A recent news item was typical of the changing times and regrettable hardships of the current economical situation. The last traditional piano manufacturer has closed it's doors and will now have all it's instruments built in south east Asia. Saddening news. In a television interview a staff member lamented the passing of this era, and pointed out that in his fathers day, there were maybe two to three hundred manufacturers of fine wooden pianos in Britain. That's an astonishing number. When you consider this last firm has produced something like three hundred and fifty thousand pianos since the workshop opened its doors in 1911, it makes you wonder how many pianos have been made in Britain over the years.

Well I can't be exact, but if we assume some averages, bring up Windows Calculator, feed in the figures... Et voila! Sixty seven million. No really, it might be a quick and dirty estimate, but it looks as if Britain has built one piano for every modern day citizen since 1900. So where's mine? Come to think of it, what happened to the rest of them? Are they being smashed to bits by frustrated music students? Or have they all gone to piano heaven? Or, perhaps more frighteningly, is this the work of evil piano rustlers, herding all free-born pianos into harsh confinement within recording studios and forced to create evil commercialised hit tunes?

Birdwatcher On The Prowl

A few days ago I was running out into the countryside along an old farm track I sometimes use to cross the M4 motorway. Ahead of me was a guy carrying what looked like a video camera on a tripod. Out of curiosity, I asked him what he was up to out here. He told me it was a telescope, which allows him to take close up shots of birds (the feathered variety). Quite a knowledgeable chap too. having retired from long service in the RAF, he now takes photographs and educates complete ignoramuses like. I learned more about birds from that bloke in a ten minute chat that I'd learned in ten years. Now what was it he said?... Ahhh... Crows have long beaks?... Or was it Rooks?....

Suspicious Person of the Week

The rain was pouring down like nothing else. I'd opened the back window and looked out at the shallow waves of water running across the yard and forming a new stream bed on the gravel alleyway. That's the only way to enjoy a rainy day. Watch it from the shelter of a warm, dry home.

Further away, in the more overgrown section of alleyway next to the old college site, a young man trod along the gravel looking absolutely drenched. Ordinarily I wouldn't have thought too much about that but I noticed him linger beside the wooden fence. What's he up to? You do get strange goings on in that alleyway.

The lad looked around to see if anyone was looking, and not noticing me observing his actions, he scaled the wooden fence and slipped into the abandoned college grounds. Call me suspicious, but I doubt he's a student there.