Weald Wood Fair

Sat 22 Sep
Isfield

The amazing things people do with trees! Here, for instance is a Sussex Pole Lathe Turner in full flight. Many more in the Gallery.

The Weald Wood Fair is held every September at the Bentley Wildfowl & Motor Museum, Halland, near enough to Lewes to be not terribly far.

Fest Noz à Ditchling

Sun 14 Oct
Ditchling

Mike James and Yves LeBlanc paid us their more or less annual visit - and gave us 3 hours of non-stop melodeon, clarinet and voices (not forgetting Mike's right-foot drum-beat), playing a wide range of popular Breton dances.

We've added this Andro, the Rond de Loudéac, and Madeleine onto the Dansez Français group on YouTube.

Run over by the truth

Royal Oak, Lewes
Wed 24 Oct

Adrian Mitchell - 40 years on! To Whom it may Concern is just as telling, just as shocking, as it was then. We're still being told the same old "lies about Vietnam".

A superb set, new as well as old, superbly delivered on the Shadow Poet Laureate's 75th birthday. Many thanks to Lewes Live Literature festival for giving us the chance to hear him again. And for enticing us there in the first place by having Mandy Murray as support, along with Marina Evans - a finely judged Irish opening half.

NB: when the video ends, you get a strip of thumbnails for other related videos - try ¿Qué es la poesía?

What is poetry?
Look at those naked words, dancing together.
Everyone's very embarrassed!
Only one thing to do about it
- off with your clothes and join in the dance!
Naked words and people dancing together?
There's going to be trouble!
Here come the poetry police.
Keep dancing!
Keep dancing!
Keep dancing.

Chattri Memorial

Downs near Patcham
Sun 21 Oct

A memorial service for the Indian soldiers who were wounded fighting for the Empire in the First World War, and were brought to Brighton for treatment. Those that died were cremated at a spot up on the Downs, a couple of miles out from Patcham. A Memorial was later placed on the hillside, visible from many parts of Brighton, and affording a broad view across the Downs. See the Chattri web-site for details.

This was a very simple, informal and touching occasion, on a fine, sunny Autumn afternoon. I even got to sing along with Hare Krishna for the first time in my life.

Experimentando con VoiceThread

Dérobée de Guingamp

Saint Chartier
Sat 15 Jul

Just got this up on Video Micalet (YouTube). See also the Dansez Français group on YouTube. Lots more to come.

This world go crazy

Fri 5 Oct
Brixton Academy

Manu Chao live at last! Non-stop, high speed, high volume thrash, a 2-hour assault on the senses, especially the ears. The front 3 - Manu himself, the bass and the lead - are very physical musicians, always on the move, each very different in physique and stage presence, so there's plenty to look at, and there's a great deal of wit both in the music and in the lyrics (if only you could hear them . . . ), and the good-time feeling is always to the fore.

There were few of his earlier classics to sing along to - a Clandestino / Desaparecido sequence, a couple from Próxima Estación Esperanza - but most of the show drew from his latest record, La Radiolina. This appears to have a harder edge to it than his earlier material, and on the first few hearings seems to be less varied musically; there are plenty of catchy tunes and riffs, and pithy phrases, but everything is very short - 20 tracks on the CD - and there doesn't seem to be as much development, either musically, lyrically or thematically, as on his earlier records. I'll keep listening.

All of which matters little when you're caught up in the excitement of the live show, however. Manu's infectious enthusiasm and driving, powerful sound kept the crowd bouncing all evening. Crazy indeed.

Laughing over my muesli

Fri 28 Sep

It was one of those mornings. Every page I turned in the Guardian sports section reminded me why it's so good to be a Gooner:

page 1
Sack me and you'll be sorry, says defiant Jol
Arsenal content: Seven Sisters Road

page 3
I don't deserve a game in a pub team admits Villa's £10m debutant Davies
Arsenal content: Alex Song

page 3
Ferguson fears £17m recruit is a year off pace
Arsenal content: Denilson

page 4
Russians pitch a stern defence of less-than-fantastic plastic
Arsenal content: this photo

page 4
Liverpool's plans for a new stadium in Stanley Park are still on the drawing board ( a couple of paras from the end)
Arsenal content: £200 million and counting

page 5
Blues vow to fight charges of losing control
Arsenal content: Fair Play League - or maybe just "ha-ha-ha"

page 12
Hail Roman, poker-faced lord of misrule - includes a glorious throwaway line about "last week's sudden departure of the man from the land of the fortified whine"
Arsenal content: Peter Hill-Wood

Ooo 2
Ooo 2 b
Ooo 2 b a Gooner!

