How to start a day badly

Open a friend's LJ and find that a third party has written in a despicable diatribe against Catholicism, as ignorant as it is hate-filled. I don't blame my friend, but I felt dirty just for having read the screed.

You couldn't make it up dept. no.108: the engineer hoist on his own petard

Like everything else, Florence's City Opera Theatre is going through lean times and having to renegotiate its contracts. The orchestra in particular did not like the proposed changes, so they struck. Management decided to perform the opera - Donizetti's Anna Bolena - anyway, with a pianist to accompany. The theatre was nearly full, and the night was an absolute triumph: the applause went on for fifteen solid minutes, which is what would ordinarily happen when the likes of Placido Domingo or Diana Damrau have an absolutely exceptional evening.