In the spirit of taking a joke too far, I wrote a parody of the How To Produce, Perform and Write an Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Show book. In the form of How to Write, Perform and Produce a Cancelled Edinburgh Fringe Show. I was lucky to have its original author, Ian Fox, on board. We worked hard on what is essentially a long daft chapter with swearing in it.

Bill and Ted.

We're still slightly guessing their genders. They came from a socially distanced trip to a corner of Birmingham where they were born to a mummy cat that really needs spaying. Her offspring will be looked after by our family and slightly spat at by our other cat.

After a lot of tightening of the budgets at the start of lockdown, the arrival of an Amazon voucher led to the purchase of some audio kit. Especially useful given the amount of music stuff I've been doing. The new microphone was a great price, but a long time coming.

It's very nice.

To road test the microphone and to try out some new video editing software I wanted to use, I made Fugue for Tin Horns from Guys and Dolls:

The video software crashed, so I used my old software.

Not content with a choir of mini-me's, I decided to create a virtual choir with the local school children. More on that when it happens. But it really needs better video editing software and my 2012 Mac just isn't up to the job.

So much for tightening the belt during lockdown. After a lot of searching for laptop and computer options, my brain became numb to the worrying price of a new MacBook Pro... so I found a "bargain" one... and I'm now a proud MacBook daddy.

I didn't want the most expensive computer I've ever owned to be offended by a dirty desk, so I did a bit of a clear up - it smells fresh in here now. Good times. It's still too full, but the desk was always the biggest issue.

I've learned how to use MuseScore and produced sheet music. I'm working on some musical arrangements... In fairness, I've been writing a few musical arrangements during lockdown, though they never amounted to much. The virtual choir project requires me to masquerade as musical director, film director and editor... and I'm going to do a lot of autotuning!

I imagine being able to sleep again sometime in August!