The Real Music Makers

Level of conviction in own genius: 7
Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 3
Watching: Men's Singles Final Wimbledon highlights on BBCiplayer as have been too busy to see them - mmm, biceps...
Hair day: blonde and flat

juice did a sweet and perfectly formed concert down at the Deal Festival yesterday, at the end of a mad 11 days straight of work for me, involving juice community concerts, music/dance projects, primary school workshopping, Wigmore Hall meetings, etc etc. Deal was lovely and we were pretty great, particularly on the lurid tights/naughty shoes front (Sarah trumping Anna and I with her butterfly-patterned legs and sky-high electric blue suede heels YOWZA!), and our every vocal utterance, whether a gorgeous chord or nasty growl, met with gentle smiles from our appreciative crowd, which included a couple of classes of spotty teenage girls. We even signed a few giggly 12 year-olds' programmes. Ah, fame at last.

I followed this up back in London with the other side of classical life as the plus one of Rachel, wearing her English National Ballet badge, at the Arts Club for a champagne reception held by Classic FM to celebrate their educational scheme, Music Makers. My badge said nothing apart from my name, which was incorrect as it had an 's' on the end which I of course furiously scribbled off so as to not be mistaken for my evil nemesis, male electroacoustic composer Kerry Andrews. I kid you not. The evening was a little pointless, and I scoffed as Simon Bates marvelled at Music Makers' radical schemes (huh! Loads of companies do cool music educational stuff - I WORK for half of them!) in his effortlessly velvety, radioclass tones. But sipping champagne and nibbling on baffling canapes was fun (mango chicken dressed up as tiny ice creams in cones, anyone?), as well as spotting Classic FM-types, who I beamed at but really was imagining tripping over and pulling their expertly coiffed hair and holding them down whilst grunting Meredith Monk songs in their ears. There was Julian Lloyd Webber looking angry and scruffy, Nicola Benedetti looking spray-tanned and spotty (nothing next to her mum who was so cosmetically-surgeried-up she looked like a startled panther), and a buffed and toothsome vocal boyband who I whispered to Rachel must be that group G8 or whatever they were called. We also had Hayley Westenra singing snoringly popular classics into her reverby radio mic, and the Raven Quartet (another of the Benedetti clan plays with them I've now realised), seen last week at scuffy nonclassical, fitting right in here, looking even skinnier with their big Xena belts squeezing them in two, belting out their classical hits with bionic, photogenic ease. I also said hi to Sarah Derbyshire who runs Live Music Now and bumped into an old family friend and also an ex-Yorkie who now rather fortuitously work for Hazard Chase, the agency who should really be signing juice. Ah, how I love to network...