L— came back from her climb up Kilimanjaro (and down again, and then a few days of rest and recuperation in Zanzibar). I missed her and I was glad to welcome her home.

She had been out of mobile signal range most of the time on the mountain, and I’d told her not to spoil her holiday by looking at the news. Instead, with the help of friends, I made a list of all the things that had happened while she was away, that I could then summarise for her. My list was:

  • Molotov and Ribbentrop divide up Poland Ukraine
  • Kanye West and Bianca Censori: nudity and swastika T-shirts
  • Upside-down plane
  • Musk and child in the Oval Office
  • Sackings of nuke technicians and air traffic controllers
  • Banning news orgs for using “Gulf of Mexico”
  • Vance in Munich, pro-fash speech
  • Gaza “Riviera”
  • Enabling Act (/Executive Order)
  • Erdoǧan/Ukraine
  • 2 Labour MPs suspended: WhatsApp, “fuck your bins”
  • Canada and Greenland
  • Another Musk child

And that was just a fortnight or so. She wanted to hear it all, so I spent five minutes or so running through everything quickly. I think it’s probably better to hear it all that way, rather than as a drawn-out sequence of cortisol-spiking events.

I took part in a workshop on improvised counterpoint in early music, hosted by the director of the Cappella Pratensis, on Wednesday evening. There was a good turnout, which made for a satisfying sound when we all sang a four-part arrangement at the end.

I’m used to listening to early music, but not to reading it. The four-line staves with unfamiliar note shapes and arbitrary clefs (sometimes even changing the clef position between lines!) were a bit confusing, but I got the hang of them quickly enough.

Friday was a sunny and warm day (at least, until it rained later) and we both had the day off. We walked along the Thames to Somerset House for the Soil exhibition. It’s substantial and varied, containing art, science, ecology, and traditional practices. We bought our tickets first so that we could take advantage of the offer of 15% off at the café for lunch before going in. On our way back from ticket desk to café we tried to take the lift, got off at the wrong floor, ended up in the middle of the exhibition, and spent ten minutes trying to find the way out so that we could eat lunch. It appears that if you’re really determined and good at mazes, it’s possible to get in without paying.

In the evening, we went to a singular performance of a piece called L’Elisio at Guy’s Chapel (formerly part of the hospital, now in King’s College London). Actors repeated the testimonies of people who had been in comas using the headphone verbatim technique. This reproduces the cadence of the original testimony in a way that makes it seem like you’re hearing the original interview. It’s absolutely captivating. This was all interspersed with seventeenth century music (sung, and played on theorbo, violin, and viola da gamba).

Following a surprise cardiac arrest, Seb spent time during his recovery at St Thomas’ Hospital meeting fellow patients who had also spent periods in medically-induced comas. Many of their experiences were disarmingly entertaining, but always equally moving. The music complimenting these accounts is drawn from seventeenth century settings of myths involving the descent and return from the underworld or a brush with Death: darkly humorous and profound in equal measure.

The only thing that didn’t quite work was the attempt to conceal the identities of the interviewees: it’s no use using a false name if they repeat their own name in the recording!

On Saturday night I took the long route to Highbury and Islington (because, as every weekend these days, the Windrush line was closed) to see my friends in Mount Forel play, this time with new material. The sound was terrible (the mics were inaudible) but the music was good. They were supporting Sugar Horse, a much noisier band (with a lot more neck tattoos in their fanbase). I don’t mind heavy music, but on this occasion the change in tone was a bit jarring and I ended up in the downstairs bar chatting during most of the headliners’ set.

Some links, without much cheer: