Janie and I had planned a day off that Monday anyway, so Brian Eno’s seasonal bash shifting to the Monday worked well for us – a rare opportunity for Janie to join in that fun.
We had been keen to see Japan House in Kensington since we learned of its arrival in London:
It was well worth seeing – many different artists displaying subtle ideas about making art from, or at least enhanced by, paper.
Then on to Brian’s party. I was keen to get there in good time to join in the singing. This is not seasonal singing but it is an opportunity to join in with Brian’s rather excellent a capella choir. A mixture of old and modern songs, carefully honed week in, week out by the regulars, who largely manage to prevent keen irregulars like me from ruining the sound.
Plenty of time for some eating, drinking and chatting – as usual with Brian’s parties, we chatted with several very pleasant and interesting people – before the dancing started in earnest. Janie is never a wall flower when there is a chance to dance and I knew that Brian’s choice of music is mostly right up Janie’s street.
Two very tiring hours later, Janie and I thought we should make our excuses and go – we both had work in the morning and felt we had left it all out on the dance floor by then. Good times.
Brian Eno is a very charitable fellow, so invitations to visit his place are often on behalf of a charity for which he is a formal patron or simply a charity he feels motivated to help.
Brian had mentioned the forthcoming event to me some weeks ago, when we ran into each other on the street, so I had saved the date. Brian had told me to expect Ha-Joon Chang and Yanis Varoufakis. I had read the former’s book, 23 Things…, back in the day, but had not got around to reading any Varoufakis. So I one-clicked a copy of And the Weak… , reading it a week (ironically) before the event.
I highly recommend the latter book, btw, especially the “modest proposal” appended at the end of Yanis’s book. Those nine pages should be getting far more thought and attention; they should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of Europe and European people.
Brian hadn’t mentioned Ayesha Hazarika ahead of time so I had to look her up; a former advisor to the Labour Party and the Remain campaign, now seeking solace in comedy. Sounds like a natural progression to me.
Comedy and economics sounded like my kind of thing.
Before the main event, over pre-panel drinks, I met some very interesting postgrad/researcher types, plus several of the Economy charity’s staff and trustees. A very bright, young and friendly bunch.
Economy’s big thing is to try and make economics understandable to the general public; a very laudable aim. I tried not to bore people too much with tales of The Price of Fish derring do…
…but I do find it hard to express how I feel about making economics meaningful and comprehensible without reference to the book.
I didn’t notice anyone sidling away from me and one or two of the Economy people tried to encourage me to ask a question for the panel session, which I didn’t really want to do and in the end I was rather glad I didn’t get around to it.
Some of the Economy team, Brian and the Panel, photograph “liberated” from Victoria Waldersee (centre)’s twitter feed
As is so often the case with this type of event, the best bits were before and after the formal session. Not that the formal session was all that formal.
Ayesha set the tone for the formal session by being really quite funny when introducing herself and in her early responses. Good self-effacing stuff. Ha-Joon and Yanis picked up on the irreverent tone, but I don’t think either of them should give up the day job for comedy.
Victoria Waldersee of Economy did a superb job of trying to cram a heap of questions about important economic & political issues into a 45 minute panel comprising three people who all talk for a living.
Predictably, the answers didn’t get all that far during the panel session; it reminded me a little of Question Time on the TV – except that on this panel all of the opinion was pitched as anti-economics, anti-capitalist and anti-establishment…
…which is fine as far as it goes, but I wanted to hear what was suggested in the place of everything that is wrong and heard little in terms of alternative proposals and solutions.
More confusingly, I found the panel sometimes at variance with the charity Economy’s raison d’être, with Ha-Joon and Yanis both suggesting that it is impossible to teach economics to youngsters without indoctrinating them with neo-classical economics clap-trap. I don’t agree. We might need a significant shift of emphasis or lens for teaching young people the right building blocks, which means that we might need to teach a lot of teachers to teach differently, but ignorance of vital topics is surely not bliss. Surely it is possible (even if difficult) to change curricula?
