The Mission to Seafarers Carol Concert 2009

The choir of Burntwood School. Click the photo for a larger view

The Mission to Seafarers Carol Concert was held as always at St Michael's Paternoster Royal, in the presence of the Princess Royal, accompanied by the chairman of the society, Robert Woods. This year the choir was from Burntwood School and they gave an exuberant and assured performance of both the well-known as well as some little known carols from around the world. Less good were the readers of excerpts from diaries and poems, Dan Snow and Tracy Edwards, who rushed their pieces so that it was difficult to understand them.

Click the heading for more photos of the City at Christmas.

Clic here for some on-line carols

Thomas Miller Carol Service 2009

As in previous years, the Thomas Miller Carol Service was held at St Katharine Cree Church, Leadenhall St with a reception afterwards at the office at 90 Fenchurch St. The chairman of the UK Club, Dino Caroussis, attended the service. Click the heaading for some photos from the event and here for some photos of the City at Christmas.

The Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair 2009

The Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair was held at Drapers' Hall on 7th December 2009. Click the heading for more photos from the event.

The Home Project

'Home' is a marvellous film made by Yann Arthus-Bertrand showing the ways in which mankind has depleted the world of much of its natural beauty and as well as its resources. You can see it on YouTube here

Favourite Views

Back in Australia, I can't resist posting one of my favourite views, described here. Click the heading for more, and this photo for a larger view

Fine Cell Work at the Leathersellers' Hall

Click the heading for more photos of the event.

Fine Cell Work, the charity that teaches needlework to prison inmates and sells their cushions, quits and other work, held a sale a the Leathersellers' Hall on 19th November that was very well attended. The guests were welcomed by the Master, Charles Barrow, and the past Master, Michael Binyon, gave a fine speech about the value of the charity to prisoners' self-respect. The prisoners do the work when they are locked in their cells, and the work gives them a skill and their earnings give them hope and independence.

“Fine Cell Work gives these men dignity in work and through this, dignity in life. When a man gains self-respect he may start addressing his offending behaviour” Officer, HMP Wandsworth

There is a new video about Fine Cell's work on their website

Lat year the event was held at the Drapers' Hall

Favourite Places

The view of the City from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. Click to enlarge. Click the heading for more photos

Anish Kapoor's Exhibition

Anish Kapoor's Exhibition at the Royal Academy has been rightly feted. Click the heading for some more photos

Ruskin on Pugin's Roman Catholic Conversion

Augustus Pugin converted to Roman Catholicism in 1850, perhaps somewhat unwisely describing the experience thus:

'Oh! Then, what delight! What joy unspeakable! .... the stoups are filled to the brim; the rood is raised on high; the screen glows with sacred imagery and rich device; the niches are filled; the altar is replaced, sustained with sculpted shafts, the relics of saints repose beneath, the Body of Our Lord is enshrined on its consecrated stone; the lamps of the sanctuary burn bright; the saintly portraitures in the glass windows shine all gloriously; and the albs hang in the oaken ambries, and the cope chests are filled with orphreyed baudekins; and pix and pax and chrismatory are there, and thurible and cross......

Perhaps he deserved it, but John Ruskin responded with some fine invective:

'But of all these fatuities, the basest is being lured into the Romanist Church by the glitter of it, like larks into a trap by broken glass; to be blown into a change of religion by the whine of an organ-pipe; stitched into a new creed by gold threads on priests' petticoats; jangled into a change of conscience by the chimes of a belfry. I know nothing in the shape of error so dark as this, no imbecility so absolute, no treachery so contemptible.'

Shortly afterwards Pugin went mad and was confined to Bedlam, and died the following year.

Favourite Writings - Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

Remind yourself constantly of all the physicians, now dead, who used to knit their brows over their ailing patients; all the astrologers who so solemnly predicted their clients' doom; the philosophers who expiated so endlessly on death or immortality; the great commanders who slew their thousands; the despots who wielded powers of life and death with such terrible arrogance as if themselves were gods who could never die; the whole cities which have perished completely, Helice, Pompeii, Herculaneum and others without number.

After that recall, one by one each of your own acquaintances, how one buried another, only to be laid low himself, and be buried in turn by a third, and all in so brief a space of time. Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice or ashes. Spend therefore these fleeting moments on earth as Nature would have you spend them, and then go to your rest with a good grace,as an olive falls in its season, with a blessing for the earth that bore it and a thanksgiving for the tree that gave it life.

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

This reminds me much of The Rubiyat of Omar Khyyam and somewhat of The Tale of the Heike