What has proved to be a profoundly satisfying Trilogy concluded triumphantly neither in the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall or the intimacy of my sitting room with a Concert of English Music in the glorious English Baroque of Thomas Archer’s St John’s Smith Square.

The conductor, the extraordinarily talented Jack Gonzales Harding, is, among many things, also Director of Music of our Church, St Agnes Kennington. His newly-formed Barbican Sinfonia and Lux Aeterna joined superb young soloists Fenella Humphreys (Violin) and George Robarts (Baritone) in Parry, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Live music-making in yet another shape and  context again worked  her magic.

And then from the reading at mass at St Agnes this morning, Ecclesiastes 1:8 No man can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing.

This time there were only thirty of us; not in the Royal Albert Hall but in my sitting room for a Musical Evening. Not, of course, an orchestra, simply a flute and a guitar, Flutes and Frets, Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy playing at an evening of music, wine and sandwiches, and friends. I enjoy listening to recorded music when on my own however listening with others to live performance gives an additional dimension. While it isn’t simply the company I am sure having company has a great deal to do with it. It was a very good evening.

At the conclusion of Mahler’s sixth symphony at the Royal Albert Hall last Friday the conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, held his right hand outstretched, high and still. Only after many seconds did he slowly lower his arm and then after a total, attentive, silence did the more than five thousand people in the packed hall begin their rapturous applause. The conductor returned to the podium again and again to receive on his, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s behalf, the gratitude of the audience.

Years ago I met an Anglican priest who had spent twelve years living in a Christian ashram, a type of community, in India. He talked to me about the annual gathering in which Christians living in similar communities and different parts of India shared.

 ‘They came,’ he said, ‘from all over India, some walking for many weeks to share silence together.’

‘And then they had a meeting to discuss things, I suppose,’ I commented.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Having shared silence in the presence of God they went home again.’

‘No talking at all?’

‘No talking at all, simply being together in the healing presence of God.’

The philosopher John Wisdom, not to be confused with his cousin John Oulton Wisdom also a contributor to philosophy, enjoyed teaching in parables. In his ‘Paradox and Discovery’, 1965, there is one of his stories I have always held close.

‘It is, I believe, extremely difficult to breed lions. But there was at one time at the Dublin zoo a keeper by the name of Mr Flood who bred many lion cubs without losing one. Asked the secret of his success, Mr Flood replied, ‘Understanding lions’. Asked in what consists the understanding of lions, he replied, ‘Every lion is different’. It is not to be thought that Mr Flood, in seeking to understand an individual lion, did not bring to bear his great experience with other lions. Only he remained free to see each lion for itself.’

While sitting at the bus stop this morning I noticed that the woman sitting beside me was talking on her mobile phone, something I have often done myself. Suddenly a person on a motorbike rode past on the pavement, snatched her phone and continued on their way. She was shocked and so was I. When I came home I checked the CCTV on the side of my house in case they had turned down Braganza Street at that time. A motorbike had. I could see the number plate clearly. I phoned the police and gave the details. I was told that this was a second incident reported today of someone on that motorbike snatching a telephone. CCTV may intrude on our liberties. It may also catch criminals and, as I’ve discovered from previous encounters between my CCTV and the police, set people free