More stars...

There's frost in the air tonight which felt very romantic as I left the house until I noticed that someone had shat down our alleyway again! A great, big runny turd which has showered as much of the wall as it has the tarmac. I suspect it might be time to force the council to get involved. The big problem is that no one seems to own our alleyway, so it's very easy for the council simply to wash their hands of it. People wee down there most nights...

I went to the Heath for an early morning walk to clear my head and photograph the stunning autumn leaves this morning. It was all rather romantic: dog walkers and joggers disappearing into a light mist. Everything white and grey but for the beautiful, technicolor trees, which, I heard yesterday, due to the specific weather we've been having of late, are more colourful than they've been for many years. They went to a botanical gardens on the news to prove the point.

With every gust of wind, huge swirls of leaves were raining down, paragliding to the floor in a scooping motion. The carpets of leaves under the trees were like thick Persian rugs.

I came home and worked a lot on one of the songs from Em. It's called A Little Balance, and because the character who's singing it is in no way balanced, I've written it in an ever-changing time signature, which mostly oscillates between 4/4 and 6/8, which is somewhat new ground for me, but, I feel, after the success of the Brass excerpt on Sunday night and the way people are still talking about the show, I have a duty to keep raising my game. 

Sunday's concert garnered a 5* review: "Particularly successful were medleys of songs from Jason Robert Brown’s 13 – written for NYMT and introduced by the composer himself, in his typically droll manner – and Benjamin Till’s Brass, the latter reaffirming in my mind this show as the musical theatre highlight of the year." Just to be mentioned alongside Broadway legend, Jason Robert Brown is exciting enough, but to be compared favourably to him kind of blows my mind. People have sent some lovely private messages to me as well, including one of the cast's Mum's who says Brass changed her daughter's outlook on life. I feel sure it's a special show. It just needs to find that slightly wider audience...