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Abide with me
Like me, Sandra had long put away the religious faith she was raised in, but, again like me, had kept her appreciation for some of the hymns she had grown up with. One of those hymns was Abide With Me, which she had been talking about only days before her death. Last night at the Olympics it was used in the tribute to the victims of the 7/7 bombings. Even without that personal connection the performance would’ve given me goosebumps, now it was enough to make me tear up.
The icing on the cake is that this hymn has a political meaning as well. It has been used at every Rugby League Challenge Cup final since 1929 and rugby league is the northern, working class version of rugby, a song held deeply by generations of miners. Using it is therefore a subtle rebuke to the legacy of Thatcher, whose heirs now rule the UK again, just like the use of Jerusalem, another of Sandra’s favourites, could be seen as a clarion call for English socialism. Whether or not this was Danny Boyle’s intent…
London can take it
In less than five minutes the Olympic Games officially start and we’ll find out if all the obnoxious security measures and corporate corruption was worth it. I don’t think there will be any great disaster, just the usual crap associated with the modern Olympics. There will be debts and white elephants and all the nuisances you get from hosting the Olympics, but as the Public Broadcast Service say, “London can take it”.
It’s sunday
Have a kitten. Not that this is at all familiar…
Steady, as She Goes
Sometimes there are pieces of incidental music that you’ve been hearing for years without knowning where they originally came from, until you stumble over it one day. The theme to Radio 4’s Saturday Live is one such piece. I didn’t know it was taken from the opening bars of The Raconteurs’ “Steady, as She Goes” until I heard it on the radio just now, but now I know.
And knowing is half the battle.