Dhafer Youssef at the ROH Voices of the World Festival

This is an oud. It's an Arabic lute that Tunisian composer and singer Dhafer Youssef strums, picks, attacks like a rock guitar, pounds like a drum, even sings into to produce a looped echo. He opened the Royal Opera House's Voices Across the World festival last night along with Armenian doudouk master Lévon Minassian and Japanese percussionist Satoshi Takeishi for an evening of haunting and timelessly modern music. Can't get much more world music than that. I highly recommend his album Divine Shadows which also highlights his amazing voice (a deep plaintive wail that can climb to a pure falsetto he produces through his nostrils.)

Lest you think I'm more worldly than I am, it was Tim's initiative to go.

I can't recall the last time I spent a Sunday evening swaying in a gentle breeze in the courtyard of a 16th century mansion watching a Scottish band play sweet pop songs two decades old whilst the seagulls cried overhead and the stagelights cast colourful shadows on the old architecture.



As an early bday present, Tim and I saw the Blue Nile last night at Somerset House. Matt Hale (aka Aqualung and shockingly fresh-faced for a 34 year old) stood in front of us. We saw Will Mellor at dinner. But the highlight was still Paul Buchanan's pleading voice singing 'Downtown Lights'.



And I didn't wake up a year older.

Collision

Alex Ross writes about two of my current interests: China and classical music, in this brilliant New Yorker article.

Waterfalls in New York

Olafur Eliasson is becoming one of my favourite artists. Wish I could see the waterfalls in New York.

Yazoo in concert

They were awesome!

London Bridge, falling down

Found a flat in London Bridge.
Urban and lively.
Shorter commute to work.
No view, but better storage.
Nervewracking and exciting.

If you were wondering where I've been...

The clever folks at OgilvyOne recently completed the hat trick of winning British Airways' global direct and loyalty marketing account as well as their digital marketing in Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa in the last nine months. I was the digital planning lead.

It meant six months of hardcore pitching, presenting and planning but all efforts were worth it and we won one of the largest and certainly most interesting accounts in the network. Now, the work begins...