Splendid, fabulous, awesome news
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Hey, guess what? THE MUDDLEHAMPTON CHOIR’S NEXT CONCERT IS THE DAY THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE BROADCAST IS DOING GOTTERDAMMERUNG. I HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT MY TICKET AND THERE IS NO WAY. REPEAT. NO WAY I AM GOING TO MISS IT.
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I think possibly I’m not in a very good mood.**
Tonight was the Muddlehampton AGM.*** I’d thrown my handbellers out†, raced hellhounds round the lower slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, and rocketed myself off to St Frideswide. To find that our fearless stand-in leader† was late. I got out my knitting.
But this meant the entire evening ran late. Tonight’s epic journey into the semi-harmonic darkness was Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine which is, as will probably not amaze you, in French. Oh gods. I will never complain about Italian again.†† Furthermore I was sitting next to Griselda. You know, the sopranos’ secret weapon. With Griselda we can do anything.††† But we were short of (sheet) music for some reason, and Griselda gallantly gave hers to the tenors. You and I can share, she said to me. Er. Yes. Several hours later I’m still deaf on that side. Furthermore she sings beautiful French. She rolls her rrrs. She can read what she’s supposed to sing straight off the page—this includes not only the notes, but getting the words and the notes to match up—and she says things like ‘the basses were singing D-sharp when it should be D-natural.’ She didn’t get the opportunity to wheel out her high A tonight but we all know it’s there. May I go home now please?‡ I am surplus to requirements.
Little did I know just how surplus. We’d got through the edifying discussion of what jolly choir event we might lay on for Christmas while I winced and bit my knitting needles‡‡ and the re-electing of all the officials who hadn’t got out of the way fast enough last year and then Gordon, our fearless (late) stand-in leader, said, you might want to get the date of the winter concert in your diaries now. . . .
Cursed. I am cursed.
* * *
* And . . . just by the way . . . I AM SO FRELLING SICK TO FRELLING DEATH OF THE FRELLING SO-CALLED RANGBLANGFRELLINGGLANG BROADBAND IN THIS TOWN. IT SPENDS AS MUCH OF ITS TIME CRASHED AND BURNING AS IT DOES LIVE AND FUNCTIONING, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Twitter is also a disaster of instability, but at least you’ve got a choice there. You live in an area with sucky broadband? You’re screwed. Hahahahahahahahahaha. Our latest MP^ actually had ‘will work for better broadband’ as one of the bullet points on his campaign poster but somehow that seems to have fallen off the train on his way to London.
^ ‘Miserable Plonker’
** We were making such a hash of Cambridge at handbells this evening that Colin said, I don’t want to know what’s going on the blog tonight.^
^ Gemma [who is a beginner and makes four, so we can’t ring Cambridge minor] come back, all is forgiven.+
+ She’s just home from holiday. What does she need another holiday for?
*** Annual General Meeting. Americans keep asking. Since when I lived in America I didn’t do things involving annual general meetings^, my native lore is deserting me in this instance.
^ I think I may have had the right idea.
† But see above. Not a great loss. It was even less of a loss after our tea break when we attempted to ring little bob minor. Little bob is like one-forty-seventh as difficult as Cambridge, which I was at least making a run at. But my brain had had it. It had melted around the edges^ and then re-congealed into scary new contours during tea.
To give it some credit, it had had a rough afternoon. I knew that in Gemma’s absence I was going to be expected to make a showing on the Cambridge front so I was attempting to claw at least the first few leads back within reach again. Meanwhile there’s a bit of plot machinery giving me hell.^^ So the mental conversation has been going like this:
Dodge, you moron! And then out to the back!
But if a and b are at c with d, while e effs with g and the hhhhs are iiing j, . . . where is k?
Dodge and lie! Dodge and lie, dammit!
But x has always been so mild-mannered . . .
I’m sure I’ve been at the front for too long!
I suppose x might y for z. That would solve the hail of toads problem, but that still leaves me with a large exploding doohickey.
You’re not coursing! There is no frelling coursing in a plain course of Cambridge minor on the treble and the two!
And wasn’t l trying to find out what happened to m? So what did happen? It wasn’t anything to do with the boa constrictor and the lift shaft, was it?
WAAAAAAAAH.
. . . chocolate.
^ about halfway through the fourth lead of Cambridge the resemblance to tapioca pudding became inescapable
^^ If I ever get my hands on that creepazoid at the Story Council. . . .
† Ravenel is still on Tuvalu, teaching the sharks to sing Henry Purcell
†† . . . of course I will. But I’ve even said here that I can live without singing in German^ and I’m willing to forego French. I do want Italian. But what’s the deal with French anyway? It’s another Romance language, it ought to sing itself. It doesn’t though.
^ Yes, I love a lot of lieder. But . . . you have to be good to sing lieder. You can get away with being bad in opera—sometimes, and to a degree—not real lieder. I think. I’m still hoping to make a fool of myself over a few arias. I’m happy to leave lieder to the professionals.
††† And the temptation to sit back and let her get on with it is very strong.
‡ The burning question to my mind is what is she doing in the Muddlehamptons?
‡‡ I appreciate that there tend to be too many carol concerts around Christmas and we want to do something else. But sing at a pub? Noooooooooo. Not my idea of a good time.
‡‡‡ Gordon did make a point of saying that you don’t have to be in the concert to come to rehearsal and sing, and that not everyone wants to perform in public, and that it’s in the Muddlehamptons’ rules that you don’t have to sing in their concerts. But this is supposed to be part of my education—and without a concert as a goal it does seem a little pointless. I’ve already dropped out of singing for the bishop because of all those Friday rehearsals—and if they do decide to go harass some innocent pint-drinkers with Christmas carols I doubt I’ll volunteer. The next thing is that they’ll be over-subscribed with sopranos for this wedding—I’ve put my name down as an extra, and given that high A I suggest they have Griselda and the second sopranos and let the rest of us in the front row stay home with our knitting.
Sigh. This is not turning out as planned.
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