Antipasto

Tags

Assange, Boris Johnson, cathedral, husband, Lord Coe, Paralympics, Stoke Mandeville, The Queen, Trinity

The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Should I go to the pulpit side of the sanctuary for a gluten-free communion wafer, or should I just risk it?

It was so hot last evening that the husband and I collapsed on our sofas and watched The Best of Men on I-player. It was about the genesis of the Paralympics and the spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville.  Attitudes have changed since 1943 and now headlines are screaming: Thanks for the Warm-Up as there are ten days to go till the events begin.  Boris joined in with a declaration that the Olympics had just been the antipasto.

There was a warm-up today as it was hot in the cathedral and even hotter under the clerical collar for the Praecentor, who had to announce that the Close Vicar had not turned up for Mattins nor Eucharist and so he had been dropped in the proverbial at the last moment re/ the sermon.  I thought that I might have been able to step up and entertain the congregation with some of my diary entries, but clergy professionalism kicked in and the gap was covered.

Imagine if Sebastian Coe had not shown up to give his closing speech, or The Queen had refused to jump out of the helicopter on cue.  Mind you, it might have been preferable if one or two pop has-beens had slept in.

Timing and punctuality are the something beginning with p of princes.  Is it politesse?  Anyway, once at Midnight Mass in the cathedral a St John’s Ambulance team discreetly slipped a stretcher between the rows and extracted a dead body.  Being in the sanctuary, singing in the choir, I observed this although most of the congregation did not.  Later choristers were asking what had happened and the explanation went along the lines of: Oh, some old biddy popped her clogs just before the sermon.  Nice timing.

I remember being slightly shocked at such an attitude, but you can sympathise, especially when things go on too long, as in opening and closing ceremonies.  Just as well Philip took the night off.

Assange came out with perfect timing to give his balcony speech, a kind of drag queen Evita, as a journalist pointed out. I half-expected him to launch into Don’t Cry for Me, Helpful Quito. Andrew Lloyd Webber might have given him a lead role or an understudy part for an ageing Elaine Paige. He thanked the Ecuadorians- did anyone know the collective term before? – for offering him asylum.  However, it is an offer he can neither take up nor refuse.  There is no such thing as a free lunch, not even at an embassy.  Perhaps he had been mistakenly advised that it was part of The Sanctuary Hotel which has a spa and all those little bottles of goo and towelling robes and mules.  I do not think sleeping on the floor of a small office is what he might have expected. The mini bar is probably empty and freebie hair conditioners might not be forthcoming.  As far as we know, no one is offering him a Swedish massage.

Scott MacKenzie who wrote If You’re Going to San Francisco has died. Well, Julian, if you’re ultimately going to Guantanemo, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Closing Time

Tags

Annie Lennox, Boris Johnson, Brave New World, Darcey Bussell, David Cameron, Duchess of Cambridge, Eric Idle, Fatboy Slim, Grayson Perry, husband, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, Poor Clares, Prince Harry, Prince William, Ray Davies, Russell Brand, The Queen, The Tempest, Trinity, Vivienne Westwood

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253.

Maybe she would have something pertinent to say about the economy?

A scorcher with threatening thunder which disappeared after 2pm.

9pm saw my hubby and myself on our starter sofas, ready for action viewing.

A strangely nasal singer commenced the proceedings and a bad Churchill impression did not light my Olympic flame.  Same speech from The Tempest ; different hats.

Prince Harry appeared, instead of The Queen.  A solitary Duchess of Cambridge was there. Probably Wills was hovering overhead in a helicopter, watching in case his brother became too flirty with his wife.  If Harry got too fresh, Wills might have Kate sent to the Tower and could marry Pippa the following day.  They can be like that.

Batman came out of a Robin, but he was American, wasn’t  he?  What’s he got to do with it?

There was too much Our House, or One’s House, as someone joked at the Jubilee.  Probably the Royal version is One’s Hice.

The Ku Klux clan appeared to be cycling past, or was it a belated Semana Santa procession for the Spanish contingent?  No, it was The Pet Shop Boys.  One Direction  had the crowd singing the annoying Na-na-na-na refrain, while the whole of London seemed bent on street sweeping, which isn’t a bad idea.  Cameron wants 100% youth employment, so there’s your answer, Dave.

Ray Davies of The Kinks understood that the crowd were not completely thick and so gave them a variation to join in – namely, Sha-la-la-la, which made a change.  At least it was a catchy tune and distracted you from the bankers committing suicide by hurling themselves out of the Gherkin, which some would have found the best bit.

