Although the leap second may yet ruin it for *everyone*

Okay, I'm going to have to be quick here, for I have firmly decided the future of life as we know it and *everything* depends on this post being posted before 2009. So, here goes, and excuse me if the sentences aren't formulated as well as they might, cetra. Too much is at stake, you know.

I wanted to come here and give you lovely things this New Year, given that I failed most miserably at giving you anything at *all* for Christmas. It might be argued, to be sure, that I shouldn't be giving you things which *I* consider lovely, instead asking you what you'd like, what you think would qualify as lovely things, but needs must as I have only twenty-three minutes of this dying year (and, as someone's aunt used to say, "geh, mit Gott, aber geh" - this to 2008, of course, not *you*).

So, the moon and Venus (I *think*) were doing funny things on the sky earlier tonight, look:



they drew love-hearts together. The fact that was and is freezing-froozing cold out there on my balcony, causing (even more) unsteadiness of the photographer's hand, may have something to do with it, but I still thought it was lovely. Here



is what they "really" looked like - still lovely. (I'm hoping v.fervently you'll agree.)

On Christmas Eve, I went looking for something lovely-Christmassy to post, song-wise, and as I've a secret weakness for boy soprano, I wanted it to be that. In my search for a boy soprano singing a Christmassy song of loveliness, I came across this



which, right enough, wasn't a Christmas song at all - it's a part of a Requiem, surely. So I didn't post it, in the end (the fact I fell asleep might have contributed to this, too). And thus there was no Christmas post, either. But the thought is what counts, right? Right, and boy soprano is so lovely a sound they could sing "Mum's Gone to Iceland" for all I care, I'd still weep with the pain of beauty (but it's better when they sing something like they do on the clip, I think.)

Eighteen minutes left. Okay, then I was very pleased indeed to find this piece of music, *finally*,



which I've been trying to track with methods that stretch the definition of "pathetic" and "ridiculous", making overseas friends listen to it on the radio (playing here at my house) to identify it (they *never* say what they play on radio, do they?), and humming a few bars over in one of my comment threads to anyone who'd care to listen/read. I feel gratified that it *is* indeed a Vivaldi, for I had a feeling it was, based most likely on the fact I'd managed to *once* hear them say it was so, rather than any huge knowledge of music.

Sixteen minutes. This piece here is the final scene from "Blue", a Kieslowski film which I really like and watched again a few days ago (it may have been Christmas Day, come to think of it). I find the music very beautiful, although it is "only" composed for the film. The lyrics, in Greek, are the Corinthians thingy about love (I couldn't find one which would have subtitles, which I am upset about, but you can follow them on the "more info" thing on the right margin if you want to). I *adore* the very end, the
"Love never dies
while the prophecies shall be done away
tongues shall be silenced
knowledge shall fade
Thus then shall linger only
faith, hope and love
but the greatest of these is love."



Tongues shall be silenced, knowledge shall fade, my friends, and thus shall linger only faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love, and with that thought in mind, and twelve minutes left, I wish you love and love only for the year about to be born.

(And please don't worry about the leap second - I'm sure we'll be fine.)