alison

Hi Sim As you know, various work-related issues mean that I haven't been getting onto the links page on a daily basis as much as I used to, but probably only 2-3 times during the week, and also I rarely go back to the current day's page any more from different machines, both of which will have contributed somewhat to the decline in links readership. I certainly very much appreciate all the hard work the Links team put into it, and only wish the websites involved would be a little more realistic about what and when they decide to block: I certainly think that 8-10 visits a month is excessively low, and they must be losing a lot of readership because of it. For example, I'm not really interested in the everyday articles the FT has, and am certainly not going to pay money to subscribe to it just to read the dance coverage. If necessary, I'll go back to looking reviews up every few weeks when I'm in the library, but I hope it won't have to come to that. Edit: For instance, I no longer access the Links when I'm working on my Chromebook, because I think it's implicated in this problem of all the links threads suddenly being marked as read that I've been having. Previously, if there was any still-unread thread, I'd go back and make sure I'd read everything on it, e.g. catch up on the weekend offerings, but now if they've been marked as read I don't know what I'm still missing out on, and can't go back and read it, so that's a few more visits by me lost. I look forward to hearing what others think.

Curses. Too late for me I now wish I hadn't bothered to watch any of this live, but had waited for the recorded version. Anyway, thanks for posting the links, Norman.

I would only have loved to have seen more of this. As it is, it's now too late, unless I take myself off to the library and station myself in front of the computers for hours on end, for days on end ... And did anyone else have problems with the picture freezing during the Bolshoi Sylphide section? That, of course, was back in the 80s (and probably 70s?) ... I can't see ENB getting involved with something like this in the present setup, I'm afraid: even in these days of miniaturisation, the broadcast equipment I saw would take up too much room in their studios, I think. Yes, I thought I noticed one comment in an unusual language. Wasn't Diaz with ENB at one stage, or am I confusing him with someone else? And was Armand actually involved with this? I thought he was at the SFB School? My jaw drops in disbelief And from what I saw, Miss Hayward had quite a lot of other things to be doing yesterday. Principal roles one day, back in the corps the next: that's the life for up-and-coming young dancers

Oh, and now the video is showing up as "private" - what on earth is happening? Australian Ballet section is here: Bolshoi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddf3pLzNSzA Royal Ballet here: There's a free digital guide to the day on the ROH website if you use the promo code.

Really???

Great. I get home to find that apparently only 4 hours - presumably the SFB slot - are available on the URL Bruce posted above. What's happened to the rest of it?! Desperately trying to find the NBC section, which I totally missed, and everything I click on is again the SFB bit! Message on the website claims it's "coming soon", but if the thing is only going to be up there in full for 48 hours then we need to get it now, not later

Okay, I know it's a minor issue, but it really annoys me: people who *insist* on tearing off just one banana from a hand of bananas and leaving it in the box at the supermarket I was in Sainsbury's the other day, and I kid you not, single bananas were strewn across the top of the box. Look, if you *really* have to have, say, 6 bananas, couldn't you either just find a hand which contains 6, or perhaps even take a hand of 7, and manage to eat the other one at some stage??!!

I'm not sure whether this one actually offers anything new, but: http://www.standard.co.uk/esrewards/manon--kenneth-macmillans-acclaimed-tragic-ballet-last-minute-ticket-offer-9766545.html 4th, 11th, 13th and 15th October

That's disappointing to read: ENB's is a good, solid production with no anachronisms, and an ideal first-time ballet experience (insofar as I think Swan Lake ever is).

Aileen, there's a reason Manon's parents are sending her to a convent, and it's not because she's a modest little violet who might be corrupted by the World: it's an attempt to protect her from herself, because they know their daughter and can see where her nature is going to take her if they don't. Who knows, if Lescaut and Des Grieux hadn't interfered, it might have worked

Really? It worked fine for me on Chrome - just hover over it and thumbnails should come up to give you an idea of where you are.

There is: just click somewhere in the timeline. I don't think there are any specific bookmarks, though, which is a pity.

I'm sure he will: I've got a ticket for his debut I see the boys in Scenes de Ballet are being cast lower than a decade ago: then, it was all First Soloists except for Josh Tuifua, who was a Soloist, if I remember correctly.

From what I read in one of the recent Gillian Lynne interviews, I understand that it's [edit: Miracle in the Gorbals] not a revival, more rechoreographed from scratch. Or am I confusing it with something else?

Interesting to note that Vadim is already learning Basilio, 3 months ahead of his scheduled debut. I hadn't necessarily realised that they started that early.

So, I've paid for 24 hours of WiFi access and will have a significant amount of time left in which I could watch some more dance streams. Does anyone have any recent recommendations? I spend so little time on YouTube normally that I don't really know what's available on there, or elsewhere. Alternatively, I could find some tennis to watch ...

GRRR!!! Why did my neighbour have to pick today to get her hedges cut back? The guy's been at it since midday, and I can barely hear Carlos over the noise!

Here are links to the individual dancers, in case you want to try identifying those in class: http://www.roh.org.uk/about/the-royal-ballet/artists There has been such an influx of new dancers recently that I'm starting to have trouble putting names to faces without having to think about it. BTW, was it just me, or were there very few principals/senior dancers in the class this morning?

Thankfully, I've realised that you can go back and watch earlier parts of the stream, so it's good to know I can get at all the bits I missed while BT was logging me out the whole time.

Aileen, it's Brian Maloney, I'm surprised to see.

My picture has just dropped out of HD, and is really blurry. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Thank you, Bruce, that was precisely what I wanted to know. Really upset that I missed La Sylphide, which I didn't see scheduled, but at least I now know when I can get out to the bank, Sainsbury's and so on. Days off are all very well, but I really can't spend the whole of it in front of a screen

Bruce has set up a discussion page for this here: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/7937-world-ballet-day-live-today-folks/#entry105438 so can we discuss the broadcast there, please.

Thank you, Bruce - you've beaten me to it

Oh, right, thanks Yaffa. The references I'd seen were all referring to pages set up on the individual companies' websites.