Monday, December 12, 2005

Nobody Expects A Secular Humanist ….

To the carol service at Church with my daughter last night. She was made up to be chosen to carry the baby Jesus figure from the crib around the church, we me following with Mary and Joseph to signify the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. However, the spooky but for me was the prayers, this time a very serious, music-backed affair using what I can only describe as the Taize system. The reader recites the prayers they want, vaguely in time to the organ music backing it. There then comes a chorus where the congregation joins in with a sung bit of affirmation. It all sounded very familiar and at first I kept thinking it was very like an Ivor Cutler song/piece/poem but it suddenly hit me what it really resembled. PJ Harvey performs a cover of Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? On Dance Hall At Louse Point. This has a spoken verse vaguely in time to the music and then a sung chorus. I can’t believe there is any link between the two but they do sound the same. I haven’t heard the Peggy Lee version and I am sure I don’t know anyone who would have it.

We walked back trying to spot a Christmas tree with a fairy/angel on the top but most people seem to go for a plain tree top these days.

Number One Son is two today and we have pandered to his Thomas The Tank Engine Obsession to the tune of a DVD, more rail track and all the books he could want. He has also developed a genuinely dangerous fascination with the dictionary which he keeps dropping on his toes. Before we were married (and could afford large and pretentious books), my wife bought me this book which got dropped on her mother’s foot (not found out the full details of the incident) requiring a doctor and resulting in very impressive bruising. We are carrying out a Health And Safety Evaluation at present. However, NOS is getting us back with his casually strewn Stickle Bricks which while not quite having the potential for bruising possessed by Lego, can result in a nasty (and impressively regular) injury to the underside of a bare foot. I suspect that some of the weirder end of the whole tattoo/piercing/branding market may offer entry level, ‘temporary’ Stickle Brick Branding.

Roll On 2006.

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