My Dad has very kindly painted my front door Buckingham green which is green in a jolly way without being Irish Tricolour green or Celtic green and not dark like British racing green green.
But I can't go nowhere til it dries - 16 hours it says on the can, but we think it will be a lot quicker and I'm not staying up til 4am before I can lock the front door. Oh no.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Saturday, 29 August 2009
I was almost disappointed
when I noticed that the sign at the till in the local posh butchers had been changed from;
'Due to the large numbers of forgeries, we no longer except Scottish notes.'
to
'Due to the large number of forgeries, we no longer accept Scottish or Irish notes.'
So much for, 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand...'
The first time I saw the first notice I became entranced and almost stuttered when asked if I wanted anything else.
'Due to the large numbers of forgeries, we no longer except Scottish notes.'
to
'Due to the large number of forgeries, we no longer accept Scottish or Irish notes.'
So much for, 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand...'
The first time I saw the first notice I became entranced and almost stuttered when asked if I wanted anything else.
The Caecilia
Just pinched this from Musica sacra.The Catholic Renaissance, would include magazines that looked like this, with contents to match.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
7 Things
Patricius at Singulare Ingenium asks "What are the seven things that we as Catholics want or would like to see happen?"
Clearly trying to save this blog from drifting into the random musings of a holidaying teacher obsessed with plums, (but with a mind drifting in the direction of apple chutney...anything to put off the moment of having to mug up on Controlled Coursework for GCSE, the ICT security implications of which will, I am certain, not be addressed by the exam board, actually I'm sure they aren't, I went on the INSECT course, but I digress.)
Mm having had a sneak look at Fr Tim's answers....
1 Send all the Music Directors of the Dioceses (whoever they are???) to Solesmes and give them the Gregorian Missal for Sundays and Feast Days. Buy lots of copies of Plainsong for Schools and start teaching the infants the Missa de Angelis. Get rid of hymns written by Protestants. ICEL worried about the new English translation sounding like Cranmer? Too right, but we don't seem sensitive to music written by heretics. So, music is just a vehicle to which you attach words and has no inherent meaning then? Purcell in a Catholic Church? I've heard it. Get some qualified like, MA( Oxon), FRCO, LRAM, ARCM music editors to go through the hymn books and where needed provide two versions of hymn accompaniments, one for organ and one for piano. (rant warning) Just as there are practising Catholic teachers out there in non-Catholic schools, there are practising Catholic musicians out there driven to insanity who will not involve themselves in parish music because the repertoire and the way they are treated is so awful.
2 Put a choir loft in the new Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary Blackfen with of course a stellar organ, trumpet stops, the lot. Have also a chamber organ for smaller music too.
3 Commission Catholic artists and musicians to produce beautiful works of art for churches and cathedrals and ignore the people who say it's a waste of money. They are just closet puritans.
4 Get every diocese to follow the lead of Bishop O'Donoghue and implement his Fit for Mission documents.
5 Challenge anti-Catholic legislation and do not go for the compromise. It never works.
6 I used to think that we could just wait 20 years til the dodgy stuff had gone out of fashion, but that will be too late to save things so I'm afraid some people are going to need to be put out to grass. Sorry folks but, lay chaplain is an oxymoron. If your chaplain can't celebrate Mass, they need to go.
A GCSE Catholic RE needs to be introduced which takes in the Catechism, Scripture and Catholic Culture. That would mean Saints, the liturgical calendar, some sacred art and Catholic music. My Grandfather's text book - 'Red Letter Feasts for Catholic Schools, with illustrations from the old masters', published in the late 50s shows that it can be done.
6 1/2 Have a campaign to encourage us all to support Catholic religious orders, charities etc even more, to generally build up the Church in this country. (Pop over to The Sisters of the Gospel of Life and buy them a buggy and get your Xmas cards from ACN.)
6 3/4 Free up lots of time, energy, people and money by getting rid of committees and boring meetings. Support people who are doing stuff, not talking about it.
