The culture wars arrives here

As I have been predicting the culture wars -isues such as same sex marriage - have spread from the USA to Scotland and have now arrived south of Hadrian's Wall. Mr Cameron, leader of the Conservative party, said he was in favour of gay marriage "because (he) is a conservative". The coalition government are starting a consultation this month and the main opponents will come from religious leaders. These religious leaders rarely if ever tell the media that their faith group has a range of opinions about the rights and wrongs of same sex marriage and, certainly in the mainstream Catholic and protestant communities, many lay people support the idea.

Who owns marriage? Who is to say who can and cannot get married? These are real questions.

It is not just in the UK that the question is being taken up. Here is an Australian contribution, schmaltzy but making a point:

If you want to read an intelligent statement look at the website of Stonewall on these matters:http://www.stonewall.org.uk/media/current_releases/7345.asp

For those Catholics and other interested readers who cannot wait for a week to read the letter to be read out next Sunday from archbishops Vincent Nichols and Peter Smith just drop me a note and I will let you have a copy (free). My first reading is that it is carefully drafted but it needs a robust challenge from those who do not agree with its conclusions.

Leicester - where its all happening

DMU cultural exchanges all this week. See dmu website.
Gay history week/month is in progress.
The Queen arrives 8th March to start her jubilee tour.
Wow.

Back to blogspot

I am having a spot of bother with wordpress and am moving back here for a while,

Moving again

I am moving from blogspot to wordpress very soon.
http://bernardratigan.wordpress.com/

On hearing a concert performance of Die Meistersinger

I was able to see a performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden on Sunday and again yesterday in Birmingham at Symphony Hall played and sung by the same forces (almost). For me, the concert performance was even better than the one in London. Firstly, the excellent ROH orchestra was seeable and even more importantly audible. The chorus similarly.

The lead singers wore suits (men) and long dresses (women) in a way that made the work contemporary rather than arch and trendy.

I do not know if this counts as a post-modern production, and really do not care, but it certainly was fun and accessible.

The audience cheered to the rafters.

Quiz: is this your bill?

Weekend at the Phoenix this weekend

Clip from You Tube: