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The whole concept of writing letters in this 24 hours came from the conversation with Odile from Rwanda that is told in this song. I hope that this is the start of a collaboration.

I watched the Euro as I do year after year after a tradition with my dear friend Adrian Mitchell. Now I chat with Sasha on the phone and we compare notes and thoughts. This time there were 2 songs that I liked. One from Serbia and the great Ska explosion of the Moldovan song. Sash challenged me to do my version and looking at the original lyric I quite liked the form. Here it is... with a bit of an apology for the last few months of MY life...

I spent 4 days in Salzburg with a Global gathering discussing and playing music (a little). There was a wonderful Russian composer and improvisor called Anton Batagov and we spent a very happy bit of time with 4 hands at the piano. This is for him (not as good as his music but was written in half an hour!) and also a link to his website !  www.batagov.com

That was a sweat ! going to have to re-record it to clear out the mess. An interesting lyric combination of many elements but the chords were a last minute addition... ouch... It was made from ideas sent by facebook and skype from Wingo and Sally (pictured) in Hong Kong. Good morning !

This is written for Wei Wei at the request of Gus Mok from HK.

Connecting new friends and old. Sarah Miller from long ago in Barrow sends a facebook message and an idea about the sea. Jasdeep Singh from Leeds suggests some comments about music ans youth and diversity and when asked gives me a harmonic minor scale to play with. 15 minutes later they listen to this!

wow - it just keeps going and going and this is an upbeat number to celebrate travelling in it's widest sense. Nearly up to date with my updates and got a few ideas for the next song which will be an improvisation I believe. In the meantime here's thinking about the next great meals in HK and Shanghai. All the best to the friends out there xxx

4 years ago I went with Kathryn to work with Makoto and Hugh on the WHALETONE opera in Ezuko Hall Theatre which is very close to Sendai. We made great friends there as we worked with people in the community on the opera. As soon as the Tsunami hit we thought of them and I have agreed to make a long project with Makoto to consider the impact on the people and the place.

Following this song I had a chat with David from Sydney on Skype. Great stuff. Small world.