I'd agree, and add that Benedict has kept public silence since he retired, keeping well out of the way.
True, but it’s debatable whether maintaining the Catholic Church’s code of omertà is a good thing. Keeping public silence is one of the biggest criticisms of Ratzinger/Benedict.
I once saw a photo of Ratzinger chatting it up with Jurgen Habermas, a bigwig in the generally-marxist Frankfurt School. Both men seemed to be having a great old time.
True, but it’s debatable whether maintaining the Catholic Church’s code of omertà is a good thing. Keeping public silence is one of the biggest criticisms of Ratzinger/Benedict.
Is splattering the world with one's every thought about everything and everybody really a laudable quality, either in a Pope or in a media personality/'influencer' or a second rate politician, both the latter being places where such behaviour is all too prevalent?
Discretion is not a fault. The world would be a great deal better for a bit more omertà and a bit less splattering.
True, but it’s debatable whether maintaining the Catholic Church’s code of omertà is a good thing. Keeping public silence is one of the biggest criticisms of Ratzinger/Benedict.
Is splattering the world with one's every thought about everything and everybody really a laudable quality, either in a Pope or in a media personality/'influencer' or a second rate politician, both the latter being places where such behaviour is all too prevalent?
Discretion is not a fault. The world would be a great deal better for a bit more omertà and a bit less splattering.
Author Fay Weldon, aged 91.
As I recall she was a popular author with the young women I mixed with in the late seventies/early eighties, but it is years since I have read anything by her.
I actually possess The Life and Loves of a She-devil on DVD! I bought it when revisiting some TV dramas from my youth. It was a good drama for the time.
The British series (which is apparently close to the book) had Dennis Waterman playing the main character's cheating husband and Patricia Hodge his lover, with bit parts by Miriam Margolyes and Tom Baker. The story is about the wife's revenge.
I thought of him the other day, hanging out the clothes. I still don't like the Melbourne Response to child sexual abuse and the protection of the Church at the expense of victims. But I did think I owed him an apology for the vitriol I threw his way at the time he was wrongfully convicted of sexual abuse himself.
Not an admirer of Pell. No apology owed to him re imprisonment. He did enormous damage to the institutional Church through aiding and abetting pedophile clergy and by his attitude towards the male and female victims of clerical sexual abuse that being “ why can’t you all shut up and go away?” He was an arch-clericalist and a bully who was more interested in maintaining the power and prestige of the church and his pastoral skills were non existent. No doubt his few remaining groupies will clamour for him to be awarded the martyr’s palm for his ordeal as a guest of Her late Majesty. Better folk than Pell have been wrongfully imprisoned without any apology proffered.
The last King of Greece, Constantine II has died, aged 82. Brother of Queen Sofia of Spain, brother-in-law of the Queen of Denmark and nephew of the late Duke of Edinburgh, he was particularly close to his cousin Charles III.
Not an admirer of Pell. No apology owed to him re imprisonment. He did enormous damage to the institutional Church through aiding and abetting pedophile clergy and by his attitude towards the male and female victims of clerical sexual abuse that being “ why can’t you all shut up and go away?” He was an arch-clericalist and a bully who was more interested in maintaining the power and prestige of the church and his pastoral skills were non existent. No doubt his few remaining groupies will clamour for him to be awarded the martyr’s palm for his ordeal as a guest of Her late Majesty. Better folk than Pell have been wrongfully imprisoned without any apology proffered.
I will freely admit I wept watching Akenfield - not so much for the evocation of the countryside of 100 years ago, strong as it was, or the real country voices, but for the countryside of my youth in 1970s East Anglia.
I agree Sandemaniac - Blythe wrote so evocatively about East Anglia that I felt I knew some of the people in my own life. Akenfield could have easily been my Essex village.
My late mother-in-law worked with Ronnie in the Colchester library, and he and David corresponded off and on over the years.
I remember visiting him not long after we married, and him conducting a service in the church at Wormingford, where we used to sing in the choir (and David would join the bellringers) when we were in Essex on holiday.
A lovely gentleman, may he rest in peace and rise in glory.
I'm a little over half Sister André's age. I'm not at all sure I'd want to live as long as she did - it would mean having nearly my whole life again, but without the best bit (being married to David).
