Nothing could be more discriminatory than the Roman Catholic claim to be the one true faith.
It is a ludicrous claim and without historical foundation. The Church in England as opposed to the Church of England is centuries older than the Church of Rome. Indeed the impetus for the foundation of a Christian Church in Rome came from a Roman Emperor, Constantine, who was proclaimed in York, a city which already had a well founded Christian Bishop.
Furthermore the proposal to discriminate in favour of a minority RC population in the UK is
preposterous.
Few people would object to the removal of discrimination against women in the royal succession but that is an unrelated matter
Friday, 27 March 2009
Friday, 20 March 2009
Quantitative Easing
The US Federal Reserve has announced that it is to apply 1.15 trillion dollars to the purchase of long term US Treasury Bonds as the latest move to repair damage to the banking system. This involves the creation from nowhere of the necessary funds in order to increase the volume of money in circulation. They are seeking to make good money irresponsibly created by banks without proper regard to security and with the consequences that are plain for all to see. Something similar on a smaller scale is already being done by the Bank of England.
However this operation is wrapped in opaque terminology like ' quantitative easing ' what is being done is printing money.We are potentially back to the days of what Dennis Healey, a former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, described as confetti money.
This may hardly affect the very elderly depending on how long they have to live. For the very young and the not so young it is a serious matter although the consequences will be disguised. The number of noughts in the account will remain unchanged but the purchasing power will not.
For the latter, money in the bank or under the bed is not a good idea. The odd Rembrandt or even a house ( in the long run) may be a better alternative. Anything is desirable whose paper value will appreciate as the purchasing power of currencies declines.
Taken to extremes governments would be able to discharge their debts by printing money. It is not likely to happen to that extent.For one thing China and Japan hold vast reserves of dollars. For the value of their holdings to be eliminated in this way would not be regarded with favour. There must be a limit which they could tolerate with equanimity for the general good.
Already banks are being allowed to hold balances belonging to the public at zero or little cost.That is a liberty considering the rates at which those funds are being employed. There is even talk of banks charging to hold deposits which happened at one time in Switzerland. If that were to be done at the same time as currencies were being debauched it would be difficult to avoid suspicion of fraud.
Governments are fondly imagined to have the safety and well being of their citizens as a first responsibility.In recent times it has been difficult to see even a common interest.
ederalReserve
However this operation is wrapped in opaque terminology like ' quantitative easing ' what is being done is printing money.We are potentially back to the days of what Dennis Healey, a former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, described as confetti money.
This may hardly affect the very elderly depending on how long they have to live. For the very young and the not so young it is a serious matter although the consequences will be disguised. The number of noughts in the account will remain unchanged but the purchasing power will not.
For the latter, money in the bank or under the bed is not a good idea. The odd Rembrandt or even a house ( in the long run) may be a better alternative. Anything is desirable whose paper value will appreciate as the purchasing power of currencies declines.
Taken to extremes governments would be able to discharge their debts by printing money. It is not likely to happen to that extent.For one thing China and Japan hold vast reserves of dollars. For the value of their holdings to be eliminated in this way would not be regarded with favour. There must be a limit which they could tolerate with equanimity for the general good.
Already banks are being allowed to hold balances belonging to the public at zero or little cost.That is a liberty considering the rates at which those funds are being employed. There is even talk of banks charging to hold deposits which happened at one time in Switzerland. If that were to be done at the same time as currencies were being debauched it would be difficult to avoid suspicion of fraud.
Governments are fondly imagined to have the safety and well being of their citizens as a first responsibility.In recent times it has been difficult to see even a common interest.
ederalReserve
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Strange but true
It is odd that the politicians whom the British elect to represent their interests recognise no proprietorial rights in the indigenous population. Indeed it could plausibly be argued that they give preference to incomers.
Is it remotely racist to draw attention to this anomaly? The politicians would like people to think so. They have enacted legislation to protect their preference. It is quite naughty to draw attention to facts of this kind. It is even naughtier to resent them and to want to do something about them is to risk being classified as a dangerous extremist.
Yet it is a fact that, in Britain, an unknown number of incomers, maybe as many as three millions ,have been housed somehow more often as not with local authority help. At the same time large numbers of 'natives' have been on housing lists for many years and so far as the local authorities are concerned can go on waiting.