Russell Brand did his I am the Walrus act and I was glad that that awful mate of his, who only gets  him into trouble, wasn’t there, namely Mr Woss.  Grayson Perry, as Clare seemed to be with him, but, then again, it all happened so quickly that I might have been mistaken.

Fatboy Slim – I recognised the oxymoron, was at the centre of a huge octopus, while Jesse J gave everyone their big chance to sing La la la la confidently, because by now most of them knew the words.

The fashion parade was interesting but the commentators did not elaborate on the designers. I thought that Annie Lennox was probably in Vivienne Westwood for her number, but I failed to recognise the Dracula connection.

The pixels and lighting were stunning throughout. Eric Idle’s skating nuns would not have been out of place on Duddingston Loch .  Idle wasn’t shot out of the cannon, but Russell Brand, no, Russell Grant could have been. He had had plenty of practice on Strictly. Now that he has stopped dancing, he might have put on weight and got stuck, however. Sergei, the meerkat might have done it well, but he is anxious to maintain his dignity, so he might not have been too enthusiastic.

The rap did not appeal to me, even though the audience now had the opportunity to repeat, Ay-oh in response to Baby, let’s go.  I thought that was Teletubbie lingo.

Harry was getting a bit bored and started chewing, even just after the big We will rock you number.  I hoped that the Koreans  or Iranians wouldn’t get any ideas for a We will nuke you number.

The Greek flag was raised and that would have been a good moment for a whip-round, I felt.  The Mods on scooters could have whizzed around, collecting the bags.

From Greeks we fast-forwarded to Georgios Michael, who danced all over Damian’s sprayed flag, singing about Freedom and wearing a miniature For The Love of God skull on his belt buckle.  Again, that song title could have suggested a panty pad advertising jingle. Maybe he was out on bail or had a new release coming soon.  Wake me up before you go-go might have given the crowds a chance to vocalise the double syllables that they had been practising throughout the evening.

The London Eye becoming a baldacchino was a powerful symbol of immanence over a vacuum, I thought.  Maybe Zeus or Boris was meant to bless the gathering, but there was no sense of the divine that I could detect.  Lennon’s Imagine stated that there was no heaven nor hell, but only sky above us.  It was moving, but a profound sense of spiritual emptiness swept over me.  Were we meant to worship Man as Superman?  After the exposure of the clay feet of the Tiger Woods of this world, I could only feel limitation, not exaltation.

Past gods materialised in the shape of Mercury- Freddy, to be precise.  He raised the bar of audience participation by challenging the crowd to replicate fairly complex vowel sequences.  The figures on the screens made me think of Brave New World and the feelies.  Was I to become a pleb?

It must have been difficult to entertain everyone while 204 flags were being brought in and athletes were filling in the stripes, like painting by numbers.  Indian drums created tension and suspense, but the white box set building was a natural point for nipping off to the loo, but not if you were in the crowd, obviously.  I wondered about the facilities.  Basically, it was going on too long for anyone’s bladder capacity.  No wonder Philip had given it a miss.

Darcey Bussell’s Firebird section was dazzling, but then there were speeches and that French guy never seemed to smile, though he recognised that our hosting had been happy and glorious, to coin a phrase-not.  Coe smiled, but then he has a job lined up for the next few years, which is more than the marvellous volunteers probably have. To continue The Tempest references, we might echo Antonio, the usurping King of Milan:

Worthy Sebastian….

…methinks I see it in thy face,

What thou should’st be…

My strong imagination sees a crown

Dropping upon thy head..

I was relieved when the accident-prone Johnson managed to avoid setting himself alight, by furling his flag too close to the flames.  Maybe that was why the Duke of Cambridge was hovering overhead, ready to unleash gallons of water from on high.  Or was he on standby to douse Boris’ burning bush or to dampen Harry’s passion? Maybe he was trying to persuade his granny to jump.  Coe addressed Your Majesties, so he clearly expected them to drop in. Perhaps they had missed their cue.  As a fallback, the massed pipe bands could have played:

Oh ye cannae shove your granny oot a ‘copter-x2

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Something Sensational

Tags

Andy Murray, Boris Johnson, gold medal, London 2012, Lord Coe, Roger Federer, Stella McCartney, Team GB

Saturday

Three golds in less than an hour.  Good old Boris can challenge the gloomsters.

Apparently software enables computers to make decisions.  I wish I could have an algorithm which might help me to get out of bed.  I feel sure that some of my friends already have one that programmes them to make 10,000 purchases a day, so it isn’t so surprising that the Stock Market suffers similar compulsions.

The day ended brilliantly for Team GB after the doubles match with Andy and Laura. He will have to go to bed earlyish, I mused, as he is playing Federer tomorrow and then he has another doubles match.

