 2009.)

I like the simplicity of this: howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com.

And finally, a café in Westhoughton has been famous right across the internet this week, because of its £10 breakfast.

EDIT: Almost forgot! This weekend is the 24-hour race on the Marine Lake at Southport - 12 noon on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday. Go and watch a bit of it if you're in the area. But, more importantly, don't forget that Saturday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arrrrrgh!