Yanis’s big takeaway on education is that young people should be taught economic and political history and not taught that pure economics is sort-of about maths. I buy into that part.
I don’t buy Ha-Joon’s rather emphatic view that economists are to blame for the 2008 crash and each of the preceding market bubbles and failures in the past 100+ years…
…that sounded a bit like a bigot’s rant against his least favourite ethnic group, immigrants generally or some despised far-away nation. Ha-Joon is clearly not a bigot, but to attribute blame so simplistically does an injustice to the undoubted quality of his own mind.
Such simplistic, finger-pointing style was in part a symptom of the shortness of the formal discussion and attempts to match Ayesha for comedy. The audience (there must have been a hundred or so of us crowded into the studio) lapped up the irreverence generally; I suppose that reaction egged on the Professors to attempt greater heights of mirth.
Ayesha, in fact, cleverly switched away from unsubtle comedy when she described her experience of politicians grasp of inflation (almost non-existent) and when she explained inflation in simple, human terms – hard working care workers no longer able to feed their families without resorting to food banks because the prices have all gone up while their wages haven’t.
So by the end of the formal session I was convinced that Economy is a good cause but I was not convinced that the formal panel discussion had relentlessly advanced the charity’s cause; economists and economics had been all-but universally damned.
Indeed, so nervous was I of being thought of as having anything to do with that maligned category of people, economists, I didn’t dare mention my Keele connections – click here if you dare – which I always thought of as being “very much of the left” but with a balanced, open-minded aspect; clearly not sufficiently left in some circles.
OK, I’m now exaggerating for effect…must be catching.
I had some really interesting conversations after the main event; a real mixture of people. One very interesting fund manager who reads books but was now trying to spend the rest of the evening incognito, some more of the Economy people and a very pleasant chat with David Graeber, for the first time in a couple of years.
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed an evening at Brian’s place, meeting interesting people and having my thoughts severely provoked.
I’d like to help the charity Economy if I can; I have one or two ideas…
One guest today, Escamillo Escapillo, our Lancastrian nephew-in-law. A veteran of The Lord’s Throdkin, he appreciated the slight variation to the recipe from last time and agreed with me that the flavour and texture were somewhat improved. Some conjecture on this point might well follow on Ogblog, King Cricket or both.
There was also some ingratitude in the matter of special cream cheese and its pairing with smoked salmon, about which I intend to publish at length elsewhere.
But other than those controversial culinary matters, the day progressed as only a relaxing day of test cricket at Lord’s could and should.
West Indies chose to bat and struggled through a difficult morning and early afternoon, only to collapse in a heap as the afternoon went on.
Jimmy Anderson bowling with only 499 wickets to his name.
Ben Stokes bowled beautifully and deserved the bulk of the wickets:
England found it no easier once they were asked to bat that day.
By that time, Escamillo Escapillo had left early to go to a function with his wife, our niece, Lavender. Daisy had spent the day with Lavender and took pains to bring the young couple together in Marylebone, while also swiping Escamillo Escapillo’s ticket and spending the last 90 minutes or so of play with me.
It got very dark and very cold towards the end of play – so much so that we escaped early, but only an over or two before bad light (even with floodlights) intervened.
The weather forecast was distinctly iffy for Day 2. Brian sent me a “what’s happening if…?” e-mail and I sent my response to him and both of the others. There was general consensus that we go to the ground, hope for some cricket before the rain and see what happens.
Brian came round to my place just as I was finishing the picnic and getting ready to go; we travelled to the ground together. As we were nice and early, I showed Brian the real tennis which immediately grabbed his fascination.
I went off to meet Ian and Graham, leaving Brian with the tennis (at his request), who then joined the rest of us when play started, around 11:15.
