When we get Private Eye every fortnight, one of the first pieces I read is the Music and Musicians column. It isn’t that easy to find as it wanders around the magazine, usually in the front matter, next to Ad Nauseam and the like, but sometimes hanging out with Pseud’s Corner round the back. Some issues don’t have Music and Musicians at all.
Often the gossip about the management of concert halls or opera companies isn’t of much interest to me, but once in a while there’s something really near to home. I found out from this column, rather than from a glossy fundraising brochure as I’d have expected, that my Oxford College was setting up a choral foundation. And there was the tale of the person I used to sing for who had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ in Shanghai. Even the Eye couldn’t over-sensationalise that particular incident!
It’s also a measure of how good my own contacts are. From time to time there’s news from the Cathedral world and almost invariably I have already heard it. I did once send in some local news – about the Bath Festival and the Orchestival – but it wasn’t used.