Still laughing (smirking?) and it's time for cocoa. In fact it's nearly time for tomorrow's paper.

Lewes v Arsenal Reserves

Dripping Pan
Wed 26 Sep

4 0 to the Arsenal, so keeping up the good work - mostly the same (Academy) line-up beat Leicester 5 0 on Sunday. And it was just like watching the big boys - comfortable in possession, supporting the man with the ball, unexpected turns and movement, mix of short and long balls, willingness to shoot from anywhere, good covering in defence, all 4 goals resulting from classy combinations that split a well-organised defence.

Dunne in particular was impressive, organising the side from central midfield, Merida too - though he's all left foot, apart from one crack at goal with his right - and Barazite has that knack of disguising his moves and passes; Hoyte and Rodgers both eager to bring the ball out from the back. Mannone in goal was only called upon a couple of times, and Sczeczny also looked confident in the 15 minutes or so he came on for. Goals from someone (it was up the other end, couldn't see who - turns out to be Merida), Dunne, Fonte, and then in the second half against what looked like a stronger Lewes line-up, Thomas waltzed through the opposition several times over before planting the ball deliberately in the net - yes, we noticed.

Before the kick-off Liam Brady cut the ribbon on the new Ham Lane Stand, which looks as though it could hold, ooh, a hundred or so. Lewes have had a couple of good FA Cup runs in the last few years, and that's had a huge effect on the club - spectator accommodation, pitch quality, and some decent players for their level. They're currently top of the "Blue Square" Conference South - if they keep up there they'd get up into the Conference proper. Maybe in a year or two they could give our Under-18s a decent match . . .

The grub looked OK, and they have Harvey's at the bar - what more could you ask for?

It's not all sunshine & roses

Sun 16 Sep
Sierra de la Contraviesa

Very little sunshine, and no roses at all. La Contraviesa is the range between the Sierra Nevada and the coast, with rolling hillsides cut through by steep gullies, very sparsely populated, and with a succession of microclimates every couple of hundred metres or so. Today most of them seemed to involve mist.

I had decided to try to find Fregenite, purportedly the least populated village in Spain with 1 inhabitant - she'd been on Canal Sur (Andalusia TV) a couple of years ago, snowed in and cut off. The village has many ruined and abandoned buildings, but there now seem to be half a dozen renovated and inhabited houses, probably holiday homes, and a well-whitewashed church with a gratingly new pine door. There's also supposed to be a thousand year-old olive tree, but I didn't spot it.

A few km to the north and then west, there's a track up to the Contraviesa ridge. This must be at about 1500m; it was where the clouds took over, and is the most densely vegetated moorland I have come across in Spain, a stark contrast to the bare desert hillsides just around the corner. The only movement, apart from the occasional bird or beetle, were the clouds rolling up the valley. Silent, still and eerie.

The drive back down to the coast confirmed the old adage about never trusting what you see on a map - especially if you have 4 of them and they all say something different. If you try this trip, and you aren't in a 4-wheeler - don't go via Olías! The alternative routes may look longer but you stand more chance of getting back in one piece.

Coming down towards Castell de Ferro, and all along the coast to Motril, the plastic revolution hits you between the eyes, very hard - every square metre between the sea and the mountains is covered in it, feeding half of Europe and completely wrecking a gorgeous landscape in the process.

A nice walk I have done recently

Tue 11 Sep
Salobreña

Yesterday afternoon in fact.

Encouraged by the generally overcast sky, I leafed through my Rutas y Senderos desde Salobreña book (who does Rutas play for, by the way?), and picked one I'd tried twice before without getting further than the thistles & brambles up the cliff 500m from the start. I set off at 4.30 - instead of a siesta, how about that? - & at the 3rd time of asking realised that the trick is, when the book says take the path to the left of the old olive tree, you have to take the path to the right, thus avoiding thistles, brambles, scrapes & scratches - well, most of them. I proceeded to apply this principle throughout the walk, & found paths where none seemed to exist - usually after a 20 min delay, typically walking down & up past a barking mad German Hund at least 5 times - he must have ended up with a sore throat!

