OK, it looks fairly nailed-on now, so I'll mention it
Starting tomorrow - but I'll only be there from Monday when things are properly happening - the European Ultimate Championships 2007 are taking place at Southampton University's sports grounds near the airport. The student radio station that I work for will be providing a webstream service - and I should be in the team, possibly as a commentator.

There's a very slim but non-zero chance - as I hinted at to daweaver in our meeting last week - that there's a career in commentary for me. This could be the start of it.

While I could commute from Weymouth, three hours of travelling per day would wear me down, and be needlessly expensive. So I'm basing myself at my aunt's house in Fareham. A non-trivial journey - Fareham and Southampton Airport Parkway are not on the same line, so a change at Eastleigh or Southampton Central will be required - but it's still at most half the time of the one from Weymouth, the fact it's not a same-platform change will almost be energising (he says, with spin a politician or Monty Panesar would envy), and the house-station transition is slightly shorter. It also means I do get to see the aunt, whose record on family control is decidedly mixed; it's improving though, and I suspect she has learned the mistakes she made with my cousin Daniel (whom I met on my birthday).

In other news; okay, this is odd, my piano teacher definitely told me to slow down while playing one of the Regina Spektor accompaniments he was teaching me, and then I go and listen to it on CD for the first time and it's faster than I was (or currently could) play it... go figure. Still, in its own bubble, it was sensible for I was making the occasional mistake playing it quickly. The piano lessons are certainly going to be my focus next year, or I'd hope so given that they'll almost certainly be most useful to this singer-songwriter... in practice, I'm just enjoying singing and clarinet more. I can't honestly rule out ditching the piano and opting for acoustic guitar; I can't honestly rule out ditching the singing and opting for acoustic guitar, and if I get a bad singing teacher next year this latter possibility becomes exponentially more likely.

My strength is probably in lyric writing above all else. If Malta had even one such person...