Euston

I found myself entering Euston station today at 6.12pm. The situation I walked into can only be described as one bomb threat short of pandemonium. More and more people were blithely heading down the escalators from the main station into the tube, but hundreds more were being held down in the ticket hall to prevent the tube platforms from becoming dangerously swamped. A massive crush of people therefore started forming against the ticket barriers. It was all a little worrying, not least because I'm pretty sure it's something which happens at the same time every night. If someone had whipped out a machete, there would have been a stampede. 

I had that awful feeling this morning when you realise you don't have a great many reasons to get out of bed. It's a sensation which doesn't often engulf me and I know I just need a day or so to dust myself down and start moving forward again. I've had bigger set backs and more will come. As Nathan said, as we got into bed last night, there's seven people who were on a tram in Croydon this morning who are never coming home. Terrible. And texts from Llio this afternoon continued to put my first world problems into context.

Later on, I bumped into one of my neighbours in the local shop, who told me that his entire internal organs were messed up to the extent that he can't control when he vomits, so has to carry plastic bags around with him in case he has an incident. Classic overshare, but yet another reason to be cheerful...

I was cheered up enormously by going to see Jack Reitman performing at the first showcase by this year's cohort at the Royal Academy of Music's musical theatre course. They were performing an evening of music from American shows, and the whole thing started with a rendition of the Stars and Stripes, which I'm surprised nobody booed after yesterday's insanity.

There were about thirty in the year group and they tackled some incredibly complicated harmonies with great panache. I was rather pleased to see that the majority of arrangements had been done by two of the trainee musical directors who are learning their craft at the Academy. There was quite a lot of material, all arranged for a fairly sizeable band, and being thrown into the deep end like that is a really good way to learn your craft.

It was a hugely enjoyable night, although I would say that the year group as a whole tended towards having rather bad posture which is something they'll really need to look into if they're going to be successful in the industry. Posture is so important for performers. Some of them had such odd postures that I feel sure the way they were standing was affecting the vocal choices they were able to make. They need to learn to bring choreography into their bodies and give it back to the audience with seven times the energy. But they're right at the beginning of their training, and all that will come. I was hugely proud to see Jack on stage doing his thing, singing so beautifully and looking so handsome.