But soon after play started, the rain returned, so we all decided to wander round to the dedans to watch real tennis; Brian wanted to see more, Graham had never seen it before and wanted to, the other Ian had seen it before but was happy to see it again.
Brian observed that we had four very similar, uber-English names; Ian, Ian, Brian and Graham. As everyone traditionally has a pseudonym in my cricket pieces, I think we can improve and simplify.
As it happens the other Ian is already “Iain Spellright”; King Cricket has not yet published the outstanding piece about him from 2014, but it does exist. Brian should be known as “Ian Borne” and Graham should be “Iain Insteadman”.
That should make the rest of this piece really easy to follow.
It was clear from the TV screen in the dedans that the rain was getting harder and harder; I went to rescue our picnic around 12:30 in the sodden gloom and felt very little optimism for the prospects of play.
At least we had the picnic, so we tucked into The Lord’s Throdkin with Iain Spellright’s utterly delicious bottle of Barollo. Janie was envious when I told her.
By around 13:30, Ian Borne, being the most sensible of us, concluded that the prospects of play were very poor. Also, having told me excitedly about the interesting projects he’s working on at the moment, I suspect that the lure of those projects was greater than the lure of watching it rain at Lord’s.
However, soon after Ian Borne left, the announcer reported an expected start time of 14:15 and the weather forecast changed from “no hope after 15:00-16:00” to “no more rain expected until after stumps”.
So, we the remaining threesome resumed our seats and hunkered down with a super-sized picnic and several hours of cricket to watch. The irony of “Ian Borne” missing out on several hours of cold play in order to spend several hours on his pet projects would not be wasted on him nor on any of us who stayed on to watch cricket.
Good cricket it was too, with England working hard in still difficult batting conditions to press ahead with a reasonable lead.
We had some interesting number-crunching business, trying to decide what a decent and realistic first innings target might be. Iain Spellright was looking to double the West Indies score, but soon backtracked a little. Iain Insteadman and I thought 50 to 60 would be a decent, admittedly not insurmountable lead. 71 lead was the outcome.
Then England started bowling and very, very soon, Jimmy Anderson took that historic 500th test wicket:
West Indies then batted in the fading light, but not gloom, so the floodlights could keep the show on the road and I don’t think I have ever seen Lord’s looking quite so special at dusk before – aided by the double-rainbow to the south-east as some heavy clouds threatened but passed us by.
First a single rainbow…
…then a double rainbow.
The pavilion end looking equally special.
Against all the odds, we got a more than decent day’s play; very relaxed, relaxing and enjoyable. I think this was the latest test match finish I have experienced live; 19:30. After saying goodbye to Iain and Iain, I (Ian) walked home.
Day Three – 9 September 2017
I stayed at the flat overnight and got my few bits and pieces together quickly and easily enough – Daisy was doing the main picnic.
I walked to Lord’s and secured some good seats. I ran into one of my real tennis pals so we chatted for a while. Then Daisy arrived. Then Alan and his pal Jonathan came over in search of some throdkin cookies, which I had promised Alan the last time I saw him at Lord’s.
England made reasonably light work of finishing off the West Indies; three more wickets before lunch, then the last four soon after. Jimmy Anderson was the pick of the bowlers.
Daisy didn’t think to photograph England bowling…
…but did photograph England batting
We continued to tuck in to Daisy’s enormous picnic while England tucked in to West Indies demoralised bowling and won the match.
Henry Bloefeld did a lap of honour to celebrate his final match as a commentator:
For sure we were ideally located, not only to be caught on camera but also to see the presentation ceremony, which took place right in front of us in the Warner Stand.
That’s three days at Lord’s for Janie this year – all three being days when England won the match and took the ceremonial plaudits. Daisy must be a lucky mascot for England when she’s in that new stand. She should visit more often.
If you are trying to get maximum publicity for your charity, it’s probably not a good idea to name your charity in Latin.
