Dear Alice,

I was guest leader for an orchestra I've never played with before at an outdoor concert, Rule Britannia etc. As you'd expect, I took my best quite valuable violin, not that there were many solos but still you know how it is and I was leading.

You can probably guess what I'm about to say. It rained and yes the wind blew the rain inside the shell (this was in the rehearsal). It wasn't only the outside desks, even some of the inside strings too. But the conductor just carried on so I said 'look we're getting wet!' He stared at me as if I was an insect and said 'this is the only rehearsal we have!' and kept on and on. So I played for a couple of minutes and then I thought I'm not getting paid that much after all my violin is much more important and so I left. So did two people in my section and also a cello player.

Well again you can probably guess what happened. The rain stopped in about twenty minutes we all went back and the conductor pretended I didn't exist for the rest of the day. No communication, no handshake at the end of the concert no nothing. I've probably just rubbed myself out of my entire existence.

What should I have done, just let my violin be ruined for the sake of a rehearsal that we really only needed to top and tail? I give up I really do.

(name and area withheld)

Dear unidentified guest leader,

Far from anticipating the turn of events I find myself aghast, indeed shocked and stunned. I could hardly believe my eyes as I read your account. Perhaps you should set it to music, and try to wangle some arts council funding to stage it.

Are you really trying to tell me it rained???? this summer?????????? The summer in which, while we in Crete enjoyed the usual thirty degrees, central London was baking with forty???????

No, but seriously, I do feel for you. I have even known a similar dilemma myself. Years ago, while guesting with a major London chamber orchestra out of doors, I found the sun so determined to melt the varnish of my (second) cello that I too debated whether or not to make a stand (which was finally made by the principal cellist, I'm happy to report). In my opinion, you acted correctly, and my opinion would, no doubt, be seconded by the Musicians Union.

But we live in a world which is deeply unfair, and playing out of doors is but one of its unfairnesses. Fact is, the lesson of the outdoor concert is that great unwashed will show up in their multitudes to hear a concert as long as they can (a) eat and drink during it, (b) wave flags at the end of it, and (c) generally pay only the merest slice of attention to the concert itself as it wends its weary way towards Land of Hope and Glory. Trouble is: a lot of orchestras rely on this kind of income to permit them to do sensitive, tasteful and audience-less performances of Monteverdi and Penderecki in the winter months. We also know that man is born to trouble as the sparks do something or other (copyright God). The mind returns to the occasion when I was accompanying Jose Carreras (who had the sense as well as the dosh to travel there by helicopter) at Castle Howard, in darkest Yorkshire, at one of these outdoor concert binges. So chaotic was the parking that my travelling partner and I were stuck in that car-park for over three hours, and didn't reach London until daybreak. The mind also returns to that Crystal Palace mud-bog (same Royal Philharmonic concert orchestra suffering, by the by) when the orchestra tramped grimly onto the stage in long black with knee-high black wellingtons underneath. But enough of my past traumas. In my opinion yours was the course a sensible leader would have taken, and the only reason all the orchestra failed to follow you was simple fear. (They also probably had left their best instruments at home, as they weren't actually in the hot seat).

Thus, if you get rubbed out (and, after all, you were only guesting) you've been rubbed out in a noble cause. Personally, I suspect that even the conductor had a sneaking admiration for your decision, as does,
Yours cordially,
Alice

Dear Alice,

Welcome back!

What we all want to know is ... how were the butterflies in Greece? How were the spiders in Greece? How were the toilets in Legoland (Greece)? And how many copies of your book did you sell to swarthy Greek cellists?

Karen

Dear Karen,

Well I suppose I could tell you about Crete, but personally I find that nothing is duller than hearing about other people's holidays.

I mean, if it was lousy they'd lie about it, which is boring, and if it was fantastic (such as Crete) well, that's even worse than boring. Other people's holidays are like other people's choices on a restaurant menu, frankly only of interest to only one person, to wit, them.

If only other people would very kindly recognise this universal truth there would be a lot less hassle around the place. There'd be an end of that scrabble to send inane postcards while away, sent mainly to rub in the fact that you're somewhere nice (like Crete, to take an example at random) and that they, in sharp contradistinction, are sweating in 100% heat at Tesco, with two under-fives screeching simultaneously for the latest video and for the kind of sweeties that turn their teeth a fetching shade of green.

Not that it's all fun and games for those in some sunny, enchantingly beautiful place full of generous and charming people (such as, well, just to take an example at random, Crete). No, these souls have to interrupt their orgies of retsina, Cretan dancing, nude bathing etc simply in order to stagger forth and locate postboxes cunningly disguised to look like tenor recorders, in places so isolated from humanity that said postcards can take six or seven months to reach their destinations. We don't have to wait for the first cuckoo to know Spring's arrived here in Orpington, because Spring is the season when Simon's parents ring up in triumph to say that they have received our summer postcard from Crete.

Still, as you bothered to ask, in answer to your queries:

1. The butterflies were many and varied. I especially enjoyed the slimline yellow ones with black trimming.
2. The spiders were not in evidence. This came as huge relief, as, only two years ago, there was what even Simon admitted was an absolute whopper who had domiciled himself about ten feet below our apartment, down in the ivy. By conservative estimate, this spider's body was the size of a man's fist, and he was radioactive red, yellow and black. By popular demand of the residents of apartments 4, 5, 6, and 7, it was disposed of by the proprietor overnight, probably with the aid of a spare Scud missile. However, one of the apartments' regulars was startled by Crete's only poisonous snake, the bizarrely-entitled catsnake, the week before we arrived, so not even Crete is perfect.
3. You've got to stop talking about Greece. I know that Crete is technically part of Greece, but a compliment (say, to the Greek cuisine, or Greek hospitality) only arouses furious hostility in the otherwise peaceable Cretans, who want their independence from Athens and all that it stands for. Take it from one who knows: the best way to get free vodka, raki, etc is to espouse, however temporarily, this useless, if rather charmingly quixotic, quest for national identity (see 'Scotland' ).
4. Crete is mercifully free from Legolands. The waterparks are beautiful, clean, and uncrowded. The fact that I find the rides too scary I entirely blame on the state of my nerves.
5. I sold no (zero) copies of my book(s), either to swarthy Greek cellists (nice image, Karen!!!!!!!!!!!!) or otherwise. If anyone asked what I do, I muttered rubbish about playing cello.

Now I promise not to mention Crete again unless irresistibly provoked next year ...

Yours,
Alice