6 7/8 Priests say the black, do the red.
Laity bask in the unfussy silence, whichever the Form of the Mass.
7 Celebrate Feast Days in a Boglesque manner, with Masses, Processions, Food and Fun.
Implement a Fit for Mission: Merry England programme.
Clearly trying to save this blog from drifting into the random musings of a holidaying teacher obsessed with plums, (but with a mind drifting in the direction of apple chutney...anything to put off the moment of having to mug up on Controlled Coursework for GCSE, the ICT security implications of which will, I am certain, not be addressed by the exam board, actually I'm sure they aren't, I went on the INSECT course, but I digress.)
Mm having had a sneak look at Fr Tim's answers....
1 Send all the Music Directors of the Dioceses (whoever they are???) to Solesmes and give them the Gregorian Missal for Sundays and Feast Days. Buy lots of copies of Plainsong for Schools and start teaching the infants the Missa de Angelis. Get rid of hymns written by Protestants. ICEL worried about the new English translation sounding like Cranmer? Too right, but we don't seem sensitive to music written by heretics. So, music is just a vehicle to which you attach words and has no inherent meaning then? Purcell in a Catholic Church? I've heard it. Get some qualified like, MA( Oxon), FRCO, LRAM, ARCM music editors to go through the hymn books and where needed provide two versions of hymn accompaniments, one for organ and one for piano. (rant warning) Just as there are practising Catholic teachers out there in non-Catholic schools, there are practising Catholic musicians out there driven to insanity who will not involve themselves in parish music because the repertoire and the way they are treated is so awful.
2 Put a choir loft in the new Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary Blackfen with of course a stellar organ, trumpet stops, the lot. Have also a chamber organ for smaller music too.
3 Commission Catholic artists and musicians to produce beautiful works of art for churches and cathedrals and ignore the people who say it's a waste of money. They are just closet puritans.
4 Get every diocese to follow the lead of Bishop O'Donoghue and implement his Fit for Mission documents.
5 Challenge anti-Catholic legislation and do not go for the compromise. It never works.
6 I used to think that we could just wait 20 years til the dodgy stuff had gone out of fashion, but that will be too late to save things so I'm afraid some people are going to need to be put out to grass. Sorry folks but, lay chaplain is an oxymoron. If your chaplain can't celebrate Mass, they need to go.
A GCSE Catholic RE needs to be introduced which takes in the Catechism, Scripture and Catholic Culture. That would mean Saints, the liturgical calendar, some sacred art and Catholic music. My Grandfather's text book - 'Red Letter Feasts for Catholic Schools, with illustrations from the old masters', published in the late 50s shows that it can be done.
6 1/2 Have a campaign to encourage us all to support Catholic religious orders, charities etc even more, to generally build up the Church in this country. (Pop over to The Sisters of the Gospel of Life and buy them a buggy and get your Xmas cards from ACN.)
6 3/4 Free up lots of time, energy, people and money by getting rid of committees and boring meetings. Support people who are doing stuff, not talking about it.
6 7/8 Priests say the black, do the red.
Laity bask in the unfussy silence, whichever the Form of the Mass.
7 Celebrate Feast Days in a Boglesque manner, with Masses, Processions, Food and Fun.
Implement a Fit for Mission: Merry England programme.
Results
Interesting that the GCSE Results have received more attention on R4 today than last week's A Level scores. Perhaps because their publication does not coincide with the release of a certain inmate of a certain Scottish prison. No conclusions reached in their discussion on The World at One, but difficulties in saying IGCSE, which became IGSE, on several occasions. Get a grip. Maybe it should be iGCSE.
Anyway, I was reminded of one of the Latin Teachers at work, a sarcy scouser, whose take on the grade inflation situation was,
'Julius Caesar couldn't have done our Latin O Level.'
Anyway, I was reminded of one of the Latin Teachers at work, a sarcy scouser, whose take on the grade inflation situation was,
'Julius Caesar couldn't have done our Latin O Level.'
