Amazing day yesterday and evening in Nottingham, set off early afternoon arrived at three thirty and wandered up to the castle, had coffee and read and the newspapers in the cool cafe inside the mansion house, within the castle grounds. Strolled back down and for dinner at Wagamamas and very nice it was too, although eating noodles in a vat full of chicken broth is exceedingly complicated with a large wooden ladle and chopsticks. A and I had race and I comfortably won swirling the noodles, spag bol styli, around the chopsticks, you have to be pretty dextrous.

The Rufus gig was incredible, came on to Agnus Dei, the acoustics in the concert hall where amazing so amazing in fact it made Rufus admit to fucking up a couple of times just because he couldn't believe how good he sounded! He sounded better than good, he sounded fantastic. From the opening murmurs of Agnus sending the hairs on the back of my neck to sprout to A crying after hallelujah it was one of those rare occasions when you know as you're listening that it will always be there in your top 1o of gigs. I lost count of how many standing ovasions he and the band received at encore time but they all collectively deserved each and every one. Rufus sang for a little over two hours, the band going off for tea breaks every now and then while Rufus
entertained us on the piano, what a trouper.

I should say seats being C17 and C18 i.e three rows back from CENTRE stage, Rufus was in almost touching distance, A and I couldn't quite believe our luck. P from work sat on the same row - two people from Hull, I felt guilty as hell as he's a die hard fan of years and was sat facing the speakers, arrrgh!

Rufus may be 7th down the list on the second stage at Glastonbury but if he performs half as well, including the cover of 'Across the Universe' still learing the lyrics, he will be headlining in 2007.