'The problem with the French is that we all have an opinion'

So we begin this evening's post with a quotation from our hostess with the mostess, Susan. Great line! She didn't mean, I hasten to add, that we all have an opinion about the French (e.g. that they wear stripy jumpers, cook perfectly and own a number of stylish berets) but rather about the French language. She is right of course, as last night's conversation illustrated. After a brief sing through of the Debussy I decided to head for a wee comfort break. As I left the room a discussion arose as to the correct way to say regarder. Upon rejoining the rehearsal the conversation was still in full flow and no definitive answer had yet been reached. Apparently we should watch our dipthongs. Now I don't even know what a dipthong is, but I will endeavour to keep an attentive eye on it.

So we began our rehearsal with a jazzed up version of the Jungle Book classic I wanna be like you led by our own King of the Swingers, Arno. Genius! We then spent a long while on our Chinese piece, Green Fir Forest. Mostly, I must admit, we battled with the words which are complicated to say the least. Fortunately we don't have as many opinions about Chinese as we do about French so screaming arguments about polite discussion on the subject of correct pronunciation was kept to a minimum, with conversation largely dominated by questions like "is 'e' pronounced 'ee' or 'e' or 'uh'?". You get the general drift. Anyways, we are making quite good progress with this one all in.

We then moved on to the Debussy. Jen said that the sopranos "are very smooth". I think she meant musically or at least rhythmically, but I would suggest that our smoothness extends to our general demeanour. Anyway, we are finally starting to add some dynamics to this which must mean we are increasing in confidence.

And finally we listened to the small group version of Star of the County Down [NB we sound better than this]. I have heard wafts of this over the weeks but last night was the first time we experienced it in all its jazzy wonderment. It must be said though that these Rudsambee-lets haven't quite got the hang of the 'small group' concept. There were only five of us in the audience so actually the small group is, well, a large group! This group (affectionately now christened 'Rudsamwee' by this blogstress. Genius!) did a great job of this folky number and Robin even said it made him proud to be Irish (I think he wiped a tear from his eye, sipped at his Guinness and danced a short jig at this point but I couldn't be sure).

We ended the evening's revelries by flying two remote controlled helicopters around the living room. They were a little like two giant bugs I was chased by once across a car park in Kenya, so I must admit I was a little afeared. Helen was excellent at it though and definitely won my prize...if I had a prize...which I don't.

Anyways, that's all for now lads and lasses (goodness I had a Preab san ol moment there). Apologies to both the French and the Irish this evening as I appear to have made crass generalisations about both our two closest neighbours - good one C. I'm off to listen to John Wetton loudly through my new ipod speakers. Nice...

CSW