SPRING!
There are many reasons I like being in Paris. I like that you can walk for just half an hour and already take in 5 of the worlds most beautiful and famous landmarks.
I like that there is a bistro, Chez Janou, literally outside my house, where I am writing this now.
I like that in Paris, even the beggars are stylish. A lady came to me on the street recently to ask for money, wearing the most fabulous sparkly trainers. I suggested she sell them first of all.
I like visiting different worlds, infiltrating other cultures, other industries, anything I know nothing about.
On that note, this morning I went to an early screening of the movie I made a tiny contribution to by playing the violin solos on the soundtrack. At 10am on a beautiful sunny day we sat in a darkened screening room, in the most comfortable seats you never saw in a cinema. The producer, director, composer and several others sat with pens and paper while the film rolled, and everyone made lots of intelligent comments afterwards, except me as I couldn't think of any.
The movie was fantastic I thought- but brutal and violent, so much so that I spent a large proportion of it squeezing the wonderfully cushioned arm rests of my seat.
It was most peculiar, watching these graphic and disturbing scenes through gritted teeth, only to be greeted by the sounds of my violin playing to accompany the misery. It is a nightmare I'm sure I've actually had- witnessing something diabolical whilst my violin provides the soundtrack.
Eerie.

I hope he won't look like this...

MICHAEL JACKSON
I'm not normally a man prone to obsessive behaviour, (honestly) but this morning I got up very early and bought tickets to Michael Jackson. I'm actually slightly embarrassingly excited.

The view from my hotel room in Nyon, near Geneva. That's lake Geneva there. I was slightly worried about sleepwalking out onto my balcony and falling in.

AT THE MOVIES IN SWITZERLAND

Yesterday I got to do something I've wanted to do for literally as long as I can remember- I took part in the recording of the music for a movie. I love the movies, and am usually the last person to leave the cinema as I always insist on sitting through to the end of the credits. I'm fascinated by the process, the sheer number of people involved in the production of a film, and the music is such an integral part of it, so I've always longed to get in on the action.
As with most things that appear to be incredibly exotic and exciting, it was a mixture of great fun and long, long periods of doing nothing at all. We finally started to record our parts at midnight, and went on until 3am when the owner of the studios appeared to be physically assaulting the composer in the sound box, so the decision was taken to stop.
The music for the film, which is starring Gilbert Melki (Largo Winch) and Emanuelle Devos (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), is fabulous- composer Grégoire Hetzel had written some gorgeous solos (some of them horribly difficult) which violist Beatrice Muthelet and myself played, whilst trying not to be distracted by the movie being shown on a screen in front of us. Since the film is about murder, drugs and prostitution I adopted my special 'murder drugs and prostitution' sound. We'll see how effective that was when the film comes out in September.


Beatrice Muthelet playing one of her solos, at about 2am...


Director Frédéric Mermoud trying to put on a brave face at 3am...

MADAME POLIGNIAC

So far Paris is twice as good as we thought it would be. Le Marais makes Hampstead look like a rubbish tip and our local patisserie is so expensive it feels like we've been shopping in Tiffany's every time we pop out for a baguette. Anyway, we are blissfully happy and don't ever want to leave.
Last week I played a concert in the magnificent Salle Poligniac, once the home of Madame Singer-Poligniac, a lady of legendary status in France as patron and supporter of almost every great French composer there ever was. The house holds letters and manuscripts by Ravel, Stravinsky, Cocteau, Poulenc and many, many others. The decor is extraordinary- in the concert hall (which once doubled as Madame's living room) there is an opera house style box built into the wall where the great lady would sit to watch performances by the great and the good of the time. It really is the sort of place which makes you shiver when you look around- which is tricky when you have to play long slow notes.


The box in which Madame Poligniac sat for the concerts held in her home, with her portrait underneath

PARIS!

Bonjour!
I am sitting, unbelievably happily, on the couch in our home for the next half a year, in the beautiful Marais district of Paris.
It is the end of an epic journey, having talked about this for 7 years, but finally we are here.
The plan, in case you wondered, is to learn French, spend as much time with our friends in Paris as we can, and to generally enjoy being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Today, apart from being notable for our relocation, also saw a new US President. This seems slightly less important than the fact that I just ate a whole pack of French brie while Maya unpacked boxes but it is notable nonetheless.
I can't believe he messed up the words during the swearing in. Brilliant. He can make a 20 minute speech without hesitation but got stressed repeating 40 words. I can understand though, I got confused about the words at my wedding.

Go Obama...

RECORDING PHOTOS

2008 was a good year for recording, and there are now two things ready for release in 2009. The first was a children's project, called 'Fairy Tales and Goblins' Dances'. It has on it my wife Maya, (also playing violin) and two of my very favourite pianists in the world, Martin Roscoe and Alex Taylor.
We recorded in Champs Hill, amongst lots of splendid paintings and fattening food...





I think Martin is laughing at my intonation...





And secondly, in June I made my first concerto recording- of Kornglold and Rozsa concertos, both written for or premiered by Heifetz but I'm hoping nobody is going to remember the recording he made of them both...
I recorded them in the amazing Tonhalle in Dusseldorf, with the Dusseldorfer Symphoniker and Yasuo Shinozaki conducting. The sessions were incredibly tiring but great fun- perhaps the hardest part was the walk from the stage to the recording box which included around 9000 stairs I believe, and which nearly saw several members of the team rendered useless due to chest pains. We survived though, and the record comes out in Spring.












I told you the box was high up- this was taken from inside...

ARSENAL 1-0 BOLTON
One of my very favourite places to be is watching the football. As long as it's Arsenal, and as long as they are winning.
Yesterday was the coldest I have ever been, anywhere, in my whole life. (Someone behind me said it was -30 but I think it may not quite have been.)
And it took 84 long, shivering mintues for the goal to come...
I think the cold weather had an adverse effect on the usually good natured, polite and patient crowd. The level of swearing went up several notches where I was sitting- I found myself shouting words I had never previously deemed acceptable for public use.
Brilliant fun.