But if your charity’s main objective is to prevent and stop human rights abuses through gathering visual evidence with which to influence the powers that be, then maximum publicity is not top of your agenda.
The term “videre est credere”, as even a Latin scollop like myself knows, means “seeing is believing”, which does encompass much of the ethos of the charity.
Brian Eno is the charity’s patron and it was through him that I was invited to this function, held at Brian’s studio. I had been to a previous function there for Videre, a few years ago when the organisation was still much smaller and even more “early stage” than it is now.
The function was mostly party; far more low key than Brian’s free-form parties, but still a most enjoyable mingling with interesting people, many of whom from arty walks of life I encounter rarely these days.
Brian said a few thoughtful words on how increasingly important it is to have credible, video evidence to expose abuses of power. A couple of the Videre people also spoke and showed some sample video.
Naturally, given the nature of the work Videre does, there is an element of caution around discussing exactly who does Videre’s work and where they are doing it. As the organisation gets a bit older (it is now 8 or 9 years old) there will be more of an historic trail of case studies, I suspect. Much (but not all) of the work is in Africa and you wouldn’t need a PhD in international relations to guess the identity of some of the countries.
I wish there was more that I could do for this organisation. I guess they’ve reached the stage where raising funds is a key constraint but charity fundraising of this kind is a specialist field; not mine. The skills they need for their actual operations are also quite specialised. The areas where my expertise might help (governance, strategy, risk etc.) seem well covered; I chatted with some very interesting people from the charity’s board and its network of helpers.
Still, I know what Brian is like, so I suspect there might come a time when I get tapped up for something I might do to help Videre and for sure I’ll be a willing tapee.
Anyway, all sorts of weird and wonderful people read Ogblog. Many of you are people with the astonishingly powerful attention span to read 500 word blog pieces. Some of you are also people with the resources, skills and/or influence to help Videre. If so, do contact them through the website – here’s that website link again.
First Of Three: Brian Eno Singsong and Party, Brian’s Studio, Tuesday 13 December 2016
The first of my “three dos in four days” was at Brian Eno’s place – I have been invited to such dos on several occasions now, often but not always at this time of year. I have known Brian from the health club (BodyWorksWest, formerly known as Lambton Place) for quarter of a century or more.
The party is combined with Brian’s a capella choir gathering, allowing neophytes and bathroom singers like me to have an occasional go.
I thought I arrived in quite good time on this occasion, but the singing was well underway when I arrived; the regulars presumably having made a punctual early start.
The songs chosen were quite relentlessly morbid at first. There is usually a fair bit of spiritual blues material, but this set seemed especially bleak, with unfortunate folk being hanged for crimes they didn’t commit and all sorts. It wasn’t too difficult to pick up on the tunes quickly enough – I suppose that’s why they choose this material for the more open sing-song, but it didn’t feel much like party music at first.
The last couple of numbers were a bit more lively – not least All I Have To Do Is Dream at the end, sung in a doo-wap style. It helped me that I was standing next to a couple of very able, presumably professional singers, upon whose rhythms and harmonies I could latch. A few people afterwards asked me if I was a professional singer, but I’m sure they must have been hearing the sound emanating from those guys, not me.
Brian said that he couldn’t hear me this time, which is a good sign; presumably therefore an improvement on last time. But perhaps he also was deceived by my co-location with the professional-sounding guys.
Anyway, as on previous occasions, I also found the rest of the party great fun, meeting and chatting with several very interesting people. I also danced a bit to some excellent party mix music, well designed for the purpose (mostly 1970’s dance, with some earlier and later stuff thrown in).
I didn’t stick around until too late – I had a scheduled client call quite early the next day – so (as on every previous occasion) I missed the blood, guts, ambulances and police cars stage of the party. Brian subsequently told me that the emergency services stage failed to occur this time, to his intense disappointment.
