A bum note . . .

Can I be the only one who is finding the Prom Notes on the Proms website all too often either too uninformative or just unhelpful? Or even sometimes simply casual and poorly researched? That trend was terribly obvious last year, but I had hoped it wouldn’t continue.

I had also hoped that casual proofreading might have been cured, too. I didn’t know that the famous altercation in Adrian Boult’s dressing room in 1930 was between him and a ghostly Ethel Smyth. She died in 1924, according to the BBC’s header, which also means she somehow transmitted her manuscript of the Horn and Violin Concerto posthumously, which would be really noteworthy.

And I do understand the pressures of writing to meet a midnight deadline, and of only having 300 or so words available, but I’m giving up on the English national newspaper Prom reviewers, who seem too often to be equally uninformative, or worse, uninformed. Or cannot actually write a succinct review in that many words instead of simply offering a broad-brush opinion.

A sign of the times, I suppose, that editors cannot spare even a full column for a Prom, or even classical music, review any more.

I reneged on my promise to myself, because I got curious, and checked out this. See what I mean? If I were Ms Smyth I know where I'd put that toothbrush . . .