R3OK

I “did” Gerard ManleyHopkins for A level and didn’t really appreciate him – in particular I was unsympathetic to his Catholicism.  I wrote in the front of my copy of his poems “Confusion to the Jesuits and Honour to the Church of England”.

As some of you know, I had a major operation at the end of April.  To my amazement, I am getting much better, so I’m feeling very thankful this May.  As I stepped out of the car on return from hospital, I saw the cherry trees in blossom in the garden.  The garden was a right-off last year with all the rain, but now it is clearly growing towards better things.

At school I thought the opening couplet of the following poem was pure Victorian E J Thribb.  I’m very fond of the poem at the moment.

The May Magnificat

MAY is Mary’s month, and I   
Muse at that and wonder why:   
    Her feasts follow reason,   
    Dated due to season—   
    
Candlemas, Lady Day;      
But the Lady Month, May,   
    Why fasten that upon her,   
    With a feasting in her honour?   
    
Is it only its being brighter   
Than the most are must delight her?    
    Is it opportunest   
    And flowers finds soonest?   
    
Ask of her, the mighty mother:   
Her reply puts this other   
    Question: What is Spring?—        
    Growth in every thing—   
    
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,   
Grass and greenworld all together;   
    Star-eyed strawberry-breasted   
    Throstle above her nested        
    
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin   
Forms and warms the life within;   
    And bird and blossom swell   
    In sod or sheath or shell.   
    
All things rising, all things sizing          
Mary sees, sympathising   
    With that world of good,   
    Nature’s motherhood.   
    
Their magnifying of each its kind   
With delight calls to mind      
    How she did in her stored   
    Magnify the Lord.   
    
Well but there was more than this:   
Spring’s universal bliss   
    Much, had much to say         5
    To offering Mary May.   
    
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple   
Bloom lights the orchard-apple   
    And thicket and thorp are merry   
    With silver-surfèd cherry        
    
And azuring-over greybell makes   
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes   
    And magic cuckoocall   
    Caps, clears, and clinches all—   
    
This ecstasy all through mothering earth    
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth   
    To remember and exultation   
    In God who was her salvation.   

Quote from: Don Basilio on May 09, 2013, 10:49:05 am

If there are two multi movement works on one CD, you can buy the separate tracks (provided they are available separately) or buy the whole package.

Ah, so if there are say two symphonies on a disc, you can't buy one symphony? You can only buy either one movement at a time or the whole disc at a time?

I realise it's possible to add four movements to your basket before checking out, of course. But wouldn't it be less fiddly if they let you click "buy tracks 1-4" where those four tracks comprised a single work?

Answer to first two questions: Yes as far as I've worked out how to buy from itunes.  As regards your later point, itunes just doesn't think in terms of multi track complete works.  Hence the shuffle option when listening.

If they are fresh asparagus (ie not Peruvian imports) they don't need anything except a bit of butter. 

I'm not sufficently confident to do grammatical pedantry, but I'm sure I've known the word "standee" to mean someone who hasn't got a seat, as used by P G Wodehouse.  I don't know what else you could call someone without a seat on a bus.

Quote from: Don Basilio on April 21, 2013, 08:29:54 am

The latest sourdough

Gosh, that's HUGE. 

The picture's huge, but the loaf is quite contained.  I formed it as a free standing round loaf and Sancho was going to pop it in the oven.  He judged it was spreading and put a round hoop around it - the sort for forming open pies.  It rose up rather than out.  I've just had some - the taste is great.

Thank you all very much.  I'm a bit fragile at present and appreciate your support.

The thing that interests me in our Glenda's magnificent speech is her use of the word "spiritual".  I'm very wary of using the word in Christian apologetic as it can be just a cop out.  But it is fine used here.

It is a reminder how both Thatcher and an element of the Labour party are both a trajectory from nonconformist protestantism and its individualism.

(Incidentally it's all very well condemning Mrs T for her heartlessness, which is perfectly justified.  But what about the majority of voters of this country who allowed her to be Prime Minister for three depressing general elections?  Many of them aspirational working class.  Just a thought, but maybe for them what Clement Atlee began, for them Margaret Thatcher completed.  - I've been reading Jeanette Winterson's wonderful memoir of her life and aghast that she voted for Thatcher the first time round.  - I would be delighted to have that thought condemned.)