Second Of Three: Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 15 December 2016
Since around the turn of the century, when fellow NewsRevue writer, Ivan Shakespeare, tragically keeled over and died while jogging, several of us have gathered a few times each year to keep in touch and reminisce about our NewsRevue days. Just before his death, Ivan e-mailed a few of us suggesting that we should regroup for that purpose, but never lived to see his idea to fruition.
Quite early in the life of this occasional gathering, it became part of our tradition to play a comedic quiz or two towards the end of the evening. I think it was John Random who initiated that idea, but several other people, occasionally contribute a quiz. Gerry Goddin latterly contributes a variant in which we all have to try to write jokes on suggested themes and Gerry allocates points (or deducts points) based on how well the jokes go down, his perception of each joke’s quality and/or Gerry’s authoritarian whim.
For the December gathering in 2002 (I’ll get around to Ogblogging it in the fullness of time no doubt) I went into a local tourist gimcrack store and bought the cheapest, tackiest piece of porcelain royal memorabilia I could find; then I emblazoned it with a legend declaring it to be the Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Trophy. Since 2002, that trophy has been played for earnestly each year. Nine different people have held the trophy over the years; I am proud to be able to state that I was the 2004 winner.
Anyway, it seems to be getting harder and harder to find a venue that operates flexibly enough for a rather haphazard bunch of former (and in some cases current) comedy writers to gather in mid December. Café Rouge Holborn has become the regular venue for the past few visits, but it seems they tried to impose a Christmas season “pre-ordering” regime on us, which was somewhat beyond the capabilities of John Random’s organising and our ability to be organised by anyone or anything.
So, half-a-dozen or so of us had pre-ordered and Café Rouge assumed that there would only be half-a-dozen of us (despite John booking the table for 10); which proved problematic once the eighth and especially ninth person showed up.
To be fair the staff tried their best in what seemed to be chaotic circumstances and did relocate us to a table for 10 quite quickly.
But poor Jonny Hurst ended up waiting for best part of an hour before any food was brought to him at all, at which point a starter and two main courses all turned up at once. I was half-hoping that Jonny would say, “do you know who I am? I’m Jonny Hurst, the chant laureate, that’s who”. Jonny might even have been forgiven for “doing a Jeremy Clarkson”…but Jonny is far too mild mannered and polite for any of that, even when he has a real hunger-on and everyone around him is tucking in. Respect.
Eventually we played the quizzes. Colin Stutt offered a small quiz to warm us up, but the main quiz, for the trophy, was a very imaginative effort from John Random which comprised 10 maps, each of which had a location marked with a year. We had to name the movie that was made in that year set in that place.
I was pleased with my 7 out of 11 (one map had two years and therefore two movies and two points) but Mark Keegan pipped a couple of us 7-istas with 8 out of 11 to claim the trophy yet again – his fourth victory in 15 years. Respect.
Gerry Goddin ended the evening with one of his joke-fest games with some especially harsh marking and the predictable result that Barry Grossman’s jokes pleased him more than anyone else’s – it is nearly always Barry who wins, very occasionally me.
A most enjoyable evening.
Third Of Three: Z/Yen Group Christmas Lunch at Watermen’s Hall, 16 December 2016
For the first time in Z/Yen’s 23 Christmases, we decided to do Christmas lunch rather than dinner this year.
Linda and Michael conspired to find a five course extravaganza of a lunch at Watermen’s Hall, which seemed just the ticket in the circumstances. It’s a comparatively intimate and relaxed atmosphere for a guild’s hall; but now that Z/Yen is that much smaller, our group wouldn’t completely dominate the room.
Michael pipped me an e-mail the previous weekend to ask if I would write one of the traditional Z/Yen singalong songs – normally but not absolutely always my gig.
(Previous Z/Yen Christmas events and songs will be Ogblogged in the fullness of time).
But before exercising our lungs, we ate the following excellent five course meal, washed down with some fine wine and (for some, not me) port.
