Day 8 - Another collaborative effort.

Welcome to the stage Patel, “Berman the German”, Gowers (ma) and PT (ma).Despite Ralph Allwood actually turning up this morning, we still departed from Princeton late thanks to the bus driver. On the journey to Philadelphia, members of B block were treated to a series of bed time stories read by Alex Eager in the huskiest voice he could muster.
All was “ecky thump” according to Phil Highy, as we got off the bus in sunny Philadelphia. Mr Maynard directed the tour into Macy’s department store so that he could buy some underwear, and we were surprised and delighted to find the largest functional organ in the world in the shoe section (Max James even uttered a squeal of delight). Whilst the other members of the choir were trying to find meaning in their pointless existence, the great and mighty organists were led up to said organ for a guided tour of the console. Ed Picton-Turbervill (keeper of organs) will now describe it:
‘It was really big’.
Richard Gowers, who knows far more about the organ (and music in general), will elaborate on Ed’s fatuous comment at a later date.




Looking at the consoles


Richard Gowers writes:

Indeed it was big, Ed. We were lucky to have one of the organists show us around. He let us see, and in some cases touch, the console. I for one managed to play 15 notes while his head was turned. We were also taken to the string chamber, (the world’s largest organ chamber) housing over eighty almost identical ranks of pipes. A lot of the time we had to crouch under jutting pipes, except Jack “I’m the perfect height” Eastwood, who squealed in delight. It was hard to explain the scale of the organ to younger boys downstairs because the only visible part was not much bigger than an average large church organ. To make this worse, we were told that the visible section was not part of the organ and was a fake and empty case. This didn’t stop Alex Tucker being excited by the rolling cymbal stop which echoed from the vast percussion section.



The string chamber

 The organ soon became inaudible for the sound of Charlie Marshall’s stomach rumbling, so we were forced to leave for lunch (though not before Egor had invested in some snazzy Calvin Klein boxers). We’re fully expecting a spate of food poisoning, as some people ate at a very questionable Chinese restaurant and the other boring people ate at McDonald’s. James Harkness, cup of tea in hand, bought a hamburger just so that he could take a photo of it (to try and spice up his otherwise boring collection of pictures of sign posts).
We then took an extremely scenic route to St Thomas’s church, Whitemarsh. After the rehearsal, we were given an hour of free time, during which we were given three balls (“implements of sport” according to Mr Maynard) and told to amuse ourselves. We were then treated to a wonderful supper by the friendly parishioners, one of whom befriended James Harkness in frank conversation. Meanwhile, Tom Norrington (keeper of Mayonnaise)asked a parishioner “is this juice?” and she promptly replied “No, it is orange”. Ed PT managed to find a more socially acceptable conversation topic this time, and Joseph Boorman pretended to be Scottish to his hosts. The bloggers wish him well with maintaining this façade for the next 24 hours.
Hyper from the barbecue bonanza, a group of basses stole Josh Cooter’s trousers and gave them to David Goode, who became extremely flustered with this added responsibility. Josh Cooter spent the next half an hour running around half naked trying to rugby tackle Quintin Beer, along with most of the junior members of the choir.
The concert was relatively successful, with Adam Berman selling enough CDs to fund 3 more days of future Choir Tours. Thanks to Alex Chance and his throat ulcer, the choir is now down to 2 fully functional voices but we’re still going strong…Floreat Etona!
We hope you have enjoyed nourishing yourselves on our highest quality slops. Tomorrow the blather, swill and slops will all be combined into one gloriously messy mountain of refuse.

Rubin Patel, Ed Picton-Turbervill, Adam Berman (the German), John Gowers, Richard Gowers