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
The Allotment Police
I hope I survived the survey; 'Leutgeb, you're fired!'
The plan was to go up to Town with my Mum and the Priest from Ghana who is staying in their Parish and holding the fort for Fr H, but Fr E had to do something else so we didn't go in the end.
Instead, I pottered over to water me kale and a lady walked all round the site.
'Look! Look!, ' rather in the manner of Janet and John books, or Peter and Jane, for those of you of a Ladybird disposition, I wanted to shout, 'I'm so keen, I've planted stuff that won't be edible til next March.' A few strands of couch grass of the very high in seed variety missed out on last week's cull, but my reasoning is as they are adjacent to next door's 4' high mass of brambles, I'm the one who is a victim of pernicious weeds not them. Indeed, I had to cut some of their stuff back last week, if we want to get petty and the Council, it would seem, have tendencies in this direction. Our side of the allotments is pioneer territory. Next door but one, Irish gentlemen has cut trees down and made a ladder out of the branches. Log cabin sheds will be next...
PS Speaking of Janet and John, does anyone remember the story of 'Here we go'? Did it in fact, provide the inspiration for the famous football chant? It was a yellow book and contained lots of words like there, where, when, the, then etc Was there a story? I always found the print very ugly, especially the g's.
Did anyone else listen to those BBC Schools musicals and then perform them? We used to sit in pin drop silence whilst they sang the songs millions of times before we were allowed to and there was always a man with a rrrresonant Bass-Baritone voice. This was great when they practised the percussion bits. We never had any percussion instruments, so sat silently whilst they counted you through it all. 1-2-3- ting! 1-bash-bash-3-ting, always with a flurry as you approached the final cadence of a verse. Brilliant stuff.
The plan was to go up to Town with my Mum and the Priest from Ghana who is staying in their Parish and holding the fort for Fr H, but Fr E had to do something else so we didn't go in the end.
Instead, I pottered over to water me kale and a lady walked all round the site.
'Look! Look!, ' rather in the manner of Janet and John books, or Peter and Jane, for those of you of a Ladybird disposition, I wanted to shout, 'I'm so keen, I've planted stuff that won't be edible til next March.' A few strands of couch grass of the very high in seed variety missed out on last week's cull, but my reasoning is as they are adjacent to next door's 4' high mass of brambles, I'm the one who is a victim of pernicious weeds not them. Indeed, I had to cut some of their stuff back last week, if we want to get petty and the Council, it would seem, have tendencies in this direction. Our side of the allotments is pioneer territory. Next door but one, Irish gentlemen has cut trees down and made a ladder out of the branches. Log cabin sheds will be next...
PS Speaking of Janet and John, does anyone remember the story of 'Here we go'? Did it in fact, provide the inspiration for the famous football chant? It was a yellow book and contained lots of words like there, where, when, the, then etc Was there a story? I always found the print very ugly, especially the g's.
Did anyone else listen to those BBC Schools musicals and then perform them? We used to sit in pin drop silence whilst they sang the songs millions of times before we were allowed to and there was always a man with a rrrresonant Bass-Baritone voice. This was great when they practised the percussion bits. We never had any percussion instruments, so sat silently whilst they counted you through it all. 1-2-3- ting! 1-bash-bash-3-ting, always with a flurry as you approached the final cadence of a verse. Brilliant stuff.
Monday, 24 August 2009
Ratatouille
One of my life goals was achieved this am when I made ratatouille with onion, tomato and courgette I had grown myself. The olive oil is just a step too far, even the Romans had to bring that kind of thing with them. I was saving my last onion for this moment and despite being ignored for two days, the courgette did not let me down.
In other news. Plum glut leads to panic buying of jam sugar. The supermarkey only had 3 bags full when I had a look earlier. Baa Baa black sheep had obvioulsy been in the vicinity.
In other news. Plum glut leads to panic buying of jam sugar. The supermarkey only had 3 bags full when I had a look earlier. Baa Baa black sheep had obvioulsy been in the vicinity.
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