It's raining, it's pouring

You know the expression "it never rains but it pours?" Well today it would appear that there's some sort of hurricane going on!

The day started most positively with a call from a delivery man; "I've got seven boxes of CDs to give to you. Where am I coming?"

Thirty minutes later, the geezer had arrived and helped me to cart 1000 Brass CDs into my house. Result! 

I was thrilled. I had previously thought  that the over-run at the mixing stage was going to scupper our chances of having physical CDs ready for the album launch party on Sunday, but there they all were... Dressed up smartly and ready to impress. They look fabulous. 

I immediately opened up a CD to see how beautiful they were inside. Imagine my horror, therefore, when it became apparent that all the pages in the inner booklet had been printed in the wrong order! I immediately felt a rush of blood to my cheeks and the rash on my body starting to itch. I had no idea what to do, who to tell, or how to remedy the problem...

To cut a very long and painful story short, the situation has now been sorted, and a new batch of booklets are currently being printed which should be with us by Sunday. It's cost us more money, and it also means that people who buy the album will receive a lovely shrink-wrapped copy of it with the new booklet on the side to insert once they open it, but I think this is a small price to pay for everything being okay again. 

Frankly, when the CD reaches one million sales, this first faulty batch will be the ones which sell for ten times the cost, so if you're lucky enough to get one I'd suggest keeping hold of it! 

It's been one of those days when everything else seemed to be kicking off as well. The sort of day when every phone call I made was interrupted by someone else trying to get in touch. 

I'm fairly astonished to report a phone call from the BBC in Yorkshire, who had hitherto been interested in broadcasting our Billy Whistle film, telling me that they weren't sure that it was "Yorkshire" enough to appeal to their viewers. It was all a little "W1A" for my liking, but there comes a point when you have to acknowledge that you're too tired to try to fight these things. In the end I said, "it's set in Leeds, it was performed in Leeds, it's about Yorkshire folk and quite a number of its performers are from Yorkshire... I don't really know what else to say if that's not enough!" This was countered with the fact that it didn't feature rolling hills and dales like my Symphony for Yorkshire. There was little I could say to that, other than that it was filmed in a First World War trench. The rolling landscapes of Yorkshire might have been a little anachronistic, but I guess if that's all the good folk of the county are interested in seeing on their television screens, then fair play. This is obviously not for them! 

These things are all sent to test us however, and will mean that the sense of relief when the album is finally out there in the public domain will be all the more remarkable!!