Digital distribution dolor

A damp overcast day with bouts of drizzle. I got up early, having lost an hour's sleep by waking up at two in the morning, to find the room bathed in moonlight, as I'd forgotten to shut the curtains. The clouds had thinned out to reveal the Blue Moon I didn't get any clear shots of last night at ten. I'd brought my best two cameras down from the loft to the bedroom in case I did wake up to a clear sky. By this time the moon was fast disappearing behind the gable end of the house where the second chimney once stood, so I took several shots with each, and then returned to sleep. 

I processed the pictures after breakfast. They weren't very sharp, being hand held shots. I didn't have the presence of mind to set up a tripod before going to bed, and relied on automatic settings. Serves me right. Some photos taken with my Olympus OM1-D were interesting as the white clouds around the moon were shown tinged with orange, reflecting urban light pollution I suppose.

I then moved on to drafting Sunday's sermon and finalising this week's edition of the Parish Sway and posting it the link on WhatsApp before stopping to cook lunch. All worked well at this point. After we'd eaten, I had to send out the same link in the weekly email distribution using MailChimp. I followed the instruction notes I'd written but couldn't establish how to send out this week's instead of last week, as the obvious task of finding and using the link edit page didn't work as I expected. By trial and error,  and half a dozen attempts I succeeded in doing it correctly. As for the error bit, I reset this week's Sway link at some stage, which removed access to the web page I created while cloning its content to a new one. Then the proper page link had to be reissued on WhatsApp, to match what worked via Gmail and Facebook.

The ten minute task of checking and sending the MailChimp link took me two and a half hours to sort out and correct. Hopefully, I'll get my head around it all with a few practice runs this week, so it soon becomes a routine. Important that it does as the plan is for me to do it for a six weeks then hand over to someone to be recruited and train them in using Sway and MailChimp if they don't know how. Chatting with Owain after I returned from a visit to the shops and a walk in the park before supper, I discovered that he has used MailChimp for years and is acquainted with Sway, though he has a low opinion of it.  When next he visits us, I'll ask him to give me an expert tutorial on MailChimp's finer points.

Clare had supper early as she went out to explore a new local choir she's thinking of joining, leaving me to my own devices, so I indulged in baked beans on toast for a change. Then I watched this week's episode of 'The Woman in the Wall' on iPlayer. Interesting, complex plot development, but rather too many visuals of the nightmare trauma of an abused woman whose baby was stolen from her in a convent that served as Magdalene Laundry while pretending to be a training school (aka 'reform school', in the language of my youth) for wayward girls. 

Amazing that pious people responsible for such institutions could think they were doing anything good for young people by intimidation and cruel harsh treatment. At one time it was taken for granted, as 'normal'. Thank heavens profound changes in attitude have occurred in the past quarter of a century in how vulnerable disturbed young people are treated. Repentance of a kind, but the loss experienced by many is incalculable. Stories of this kind need to be told. Fact based dramatic fiction, as long is it is true to real life is a good means for exploring such painful issues of social injustice.

Better safe than sorry

I woke up just the second time last night at half past six, and couldn't get off to sleep properly again afterwards. After Thought for the Day, I uploaded today's Morning Prayer without a hitch, then got up for breakfast, conscious of not having enough sleep. Often I doze off after praying, but not today. I've had an email from Emma at Eurodiocese HQ asking me to do the on-line stage two Safeguarding course, now a requirement for clergy with PTOs. I'm happy to do this, whether or not it ever becomes possible to do another spell of locum duty abroad. 

I'm conscious there are all sorts of low level abusive habits or tolerated practices persisting in the life of the church, some of them to do with bizarre kinds of piety, but others to do with changes in governance and management styles under the guise of coping with crisis. Clergy and lay leaders can be victims as well as perpetrators. I'll be interested to see if any of this is reflected in the stage two course.

This afternoon I walked up to Llandaff Weir for the first time since 22nd November. There's been so much rain over the past couple of months that the footpath and surroundings stayed waterlogged and muddy, treacherous to walk on. A photo I took that day shows a huge tree stump, roots trunk and remains of branches, lodged at the top of weir in the same position as it had been since last February's floods. I think it must have washed out of the river bank nearby, eroded by the storm water surge. I was curious to see if it was still stuck there after the more recent spell of heavy rain, and it wasn't. 

