WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS BY NIGHT Nahum Tate Tate (1652-1715) was born in Dublin. Apart from this carol, his most famous creation, Tate is remembered for his libretto for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and for the many ‘improved’ happy endings he provided for a number of Shakespeare’s tragedies. He also compiled a metrical version…
BUSINESS GIRLS Sir John Betjeman From the geyser ventilators Autumn winds are blowing down On a thousand business women Having baths in Camden Town. Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, Steam’s escaping here and there, Morning trains through Camden cutting Shake the Crescent and the Square. Early nip of changeful autumn, Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors,…
I went up to Birmingham on Sunday. I had been invited to an organ recital in the Town Hall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of my friend Thomas Trotter becoming the City Organist. I first came across TT in 1987 when I was doing Crossroads (just down the road from the Town Hall in the…
We watched the last two episodes of Downton back to back last night. The only way to watch the programme is via a recording so that you can fast forward through the interminable adverts. The scripts for the fourth series are better than for the third which were better than the ludicrous second, but goodness…
Cautionary Tales for Children: Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years is a 1907 children’s book written by Hilaire Belloc. There is a long tradition of ‘Naughty Children’ verses designed to terrify youngsters, the grand-daddy of them being the rather too frightening German collection Struwwelpeter. Belloc’s are far more…
I’m generally a fairly sanguine chap but occasionally I read something that makes my blood boil. The excellent BBC Music Magazine has just published another of its Greatest of All Time polls. These polls always cause controversy and passion – it’s their raison d’etre – but they do provide a bit of harmless fun and…
There was a really excellent documentary on the telly box the other night, a BBC4 survey of how major film stars have had their singing voices dubbed over the years. The most famous exponent of the art is Marni Nixon (still with us at 83) providing Deborah Kerr’s singing voice for The King and I,…
It often amazes me how often people in the media are promoted way above the level of their ability. How did they do it? one asks. The BBC are particularly adept at giving a high profile job to someone of minimal talent. One thinks of Fiona Bruce, the gabbling newsreader who seems to fancy…
JABBERWOCKY Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98) is known to the whole world by his pen name Lewis Carroll. This poem is read by Alice in the early part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), the successor to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The first verse was actually written years earlier in…
MY FAVOURITE THINGS from The Sound of Music Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with strings, These are a few of my favourite things. Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels, Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, Wild geese that…