Oh well, Nick Lander used to run Ensemble 10/10 (the Liverpool version of BCMG), didn't he? I thought he'd gone off to do something else (non-musical?) related to the City of Culture.

There you go, I never thought I'd find myself posting in a Donizetti thread!

Do you have to be back early on Sunday, Ruth?  If not I might be able to arrange shelter for Saturday night. 

I suspected as much, Sunday being a big day for god and all.  I'm still a little confused as to why Liverpool's cathedral bells were going full-tilt (was going to say hell-for leather but I thought that might be a bit inappropriate!) at noon yesterday.  I had no idea the feast of the circumcision was a big Anglican occasion; although iirc both it and the epiphany (Jan 6) are days of obligation for Roman Catholics.

If you decide to brave the coach, let me know.  I'm toying with the idea of going to see Wayne Shorter and the RLPO that night so we could meet up.  Or if you got an early coach on Saturday, maybe we could arrange a mini-meet with some of the Cultureville contingent of the R3 boards and have a walk around the city.  Or, as I said before, there's always Gdansk...if I were a Donizetti fan living near Gatwick I'd be giving serious thought to that.

Groan...

Oo, cue for liturgical pedantry.  Let  me roll up the sleeves of my cassock.

1 January is the Octave Day of Christmas.  It certainly appears in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer as the Circumcision, and one of the few weekdays to have its own readings and prayers. In recent liturgical the alternative title of "The Naming of Jesus" is (understandably) used.  (Since St Luke says Jesus was named and circumcised eight days after his birth, ie 1 January.)  It is not, and never has been, a holy day of obligation for RCs, whose church has sensibly re-named it 20 years ago as The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.  John Paul II made it a day of prayer for world peace.

I believe the Jesuits, as the Society of Jesus, celebrate it as the feast day of their order, ie the Holy Name of Jesus.

(The RC church in England and Wales now has the rule that most weekday holydays of obligation, except for some reason Christmas, are moved to the nearest Sunday.  Rather decadent to my mind.)

For the Orthodox it is the feast of St Basil the Great and one of the few days in the year when the liturgy of St Basil is celebrated rather than the liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

But I expect that the reason why the bells rung out in Liverpool was to mark New Years Day.  It is a common custom to mark the New Year, as per Tennyson here:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16131

Enter a numerical and biblical pedant in a distracted manner and with his clothes rent with inner contradiction: 

St Luke says (as translated in the King James version): "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus..."

Now, if we go along with the idea (also necessary to make 'He rose again on the third day" work from Friday to Sunday) that the day of his birth would be the first day, then eight days would indeed 'be accomplished' seven days later.


Enter another pedant just being silly:

It's all very well being told that his name was called Jesus. It's admittedly an unusual name for a name since they are usually called 'name'. But what we really want to know is what he was called?

I'll get me hassock or possibly cassock.   

Now this counting both ends of an interval thing causes us no end of trouble although I suppose before the zero came along there wasn't much choice.

Your Frenchies, to this day they call the elapsed period of a week huit jours and of a fortnight quinze jours. And even we musos say fifths and octaves when there are really only four and seven diatonic notes between the extremes...