Wonderful views of coast & mountains, & Salobreña from all sides, below & above, near & far. Lots of wild vegetation on cliffs & hillsides, lots of fruit trees with strange growths you couldn't put a name to, swallows still and a blackbird-sized black bird with a white bum - ?? Also a lot of trudge through very expensive urbanizaciones - you're obviously not supposed to be on foot in these places.

After 4 hours, just about to get back into Salobreña, and the narrow path indicated to the industrial estate on the edge of town just refused to materialise - a further half an hour wasted as a result - for the only time on this walk I had to accept defeat & retrace my steps to the previous junction. Eventually I flopped down in La Bodega for a tubo & the last 10 mins of Spain U21 4 Georgia 0 - no Gooners though - Mérida had played in the U17 World Cup final the night before, & Cesc plays with the big boys tomorrow night v. Latvia.

Legs nicely tired, feet too. I'll probably have my siesta tomorrow morning, end-on to my night's sleep . . .

[Pic: Playa del Caletón]

Rencontres de Saint Chartier

Sat 14 - Sun 15 Jul
Saint Chartier

My first go at the Saint Chartier experience - for many years the premier hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe festival in France. I'd heard it from all sides, and it's true - it's a festival of 2 worlds - festival events inside the grounds of the Château, more informal outside in the village. Unfortunately the village streets were taken over by folk who were more interested in drinking than music - not even drinking and music, which is a time-honoured pursuit after all. The 30 pipers in the photo were just about audible against the well of noise. The festival - and the village - has lived with this for several years now, and are looking at ways of securing it as an event for musicians and music lovers.

Inside was a different story - oodles of non-stop lovely music to listen and dance to, with a Scène Ouverte where some of the best things seemed to happen. The English band Red Dog Green Dog had the honour of closing the festival, and kept several hundred mostly French dancers going for 2 hours or more.

We'd stopped off there to see 2 bands - L'Ham de Foc from Valencia, and the French gypsy band Bratsch. L'Ham de Foc in particular were superb - even better live than on record.

Tour de France

Sat 7 Jul
Hyde Park

The first time I'd got to see the opening day - though we couldn't get close enough to the action, so we sat on the grass a few yards away and watched it unfold on the big screen. I'm not sure who that is in the photo, I think it's one of the Brits. Bradley Wiggins came 4th, David Millar 13th in the Prologue; the eventual overall winner, Alberto Contador, came in 15th, and was never very far from the top thereafter.

A special word for first-timer Geraint Thomas, who missed ending up last of the 141 finishers by a mere 6 minutes 3 seconds. Pretty close after 3 weeks, and 94 hours in the saddle - a valiant effort! Seriously (?), I think it's fantastic that he got through to the end at the first attempt, and hope to see him climb the rankings in years to come.

The official web-site has all the details.

Blind Light

Sat 7 July
Hayward Gallery

Antony Gormley's Blind Light exhibition forces you to question your everyday perceptions of just about everything around you - shape, structure, space, solidity, distance, perspective, light. There's a brief account, with a few photos and some reviews, on his web-site. And please can the Event Horizon sculptures stay where he's put them?

Portesham

Sat 23-Sun 24 Jun

Portesham, Dorset

GIG CB and friends do French and English - a barn dance, in a barn. 

Alison and Jan give it some wellie.

See the rest on Flickr.

El Niño de las Pinturas

Thu 5 Jul

Realejo, Granada

Wall art by Granada's leading graffiti artist, El Niño de las Pinturas.

Cansado de no encontrar respuestas, decidí cambiar mis preguntas

(Tired of not finding any answers, I decided to change my questions)

Salobreña

Sun 1 Jul

Salobreña, Granada

A nice peaceful evening on the beach:

[Canon Digital Ixus 40]

Theatre of Memory

Charlotte, standing, reads a letter
[pic linked from Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam]

Mon 18 Jun
Centre for German-Jewish Studies
University of Sussex

Subtitle: the Allo-thanatography of Charlotte Salomon's Leben? oder Theater?
- I bet you wish you hadn't asked!

A fascinating talk by Griselda Pollock on Charlotte Salomon's major work (Life? or Theatre? - collection at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam). Salomon must be one of the most inventive, personal, challenging and unknown artists of the 20th century. Life? or Theatre? consists of over 900 gouaches accompanied by handwritten commentaries, in which she portrays the events, relationships and emotions, the big and little dramas of everyday life in a family and friendship circle very much like her own in the Berlin of the 1930s. Her annotations include references to the tunes and songs she associated with particular scenes - said to be what she was humming as she painted - such as: Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and the popular songs 'I heard a babbling brook', 'I'm busy night and day, no time for rest and play'.

