GOOD NEWS

Job Done

The Parks Department have pretty much completed the making good around the outdoor gym equipment. Sadly, they don't seem to have given enough water to some of the new turf, so that will need to be replaced, but otherwise they have done a good job. Most importantly, the equipment is getting a lot of use, and muscular people are doing press-ups beside it while their friends do whatever it is they are doing on the bars. It all encourages use of our public space into the evenings, which is all to the good.


Respect For The Jersey

Most of us who cycle round the Park wear nasty lycra, but every so often you see someone more elegantly attired. A couple of times now I've seen a chap in a Del Tongo-Colnago jersey which is clearly woollen, with buttons on the back pockets. They were a team in the 1980s, so if it's a real vintage item it's thirty-five years old, and I think it might be, because it is a peculiar shade of yellow, which is characteristic of photos of the authentic old jersey. If you had such a precious relic, would you wear it? Clearly I wouldn't, as I can't wear wool next to my skin. That has the good effect of making it impossible for me to buy the modern replica jerseys made in fine merino wool, which are staggeringly expensive. I just buy replicas in modern materials, less authentic, but more wearable.


Job Nearly Done

The church conservation works are going really well, and the scaffolding has come down from most of the south side of the church, so I open my front door and see clean brick and stone, and sharp edges where once there were lumps and bumps. There are intact windows, with nice clean guards on them. The most extraordinary sight, though, is the Undercroft windows, because at the moment they don't have their iron guard railings in place, because Cliveden's masons are busily repairing and replacing stone. This means that the four windows to the Chapel, which were altered by Comper when he created it in 1895 are suddenly revealed as deep stone caverns. It's a reminder of how much work Comper's creation of the Chapel involved, but it also demonstrates the thickness of the walls. Street's remaining window is by contrast inconspicuous. Cleaning also makes the way that Comper's arched windows have to divert the stringcourse upwards very obvious and unpleasing. I wonder how Historic England would have assessed Comper's scheme, had it been brought to them in 1894-5? They would surely have judged that Comper was doing "harm" to Street's building, and they would have been right, but those deep stone window embrasures remind one of how heroic Comper's intervention was. I regret the loss of Street's rather chaste original south elevation, but you can't deny the success of Comper's Chapel in its own terms.

Meanwhile, the scaffolding is being brought down inside the church. Visits now are accompanied by the clatter of scaffold poles, and are being restricted to a progressively smaller area. The excellent way that the nave ceiling tones in with the colours of brick and stone has also become clear. The colour is terrific.


That Wedding

I have been telling parishioners to watch the magnificent sermon. The funny thing is the stony face of the Dean of Windsor in the background. It was all wonderful, and few people seem to have spotted the Archbishop's error. It is always a danger when asking bishops to do weddings, because they're out of practice, so it's not surprising when they get things wrong. In this case, he failed to join their right hands together; he just looped his stole around their already joined hands, Meghan's right, and Harry's left. If you look at a recording you will see him make a pig's ear of the stole, and Harry help him, with his right hand! Still, it doesn't invalidate it, and it's pleasing for the professional observer to be able to spot something. Actually the big surprise was the modern Lord's Prayer, and I have seen no comment about that. Up until that point, every textual choice had been conservative, so it was a surprise. I was sorry they signed the registers in that old-fashioned way, as it creates a total anti-climax. It is much more satisfactory to do it in the modern position, before the prayers. Still, that was the Church of England, doing okay.