There was no sign of it among the entangled remnants of trees and bushes trapped by island reefs of pebbles that build up in the river bed. Could something that heavy, perhaps half a ton of wet wood, have been carried further down the river out of sight? Or was it necessary for the river management team finally to remove it, as even more wood washed downstream built up and impeded the water flow? I'll never know the answer, but it's clear that work has been done along the banks of the Taff to improve the outflow of flood water.

On the walk back I was pleased to find the Cathedral open to visitors. A dozen English Cathedrals are now closed to visitors and offering only on-line services, because of soaring infection rates. In Wales the rate of increase is showing signs of slowing, but numbers of infections are still high and rising. First Minister Mark Drakeford instigated partial lock-down in Wales before England did, and the measures have been tightened since. Shopper behaviour in supermarkets is being identified as a source of contagion, as well as indoor meetings of households, are now to be restricted. Wales was first then England followed, again.

In the evening I watched the fifth episode of 'Spiral' on iPlayer, having discovered that all ten episodes of this final series are already available to watch. It means I'm not tied to watching later on Saturday evening and ending up not having an early night before church.

Clare's recently been learning to play a 1950s jazz ballad 'Cry me a river'. Julie London's recording with the legendary electric jazz guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Leatherwood made it into the hit parade after it was performed in the epic Lil' Richard rock 'n roll movie 'The Girl can't help it' in 1956, the year I started grammar school. The song was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in a movie, but it was dropped from the story-line, and she sang it in an album of her own 1961. By that time it was a cover version of London's hit. I still remember the words off by heart. I found it on YouTube and played it to Clare this evening. She remembers them too. 

Wallander redux

Glad to return to St German's for this morning's Solemn Mass, and to invite the congregation to pray for Hamid, as he is to be stripped of all support prior to deportation this Wednesday. People are very fond of him, and much troubled by the news. After the service I had a visit from a lady who is asking for a church wedding blessing this coming Friday. A hasty civil wedding had been organised ten years ago, when she was diagnosed with cancer, just in case. She's cancer free now and the family has survived other tribulations too, so there's much to celebrate and thank God for. 

I don't think she's a regular churchgoer any more, although she lives just around the corner from the church, but like many others, such good-will and gratitude is evident, and she knows where to come to give thanks. Fr Mark has asked me to do a funeral on Thursday, of a lady who could see St John's Canton from the front gate of the family home. Even though it's not a funeral in church, a sense of connection to the church and its ministry locally still persists. These modest local bonds of affection and sense of place still have potential in helping the church to reach out to the community it is planted in to serve.

Despite the good weather, neither of us felt inclined to go far after lunch. Clare enjoyed her garden and I completed my labour of love, editing and uploading photos. The job's completed now, and you can find them posted

Day five photos here

Day six photos here

Day seven photos here

At least now they're in a place where I can study them and reflect on the journey through history, with so many layers to it. The tour guides were marvellous, and naturally, perhaps, emphasised the grand European public figures, royalty, musicians, artists and the suchlike. I would like to have heard about the landscape and ecosystems, wealth creating trade, agriculture, industry and science that made life possible for all those top layer people. But maybe that would have required a two week voyage!

I noticed a new series of the English made series of 'Wallander' crime stories airing on BBC 1 tonight, starring Kenneth Branagh. As this had started last week, I watched the first on iPlayer, then the next one live. It's well produced and acted, no doubt, but still leaves me feeling that it doesn't quite capture the Scandinavian ethos, despite being set in the same western Sweden landscape as all the previous series. 

Not hearing any Swedish spoken feels incongruous. After years of scanning English subtitles and hearing the original dialogue, I may not have learned much Swedish, but voice and gesture convey more than words. In fact having the whole thing all in English made it feel, well, more foreign than usual. In fact, the Swedish originals are never short of English, or Danish phrases in the mix, as that is the nature of discourse in a linguistically diverse society, part of what gives it richness and colour.

