Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Londoners have had to learn, more than ever before, to master the art of fielding pity. We’ve been on the receiving end of lots of it this year from people living in the country who care about us, which makes it worse because we’re supposed to be grateful. I’m still smarting from a few recent zingers: ‘I do feel sorry for you, being cooped up in that small house.’ ‘It must be stifling there. We’ve got a nice breeze down here.’ ‘It’s all so lovely and green. Even London must be looking quite green.

‘And now we sing our final hymn, number 466.’ Remember that? The euphoria of congregational hymn-singing? The well-organised types always had the book open at the correct page, balanced precariously on the pew. The rest of us hurriedly flicked to 466 while singing the first verse, knowing it by heart from a thousand school assemblies. ‘Our shield and defender, the ancient of days…’ I can’t believe I’m writing this in the past tense, but it has been so long — almost 15 months — since anyone not in a choir sang a congregational hymn. How I miss that light-headedness, almost faintness, of standing up after a long service and singing your heart out, filling and emptying your lungs, fortified by the tiny wafer and sip of sweet wine.

In the leafy seclusion of the Lambeth Palace grounds, Archbishop Justin Welby goes for his daily jog. He used to run along the Thames and over the bridges until Canon David Porter, his Chief of Staff, put a stop to it. David Porter grew up in Belfast in the 1960s and he knows how easy a target a lone high-profile jogger can be. As well as being Welby’s physical protector, Canon Porter has taken on the role of his bureaucratic gatekeeper. ‘No one comes to Justin except through David’ — that’s the impression I get from everyone I’ve spoken to who has tried to contact the Archbishop recently. ‘Nothing happens without David’s knowledge and permission.

A brief but sharp twist of the knife was felt across the world of our gagged choral musicians on Friday evening, when the Times Science Correspondent Tom Whipple tweeted ‘It’s not good news’ about the future of choral singing. Sage documents had ‘dropped’, he wrote, containing the ominous statement, ‘There is some evidence to suggest that singing can produce more aerosols than normal talking or breathing; it may be more akin to a cough.’ And ‘Singing for any appreciable amount of time therefore may present a risk for the creation of infectious aerosols and allow for infection transmission.’ Were these the long-awaited Porton Down findings? They weren’t.

The Dean of Sheffield, the Very Revd Peter Bradley, comes across as a likeable man of sound mind and brisk sense of humour. Of his own liturgical tastes, he assures me, ‘drums and guitars are not my tradition. The London Oratory is more my world, musically speaking. I cannot say too strongly how committed I and the cathedral are to the Anglican choral tradition and evensong.’ As for his current portfolio, he says, ‘I’m Acting Precentor at the moment. I wish I’d been paid for it. God knows I’ve earned it.

This is proving a rich period for those of us who can’t resist snooping into the interiors of other people’s houses. You might call us nosey Parkers, and you’d be right; but we would protest that we’re simply deeply curious about humanity, and that one of the best ways of gleaning the essence of people’s characters is by snooping into the domestic hinterland of their daily lives. This snooping habit is not to be confused with the darker side of noseyness: curtain-twitching. Not that there are many curtains in the part of London where I live. Shutter-adjusting would be a more accurate term. While curtain-twitchers secretly gaze out, we snoopers secretly gaze in.

Feasting on the remnants of my edible Christmas presents during the otherwise frugal month of January, I experienced a frisson when I opened the box of Thorntons ‘Continental’ chocolates. For anyone who grew up in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the word ‘Continental’ carries with it a waft of balmy air from the Mediterranean, a sense of longed-for glamour, pleasure and breakfast on a balcony, unavailable on this rainy, cut-off island. I’m wondering whether, as we leave the EU and return to being a small country across the water from a many-countried, warmer landmass, the word ‘Continental’, and the concept, will come back into use. Do other small countries across bodies of water from large continents have this concept?

Feasting on the remnants of my edible Christmas presents during the otherwise frugal month of January, I experienced a frisson when I opened the box of Thorntons ‘Continental’ chocolates. For anyone who grew up in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the word ‘Continental’ carries with it a waft of balmy air from the Mediterranean, a sense of longed-for glamour, pleasure and breakfast on a balcony, unavailable on this rainy, cut-off island. I’m wondering whether, as we leave the EU and return to being a small country across the water from a many-countried, warmer landmass, the word ‘Continental’, and the concept, will come back into use. Do other small countries across bodies of water from large continents have this concept?

East Kent is bracing itself. Its Church of England clergy are enjoying their last quiet months before Rose Hudson-Wilkin arrives as the new Bishop of Dover in the autumn, replacing Trevor Willmott. History is being made — the C of E is to have its first black woman bishop. But some members are clutching their heads in despair at what they see as Justin Welby’s predictably flashy appointment. Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of sighing going on. Rose Hudson-Wilkin is the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Known for her dangly earrings, she is widely loved in the Palace of Westminster and is in her element as she strolls the corridors in her red clericals, purveying hugs and prayers at moments of political crisis.