Breakfast

I'm not a big of fan of breakfast, generally, but I read an article on it recently that may alter my perceptions. Here's a quote:

It's at the right end of the day: the morning, a time of beginnings and possibilities, a time when problems have been slept on, when solutions haven't yet proven unworkable, when nothing specific has gone wrong. And if you've made it to breakfast, even if it's just toast at the kitchen table, then you've already achieved something. You're alive. You're feeding yourself. You're viable. Breakfast may be a small thing, but greatness starts with small things. Greatness starts with breakfast.

Something to think about!

"Thou wilt turn again to me...for of all fowles that may fly, thou art most meeke and hende."

I'm currently in rehearsals to play Mr Noah for an RNCM Outreach production of Benjamin Britten's wonderful opera Noye's Fludde, based on Genesis 6-9. It's brilliant music, and we're planning quite a fun staging, with lots of umbrellas (hurrah!), but my favourite thing about it is the very first scene, which has Noah hearing God's voice ordering him to build the ark. In this production, the stage is covered in cardboard boxes laid out in the shape of a huge cross; that shape is then taken apart, and the boxes in it are used to build the Ark. I love this, because it's become, in my mind, a unintentional visual metaphor. How brilliant that the Cross becomes the Ark, as both were used in the Bible as a means of salvation: Noah's Ark kept a family and all the world's animals safe from the Flood; the Cross, on which Jesus died, provided a way for each one of us to be saved from the punishment we deserve for the sinful way in which we live.

The other wonderful thing is that it's written in old English, so you get amazing lines like

And heare are beares, woulfes, sette,

Apes and monkeys, marmosette,

Weyscelles, squirelles, and ferrette...

Such fun!

...and a night that drags interminably!

Oh dear. It's suddenly Christmas Eve, the one night of the year that last about 1,000,000 hours....

Merry Christmas everyone! And, very possibly, a New Year that may even contain a few blogposts.

Joy to the World!

Two men a-questing!

I really do think Ben Fogle and James Cracknell are two of the most brilliant guys on the planet. I'm currently watching the documentary following their attempt to race to the South Pole last year, and it's absolutely fantastic; they truly are living the dream for those of us who long for traditional, Boy's-Own-type adventures in farflung places!

Three Magi a-journeying!

One of the pieces of music I'm practising furiously at the moment is Benjamin Britten's Journey of the Magi, a weird and wonderful setting of the famous poem by T S Eliot. It's a mesmerising piece of work, imagining what might have gone through the minds of the wise men as they journeyed to Bethlehem. A hard time we had of it is the verdict, as they describe the obstacles they faced, and the doubt in their minds: the voices singing in our ears, saying that this was all folly.

The final stanza intrigues me the most, in which the Magi look back at the end of their quest; Eliot, himself undergoing something of a religious awakening at this point in his life, has the men commenting on the strange shadows of Death that seemed to linger around the Christ-child's birth, and their realisation that their world would forever be different.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Four TV shows a-watching!

Christmas is the only time of the year during which I vaguely schedule my life around television. Here are my four festive highlights this year:

Cranford The marvellous 2007 drama, based on novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, has returned to our screens with an even more astonishing cast of British talent, including rising stars Jodie Whittaker (Izzy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles) and Matthew McNulty (Fisher Bloom in Lark Rise)
Outnumbered The funniest thing on television? A close contender.
Turn of the Screw Henry James's terrifying ghost story, made into an amazing opera by Benjamin Britten, and now adapted for televsion by the BBC. The preview clips alone chill the blood, so goodness knows whether I'll survive the full drama!
Doctor Who Enough said.

Five gooooooooooold riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings!

Everyone loves that bit!