What gives this series an interesting edge is Branagh's interpretation of Wallander as early onset Alzheimers disease starts to impact upon his work. It can't be the same as Krister Hendricksson's portrayal, as their personalities are different, but therein lies power of the impression made. Seeing this story re-enacted by different men in separate series and languages brings home a painful tragic reality affecting millions today worldwide.

Sunny Lent Sunday

It was a lovely cold bright morning, and the sunshine made the interior of St German's glow during the Sunday Mass. We began singing the Lenten Prose, from the back of the Old English hymnal. I haven't sung that for years. What a refreshing change. There was a delicious Parish lunch in the hall afterwards for about thirty people. I sat with Hamid, and slowly, deliberately we spoke about many things. This week he heard that his law firm has dumped his case, but he is not down cast, still full of trust that God has matters in hand, however things turn out for him. He's visiting the City URC Church Asylum Justice service tomorrow, as recommended by his lawyer. 

Later in the day, I emailed Mareika Arthur to see if I could find out who might be dealing with him on arrival, and I forwarded to her the briefing I'd written yesterday about Hamid's case to send to Jo Stevens, the local MP. It's a last ditch effort, but the least we can do. I regret not realising much earlier the finality of the hearing I attended as a witness, and only on reading the final judgement did the gaps in the argument made in his defence became apparent to me. I think his advocate was over-confident the points he'd made were sufficient to win the case. Is a rescue now possible I wonder?

I'd forgotten that Clare had gone over to Bristol to her monthly study group this afternoon, so I went out for a walk to the park and along the Taff to enjoy the sun, with my DSLR camera. The battery exhausted itself after six shots. It loses charge quicker these days and can only manage a third of the number of shots it used to between times, so I'll have to get a new one pretty soon, or a new camera body, as the present one looks and occasionally behaves tired. It's more than five years old now.

After supper, when Clare got home, there was nothing much on telly worth watching, so I caught up with the first two episodes on iPlayer of the new euro-crime drama 'Trapped', set in Iceland. All that darkness and snow, but quite an interesting small time police procedural piece, laced with a sense of chaos and uncontrollable events driven by dark forces. It's in colour, though it looks as if it's in black and white much of the time, because of all the snow. The hero cop is a big burly guy, a bit like Wallander Mark One with a beard, and I'm sure one if not more of the supporting actors also appeared in 'The Bridge'. At least it makes a change from a movie coloured mostly in black and orange.

   

Keeping warm

I had Viber text messages overnight from Rachel, one from Chicago and another from Phoenix, telling that she'd been sick on the 'plane, from some noxious component of the in-flight vegetarian meal option. Meal booking menus don't always list ingredients that might present allergy problems, apart from the obvious life threatening ones. On this occasion, she got caught out. Another wobbly homecoming!

Clare and I went out the Co-op for food shopping, but apart from that, despite the bright sunshine, the rest of the day was spent keeping warm indoors. Out and about, the temperature hovers around zero. BBC Radio 4 made the day worthwhile with a start of a serialised version of singer Ian Bostridge's book about Schubert's 'Winterreise' song cycle, which puts the music, and the poems of Wilhelm Muller which he used, in their social and cultural context as part of the emergence of Germanic identity in the nineteenth century. An utterly fascinating way to do history, ranking with Neil McGregor's outstanding 'History of the World in 100 Objects' broadcast series a couple of years ago.

We also binged on the missed Christmas episodes of 'The Archers' via iPlayer, while I cooked supper, in time to hear the latest one live. So much of the world's best radio on demand - this alone is worth the annual license fee, which reminds me ....

  

A bewildering Nabucco

This evening we went to the Millennium Centre for the WNO rendering of Verdi's Nabucco, accompanied by our neighbour Liz, whom we invited to join us, as we had a spare ticket. As ever, orchestra and singing were magnificent, driven by diminutive  conductor Xian Zhang, who was subjected to the indignity of being plucked off her feet in a big bear hug during the final curtain call by lead singer David Kempster. To my mind, his enthusiasm wasn't sufficiently respectful of her prowess as musical leader. He wouldn't have done that if the conductor had been a bloke.

