Dreadful Nonsense

One of the ladies at work sent an email round the Firm last week saying that she had two tickets available to attend the St Johns Passion being performed in St Pauls cathedral the following evening, and did anyone want the tickets?

I emailed her back about 2 hours after she had sent the email (since I had left work before she sent the email around, and was being quite anally retentive by checking my work email account from home that evening) and said that, although I assumed the tickets would already have been taken, I would absolutely love to have them.

The next morning, she came up and handed me the tickets, saying that I had been the first, and only, respondent.

This made me both very happy and very sad. St Pauls Cathedral costs £8 to even enter these days, as it costs so much to keep looking so darned flash, and is such a tourist trap. I had never been in there for that exact reason. I had also fully intended some day to bite the bullet and get on with visiting it, as it had by now reached the top of my "To Do In London" list, just above kicking a tramp to death and throwing myself in front of a tube. But it's a place that every person who lives, works, passes through or passes out in London should visit.

Me and my friend EB went, as we are both very cultured and intelligent and pretty. I was slightly overwhelmed walking in through the door, because I'd never been inside St Pauls and it really is breath taking. The sheer scale of it for one thing hits you sideways across the skull and then keeps on tapping you on the shoulder as you walk up the main aisle, whispering "it's really rather big and sparkling in here, isn't it?" Thankfully EB has been inside St Pauls before and was able to lead me, gibbering and dribbling as I was, towards where we were supposed to be seated.

When I tell you now that we had sweet seats, I can't stress enough how darned sweet the seats we had were. We are setting directly under the dome, people. This entire cathedral was built with this kind of concert in mind, and we were sitting directly under the dome, the most amazing place to be in the whole cathedral when people are singing up in front of you accompanied by a full string orchestra with all the sound being captured above and thrown right back down on your head.

Although you're not allowed to take photographs inside St Pauls, I risked this one by putting my phone on my lap and just shooting upwards - this is how directly under the dome we were:

I think you'll agree, that's pretty much directly under the dome.

Dear Sweet Baby Xenu, the sound was so fantastic, the way that the choristers performed, the devastating beauty of the harmony, and the way that the final chords hung in the air at the end of each movement, fading away only incredibly slowly that you really, actually couldn't breathe for the wonder of it all, I swear to you I almost started believing in God again.

I can't wait until the Carols at Christmas.

This entry was posted on 28 March 2007 at 4:52 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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