I've been tubed
Sep 10, 2009
I took part in the Ukulele Hooley in Dublin on the 16th of August, and today I find I have been uploaded to YouTube for the first time. Strange feeling, that. Going round the YouBend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQYI8mpe2CI
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- Latest reply: Sep 11, 2009
Hallelujah!
Nov 6, 2008
A careful articulate cosmopolitan president of the US. He will have hard things to push through, but he looks like the one to do it. Here's hope. 
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I'm off!
Dec 23, 2007
This is a goodbye message; a slightly fuller one appears on my PS.
Thanks to all my good friends here who made the last five years a lot brighter. I'll probably drop by from time to time, but apologies in advance for any unanswered messages.
Happy  days!
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Carol singing reflections
Dec 9, 2007
My choir went out carol singing today, two hours in a shopping centre. Gnomon and Mrs G were among the basses and altos respectively, and we were not too bad despite the background echoes of a relatively empty mall. Every now and then a hoot would sound, G below middle C. Gnomon worked out that it represented people nicking things from the supermarket, setting off the alarm at the gate. I hope they were mostly false alarms, there were quite a few of them.
Despite my stickler's distaste for singing Christmas carols in Advent I was happy to do it, both for the good crack and for the charity (the Simon Community) who collected a hundred or more euro as we sang.
The words of the carols made me squirm a little; one can sing with conviction what one couldn't say with conviction, but still, the sectarian nature of the message started to get to me. Then I reflected that making exaggerated claims is OK so long as you are not claiming state backing of any sort.
We can sing our carols and say "this is the only way" just as fans of Man United can say that their team was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be the best. Demonstrably both false and meaningless, it's still OK, so long as it gets no official endorsement.
The Church of Ireland (Anglican) was disestablished as the official state religion (!) in 1869. The UK has yet to make this essential move.
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Remembering John Beckett
Nov 20, 2007
I'm involved in a concert in Dublin next Saturday, put together as a memorial to John Beckett (St Ann's Dawson St, 8 pm if you're around).
I'll be singing in the choir and playing in a viol consort, and accompanying singers and violins and a recorder (Mrs R).
John taught me the art of continuo playing in the 1970s and 80s. He ran a Chamber Music class (medieval to baroque) and soloists lined up to take their turns. I sat at John's left hand; he handed me a bass part which I played on the viol while he played the harpsichord, then at the end he stretched out his hand to take the part back. He hardly addressed a word to me, but everything I needed to know was shown in the way he played the continuo line (identical to my string bass line) with his left hand. Singers and instrumentalists all had their turns, while I played the whole evening, since (in baroque music at least) everything is accompanied by continuo, consisting of harpsichord (or equivalent) and bass viol (or equivalent). After the class we would go to the pub across the road from the Academy (Kennedy's) and John would pontificate outrageously on everything under the sun.
He also taught a viol consort class, another evening of the week, which I attended. When he left Dublin to work for the BBC in London, I took over the consort class and still teach it.
Every year from 1973 to 1983 he ran a series of concerts in February, devoted to Bach Cantatas. We have reassembled the choir and orchestra, almost intact, and will perform two of his favourites, Cantatas 30 and 150.
John died in February this year, on his 80th birthday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Beckett
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