Soap dispenser

I banged my head in the gym showers today whilst trying to do a stretch. I was surprised by my own flexibility and ended up thumping my crown on the soap dispenser. Five hours later, it still hurts.

I've spent yet another day story-boarding Brass. On and on this process goes, to the extent that it's making me a little antsy, but I can't cut corners. I have to make sure the story makes sense. Although, the moment you start cutting scenes and moving things around, you open up a mathematical puzzle which can make a head hurt even more than a soap dispenser!

This evening we went to the Rosemary Branch to see our friend Anthony performing puppet opera, which is one of those hybrid art forms which screams for funding from the Arts Council. Tour Scotland with it, and commission a composer from the Orkneys, and you've got yourself core funding for years! I genuinely can't wait to shake Scotland out of the British Union. They get such an extraordinarily large share of the arts funding pot!

This evening's show consisted of three mini works of contemporary classical music theatre. The first of them, a sort of masque drama by De Falla, was an absolute turkey. It was one of those pieces where you feel desperately sorry for the performers because they're being given nothing to work with. The overwhelming question afterwards? Why? Why, why, why? Why did De Falla set the story? Why did he write the music on the back of a cornflakes packet? Why did the producer think anyone would want to see it? Why did the director allow the little tenor fella to play the role so camp? Why was I in the audience?

The other two pieces were massive improvements. There was a new commission - an alluring, rather magical setting of the story of an old man who falls in love with a young woman's reflection - and a version of Stravinsky's Renard, rather cleverly set in a kitchen, with puppets created out of kitchen utensils. Great fun.

Julie came, and we dropped her off at her mother's Barbican flat after a post-show drink with Anthony. It's about time I slowed down, however. We've been out most nights this week.