Tuesday, January 18, 2005

In the buffer zone Rereading my last post, I realise that I am perfectly qualified to be a high-paid 'diary' columnist on the Daily Telegraph. The Barclay Brothers can email me for the address to send the cheques. 7:22:23 PM    comment []

Where have the pianos gone? It's perhaps a slightly random thought, but I was listening to a piece of a ragtime music just now, and it occurred to me that you never see a piano in a pub these days. You find them in bars - usually covered in pint-glass marks, but most landlords would no more think of having a piano in the pub than they would think of having a chamber orchestra. This is not me being an old git - I don't ever remember seeing a piano in a pub, with the possible exception of the Angler's Retreat at Marsworth - I just wonder where the pianos that the cheery cockneys crowded round in the Blitz have gone. Is there a corner of the country where you can still find a piano in a pub? And if so, does anyone ever play it? 7:17:41 PM    comment []