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After so many years working in music isn't it great when music yet again displays it's power to shock and stun you and reduce you to tears.

I was at an already wonderful concert of scots tunes set to classical music by great classical composers - Haydn Beethoven Ravel etc and played by some wonderful musicians who I toured with in Off-Kilter. Mhairi Lawson Adrian Chandler Jan Waterfield and the irresistibly fucking cool Su-a Lee . This stuff isn't normally my cup of tea but they do it so incredibly well and their grace and precision avoids the sentimental or clichéd - it is just very beautiful with restrained subtle undercurrents of emotion. Seeing them play Beethoven every night with Mark Morris' beautiful choreography and dancers was a revelation to me in Off Kilter. Mhairi Lawson's voice is like quicksilver in it's brilliance and precision. Adrian Chandlers violin sings out so precise so in control. Jan and Su-a are lovely players. Mairi Campbell was also playing viola and singing and adding a more folky slightly darker earthier voice to the occasion both on the larger fiddle and voice.

In the first set she did a lot of duos with the other Mhairi (with an h) and it was cool but you didn't really get a sense of the full musician.

Then at the start of the second set Su-a sat next to me as she wasn't on for a few tunes. First was a piece by Ravel- the piano chords sounded ridiculously jazzy. Amazing - Ravel was definitely a jazzer! Then a James Macmillan arrangement of a butns tune which was also very beautiful and stripped down. Then Mairi stepped forward to do a solo set and just plucking her viola let out this other worldly ethereal sound . You had this instant physical reaction. Hairs on the back of the neck and a pressure in the chest. It was mouth music I think, a very scottish thing, lyricless vocal improvising. But it had echoes of Meredith monks experimentalism, Jay Clayton, as well as traditional voices from Bulgaria and Africa. It was incredibly powerful moving sound.

She sang another incredibly beautiful song and played viola - wow. The she talked a while about her family, there was this growing sense of electricity in the room of emotion. This story about her great grandfather who was a missionary to china and died there aged 30. Then she sang this song about her grandmother, his widow, returning to ascotland with theit children including her mother. That song had Jan on the piano. Me and Su-a were in tears. Su-a was grabbing the sleeve of my hoody and wiping away tears. She totally blew us away.

Of course many people already know Mairi is a mega, master musician and don't need me to tell them. I already knew Mairi is a mega master musician. It is just great to see it and feel it and be reminded and to be blown away like that -quite remarkable. Gonna have to get my hoodie cleaned as well.....

The other thing I reflected on later was the impact of Mhairi', Adrian, Su-a, and Jan's more controlled, less emotionally up front music had for creating the setting out of which Mairi's very personal music could so devastatingly burst. And also the way you heard the ensemble's music differently after Mairi's solo set was finished, with this powerful emotion hanging in the air and linking up with the undercurrents and nuances in the more classical material.

You know the thing that happens when you get a set list for a gig just right so the last few tunes really kill the audience rather than a sense of slight anti-climax, and sense of there was another gear there we didn't quite hit. Or if you play a dark fractured crazy tune it can make a simple beautiful song after it sound much more powerful. There's something in that for sure. I believe because of the way music can trigger and resonate with this different states we all pass through.

The combination of these different styles really brought out the best in both. It was wonderful. Should be more of it.......cross- genre synergistic audience killing....

 One of my passions is cricket......This is 100% true:

I was dawdling at the pub last night having played bodhran at our weekly thursday night folk music session intending to get back home for the start of play in Adelaide Ashes Test match. My mate Iain MacLeod, the ex-Shooglenifty mandolin player (and the only other person in the pub who gives a toss about cricket cos we are in Scotland) asks "who won the toss?"  I go on OBO ( a live cricket score website) on my iphone a suddenly see 1) Katich the australian opening batsman has been run out 4th ball so they are 0 for 1 and then suddenly at that moment it updates and they are 0 for 2 and Ponting their captain and best batsman is out for a golden duck ie first ball! Me and Iain shout and hug each other (in a manly way) in the pub and I leg it off down the street back to my house (nb it is minus 10 degrees and Pathhead is covered in snow). My wife, Gina, is Scottish but came to OZ 4 years ago with me to see the Ashes and we were at the Gabba and Adelaide test matches. She follows the cricket a bit. Having been there last time it means a lot to see England go back and compete like this.

I am running down the street (a bit tipsy it has to be said) in a kind of drunk manic dreamland. I run in the house kind of expecting TV to be on and her watching the game. I run in. She shouts " We've got Rats!".

I didn't really listen. I shout " Australia are 0 for 2!" and look at her expecting an outburst of wifely empathetic joy.

She shouts "We've got f***ing Rats!"

I shout "Australia are 0 for 2! Eh? What?" She screams - "WE'VE GOT F**ING RATS!". Starting to notice...

She screams - "WE'VE GOT F**ING RATS! YOU DRUNK *$!&". Starting to notice  lack of wifely empathetic joy.

We had rats before many years ago and it was really bad - they kind of drove Gina and the kids out of the house while I was away working - and so the news fires deep protective neanderthal warrior instincts within me.

These compete in my drunken brain with the euphoria and gobsmacking excitement about Australia being 0 for 2, plus the disbelief that I missed it. I am completely overwhelmed - what to do - and then we realise the TV is down ( snow on the aerial!!).

I spring into action, my wife yelling at me pretty much the whole time. I am kind of ignoring her continuously although knowing that I will pay a price for it later. First I get the TV on (go outside, climb on outside boiler in 3 feet of snow, slip and fall off, get back on, reach up with pole, bash snow off aerial). Go back in and twiddle leads on the upstairs landing. 

I am aware of wife now screaming "TV is back on" with a "so this is more important than the rats obviously” tone. Then I find out it is 2 for 3 (ie 3 Australian batsmen out for 2 runs) - WTF - what is happening! my brain is truly churning.

Then I go up into the attic with a rolling pin while Gina is screaming 'Don't go up there!' - she wants me to sit quietly and listen to the rat noises. My hindbrain (with that kind of unrealistic decision making caused a) being male b) being pissed and c) by watching the Bourne Identity too many times (and identifying innappropriately with Bourne)  has obviously decided to just decisively sort the rat problem as quickly as possible so I can watch the cricket.

“Simple plan.Kill the rats. Then watch Cricket.” says my hindbrain.  I totally ignore her again. I go up there looking to bash in the rat skulls before another wicket falls and then remember from our last rat infestation that rats hide when approached by noisy large men with axes or other objects. Come down.

Gina goes off to bed in what I took to be a “you are a twat” huff. I sit down and watch the game till 5 am with the sound of rats merrily running about in the attic and in the walls behind the plasterboard. Happy days.

Got up after 2 hours sleep and kind of semi-grovelled to wife and went out and got anti rat stuff. 

So now Me vs Rats is on as well as England vs Australia. There can only be two winners. Game on.