Secularity

Had an opportunity to road test secularity a few years ago when one of my sons died unexpectedly. Cremation, in a rather dull little chapel in West London seemed oddly apposite and I set aside what, in my dreamy state leading up to this dreadful day would have been my first choice, but the wrong one - the plaintive viola ode by Vaughn Williams, Flos Campi - in favour of, among a few others, You Are My Sunshine by (and this was important) the great Chattanoogan Norman Blake. To quote the hideous Cowell, it had the X Factor

Larry LaPrise

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important man, which almost went unnoticed the other day.

Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Cokey" died peacefully at the age of 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin.

They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started....

It's only me..

At times I wish I were supremely insecure, so that I could turn my insecurity into a driving ambition to reach some imaginary 'top'.

But so comfortable am I in my skin, so smugly at ease with myself, that I am sentenced to this mediocrity that is my life.

Tooting, St George's

Of Charters I know nothing at all
Staring at this taupe coloured wall
Wondering if Sir Dickie is still feeling trickie
Upstairs after his nasty fall

Gandhi men and their wives pack the room
Designed for ten there are fifty, a tomb
But to me every week its the place that I seek
The crypt that became a womb