Not having been to as many concerts as usual this year, there are a couple of performances seen on television that are suggesting themselves as the best thing I've seen this year and Mitsuko goes in alongside Chic's set at Glastonbury as one of them. But I listened as closely as I could, even though I am no virtuoso on the piano myself, because I had read Richard Morrison's words in Saturday's Times,
Mitsuko Uchida made too many nervous slips for comfort
Do us a favour, mate. Is that the best you can find to say about it. It was a blinding, magical performance.
I ordered Mitsuko's box set of the Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos partly in sympathy with her and partly in protest against Richard Morrison, whose future conduct I will be monitoring, but mainly, of course, because they will be tremendous.
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If the nation's economic well-being is measured by such indices as the FTSE and the inflation rate, my own state of mind depends much on my rating on FICS, the Free Internet Chess Server and the profit or loss situation between me and my bookmaker for the year in progress.
Everything is looking okay at the moment, thanks, with me trading at 1369 on FICS, ever in pursuit of the 1417 personal best set last year and in a best ever position v the Old Enemy in the gambling arena.
It gets harder to push on once one I go beyond 1350 on FICS because one wins fewer points for each victory the higher one goes. You have to take on better players and a loss against a lower rated player sets you back more. If one gets into the rarified heights of 1380-1400, it gets more nervous and one is less prepared to take chances. One tends to grind things out, be less imaginative and less sporting. And then after a couple of defeats, the latest surge to the top loses impetus and, before you know it, you're 1300 again. Or, I am, anyway.
When I was 1417 it put me in only the top 46% of the registered players and that is a contrived personal best way above my real worth, which gives me some indication of my chances of challenging Magnus Carlsen.
But surely even a disastrous Autumn can surely not lose me all of the profit I have taken off the turf accountants this year. Of course, there is a long way to go to get back a lifetime of losing but I've bought a new suit out of the proceeds so far.
Come back in October to follow the Saturday Naps here and see if we can't finesse this miraculous success against the odds.
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The reason I bought a digital radio, and now have two, was so that I could instantly retreat to Radio 3 or 4 when Alan Green came on Radio 5. The incorrigible bombast is still under the impression that endless football opinions, and mainly his, are of great moment and I couldn't take it anymore.
Radio 5 was my staple diet with certain things to tune in to on 3 and 4 for but for the time being without Danny Baker or Peter Allen, Radio 5 is amassing a grand army of presenters that I can surely do without.
Gary Richardson's Sportsweek has long been a reason to spend Sunday morning with Radio 3 with his grimly serious approach to sport as if he were Jeremy Paxman and sport was the News. Stephen Nolan in the weekend midnight slot seems to want to be Kilroy or Esther Rantzen with his lurid human interest stories, most of which aim at long pauses and desperately moving accounts of terminal illness, heartbreak or tabloid sensationalism. Ian Payne sounds like a junior presenter from University radio. And this morning I turned to Radio 4 for the Breakfast show because Chris Warburton is on 5 in place of Nicky Campbell. I can just about take Campbell's narcissism and smart arse asides because he is clever enough but Warburton was subliminally awful.
But when one finds quite so many of the company unpalatable, it might not be them, it might be you. And so it is probably me. I listen to Test Match Special as much for the conversation as for the cricket score.
I don't think Radio 5 is a natural home to me anymore. It will be a matter of much more channel hopping from now on.
