peripathetic

New mass - Bush - Where's the other candidate gone?
No, not an interstellar mass of gas and dust. (I heard an interesting programme on Radio 4 this morning about sound waves in gaseous areas of space. Apparently some of them have reverberations of one cycle every 50 years. Several hundred octaves below middle C, apparently. Weird.) Ahem. Yes. Not an interstellar mass of gas and dust. Although 'gas and dust' is what many people think of when they hear the word 'mass', this one promises to be exciting and, perhaps, a crowd-pleaser. There's certainly enough space for quite a crowd to gather in the building concerned: Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral, for whose centenary John Tavener has written Atma Mass. The 12-second reverberation should help things along quite nicely. Get there on the 19th of July. Fingers crossed it's not the early mass, though. :o)

Over the pond, Bush has been defending his military record (not the recent one - that's indefensible) on live TV. Apparently he went AWOL. For a year. It's really no deal at all for his presidential hopes, but it's funny that the man who said he did his duty can't explain why he wasn't on base for a year.

In Russia, where there will shortly be an election, one of President Putin's chief rivals has disappeared.He's been missing since Thursday. Presumed, by yours truly, kidnapped or murdered. Cynical me, but I can't help feeling that the police will look for him for a while and then sigh "It's useless" while gesturing with a weary hand in the direction of the Kremlin. A statement of sympathy will be issued by the Kremlin. And then his body will be found hanging from a ceiling-hook in a completely empty room, with a note below his dangling feet saying "I hung myself by levitating to this hook. It wasn't the Kremlin". The Guardian comments: The timing of Mr Rybkin's disappearance has led some to link it to his campaign. REEEally? Nooooo.....!