Bought this book, the other day. Misunderstood the title. It actually refers to New Labour high-ups, from when Tony Blair once described himself as a pretty straight kinda guy, not a pretty, straight guy.

Evensongs in St Paul’s are continuing apace after a shaky start. Our first response on our first night was fluffed a little after one of the priests gave us the wrong note. But it was uphill from there, and our second day, with the setting Sumsion in A and his They That go down to the Sea in Ships both went, er, swimmingly.

Tonight is Stanford, a setting and For Lo! I raise up — a huge anthem that a few years ago was our party piece finish, not relegated to Wednesday. We have some even bigger sings ahead of us. Gorgeous Tudor pieces for Thursday, and then we begin the Howells Marathon: the Gloucester Service for Friday night, the Collegium Regale for Saturday night, and somewhere in there we’re also singing Exultate Deo.

Which has almost as many odd lines in it as the For Lo!, which is taken from the apocryphal (literally) book of Habbukuk:

For lo I raise up that bitter and hasty nation,
Which march thro’ the breadth of the earth,
To possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful,
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
And are more fierce than the evening wolves.
And their horsemen spread themselves,
Yea, their horsemen come from far.
They fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour,
They come all of them for violence;
Their faces are set as the east-wind,
And they gather captives as the sand.
Yea, he scoffeth at kings,
And princes are a derision unto him.
For he heapeth up dust and taketh it.
Then shall he sweep by as a wind that shall pass over,
And be guilty,
Even he, whose might is his God.
Art not Thou from everlasting,
O Lord, my God, mine Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, thou hast ordained him for judgment,
And thou, O Rock hast established him for correction.
I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower,
And look forth to see what he will say to me,
And what I shall answer concerning my complaint.
And the Lord answered me and said:
The vision is yet for the appointed time,
And it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie,
Tho’ it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.
For the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
But the Lord is in his holy temple:
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

Lots of jokes about standing on watches, etc, he scoffeth at King’s but not at John’s. Etc etc.

But apparently, from the Exultate Deo, The dead praise not thee o Lord, Neither all they that go down in silence. Maybe they that go down don’t praise the Lord, but you can’t say the same for they they go down on.

In addition to evenson, being in London has given me the chance to catch up with old friends who live here. Monday night, when my parents and brother were here, my cousin and her husband of four years popped over. We haven’t seen them since they got married! And I have a different friend lined up every night this week. Tonight is MYM, a quick trip to the Globe.