Perhaps it is even more odd that the British continue to elect the same people to serve and defend their interests.
Is it remotely racist to draw attention to this anomaly? The politicians would like people to think so. They have enacted legislation to protect their preference. It is quite naughty to draw attention to facts of this kind. It is even naughtier to resent them and to want to do something about them is to risk being classified as a dangerous extremist.
Yet it is a fact that, in Britain, an unknown number of incomers, maybe as many as three millions ,have been housed somehow more often as not with local authority help. At the same time large numbers of 'natives' have been on housing lists for many years and so far as the local authorities are concerned can go on waiting.
Perhaps it is even more odd that the British continue to elect the same people to serve and defend their interests.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
RAMBLINGS ON GLOBAL WARMING
It seems strange that amongst all the proposals for controlling CO2 emissions nobody has yet suggested banning undue exertion. After all human beings are puffing out CO2 like crazy and the more they exert themselves the more oxygen they take in and the more CO2 they blow out.
Ought we not to know the effect of human exertion on the looming problem of climate change?
It is claimed that we have statistics on the amount of methane vented from the back end of the bovine population so why not?
To my non mathematical mind it would seem to be a relatively simple problem to arrive at an average output of CO2 for a human being at rest and to multiply that by the estimated world population.Using that as a base it ought to be possible to evaluate the effect of exertion.
In the history of this planet the population of human beings has increased beyond all reason and continues to do so. In geological time that is a recent event. Might there not be a connection?
Governments ,which seem to go out of their way to fund unlikely scientific investigations, have been behind the door in missing this opportunity.
Of course to ban exertion would conflict with that other obsession of recent times, obesity.It may be that we are looking at that problem from the wrong angle.Perhaps the solution is not more exercise but restriction of food intake.I have seen it stated that the health of the British population was good during world war II when essential foodstuffs were in short supply and tightly rationed.
The opportunity for more bureaucractic control in this area is very attractive.It could make a contribution to solving the unemployment problem and would go some way to increase the consumer spend.
Banning exertion however might have to be selective.It could have consequences for our way of life which some, but not all, would find congenial. It would mean an end to football,rugby, horse racing, gyms and badminton to mention just a few activities.
It would require a definition of undue exertion which would occupy lawyers for quite a time at great expense.
On reflection perhaps we meddle too much.
It seems strange that amongst all the proposals for controlling CO2 emissions nobody has yet suggested banning undue exertion. After all human beings are puffing out CO2 like crazy and the more they exert themselves the more oxygen they take in and the more CO2 they blow out.
Ought we not to know the effect of human exertion on the looming problem of climate change?
It is claimed that we have statistics on the amount of methane vented from the back end of the bovine population so why not?
To my non mathematical mind it would seem to be a relatively simple problem to arrive at an average output of CO2 for a human being at rest and to multiply that by the estimated world population.Using that as a base it ought to be possible to evaluate the effect of exertion.
In the history of this planet the population of human beings has increased beyond all reason and continues to do so. In geological time that is a recent event. Might there not be a connection?
Governments ,which seem to go out of their way to fund unlikely scientific investigations, have been behind the door in missing this opportunity.
Of course to ban exertion would conflict with that other obsession of recent times, obesity.It may be that we are looking at that problem from the wrong angle.Perhaps the solution is not more exercise but restriction of food intake.I have seen it stated that the health of the British population was good during world war II when essential foodstuffs were in short supply and tightly rationed.
The opportunity for more bureaucractic control in this area is very attractive.It could make a contribution to solving the unemployment problem and would go some way to increase the consumer spend.
Banning exertion however might have to be selective.It could have consequences for our way of life which some, but not all, would find congenial. It would mean an end to football,rugby, horse racing, gyms and badminton to mention just a few activities.
It would require a definition of undue exertion which would occupy lawyers for quite a time at great expense.
On reflection perhaps we meddle too much.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Lesley Garrett: A Remarkable Voice
A new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Carousel began a provincial tour on September 29th 2008 preparatory to taking up residence at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End at the end of November.When on October 4th the curtain came down on the final performance at the Churchill Theatre Bromley some 8000 people had heard a live performance by the soprano Lesley Garrett many of them for the first time. I wonder how many realised that they had heard one of the most remarkable voices of all time.