I think Stella McCartney’s gear looks great, whether it is in the form of briefs or headbands.  Andy even has the sweatbands.  But who on earth designed those quasi-molar, Cyclops-eyed Wentworth and Mandeville creatures?  Probably the same weirdo who came up with Mr Blobby.

It was a day when things had come off – athletes’ shoes, or rowers’ seats.  Lord Coe said we had witnessed something sensational.

Unkindest Cut?

Tags

Alan Bennett, Boris Johnson, Bras, James Naughtie, John Humphries, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, pigeons, Sarah Montague’, Scotland, Scottish Play, Tesco, Wiggo

Listening to the news at 1am, I tried to filter out the depressing latest bulletins from Syria.

I perked up, however, when I caught a snippet about fifteenth century linen bras having been discovered in a Tyrolean castle.  It proved, apparently, that this type of underwear had been in existence a couple of centuries earlier than had been previously thought.  The next item was introduced as a world briefing, without anyone noticing the connection.  You would have thought that John Humphries would have latched onto the pun, but he might have been sparing Sarah Montague’s feelings. Goodness knows why: she never spares anyone.  He usually is quite good at masking James Naughtie, as the latter often commits a terminological inexactitude, as when Lady Steel ( wife of Liberal, David) aka the granny with the jaguar tattoo, was on the programme.  Naughtie commented on the fact that one headline had said the tattoo had been a sudden revelation for her seventieth birthday.  He wondered if they could get a photo of it for their website, if it wasn’t in too delicate a position.

Lady Steel affirmed that she had not had it done precipitously and he then “naughtily” quipped that she wasn’t hiding it under a bushel, was she?

Probably Naughtie is more comfortable with discussing the Edinburgh Tattoo. Mind you, his weather reports from The Festival sound Irish rather than Scots:

Some fog around, which you will know about, if you are in it..

I could have shocked the nation rigid with a revelation about a septuagenarian acquaintance of mine who told me that she had decided to lose her virginity on her three score year and ten birthday.  She had then gone on to have piercing when she was eighty.  That made Lady Steel look positively demure.

John Humphries hurried to the next topic which was according to a rabbi the biggest challenge to Judaism since The Holocaust.  Someone had mooted that circumcision is basically malice aforeskin, as children have no choice in the matter and it is irreversible.  The rabbi said that if it were done, t’were best that it was done quickly. The Scottish play again.

Then it was pointed out that the Queen had had all her boys snipped, but who is to say what the effects have been on them?

I wondered if Judy Murray had taken that line too with Andy and Jamie, but didn’t want to hazard a guess concerning the Switzer.

Saturday brought some sunshine, but a threatening sky and suspicious levels of humidity came with it.  Better get the rest of the blackcurrants in before the wood pigeons pounce, I thought to myself. Pigeons were on the news this morning.  Some fancier had taken his birds to France for a race and eight of them had failed to return to the UK.  He probably suspected that a family linked to La Chasse had already baked them in a pie, or turned them into a terrine, but suddenly he had reports from the Bahamas that they were sunning themselves there. It was too far for them to have winged their way to that location, so they must have hitched a ride on a cruise ship.  Can’t say you could blame them this summer.

The Olympic flame was abseiled in by a Marine to the Tower of London last night, at 20.12pm, enabling Boris to make a quip about how he was reminded of Henry VIII and how it was a marvellous place to bring an old flame.  He then became too excited and over-extended the metaphor by trying to convince everyone that there would be a veritable forest fire/ conflagration or towering inferno of enthusiasm for the Games.

Evan Davis teased Lord Coe about the likelihood of getting past the sponsor spies if you were wearing a Pepsi t-shirt.  We were left with an unconvincing assurance that Nike trainers would probably be all right.  Alan Bennett could have told them that trainers mean that you are probably not fully qualified and are certainly not the type of footwear that Jesus would have worn.  Maybe that would be enough of a social drawback.

Sunday.

Allez, Wiggo!

Wiggo does not like cheating or performance- enhancing drugs; he does like sideburns.  He is 6’3” and only 10 stone 6 lbs.  A belly putter would give him no advantage, even if he was a golfer, since he has a washboard for a stomach.

I considered taking up cycling for the second time that summer. Then I could eat Tesco’s Rocky Road straight out of the big black plastic tub- the one with the line-drawn glamorous woman wearing a fascinator on the lid.  There was no way that someone that resembled that illustration could possibly be associated with these calorific time bombs.

Four is an even number.  And now that one at the bottom looks so lonely…

Belgian chocolate.  Mmm. Three famous Belgians?- Bradley

Wiggins, sort of; Herge and err..?

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012