pumpkinstrokemarrow

On Saturday, our second outing to the St John's ambulance fest.; that is to say the AGM at the Mansion House followed by the annual service of commemoration and re-dedication at St Pauls. Re-reading the posting of this day last year, not all that much seems to have changed. They have still to hire a diversity officer. The sermon given by the Bishop of London was as bad as that of last year given by the Bishop of Wakefield: a badly judged attempt to be matey and accessible; he would have done better to stick to solemn. The St John's big cheeses still love all the flummery - although not so much that they like to wear it in the street. The flummery is carried between venues in a small furniture van. A sort of blend of scouts, guides, armed services and masons. Odd how it is still impressive. Even when one remembers that this sort of well drilled flummery has only been around for 100 years or so. Not the sort of thing that they managed at all well when people had swords for real.

A new touch was the laying to rest of the standards of three senior officers who had passed over in the course of the preceding year. A sort of additional funeral which would be even more impressive if one actually knew or was related to one of those who had passed over.

Coincidentally, I happened to pass a different sort of service funeral today on the way to the baker, at St Pauls Ewell (http://www.saintpauls.co.uk/). Roundabout closed, dozens of uniformed police in white gloves lining the roundabout and the entrance to the church. Traffic backed up a long way in each direction - which, unfortunately, trapped the cars of some of those attending rather further from the church than they had intended. Outriders. Despite having cycled to the head of the queue to wait, I did not see the hearse, which must have come in down Northey Avenue, but I did hear much stamping and coming to attention. I don't suppose the police do presenting arms.

I did not like to quiz the policemen on the spot, but I assume that this was the funeral of a police officer who had been killed on duty, although I do not recall hearing about any such thing recently and Mr G. did not seem to know any better. The church timetable was blank for today. I will ask around.

On a less solemn note, while turning over Saturday's DT, I came across a piece about the forthcoming demise of the Euro by one Charles Moore which contained a quote from the bard: " ... now does he feel his title/Hang loose upon him like a giant's robe/Upon a dwarfish thief". Clearly Charles has got it in for Sarkosy. Now, coincidentally again, we will be going to see Macbeth at the Globe this evening and I have been doing a bit of revision. When I happened to come across this very quote - Act V, Scene II, lines 20-23. So either Charles knows his bard a good deal better than I do or he happened to go to the Globe at about the same time as he was working up his piece and thought that this little gobbet of culture would brighten things up a bit.

I will report in due course. But we do wonder how the Globe are going to spin this short play out over 3 hours or so. I know they are keen on country dances and country fairs (a sort of arty version of the stuff they use to pad out episodes of Midsomer Murders with. Job creation for recent graduates from luvvy school), but that does not seem very appropriate to Macbeth.