and noticed that we were by a church. In we crept, had a lovely sing song and a bit of a pray, you know how you do. It was all so very timelessly English that I wept a little. Well, quite a lot, really.
A nice old lady gave me a hymn book when 'Jerusalem' started. I almost punched her. Which Englishman needs a hymn book to sing Jerusalem, ffs!
There was a lovely bit with a transer, as well.
I might convert to Proddism.
It was nice. Sitting in front of us were an 80 year old lady and her middle-aged daughter. A second glance at the 'daughter' showed the 5 o'clock shadow and huge Adam's apple. At the end, another old dear bustled up with cries of "Edith, haven't seen you for ages!" Mum looked mildly uncomfortable at the explainign she was about to have to do at which her/himself declared, "I've just come out as trans, which is why (Lordly sweep of the arm) dressed like this."
It was really rather sweet.
Ah. The old 'It's easier to 'come out' as trans than admit to your churchgoing ma you just like cock' variant of transism. A classic ruse.
A gay colleague of mine tells me he's grateful he grew up several decades ago when this option didn't exist. He's convinced he and half the sodomites he knows would have chosen this route rather than just admitting they were queer.
You’re just getting older and more sentimental C. The coffin dodgers have welcomed you in to the fold. The inglenook’s burning brightly, while the Aga is warming the loaves, so to speak.
Why, you’ll soon be blubbing away at anything remotely upsetting on the tele, or at those little moments that signal the passages of time...
I paid my respects here:
Charterhouse chapel.jpg
Lord it would be nice if English hymns had some kind of rhythm or tune to them, it's torture trying to figure out how you match the words to the drone of the organ music.
As ever, you are without taste or discernment.
I have a deep love of C of E hymns and still find myself humming things like 'Oh, God Our Help in Ages Past', 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind', 'Immortal, Invisible', 'Now Thank We All Our God' and 'Oh, worship the King, all glorious above'. They're embedded in my unconscious.
And that's before you get on to classics like Jerusalem and I Vow To Thee My Country, which are great, great songs.
If you want truly bad religious songs, try the awful dirges masquerading as 'hymns' in a Catholic service. Fùck me, they're bad.
Jerusalem and I Vow To Thee My Country actually have a tune to them and you can imagine them being emotional to those raised in the UK who are into that sort of thing i.e. not Jorge and those of his ilk.
But some of the hymns last night were virtually impossible to actually sing. You'll get to where you think you know the tune is going, then look and realize there is one four syllable word left yet a load of notes remain, so they then stretch the one word out over all these notes so that it lasts about 5 seconds.
Nope, too much nonsense musically. And one of them was in Latin!
Oh, I always have. I cry when the puppies come on the Andrex commercial. A John Lewis christmas ad has me in bits for hours.
Funnily enough, I was telling the glw yesterday about an incident when I was about 15 years old. I was walking down the street and an old lady walked past me. I greeted her with a cheery "Good morning" and she responded in kind. I became immediately filled with pride that it would soon be my generation taking over the world, building on the lehgacies of this older generation, and I wept for an hour.