I have read this happening to so many others whilst surfing the web and, as we all do, did not think it would happen to me! Last night for some inexplicable reason, I opened Itunes and all my 2,000 carefully and lovingly placed tracks had dissapered!!!! Agh!

I kept cool, rebooted my computer and generally fiddled and they did not come back. After 45 minutes it was clear that they had really 'dropped off'. I had them all backed up on an external drive hard drive but even that would not transfer.

I went on the Apple forums and there it was - directions to Tracker Version website where several ultilitieswere hanging in the ether to download whereby I could transfer all my tracks from my Ipod back into Itunes, a facility which Itune does not have for some godforsaken reason.

I paid a few measley pounds for ipod2PC, a neat, simple piece of software and within several minutes all was safely restored. I have a licensed copy so that is it ever happens again I can grab them back via my Ipod. I even received a personal email from them thank me for purchasing it.

I cannot recommend the software enough. I have now also backed up my entire Ipod tracks to DVD which is a new facility in Itunes. I cannot believe it but throughout the whole ordeal, I was as calm as a cucumber!!!!

As I am still recovering from my holiday bug and feeling better but wiped out, I have had a bit of a TV Fest this weekend and been catching up with some recorded programmes. Last night watched another 'list' show [which I usually give a miss]James Bond's Greatest Hits.

It wasn't bad and included interviews with Don Black, Hal David and Mr John Barry. Was dissapointed that my all time fave, You Only Live Twice was way down the list and very surprised that Thurderball wavered at the bottom also.

I did predict Goldfinger would be top of the list, and I was right!

Best bit was Rita Coolidge saying [tongue in cheek] that 'once you are a Bond girl/singer you are special'.

By the way - have ssen Casinbo Royale and though it was the perfect Bond for 2006 but it has the most unforgettable song by Chris Cornell but a good score by David Arnold. You know you are in re-structured and updated territory when Bond orders a martini and is asked if he wanted it shaken or stirred and he replies; 'do I look like I give a damn!'

This new album from Sting is wonderfully atmospheric. In the very generous sleevenotes he says that it had been put to him that his 'unschooled tenor' would suit John Dowlands 16th century songs. I feel it is a brave and bold thing to record and applaud all musicians and singers who go into unknown territory - but the limitations of his voice does show here. Not so much in the range which he does manage to acheive, but in the phrasing which I just could not take seriously from someone with such a rock pedigree.

But Edin Karamazov's lute playing is sublime and the CD is worth buying just for this.

Stings readings of Dowlands letters are very flat which is also another minus. Again, with reference to the sleeve notes, he writes of music; '...it's strange power over our lives, it's infinate possibilities, and it's mystery.'

I am not sure that I will listen to this very often but I am glad I have it in my collection as I think I have every album Sting has done.

Explanation of title: Sting was given a lute as a gift and the design in the centre of it is a labyrinth.

I caught up on BBC's fab Listen Again option, with a documentary on Dusty Springfields classic album DUSTY IN MEMPHIS. How good it is that somehwere [and you do have search a little]there are still shows being recorded of depth and value and in this instance, a whole hour devoted to just one album. They should consider making this format a weekly show.

It is well researched and presented and made me want to listen to the whole album again which I duly did. This is probably a well known fact but it was the first time I had heard it - Dusty was so intimidated by the superb line up of producers and musicians who were working with her on the album, that she actually couldn't overcome her nerves in the Memphis studio's and so did not sing at all in Memphis. She cut the vocal tracks in New York. Somehow DUSTY IN NEW YORK doesn't really make for a great title does it?

Dusty's manager said something profound during the show and that was that she considered Dusty's voice to be a sound, a unique sound more than a unique voice; she said that Barbara Streisand was a vocalist and that Dusty wasn't - she was a sound.

The album was released in 1968, I have a remastered copy on CD which was released in 1995. It flopped upon it's release, probably because of the diversity of the tracks and the deep, soul groove she really wanted to record which were very different from the 'pop' songs in her recordings so far, and did so brilliantly. But the album has now become, and deservedly so, a classic. The textures in her voice on this album show us everything Dusty could be.

Son Of A Preacher Man is the key track and she makes it a very believable track. She uses a higher register on the complex Bacharach song In The Land Of Make Believe. Dusty was a great Carole King fan and proved this by including 5 Goffin/King track - Don't Forget About Me being the most soulful.

The racy and ultimately sexy Breakfast In Bed works really well but one of my faves is a very early Randy Newman track called Just One Smile. For me, she sings the ultimate version of Windmills Of Your Mind here, slowing it down a little, making the words mean more. On Willie & Laura Mae Jones you can really hear her getting into the full Mowtown groove. And it ends with a perfect rocking track What Do You Do When Love Dies.

Age does not wither this album whatsoever - it is flawless.

Been away from the old blog for a while due to the manic rush everyone has a few days before you leave for a holiday - all in an effort to get up to date before the plane leaves the runway. It's always futile as you come back to even more work and hassle, but we do it all the same.

Have to say that I have had the Holiday from Hell. Cape Verdi is supposedly the hot, hip and happenin' place to buy property at the moment. Here's my adive: DON'T! A friend recently purchased an apartment and gave it to us for a week free of charge for our honeymoon. All started to go wrong at Gatwick when we boarded, sat for an hour then had to get off as something was 'malfunctioning'. A six hour wait in quite a pleasant departure lounge I have to say and then we were off.

The apartment had no electricity on arrival but it was soon sorted. No gas and when this was sorted it leaked so we couldn't cook. There was inadequate netting against mosquito's, no air conditioning and then 2 days in - no water as the salination tank had a problem! After 3 days we decamped to a hotel run by Italians who had disco music blaring poolside all day and continually tried to get you 'involved' in games.

I got a stomach bug and my partner - a cold. probably all day to stress. The island [Sal] itself is barren, dirty with one or 2 OKish restaurants and nothing to do outside of water sports. It's one huge building site at the moment and when it's fully developed it is going to be an enormous, ugly concrete jungle. OK, OK, I know it is bringing money to an island that badly needs it but there should be a limit to the development but of course because greed is the motivating factor, the westernisation will be limited.

I have come back ill, tired and sad that there are very few places in the world left to explore where original cultures prevail.

I am off to the movies now to loose myself in the new Bond movie and David Arnolds score.

Hope you are all faring better.