SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

 

It is probably a feature common to the older generation, but recently some lively melodic phrases came fleetingly through my mind, which I could not quite place:

And the jocund rebecks sound, and the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth and many a maid

Dancing in the chequer’d shade!

In time, the penny dropped; I was remembering a song I had to sing aged 10 at a schools’ choir competition in Edinburgh in 1952. I recall our choirmaster snorting dismissively at the “jocund rebecks” – obscure words indeed (a rebeck is a 3-stringed, pear-shaped medieval bowed instrument)! To my surprise, the lines come from Milton’s L’Allegro (1645).

Singing this kind of stuff in 1952, though I was unaware at the time, was a reflection of the Folksong Revival which had gripped the UK in several waves of varying intensity from the early 20^th century. The early enthusiasts included Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Delius and Holst. “Traditional” airs were hunted down and collected (quite a few bogus, I would guess) while Scotland was a folksong factory, creating songs with decidedly tenuous connections with Rabbie Burns and Walter Scott. The world of academic music was all fiddlers, peasant ditties and Morris dancing, satirised uproariously by Kingsley Amis in his 1954 novel Lucky Jim in the role of Professor Welch played by Hugh Griffith in the 1957 Boulting Brothers comedy film version starring Ian Carmichael.

                         Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Some of our most treasured institutions are being undermined by our enemies, who well know just how treasured they are. There is a daily roll-call of idiocy. I think of the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) which is urging all universities to “decolonise” the mathematics (sic!) curriculum. According to the QAA, maths is biased towards Western world-views, excluding the rest of mankind. Since mathematics originated in Chinese, Indian and Mesopotamian civilisation and developed greatly under the Arabs and Moors, this argument is hard to credit. But why even discuss it? The QAA is just another woke quango, with too much power, infiltrated by the enemy.

At Oxford, Oriel College’s dons readily agreed to topple their statue of Cecil Rhodes, their generous benefactor but Woke’s bogeyman, to appease a noisy mob. Happily, more senior bodies have blocked this absurd demand. In Cambridge, the vice chancellor Stephen Toope, a super-woke Canadian, had from 2017-22, led this great University into what many see as a surrender to Chinese “soft “power by accepting large donations for research in return for offices promoting “dialogue” with China. This dialogue often involved supporting the suppression of Western values in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Jesus College, Cambridge, with its China Forum, has been a particularly egregious supporter of China. Mind you, Cambridge gave us the 5-man nest of traitors comprising Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt and Cairncross who betrayed secrets to Russia last century, so expectations are low there! Our enemies are not just fanatical Muslims or murderous Commies but also “the enemy within”, the 5^th column deeply embedded in our Establishment and State.

                        

                       Stephen Toope

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I was much struck by a recent article in The Spectator about the sophisticated classical musical tastes of our new King written by Damian Thompson. Charles learnt the cello in his youth, for which he was probably bullied at philistine Gordonstoun, and has been patron of several orchestras and choirs. His favourite music includes the, to me, utterly obscure piano concerto of Julius Benedict (1804-85) and the only opera of French violin concerto composer Jean-Marie Leclair, Scylla et Glaucus (1746).

   

                                    King Charles III

 The Windsors have not been notably musical – the late Queen much enjoyed George Formby’s cheeky songs on the ukulele (so do I!) - so King Charles will be untypical. As a prince, he had oddball passions and he may have been unwise as both a husband and a father, but he can consign most of that baggage to history. I suggest his role-model might best be Edward VII, Victoria’s notorious Bertie, who had a taste for gambling and an eye for the ladies, who became a diplomatically astute monarch performing his duties with exemplary dignity. Whatever, may the King prosper!

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SMD

17.11.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022