If this made any less sense, Jerry Bruckheimer would be filming it

I think Charlie was right after all - the Arctic Sea affair is still looking more and more like a Ken Follett novel. Or even a Clive Cussler one. (It hasn't quite got deranged enough yet to be a Dan Brown novel, but give it time...)

UOGB Prom

brisingamen demands a blow-by-blow account of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain Prom Concert last night. I'm not sure I can go that far, but I can try to recall a few of the highlights.

The queue to get in probably wasn't one of those. Having said that, it was very clear from the people there that this wasn't your usual Prom; how many of those involve a large chunk of the audience bringing their own instruments? The queue was also well-managed, with numbered tickets being distributed so that we could prove our place and if necessary nip off for a minute. As I did, to the IC Union Bar; buying a life membership some twenty years ago was definitely a good investment! At about 9.30 the line started to inch forward, and by about ten to ten I was in and on the Arena floor, with perhaps a thousand or more other keen OUGB fans (plus perhaps four thousand seated). As I entered, about half the UOGB came on stage to do a run through a quick tune-up with everyone who had their own uke with them - this was the first hint of just how many people had bought one along. The estimate was that there were about a thousand, hence the reference in the Prom to '1008 ukuleles'.

The Prom itself was as brilliantly bonkers as any UOGB gig. Some of the classics I'd heard before, such as the UOGB's rather unique take on Wuthering Heights, or the comparatively straight but nonetheless very good ukulele versions of Life on Mars or The Dambusters. The UOGB's self-described 'depraved musicology' consists in large part of either taking a piece not usually associated with stringed instruments and performing it as well as possible on the ukulele, or, if a piece is strings-friendly enough that this wouldn't be sufficiently amusing, radically reinterpreting it. The extreme example of the second approach last night was Pinball Wizard, performed with no ukulele at all. I think the a cappella version worked really well, once I'd stopped trying to cough my own spleen up...

The mass rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy was doubtless the highlight. In order to make it as easy as possible, the core section was just repeated several times; by about the third or fourth round, those of us without ukes were doing our bit to provide the Accompaniment by Humming, which I'm delighted to hear comes across on the broadcast.

Oh, and George Hinchliffe's line about "it turns out you can't get out that way" is the excuse for coming back on stage for the encore...

RAF Air Power Review

Clearing some of my boxes I find I have a dozen or so of the early issues of RAF Air Power Review (V1N1 to V4N2, except V2N1). It's available online from Vol 3 onwards, but these issues have the advantage of being easier to read whilst in bed. Would suit someone with an interest in air power history - collect from me or pay P&P.