The bride wore blue, Joel sang falsetto, and a deep fat fryer fault caused the race computers to fail

In case you're wondering, the three events of the title are unrelated, other than that they all took place yesterday and I witnessed all of them :-) (I was just trying to work out why I'm so tired, given that I had a good long lie-in today, but yesterday was so busy - I didn't get home till 3 a.m. after having been on the go since just after noon - that I guess just one night's sleep wasn't enough to recover!)

The day started with me having to dash to my mum's to hand over my United season ticket to my brother, so he could go and watch the Tottenham game in my place. He'll also be using my ticket on Wednesday to see United play Celtic in the Champions' League. (Hmm, that reminds me, I haven't told Jessica about football fixtures that clash with choir, although in my defence she hasn't asked... Must do that soon. In the meantime, you may like to note that United are at home on Wednesday night!) I'm particularly annoyed about having to miss the Celtic game, because of course it means I'll miss Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink! Oh well. (Incidentally, I've noticed a few people searching for the Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink mp3 - I wonder if this is what they're looking for?)

Then it was off to Holy Trinity Platt Lane for the choir rehearsal for Meg and Tom's wedding, followed by the wedding itself. This was just lovely. Some reasons why, in no particular order: Meg wore a lovely blue outfit made from some material she'd bought in India a few years ago. They had a London bus (with a ribbon on it!) that took them away from the church afterwards. They had both memorized their vows - very brave, and impressive! There were more than 40 people in the choir that sang during the service, and it sounded fabulous (though I do so say myself). The congregation was also full of singers (I presume the reason they didn't invite everyone to sing in the choir was lack of space - it was rather cramped, and those of us who were late for the rehearsal had to sit on the floor at the back as it was). The hymns and readings were all lovely. The choir solo bits went very well - As Torrents in Summer is of course well known to most of us, but Patrick Hadley's My Beloved Spake (which was the centrepiece of the service) was new to me, and it's gorgeous. And we also did Rutter's The Lord Bless You and Keep You, which several people had thought a bit too cheesy... yet those same people were taken aback to find that that was what moved them to tears! Oh, and the organist was our own Jonathan, who was unexpectedly free when they asked him. He wasn't very happy with the organ, but you'd never know it from his playing :-)







After the wedding there was cake and champagne, and then I set off for Heaton Park for the Proms. On arrival, I was about to try to get changed in the car (they'd told us to arrive in our choir outfits as there would be no changing facilities) when I realised that in the panic to get out of the house on time I'd left my choir frock at home. Argh. So I had to go back for it, but this wasn't a huge problem because we weren't singing till right at the end.

By the time I got back to the park, I was just in time to see Katie Melua start her set. (In this picture you may just be able to make out some of the Youth Choir hanging about right at the side of the stage - several of them were quite obsessive about her, and waited near her dressing room for ages in the hope of meeting her. Don't know whether or not they did.)



Eventually it was time for us to line up to go on. This was somewhat chaotic, because there weren't many Hallé Choir members there (loads were at Tom and Meg's evening reception, and many others just couldn't make it), but there was the whole of the Youth Choir, plus the Hallé Youth *Orchestra* (no idea if they test their singing when they audition them, but anyway). They started off with the main choir in a long row along the back, with the orchestra in two rows in front of us, and the youth choir at the front. But most of the boys in the youth choir and orchestra were taller than most of the Hallé Choir, so there had to be a bit of a reshuffle so we could all see (and be seen!) I ended up in the middle of the 2nd row, next to a trumpeter called Joel, who (as has been mentioned) planned to sing falsetto. He was aided and abetted in this by James, who I recognised (he's in the youth choir) but couldn't work out what was different about him, till I realised that last time I saw him he had a red nose :p

It was very late by the time we got on stage, but the crowd seemed delighted to see us. It was slightly frustrating to be able to hear Mark etc. from London but not see them (and we didn't hear his speech at all, because they turned the feed off at that point while Jamie and Heather Stott rehearsed the crowd). But we had great fun anyway. I don't think we were shown on TV at all, according to people I know who watched it (I sky-plussed it and am just watching the start of the concert as I write this), but never mind. We did get our name mentioned a lot, if only by Heather Stott, and that was the main reason for doing the gig in the first place.

(Oh, and there was a sound technician who was the spitting image of Jay from Jay and Silent Bob, but when I pointed this out to Joel he'd never heard of them. I suppose it is a bit of a cult thing... And before I leave the Proms, did you all remember to watch the prom with Andrew? Wasn't he good?)



Anyway, after the Prom I set off for Southport, to watch a bit of the 24 hour race on the Marine Lake. I love this event - last year I watched for the full 24 hours, and I would have done the same this year if I could. The team from my sailing club did really well last year, finishing 6th, but when I arrived this year (I was about to say "last night" but in fact it was after midnight when I got there) there was much grumbling. They'd started well - they were 1st after the first 2 laps, and still 3rd several hours later. But then there had been a power failure caused by a fault with a deep fat fryer, and this had caused the race computers to go haywire. Normally they publish results every half hour or so during the whole 24 hours (there is a handicap system, so it's not just a case of which boat crosses the line in which order on each lap, they do it on average lap times after the handicaps are taken into account) but the computers were down when I arrived, and no results were published before I left. Some of the Hollingworth Lake sailors were upset because just before the computers went down, the latest results had their boat at 17th, when they'd been 3rd half an hour earlier, and they were positive that this was a mistake, because no-one had passed them - they'd been watching! The final results are now online, so I presume they sorted out the power failure, but Hollingworth Lake appear to have finished in 13th place, which will disappoint them if it's accurate, and infuriate them if they believe it to be incorrect.

Anyway, I really must do some work now - I've been putting it off for hours - but before I do, some links to share:

A story about Kent Nagano's first concert with his new orchestra.

Some news about a Schola Cantorum CD (it's from before Jamie conducted them, but has only just been released).

And finally, there was a query: What national anthem starts on a minor 3rd? Well, the obvious one seems to me to be the USA one (The Star-Spangled Banner), which has a descending minor third between its first two notes (now you see how that search led to this blog!), but there may be others...