Ten remarkable days

Two weeks ago, after a certain amount of palaver and uncertainty, I managed more or less at the last minute to fly down to Rome for my father's sixty-ninth birthday party. Well, for a start the party itself was very pleasant, with a number of charming and interesting people. Then I went to stay to my mother's place for the night, and just coincidentally - I swear! - came home in time to look at the first complete lunar eclypse for nineteen years, which I would probably not have caught in London.

The next day was a Sunday. I went to mass at Noon - only to find the local parish full and several cameramen hanging around. Now to understand this next bit, you have to realize that each of the Cardinals of the Catholic Church is also the titular parish priest of a Roman parish church. This creates a bond between the city and the world Church, and obeys the legal fiction that the bishop of Rome should be elected by the clergy of Rome. Well, I had happened upon the installation of a new Cardinal in our modest and rather ugly (concrete modern) parish - Cardinal Gaudencio Flores of Manila, Philippines (hi, purple_mirie!). The Cardinal came in with as imposing a procession as the parish could bring in, and the pride of the parish, a small but excellent choir, sang brilliantly. The Cardinal preached the sermon, in English, Italian and Spanish. I was probably the only person there who could follow it all, although I have to admit that if he had started in Tagalog I might have had a few problems. He was charming and gracious, concluding with an invitation to all parishioners to be his guests if they ever happened in Manila. I doubt whether many will take the opportunity, given the distance, but who knows? I might. (Cardinal Flores has two enormous shoes to fill. His predecessor, Cardinal Jaime Sin, was one of the greatest figures of the world Church and a national hero in his own country. God be with him.)

So, two days, two exceptional events. On Monday, having nothing to do, I set out to complete and publish my sixth "A plague on both your houses" essay. My impression that it turned out rather well seems confirmed by the fact that in the next few days it received a snowfall of almost wholly positive comments, including some from people I had never met before, and that I find that at least half a dozen people have friended me out of the blue. Including someone who calls herself theswordmaiden, and who could not possibly have known that swordmaidens are also a fixation of mine! (cf.http://fpb.livejournal.com/107275.html)

So altogether a remarkable few days. I could do with a few more like these.

P.S.: As if that wasn't enough, there is a long-dreamed-of fulfilment about to take place for all Buffy fans in the world - http://frelling-tralk.livejournal.com/552895.html?mode=reply. I know that this is wholly unsuitable for a forty-four-year-old portly intellectual male, but - SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!

A discourse on Method

Many of you will remember that I am apt to be cracked up by fugitive comments or quotations. One such turned up last October (five months ago, mind you) on the LJ of atheneglaukopis, a colossally talented young linguist. It proclaimed the coming of THE T-SHIRT OF DOOM. Why? Because said t-shirt bore the blazon: Shakespeare hates your emo poems. I was convulsed, and asked her where I could get one, size XXXXXX-Large.

Five months later, she found out. She went right back to her original entry, and posted the online address for the T-shirts. (For those who want to know, it is: http://www.threadless.com/product/548/Shakespeare_Hates_Your_Emo_Poems.)

I always wondered what it takes to be a great linguist - one talent I would love to have. It seems that one of the features must be a memory like ten steel traps.