Allegedly, a lunchtime recital by two fine UK musicians was advertised thus (read it aloud…):

Shades there of “Bach’s Organ Works” too. BTW, in a “proper” index to this blog, more detailed than the sidebar tags, it would give me great pleasure to include Bolton among several numinous place-names in the index to my largely Daoist ouevre:

• Balham, gateway to the south, 196
• Barnsley, suitable greeting upon entering kebab shop in, 238
• Birmingham, driving in: likened to learning Bach 79
• Blackpool, Strictly contestants inexplicably keen to visit 87
• Bognor, inspiration for an iconic soundbite 121
• Bolton 95; Choral Society fails to encapsulate intricacies of Proust 133; Ivor, 38; putative home of Jiang Qing, 139
• Carnegie Hall: Li Manshan and David Sedaris 315
• Crewe, waking up in a siding in, 93
• Eastbourne, see Bognor
• Glasgow, ordering a pint in 421
• Grimsby, see Luton
• Harwich (for the continent), see Bognor
• Leeds, venue for ectasy and drudge 129
• Łódź: YMCA as cultural mecca, 328
• Luton: and Grimsby, match made in heaven, 225
• Maidstone, suitable anagram for 479
• Oxford, unheard of until Inspector Morse 37
• Scunthorpe 148–95; Messiah in, compares poorly with Daoist gig in Venice 337; less promising base for guru than Paris 291; see also Typhoo*
• Stoke Newington, what’s on in, 327
• Truro, arcane riposte to my aspiration to insider status in Lisbon 25
• York, Gran visits 23, 41, and passim

In the Scunthorpe entry, the page-reference under Messiah is genuine (in my Daoist priests of the Li family); I’ve imagined the others, since (intriguingly) they add to the drôlerie. Do click on the links!

See also The joys of indexing.

* In a rare burst of decorum, I’ve refrained from posting this one so far—perhaps the unspoken allusion is more subtle.