Analysis In My Blood

Just had a thought - one of the things that I guess has always been part of my make up is a tendency to collect and analyse 'data' (perhaps that is why I ended up in the job that I do). It was never a strong enough pull to make me obsessive about it, but at the same time I would pore over various things - football league tables were one favourite - and extract "interesting" facts and figures. They were, in all likelihood, only interesting to me.

One particular analysis that I remember doing for some weeks or months was trawling the listings in the Radio Times of programmes on what was then the Third programme or possibly the embryonic Radio 3. I would list all the orchestras/ensembles that were getting air time and add up the number of appearances (and the length of the music) to see which were the most 'popular'. I probably did a similar thing with composers - but it is the orchestra one that sticks in my mind.

Even back then I was looking for patterns in the figures - were the same orchestras prominent every week (the BBC Orchestras were, of course, dominant anyway); were some orchestras playing the "longer" works as demonstrated by their average appearance time.

It was a completely useless activity - except to enlighten me on the names of many of the world's most eminent performers. No practical use whatsoever though!!