Shostakovich

The cheerful strains of the Shostakovich cello sonata have been ringing through the house over the last few days. Again and again and again. Lowri is doing a programme for Radio 3 next month, reviewing the different CDs available of this piece. And there are a lot of them: the BBC has sent her a spreadsheet listing 34 different recordings. A dozen or so are deleted and so don't qualify for inclusion, and a few others haven't made it through the BBC's initial filter, but that still leaves plenty. Lynn Harrell, Yo-Yo Ma, Pieter Wispelwey, Truls Mork - they've all been at it. It's an intense job boiling this lot down into a 45 minute programme, illuminating, eliminating, and coming out with a lucky winner at the end.

All the more intense if you're trying to pack in as much of the work as possible before the end of term which is ...... an hour ago! Three children at home on holiday means serious competition for computer time. The best opportunity comes before 10 a.m. each day (or before 6 a.m. if Christmas day).

It's been frosty and foggy down here. Just like England.