Sunday 27 May 2012

Expelling The Moneychangers





Holy Moses!  Today it is Pentecost and time for contemplation.  Today, a message arrived in the inbox from someone I know in New Hampshire

The Nashua Telegraph, a local paper that carries more real news than most of our UK media, ran this story about the Vatican Bank caper.


It is a parable for our times.  He suggested that the Vatican Bank needs a good Compliance Officer to sort things out and knows just the person to do it. 

Also, that person would make an excellent Cardinal who can tell the difference between dogma and doctored accounts.

The only snag is that there seems to be a technical problem of status that would debar her.  Surely, the EU must have a Directive or law to forbid this?

So tonight perhaps the bootleg recording of the BBC Prom of Sir Simon Rattle with the National Youth Orchestra on 11 August 2002 doing Mahler’s 8th, with the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus”.  It was a wonderful performance.

On his way into the Royal Albert Hall he encountered us outside.  “You know, you Prommers are all mad.”  He said, having done time in the Arena.  “It takes one to know one” was my reply.  After all, beneath the style, he remains a Scouser.

Gustav Mahler, I believe, had his vision of Europe, but preferred to keep his cash reserves in Maria Theresa Thaler’s.  What he would have made of the Vatican being involved in financial malpractices, the gifts that from the Spirit flow, we shall never know.

Perhaps he would have written something based on Machiavelli or Dante instead.


2 comments:

  1. As an unabashed Yank, I was screwing up my courage to ask what the hell a prommer was. Instead I did a google search and found this:

    http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/030806-NL-prommers.html

    Now I want to be a prommer. If this pompous airbag doesn't like you, you really must be my kind of folks.

    Keep it up.

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    1. This drew a complaint to the Press Council and the BBC. The standing Arena costs £5 ($7) a ticket for day entry, season tickets cost less on average. So The Prommers are a pretty mixed ordinary bunch who just like music and in fact from many places. As you might expect there are a number of former refugees. One we knew well had been a child at Auschwitz and there were quite a few WW2 vets. Not quite what Lebrecht was suggesting. One thing is that the Last Night audience is not the same as the regulars, many of whom skip it.

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