No change in the weather, it's still overcast and chilly. Typical November.
I recorded Clare playing 'Autumn Leaves' on the piano, to provide a sound track for a video slide show of colourful autumnal photos in the park. When I posted this on YouTube to share, it was flagged up as a copyrighted recording although it's an original version of the tune. I had to mark it as not for public consumption and identify family members by email address that it's mainly destined for in the video metadata. The song dates from 1945 and has been translated into other languages at different times since. After seventy years, copyright, the right to monetise a tune, ceases to have effect. The Spanish version was cited as the one still in force. You'd think that words and music would in the case be copyrighted, but not so, it seems. So annoying.
After lunch, I walked in the park for an hour, before getting ready to leave for the United Services Mess Dinner at the Angel Hotel. I had to be there for the drinks reception at six thirty. The 61 bus didn't arrive when I expected it to, so I walked to the stop on Cowbridge Road. The 61 passed me in between stops. I was lucky to catch a number 13 to Wood Street, five minutes walk from the hotel.
There were about a hundred diners, including a dozen top table military and civic guests, and a voluntary army band of a dozen accompanied proceedings with all the traditional songs associated with army life. There were more accompanying spouses this year, I noticed. Since Mess membership was opened to women, the number had slowly increased. Military and ex-military wives have a lot in common I suspect. The menu has been reduced to five courses, which combined with omission of toasts to each of the armed forces present shortened the event by 15-20 minutes.
The new Master of Ceremonies had trouble getting his head around the procedure and timings initially. Some of the experienced committee members are no longer involved, and there's a dearth of detailed information. Fortunately, Mess President, Sr Norman Lloyd Edwards at 91 has an encyclopaedic memory for detail. It was him who reminded the organisers they hadn't booked a Chaplain for the occasion, which is why I had a phone call from him the Sunday before last. It seems my contact details weren't on record. They hadn't been passed on by the previous organiser.
Anyway, all went well. Sir Norman is proposing I be appointed as Mess Chaplain officially now. The role used to be associated with the incumbency of the Parish. That's how I got asked in the first place. I think I have discharged my duties satisfactorily over the past ten years or so, even if I found it rather nerve wracking the first few years.
It was just after ten when I left for home. A 61 bus was due at the stop just across the road in five minutes. After waiting fifteen minutes I decided to walk home rather than freeze. Again the bus passed me, after I'd crossed the Taff. Timely information about delays and cancellations is almost non-existent, despite posh heads up displays in bus shelters. There seems to be no real time management of a digital information asset, and the phone app isn't any better. Anyway the twenty minute brisk walk was good for my digestion, after a meal of coarse pate, belly pork and mashed veg, cheesecake, and then a cheese board. Somehow Port for the loyal toasts got lost in the handover too.
Before going to bed, I caught up on tonight's episode of 'The Archers', and this week's entertaining Archers podcast, and was in bed by midnight.
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