Two can play at that game

For some unknown reason I have some Internet thing going with the TES, so they send me an email weekly with various links. this week's includes inspectors who fall asleep in your lesson. Shame. My first thought would be to take out a mobile phone and film them Zzzzing and then wander casually over to a piano and play loudly. One fff chord would suffice. Every room I teach in has at least one piano... Snigger.

Waiting at the station

Due to an error yesterday, I found myself sat outside the station for an extra 30 mins waiting for a relative to get off the train. Actually, I did go through a few moments of wondering where they were and got went out onto the platform... Just in case. Anyway once I'd concocted a text that checked that is was the 20.30 train from London Bridge that I was meeting without givin the game away that I was already at the station, I settled down to the wonders of the iPad. I can now listen to Brahms 2, whilst reading a book and see the words easily in the dark. unfortunately, it now has my work email account on it, but I'm not checking it and certainly not replying to anyone at the weekend. (yet)

It fell off the sofa

So said one of my pupils today of his violin. Don't you just love the way boys describe things when the need arises? The day this happened was of course the day of his Grade VIII exam. It was a Parents' Evening tonight so I was able to sympathise with his mother who had to sort out hiring another one for him to take the exam on and yes, violins are very differrent. even the physical proportions are not the same and mm, make a huge difference. He got 130. His mother... Another day, another impossible problem sorted out.

#WhatSistersMeanToMe

Or another example of a FrZ Internet/social media fight back. I'm sure we all have our particular favourite sisters who are the real deal.

Kindle sharing app

There must be a way. You read a book enjoy it very much and then.... You can't lend it to anyone. Or is buying a book in er book form the sharing surcharge?

S. Eugene et Ste Cecile

Went to Low Mass he last night and what a beautiful church.

Paris in Spring-time

Is quite chilly just now, especially as I am in the former convent garden of the rue du Bac, making use of their free wifi. yesterday I braved Versailles and saw the Hall of Mirrors and walked down the staircase Marie Antoinette used to effect her escape. The gardens were, beautiful, but COLD COLD COLD. I abandoned them after 90 minutes in what turned into driving rain. After recovering back at the hotel, it was off to a concert of chant and medieval music at Notre Dame. A concert, not a Mass, but still the singing was great, he instrumentalists wonders.ul and the nave pretty wel full. I was well back in a queue outside 30 mins before it started. Today..mm les grands magasins.

My Brother, The Pope 2

Read it yesterday in between bouts of gardening. Good book and a welcome corrective after Good bye Good men. No messing with the post-war German seminarians. they were out to rebuild their culture. Mgr R's asides about the music being sung at various Masses are interesting. Their sister remains an enigmatic character. She must have been quite old, 60?, when she went to live in Rome. Pretty intrepid. Dylan wondered about the success of the Pope and his wish to reform the liturgy. But I think that Popes propose, write letters and lead by example and we follow or ignore. That's free will, folks. Clare and I had lunch in Pimlico today and after went for a walked and ended up in the St Paul's bookshop where you can buy a Liber, some stuff from Solesmes, lots of stuff by the Music Makers and the Marty Haugen Song Book. (Put that pic up Clare.). And a whole pile of masses where the words have been changed a bit, one of which still has a Gloria in a verse-refrain form. Meantime they had a CD on of chants of Holy Week. We knew them all. (saddo)bit weird listening to Good Friday stuff today, but there we are. So as to liturgical reform, mixed messages or an eclectic pick and mix.

My brother the pope

After Dylan's recommendation, I thought it would make a good holiday book and with kindle for iPad etc, it' s all too easy to get a book. Anyway, so far so very interesting. I enjoyed the enthusiastic paragraph about their mother's delicious puddings, followed by the comment, 'Aside from that, we lived very simply.'

And then gardening

Now that the weather has remembered about that rain stuff, it's time to do some work in the garden before the precipitation returns. This morning was particularly fine and sunny so I got up early and did some weeding. Since the demise of the allotment I have made a cunning plan to widen a border and grow some food. Standing in my way are some particularly awful shrubs. One clearly comes from a cutting taken from the thorn bushes under Rapunzal's tower. Falling in would definitely blind you, prince or no. I have been doing battle with it for a while. It being covered in thorns so nasty they go through sturdy gloves. Today I got the spade to it and discovered treelike roots. Nearly there and the wet earth is on my side too. Take that, evil evergreen thing!

