Ah, those good old days :-) But the French do seem to have a bit less of a generation gap - judging by all those progs on TV with older singers joined by younger ones and very mixed age audiences.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

How true. Strolling round my quarter, I came to a public square with a poster listing half a dozen names with time slots. I noted that there was a guy twiddling knobs on the stage as some recorded music blared out, and assumed he was filling in between the musicians. Then he started blah-blahing into his microphone, and the truth dawned.

Other than that, there was a band at a bar near my place playing prog-ish rock that I didn't recognise, another that I could hear from my terrace playing anglo-american standards from the 70s, pleasantly unremarkable. I like the fact that for a lot of amateur groups, this is their big annual concert. But not much turnover in the repertoire.

Oh, and my choir, which traditionally sings in a public place on this date, didn't get awarded a slot this year by the municipality. Not enough places, you see.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Thanks Len. Some are with the Samyang 85mm f1.4 - great for low-light, others with a new Sony 30 mm (equivalent to a 50mm on a trad 35mm camera) 2.8 - which is very light, a mere 150gm (really appreciated after having a really painful side after carrying a rather heavy bag on one shoulder).

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

62% of regular clubbers and 72% of regular concert goers report problems with their hearing.

Concerts and nightclubs produce sounds that can register up to 120 decibels, louder than a pneumatic drill. In the workplace employees are required to wear hearing protection when levels exceed 85 decibels.

Reports of tinnitus - ringing in the ears - experienced by young people exposed to loud music have increased threefold since the early 1980s.

The report found that 6.8% of people not regularly exposed to loud music of 85 decibels or over suffer from tinnitus compared to 20% of people who are.

Symptoms in some cases last only a few hours, but they are a sign that damage to hearing has occurred.

The damage is cumulative and permanent, and the risk increases with greater volume and longer exposure.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/409987.stm

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.