Going cross-eyed

I’m slowly edging towards putting the final touches to this present draft of my Requiem. At the end of this stage, the chorus parts will have been set in stone, and sent out to all the singers. I’ll then do one more pass on the work, probably in about a month’s time when my ears are fresh. The purpose of this final draft will be to thin out and simplify some of the orchestrations before the studio sessions begin. I still feel the work is too big; too grand in places, which could well end up becoming slightly imprenetrable; like one long yawn, really, hugely satisfying to begin with, but then exhausting in the extreme.

I worked in the cafe, as usual, this morning. A middle-aged woman opposite me was being shown how to use Facebook by a friend who was probably of a similar age. It never ceases to amaze me how bewildering some people find the concept of technology. I’m a proper Luddite myself, but the questions this woman was asking were something else! Her friend, however, was being incredibly patient, and the scene became really quite touching. I consider myself to be very lucky to be part of a generation who were sucked into the information age whilst we were still young enough for it to seem exciting and important. As I get older, I find myself becoming more set in my ways, and more freaked out by anything I consider unneccessary. I don’t feel the need to have anything happen any faster, or with any better definition and I'm certainly not interested in learning a different set of "relevant" skills, so with every new gadget and piece of computer software, I find myself becoming increasingly resistant and cynical.

Mark my words, in 20 years time, I'll be sitting in a cafe, in something of a tizzy because the world has passed me by!

350 years ago, Pepys wrote a very short diary entry. He spent the day working in his office. There was little else to say... thankfully.