Day 5 - The Blog Team

Today the choir had its first ever stint on a live early morning TV show, that bastion of middle-aged femininity, the Martha Stewart Show.  Having our own hair and make-up artists was certainly a unique experience for most of the members of the choir: a special mention should go to Quintin Beer for his wonderful hair curlers, and also for the almost frightening changes effected in the appearances of Tom Norrington, James Harkness and Daniel Parr.  Andrew Maynard enjoyed having his bald patch pampered while reading the New York Times, while David Goode looked particularly striking with his wisps of hair arranged to dramatic effect.  Several senior members of the choir evidently felt that a more minimalist approach to sub-cassock clothing was appropriate to the occasion. 

The choir was disconcerted that while we had got up at 6:30 in the morning, Martha Stewart, that flaxen-haired temptress, only rocked up at 9:59:59.  Perhaps this was fitting, though, since the entire show was built on a nest of lies: she is not Laurence Booth-Clibborn’s godmother, but his brother’s, yet this did not stop her from demonstrating his culinary skills to the nation.  We should congratulate Laurence on his performance; however, we were surprised by his assertion that one of the languages the choir regularly sings in is ‘Asian’. The choir performed Henry Ley’s A Prayer of Henry VI.  Ralph Allwood was evidently panicking as Martha Stewart veered wildly away from the prepared script, and made the puzzling claim that the words to this anthem were written when the founder king’s age lay somewhere within the age bracket represented by the choir, meaning that we can narrow it down to somewhere between 13 (Jack Eastwood) and 130 (Andrew Maynard). 

Watch the Eton College Chapel Choir clip here:
http://www.marthastewart.com/show/the-martha-stewart-show/vegetarian-recipes

The choir were delighted to be informed that every member of the studio audience was to be presented with a special 400-hole steam iron and an sophisticated vegetarian cookbook, although Philip Highy was perhaps slightly less enthusiastic about the prospect of navigating customs with forty-five lumps of solid steel in tow.  Sadly, the morning was to be filled with disappointment for the choir; firstly as Martha Stewart welded the figure of a teapot on to the wrong piece of cloth, with a cheerful “Oh well, I can just stitch it up and make a lovely handkerchief”.  Then we were denied not only the irons and the cookbooks, but also a chance to ogle Eva Longoria-Parker after the show. 

The choir split up into groups soon afterwards to go off and explore New York City.  One group set out to visit Ground Zero and take a return trip on the Staten Island Ferry while the others were free to roam around Manhattan.  Visitors to Times Square might perhaps have been shocked at the grotesque sight of Timothy Khoury, Alexander Chance, George Wilders, Alexander Eager, Henry Seabright and Quintin Beer on a massive screen on the side of a building.  Timothy Khoury spent $90 on a Waldorf salad at the Waldorf hotel, thereby emptying his father’s bank account and his lad point account, both of which were on the edge. 

With his new found confidence following a particularly invigorating cup of tea, James Harkness decided to pursue a new path in life.  While Thomas Norrington was traumatizing a six-year-old at F. A. O. Schwartz, James managed to give his group the slip, passed through a tanning parlour and a gymnasium and emerged in his new capacity as a dancer in the hit Broadway show, Chicago, where the choir was surprised and delighted to see him, even if (or perhaps because) his character was killed only two minutes into the show by his jealous lover.  Despite James’s captivating performance, Ralph Allwood still preferred to go back to the hotel and sleep rather than endure the second half.  After the show there were many ejaculations of admiration from members of the choir. 

Thanks to generous donations from members of the choir, particularly James Harkness, we left with two posters signed by all the members of the cast, one of which will take up residence in the song room to remind us all of the tour and, of course, of James’s thespian escapades. 

More swill tomorrow.

 - John Gowers, Richard Gowers, Rubin Patel, Hugo Popplewell, Edward Picton-Turbervill

Special thanks to Joshua Cooter and Quintin Beer for letting us use their room to write this post.