Just a reminder about the City Choir (to which I belong) concert in Symphony Hall on Saturday November 19th at 7.00pm.

The main work will be Verdi’s Requiem, performed by the City of Birmingham Choir and the CBSO. The concert will start with a World Premiere of a short piece by Chris Long, which has been commissioned by the Choir, and written this summer.

Tickets are available with discounts of 10% for 4 or more, and 15% for 10. Phone the Symphony Hall Box Office on 0121 780 3333, or book online here.This is likely to be a popular concert so book now.

It has been a funny week. One of those seven days when more than a few things have happened that I wasn’t quite expecting. Monday had me at Mike Keneally’s first ever UK gig - a Taylor guitars demo at a music shop - which I only found out about twelve hours before. Thank heavens for the web. Tuesday was Anthrax. These guys were the second band I ever saw at a concert over ten years ago and they still go at it like demons. It was truly awesome to watch. Wednesday saw me finally give the TwentyTwoOverSeven guys their EP just moments before their last ever gig and break up and it wasn’t until Thursday, I actually managed to sit down and chill.

Then of course, Friday saw the dissolution of Wrox Press. It’s very sad to see the company you grew up in go the way of the dodo, but at the same time sixteen months of freelancing has kind of numbed me to the announcement of its demise. Post mortems are irrelevant - they were in process over eighteen months ago. Time to move on.

Term is over and so is my course for the year. Part one of the MIDI assignment is over. The tale of Rommel and his desert rats in two minutes of synthesized aural garbage is more likely to baffle the examiner than get me a distinction, but then again I’ve never really been into drum and bass. Part two has me remixing the theme tune to the Peanuts cartoon but I can’t find samples of Charlie Brown’s arrrrrghhh as he flies through the air having missed the football or Lucy shouting ’You Blockhead’. Need to sample my DVDs at Xmas therefore.

Xmas spirit here and so is the season for giving smaller presents than usual thanks to the advance from MS. Register.com tried to renew an old domain name I didn’t want for $90, my Christmas shopping is done, and I’ve been invited to a friends on Xmas afternoon handily located in the centre of, and I quote, ‘the one way system from the seventh level of hell.’ Should be interesting. Wonder if I’ll pass hell’s server room on the way.

Almost finished Chapter 1, which is nice. Actually, there have been quite a lot of unique things so far this week. I recorded my first demo session on Tuesday with a local band, 22 Over 7, I’m happy with the way the book is going is general, and yesterday, I watched the darkest, strangest movie of the year so far, Donnie Darko, came home and then had to try and prove I don’t have an eating disorder to my housemates by going to the supermarket and having some pizza for my tea. As Ozzy might say, I love them to bits, but they’re all a bit mad. Finally, had the pleasure of picking up the new Jean Michel Jarre album, Sessions 2000. A departure from the norm and no quarrel about it. More an exploration into jazz than electronica, but a good one nevertheless.