Friday night in Leicester

Sorry that I've been away for the last week, people. I've been in Leicester for the last few days having a rest, but not really getting much sleep due to excessive indulgence in the pleasures of Food and Drink. I've also been playing with the design of the site, and, while still failing to deliver the promised improvements in content management, I hope it's at least looking a bit better.

I'm heading back on the train to Manchester tomorrow. Over the next two weeks I've got a lot on. I'm back to lectures, which I'd better go to, since I'm not really sure what's going on in my courses at the moment. I've three essays to write which I really need to do well in to boost the prospects of my being predicted a first and therefore the prospects of my winning M. A. funding for next year. However, as with all things where one needs to do well, it is even harder to get motivated to do anything. Perhaps this is because the stakes are higher, or perceived to be, and therefore the challenge greater, and the risk of failure more palpable. I know I am perennially afraid of failure. Then I've got my driving test on May 5th, university exams soon after that, and then my Grade 8 organ exam. You see, I am a busy bee. All you doubters sit there thinking, "Ah, that impersonal Newfred, he's nothing to do with all his student-type time." Wrong. Shame be upon you. And don't forget my twenty-hour-a-week bar job and the fact that I spend at least eight hours a week doing choir work!

So I've mainly spent the week playing with some Leicester organs and seeing some friends. I didn't see any of the terrible three, probably due to mutual lack of organisation. It doesn't mean I don't love you all. I love you all. Really I do. Quack.

Yesterday I went to Stamford, which happens to have a hotel called "The George", just as Wallingford does. Incidentally, Wallingford is where Stuart went to school. Stamford is beautiful, and so was the day. The sun shone on the stone buildings and the town seemed to radiate light. Except for the bit around the shops. That seemed to radiate opportunities for getting run over by stray taxis. We went into four churches (or was it three?), and, judging from the maps, the town still has six in operation. Stamford is not big enough to justify six churches, in my view. Also, a further church was demolished in the seventeenth century as a result of an amalgamation with another parish and yet another church building, though still standing, has been converted into retail units and accommodation.

I've always been aware that when one walks into an empty building, one immediately gets an almost intuitive sense of what the place is used for, how close the community is, how well it is regarded, etc. There's nothing really supernatural or spiritual in this; the chances are it's just qualified reactions to all kinds of minor details in the building, for instance, the freshness of the flowers, the cleanliness of the place, the amount of light, the number of service sheets, etc. S. E. commented when he came to my church in Blackley that it was "full of warmth". I know exactly what he means; the building reflects perfectly the character of the community it serves, and this is, of course, no accident. And naturally, it's not just true for churches. They're just a good example to illustrate the idea, because churches, it seems to me, provide as accurate a cross-section of social groupings and modes of operation as is available anywhere. This reaches right from the dysfunctional, failing, elderly parishes, often but not always in the south, through to the well-attended, noisy, young and clapping evangelical churches. Anglicanism somehow pulls off the impossible act of reconciliation in encompassing these and everything in between.

On Wednesday I went to a bar I'd not previously visited. Time, next to the train station, was a place that never appealed to me when I passed it. I thought it looked like another failing tacky cafe, of which there are plenty in Leicester. Perhaps the fact that it has not failed in years should have told me my preconceptions were wrong, but c'est la vie. I drank bottled Staropramen while S. E. drank halves of Boddington's. I ask you! S. E. proceeded to tell me some of his more amusing magistrates' tales. One such involved someone getting caught cycling the wrong way up a one-way street at two in the morning. It was brought to court, and S. E. made plain his objections to the case being heard. To cut a longer story shorter, they fined the bloke £2 and no costs, mainly to humiliate the Crown Prosecution Service.

You know, the civil service must be a great gas. I must apply!