On the bus : I have to write to distract me from the woman, the warm pressure of the femme de trente ans, her softest arm. Boulez – rescue – your programme note must curb my corpuscular eruptions.

Cornelius Cardew, aged twenty-two, in his journal, quoted in Cornelius Cardew : A Life Unfinished by John Tilbury (2008). I have just begun reading this book, which – at over a thousand pages – is clearly both a Herculean labour of love (thirty years in the writing) and mildly bonkers. In other words, the best kind of biography. Expect further reports as I wade through it.