No, I haven't gone mad or Jewish. It's been the start of the new academic year as well as the start of the Jewish year. And work has been its usual pandemonium.
I've given a dozen or more induction talks to incoming students and I calculate that I've reached over 30% of incoming post and undergrads with my wit and wisdom. The cost has been to any ongoing work and any chance of a mid-week swim. I did manage yoga and healing with Margaret but I can feel the tension levels rising. I'm grateful I've taken a sensible decision to take today, Monday, as holiday.
Saturday morning I slept long, woke at 8:30am, grabbed a quick breakfast and nipped back into bed to listen to Home Truths on Radio 4 whilst cuddling my beloved. That idyll finished sooner than it might. So whilst Ross was abluting, I did a bit of gardening and then dropped him off so that he go and catch the bus up to North Lincolnshire for his parents' 25th Wedding Anniversary celebrations. Most of the rest of the day was easy, lazing and haircut, until it was time to go to the Coliseum for the first opera of the season, Verdi's Otello.
The easiest thing to say is that I didn't enjoy it at all and left after the second interval. It was an early start performance (6:30pm) so the lure of being home by 9pm was too great. I even treated myself to a Chinese take-away as oral compensation.
Well, I knew that I mightn't like the production with its updating to modern Cyprus. However, that wasn't the main thing. I could cope with it and blot it out - though I didn't understand the reason for the sub-plot about engineers having to perform maintenance on various electrical components of the set throughout the performance or the bit about the delivery of nuclear materials or the rationale for the local people's veneration of and gift-giving to Desdemona - but be that all as it may.
No, the real disappointment was musical. All of the performers were well tried and tested and much loved. But they weren't up to their roles. I remember reading somewhere that Otello demands large voices that must be kept under control for 90% of the opera until those few moments when the full resources should be unleashed. That sense of repression is all part of the aesthetics of the piece. The voices here, David Rendall as Otello, Susan Bullock as Desdemona, Robert Hayward as Iago, were all too small for the undertaking. Finely pointed performances, yes. Nicely musical, yes. But just too undernourished and low key. And as a result, Music Director, Paul Daniels' conducting felt timid and restrained, almost chamber like. A subdued storm to open with? You take the point.
I remember the first (of the five) Otellos I've now witnessed. Zubin Mehta conducted. John Vickers was Otello, Raina Kabaivanska was Desdemona, Peter Glossop was Iago. And it was blazingly exciting. The oath of revenge for Otello and Iago at the end of Act Two is still one of the loudest and most thrilling pieces of singing I have ever heard. I've also had my withers wrung by performances by Welsh National Opera and by the Royal Opera too. This performance simply did not take fire. Still, this time last year, I was complaining about a lacklustre new production of The Flying Dutchman and it went on to be a memorable season.
Quaker meeting was intense this week. There was deep and heart-felt talk of the horrors of war as seen this time in Kosovo and the possible responses. Can violence ever justify violence? And I suppose my answer to the issues as I've been thinking about them since is "Yes" maybe to contain but "No" not to solve. There has been 30 years of violent intervention in Northern Ireland, some may have exacerbated, some may have contained, but a move towards resolution has only been possible through dialogue and a willingness to let go of some historic and emotionally binding aspirations.
And I think it's also a matter of what you are willing to take personal responsibility for. Standing back and doing nothing carries its responsibility. Making a purely verbal intervention also carries its responsibility. Making a violent intervention carries a different responsibility. Whether you carry the blood of the perpetrator or blood of the victim on your hands, there is a decision to be taken and a responsibility to be shouldered.
So, towards the end of Quaker Meeting, as some of these and other thoughts were rattling round in my head, the young people returned to the main meeting from their own separate gathering. And two were carrying candles. And it felt highly significant and appropriate. And suddenly I found myself on my feet and addressing Meeting, saying
The young people could not possibly have known what we have been talking about in Meeting. Horror. Evil. War. I would like to thank them for, in many senses, bringing light into our lives.
And there was blood pounding in my ears and my throat felt strangulated and my voice was uncertain and I felt entirely self-conscious and small in front of everyone. But, at the very end, when we shake hands with our neighbours and greet them, Doreen (who is one of the Elders in the meeting, I think, as well as being elderly) took the trouble to thank me and say that my contribution had been exactly right. So, I felt well chuffed even though, I have to say, I am still a bit up in the air about it all because I have no idea why I stood up and started speaking. The moment between having the thought and finding myself espousing it to others on my feet is a complete mystery to me. I feel that I did not take a decision but that a decision took me.
After Meeting, there was Preparative Meeting. This is a business meeting but it is also a meeting for worship. And here I am still not au fait with the Quakerly way of doing things. There is much pause for thought and you're not supposed to speak more than once on any given topic but I got rather carried away during the agenda item for which I was there - the Meeting Web Site - but I don't think anyone minded.
The rest of Sunday was quiet. Actually I was frozen stiff after sitting in a cold Meeting House for so long. So I settled down and watched Kiss the Girls and thought it well mounted for a psychological murder thriller. But I wasn't much engaged. Food. Trip to Golders Green to greet Ross off a bus. Back home. Feed Ross. Then Ballykissangel and bed.
So, Monday I woke up late and rested with my Rossi. I've had a slow and pleasant day of it. Rain has prevented me from doing as much in the garden as I might have liked but I've cleared up the front garden and made a start on hacking things back in the back garden.
I've done the shopping and watched Gattaca on video. Ethan Hawke done grown up. Actually, these days, he looks uncommonly like my old lodger from Liverpool, Andy. This did not detract from the fact that the film is a sci fi classic. I cannot imagine why it was not more highly commended on its cinema release.
It is a thoughtful and provocative take on human genetic engineering and the possible repercussions in social terms. It also allows the counter argument that the human spirit is stronger than a set of genes. I loved the coolness of the setting and cinematography. Brilliant.
I've not got the car tyre sorted but that can wait. Soon, it will be time for yoga and then work tomorrow.