Gardening in the rain

The weather has been so bad that the Torygraph ran an article recently about gardening in the rain. they were scrabbling around quite a bit about what to say and managed to come up with waterproof trousers are good and you can pull the tap roots of dandelions out when the ground is soft and will be pleased you did when the drought comes back. today the sun shone, so having done the other stuff I had to do, I made a last half hour dash to the garden centre and got some plants, including tomato plants. mid May and I'm buying small plants. Fastforward to late Sept/ early Oct and I'm thinking kitchen window sill, bananas and green tomato chutney or sweet vinegary mush. Still, one must be optimistic and believe that the six little plants will be providing me with tomatoes for my lunch in August as well as the basis for pasta sauces which I will squirrel away in the freezer and bring out in November when I need a tasty dinner or smugly add to casseroles for the family.

The dictatorship of

My feelings. as I understand it, you used to sue for libel if what was printed or said about you was untrue, unless you were Jonathan Aitken, (cheap yes and he's now a reformed character, but you get my point.). Now you can sue if your privacy is invaded or you feel upset. Or if the perceived offence isn't directed at you per se, but is an advert, you go to the ASA. I contacted them about that MAP ad that caused me to choke on a bagel on the Northern Line one Sunday morning. It was withdrawn on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. interesting. Anyway, I misunderstood that marriage ad the first time I saw it, because I thought it showed how one couple could give rise to lots and lots of other families. maybe it does. marriage generates people and generates society.

The other dictatorship we has is of statistics. Ditch Catholicism, common sense and observation of how folks in our families have done the stuff that doesn't change as we go down the generations because human nature is still the same and and look at what the survey says. having had to play with the rubbish mathematical models the DfES ( or whatever they call themselves now ) come up with to predict what your pupils should get and weed out those pupils who are brilliant but you never noticed... I'm not holding my breath with expectation there. 70% of the people they asked eh. What about al the previous generations? Still if the charge is that the 70% figure is wrong then just produce the study and bingo. why they are going for a bloke burnt at the stake ages a go is anyone's guess.

St Hildegard von Bingam

Ora pro nobis.

He who sings

Prays twice. Some qualification needed methinks or this may occur.

Chorus angelorum

Yesterday, was the first FHC Mass and there were lots of little people, too small as yet to make their First Holy Communions but well up for the Marian Anthem. They all pitch their voices beautifully and sing CON BELTO!

A for ...

It's traditional that where an edition uses rehearsal letters, that the conductor has varies ditties to go with each one. I often go for the names of boys because, they like it along with old favourites like, 'L for leather.'. Today we had H for heart attack after one of the trumpets cut the 3rd beat of a bar in a loud bit when he had the tune. Of such things are scary moments made. Thankfully, such things don't happen in concerts. Not that I take that for granted...

Musical pizzicato

With my small person string orchestra, we have been practising with the thought that pizz is not just about isolated plinks and plonks, that's when we have plunked and plonked together. no! We can join the dots and make musical lines. we can do phrasing. We can do dynamics. then we discovered last week that since you have to make a bigger movement with your plinking finger to play louder, this meant that our carefully crafted crescendo and diminuendo was difficult to play rhythmically evenly. And that is where we shall pick up the rehearsal tomorRow morning after I have written a test on Haydn for the Sixth Form. Mm and we shall avoid random Bartokesque snap pizzicatos which explode into the texture unbidden from time to time.