The Proms

On our arrival back on Monday evening, we took ourselves off to see Michael Ball perform at the Albert Hall. He gave a rendering of his favourites from the musicals including West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera and Sondheim's Passion. He ended with Love Changes Everything from Aspects of Love, which elicited a standing ovation from the packed house. The critics were snooty the following day, expressing the view that they did not feel this should be part of the Proms season. Although I might agree with them, it didn't stop me having an enjoyable evening. I've been to the Albert Hall many times over the years, but the last time I went to a similar occasion there was to see Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Liza Minnelli performing together, and that's a night I will never forget.

La Dolce Vita

Mary and I have just returned from our summer holiday in Tuscany. We stayed in a lovely villa in Monterchi owned by a lady who's had the house in her family for the past 100 years. This was really a culture vulture holiday, because we visited 9 cities in 14 days, starting with Pisa in the North West, moving on to Lucca, then Assisi, Urbino, Cortona, Arezzo, Siena, San Sepulchro and Perugia. We concentrated on studying Piero della Francesca and in particular his mural work, both in churches and museums. I was also allowed to indulge in two of my favourites, Fra Angelico and Luini, whose work can only usually be found in Milan. Although we saw wonderful examples of da Vinci, Michelangelo and Donatello, the discovery of the tour was unquestionably Signorelli, whose three paintings - the crucifixion, the assumption and the birth of Christ - literally took my breath away.

A few observations about Tuscany... they allow no building permits outside of the cities; you can buy an old house and renovate it, but you cannot add any new extensions. Because historically the land was poor - each family lived in a large house surrounded by a substantial amount of land, which they farmed - the countryside remains surprisingly unlittered, giving the impression of belonging to a different century, with quite beautiful results. The food was as always superb. I don't know how they manage it, but everything tastes better. And as for the home-made icecream ... disaster; Mary and I found it very hard to resist. The miracle was that when we returned home, we found we'd both lost a couple of pounds, presumably because of all the walking we did up and down hills for hours in the sun - yes, even the weather was perfect.

We spent the last four days with our old friends and former neighbours Jim and Shirley Sherwood at their lovely home on a hilltop which is in fact a working vineyard. Those two sure have style, but then you wouldn't expect anything less from the man who heads up a company that runs the Orient Express, Cipriani, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons and La Residencia in Majorca. I returned home to find my 11th draft of A Prisoner of Birth ready to work on, and had to have a very cold shower before I was able to pick up my pen again.

Grease is the word

I attended the opening night of Grease yesterday which was energetic and full of fun. The dancing was quite outstanding and the two leads, Danny Bayne and Susan McFadden, fitted in very well. However my favourite characters were Jason Capewell who played an outrageous Vince Fontaine, and Rizzo played by Jayde Westaby - her rendition of There are worse things I could do was the best song of the evening. If you've enjoyed Dirty Dancing and Mama Mia, then this is a show for you.

Sporting breaks

While I was away writing, I still found time in my breaks (I write 6am-8am, 10am-12noon, 2pm-4pm, and 6pm-8pm) to follow the cricket, rugby and even the motor racing. What a triumph for Lewis Hamilton - Britain has found its own Tiger Woods. Like all rugby fans I revelled in the massive victory over Wales and am looking forward to seeing how we get on against the tougher opposition of France. Despite Easter's four amazing tries, it was the cameo performance of Lawrence Dallaglio that lifted my heart - that man's adrenalin is going to be pumping right through the World Cup and heaven help the opposition.

I have never hidden the fact that cricket is my favourite sport, and I have nothing to add to the quite brilliant articles written by Michael Henderson (Daily Telegraph) and Stuart Barnes (The Times) on the subject of jelly beans. And I feel just as strongly as they do that it's fine for the wicket keeper to mutter the occasional word of support to the bowler, but to continually rabbit on like an old-fashioned 78 stuck on the same track is not my idea of sportsmanship. I am a huge admirer of Michael Vaughan and put him in the class of Mike Brearley when it comes to thoughtful, considered captaincy of the England side, so I do hope that by Thursday, when we play India for the last time and we say goodbye to Sachin Tendulkar - one of the greatest batsmen the world has ever known - that our team will behave more like Clive Lloyd's West Indian side of the '70s than England's efforts last week.

Catch-up

I have been in Cambridge for the past two weeks working on the tenth draft of my novel, A Prisoner of Birth, which I completed last night. This is the story of a man who is sent to prison for 22 years for a murder he did not commit. He escapes and seeks revenge on the four people who put him there. I've never worked harder on a novel since Kane and Abel, and hope that when it's published in March next year, all the people who have been emailing me about it will feel the effort has been worthwhile.

The only difference with this particular draft is that someone now sees it for the first time - that someone is my agent who takes it away on Friday and then gives me his comments on Monday. I apologise for not giving you his name, but the last time I did that he received hundreds of manuscripts over the next few days. I must confess that despite having written 12 novels, 5 sets of short stories, 3 prison diaries and 3 West End plays, I'll still have a dreadful weekend waiting to hear his first impression, so for those of you still on your first novel - it doesn't get any easier.

I will be doing a couple of blogs this week because I'm going to the opening night of Grease on Wednesday and have one or two other interesting meetings that I will want to share with you. Mary and I are then taking a holiday in Tuscany, so I will not be reporting to you again until the beginning of September.