Born in 1917, Charlotte somehow managed to study art in Hitler's Berlin, but after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938 she and members of her family fled the horrors of Nazi Germany, and must have hoped they had found safety in the South of France. There she more or less completed Life? or Theatre? However the consequences of war soon caught up with her, and in 1943 Charlotte was deported along with thousands of other German Jews in France, first to a concentration camp near Paris, then to Auschwitz, where, like most of the others, she was murdered. She was 26, and 5 months pregnant.

Shortly before, she had given the gouaches to a friend of the family, saying: 'Take good care of them. They are my whole life.'

The 1998 Life? or Theatre? exhibition at the Royal Academy remains one of the most affecting I have ever seen, and today I was lucky enough to meet Monica Bohm Duchen, the curator of that exhibition, and have the chance to thank her for it.

A Celebration of Local Food & Drink

Sun 17 Jun
All Saints, Lewes

Transition Town Lewes meets Slow Food. Lots of local producers, lots of lovely grub. Several of them are hoping to get in to the Farmers' Market (1st Sat). Lewes musicians put on suitably grave expressions.

Southease Open Gardens

Sun 17 Jun
Southease

5 very different gardens, offering a nice contrast from quite formal and spacious, to the Corner Cottage which is a maze of differing spaces, all riotously overgrown - you have to be in it to experience it. Here's a Flickr set.

Toll House or Ice House?

Sun 17 Jun
Ashcombe Hollow, Lewes

The sign on the door says it's a Toll House, dating from 1820, but Jan thought she'd heard it was an Ice House. Maybe it was both?

Nearby the bee-orchids are going, going, gone.

What we didn't do on Saturday

Sat 16 Jun

More local music for local people:
Mike & Blanche at the Lewes Arms.
Chasin' the Blues at the All Saints.
Chamber music at Southease Church (well, we didn't hear about it until Sunday).

But we went dancing at Ditchling instead.

Ditchling goes Dutch

Sat 16 Jun
Ditchling Village Hall

Ditchling Morris had Dutch dance group Lesseschots over for the weekend; we went to the ceilidh in the evening with Unreel - exuberant playing and very danceable. The cart-horse didn't come but the clogs did.

Lewes orchids

Sun 10 Jun
Lewes

They're out again! Bee Orchids, Pyramidal Orchids and Common Spotted Orchids, each in their own territory, although often mixed in with other things that can make the Bees in particular quite hard to spot. They're on this street, and just round the corner from the roundabout at the bottom.

Here's the pics from 2005, when I first heard about them.

Local music for local people

Mon 11 Jun
Trevor Arms, Glynde

Will Duke's English music session, which meets 2nd Mondays, with anything from 10 to 20 or even 30 musicians all going for it hammer and tongs. It's been going for 30 years or more, under one guise or another, formerly at the Ram at Firle, now at the Trevor Arms.

This week there was the usual mix of concertinas, melodeons, accordions, fiddles, banjo, clarinet, bones. A few years back the regulars got some 180 of their favourite tunes together and published them in a gorgeously produced book which they called The Lewes Favourites (what else?). So there's no excuse for not learning some of them so you can play along, is there?

Wed 13 Jun
Fountain Inn, Ashurst

The Sussex Chorus and Harmony session (2nd Wednesdays). English (mostly) songs, with lots of choruses and lots of harmony, just what it says on the tin, really.

The Lewes Arms Folk Club has a listing of Traditional Music Sessions in Sussex - something to suit every taste (well, most). For a broader listing of clubs, concerts and festivals in Sussex see the Folk Diary, free from all sorts of places and also on-line (.pdf format); the current one's red, so you can't mislay it.

I'll get hammered if I don't mention the Royal Oak, which consistently has the best programme of traditional (and contemporary) music of any club I've come across. It's just that I don't think I've been since I started this blog . . .

[wot no pics?]

With the Grain

Fri 8 Jun
Assembly Rooms, Lewes

David Nash: Wood Sculpture. What this man sees in trees!

