"good, merry, glad and joyful tidings"

We had a fire alarm in the UL the other day, which entails a bleepy noise followed by a measured English male voice intoning “Emergency. There is a fire in the building. Evacuate immediately.” It would give a false impression of the sound to punctuate this with exclamation marks. Anyway, the fire exit door in the rare books room was opened and we filed outside into the cold and rain. It takes quite a while to get round from there to the front of the building, but I guess I got to see a section of the outside of the UL I’m unlikely normally to see. The general sociability of the UL holds even outside in the rain – I saw three people I knew to speak to. Three fire engines came, and after things had been checked, we were let back in en masse. After I had been back working in the rare books room for about ten minutes, a voice came over the intercom to inform us that the alert was now over and we were free to recommence our activities.

Today’s been fairly manic but good in its outcomes. I handed in my textual bibliography project on Calvin. Getting to this stage involved a few glitches including a power cut and not being able to find a treasury tag, but this work is now done, which is a good feeling. This evening I sang in a concert at Great St Mary’s (big church in the marketplace) with Revelation Rock Gospel Choir (aka Rev), which was a great way to celebrate. Chris Rice was even allowed to introduce his Elvis act into the cabaret bit, since it was the last time he’ll be performing with Rev. I suspect he’ll find a way to transport his talents as a performer into the classroom. The concert reminded me of something William Tyndale wrote:

“Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word; and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance and leap for joy.”

Tomorrow I go away on the Harry’s weekend. I’ll report when I get back.