Thoughts from the treadmill

Melvin Bragg is introducing a program on Cleopatra. A woman woman with a mind like crystal and a voice to match explains why Egypt at that time wasn't unlike a modern state, full of debts. I can't focus, and my legs are heavy. What do I care if the Ptolemies slept with their brothers and sisters? I just want to go home, watch tv. I can't believe that less than a month ago, I was here, three times a week, working out like nobody's business.

Weekend Charter: How I lost four pianos.

For this Weekend Charter Marianne and I decided to write about music. So being lazy and all, I decided to recycle something I'd posted as a Facebook note a while back. So, facebook friends, I apologize - you'll have already seen a version of this!

My first piano came to me when I was younger than Max. It was brown, rented, and was swiftly replaced by a white one. I learnt to play on the white piano, taking lessons from a prim, angora wearing, teacher from the conservatoire and later a very tall jazz pianist with hands big as steaks. I was not especially talented or hard working and by the time I was eleven, it was clear I would never become a concert pianist, a restaurant pianist, or indeed, any kind of pianist. On Christmas of that year, we had to leave the family home in a hurry. Our mother was granted custody of the children, but not, unfortunately, of the piano. By the time the piano followed us, I was fifteen, and it was out of tune.