Z/Yen Group 2016 Christmas Lunch at Watermen’s Hall
(The Company of Watermen and Lightermen)
Menu
Torched mackerel, pickled and salt baked beetroot, horseradish crème fraiche
Smoked ham hock and chicken terrine, pickled apricots, watercress salad
Butter roasted Norfolk turkey, sage and apricot stuffing, bacon wrapped sausages, brussels sprout choucroute with chestnuts
Star anise poached pear, almond crumb, whipped clotted cream
Christmas pudding, brandy sauce
Michael kept me and Xueyi talking about GeoGnomo for a fair chunk of the meal, but otherwise we managed to steer clear of work chat.
Michael was also keen not to torture too many people with our song, but once there were only a few stragglers left (apart from we Z/Yen folk) we found a surprisingly receptive audience; indeed those Watermen and Lightermen joined in the singing with us, rounding off a fine afternoon.
♬ WATERMEN AND LIGHTERMEN AND Z/YEN ♬
(A seasonal song to the tune of ♬”Winter Wonderland”♬)
VERSES ONE AND TWO
Mackerel torched, beetroot pickled,
Ham terrine, we’ll be tickled;
We’ll eat Christmas lunch, Z/Yen Group as a bunch;
Watch us put on weight at Watermen’s.
At the start, we’ll be perky,
By the end, stuffed like turkey;
Five courses of nosh, all terribly posh;
Watch us put on weight at Watermen’s.
MIDDLE EIGHT
After eating turkey laced with trimmings,
We’ll tuck in to star anise poached pear;
Christmas pud as well, you must be kidding,
The brandy sauce could be a warning flare.
VERSE THREE
Head for home, very slothfully,
On the trail back to Lothbury;
Let’s hope that we scoff…ing walk our waists off;
Walking all the way from Watermen’s.
(RISING/ROUSING FINALE): Let’s hope walking makes us Lightermen!
I don’t Ogblog much work related stuff – Ogblog is supposed to be about life beyond work. But of course work and life overlap at times – into “work life”.
We wanted the event to have a slightly different feel, so Michael suggested that I pen a couple of silly songs to use as interludes, getting the audience to exercise their lungs occasionally rather than just get geeky and morbid about the long-term future of finance, post the debacle of 2008.
Partly through Michael connecting up with The Long Now Foundation and partly through my personal connection with Brian Eno through my health cub, the event included a panel with Brian, Stewart Brand and Zander Rose, which was a very generous gift of time and reputation for a fledgling idea such as Long Finance.
Bernard Lietaer also kindly gave of his time and energy for our inaugural event, proving to be both fascinating and charming in equal measure.
Our honoured guests seemed happy with the idea of light audience participation interludes for this event; Brian was positively encouraging of the idea, on the grounds that singing helps open up minds to fresh ideas.
Anyway, here are the two little ditties I concocted and conducted for the conference:
MY FUND MAN
(Song to the Tune of “My Old Man Said Follow The Van”)
My fund man,
Said “borrow and plan,
So don’t fret,
When you run up some debt”.
Off went me house to a mortgage tracker,
In went the cash to an equity knacker;
Which dillied, then rallied,
Rallied, then dillied,
Lost its way and sank just like a stone.
Oh you can’t trust the bankers,
They’re a load of…….thankless-
-Folk who repossessed my home.
Not the best I have ever written…nor the worst.
Home In On The Range
(Song to the Tune of “Home On The Range”)
Oh give me a home.
For the finance I own,
Where the bulls and the bears can all play;
With seldom a jump,
Or discouraging slump,
So that value’s preserved for decades.
Home in on the range,
Where the bulls and the bears can all play;
We’re girding our loins,
For some eternal coins,
Cos “Long Finance” is now here to stay!
After one of them, I think the first, Brian said “don’t give up the day job”, which sounded like highly sensible advice, yet said in a friendly, tongue in cheek manner.
