Something to do with a composer of Taverner Fantasias?

I' beginning to think that I should demand my money back for my new specs. I've just read the thread title 'The arts in Australia are being asphyxiated as 'The Ants in Australia ...'

I was regularly menaced by neo-hoodiest swans by the canal in Newbury-a tough call on the getting-to-cafe cake risk assesment.they work in gangs of 4 or 5 in pincer movement. Actually they probably thought I was a grockle.

I'm having getting-the-right-word-out problems today... saw someone with 3 greyhounds waiting to cross the road and said "Look at all those greenhounds." Then a bit later referred to the protective headgear worn on a building site by my son on his work experience as a "hi-hat"...which of course are cymbals on his drum-kit.

Must tell him to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8syiOwwVyY

That hat is incredible. The facial expression too.

I woke up at 6 this morning (very unusual for me) from dreaming that one of my students had to submit a PhD thesis next week and wasn't anything like ready, spent half an hour more or less awake and worrying about it until i managed to convince myself that in reality this student has another year to go, then half an hour trying to get back to sleep, then I got up and started work, which I continued with all day, before going to the Vortex where I was standing in as sound engineer for this evening's improvisation concert and hearing some rather interesting music. The star of the evening for me was the Oxford pianist Alex Hawkins. He clearly has a massive stylistic range encompassing not just jazz and improvised music but also Stravinsky, Webern and other such "straight" composers, but he rarely sounds more than obliquely like any of those things. But there was plenty of other fine stuff too.

In the car on my way out this evening (at about 5.45 or so) I put on the radio and heard (what I assumed was) the first few minutes of Kathryn Tickell's piece for herself and orchestra. I found the first couple of minutes quite captivating but I went right off it once the fast folk melodies started. Quite original orchestration though.

I should have posted the last three paragraphs in at least two other threads, I know, but I've been up and about for 19 hours now and I think fatigue is beginning to take over, so goodnight all (wrong thread again!).