Most cars seem to have a thick little book hiding in the so-called glove compartment which you look at when all else fails (and not one moment before), and when you have that flat tyre on the motorway, and it's raining heavily, which it of course is, all else has failed and if you don't work out how to change it you will die of starvation or pneumonia, whichever comes first, because the chances of someone stopping to help you are zero.

Quite

I admit that, despite something like 12 trips to the UK in the last 5 years, I wasn't aware until recently that you lot spelled "tyre" with a "y."

(I did know that you misspelled "curb" as "kerb," though, but I think that pointing that out breaks one of Dish's rules.)

Well, yes, you also have "tire" (v.) and "tyre" (n.).  And forgive me for not specifying that the curb/kerb thing was exclusively re the noun form.  It won't happen again.

I didn't know that Americans misspelled "kerb" as "curb".

Yes, it is - and, by implication, the Sibelius doesn't - so, you see, you DO know which is which! You really must think twice before over-estimating your alleged ignorance, Sir Richard!

The soloist's opening figure in the Beethoven is also a cruel joke about violinists who, as Perlman used to say, can always be guaranteed not to play octaves in tune; Beethoven realised this and started his concerto with broken octoves, just to show everyone how obvious it was that violinists couldn't play octaves in tune. However, Perlman once drew attention to this octave issue in another way in a tribute programme to Heifetz when he described the elder master's playing of an arrangement of Schubert's famously done-to-death Ave Maria as poor, because the whole thing was in octaves yet there was not a single instance of the tension customarily associated with slightly out-of-tune octave playing.

Now, let me think - how does that tune at the beginning of the finale of the Carter Violin Concerto go? Do you know - I fear I may have forgotten! (OK, so maybe it's less whistleable than the one in the same place in the Schönberg, but that's not really a good enough excuse, is it?)...

Best,

Alistair

Amazing! So even the earlier works of Lloyd Webber somehow found their way back in time to the 19th century where Romantic composers short of ideas assembled bits of them into supposedly new music! I thought it was only his subsequent output which did that.

You know, with a crop of lines like that to your credit and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of further ones, you ought to have your own show! With the impending retirment of Parky, I daresay that, with some judicious reformatting of his show (and couldn't it just do with it!), Time for Barrett - or maybe even Richard without Judy - could just be its eminent successor. Have to change the opening music, though (not that I'm sure what it should be changed to...)

Best,

Alistair