And so to chocolate

Necessary restorative therapy for the wan musician. That and daily correspondence with Clare in Brighton. The roast din dins with the family was quite good too.... Red wine, red meat and my brother on good form.

Happy Easter

Macmillan Seven Last Words from the Cross

Great piece presumably available on iPlayer and with informative programme notes at Boosey and Hawkes.

Ubi caritas

We came we sang. 'twas good. From a musical perspective, I like Maundy Thursday. The removal of the Blessed Sacrament makes me wonder about a world without it, which is not a good thought.

National insurance contributions

Yes I don't know why Income Tax isn't just put into one pot, but there we are. Anyway, that big wodge of cash that gets taken off me every month gets spent on lots of things. Some good, some very bad. So £1 million has been spent on inspecting Abortion Clinics and is now reported as if such an inspection carries no benefit at all. I'd be really happy if my money got spent on providing better food for elderly people and helping them eat it and taking notice of exactly how much they have eaten and drunk etc, but the tacet idea that abortion clinics need no regulation at all is laughable. What other activity is carried out using my taxes with no expectation of public scrutiny? I wish OfSTED didn't exist, but no-one's suggesting schools don't get inspected.

Ps

The repercussions on crucis apparently denote the nails being hammered in.

Christus factus est

One of the great things about the EF is that every time you add a bit of music you do so in the knowledge that you will be singing it next year. Tomorrow the choir sing Ubi caritas for the first time and I will sing the Gradual, sung here here on Sunday.

Lists lists lists

This week is designated cleaning and tidying week chez leutgeb. The sunny weather has revealed much to be cleaned. One of the only plus points to being at work during weekday daylight hours in winter is that just how much dusting needs doing goes by easily unnoticed. To the duster and Hoover!

Job done

Over here on the blog no-one reads cos it's way too low key and uncontraversial, we go for the drop in the ocean approach to things.

So, when an opportunity presents itself, like Friday, or when you happen to live a 15 minute cycle from one of the only places you could possibly do anything about the dreadful state of liturgical music in this country, even I'd be a fool to pass up the opportunity.

Someone in the parish said to me once that it's very easy to smash things and break them and very much harder to make things work and I think that is very true.  So undoubtably 40dfl are not going to get it all perfect because they are just people, but they are going to considerable lengths to do something posistive and good and so should be supported.

One of the great vulnerabilities and marvellous strengths of Catholicism is that we operate on an any-one can turn up basis.  That means that I have very frequently found myself next to someone really quite mentally delicate ( dread to think what the person thought of me, maybe I'm the reason they were feeling so...) at a Mass or something, no-one gets turned away etc.  The downside is that on the very rare occasion someone does something intemperate, imprudent or just awful, we all get tarred with the same brush.  These crazy crazy Catholics...

So one person filmed when and where they certainly should not have.  I'd like a first hand account of what actually happened, because I believe NOTHING the MSM media reports about anything to do with Catholicism.

Maybe, just maybe that is the only thing BPAS have managed to tar 40DFL with in err, 40 days. If not that, then something else would have happened.

I was there on Friday, surrounded by peaceful, good, silent people, whose behaviour was as if they were in Church, maybe at Adoration.  No-one spoke above a murmur, everyone looked at the ground, everyone was very still.

I was there for 45 minutes during which time people continually screamed abuse, played drums and whistles and waved very offensive banners.  That weirdly dressed man was making obscene suggestions.  A woman came over to scream at the top of her voice.  A passing cyclist shouted, 'Shame.'  You get the picture.

There were hardly any police on the ground.

When the cyclists blocked another of the two exits from Bedford Square, I started wondering how easy it would be to leg it down the two roads behind me back on to Tottenham Court Road.

The helicopter turned up at 8.

There are helicopters flying over Central London, all the time.

There are unreported demos, security alerts, tube closures and incidents of bother going on all the time in Central London.

There are police sirens going on a Friday night, all the time.

I frequently walk very briskly alone in Central London at night, avoiding trouble.

I am very familiar with the West End on a Friday night.

It's full of leery drunk people.

Any trouble was not coming from the Pro-Life Vigil.

Wishing

All musicians and organists well this week. Quite a lot to sing, or something.