Trained at the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera Studio for 7 years on a basic diet of Bach,Handel,Mozart and Grand Opera she is able to sing anything from Monteverdi to the rock star Sting,as to the genre born, without ever sounding like an opera singer who has gone astray.
That includes appearing as Nettie Fowler in Carousel as earlier she had appeared as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music and earlier still had taken the lead in the Merry Widow.
In her recorded output you will find Cole Porter,Richard Rodgers,Michel Legrand,Beatle songs arranged for her by George Martin,Ivor Novello,Lloyd Webber,Karl Jenkins,an Ave Maria written for her by the composer ,her arranger, Tolga Kashif as well as an elemental ballad called 'Fields of Gold' written by Sting.
She takes the view that all these people use the same notation as the classical composers. It is all music and merit may be found in some unusual places.Anything she deems to have merit she will sing.The purists close their tiny minds and complain about crossover but she disregards them.
Lesley (everybody calls her Lesley ) does not consider herself to be the finished article. Engagements permitting she still trains for several hours each week with the teacher who has been her mentor and friend since she was 19.
It was in 2001 at a reception in the Royal Academy that her teacher, now Professor Joy Mammen,told me that Lesley's singing lessons,as she calls them,are not a matter of care and maintenance but of continual development.She said that at that time they were working on extending her vocal range downwards.
In November 2008 the first deployment of that extended range was heard in a new disc called'Amazing Grace'. It is a collection of classical pieces described by Lesley as 'spiritual'. In it were heard for the first time some firm ,rich,resonant sounds not usual in a high soprano.
There are many good sopranos. There are many more who are easy on the ear.Great sopranos are rare. They all have one physical characteristic in common. All sound is vibration. The human voice creates sound by vibrating vocal chords. In great singers those vibrations are so rapid that the ear is deceived into believing that it hears not a sequence of pulses but a solid stream of sound.
Maria Callas had such a voice. Lesley Garrett has such a voice but in her case she also has an extraordinary large lung capacity which enables her to cope, in one breath, with the long sequences of notes written by Handel or Mozart for the castrati of their time.It also gives her tremendous power in a tiny frame as well as the most delicate breath control .
For a mere mortal like me the only way to assess voice quality is by comparison with a standard. I mentioned Maria Callas whom I will take as my standard because there is a consensus view that she was a great singer if not the greatest.As it happens it is not necessary to take my word for what follows.Anybody can check. It is open to anybody to listen to the recorded voices of Maria Callas and Lesley Garrett back to back singing the same aria.Anything will do. However for variety and accessibility I would suggest 'One fine day' from Madam Butterfly by Puccini, 'O mio babbino caro' by Rossini and the Waltz song by Gounod.You can extend that list as far as you like.Having undertaken this exercise you will hardly avoid the conclusion that if Maria Callas was great so is Lesley Garrett.
Maria Callas did not sing difficult Handel or Mozart though she did sing Wagner which is heavy duty.Well within her capacity Lesley Garrett sings both of the composers most difficult to sing well.
There is a motet written by the young Mozart as a thank you for a phenomenal castrato Rauzzini. That piece has defied sopranos down the ages to sing it as written. A few coloratura sopranos in the past have got away wiith substituting their own cadenza for the passage they could not sing. Exultate Jubilate has frightened off the best.
The BBC has a recording, made at the Sage Gateshead,of Lesley Garret singing Exultate Jubilate with the Northern Sinfonia. An expectant audience of some 1700 watched as she was led onto the platform wearing a gold dress and carrying the score.She was of course to sing without amplification.Dozens of people not knowing what to expect had the score on their lap intending to check every note.
In the event she sang from the score note for note complete as written to a rapturous reception.
The point of extreme difficulty is at the end of a short cadenza between the 2nd and 3rd movements. It ends in a half tone trill which Mozart knew that Rauzzini could sing.This is what has defeated his lady successors.The fact that Lesley Garrett, uniquely, is able to achieve this stamps her as out of the ordinary if nothing else would.
This unique recording is not commercially available.Every serious musician would want it and certainly every teacher of singing quite apart from a vast public.The BBC should be required to explain why it is hidden.
A new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Carousel began a provincial tour on September 29th 2008 preparatory to taking up residence at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End at the end of November.When on October 4th the curtain came down on the final performance at the Churchill Theatre Bromley some 8000 people had heard a live performance by the soprano Lesley Garrett many of them for the first time. I wonder how many realised that they had heard one of the most remarkable voices of all time.
