Dear all,

Sorry I havent written sooner - the barstools won't let us log on until we have enrolled, so this is all posted a few days late. I have nothing to say, which isn't entirely surprising.

6:00

I'm just back from the music room - so called. Actually, the overall effect is something like a broom cupboard - spiders everywhere, cracked tiles, dusty instruments. All this I could forgive if the piano was decent. No, passable - I'm not fussy. But manoman, is that an unpleasant instrument to play! The damper pedal is broken, and the notes are sticky at the higher end so my fingers slide all over them during the Firth of Fifth bridge. But the honkytonk sound means anything less complicated comes out obviously out of tune. And my dynamics are bad at the best of times, let alone a piano with that little control, so Chopin was out of the question. At one point I gave up entirely and tried the keyboard instead - one of those nasty faux-piano affairs shoved in a corner and tangled with the drum machine.

Yet all of this I could have endured if not for the lack of soundproofing on the walls. I could have done without Little Miss Mozart next door playing some of the most demoralisingly beautiful clarinet I've ever heard while I struggled and spluttered along. My playing isn't great at the best of times; and this was not the best of times.

I managed to get some tunes out - Sleep, by the Smiths sounded good with a chunky, mossy thickness. But anything requiring any intricacy - those repetitive tinkly masterpieces I'm fond of playing way too fast - were a nightmare.

And then She sat down to the piano in Music Room 1. Naturally, both she and her instrument were superior to your humble narrator's, struggling away in Music Room 2. It was to much to endure. When it comes to those who play the piano better than me, either I fall hopelessly in love, or I want to rip their fingers off one by one. This was a case of the latter. Bet she can sing too, I thought, while I rasped away to She's Electric and hoped any fellow cowboys coming into the saloon would spare the piano player if a gunfight started, with my instrument wheezing from years of beer and bullet marks.

So off I go to tea in an area where I am prepared to be bettered by everyone in the preparing, but not the eating.

I also note I still don't sound like me when I type. Tomorrow I'll try and smeg Music Room 1.

Socialised (more or less) this evening. It's funny how quickly you get used to faces. I've met another 1- well, 1- she reads Bizzare magazine, has a thing for men in tailcoats, and is into online gaming. On the other side of the kitchen there's 2- wears a flower, insanely charasmatic - and 3, and another girl whose name I've forgotten, but she's doing Classics. She looks German. 4 eats with us - she's from Bulgaria, doing European Studies - and so does 5- can't stand England, and studying Spanish for the year out in Spain. 6 keeps vanishing to watch movies. I've also had the good fortune to meet a Classics-studying, Neil Gaiman-reading, Dorian-loving McCoyFan who takes even longer in second hand book shops than I do.