5* Chef

Alastair Cook celebrates reaching 200 on the final day of the first Ashes Test at The Gabba, November 2010. Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA via Guardian.co.uk

Alastair Cook's 235* in Brisbane was the third highest by an England batsman in Australia. Only R.E Foster, 287 in 1903 and Wally Hammond, 251 in 1928, have scored more.

A 'daddy' century and one mother of an innings...

'Alastair Cook was a natural at 13', says Derek Randall in The Guardian. Alastair's also a master of understatement himself in his articles in Metro newspaper: "After everything that has happened in the past year I hope to use the next two months to prove I can play..."

Telegraph.co.uk: 'A triumph for simplicity'.

St John's @ Harrow School

To Harrow School on Tue 2 Nov, to hear a concert by St John's College Choir from Cambridge. In the truly extraordinary setting of the Speech Room, built in 1873 by William Burgess, St John's gave of their best, with the trebles rising to the occasion as the evening drew to its conclusion. Their encore (and the St John's Gents' encore) were both wonderful displays of the choir's versatility. The concert finale, Hubert Parry's Hear My Words, Ye People, was a rousing rendition, ending as it does with Parry's hymn tune O Praise Ye The Lord. (Almost) all conducted in inimitable style by musical director Andrew Nethsingha.

Bogoroditse Dyevo - Rachmaninoff

Bogoridtse Dyevo - Part

Cantique de Jean Racine - Faure

Missa Brevis - Mozart

Prevent Us, O Lord - Byrd

This is the record of John - Gibbons

Rejoice in the Lord Alway - Purcell

Like as the Hart - Howells

Hear My Words, Ye People - Parry

plus Allegro from Vierne's Symphonie III (played by St John's senior organ scholar, John Challenger) and Church Sonatas 1 & 2 from The Enlightened Players (chamber quartet)

Photo below from St John's Choir Facebook page:

Hampton Hill Playhouse

Sang a concert, entitled Morning, Noon and Night, with Cantanti Camerati (of Richmond) choir to a full house at the Hampton Hill Playhouse last night. The inimitable, 74-year-old Geoffrey Bowyer arranged and conducted some lovely part-songs, madrigals, barbershop quartets and solos - all non-secular, for a change. 

My favourites included:
Sweet day so cool - Sir Edward German 
The birds that sing on autumn eves - Robin Milford
The Prince of Sleep - Sir Edward Elgar
Softly fall the shades of evening - J L Hatton
Night of stars and night of love (duet, from The Tales of Hoffmann) - Jacques Offenbach
A brown bird singing (soprano solo) - Haydn Wood
Hail, smiling morn (mens' voices only) - Reginald Spofforth
When at night I go to sleep (women's voices only, from Hansel and Gretel) - Engelbert Humperdinck
Draw on sweet night - John Wilbye
The Long day closes - Sir Arthur Sullivan
Good night, good night, beloved - Ciro Pinsutti