Catholicism Rocks!

One of the joys of belonging to an ultramontane Catholic family is the multiple opportunities to attend religious services at times when sensible citizens are wondering whether there's 'time for one more' or gazing lovingly at a kebab. My mother managed to attend 3 Masses this time: a 9 p.m. ersatz midnight Mass, an actual midnight Mass, and a morning one, presumably in case she'd sleepwalked her way into mortal sin overnight.

For the sake of family harmony, I accompanied her to the proper Midnight Mass, secure in the knowledge that a web-equipped mobile device named after a fruit would enhance the experience considerably. Twitter and a variety of news sources provided an enhanced reality which far outweighed the entertainment on offer in meatspace.

Or so I thought… Having previously only attended Mass in remote rural locations, I wasn't prepared for the festive spirit of urban Catholics. I knew something was afoot when a gentleman who'd started his celebrations early shouted 'I want a word with you, Father', during the sermon. To be fair, I've often wanted to say the same thing, particularly when the subjects have been contraception, Israel/Palestine and a variety of other hot-button issues. The heckler was escorted out by a pillar of the community: but that wasn't the only excitement of the evening. The next addition to the liturgy was a pair of young ladies resplendent in 'Sexy Santa' dresses and hairpieces bearing Christmas illuminations. They giggled their way through most of the sermon (clearly drink had been taken, because the jokes were sorely undercooked) before they too were gently encouraged to sling their irreverent hooks. Rather a shame…

Finally, I spotted a chap whose condition was swinging rapidly between stupefied and somnolent. Sure enough, within a few minutes he'd dozed off, snored loudly, before doing a classic sideways pratfall from the pew to the bench. Up got the gentleman ushers once more, visibly weary with their new careers in ecclesiastical security.

Still, it's not always the congregation. Peace, love and harmony were noticeably absent from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem:



Goodwill to all men!

A Friday Friday conundrum this time

It's so late! Sorry everybody, I've had a load of work to do, and I got caught up in the Guardian's Readers Recommend shenanigans - see if you can work out who I am, as I've picked a different username for reasons that now escape me. I'm around page 7.

So anyway, I was wallowing up and down in the pool with all the grace of an escaped bouncy castle, and wondered why I was doing this - the answer, of course, is so that I can slave away for some of you for an extra few years rather than gratefully accepting the massive heart-attack which was pencilled in for about 2015. So today's question is:

What do you do unwillingly, because they're good for you, or because others expect it of you?

(Were it not swimming, I could put 'turn up for work', though actually when things are going well, it's brilliant). I also go to Mass at Christmas with the family simply for a quiet life, and (this may amaze you), I often shut up when internally I'm screaming with fury and have something very offensive to say. My PGCE colleagues called me Mr Angry, which seems most unfair.

Speakers turned up to 11

While the office is empty, I can listen to whatever I want. Yesterday it was grimy, lovely Straight Edge. Today it's Dvorak's Requiem Mass while I prepare for my 19th-century literature class. It's an astonishing, powerful, heart-rending piece. No cheesy major-minor slide is missed in his quest for raw emotion. Even better, Dvorak was an atheist and wrote the Mass after he slagged off church music to a bishop - who challenged him to write something better.

For the nerds amongst you (for such there be), the music accompanying the death of Gandalf in one of the Lord of the Rings episodes (when his comrades burst out of the mines of Moria) is 'highly influenced' by sections of the Dvorak.