Since I've already talked to Carla and Yvonne about this, as well as the band, I thought it was time that I made it public.

I've been offered a place in the New York Symphony for a year and I'm taking it. The chair starts in January and I'll be leaving for America on the fifteenth of this month.

Opportunity knocks only once and all that, and this is something I really want to do.

I've never been all that good at goodbyes but this isn't really one of those yet though. I'll see most of you before I leave.

I've been practising every spare minute for this since I am doing a solo peice. Come along and watch if you can bare some opera. (I know that if it's not accompanied by metal some of you have an heart attack.)

Great Conductors: Boulez
11 May 2008 7:30 PM / Barbican Hall
Pierre Boulez: conductor
Michelle De Young: mezzo-soprano
Peter Fried: bass

Me, solo, cello, come on.

Last night I saw a woman playing a cello made of glass. This might be the best and most amazing thing in the world.

I am easily pleased and entertained when it comes to music, as you may have noticed.

Someone should buy me a glass cello. I'm sure they're next to nothing pricewise.

Does anyone feel like getting blindingly drunk?

Have there been any calls for me?

I broke a string on my cello.

My news can just never compete with any of you. For that I'm mostly grateful.

The auditions for the new band are going well, with Tristan and I being the very fine masters of our own destiny. A nice load of talent already and a few people I've marked down as wanting to see again. A surprising amount of females, and a surprising lack of talented bass players.

I feel I should post photos because Tristan did, but being camera shy and all you'll just have to imagine.

Chloe and Yvonne are dressed in nothing but long band t-shirts and underpants and wrestling on the kitchen table with cries like 'fingers!' and 'stop squeezing my boob!' I made myself some dinner around their writhings and went back to my bedroom.

Sometimes I worry about my sexuality.

Today Yvonne somehow convinced me to hold Butterball.

I can wash and wash and yet never be clean.

Oh, by the way, I got mugged.

Yvonne, you have anything to add to today's woes?