TW3

  So... This week?  Jesus...
I'm not really sure where or even how to start: Tuesday to Tuesday's been pretty fraught, although most of the madness has been centred round the weekend.

Perhaps the start of my troubles was an over-estimation of my abilities, yes!  Hoisted by my own petard, and a first time for everything.  After the rave reviews of my programme notes for the Cathedral Choir's Christmas Concert (brought to you by the letter C), I was once again commissioned to produce the notes for the upcoming Lent concert.  Instead of being tied in to the season like the last one, this one is more the first round of performances concerned with the Great War of 1914 - 1918, the First World War.  The war that changed the face of modern warfare, during which we saw the invention of the Tank and Chemical warfare amongst other things, and was also responsible for a political reshuffle of mainland Europe and effectively ended an age of empires; while the sun may never set on the British Empire, the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires basically ceased to be, the effects of which contributed to the rise of communism and the invasion of Poland in 1939.  Now, I'm not here to go into this in detail (as you can probably tell), but it's all cause and effect, and should you wish to investigate further I advise taking a trip to your local library or perhaps completing a degree in War Studies at King's College London.

As I said, this is the first of many performances this year of the choir's commemorative repertoire.  Trinity's concert will see us present an expanded programme, using material from our recording project in May, and as I understand, most of November will be given over to events, services and concerts of remembrance.  To round out this coming concert, we're singing Gabriel Faure's well known and loved Requiem, alongside students from the local schools and colleges; it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was the first sowing of seeds for community events in November as well.  Anyway, I'm getting away from the point again!  For saying the concert is THIS Saturday (tickets available now), I only began work on the notes a week previous today... Whoops.  Even without the overarching subject of the War, the texts are far more involved than I could have expected, coming from heavyweight scripture or war poetry.  As could be well expected, I threw myself into a seemingly bottomless mine of information about the prophet Habakkuk, who exactly wrote psalm 90, BCP translations, what the connection between Brahms' and Faure's Requiems is, why St. Anne sounds just like Was mein Gott will, why Ps. 39 isn't about dying, and why everybody was in love with Rupert Brooke.  Suffice to say, it took more work than expected to turn this huge pile into anything worth presenting as a first draft, especially without getting bogged down in too much straight musical analysis.  

My favourite venue for writing was not the kitchen table, where I sit now, but Truro's most excellent coffee house, 108.  The only problem with sitting and drinking Latte after Latte for me is my Lactose intolerance, which almost gained sentience after being goaded with cup after cup of coffee.  People always tell me I should drink soy, but the thing is, life's too short for that bean curd as far as I'm concerned.  Obviously it doesn't taste like real milk, but the texture of hot soy milk isn't one I especially enjoy.  I'd rather run the risk of having to deal with some discomfort.  That said, I almost completely burned my digestion out last week, so maybe I ought to rethink at some point.

However, a coherent draft was sent and returned, and at that point I finally (at 1am, Monday(...) morning) worked out what I was trying to say about Psalm 39 all along, in the guise of Parry's monumental final Song of Farewell, Lord, let me know mine end.  In fact, Sunday was the next real point in the madness so let's turn our focus.  Really, it began on Saturday night with an impromptu couple of drinks that turned into a proper night out.  That said, I returned at an acceptable hour and drank a lot of water before retiring, making sure the front door was secured and then toddled off to bed.  At some point on this very night however, an unfortunate gained entry through the rear of the property (which has been left unlocked more often than not...), and proceeded to act in a very strange manner: ditching their boots at the stairwell, they then crashed into the dining room, dropping their purse and a handrolled cigarette.  After a little vomit, they pinched my black jacket and then exited through the front door, not pulling it locked behind them.  

The sudden realisation that somebody has been in your house that shouldn't have, hitting you not long after waking up, is something I'd advise you avoid.  2/10, would not repeat.  The Professor having left not long after half 7 or so, I was alone (OR WAS I), and finding a strange pair of boots on the floor lead to a sickening lurch into consciousness.  Casing the joint, I decided that the mystery visitor had already left, and locked the house down.  Now, as dreadful as it was had I found somebody, at least they would have been available to answer.  There was nobody in the bath, nothing disturbed in the spare bedrooms, not even any sign in the living room.  What?  At one point I even thought they might be asleep in the shed.  Although I picked up the purse and the cigarette, the rest lay undisturbed like some domestic crime scene, until my Landlord returned.  Of course, the next problem was that he doesn't carry a back door key, so once he got back (and I wasn't in), thus began a great backwards and forwards between here and the Cathedral looking for each other (by which point my stress had boiled over into anger), not withstanding that I couldn't get hold of the person I was supposed to be going with for sweet, sweet burgers (lunch at The HUB oh yes).  Christ.  At least the service went well!  Oh yes, that was the other thing: evensong's anthem was the aforementioned Parry, grand in 8 parts with, yes, you guessed it, just me singing the first choir alto line!  I can't really think of any sort of equivalent situation to compare it to, but basically, there's nowhere to hide.  Often there are exposed leads or tunes that are vital - there's no second chances either.  Add to the mix that I had woken up about three times between 5 and 7am with anxiety dreams about oversleeping, you can see why Sunday really could have just done on as far as I'm concerned. 

Thankfully, for me and possibly for you, yesterday was far calmer.  Well, except for the fact I didn't s get to sleep until 4am; I'm sure you can see how that might have an adverse effect.  Gradually it improved though!  Even the weather was on my side, allowing me to get the famous (or is that infamous?) chalk white legs out again.  I managed to print out a copy of Cards Against Humanity, a game where depravity is your friend... Even if it is organised fun.

As this insane few days has ended, I'm thankful that nothing really went badly wrong.  Don't worry, this isn't some heartwarming conclusion, but nothing was broken or damaged in any irreparable manner, I didn't have a huge fallout with anybody, and I spent most of the last 6 days writing.  And of course, it hasn't been boring, because there's nothing worse than being bored.  And the mystery invader?  Totally hammered after a night out, lost all their friends on the way... And just wandered in, completely by chance.  Drunk people will never cease to amaze me.