Many a slip 'twixt opera cup and...er, East Croydon
On Saturday night I was honoured to be a member of a media panel, six critics convened to select the winner of a special award in the Glyndebourne Opera Cup. It was a wonderful event, and nice to see the gardens in early spring for a change, full of daffodils and primroses. Describing us and our task, presenter Chris Addison quipped: "That must be a fun room." You better believe it, buster - we were tucking into our sandwiches very happily, and reached exactly the same conclusion as the chief jury, but in a fraction of the time. We gave our media prize to the lovely American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey, who also emerged with overall first prize. I'm writing a full account of the evening at the moment and will post a link as soon as it goes live. What follows now is what followed. Unfortunately Southern Trains had decided to do weekend engineering works that day, so the Lewes line was closed south of Three Bridges. The press office kindly agreed to provide t...