[pic from the Sculpture Exhibitions website]

Heartbeats of the Earth

Fri 7 Jun
Lewes Corn Exchange

A Journey through Art, Science and Nature: from Sussex to Antarctica by Chris Drury - a talk & slides on how his approach to his art has evolved, focusing particularly on his recent trip to the Antarctic as Artist in Residence. I couldn't hear very well from the back, & would love to know whether he has a recording available. Good job Jan was taking notes . . . He sees things in nature that I would love to see - so it's great that he's there to point them out to me. His blog of the Antarctica trip is very engaging, with a stack of wonderful photos, many of which appeared in the slideshow.

See the Heart of Reeds project in Lewes, which he has designed.

[pics from Chris' website]

Selim Sesler

Sat 2 Jun
Barbican

Lovely swinging Turkish music, all tradition-based. Sesler on clarinet, with darbuka, oud, kanun, violin. The CD Anatolian Wedding is delightful. See him in Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul; read The Coltrane of the clarinet, Fiachra Gibbons' review in The Guardian.

[Jan's pic]

Fanfare Ciocarlia

Wed 30 May
Barbican

Fanfare Ciocarlia's Queens & Kings - gypsy musicians from all over Eastern Europe, and Perpignan. FC are a blast - 9 brass and 2 percussion, I bet you could hear them from Blackfriars. They are from Rumania, and their guests included Esma Redzepova (Macedonia), Jony Iliev (Bulgaria), Kaloome (Perpignan) & Mitsu (Hungary) - Esma & Mitsu - what voices! This was the only UK performance - sorry! The CD must be a cracker - listening to it now (Sun), and it is!

Preceded by an illustrated talk by Garth Cartwright, author of Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians.

Dansez Français

Sat 26 May
Patcham Memorial Hall

Our monthly French & Breton Dance night - info. Chien Bizarre played, and everybody danced - plenty of new people, which was just as well because lots of regulars, including most of our musicians, had sidled off to Chippenham. Where I'm told it rained. And rained.

For starters as usual a set from Jeudi Matin (who meet on Wednesday mornings, of course).

Next session Sat 30 June - then break until September. Here's my Google Map.

Second Life Best Practices

Fri 25 May
Second Life Best Practices International Conference 2007

Another 24h ed-fest - this time situated entirely within SL. Lots more to ponder on - will ponder elsewhere shortly.

Pic from Jeremy Koester's "outside the box look at immersive environment opportunities in SL." Loads more pictures on the Flickr site.

WiAOC 2007

Fri 18 - Sun 20 May
WiAOC 2007: Webheads in Action Online Convergence

A 3-day 24-hour extravaganza - emerging technologies in education, and in language learning in particular. It had to be good - I installed Windows on my Mac for this! It was good - very good. All sorts of things I'd not seen, heard of or done before. More elsewhere soon.

Mandy at The Pond

Mon 21 May
The Pond, Brighton

The last hour of Mandy Murray's Irish session at The Pond. Live music again, only half a mile up the road from the Dome, but a world away in every possible sense - musical genre, instrumentation, playing conventions, audience, locale, atmosphere. And Harveys. Wonderful!

Henry V - world premiere

Mon 21 May
Brighton Dome

Henry V as we've never seen it before. I saw Laurence Olivier's film in the school hall 50 years ago, and have never had the urge to see it again since; nor the play. But then it has never had 200 singers and musicians to help it along. Someone has found William Walton's full original score, someone else has blanked the music off the sound-track, and Brighton Festival has got Carl Davis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, along with Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Festival Youth Choir to singalong-a-Shakespeare.

A stunning multimedia performance, even if the orchestra was sometimes not quite in synch with the on-screen action, and the actors' lips seemed never quite to be where they intended them to be; I even managed to miss "Once more unto the breach ..." ! I ask you - you wait 50 years to hear it again, and then it's drowned out by the RPO's brass section. The music is suitably rousing, and the choirs filled the Dome with sound - they really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

The film itself is intriguing. I was sure I remembered it as being in B&W, but here it was in the strangest pastel colours, throughout. It was made in 1944, just as the war was turning in the Allies' favour, and it is fascinating to see how Olivier handles Shakespeare's exploitation of English patriotism and national stereotypes, look you.

The sets are an absolute tour de force, and the film would be worth watching again just to see how Olivier overcomes wartime restrictions to achieve a coherent filmic interpretation of Shakespeare's play. Basically he makes a virtue out of necessity. In the opening scenes we are in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, in the audience, onstage, and backstage, everywhere cramped. The film then moves out of the confines of the theatre, but all the locations retain a very strong sense of the limitations of theatre set construction and space. It looks as though it was all shot on Hampstead Heath. And the matchstick model of 16th century London is exquisite!

