Good Things

I had been unreasonably upset by Gordon Ramsey's (alleged) affair, not because I know or like him, but... well, everybody's at it, ain't they?
Anyway, yesterday evening changed the icy headwind. First of all, I'd booked Jo Thomas to come to talk to the M.A. Audio students at the University of the West. She is a composer in sound who uses processed vocal signals to create music, and her talk was technically fascinating and really absorbing.
Unforchly I had to leave halfway through to head down to Balham (I only got lost twice) where one of the undergraduate songwriters I taught last year, Alex Lipinsky, was a finalist in a songwriting competition organised by the Musician's Benevolent Fund, The Peter Whittingham Award. I'd never been to the Bedford before- it's much smaller than I'd thought, but the better for it. The finalists were a mixed bunch; no black performers, which was a shame, and one pretty dirgey pianist, but the winners, a band from Liverpool with a very charming singer, deserved to win.
What thrilled me to bits, though, was that Alex got a special award to research and develop his songs. He'd submitted what I thought were fairly standard sounding songs, but the performance of his second one was amazing. Last year he composed a whole bunch of songs featuring the ukelele, and managed the coup of not sounding like George Formby at all, but sounding like what he is, a young and talented singer-songwriter. So I know he deserves the money and he's shortly to go off to the States, where I think his sunny nature and positive songs will go down very well.
Richard Lobb was there (he is a songwriter friend of Lucy Silvas, one of the judges along with Nick Heyward and Joan Armatrading) and we swapped venue reviews. He plays with a band that is financed by Damian Hearst and who have been recently supporting Oasis. But I can't remember what he said they were called!