Trained at the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera Studio for 7 years on a basic diet of Bach,Handel,Mozart and Grand Opera she is able to sing anything from Monteverdi to the rock star Sting,as to the genre born, without ever sounding like an opera singer who has gone astray.
That includes appearing as Nettie Fowler in Carousel as earlier she had appeared as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music and earlier still had taken the lead in the Merry Widow.
In her recorded output you will find Cole Porter,Richard Rodgers,Michel Legrand,Beatle songs arranged for her by George Martin,Ivor Novello,Lloyd Webber,Karl Jenkins,an Ave Maria written for her by the composer ,her arranger, Tolga Kashif as well as an elemental ballad called 'Fields of Gold' written by Sting.
She takes the view that all these people use the same notation as the classical composers. It is all music and merit may be found in some unusual places.Anything she deems to have merit she will sing.The purists close their tiny minds and complain about crossover but she disregards them.
Lesley (everybody calls her Lesley ) does not consider herself to be the finished article. Engagements permitting she still trains for several hours each week with the teacher who has been her mentor and friend since she was 19.
It was in 2001 at a reception in the Royal Academy that her teacher, now Professor Joy Mammen,told me that Lesley's singing lessons,as she calls them,are not a matter of care and maintenance but of continual development.She said that at that time they were working on extending her vocal range downwards.
In November 2008 the first deployment of that extended range was heard in a new disc called'Amazing Grace'. It is a collection of classical pieces described by Lesley as 'spiritual'. In it were heard for the first time some firm ,rich,resonant sounds not usual in a high soprano.
There are many good sopranos. There are many more who are easy on the ear.Great sopranos are rare. They all have one physical characteristic in common. All sound is vibration. The human voice creates sound by vibrating vocal chords. In great singers those vibrations are so rapid that the ear is deceived into believing that it hears not a sequence of pulses but a solid stream of sound.
Maria Callas had such a voice. Lesley Garrett has such a voice but in her case she also has an extraordinary large lung capacity which enables her to cope, in one breath, with the long sequences of notes written by Handel or Mozart for the castrati of their time.It also gives her tremendous power in a tiny frame as well as the most delicate breath control .
For a mere mortal like me the only way to assess voice quality is by comparison with a standard. I mentioned Maria Callas whom I will take as my standard because there is a consensus view that she was a great singer if not the greatest.As it happens it is not necessary to take my word for what follows.Anybody can check. It is open to anybody to listen to the recorded voices of Maria Callas and Lesley Garrett back to back singing the same aria.Anything will do. However for variety and accessibility I would suggest 'One fine day' from Madam Butterfly by Puccini, 'O mio babbino caro' by Rossini and the Waltz song by Gounod.You can extend that list as far as you like.Having undertaken this exercise you will hardly avoid the conclusion that if Maria Callas was great so is Lesley Garrett.
Maria Callas did not sing difficult Handel or Mozart though she did sing Wagner which is heavy duty.Well within her capacity Lesley Garrett sings both of the composers most difficult to sing well.
There is a motet written by the young Mozart as a thank you for a phenomenal castrato Rauzzini. That piece has defied sopranos down the ages to sing it as written. A few coloratura sopranos in the past have got away wiith substituting their own cadenza for the passage they could not sing. Exultate Jubilate has frightened off the best.
The BBC has a recording, made at the Sage Gateshead,of Lesley Garret singing Exultate Jubilate with the Northern Sinfonia. An expectant audience of some 1700 watched as she was led onto the platform wearing a gold dress and carrying the score.She was of course to sing without amplification.Dozens of people not knowing what to expect had the score on their lap intending to check every note.
In the event she sang from the score note for note complete as written to a rapturous reception.
The point of extreme difficulty is at the end of a short cadenza between the 2nd and 3rd movements. It ends in a half tone trill which Mozart knew that Rauzzini could sing.This is what has defeated his lady successors.The fact that Lesley Garrett, uniquely, is able to achieve this stamps her as out of the ordinary if nothing else would.
This unique recording is not commercially available.Every serious musician would want it and certainly every teacher of singing quite apart from a vast public.The BBC should be required to explain why it is hidden.
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