It's yonks since I heard it, Ali: along with the nearly all the other 4500 or so LPs it's still in storage, awaiting the arrival of the right turntable at the right price. I was certainly rather disappointed when I first heard it, finding it unrepresentative of the young man's music the symphony certainly is. The LP is certainly on my transfer list when the deck is finally settled, though.

Yes Ali, I promise. Did you catch the Ed Gardner one I mentioned in ToP?

Here's a sad one, Ali: visited Gramex yesterday and found a copy of the forte double which includes the Haitink Walton 1 - an issue I'd totally forgotten about. Snapped it up, along with rather an excess of other stuff - they'd had a big batch of review copies including many of the new NMC's as well as off the shelf goodies such as the DG Henze box. Somehow, when my pile was priced up and bagged, the Walton and a Colin Davis Stravinsky Ballets were omitted, and instead I was given a Naxos Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings and Stanford Symphonies, which I didn't notice because I was deep in conversation with Roger, whilst someone else was doing it. I didn't find out until I was on the sleeper home, by which time it was far too late to do anything about it, although I'll phone them this morning and see if they're still there. Very frustrating.

No such luck; they've gone. Six quid I would have paid: the river people are asking three times that. Bugler.