A muso friend writes in sympathy over my Lack of Mendelssohn with the startling idea that I should try some Andrew Lloyd Webber instead - the reason being that there is an uncanny resemblance between the slow movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and 'I don't know how to love him' from Jesus Christ Superstar. Humming through both, I find my pal is right. Hey, why reinvent the wheel?
Next whinge: please can we have Christmas shortened by a week or two? It gets longer every year and these days you can't get anything done for three weeks, which means associated knock-on/backlog effect at either end. What we should have is: Normal Life up to and including 23 December; Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day; Normal Life from 27 to 30 December; New Year's Eve, New Year's Day; Normal Life from 2 January. NOT a situation where from 20 December to 10 January the world is deaf, dumb and drunk and ignoring the contents of its in-tray.
I still get a sneaky satisfaction from walking along the local main shopping street, hearing Hark the Herald Angels Sing blaring out of wherever, and reflecting that this most wonderful of Xmas carols was penned by a nice Jewish boy who also put a lot of effort into reconstructing the St Matthew Passion. Mazel tov, Felix.
