The Varsity rugby match has traditionally been the start of my Christmas build-up. It used to be the only game of rugger I could temp my old mate Figs to go and see. We would have a belter of an evening and things kicked on from there.
These days the pre-Christmas alcoholically dominated lunches are few and far between so I have to make extra efforts to find and attend them. There have been a couple of Turkey Trot events at the golf club, and we have just returned from the London branch Christmas party weekend which was very enjoyable.
With only a few days to go though, I might be a little bit too sober for the Christmas festivities, of which I am less and less a fan as I enter my twilight years. I am off to Chester tomorrow to continue an IBM Northern tradition of red wine and lunch with Cookie. We have been doing this sort of thing for years and as neither of us could make the bigger do in Manchester last week we are having a cosy twosome in a suitable establishment.
Last night I went to the Liverpool Anglian cathedral where oldest ankle biter, Ava, was in her school choir. They were very good but most of the other choirs were not, and at times it felt we were in a requiem mass rather than a jolly Christmas event. Come on Radio City, buck your ideas up for next year.
Ava was amazed by the cathedral however, and she had every reason to be. It is the largest cathedral in the UK, and the fifth largest in the World. It was completed only as recently as 1979 and took 74 years to complete. Giles Gilbert Scott, a 22 year old, won a competition to design and build the cathedral, and he had to wait until 1942 before he could lay the final stone on the massive tower, which at its highest point is almost 100 yards above the cathedral floor. He sadly died in 1960 and was unable to see his life's work completed. For a choir of seven and eight year olds to bash out a few carols in such a structure must have been an amazing experience, as it was for us to watch Ava and her class mates do so.
I have one problem with the cathedral, and that is caused only by my warped mind. Above the great entrance there is a neon sign in the handwriting of Tracey Emin. It is therefore a prominent work of art. It reads ' I felt you and I knew you loved me'. Strange words to have in a church, given the current trend for tabloid exposes of the clergy!
