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This was a birthday present (well, bought with birthday money, but it amounts to the same thing). I’m a huge fan of Lisa Gerrard, as I’ve mentioned before, so I was keen to get her new album with Patrick Cassidy. It’s a very spiritual album, with many of the tracks taking their lyrics or theme from religious works. There’s a version of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic (’Abwoon’), a prayer carved into the choir stalls of the Church of San Damiano in Assisi (’Psallit in Aure Dei’), and the feel of the whole album is reflective and reverential. For an atheist/agnostic, I’m strangely drawn to religious music of all denominations. I might not share the Faith, but I’m drawn to the passion (with a small ‘p’) and serenity embodied in religious music.

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Nobody writes like PG Wodehouse. I’m reading Piccadilly Jim at the moment (on my Treo–very convenient for those moments when you find yourself without a book), and this absolute gem made me laugh out loud. The eponymous man-about-town is recovering on the sofa after a night of rather ill-advised high jinks, and talking to his butler, Bayliss:

“You know, Bayliss,” said Jimmy thoughtfully, rolling over on the couch, “life is peculiar, not to say odd. You never know what is waiting for you around the corner. You start the day with the fairest prospects, and before nightfall everything is as rocky and ding-basted as stig tossed full of doodlegammon. Why is this, Bayliss?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

I have absolutely no idea what “ding-basted as stig tossed full of doodlegammon” might mean, but it’s a phrase to roll around your mouth like fine wine, and to employ when the occasion demands.