Music

While everyone’s going mad for White Lotus at the moment, my favourite telly programme is Sort Your Life Out. Each week, Stacey Solomon and her friends descend on a chaotic family home and impose order. Although this format isn’t new, what I find refreshing is the completely non-judgemental tone. Our lives get messy and this is reflected in our immediate environment. This week’s family had accumulated hundreds of CDs, which Stacey encouraged them to offload in favour of streaming. But does it make sense to rent music? ...

I just had my first proper piano lesson. Although I knew it would be an odd experience, I hadn’t quite prepared myself for the mental and emotional challenge. Having spent a year learning from an app, suddenly I was exposing myself to the judgement of a human. Fortunately, I’d chosen an excellent human. Steve is a calm, kind, and encouraging teacher. Above all, he’s someone who clearly loves teaching. With students ranging from 5 to 76, there’s not much he hasn’t seen, either. He certainly didn’t balk at the prospect of a nervous almost-51-year-old. Indeed, the dinosaur analogies he uses with the youngsters were remarkably effective for me. ...