Oh yeah I forgot I was supposed to be doing all these. Too busy with my social life you know how it is. I could do both at once except I still haven’t met a girl who wants to come up to my room and listen to a Prom. Don’t know why, I bet they’d like it if they actually tried it but they always say no and anyway Listen Again is crap. Anyway I actually managed to listen to this one but I don’t have much to say about this Prom because it was cancelled because there was a fire in the Royal Albert Hall. In some ways it’s good that it was this Prom because Beethoven’s Ninth was on last year and the year before that etc etc and I bet you anything it will be on next year so it’s not like we’re never going to hear it again but at the same time it’s not so good because the 9th is like something that happens every year, it’s like a tradition but this year it didn’t happen. The soprano soloist was Marisol Montalvo, never heard of her but she might have been hot. The mezzo was Yvonne Naef, she’s well cool, she sang at the Proms at least twice last year and a few times the year before that I think but this year she didn’t get to sing. The tenor was some bloke I’ve never heard of called Nikolai Schukoff, he was luckier than the last 2 tenors who were supposed to sing it, they got ill and had to be replaced. Nikolai just got a night off. The bass was Franz-Josef Selig, he was supposed to sing in some other Beethoven thing last year but he got replaced, this year he doesn’t get to sing either. Do you think it's cursed or something?
Anyway talking of things getting cancelled we were going to go to see Gerald Finley and Anne Sofie von Otter at the Wigmore Hall next week but they’ve cancelled because Gerald’s ill and Anne Sofie can’t put together a programme on her own. I’m surprised really, Lisa Milne managed to do it with less notice than Anne Sofie even though she’d just sung loads of songs at the Wigmore Hall the week before and had to choose different ones from that. But it’s good in a way because I know loads of people who were going just to see Gerald so if Anne Sofie had done something on her own all the Gerald fans wouldn’t have got their money back. I think it’s all Cunning Little Vixen’s fault actually. I don’t think she should even think about going to the Wigmore Hall anymore because this is like the 5th time something’s got cancelled. Last time it was Jonas Kaufmann who cancelled, before that Janice Watson cancelled and she got replaced by someone but then that person cancelled, before that Susan Gritton was going to do a Sunday matinee and she cancelled and then there was the Lisa Milne/Sarah Connolly one where Sarah cancelled. She has booked 2 more things for this term, a Haydn thing with Classical Opera Company and a children’s version of The Magic Flute (she’s miles too old for that but she is interested in that sort of thing and I suppose it’s okay as long as I don’t have to go). Anyway I bet no-one will be going now Vixen’s booked it, they’ll probably both be cancelled.