Roses, singing and suchlike

I have been enjoying going to the Scots Kirk in Paris. It has a homely and chaotic feel about it, and the itinerant congregation is definintely a bit different to your average CoS gathering. However, given that we are small in number, my high volume singing has been noted and now my chickens have come home to roost.

I have been asked to sing not one, but TWO solos on Sunday morning, on the theme of The Rose. Thus, I am chanelling Dame Joan Sutherland with the Irish song 'Tis the last rose of the summer, and then following that with a Bete Midler hit - The Rose. I was over at the kirk pracising tonight at 21h45. Only rock and roll bands start their practice at that time of night, and only then after a good few snakebites. I am in the wrong game.

I actually did a few recordings of myself with my guitar singing somthing when we were back home. Embarrasingly, I also recorded a few takes with me wearing my sunglassses. Frankly my guitar playing is duff and my pop song singing not a lot better ("Venus" I think was the hit I was hitting) and I need all the visual help I can get. My chords are not better with sunnies on.

Recording oneself is an interesting thing to do sometimes.

I heard a story at the weekend about someone I know very well. The first time he got drunk was when he was in his late teens and his parents were not in town, having accompanied his younger sister to Dublin for a ballet exam. Armed with a bottle of Martini, a piano, a tape recorder and some Brahms, the evening panned out something like this

- drink some Martini

- play and record a Brahms tune

-drink some more Martini

-play that Brhams tune again...and so on, with each subsequent rendition of Brahms, presumably getting a little bit worse.

How I would love to get my hands on that tape.

Before I start looking too closely, I think there are a few files of my own I need to delete- featuring me, my guitar, my mumsy M&S jumper and my sunnies.