We all enjoyed a decompression session at Z/Yen after the conference, after which Brian left us, as he had a diary clash with dinner; a BASIC event to organise at his studio. Stewart, Zander and Bernard joined we Z/Yen folk and others for an early evening “Musing Dinner” at the Farmers Club to continue the Long Finance discussions.
Before departing, Brian suggested that Stewart and I might like to join his BASIC event at the end of the evening, as I live round the corner from Brian’s studio and Stewart was staying very nearby.
So after the dinner, Stewart and I went to the studio. By that time, the formal elements of the BASIC evening were over and there was a party in full swing. Brian’s studio parties are always good fun and this one was no exception.
I discovered that I had acquired a sort-of groupie at the Long Finance conference; a young Swiss woman who lived nearby and had come along, I think at Brian’s suggestion, then gone on to the BASIC event. She spoke in glowing terms about the sing-song, which was rather flattering. I would run into her in the neighbourhood quite frequently for several months after this day. I don’t think she was stalking me. Nor I her, I hasten to add.
I wrote to Brian the next morning:
Just a quick note to thank you for your hospitality last night. I met some very interesting, BASIC (and non-BASIC) people. It is a real shame that our two events ended up clashing, as I would have enjoyed hearing the formal part of the evening.
I can report smugly that I soldiered my way to the gym at 8:00 this morning, but I shall no doubt need a power nap for a while this afternoon if I am to make it through the whole day.
Once again, many thanks.
That weekend, I received a short missive from Brian:
I saw a bloody piece in some paper or other which picked up my ‘Don’t give up the day job’ quip..of course. Why didn’t I see that one coming?
I’m sorry – it was meant as a joke, as I think you realised. In fact both Stewart and I were full of admiration that you had the balls to do that, and I think it was a great contribution to the event – it made people laugh, and also got them involved. I use singing myself often in serious situations, but usually at the end. The beginning is a good place too.
I hadn’t seen it. I needed to do some Googling to get to the bottom of the matter…The Evening Standard of course…then replied:
Many thanks for your kind words.
When The Evening Standard approves of everything we’re doing, then I might really consider giving up the day job. Please don’t give that matter another thought. Despite “The Standard”, Michael is suggesting that we make group singing a tradition of Long Finance gatherings.
More than seven years later, I tried to find the offending Standard piece, to link to this Ogblog piece.
Gone from The Standard site. Airbrushed out of history. Understandably so.
But, undaunted, I thought this would be an excellent test for the Wayback Machine, which I have oft thought about possibly using for Ogblog purposes but have not previously needed.
I can cope with the indignity of the piece, but being so cruelly juxtaposed with a picture of Prince Andrew really gets my goat. In the interests of decency, The Standard could have used this august image instead:
My interest in early music has not only led me to a great many concerts, but also in recent months it has led me deep into the archives to seek rare early music manuscripts and attempt to perform them.
Brave readers might click through to watch my performance of this one (below).
A few weeks ago I uncovered a most unusual piece, which seems to originate from a lesser known order of monks known as the Litorean Order, in the late 13th or early 14th Century.
The Litorean Order is believed to have been established in the far western coastal fringes of civilisation…”beyond St David’s Cathedral” if that is possible – could they have meant Ireland?
…but I digress. Let us return to the canticle Deus Intellegit.
The canticle appears to be intended for use at Lauds on the third day of Easter. It is attributed to Brianus Filius Willelmi and Antonius Fraxinus, the latter seemingly a visiting monk – there is no record of him being a member of the Litorean order.
It is an astonishing canticle. Musically, it begins in the Lydian mode, but the piece modulates and includes touches that seem centuries ahead of its time.
This canticle is an entirely and utterly charming piece. In the hands of those Litorean monks (or indeed in the hands of modern expert performers) I imagine the canticle to sound heavenly. In my amateur hands it still sounds out of this world, but sadly not in that heavenly sense.
Canticle performed by Ged’s Virtual Throdkin. Soloist: Ged.
