An Armenian in Edinburgh.

Monsieur le Soleil, Master of Millinery, has another hat on. Very smart he is looking – and about time too, don’t you think?

However, down here in Troglodyte land it is as dark and dusty as ever and there is a draft from upstairs where the back door is open to let in the warm, fresh air – somehow not quite so warm once it gets down here. Ah well, the more quickly I do my duty by you the more quickly I’ll escape the chill breeze... so, on I go.

Last night we learned how to pronounce Armenian words. Unfortunately last time we sang our Komitas pieces we had it all wrong so who knows what we were trilling about?? What larks. Ollie announced some weeks ago that he had found an Armenian gentleman willing to come and teach us the necessary – no mean feat as apparently there are only two or three Armenians in Edinburgh and hardly any more in the whole of Scotland though you’ll find a welter of them in London and a fair few in Birmingham – but said gentleman had proven frustratingly incorporeal and, indeed, had we had the above information, I think we would have come to the conclusion that he was nothing but a figment of the Boy Wonder’s imagination. Last night he materialised – quite small and probably easily missed so maybe he came before as expected and we failed to see him? Anyway, he may be diminutive but he was HUGELY useful as well as being charming and charmingly impressed by our singing (accents aside). Now we can be sure that, in the unlikely event of another Armenian or two turning up at our forthcoming concerts, we will not embarrass ourselves by singing something rude by mistake (mind you, as it appears one of the lines in one of the songs is something to do with a young lady being exhorted to ‘come down from the mountain and shake your... [um]... chest’ perhaps they’re rude enough already). I believe our friend – who’s name I cannot remember sorry sorry sorry – is going to come to our concert on the 26th and bring his wife and a few other people so let us hope we don’t let him down. It’s always a bit tricky re-learning something and as we’d committed these songs to memory for the National Gallery it might be even harder than usual, particularly when it’s mostly a small-seeming matter of replacing some ‘um’s with ‘am’s and ‘p’s with ’b’s. Of course there are some almost impossible sounds to make, too, but we’re used to that and will do our best as always! There’s bound to be an argument, sorry, discussion next week when we find that everyone has written down something different for the tricky words and has been busily practising them all week (!!!) in their own way. Worra laff!

So – we girls did not work on Clifford this week so he remains only as battered as he was after the lads had a go at him (that was bad enough; what thugs they are. But I believe he is out of hospital – for now!). Instead we did some more work on our new swing-song and then practised linking it to the old one and then delighted the boys with it again – they tried to look interested, bless them, but failed dismally – and I think we may find we’re performing these rather sooner than we’d expected for Ollie hinted that they might be included in the programme for the 26th... you’ll have to be there to find out if I’m right.

I promised I would mention, for anyone reading this in Edinburgh (there are hoards of you, I know) that we are looking for new members so if you can sing soprano, tenor or bass – or all three – can sight read reasonably well (I can’t believe I have the cheek to be writing that!) and are willing to audition, do get in touch. And if none of this applies to you but know someone to whom it does then tell them to get in touch. This is a matter of some urgency as we are losing a few members before too long and need to get people in to start learning before they leave us (sob, sob, tearing of hair). A smooth transition is desirable. That’d be a first...

Adieu. xx