pumpkinstrokemarrow

That the Lord Mayor actually lives at Mansion House for his year of office, with our AGM being in his ballroom. Maybe his children impress their friends by having raves there.

That part of the Lord Mayor' escort is a chap wearing a large brown fur hat, the sort of thing that Russians wear, and carrying a very large sword (in its scabbard). Mr G. suggests that fur is a high status material and that the more of it you have the bigger cheese you are, but I couldn't find out why this particular chap was sporting such this particular hat.

That St John's are very keen on military trappings, in particular flags, wands, ranks, cloaks and uniforms, with the strange names of the higher ranks being derived from their crusading antecedants. Red shoulder straps for doctors, green shoulder straps for para-medics, grey shoulder straps for nurses and plain shoulder straps for common or garden first aiders and ambulance drivers, far and away the most common. Lots of silver braid, pips and medals all round. Got the impression that high ranking forces people get a good proportion of the top jobs. Although to be fair, these top jobs might be largely honourific. The overall effect was rather masonic.

That St John's may not employ a diversity officer. There was a proper sprinking of women in the higher reaches but very few people of colour at all and none in the higher reaches on show.

That St Johns also does a small number of brass bands. We were entertained by the Surrey band while waiting to get into St Pauls.

That two ambulance services in the land have full dress uniforms for use on state occasions. One, I think, was London and the other was up North. My up-north informant had his on, a smart bright green affair. He thought that if his wife was going to be all dolled up in her St John's unform, he might as well be dolled up in his.

That like some other charities, St John's was moving into selling its services, maybe even tendering for contracts, and appeared to be well into projects, strategies and all the other parephrenalia of a bang up-to-date outfit. (Talking of which, I mention as an aside, that the check out man in our very small Travis Perkins (on the Longmead) knows all about KPIs. Clearly another bang up-to-date outfit. In his case, his KPIs seemed to be all about the various kinds of mistake he could make in the course of checking one out). I also learned that while first aid might be their core business, there are others. Not least, various medical services in Palestine.

St Pauls was given over to St John's for the afternoon, to the extent of opening the big doors at the west end. We also had the services of the cathedral choir and of some army trumpeters. Service not unlike that of nine lessons and carols at Christmas, that is to say a medley of hymns, prayers, readings and choir peices. With a rather odd sermon from the Bishop of Wakefield, which claimed, amongst other things, that the raising of Lazarus was all about healing and was thus very relevant to the day, whereas the relevant text seemed to be saying that it was all about giving a sign, that the sceptical might know that the Son of God was indeed qualified to preach in the Temple. For the first time in quite a long time, I actually participated in the singing of two hymns of the four. Helps to know the tunes. I found I could just about sing to an unknown tune by following the people behind but it was hard work and quite often one took the wrong turning. So I desisted. Fortunately, the organisers knew of the currently poor standard of hymn singing and had the organ playing very loud. That notwithstanding, I was reminded how affective mass singing can be. Stirs the old heart strings.

The proper title of the service was the annual service of commemoration and re-dedication of the Priory of England and the Islands of the most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. Other priories cover Scotland, Wales and the old commonwealth (including the US). Lots of presence on the Internet.