The medium

Pause the messages a moment to pay tribute to the medium, the internet. It's astonishing that we can have a worldwide dialogue, exchange experiences, learn, and look at videos too. I'm stunned at the immediacy of it. I post comments about Luisito Ferraris and within a week he's noticed it and thanked us all. I fantasise about a milonguero tango festival in London, and get an email of encouragement from a milonguero born in Buenos Aires. And inevitably I get a bit worried when I look for information and am directed to... a blog called Tangocommuter.

A couple of new things on it that I've come across recently. A legal music service called Spotify. Unlike LastFM you can listen to everything on Spotify, but you have to put up with a couple of short ads every 15 minutes: they are fairly quiet, and they go away if you pay £9.99 a month. The tango holding is reasonable, with some gaps. Not much Piazolla. A fair list of Miguel Calo and Julio de Caro, not much Pedro Laurenz. But Troilo, Canaro, D'Arienzo, of course, and a reasonable list of Hugo Diaz. The classic side has a good range but for the most part the recordings don't seem to be anything special and they are listed by individual tracks, so 'Finale' is listed before 'Scherzo': the 'album' listing isn't much use. & it's a streaming service that has stored 500mb of files on my hard drive in a few days... I don't need it since my tango collection is almost as good, and Radio 3 never stops, but for someone who wants to get to know the music it might be worth a try.

An online petition to the Westminster parliament to relax the 2008 immigration controls that are making it difficult for visiting artists (including tango teachers) and academics to make brief working visits to the UK. Over 6,000 'signatures' collected so far: the aim is 10,000.

& the tango database a work of love being created. The list of blogs includes several we are familiar with, and 454 films are listed under 'Films', but 'Teachers', for instance, remains blank.