...continued

After lunch there was a disaster at the beginning of the final session. I plugged my mobile 'phone into the wall for a bit of a charge - and all the lights went out. Neil was with me at the time. "Quick, take it out and don't say anything!" And so the old eastern bloc wiring was duly blamed, and an electrician sought. The orchestra drifted away after the session, save for a rather bemused bassist, whom we had try to play some jazz bass lines on Mingulay Boat Song and The Mist-covered Mountains Of Home. It didn't really work, and the guy couldn't really swing, so they were subsequently re-recorded in Scotland.
br> And that was that! We wandered back to the hotel for some celebratory drinks and traditional shouts of 'well done!' and went out for dinner in a local traditional eatery. I was intrigued by the inclusion on the menu of the 'Prague Rabbi's fried entrecote', but the waitress said it was a bit tough. I think I had sausage and dumplings instead. Or, maybe that's just what everything comes out as.
br> And that, as they say, was that. Next morning we wandered by train to Prague Castle. Well, I say train - John took us a couple of stops on the underground then we climbed up a hill for about an hour. I was on a mission - to find for an accordion playing colleague a CD by the Prague Castle Orchestra. We met them (all three) at the castle gates, where they were playing Elizabethan Serenade on double bass, accordion and flute, in the folk style. We managed a beer at an outdoor cafè, and headed to the airport where there was time for suasage and dumplings before catching the flight back to Edinburgh.
br> But that's only half the story. Next week, we start the serialisation of Neil Ross's 'Sleepless Nights at the Mixing Desk'
br> M Barnett, Berlin, 19.3.06