Transformations in smoke

Sat 19 May
Open Houses, Brighton

Julian's exhibition - some of his Transformation series of smoke on paper - in one of the Open Houses at the Brighton Festival. A lot of interest, most sold already. One weekend left!

Drift at the Oak

Fri 18 May
Royal Oak, Lewes

Ceilidh with Drift, playing a variety of English, French and Breton dances. Mel puts these small-scale evenings on once every 3 months or so - they are much appreciated, and the music is high-class!

Round and round in Circles

Tue 15 May
St Nicholas Church, Brighton

Jan's monthly Circle Dance session (usually 3rd Tuesday). This is the only group functioning in Brighton at the moment; there are also two regular sessions in Lewes, both at St Thomas a Becket Hall:

- 2nd Sunday, 7.00-9.00, with live music from Labyrinth
- every Monday, 8.00-10.00

Up on the Downs

Sun 13 May
South Downs above Lewes

One of the joys of living here is that in 10 minutes you can be out in the big wide open, walking, breathing, seeing. You don't have to go far - out and back in an hour or so is enough. You might even meet some of the locals having a quiet lunch. Pictures from a couple of weeks ago (SE k800i).

Kocani Orkestar

Sat 12 May
Dome, Brighton

Macedonian magic from King Naat Veliov and the Kocani Orkestar. A raucous, rough-edged sound, 5 brass and 2 percussion, all portable. They all came down onto the stage skirting for the last half-hour 'encore', which included a lengthy pasodoble and the Hava Nagila - nice to have a tune I could sing along to! The pictures (SE K800i) are from October, when they played at the Komedia - hot, sweaty and right close up. Papa wears his tuba with pride. See them on home territory in Emil Kusturica's 'Time of the Gypsies'.

Village English

Fri 11 May
Second Life English
SL: English Village

At last! I've managed to get in to Kip Yellowjacket's Friday Second Life English lesson. Teleporting problems meant we were a bit late starting, but it was fascinating to see how he is using the environment and the technology to set up learning situations. The class is free, and takes place at 19.30 BST (11.30 SLT) every Friday, on and around the beach at the English Village. Teachers (always welcome) or students interested in participating should IM Kip in-world (ie, in SL), and ask for a teleport.

Virtual worlds, real learning?

Thu 10 May
SL: Virtual Congress Centre on Eduserv Island

I got to the morning session, virtually, of the Eduserve Foundation's Symposium on Second Life. The video, audio & slideshow feeds all worked fine once everything had been set up. The talks were interesting, with lots to follow up (when?). Like at most conferences, it's the milling about in the breaks that counts. Plus the Conference Bag included a t-shirt, which I finally managed to put on after much trial & error at the back of the hall. I'll be wearing it for a bit because I can't remember how to take it off . . .

So this is eLearning?

Wed 9 May
SLN e-Learning Conference

Sussex Learning Network's introduction to their eLearning Project, including a guided tour round Cetlment Island in Second Life. Later I went to the Open University's Moonlight Knights on Rockport Island, for a surreal tour round the facilities, including playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (what else?), disco dancing and barbershop singing. What next?

Charivari Agréable

Mon 7 May
Brighton Festival

Esperar, sentir, morir
A concert of 17th century Spanish music by early music group Charivari Agréable. Some gorgeous stuff although I don't think I'd heard of any of it before. Lovely singing by Clara Sanabras & Rodrigo del Pozo, especially in their duets. Instruments included harp, which was nice, and theorbo, which is always good for a blank stare. St George's Church in Kemptown has good acoustics compared to some churches, but lousy sight-lines, like most churches - I suppose that's why the preacher gets a raised pulpit!

Tesco Tesco, What's the time?

Mon 7 May
Lewes

Six minutes past two, in fact . . .

Lewes Garland Day

Mon 7 May

Partly due to the wet & windy weather, we missed the Garland competition at the castle, and the ensuing procession through the town - I've not managed to see it yet. May was then officially brought in by Chanctonbury Ring and the Knots of May at the Lewes Arms, and then the John Harvey Tavern, and rounded off by both sides clogging it for an hour outside the Dorset Arms. Notice anything about the venues? Yes, that's it - all 3 now do Harveys!