Dancing the Night Away

I am sitting in a hotel in Leith, on a day when the title of the song and film can only be presumed to be ironic. If I stand on the table and peer out to the right I can just see the former-Royal Yacht Britannia sitting there attracting tourists.

Yesterday Voxcetera (the chamber choir I sing with) did a concert in Edinburgh with a local choir - Rudsambee (it's based on the Gaelic for 'anything at all'). They did the first half, with a programme ranging wildly in language - Welsh, Irish, Hungarian, Polish, and even a little English. And we debuted our  new Poulenc 8 French Folk songs, and ran some Britten too.

The audience seemed to love what we did; the Poulenc will be honed to perfection by the time we do it in London in October. And as for Britten's AMDG - which sets the poetry of Manley Hopkins to a range of accompaniments? It gets better and better I think. There were definitely a couple of moments last night where it took life beyond anything it has done before. In a good way, too.

A contrast. Two pretty accomplished choirs, but with a very different schtick. I think we blend better, and do stuff that is musically braver than them, but they interact better with the audience. Food for thought on where we might go next.

Of course, where I went next, post gig, was clubbing. Until 3:30 this morning. In a very pleasant establishment (no irony at all here) called the Jam House, with a live band and a good set of tunes - ancient and modern. But writing a blog at 9:30 (breakfast already done) reminds me of the benefits of not drinking. It is easy to have fun and dance the night away sober. Today, despite being from Edinburgh, I shall be doing the tourist thing

Some of you will be expecting comments on the election. Full thoughts can await the outcome of the Euro poll. In terms of the locals, Labour did well in London, but not nearly as well as they should have. Wandsworth remains Tory, but a little less so, with my ward having not split two Lab and one Tory. The greens have done well and UKIP has not, in London anyway - where in their own words the population is young, educated and culturally diverse. Spin that statement round and see what you could get as a UKIP strapline.

Elsewhere UKIP has done quite well, but I don't think it is all at the Tories expense, and you wonder how that will translate to a general election. One surefire prediction though. We are destined for an autumn of speculation about the Labour leadership. For me, Miliband looks finished. He doesn't attract outside the core, and doesn't seem to do well in it either. I'm imagining hushed discussions in corridors by friends of Yvette C and Andy Burnham.

Oh, and another prediction. Journalists everywhere will have been dispatched to dig up dirt on every councillor elected under the UKIP banner. They have a tough life, do journalists in these straitened times, so help them out. If you have taken coke with a new UKIP councillor, or helped him catalogue his Nazi memorabilia, do give The Mirror a ring and point them in the right direction.