May she rest in peace and rise in glory, reunited with those she loved.
The 2020s seem like they'll be very hard on the surviving musical stars of the 1960s, if only for purely demographic reasons.
I was thinking that only this morning - though for rather selfish reasons.
They are all of my generation, so with each obituary I hear time's winged chariot drawing ever nearer.
The 2020s seem like they'll be very hard on the surviving musical stars of the 1960s, if only for purely demographic reasons.
I was thinking that only this morning - though for rather selfish reasons.
They are all of my generation, so with each obituary I hear time's winged chariot drawing ever nearer.
I know it's obvious, but I had never really considered the increasing number of deaths of friends and people I know as I get older. Now with several having happened, one very close, I'm finding it challenging.
After we left Orkney, my dad used to send us copies of the local paper, and the first bit we turned to was hatches, matches and dispatches.
At first, most of the people we recognised were the ones getting married, then the ones having children.
The people in the Deaths column were the grandparents of my contemporaries; these days it'd be their parents; it's a scary thought that it'll be our turn next.
Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday Addams; Cindy Williams of "Laverne & Shirley" fame; and Annie Wersching, who was in "24" and many other shows, have all died.
One of my favorite composers. I'm having a hard time deciding which of his tunes to give a memorial-listen to first. Think I'll go with I Say A Little Prayer.
One of my favorite composers. I'm having a hard time deciding which of his tunes to give a memorial-listen to first. Think I'll go with I Say A Little Prayer.
That is a really hard one. Picking a favorite may be a four-way tie for me: “I Say A Little Prayer,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “A House Is Not a Home” and “One Less Bell to Answer.”
Comments
Yes, of course. How could I forget the 🐎 🏇 guy!
True, but it’s debatable whether maintaining the Catholic Church’s code of omertà is a good thing. Keeping public silence is one of the biggest criticisms of Ratzinger/Benedict.
Discretion is not a fault. The world would be a great deal better for a bit more omertà and a bit less splattering.
Exactly.
I remember seeing The Pointer Sisters on the Carol Burnett Show, ca. 1973, singing "Steam Heat". I was an instant fan.
As I recall she was a popular author with the young women I mixed with in the late seventies/early eighties, but it is years since I have read anything by her.
I thought of him the other day, hanging out the clothes. I still don't like the Melbourne Response to child sexual abuse and the protection of the Church at the expense of victims. But I did think I owed him an apology for the vitriol I threw his way at the time he was wrongfully convicted of sexual abuse himself.
Vale, Cardinal Pell.
I am not going to mourn his death.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-64289371
I will freely admit I wept watching Akenfield - not so much for the evocation of the countryside of 100 years ago, strong as it was, or the real country voices, but for the countryside of my youth in 1970s East Anglia.
I remember visiting him not long after we married, and him conducting a service in the church at Wormingford, where we used to sing in the choir (and David would join the bellringers) when we were in Essex on holiday.
A lovely gentleman, may he rest in peace and rise in glory.
May she rest in peace and rise in glory, reunited with those she loved.
It really does. On the one hand it's not surprising given his many issues (as @Sojourner points out), and yet this one is hitting me hard.
Joan Baez posted elsewhere this evening "he could sing the hell out of a harmony." So true.
I heard Crosby, Stills and Nash in concert just once—July 4, 1992. It was a highlight night for me.
The 2020s seem like they'll be very hard on the surviving musical stars of the 1960s, if only for purely demographic reasons.
They are all of my generation, so with each obituary I hear time's winged chariot drawing ever nearer.
I know it's obvious, but I had never really considered the increasing number of deaths of friends and people I know as I get older. Now with several having happened, one very close, I'm finding it challenging.
At first, most of the people we recognised were the ones getting married, then the ones having children.
The people in the Deaths column were the grandparents of my contemporaries; these days it'd be their parents; it's a scary thought that it'll be our turn next.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64426891
Also slightly surprised to have Uncle Google think that I was looking for Sylvia Kristel...
RIP.
Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday Addams; Cindy Williams of "Laverne & Shirley" fame; and Annie Wersching, who was in "24" and many other shows, have all died.
One of my favorite composers. I'm having a hard time deciding which of his tunes to give a memorial-listen to first. Think I'll go with I Say A Little Prayer.
A playlist it is.