I'm en route to Istanbul. This little trip (two nights away) is my first overnight separation from our daughter. For sixteen weeks, the three of us have shared a bed, and it's going to be a strange sensation, I expect -- and arguably a more restful one -- to sleep alone. I know where I'd rather be. . . .

We are over a snowy Germany or Austria at the moment, and will eventually fly over Hungary and Bulgaria too (oh -- plus Romania in between?).

I learned this morning that Condoleeza Rice is today, like me, also en route to Turkey. I'm not pleased to hear this, because it makes the security situation in Istanbul even worse, especially for Brits and US citizens (I have the dubious honour of being both), who have made themselves extremely unpopular in parts of the world. It's all part of spreading "freedom", no doubt.

Sorry -- back to the purpose of my trip: it is to perform a programme of 500-year-old (but still fresh as a daisy) Italian music in Cemil Resit Rey Concert Hall. I've lost much of my naive enthusiasm for the musical profession. But there's one naive enthusiasm which I refuse to relinquish, and which I hope never to lose: it's the conviction that today it's more relevant than ever to take this music to people -- despite superficial arguments that it's irrelevant -- and, even more naively perhaps, that music is a better means of "spreading peace" than any amount of force can ever be.

Current reading: Explaining the Alexander Technique, by Walter Carrington and Se�n Carey.