I didn't so much quarrel with the innovative production as spend far too much time trying to figure out what its modernist minimalist setting and symbolism meant to  convey. The positioning of the cast on stage sometimes left me puzzled as to which actors were supposed to be Hebrews and which Assyrians. Would I have been any the wiser if I'd gone to the pre-performance talk

I don't think I was alone going home disappointed. Nevertheless, American singer Mary Elizabeth Williams brought terrific energy and style to the role of Abigaille. She's a diva, she knows it, and enjoys inhabiting her dramatic stage persona just as much as she enjoys singing a musically challenging role. Maybe she understood the producer's intent better than anyone else on stage. We last saw her a couple of years ago in the role of Verdi's Floria Tosca. It was equally as engaging to watch as well as hear.

Unusually, on the way in to the performance, I met four different people I knew from my time as city centre parish priest - two of them were Welsh clerical colleagues. Nabucco has always been a favourite with the home crowd, whether the WNO programmes it as part of a 'Faith' season or not.

When we got home, aware that I had no ministerial duties to require early rising, I stayed up late and watched 'Wallender' on iPlayer. Another moving portrayal of a man stricken while still working flat out at solving evil crimes by the onset of early Alzheimer's disease. It was very moving, sad and thought provoking to watch.

     

Fictional take on reality

We took Rhiannon to her theatre workshop at Warwick Arts Centre, then returned to Kenilworth, taking a brief look at the (mainly French) street market in the old town above St Nicholas' Parish Church. |

A wedding celebration was being concluded as we walked past. The bride, we noticed, radiant in a white dress, was in a wheelchair.

We then made an expedition to the Waitrose supermarket in Kenilworth's modern town centre to shop for the ingredients of a paella to cook for Sunday supper.

Kath and Anto arrived home, delighted with the success of their day's performances and we ate fish and chips together. Everyone apart from me wanted to watch 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'The X Factor'. Thankfully, there was a second telly, so I was given leave to feast on the first episode of the third series of Inspector Montalbano, one slice of telly I find utterly engaging.

I'd wager the opening sequences have either been re-shot meticulously, or re-mastered by way of a digital editing suite, as the colour display seems far less bleached than the original. The sound track also seems a different take from the original score. Positive signs of producer pride. A new actor is playing Livia, Montalbano's mostly absent fiancée. The Radio Times critic complained she was too young to reflect the passage of time in her long-standing unfulfilled relationship with the detective who never loses his obsession with the crimes he investigates. I disagree. Lina Perned portrayed Livia as a well-preserved independent female Italian forty-something - the kind of woman who doesn't show the signs of having endured the trials of motherhood. Just right, in context. One up for casting, one down for the critics.

Andrea Camilleri's storylines are as complex and puzzling as ever, yet worth the attention. If you don't get it the first time around, thanks to iPlayer, you can review the bits you didn't get. The diversions into Sicilian culture are entertaining, sometimes illuminating, rarely distracting. But, it's those plot-lines disclosing criminal intent in the strangest of places that sometimes need revisiting, to be sure you've really got it. And then, you're left with something worth reflecting on.

   

Last respects

This morning, I headed out to Llandough for my first service of the day with last night's music still going around in my head, somewhat preferable to the musical offering of BBC Radio 4's Sunday worship from Latimer Minster in South Buckinghamshire, an evangelical initiative describing itself as a 'Missional' church. I arrived early enough to have time to stop and photograph a small herd of cattle grazing by the river Thaw in the autumn sunshine.

I back tracked to St Hilary for the second Eucharist, a congregation still mourning the sudden loss of one of its long standing stalwarts John Curteis, buried outside in the north west corner of the churchyard after a service last Thursday. As he was a prominent public figure, there'll be a memorial service for him in Llandaff Cathedral in a fortnight's time. Before driving home for lunch after the service I went to his grave, still covered with a huge white wreath of flowers, and prayed for the repose of his soul. I'd first met him when I was at St John's, as a fellow member of the Order of St John and the United Services Mess. He will be missed by many.

Owain joined us for lunch. By the end, I could hardly stay awake, and needed a nap. It's been a demanding, busy week. We went out for a stroll and tea in Bute park, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. After supper, we watched another delightful episode of ''Young Montalbano' on iPlayer. Eddie and Ann are fans too.