No other film director's work have I watched and studied more in the nineties at University in Köln, than Ingmar Bergman's. He was my genius of poetic film, my hero of silences, my antidote to anything catering for those with low or no concentration spans; low emotional concentration span specifically. Nobody else knew the words between the lines quite as well as he did, while telling gentle stories which turned out to be so much more powerful than all the noise and the fast cuts and words that you would find elsewhere. He showed that cinematic narration could still be philosophical, beautiful, angst ridden, and elegant. "Herbstsonate" (Höstsonaten) blew me away at the time and remains solidly amongst my top 10 movies of all time. It touched me deeply, and it sums up so much about all of us and our mothers.

Ingmar Bergman died peacefully at the age of 89 on the island of Farö.

Getting the chance to see Barbra Streisand and Wynton Marsalis within a couple of nights was an extraordinary experience. And although both have completely different meanings to me, they both transported me back to being a kid - to another great place. While the one was a part of a decade long, very personal and almost spiritual ambition, a highly important piece of a puzzle which I had been putting together since I was thirteen years old; the other was a more the fun hang, another notch in my musical bed-poste and an opportunity to meet some old and new friends.

Seeing Streisand live for the first time is nothing I would want to share here any further for it's deeply personal nature, other than saying that the extraordinary vibe that streams out of such talent was truly mind-blowing. It was very much my moment.

Thanks to Elliot, I was able to spontaneously pop into the Barbican for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis the next evening. Admittedly my first ever "back to the roots" Jazz concert, it was a great pleasure to 'jump on the train' and get to that certain place which reminded me all too much of my happy musical childhood, with my dad instinctively turning the volume up as soon as exactly this kind of sound came on. Meeting Wynton afterwards and hanging with Elliot Mason, Michael Janisch, Marcus Printup and Guy Barker backstage made it all that extra bit more special. Thank you, guys!

I never thought this moment would come. For a long time. Very long in fact. Not many signs had been pointing at it. And yet I feel strangely at ease. Natural, does it come. As if it was always meant to happen. And the moment is not even here yet. The build-up has been short - almost sudden. The excitement is slowly taking control over heart and tummy. I just hope I can give it the landmark euphoria is deserves. I don't want to be too cool - as coolness seems to have been such a great companion and protector in recent weeks and months. Falsely. And I don't want to lose that original childlike excitement - now that it is about to happen, seems almost too true to still be such a big thing... But it is. The biggest. For who knows me knows how big, and it has never been shared with many.

As natural and always-meant-to-be as it suddenly may seem, it is coming along at exactly the right time. Unbeatable. Overwhelmingly deliberating and empowering and meaningful. It is going to be spiritual - a coming-home start of something new. A new beginning and a heart going full-circle. Finally. Finally, for it was such a screaming desire for so long. Very long. Always more than just the music, the music and the charisma just being vehicles. For what it made me, where it brought me, what it taught me, how it deliberated me and how it strengthened me - will be set free. Finally. Happily.... deeply personal, sensual and lovingly embraced.

I cannot wait. I feel warm and emotional. Only to be shared with one.

Calculate your own personal carbon footprint. This is a great tool - easy to use, very intuitive and packed with entertaining animations... all in the name of showing each of us, how much CO2 our life style is generating per year: http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk

But they don' just leave you alone with the result. You will get a useful facts sheet helping you to decrease your current pollution further through simple savings, switches and common sense changes to your daily life. Most of us know more or less where we are with our ecological awareness, about the dos and don'ts. But seeing the figures staring at you from your own computer screen, is a daunting experience. Worth a shot - and don't lie.

I take everything back - everything I ever said about the responsible way of German driving. Slagging off my fellow British country men and women with regards to their handling of moving cars in traffic, compared to the style of driving in Germany, where I passed my license in 1988 and was a motorised road user for almost ten years before coming to the United Kingdom, that was unfair and blue-eyed.

My recent experiences on the infamous German Autobahn this summer, where I ran up a staggering 3,000km within one week, where atrocious, scary, shocking and hellish. The lack of a continuous speed limit turns the fast lane into a race track with no regards for safe distances, weather conditions or traffic volume. On busy days the fast lane turns into the slow lane, as most drivers cannot imagine ever being allowed back into that lane, once they love over to the right. So they decide to stay there - come what may. Ignorant and dangerous.

The exhausting and straining concentration I had to switch on for entire multiple hour journeys was something I didn't know from British motorway. It can be extremely busy there, too. But it's clearly working without this unhealthy portion of haste and impatience.

A speed limit would do the trick on many levels - let's not even mention how the environment would benefit from a 130 km/h max. speed. But the race character and enormous hassle that drivers inflict on each other on German Autobahns would be eased immediately.

Gimme the box to tick. I'm all for it.