Seven Interests Meme

[tree_and_leaf]

flourish asked me to talk about seven of my interests. Comment and I'll give you seven if you like.

1. anglo-catholicism
2. bryn terfel
3. guide stories
4. mishearings
5. real ale
6. swallows and amazons
7. tat

1. Anglo-Catholicism is a particular kind of Anglicanism, which has its roots in the mid ninetheenth century high church revival associated with John Keble, JH Newman (who eventually became a Roman Catholic, a cardinal, and will probably be canonised soon). The most obvious characteristics of Anglo-Catholicism is the liturgical style, as it favours "High Mass", with colourful vestments, bells, incense, and generally looking... very catholic. This is the result, more or less, of the combination of a strong emphasis on the sacraments (all seven of them) with a wish to revive the ancient traditions of the church before, or at any rate immediately after, the Reformation - though in practice this tends to mean 'what romantic Victorians thought was mediaeval'; there's a certain cross-over in sensibility with the Pre-Raphaelites. The other thing about Anglo-catholicism is that they place a very strong emphasis on the idea of the Incarnation, that is God becoming human in Christ, which has often been accompanied by involvement in social justice issues. Actually some people dislike the label, either because they dislike giving themselves any kind of label other than "Anglican" or because they're worried that people will assume that they're against the ordination of women, but although I am not, I tend to just call myself Anglo-Catholic, because unless you're already well informed about Anglicanism, terms like 'catholic Anglican ' or 'in the Catholic tradition' just confuse people even more. Though I have also been known to refer to myself as a spike, which is antiquated slang for Anglo-Catholics, because it amuses me.

Anglo-Catholics also tend to be a bit weird and geeky, but usually in a good way.

2. Bryn Tyrfel Welsh baritone. Sings opera and Lieder, particularly English early twentieth century stuff, very well, and has also dabbled in the crossover market with some show tunes and Welsh folk songs (in both cases, I think, out of genuine love for the material rather than bandwaggon jumping). My fondest Bryn memory is of him singing 'Rule Britannia' at the Last Night of the Proms. Just before the second verse, he tore off the robe thing he was wearing, to reveal an Welsh rugby shirt and a stuffed dragon.

3. Guide stories. As a Scout (but formerly a Guide) and someone with a great fondness for the classic school story, I combine the two things with old fashioned girls' stories about Girl Guides (which Americans call Girl Scouts). They are very like school stories of the golden age, only centring on Guide patrols and companies rather than school forms, and tend to be called jolly things like 'The Swallows See It Through' (not a lost volume of Ransome, alas), or 'Patrol Leader Judy' or 'The Madcap Marigolds', and contain lots of camping and woodsmoke. They are, perhaps unsurprisingly, no longer written or published, but I inherited my mother's.

4. Mishearings. There's not much I can say about these, but I find them funny and interesting - apart from anything else, they're quite revealing of how the brain works. Like the very proper lady who couldn't understand "The bit about the horse" in Paul Simon's 'The Boxer'.

5. Real ale. Yum. Real ale, in Britain, is defined as ale (i.e. top-fermented beer) made with traditional ingredients and matured in a cask in the old fashioned way, thus avoiding the heavy processing and chemical nastiness that makes British beer from the conglomerates so boring-to-nasty. There is a tremendous diversity of real ale available, much of it excellent. For some reason the names are often a bad pun. I have resolved that life is too short to drink any beer that isn't either real ale, or a proper Central European pilsner. You can learn more about real ale than you probably wanted to here.

6. Swallows and Amazons - a series of marvellous children's books by Arthur Ransome, written in the twenties and thirties, and describing the adventures, real and imagined, of a group of children in the Lake District and elsewhere. Some of the best things ever written for children - memorable characters, humour, excitement, and all done in excellent, spare but evocative prose. It's truly magnificent writing - in some ways, it's a bit like Hemingway. Except Ransome could write memorable women (well, most of them are girls), in particular Nancy Blackett, captain of the Amazon pirates, and a girl of great resource and toughness...

7. Tat. And we're back to Anglicanism, because in this case, 'tat' is Anglican slang (or maybe it's used in other denominations too?) for vestments, i.e. the special garments used in church by the ministers. There are, or can be, a baffling variety of these; some of them are beautiful, and some of them are in appallingly poor taste. 'Tat' is a piece of self-mockery, especially among Anglo-Catholics, who are sometimes suspected of getting too excited about such fripperies, and missing the point. Calling it tat is, I think, partly a safeguard against that. See also the disparaging term 'tat queen', i.e. someone who you feel is overly precious about it (or, alternatively, a bit too keen on lace). I find vestments interesting, partly because I am high church and like traditions, and also because I'm interested in fabrics, embroidery and needlework.

Comments

[flourish]

Annnd done!