In January 2011 four Americans, under the name ‘Tenores de Aterue’, shared their home-grown passion for Sardinian singing with a video performance on YouTube. To their amazement it went viral – in Sardinia! To this day, the singers have never been to Sardinia, and understand very little of the language they are singing. Aled Jones is joined from the US by this quartet of musical explorers and hears their story in music and words.

They discovered the music on YouTube and have shared it on YouTube…a reminder of the little ways in which the web helps spread, diversify and protect our cultural heritage.

Anyway, there’s a passage in Chapter 15 that got me thinking:

The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room, but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation, now as a dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of the paper had been, “How ought I to dispose of my money?” the reader professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been assigned beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing.

Now I’m told there’s a show on television called Come Dine with Me. I’ve never actually seen it, but as I understand, the concept is that a group of people have dinner at one another’s houses, and then rate one another’s cooking. And they put that on television. Or something. I believe some people set up these types of things in real life too.

That seems all well and good, but why not add an essay into the mix? Probably not the cook, but maybe the person who cooked previously. Two thousand words on a topic of general interest, followed by discussion. It would be like blogging only less solitary. And more intellectually challenging…which often seems missing from my life.

Anyway, I think I’d enjoy it, but I’d have to convince other people that they’d enjoy it. And also that it’s not like wearing hats. I wish I could wear more hats…when did gentlemen stop wearing hats outdoors? It was an awful move. But now I can’t just start wearing hats, because it would seem affected. Sigh. Is my essay dinner club affected? I hope not. Maybe I should start wearing hats anyway. It would be good to protect my bald head from the evil sun, anyway. And my essay dinner club would be a good way to stop my brain from atrophying. Feedback welcome.

• meeting (18 May)
• first ‘date’ (7 June),
• the infamous surprise (15 June),
• moving in together (11 Jan),
• going steady (11 Feb),
• engagement (13 March), and
• wedding (26 August).

That’s where it ends, for now at least. And yes, those are the order in which those things happened.  I always say it’s because I’ll take any excuse to find Andrew a present and go out for a nice meal. That’s certainly part of it (we went to L’Autre Pied last night, btw. Great food. Mediocre service). But a bigger part of it is that in the absence of an academic year, time blends into itself so easily, and having milestones divides up time into a more human scale. I suspect that’s no small part of the durability of holidays and religious festivals, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

Andrew turned 30 a couple weeks ago, and he was none too happy about it. Getting older has never bothered me, and in fact there are lots of parts of getting older that I quite like:

Such are the twists and turns of life that I ended up at Oxford, and although I still acknowledge that Cambridge is a prettier town, I can say with all honesty that I would rather be a leper than a tab.

I’ve always thought highly–or at least often–of anniversaries. They offer an opportunity to reflect on the past, on the people we were when things happen in the past, and the way our experiences–both those we commemorate and those that from the intervening period–have changed us. All of this, I suppose, falls into a what might be called ‘personal history’. Like all history, the chains of events seem much more certain in retrospect. The thread of narrative that we can follow into our pasts makes it easy to ignore the complexity of previous moments. After all, we each make a dozen decisions each day that shape who we become, what opportunities open before us, and which are shut down. As one proceeds down one’s current path, it takes a good deal of concentration to remember that the alternate paths one might have taken were not always side streets or alleyways, but the potential to be a main road. I, at least, find that anniversaries are invitations to reflect, the be thankful, and to be more intentional about the choices I make.

This week, it seems, is filled with anniversaries. Sunday, for example, was six months since Andrew and I got married (hurrah!). As seems to be our habit, we spent the day in different countries. Ah well, we’ll hopefully be in the same place six months from now. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of our dog Missy having puppies. She was a good dog. I was in 5th grade. It was a leap day. I wonder if any of her puppies (or grandpuppies) is still alive. I wouldn’t bet on it, but considering Missy lived to be 19, there’s definitely a chance. I’m also pretty sure that tomorrow is the first anniversary of my first drunken purchase at a charity auction: a portrait of Lord Nelson that was painted when he was 25 or so. It’s still in the box. Don’t ask how much I spent on it. Same auction is happening Thursday night, but thankfully I’m not drinking this year in Lent. And that’s worth remembering.

First up: the Mummy of Hornedjitef, an Egyptian priest who died around 250 BC. I’m listening to the show now, and very much enjoying it. To quote Ahdaf Soueif in this first episode: ”It reminds the world of our common heritage”.

So now I’ll head to the museum to see the mummy. And then I’ll go home and do some reading. Life is good.

Central St Giles - View from Floor 9

It’s a 22 minute walk from our flat, which is pretty great. I can even see our block of flats from my desk. And St Pancras. And the roof of the British Museum.

Possibly more important, considering how much time I spend in the office, is the number and variety of things within a 5 minute walk of where I’m sitting right now:

• The British Museum
• The Institute of Historical Research
• Royal Mile Whiskies
• Chipotle (not Chilango, but oh well)
• The London branch of Blackwell’s Books (yay!)
• The best coffee in London (Monmouth)
• A pool.
• An okonomiyaki restaurant.
• The Lowlander (Belgian beer!)
• Bar Polski (vodka shots!)
• A sauna (really - nsfw)
• James Smith & Sons – an awesome umbrella shop.
• Paramount (bar on 34th floor of Centre Point with amazing views)

But Dublin is also a city of sad memories for me. In October 2009, the day Andrew and I got home from one of my favourite-ever holidays (to Dubrovnik), my grandmotherfell while standing up . She was 97. She broke her hip, and while she lived for about 6 weeks afterwards, she never really recovered. I’m thankful for having made it home to say goodbye, and that she died at my parents’ house, with her family at her side, but I do miss her. On Saturday night I had an extremely realistic dream of visiting her at the apartment where she lived until her accident, and halfway through the dream I realised it was a dream. I was still sitting next to her, but dream me was crying at the realisation.

I still remember the hotel room where I was sitting when my mother called me with the news. I can still remember prosaic things like the location of the switch for the heater under the tiles of the bathroom floor. I can still remember searching online for a parish in the neighbourhood where I could go to mass before work the next morning. I can still remember the mass itself. In fact, I still go to morning mass at the same parish every time I’m in Dublin.

My grandmother was probably the most remarkable person I’ve ever known. Her quiet piety, her love for all of creation, her selfless support for the people in her life. There are so many things about her that I try (and fail) to emulate, and I’m extremely grateful for having grown up with such a strong model of unconditional love.

When I was in graduate school, I spent 5 or 6 months each year in Spokane, and at least once a week I’d take her out to lunch and to run errands. If I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t impress upon her how much I enjoyed those afternoons–that I didn’t spend time with her out of duty, but out of joy.

I suppose I’m extremely lucky to have a family where that line is so blurred. I remember in autumn of 2008–about a year before our grandmother’s accident–my cousin Christine and her now husband came to visit London, and stayed with me. It took us a few days to realise that we wanted to spend time with each other: I was worried about intruding on their holiday together, and she was worried about intruding on my daily life, but in the end we figured out that it wasn’t duty but joy. And that’s a nice feeling.

Worth reading.